Things I See

Back in July, there was a rather large inspection project which started right when I got back from my Virginia vacation. Divided into two halves, I did the bulk of the inspection work which encompassed the Columbarium at Bohemian National Cemetery and a lot of homes on the far east end of the project. I've been in a lot of homes over my 16 years of doing this and I've seen a lot of stuff; some good, some bad, some horrible, some extremely interesting. I'm going to file this under the "I remember that" heading.

If you are a certain age, this might be vaguely familiar to you. The rest of you are going "Oh...my...god." Sears sold this wall paper at the end of the 60's and into the first couple of years of the 70's. I walked into her kitchen, where this is located, took one look and said one word, "Beatles". She gasped and said, "How do you know?" Truthfully, I don't know myself how I knew but I knew this was a) from Sears and b) inspired by the psychedelic phase of the Beatles, where Peter Max and Yellow Submarine reigned.

It was hard to put it up because it is plasticized. I remember Sears marketing this as easy to remove, back when removing wallpaper generally involved giving up and painting over it. You would not believe how many houses I find where that was the method decided upon to change the wall colors; paint over the wall paper because you couldn't get it off the wall.

The homeowner was living in the house her parents bought when they were newlyweds.  The original kitchen wall paper was yellowing and was stained in places with grease, but her parents weren't interested in removing it. "If you want to change the wallpaper," she remembers mom telling her, "you have to buy the new stuff, take down the old and put up the new on your own. I'm not helping because I don't care if it ever changes." She said she was fresh out of college, working in downtown Chicago at her very first job. She went to the Sears store on State Street, which was the flagship store of the whole chain and paged through the wallpaper books. She was a huge Beatles fan and Sears had a line of wallpapers inspired by the Beatles. She measured and bought enough, with one of her first paychecks, to redo the kitchen. This was in 1972.

The thing about this wallpaper, because it's plasticized, it wears like iron. I saw no fading anywhere and there is a big east window to the left. Oh there are corners which have come undone over the years but a little rubber cement will push those back into place. Grease and stains wipe right off it.

She said she sometimes thinks that she should pull it down and redo the kitchen, "...with maybe more tasteful wallpaper or, perhaps, just paint." She looked around. "But there is something about walking into this room and feeling like it's 40 years ago and I was so excited to show my parents that I could be responsible and do something for the house. How kind they were to let me put this up when I know my mother thought I was nuts. It's a link to them."

Perhaps, if she wanted to, she could pull it down and sell it on eBay for a princely sum. We looked at a seam which had come loose and it seems that a slow tug would get each strip off the wall in one piece. "You probably could make a lot of money since this kind of thing is worth a lot," I agreed. "But what would you lose in the process?" She smiled. "You get it," she said. This wallpaper represents something much more, something that repainting in a lovely buttercup yellow isn't going to capture.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Spring Project Or Paperweights

All those things you say you want to do. The list can be long, long, long. I tend to have motivation come in spurts. I'll feel exceptionally creative or motivated to accomplish something. Pieces will be collected and I'll get ready and bam. The motivation fades as quickly as it come.

I've been dealing with some issues with RA which I didn't realize were RA issues. I knew depression was a side effect of this. You gradually lose mobility and that can be very depressing. I can tell myself, repeatedly, to find gratitude in every day, but I often have to face the reality that I just cannot; that this gloomy mood is what I have. I find acknowledging the mood; feeding it even; works for me to slowly leave it behind. In the interim, I don't do much of anything. That can feed my sense of worthlessness. "If only I felt better, this project would be done."

Enter spring. It's hard for me not to feel a tug toward positivity when the crocus bloom and the sky turns blue and the winter coat goes in the closet for a good two weeks before being needed. I feel I can conquer things. I feel I can take those steps I've longed for to make my surroundings happier. That's necessary for my overall well-being. "Time to fix this," I think. Many times that enthusiasm, however, crashes headlong into the reality that I get tired more easily. Still, here we go with the rebirth of the grass in the back yard and the cacophony of birds in the trees.

Target didn't help diminish that exuberance. In one of my news feeds; ironically, a business feed; there was a discussion about their new Pillowfort line. Targeted to kids, it's gender neutral and features things without designations for boy or girl. It's part of Target's stated objective to make as much of their kids things for all kids, inclusive, rather than blue for boy and pink for girl. You can still find those things but girls like trucks and boys like dolls. Kids shouldn't be pigeonholed into colors and items because of their gender. I can't agree with this enough.

The article showed some items from the collection and one of them was a shelf unit.

It's a whale! I read dimensions but I can't always get my head around sizes relative to anything else. I could order it online and pick it up at my local Target. As I had to get a few other things there, this was a score. It's big.

It's going to go on the wall opposite the medicine chest and sink. When I held it up to the wall, the sadness of the long ago paint scheme in the bathroom was overwhelming.

I need a fresh coat of paint on the walls. If I'm going to make this a focal point of the bathroom, I need walls reflective of that. As if they were mind reading, I got a flyer in the mail from Ace Hardware. There is, this weekend as I type, a buy-one, get one free sale on their best paint. Seriously? I would need painting accouterments as I tossed all that stuff last year, when I was cleaning in the basement for the new washer, because the stuff was old. But cutting the big cost, the paint, in half, could motivate me to actually do this.

When I went to get garbage stickers, I asked about the smell. That could be a deal breaker. The smell, the volatile organic compounds, released as paint dries, are not good for people with breathing difficulties. I don't want my house to make me any sicker than it possibly is. If I have to wait until June, when I throw open the windows, would the paint have settled out? The good news is the sale paint is low VOC, suitable for pregnant women to paint walls with and it is guaranteed to not settle out for up to 9 months after being initially mixed. I grabbed some swatches and stuck them on the wall.

There is light blue tile in the tub/shower. I have a nautical theme in the bathroom which is why the whale shelf appealed to me. It's important to match, as close as I can, the tile. Ideally, you take a tile piece with you and they match it, but I have no idea where the extra tile is that I had. So, I picked what I thought might be close or complimentary.

While I was there, I thought about the neglected back door area. I was going to paint that yellow to compliment the minion poster hanging there. If this is a buy one get one, what if I actually bought the yellow for the back? I grabbed some yellow swatches and slapped them on the wall by the poster.

I wound up going with the bottom blue and the left yellow. In my head, I thought a light lemon yellow would make the poster "pop" on the wall. But the light lemon they had seemed too light, washed out. Hence, I've gone with a color that is an exact match to the one there. Funny how that works out.

Here we are, the end of March. I have two brand new cans of paint in my house. One sits on the kitchen table and the other sits on the bathroom floor.

I'm going to paint the baseboards and the trim around the door this blue. It will be immersion, which is why having a light color on the wall will work. The ceiling will be a bright white, when I get that far. Right now, I have to get the counted cross-stitch project done and I have a few days upcoming when I can just sit and stitch. I also have to prepare the wall for painting.

Gone will be the fish stencils and those solid color fish "stickers". They are a gel plastic. I forget how old they are. Carole was living at home when we found them somewhere and thought they would be cool. They have been, but, over the years, they have attracted and held dust and dirt. I just didn't have the gumption to pry them off the wall and repaint. I'll have to take the towel rack off the wall. I don't relish that. My fear is that I won't get it back up.

In my mind's eye, I picture doing this wall, then resting. Next would be the wall by the door and a rest. Then the wall by the sink and stool and ending with the bit of wall above the shower. It's a month-long project or, if I take a week off work, a full week's painting. The same thing goes for the back door area. A wall a week and it's done.

So, with the advent of spring, this is what inspiration looks like. Supposedly, this paint can be written on with chalk. If so, that could provide some artistic avenues in a nautical bathroom. Or I could buy this or this. Maybe the fact that I have cans of paint will keep me motivated to get this done. These are awfully expensive paperweights.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

A Reminder About the Little Things

Look what I bought over the weekend.

I realize you are singularly unimpressed. "Um...Deb? It's a sink basket. Hardly something to blog about." But you would be wrong.

Yes, it is a sink basket. It cost me a princely sum of $5.10, with tax, from Ace Hardware. See, the last time I bought a sink basket, I think Bill Clinton was president. It was a plastic thing. It was white when I got it, but I'd had it so long, it had turned the color of dried corn shocks. Last weekend, the seal, the business end, the part that goes into the drain and stops the water from escaping, cracked. It didn't completely break, but, for all intents and purposes, it was now worthless. There was no stopping water from seeping down the drain. It took me 3 attempts at washing dishes before coming to that realization. Sometimes, I'm a wee bit slow on the uptake.

I had to go to Target for Pop Tarts (THAT'S an upcoming blog post.) and I scanned their housewares aisle. No sign of a sink basket. I did find brand new drip pans. Those are vitally necessary so I got a set. My other drip pans were so gross. Anyway, striking out at Target, I just didn't have time to go anywhere else to search for a sink basket. I've been traveling a lot and I come home too tired to venture out into the wilds of hardware stores. So the dishes piled up and up and up. I was out of spoons by Thursday and out of pots to cook macaroni and cheese (Hey, it's quick.) by Wednesday.

Yesterday, I had to go to Ace Hardware to get garbage stickers and I asked where I'd find sink baskets. "Aisle 21, on the right side." Heavenly days. There were 10 different styles, including the exact same plastic model that had gone in my trash. I opted to get a stainless steel version this time.

I have no idea what I paid for the plastic one all those years ago. If this one lasts even half as long as the plastic one did, I will certainly have gotten my money's worth. Best of all, I could do dishes again. I have clean silverware and pots. It's the simple things that make life so enjoyable. Seriously. $5.10 and I'm the happiest person I know.

Beverage:  Huckleberry Tea

Deb

Framed

Remember the minion poster I had all my guild members sign who attended the meet-up last month?

I finally framed it and put it on the wall. First step was deciding exactly where I wanted it. I have a poster from the "Who Framed Mr. Burns" The Simpsons' episode. It was in TV Guide, back when that was still an extremely popular magazine. A friend kept the poster and gave it to me. It hangs in the hallway in the house above a plaque reading, "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup." I had considered moving The Simpsons poster to a different wall and putting the minion one in its place. But this is bigger than The Simpsons one and would require a readjustment of the plaque and new holes and an eventual repainting and I didn't want to mess with that.

Then, as I was leaving for work one day, I remembered how I wanted to repaint the back entry.

My kitchen has been yellow since Carole was little. The apples were added a year after the kitchen was painted. I thought one of my goals would be to repaint this space a lighter, brighter yellow, a more Minion yellow. The door frame and the back of the back door would be painted yellow. The ceiling would be painted yellow and I'd paint over the apples and put strategic minions around the space. And the old, very old, cork board, which is really just a catch all for paper junk, would go. Tell me that's inviting. I double-dip dare you. It just looks junky and I never use anything stored on the board. Time to give it away.

So Pam and I found a frame at JoAnn Fabric that I felt would work. It more than worked. Look at the space now.

What a difference a piece of art makes. I almost don't need to repaint the walls as the color complements the poster. I still think I'd like a coat of a lighter yellow just because it would give the space a fresh feeling to it. But there is not the feeling that painting HAS to be done now, you know. I can still paint through October and leave the door open so the space can breathe, if I get better and have my energy back. The cork board went to a local Veteran's group that takes donations. Someone will be happy with it.

Now, whenever I leave the house via the back door, I smile. I will stop and read the names of guild members on the poster. It makes me happy and that's what spaces in your house should do, make you happy.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

A Plethora of Plastic

Yet another task was accomplished over the weekend.

I went through all the containers and matched them with lids. This is most of what I have. Now comes the decision on how much I really need to save. The green container I have had for a good 25 years. That's the thing about Tupperware. I'm inclined to keep it simply because it's lasted so long and shows no sign of wearing out.

It seems to me that I might have culled this group about 5 years ago. In that time, new plastic containers have been released. It's easy to be seduced by the shiny goodness of plastic storage. But I have to be ruthless here. I just can't save everything. I need to be realistic in how much I actually store. Why is it so hard to part with this stuff?

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Summer Project

So I have this itch to redo a section of the house. It can't be a very big section and it has to be a project that I can do over the course of a weekend. There are so many projects and potential projects when you own a house, it gets very daunting when contemplating them. Add my RA to the mix and any project has to be broken down to small pieces which can still fit into the total. Or I have to pick projects which are small in their own right.

When you enter the house from the back deck, you walk into a small cubicle.

It's an extension of the kitchen, one of the first rooms we painted when we moved in. I wanted it a sunny yellow to reflect energy and happiness. The apples along the top, hand stenciled, came much later in the process. The ceiling, trim and back of the rear door are white. There has always been a cork board on that side of the wall. It's a place where menus and business cards and coupons go to die. About twice a year, sometimes more, sometimes a lot less, I clean it off. It used to be useful space. Now, it's just a cork board. I use the front of the fridge for things like this.

In April, Pantone created a new color, "Minion Yellow".

I saw the announcement and thought, "This would be a great color for part of the kitchen". I think it might be too overwhelming for the whole kitchen, although perhaps, with a white ceiling, it wouldn't be quite so bright. I like bright and sunny but think of the point in the first movie where two minions and Gru are in the air vent in Vector's building. It's dark so one of the minions gets shaken and turned on like a light bulb. I envisioned painting my kitchen minion yellow to have that kind of a result. That would be a bit too bright.

But then I had the thought, what if I just painted the entry? I could do that. I'd paint the whole entry minion yellow from the baseboards to the ceiling. The back of the door would be yellow, which might, the more I think about it, clash with the blue gray of the front, but, technically, you'd only see that strange color combination when the back door is open. I haven't put up the bug screen yet, something I need to do after having some big ol' flies come in the house over the weekend. This could work. I'll probably need to prime over the red of the apples although the way paint is made now, manufacturers advertise how you can paint a light color over a dark color without the dark color bleeding through.

When I bought the lawn mower, I inquired as to whether "Minion Yellow" had been released as a paint color. The press release implies it has, but it wasn't at my Ace Hardware. Ace has mixed paint colors for me before and the guy at the paint counter said to bring in a sample and they could match any color. On the last trip to the store, I scanned the paint chip offerings in the yellow section. It seems to me, there are yellow colors they can already make which are very, very close to "Minion Yellow".

Strip number one.

Strip number two.

Strip number three.

Paint strips don't photograph very well. I'm leaning toward the lighter end of the strips, particularly as I'm going to coat the whole area in yellow. In the top strip, color 332 is labeled "banan-appeal". This might be a nod to minions. It's a nice color, too.

I have some peeling paint at the lower right of the cork board wall, where the wall abuts the back door. I would need to scrape that off. I'd need to wash the walls, the trim and the door before painting. And I'm on the fence about the cork board. The board that's there is too big. I just don't use it for anything other than storage. There is paint, called "Chalkboard Paint" which turns a section of wall into a chalkboard. You can write on it and wipe it off. I could put important numbers, such at the number for the emergency vet clinic, my doctors, etc, on a small section of chalkboard. Or I could get a smaller cork board, maybe a square would be better. There are so many more options now than there were when the kitchen was originally painted.

Last year, my friend, Meredith, sent me a minion stencil. Instead of apples, I'm thinking minions. I'm not sure what color they would be, but a few randomly placed minions in this space would be very fun.

I'd like your opinion. Which color is close to "Minion Yellow"? What should I do with the cork board area? It doesn't get sun except in the summer, when the sun sets to the northwest. I could put art work there. Decisions. Decisions.

Beverage:  Scottish Breakfast Tea

Deb

$2.99

I'm just going to leave this right here, so to speak.

Pam went into the kitchen store at the mall and I followed. For two dollars and ninety-nine cents, you tell me how I was to resist. I washed it but I haven't used it, yet. I'm thinking this is a for pancakes. There's an apple oatmeal pancake I've had a hankering to make, but the oatmeal has to sit overnight. It's not a recipe one makes when one gets up with 45 minutes to be out the door and to the office.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Horrible Crisis of the Humorous Variety

It broke!

If you have no idea what this is, it's a tool you use to start a seam to peel citrus fruits. The little piece at the upper right is a "hook" which, when dragged along the outside of an orange, for instance, Makes a groove in which you can slide the flat left end and get under the skin. This helps peel just the skin and pith off the orange, reducing the loss of pulp and juice.

I was attempting to score an orange and couldn't understand why nothing was happening. I set the orange down and used a spoon to peel back the skin. Then I saw it. Oh man. I have no idea how long I have had this tool, decades wouldn't be too far off of a guess. I don't know what this is called or whether I can get another. The flat end wasn't all that useful to me, but I used the heck out of the other end.

For now, I'll use a spoon but I'll be on the look out for orange openers or whatever might come close to describing this. If oranges just came with zippers...

Beverage:  Scottish Breakfast tea

Deb

The Things I See

I get to go into a lot of spaces in my line of work. Some spaces take your breath away.

Sunrise while heading east to pick up equipment.

Some spaces reward you with a meal.

Some spaces allow you to see things in unexpected places. Such was the case on Wednesday.

If you could peel this off the surface where I saw it, it would probably be worth quite a bit. Otto Kerner, Jr, was Illinois governor from 1961 to 1968. I have no idea if time has weathered the bumper sticker or if it was printed like this. He has the dubious distinction of being the first of 4 Illinois governor to be convicted of fraud of some sort. He was not a sitting governor at the time of his trial and conviction.

I think this predates the bumper sticker, but maybe not by much. It's clear this hasn't worked in a very, very long time. It's just quite interesting that this location still has it. They also had a "friend" sitting next to it.

Oh my lord. Let's get out some James Taylor, Chicago or Little River Band should we? It's a Hotpoint brand avocado-colored top freezer refrigerator. I remember these. They were the middle of the line of fridges one could get. You don't hear much about the brand although it's still around. Thankfully, kitchens decorated solely in harvest gold, bittersweet or avocado are not. And don't get me started on those dangly ball-trim things you used to edge your kitchen curtains with. There are some things that shouldn't ever come back, ever.

Finally, this kind of made me sad. I'm reasonably sure it's a sundial. The dial portion is still there but the mechanism which would allow it to tell time appears to be gone. The location of this piece is adjacent to a huge public works highway project. I've thought about asking the owners of the building where it's located if they intend to fix it. Probably not. It's really not worth anything and people are not encouraged to be in this location as they might have been 20+ years ago. Plus, in this day and age, the only reason it's still standing is because it's cemented into the ground. If it was fixed would someone break off the time piece just because they can?

It does make me think about the sundial I have in my back yard. It's hidden behind overgrown brush. I should get it out and do something with it. And that leads to the idea that I need to haul the book "Time Lord" from the stash and read it. Sometimes I wonder exactly what time it would be if we'd never done time zones.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Probably The One Thing I Hate Most Of All

...is having to wash the kitchen floor because "someone" stepped in mud while taking the recycling out to the can.

Washing the kitchen floor is a cathartic experience. No, really. Don't look at me like that. Even the girls like the clean of a freshly washed floor, after they realize it's no longer wet. I like to have the door open in the late spring, summer and fall to facilitate the drying. It just feels better, you know.

Then enter winter and early spring. The ground melts and freezes and melts again. That thin veneer of snow from a day ago hasn't melted in the shade of the recycling bin. Step up, open the can, dump the recyclables and come back into the house. It was both feet. Fortunately, I realized I was tracking up the floor before I wandered around the house.

It's way, way too cold to keep the door open once the washing is done. I just sighed and gave some thought to a spray bottle of cleaner and paper towels, but given how I tromped all over the floor, I might as well wash it. Step 1: move everything that's on the kitchen floor to the living room. Step 2:  See if the bucket is still okay. Part of the lip broke this summer. Well, I've only had the bucket for 10 years. It's bound to fall apart at some point. Step 3:  Sweep the floor and Step 4: scrub it. The girls and I will be happy once it's done, it's just getting to that part.

Maybe I could take the broom and just sweep the mud off...

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Crafting in September-Finished Kitchen Curtains

Curtains for Carole's kitchen are done.

That window is short. I still bought six inches too much but it didn't feel really wasteful in the pocketbook to lop off six inch strips. I dropped those pieces into the quilt scraps box.

I started the last pair, a set for the side door.

Instead of a Star Wars or Star Trek print, I opted for something brighter. Ninety-five percent of the people who come to the house come in through the side door. Carole's favorite color is yellow. I wanted those curtains to be bright and cheerful and to radiate sunshine and happiness. Plus, the only other themed fabric was dark and this window faces south. It's going to fade over time. I think there is nothing worse than faded dark fabric. If they are in the house long enough to cause this to fade, it won't look bad.

The problem is that the door window is only 22 inches wide. The fabric is 44 inches wide. Ah! Just cut it in half. Um...no, that won't work.

See, I have to hem the sides and once I put that in, the fabric width shrinks to about 20 inches which is not wide enough for the door. Plus, she has two small rods on the door, each about 14 inches in width. So I was going to need to lop off some of the width of the fabric. (See how happy a design this is? Yes, it's seersucker. I've always liked that kind of fabric.)

I started measuring and realized that seersucker, with its gathers, has a line I can follow without pinning. Very carefully, going slow, I followed the line outside the pins and cut off a portion of the width. The window is just as long as the kitchen window so I anticipate having to lop a bit off the bottom. The excess is in the quilt box. Some day...

Because I'm working with two rods, I have to then cut the remaining chunk in half.

The nice thing about the weight of seersucker, when I folded it in half, made sure that the edges matched, and ran my hand along the fold, it stayed folded. It did not move as I slowly cut the piece in half. Here's the result.

One piece has the printed edge, which tells of the fabric's maker and has the dye numbers on it. That seam, which is usually one half inch wide, gets folded over and stitched. The actual cut edges I have to turn twice to prevent unraveling. That's why I had to cut more than just severing the fabric in half. There needs to be enough, when completed, to cover the width of the window.

One piece was pinned for the start of the side seams before I went to bed. I have to change the color of thread in the machine now. I'm thinking black is not a good match.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Simple Pleasures

The electrical is done. Ryan came on Saturday and installed the new kitchen switch. Everything now comes on with the exception of the light over the sink. He believes that's a problem with the fixture. I will have to do some research into finding the appropriate fixture for that light, assuming I want to replace it. I'm not sure I do. I used to keep it on when I had to go somewhere at night because the back light didn't work. But, with the new switch installed, which is, incidentally, the quietest light switch I've ever seen, I have a back light now which removes the need to have the over the sink light on to see.

The other reason I'm not overly worried about not having the light over the sink is because of the brilliance of the new kitchen light. This is the old light.

It was two bulbs opposite each other. At one point, it had a cover. Carole remembers the cover being a white frosted glass with flowers on it. I don't remember it. She also said we were cleaning in the kitchen and the cover was bumped and cracked. This was a long time ago. I don't remember that incident at all. I just remember this.

Well, that's gone and has been replaced with this.

That's 3 bulbs instead of two in about a 1.5 times bigger light. The amount of light in my kitchen is amazing now. So, the next step is to remove the broken floor lamp I was using. I'm so happy with this.

Now we move to the back bedroom. This fixture was a single bulb.

There was a globe over this but, in changing a bulb, it was dropped and broke. That was replaced with this.

It's so lovely in that room now. I really need to work on it, to make it the room I want it to be, even with the litter boxes there. There are things that I can do, decorative things, to screen the boxes. The girls would not like to go into the basement now that they have been upstairs for so long. This could become my reading room and a daybed would fit in it very nicely. That means I have to move a lot of the stuff that's stored in there, but such is life when you're changing how a room looks. First thing, though, it has to quit snowing. I refuse to do any painting or other stuff when I can't open the windows.

Lastly, my home office. I neglected to take a photo of that light but it was exactly like the one in the bedroom excepting the fixture was darker. I replaced it with this.

I love the art deco-ish look to this. I didn't realize it but this is a 2 bulb fixture. Right now, there are 2 incandescent bulbs in it. The kitchen and back bedroom are compact fluorescents.  As every other overhead light is CFL, I won't have to replace those for a very long time. This will be the only light that needs replacing and then, when I do, it will be with CFLs.

The last thing he did was to tighten up the outlet in the office where I plug in the computer. I need a faceplate for that but I'm really picky about my faceplates so that's a work in progress.

I have to admit to walking through the house on Saturday turning off and turning on all the lights that work again. Simple things make me happy and this has been a wonderful pleasure.

Beverage:  Earl Grey tea

Deb

Lights Fantastic

The lights have arrived. Ryan looked at Menards for the lights I want installed in the back half of the house and 2 of the 3 had to be ordered online. Figures.

I ordered them on a Thursday after I got home from work. The first one arrived that Saturday. I had to run errands and was quite surprised to come home to a box on the front steps.

This is the light for the back bedroom.

It's going to look so nice. Maybe I'll be inspired to slowly change that space from store room to extra bedroom, although someone staying would have to understand this is also the cat's room. We'll see. Even if I make it into a reading room for me instead of storing all sorts of stuff, that would make it more inviting.

The kitchen light arrived toward the end of last week. I thought it would be like the above light with the light inside a box inside a box but it's just the light inside the box.

It's nice and big and will make a great impact on seeing in the kitchen. I'm excited.

But, before Ryan can install these, I had to scrub the kitchen ceiling around where the light was going. We don't think about washing walls or ceilings so much when we clean, but over time, the tiny droplets of whatever you're cooking go up and attach to your ceiling. I would look up at the blotches and get depressed at the thought of climbing up with a wet sponge, scrubbing and climbing down the step stool. For small tasks, the step stool is fine. For scrubbing the ceiling, the thought of the climbing up and down and being steady while I scrubbed made me really nervous.

So, when I went to Target with the gift card, I looked in the scrub brush section, since I needed a new toilet brush anyway, and I found this.

It's meant for scrubbing your shower but what attracted me to it was the ability to extend the handle. After having it on my kitchen table for 3 weeks, I gave it a try last night. It works. The scrubber end does not contain any soap so I added a bit of dish soap. It worked up a good lather which I hadn't counted on and which forced me to have to rinse the scrubber head quite a bit. It seemed to do exactly what I needed it to do while I was standing on the kitchen floor. Rinsing was as simple as washing out the brush and going over the ceiling sections I'd scrubbed.

Now, barring any last minute snowstorms or jobs that need to be done on Saturday, I should have new lights Saturday afternoon. Crossing my fingers.

Beverage:  Cranberry Raspberry Seltzer

Deb

I Think I Need A New One

I was going to make some frozen french fries for supper. As I've never had adequate pots and pans storage, I keep baking sheets in the oven. I pulled them out and took one for fries.

I don't know the age of this pan. We're talking a long time. It gradually darkened over the years and I read somewhere that this natural patina is good for baking. Of course, you need to scour the pan clean after use, but pans were made for an accumulation of "dark" around the edges.

But, what we have here is not an accumulation of dark, we have rust. After I wash a cookie sheet, I let it air dry for a bit and then stick it in a warm oven, about 150 degrees. This makes sure that there is no moisture on the pan when it's stacked and stuck back into the oven for storage. So, where the rust came from, I don't know.

What I do know is that marks the end of the line for this cookie sheet. Rust is not something you can cover with shortening and then drop a chocolate chip cookie on. Rust is the deterioration of the cookie sheet itself. It's time to let it go. I tossed this sheet and pulled out a different one and made my fries.

Well, it's good it's happening now. My birthday is this month.

Beverage:  Yorkshire Gold tea

Deb

How I Have Missed You

My electric tea kettle, given to me as a Mother's Day gift back in 2007, finally died over Labor Day. See the scale around the switch? As carefully as I maintained the kettle, gradually, scale built up over the years and ate through the switch area.

My usual routine in the morning is to make a cup of tea after breakfast. I take this to work or drink it over the course of the morning, if it's the weekend. Over Labor Day weekend, I went to make my morning cup of tea and there was water all over the counter. I picked up the kettle and there was a steady drip from the area by the switch. With a heavy sigh, I knew it was time to toss this and get a new one. I don't know how much Carole paid for this but I certainly got her money's worth from it, considering I've been known to drink 4-5 cups of tea a day during the days I'm home.

So, I contemplated putting this on my birthday/Christmas list. It would make a great gift for someone to get for me and good pots can be had for $20. I took to microwaving water in the morning to make tea. Yes, I do have a standard heat on the stove kettle, but one of the reasons Carole got this for me is because it's fast to heat water. I don't always remember to turn on the stove under the kettle and there is a danger that I could forget, in my haste to leave the house, and not turn off the kettle. These auto shut off kettles are fantastic for me. Nuking water didn't always happen and then, when I needed the measuring cup for something else, it wasn't available for water. I really missed the morning cup of tea.

Enter a major online sale at JC Penney. In spite of the retailer's problems in the past two years, I'm still quite loyal to them. I've been happy with the service at their stores and the availability of products that I need and use. I scanned through the sale they were promoting and found a new kettle.

Viola. Cost me $20 with shipping. It is very sturdy but much lighter in weight than the old one. I like the sleek look, too, and the clear amount lines on the side instead of under the handle. It is very fast, about a minute faster than the old kettle, in heating water. It's interesting to see how product design and construction changes and improves over the course of years.

Thanks to this, I am back to making hot tea in the morning to take to work. Starts the day out right.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

Kitchen Expenditures

I made muffins over the weekend, fresh strawberry muffins. Warm from the oven, these are incredibly delicious. I could eat the whole batch. Well, I could unless...

they were burnt.

Heavy sigh. I need to get a new kitchen timer. I have one on the stove that doesn't always buzz. When it does, you can hear it on the deck, with the back door closed, it's that loud. I also have one you turn.  It's clicking sound used to get louder when there were 5 minutes left and then there was a sharp "ding" as the timer went off.

Neither one of these is working properly. They won't consistently go off when time is up which leads to the above burnt muffins. The insides are still okay, but, unless you like the taste of charcoal, the outsides aren't real good.

When I replace these, I need two of them. Many times, I have something cooking on the stove while something is baking in the oven. Plus, I have to look at the design. Do I want cheap and functional, retro, digital or whimsical? I'll tell you what I don't want, a timer that costs nearly $80. Seriously. When I added it to my cart and they calculated shipping and handling, it was $89.98. Who spends that kind of money on a kitchen timer when a $5 penguin will do the same thing? That timer better come with a life-time replacement warranty and be tough enough to survive a nuclear blast.

I prefer whimsy so I'm on the lookout for cute, funny, silly but functional kitchen timers. You can leave me a suggestion in the comments. I'm not going to spend over $10 for this. The wind up one I'm replacing I got at Target 25 years ago for $10. I'd say I got  my money's worth.

Beverage:  Earl Grey tea

Deb

Nervousness

Cats are such creatures of habit. If you disrupt one little thing about their lives, they can react in unpredictable and not positive ways. This weekend was a prime example.

In addition to repainting the top of the front steps and hanging the screen over the back door, I finally got around to scrubbing the kitchen floor. This is a monumental undertaking, involving the moving of the table and chairs in the kitchen. It also involves moving the food and water dishes.

Oh man was she not happy.

I tossed out the food in the dishes and got out fresh dishes for them. I have two sets of food and water dishes. Once a week, I wash the dishes. For an hour or so, they go without water and food in the kitchen. There is fresh water in the bathroom for them. You'd have thought I was denying her food for the rest of her days, with the looks and the meowing I got.

Then, the moving of the garbage can and the kitchen table and chairs caused both of them to scurry to the back of the house. It took me a good half an hour to thoroughly scrub the kitchen floor. I hadn't done it in several months and it took me a drive to another Ace Hardware than my usual one, to find a replacement mop head for my sponge mop.

I let the floor dry completely and then waited an additional 2 hours before putting the dishes back. They still gave the kitchen wide bearth. They would go to the kitchen doorway, look into it, then back at me, sitting in the recliner, and meow. I finally had to pick Pilchard up and carry her into the kitchen to prove it was okay to go in there.

From my point of view, it feels good to walk into a clean kitchen. You know that feeling. You work really hard to clean a room and then, when you walk into it, it just feels clean. I don't know if they notice beyond life is back to where it was before.

Beverage:  Darjeeling tea

Deb

I Should Have Done This Sooner

So, a long holiday weekend can be spent lazing around, traveling, eating too much or doing those things you should have done but haven't. I'm filing this under the last one.

While doing some cleaning in the basement, I stumbled upon an unopened package stuck on the shelf. I couldn't remember what I would have ordered that I never opened, particularly as the package was dusty. Well, let's take a look, shall we?

Doesn't look like much but I know exactly what this is. It's a mesh screen that goes over a door to keep out flies or other flying insects. I don't remember when I bought this, obviously, but here it was. How hard could this be to install?

Not hard at all. It's all velcro.

Here's the back door before installation.

I don't have a storm door on the back. I used to and, sometimes, I think about how it might be nice to have another, but then the reality of finding a door and getting it installed sinks in. Plus, I finally painted the back door last year and that will go a long way toward keeping it nice. I like my back door. Why cover it up? But, as you can see, if I leave it open so we get a cross-breeze, I get bugs, lots of bugs.

The mesh screen comes with three pieces of velcro to attach the screen to the top of the door frame. There are 4 small square pieces to attach the screen at the sides and at the bottom. The bottom is weighted with what sound like ball bearings. The whole thing is bigger than the door opening. The directions implied that you would put the screen on the inside of the door, but then, if I want to close the door, I have to remove the screen. I opted to put it on the outside.

On the left side, you can see a small black "spot". That's a tab that you grab to pull the screen open. I have two small velcro squares on the sides but opted not to attach the bottom.

The view outside is not diminished that much.

Yes, there is a gap at the bottom and some enterprising fly is going to figure that out. I have the left side attached to the frame but not the right side. I simply lift up the side and enter or exit. Even with an armful of recycling for the can, I get out very easily.

This holiday weekend has been warm with a breeze from the southwest. Being able to open the back door and let that breeze into the house has been wonderful. I washed the kitchen floor today and that breeze helped dry it in no time.

So why didn't I install this before? I think because I had cats that came and went on their own time. I was outside weeding the pots on the deck and Mija came to the screen to look out. I had to take the screen off half of the door so she could come out onto the deck. These two don't like being outside unless I'm there. I will have to make some kind of tie-back for those days I'm on the deck so they can come and go at will.

I have no idea if you can still get these. Tonight, I will pull it down and set it aside for the week. There are rumors of rain and I don't know how this will do in the rain. Down the road, I can see the only expense will be for new velcro, but I'm fairly certain that won't be every year.

I am really happy with this. Perhaps I should have done this sooner, but now was the right time.

Beverage:  Seltzer Water

Deb

Infestation

I have to say, since the middle of June, it seems like all I've done is battle ants. Every room except the cat's room had them, every single room. The kitchen was the last hold-out but I found them right after the summer solstice. Scrub, scrub scrub. Clean, clean, clean and it didn't seem to make a difference. They would be all over the counter in the morning or when I came home from work.

There are two Terro ant traps in the office, two in the bathroom, one in the bedroom and one in the kitchen. I don't remember the last time I had an infestation this bad. Usually, I get a mess of ants in the kitchen from under the sink in early May. It's the little black ones, about an eighth of an inch long. I think we might have referred to them as "sugar" ants when I was growing up. You leave the bowl from breakfast in the sink and by the time you get home from work, they have swarmed that bowl to get at the milk residue. I'm kind of used to them showing up in May and take that as a sign the earth is warming for spring, even if it is gross to have to deal with ants in the sink.

But this, this was so much worse. I was in the office getting ready for a raid with my World of Warcraft guild one Saturday night. Part of that includes the reminder that people get a drink and their snacks and "visit the loo", as I put it, so they can sit down for an hour and raid. I took that advice myself and went into the bathroom. There, covering the inside of the frosted glass window, were ants, hundreds and hundreds of ants. Fortunately, I had a Terro bait so I quickly opened it and set it on the sill of the window. When we took our mid-raid break, I checked on it. The swarm had attacked the bait. It was a sea of black bodies around the entrance to the bait. Three days later, there was a line of ants coming out of a small hole in the side of the window (since taped shut until I can find the caulking gun), down the wall, across the back of the tub, down the junction of the tub and the wall and across the bathroom floor to the cat's water dish. Out came another Terro. Once placed, they never went beyond the bait. We've had all this rain. Why would they be coming in and going to the water dish?

The problem is that I can't find, around the outside of the house, a large nest. If you disturb an ant's nest, they will move. I've never found cornmeal to be effective. "It swells up inside of them and explodes," is the popular comment. Borax is very effective, but it is highly toxic to people and animals so, although I used to use it a long time ago because it's great as a laundry additive to get whites white, I don't want to worry about the girls. I read, years ago, where if you can find two different nests outside, take a shovel of dirt  from each and dump that dirt onto the other nest. Both nests will feel they are being attacked and will move. But that's just it. I can't find nests around the house.

Then, in preparation for repainting the top of the front steps, I moved the begonias.

There they were, living under the pots. This would be close enough to the bathroom to get into it.

I moved the pots to the ground, sprayed the bottom of the pots with flying insect killer as that was all I had, swept off any lingering ants and left the pots overnight on the sidewalk while the paint cured on the front steps. When I put the pots back, there were no ants to be seen.

This first week of July hasn't seen any of the small ants in any of the places they were before. I have had some big, half-inch long, ants on the kitchen counter, which bothers me, but the little ones that were a complete infestation seem to be gone. I don't know if this was just because it was a soggy spring and early summer or if there is something else going on here.

Did anyone else have problems?

Beverage:  Seltzer water

Deb