Someone told me recently that “one who has a home is one who is never bored.” I can see the truth in this phrase. As I look around my house, I see an endless “to do” list. For instance, my neighbor recently started painting his side of the aluminum fence. And my, oh my, the difference is stark. His side: shiny; my side: rust bucket! To find another project, I merely have to look up. My trees are in need of some serious trimming. Multiple limbs hang over my roofline. We’ve had a few storms lately, and some of those limbs have ended up in my yard. Just the other day, I pulled up in my driveway to a gigantic limb blocking my entrance. I think it’s a foreshadowing of events to come if I don’t tackle the problem. Other projects include, but are not limited to: repainting the guest bedroom, cleaning out the office, organizing the garage, re-staining the deck, repainting the yard lamp and decorating!
Projects
Bob the Bugman paid a visit to my humble home this afternoon. Bob is my friend’s uncle. She told me all about him when I mentioned I wanted to ward off any potential bug problems. I’d seen some beetles, ants, and most recently, spiders creeping around my house. Bob showed up with his spray can and plenty of stories. He’s a friendly fella. I followed him around the house listening to his battles with the mighty bug conglomerate, Terminex, stories about his kids and how to use cayenne pepper to keep beetles off my hastas! Bob didn’t mention the military. But, he was wearing his Marines ball cap and referenced Scott Airforce Base a few times during conversation. My friend had mentioned he served in Vietnam and came face-to-face with shrapnel. He lost an eye because of it. She had told me he’s kind of self-conscious about it. Bob had such a warm smile and friendly nature, I think the eye thing merely gave him character. Bob will be back in September to spray and tell more stories. Hopefully, I will have harvested my bug-free garden by then–thanks to some non-toxic spray and a little cayenne pepper!
My office is atrocious! Basically, my guest room functioned as the box room. However, when my new furniture arrived, the boxes shifted to my office. It’s the chore that I luge around on my conscience, but fail to actually tackle. And the thing is, a couple of hours or so and I’d have it banged out. Maybe my office is a symbol of my burdens and unorganized sections of my life. Or maybe I just need to hop to it already. Or maybe Mary Poppins will give me a spoonful of sugar and make organization fun!
And apparently I’m not afraid to use it! I used my Weber for the first time this weekend. One word: delicious! I made margarita chicken skewers, honey BBQ chicken and veggie kabobs, veggie packs, beer brats and some odd chardonnay chicken sausages from Trader Joe’s. My mom, aunt and uncle were my test subjects. I got the thumbs up; however, I am confident I can improve. I think had the margarita chicken marinated overnight, it would have been phenomenal. Also, I did over cook the chicken just a tad. Better over than under—unless one has an appetite for Salmonella and that’s just nonsense! In addition to a charcoal demonstration, my uncle taught me a trick about brats. I boiled them halfway in beer and onions first. That way, they didn’t drip grease and ignite my meat, or my house, into a ball of flames. Overall, the Weber grill gives the food excellent flavor and is ridiculously efficient. I aim to perfect some techniques before the summer is out. Guinea pigs are wanted! Just bring an appetite and the good beer and stop on by!
“Welcome to the jungle
Watch it bring you to your shun n,n,n,n,,n,n,,n,n,n,,n,n,,n knees, knees…”
–Guns N’ Roses
I wasn’t in my yard doing Axl’s snake dance, but I was trying to mow it. Between 10 days worth of monsoonal rains and mistakenly thinking my mower was busted, my grass had grown into the vegetative equivalent of the Amazon Rain Forest. Pushing through the high grass was quite a workout—proving just how out of shape I truly am. I had to empty out the bag every two passes and the mower even overheated once. So, I went to go dig in the dirt to aerate my garden. Between the heat, humidity, grass and dirt, I had never been so dirty in all my life! Well, there was that one other time…but I don’t kiss and tell!
My brother is convinced the Vietnam War started over do-it-yourself furniture assembly. And had you been in my living room experiencing the frustration of constructing a kitchen table set stamped with “made in Vietnam,” you might have begun to believe him! I admit, I purposely sought out furniture on the cheap. The Bernard’s counter-height table and chairs set is from Weekend’s Only. Pretty much everything from that store requires an Allen wrench and a whole lot of patience. Fortunately, the Allen wrenches come with the nuts, bolts and washers. Unfortunately, patience isn’t part of the package! Chair number one shall now be dubbed “David’s chair: the bane of our existence!” Though the directions contained poorly drawn diagrams and broken English, they didn’t seem that difficult. Insert screws into washers, line up the legs and put them in the hole! We were cruising right along until we got to the final set of screws that hold the seat to the back of the chair. The screws were too short! The muscles in David’s jaw line tightened and the expletives began to fly! We fiddled with the first chair a while longer, then decided to move onto another. Upon construction of chair number two, we realized there were three different sized bolts: short, medium and long. Well, that’s just lovely. We had to unscrew every bolt from chair number one to rearrange them to the correct holes. After all four chairs were assembled about an hour or so later, it was time to tackle the table. David and I slapped those legs on it in record time. We flipped it over, lifted it up and realized a 40″ table won’t fit through a 35″ doorway! Insert more expletives…right…about…here! I suggested taking off two of the legs on the same side. That way we could tilt it to get it through the doorway and then carry it over the stove and counter top. I have a galley-style kitchen, so this was not going to be an easy feat. We wiggled it through the doorway, lifted it over the counter, dodged the ceiling fan that was spinning at maximum airflow and hallelujah! I think it looks pretty darn good for a $260 set. 
Earlier, our furniture adventures included headboard, footboard and rail construction. Once we realized we were screwing part of the beam supports into the wrong side, we breezed through that project in no time! Mom supervised both furniture operations. She gave us inspiring direction with lines like “Don’t use your hand to hammer that down, use your foot.” Or “Maybe you don’t need screws in that side of the chair. Want to be the first to sit in it, Kim?” And my personal favorite in reference to the wooden rods used as chair supports, “Look, chopsticks!” To that I replied, “You have to use your index finger to move and guide the top stick!” Yep, it was an epic furniture assembly day. Given the amount of time we spent together in cramped quarters—contorted in awkward positions to hold this piece here and that piece there, we got along swimmingly. But there was something, rather someone, missing from this “precious” family memory. My dad. We miss him sorely. But, I’d like to think he was there with us in spirit, supervising the projects and cursing right along with us!
And I don’t mean a dye job! It’s more like a plumbing job. I grew tired of cleaning inches of soapy water in my basement each and every time the my washer hit the spin cycle. I have laundry to do and by golly I intend to do it! So, I called upon the services of Tom the Plumber. Tom arrived with various tools to clear out my lateral line (this is a term I’ve newly acquired in my home ownership vocabulary). He ran a long cord with a cutter blade through my pipes. Sure enough, I had some massive tree roots growing in them! It looked like some sort of gnarly hairball and he assured me that it wasn’t all of them. Trees love water and they will keep on coming back for more once they tap into a new water source. He suggested putting copper sulfate, better known as root-be-gone, done my toilet every couple of months. Speaking of toilets, here’s a really disgusting story courtesy of Tom the Plumber. Apparently, he had a plumbing job at an old house in the city. Their toilet on the second floor simply wasn’t working. So, Tom meanders down to the basement and twists off the pipe plug to take a look. Big mistake. Two stories worth of poo came shooting out of the pipe! I fully understand we all put up with a lot of shit in our jobs sometimes. I’m just glad mine isn’t in a literal sense!
My weekend consisted of pomp, circumstance and parties. And every minute of it was lovely! I had a wonderful time celebrating my good friend’s PhD graduation. I also attended in a first birthday party hosted my two other friends from college. Catching up with old friends reminded me how much I truly enjoy their company and need to keep in better touch. Weekend housing projects can wait. Taking part in life’s celebrations: priceless.
If I had a million dollars
(If I had a million dollars)
I’d buy you a house
Or I’d buy myself a house! I just thought I’d throw some Barenaked Ladies lyrics in there. Ok, so I don’t have a million dollars. But, I did get my first time home buyer tax credit in the mail today! Oh yeah, happy money dance!
If I had a million dollars
(If I had a million dollars)
I’d buy you furniture for your house
(Maybe a nice chesterfield or an ottoman)
Or maybe a new bed and kitchen table set? Those are really the only pieces of furniture I truly need. I don’t really need a new table set, I suppose. I am just tired of the red chairs with my current set. I’ve found red decor was a short-lived fad in my late college years. I would like a new bed so I can use my old one in my guest bedroom. You know, so my potential visitors would have a place to sleep and all!
And if I had a million dollars
(If I had a million dollars)
Well, I’d buy you an exotic pet
(Yep, like a llama or an emu)
Now, that’s just extravagant! Besides, Josie wouldn’t get along with a llama or an emu. She’s kind of protective of her (our) household!
I have a vegetable garden! I planted two types of tomatoes, four varieties of peppers, cilantro and sweet basil. I wanted to get them in the ground before it pours down rain all week. I have no idea whether I planted them correctly, though. I put about 2feet between the tomato plants and about a 18inches in between the other plants. I bought some organic vegetable garden soil and boy, oh boy did it stink! It smelled worse than the 80lbs worth of manure I put down last week! I hope the plants like it. I want lots and lots of peppas and ‘maters come harvest time!
