Category Archives: Life

A Cry For Help

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I fear we may have become Hoarders (with a capital “H”). Maybe I just watch too much television (really, though? When am I doing that? In a former life?). Yet the unmistakable signs are there. Getting in and out of the front door has become a struggle, as well as accessing our one functioning bathroom, and I am too embarrassed to have people over or even to open my door to a stranger.

The scene of the crime. Somebody call TLC.

Pictured: the dresser I saw at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore and just “had to have” (sans drawers, which reminds me, where are they? Oh yes! “Hidden” behind the longer couch), the buffet which will become the vanity in the master-ish bathroom, a portion of the secret furniture project I have been working on, the hutch we are desperately trying to use in the master-ish bathroom, pieces of mirror from this adventure, and the window we need to install in the master-ish bathroom.

Help me.

A few nights ago we were reminiscing with the neighbors (while standing in our driveways handing out candy to a few straggling trick-or-treaters, because we were too embarrassed to have anyone come to our door and see that catastrophe) about how difficult the first few months were, when we were living without a kitchen, doing dishes in the garage, and our fridge was in the living room.

Yep. Notice the peach walls and stack of tiles too.

I feel as though we are dangerously close to reverting back to those times. In fact, we initially had one functioning bathroom (the green bathroom) and a toilet room (the now renovated bathroom). We currently have one functioning bathroom (the now renovated bathroom) and a toilet room (the green bathroom). We also have a very crowded living room again.  We are one credenza or bookshelf away from chaos. Wait, no … we are already there.

To do list for this weekend includes: install window (check!), finish secret furniture project (check!), finish stripping (not that kind, Mom!) and maybe even start sanding buffet (ugh – it is taking forever!), and finish the dresser so I can get it listed on Craigslist (check!). I was looking forward to a weekend full of completed projects, and then The Boy entices me with a Saturday full of helping a friend we owe big-time, and a fun time with other friends we haven’t seen in a while. I suppose it is a great “problem” to have that we have lots of fabulous friends, but it is really cutting into my project time!  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Slide, Baby, Slide

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Our “sliding” glass doors in the living room, leading out to the back patio and pool, require the strength of ten men to move. Or one The Girl, bracing myself against the door frame, and using the weight of my body to drag the door open. Sometimes, when trying to close the door, my hand slips and I accidentally punch the wall and/or door frame. This makes me very unhappy, as you might imagine. Yet after over a year of living here, with the doors getting gradually worse, we have done nothing about it (unless complaining counts!). Well, nothing is an understatement. I have looked at stuff on the internet a LOT. If I got credit for all of the sliding glass door removal/cleaning/replacement/roller greasing tutorials I have read, pinned, or emailed myself, those doors would glide open operated only by my mind.

Since the weather was cool enough today that I could leave the door open without “air conditioning the neighborhood,” I decided to tackle it. A lot of what I read suggested taking the doors off, putting them on saw horses, checking for broken rollers and cleaning them. My aversion to anything coordinated makes me hesitant to handle large quantities of glass. Well that and The Boy said no (much more colorfully). So I resorted to a tutorial I read over on Home Repair Tutor, which involves cleaning and lubricating the doors as a first resort. Jeff has a lot of helpful tutorials for relatively fast and cheap fixes to common household needs. His post on sliding glass doors had me at “leave them on their tracks.”

I used a stiff bristle brush, the shop vac (a/k/a Snuffaluffagus), and some lubricant I bought at Home Depot, which says “sliding doors” right on the container. I assembled my tools and got down to business.

 

I used the brush to loosen up dirt in the tracks, and then Snuffaluffagus to get it all out. There was a massive amount of dirt and dog hair in these tracks! Ew.

After about 30 minutes of work, I did not notice a huge difference in how well the door slid. We played with the lowering and raising of the rollers, and lowering them definitely made the door much harder to slide, but raising did not seem to help. Not surprisingly, having the door actually sitting on the TRACK was helpful. Huh, who’d have thought? Once I was sure I had removed as much dirt as I could, I squirted the lubricant all over the tracks, moving the door back and forth to get it on the rollers too. This did help, and the door moves a lot easier than it did. Unfortunately, though, I think the rollers are just so gummed up with crud that we are eventually going to have to take them down and clean everything. For now, though, it is a vast improvement, so I am happy.

Sliiiide to the right. Now sliiiide to the left. Criss cross!! (I HATE that song but cannot get it out of my head now. Dang it!)

Booze Cruising

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The Boy and I went on a quick cruise last weekend with some friends.  It was a lot of fun and a nice little getaway.  True to form, The Boy realized about 3 miles from the port that he forgot to pack a bathing suit.  A quick stop at a Walgreens was fruitless, but luckily we picked up two (clearance!) boy-kinis at a nearby department store, and still made it to the boat in plenty of time.  The Boy narrowly escaped sleeping on the lido deck for three nights.

Cruises tend to be pretty affordable, unless you enjoy partaking in the adult beverages (or the gambling), in which case it can get pretty costly.  While I have no advice for avoiding gambling losses, other than to pick black 14 and always double down on 11, I have been very successful with getting alcohol onto several cruise lines (unless you are a cruise line employee, in which case I AM JUST KIDDING and STOP READING NOW). I thought I would share this knowledge, since I was under the impression that this was a common practice, but the two couples we were with did not bring any of their own alcohol on board.

The key is to disguise the alcohol as water or soda.  Obviously clear liquors impersonate water pretty well, and very dark liquors such as Jaeger resemble coke. We went with strictly vodka, since we had plenty on hand, and it mixes with many juices, lemonades, etc. I have had great success using the bottles of water that are attached together. Remove the lid from one in the middle, and pour out the water (or put it in your dog’s bowl, which I did), and refill with your “alternative liquid of choice.”

The vodka only looks different because it is very cold.

Make sure you line up the fill level accurately.  Then, you will need to super glue the lid to the detached ring.  This can be pretty tricky, because they are all stamped with a date, which you will need to line up perfectly.  Also, you will need to lift up the detached ring so it meets the bottom of the lid while the super glue dries.

The cardboard didn’t quite do the trick, so we used some knives:

At some point we got sloppy and got some super glue on the stamped-on numbers. You should try to avoid this because it distorts the stamp and is very obvious.  However, a quick remedy is some nail polish remover and a q-tip, which will take off the stamp altogether. Finally, we realized the knives were not working well, so we ditched them for some toothpick things.

This did the trick and allowed the lid and the detached ring to stay pushed together while the glue dried, and then we packed the entire thing in our checked bag.  Another thing we did, but did not photograph, was to buy some of those little Aquapods, which are just smaller rounder water bottles.  They were nice because you could just put the super glue directly onto the detached ring, and screw the lid back on, without having to push the ring up to meet it.  It dried perfectly.  We then put all six bottles back into the plastic shrink-wrap packaging and put it in our carry on.  The guy checked all of the bottles to make sure they were sealed, and that’s it.  Lesson: diversify. Some in your checked bag, some in your carry on.  Be sure to bring your own cup!  I had a plastic water bottle with a lid, and a giant plastic cup with a lid and a straw.  Therefore, we could just order ice and juice to our room, fill up our cups, and head out. Our friends may not admit it, but they were totally jealous!

The Boy and I are such lushes, and shared our stash with our friends, therefore we were running low pretty quickly.  No worries!  We bought more vodka and carried it on the boat at our first port of call (which turned out to be our only port of call thanks to inclement weather).  We simply emptied the entire bottle into my giant cup, and carried it right through security.  It was really that easy.

I am sure “breaking the rules” makes some people nervous, and I can understand that. However, as long as you are over 21, and bringing legal items (obviously) the worst that can happen is that they take it away.

Happy Cruising!

Side effects of the cruise included feeling like we were still rocking on a boat and smelling all contents of water bottles before drinking for several days.  Small price to pay.