November 2021 – gosolowithamy

DIY: Pleasure or Pain?

By admin on November 30, 2021November 30, 20212 Comments

As I was painting the trim around the bathroom doorways yesterday—a job, mind you, that I had begun with some amount of excitement—my attitude changed. By the time I said goodbye to that task on my ‘To Do’ list, the following things happened:

I became aware that my quick job would be not so quick. The original trim is a sage green color and the white wasn’t going to conquer it without attacking twice. OH, JOY!
But the guy at the paint store said I’d only need one coat!
Sadly, I realized that I was going to have to actually CLEAN the area first. Dust bunnies on the top ledges and around the sides wouldn’t run away when a brush approached; instead they were going for a ride! With both embarrassment at the amount of bunnies I hadn’t notices and irritation that I couldn’t just jump in to paint, I put aside the painting tools and got out the cleaning tools. RATS! (I will NOT show you a picture of the dust bunnies!)
I’m not a professional painter (duh) and although I THOUGHT surely I could paint some freaking trim without botching it, my paintbrush seemed to have a mind of its own. It dripped, left streaks, too often visited the wall around its target, and generally failed me miserably.

Two! Two! Two problems in One! You can see the need for a second coat AND the drippy paint.

No, I had not invested in a ‘quality’ brush. Those know-it-alls online giving tips about painting sent me the strong message: “First, do-it-yourselfer, use a QUALITY brush! You’ll be sorry if you don’t.” OK, OK, DON”T BE SO OBNOXIOUS ABOUT IT!

My cat Simba occasionally meowed from other rooms. Since he’s currently having behavioral issues and seems intent on marking spots with foul smelling pee spray. I had to stop painting from time to time and follow my nose to the likely area of his latest gift. Once there I used my trusty UV light to find the spot and then zapped it with my super-duper odor remover. After doing that twice, I decided to have a beer. YAY!

Ok. So that’s not me and that’s not a beer. I didn’t take a picture of me with paint in my hair and drinking a beer, but the expression on this woman’s face matched my own.

By now you probably understand why I cut this DIY project short, deciding instead to move on to DIY project #2 on my list—purge the upstairs hall closet (after a break to enjoy my beer, of course). That seemed to be something I could accomplish without making a mess, right?

I began putting away the paint supplies and immediately dropped the can of white paint because the paint I’d let drip on the sides was slippery. Luckily I had a plastic sheet on the floor, but the paint still splattered on some other DIY supplies nearby as well as on the shoes I’d taken off so that I wouldn’t get paint on them.

I’d already wiped off as much as possible when when I took this pic. The other foot is white on the bottom.

My sweatpants and tee shirt and hair were targets too. The clothes already had spots on them, and come to think of it my hair already had white streaks in it, too. 😉 I tried to recover as much of the giant paint puddle on the plastic as I could and return it to the bucket. I rolled up the plastic for disposal. I scrubbed paint off my hands and arms and left the bathroom in a worse state than it had been in before I started.

I decided to chill out and ‘ohmmmmmm’ a bit first before tackling the next job—maybe rewatch some of the awesome 4th quarter of the last Warriors game to make me feel better.

Wait! That IS me, but there’s no beer! This is from a different DIY project three years ago! Oh, well, my expression was the same as it would’ve been in picture of me with my beer yesterday. 😉

But before I completely left that bathroom, I turned to take in the disaster behind me and I flipped it the bird.

And THAT definitely made me feel better.

HEH.

I Really Do Love My Cat, You Know

By admin on November 20, 2021November 20, 2021

My cat Simba has a behavioral problem.

After a vet visit to make sure no physiological issue was behind the revival of a habit I’d hoped was no more—spraying in the house— I await lab results to confirm the worst: that there’s nothing wrong with him.

Because if there were a real medical problem, we’d know what to do about it. Give meds for an infection, even have surgery for…something. I actually asked the vet if we could just remove his anal glands and be done with it, but she was aghast. Evidently, vets only want to do surgery for actual medical problems, and that was really disappointing.

Besides, this cat I’ve been Mom to for 13 years was supposed to be my daughter’s cat. After our beloved dog Shadow died, she begged for a cat and we checked many at shelters for the right one. Simba obviously wanted US, and the rest is history.

Of course, my daughter graduated and moved out of state for college and to work, but Simba stayed. With me.

Many dollars, a diagnosis of chronic kidney disease, and lots of cat spray removal later, we still live together. I’m still his mom.

I don’t want to make it sound as though I don’t love the rascal. I do. A lot. According to the charts about such things, he’s exactly my age now in human years. I can empathize with his less-than-springy jumps up to his cat tree and the aborted attempts to make it to the vanity top so that he can drink out of the faucet. In fact, his physical limitations have made it possible to leave the cat door to the patio available to him at all times because he can no longer scramble up the side walls to look for trouble in the neighborhood. Past rumbles with other cats have been stressful for both of us AND my wallet. He does continue to pine for the days when a quick SuperCat maneuver could get him closer to prey.

My own joints have lost some springiness—I don’t hold that against him. I however do not leave a god-awful stank everywhere to mark my territory or because I feel stressed or…whatever. So my empathy does have limits.

When he’s not acting out in this yucky way, he’s a sweetheart. He wants to sit on my lap for cuddles, really turns on the purr machine when I concentrate on his head with soft rubs, and usually ends up on the bed with me in the morning.

Sometimes he prefers to cuddle on my feet?

I especially love watching him reign over his patio kingdom, vigilantly overseeing the birds and squirrels with whom he has established a love/hate relationship.

Now and then he stalks and chases, but only to maintain his reputation as the boss.

Every day they all just hang out in wondrous inter-species harmony and bring me joy as I sit writing at my desk by the patio doors.

So I suppose I’ll keep him—at least until we get his lab results back. If they show no medical reasons for him to continue with this horrible behavior, and the vet still refuses to surgically remove his…ability to drive me crazy, I’ll be forced to try Prozac once again. On him, I mean.

I’ve already got my own meds to deal with my behavioral issues.

I Gotchur DIY Right Chere!

By admin on November 12, 2021November 14, 2021

Unlike my major bathroom renovation three years ago which I attacked with my full attention until it was finished, I’ve been puttering around with this project and that one this year, not really focusing on any one at a time.

The results are predictable:

Currently there is a large bathroom vanity sitting in my living room. I’ve been waiting to find some superheroes to get it upstairs and installed. Such heroes are hard to find these days.

Also in the living room are two boxes, each containing a new light fixture for bathroom walls.

There is a missing vanity in the master bathroom. In the missing vanity’s spot are tools from my vinyl floor tile and white baseboard installations some time ago.

In the upstairs hall there is a ladder for helping me paint the upper part of the walls of said bathroom—when I get to that particular project. I only painted the walls high enough for the new vanity; since I need to change out the light fixture, I figured I’d wait to finish the painting after the new light has been installed,

I’ve gotten one quote for removal of the rest of the popcorn ceilings in the house, along with the repainting of said ceilings, as well as installation of some recessed lights downstairs. That quote knocked my low-rise socks off, so I hope to find more reasonable offers.
Meanwhile there is a notebook on my desk logging all my calls to various handymen, recommended workers, and the ongoing expenditures. I seem to add something in that notebook daily.
I’ve begun a kitchen remodel, too, although my actual sweat equity in this project will be minimal. I’m working with IKEA for cabinets and their contractors for installation. Nope, not gonna DIY on that colossal endeavor.

Get the picture? Lots of multitasking going on with no one task completed.

This all started with the upstairs master bath remodel, but as is often true, that project led to a different project that required tools and other folks’ help.

This multitasking AND dependence on other people’s response times and schedules are harshing my DIY chill, y’all! My MO for a long time has been solo DIY projects, and I find myself getting impatient with the delays and dependency on others’ timetables. The trade off of that frustration, I suppose, is having others do the really heavy-lifting work for me instead of doing everything myself the way I did with previous popcorn ceiling removal and bathroom renovation a few years ago. (In the words of Scarlett O’Hara, “As God is my witness…Ah’ll NEVAH do popcorn ceilings AGAIN!)

So…..More frustration, less sweat. More waiting, fewer blisters and sore muscles. More calls and text messages, fewer visits to the hardware store to browse the aisles for the tools to do it myself…

I’m still on the unfinished fence about which way I prefer.

Oh, and this DIY blog topic isn’t finished either 😉 Watch for progress reports as I tackle this different approach to getting my home improvement projects done!

I Still Got It??

By admin on November 2, 2021November 5, 20212 Comments

A second Las Vegas weekend in a month? That is NOT my idea of travel adventure, but them’s the cards that events dealt for October 2021.

My most recent foray into Sin City was for concerts—two shows of Adam Lambert, my favorite male vocalist, at the magnificent (if a bit aged) Venetian Resort on the Strip. Making the trip even better was sharing it with a friend from San Diego.

Brenda and I having a blast inside the sumptuous Venetian Theater

We arrived Friday late morning and walked all over the place for the rest of the day. We logged over 18,000 steps, and my new knees rose to the challenge, YAY!! Lots of those steps happened in Caesar’s Resort, which I’d never visited, getting lost among the many high-end shops and walkways as we went on the search for a low-end burger and fries.

After enough laps around the luxury digs, we settled on burgers and beer at a familiar franchise, Yardhouse. Ah…..MY people!

I learned a valuable lesson at the first concert Friday night: do NOT wait to have a cocktail at the venue bar. My Cosmo in a plastic cup cost me $26! I didn’t make the same mistake the second night since Friday revealed that folks can take beverages with them into the theater. A very civil policy, I say.

Now, let me get to the title of this blog post. Saturday Brenda and I took it a bit easier and after some coffee and breakfast, we went our separate ways for a while. Later I joined her at the spa and spent some time in the jacuzzi—three pools: hot, warm, cold. We pretended to be from Finland and moved from one temperature to another, shocking our bodies to behave before we headed to the pool.

I posted already on Facebook that the same policy that took $26 for a drink inside the gates of a venue applied to the pool rules, so I didn’t fall for the $23 Vegas Special offered at the pool bar. Instead I just relaxed on a lounger and did some people watching, which in Vegas is a treat.

A couple of young guys were standing in between me and the pool. One of them gave me an appraising eye and smiled. I know that smile. He did a shoulder shimmy. I returned the gesture and laughed. He walked over to me.

Now folks, this guy couldn’t have been more than early-mid twenties, so no alarm bells rang. He was a cutie and friendly, and we chatted a while. His name was Trey. By this time Brenda had returned from a dip in the pool. Chat, chat. His story was that he was there visiting a cousin and a friend. Did I want to be his friend?

Sure! I held out my hand for a handshake. I’ll be your friend today, Trey. Still no alarm bells.

Then Trey played his card. “Oh, I was hoping you’d be my friend tonight. Can I text you?”

Huh? He didn’t want to be my friend today but tonight would work? I don’t think so, buddy. You’re a cutie pie, but I have a concert to go to tonight.

I very politely told him that I couldn’t do that, but as I was explaining WHY I wasn’t available, he turned and walked back to his friend. THE NERVE! I thought he liked me.

Brenda laughingly told me that evidently Trey was looking for a night’s jackpot with a vacationing ‘older woman’.

What? What’s my age got to do with an attractive young guy wanting to be my friend? THEN the bells finally rang in my head.

OOOOOOOH…….I see now. He wanted SURE money instead of risking it in the casinos. He…was…..offering himself….for money! WELL! I NEVER!

And here I though I still “got it”. I guess I do, although at least in this encounter the “it” was different from what I thought it was. Better luck next time? Sin City, indeed!