Construction Zone

That's where I'm living right now. A couple weeks ago, we tore the carpet out of our house in preparation for the new flooring we have been talking about laying for two years. That was nasty, people. Nasty. Now let me say that I try to vacuum well, but underneath the carpet and carpet padding was dirt and dirt and dirt. Oh, and a little more dirt with some dirt on top. NASTY. No wonder my allergies hate me. After seeing what lies beneath, I will never ever ever willingly live with carpet again. Nasty, nasty stuff that carpet. So we have been living on concrete since then... until this week.

Saturday, we (my dad and I) started laying the flooring and we've been working at it ever since. I'm tired, people. TIRED. It's hard work. It also has a steep learning curve.

I'm sore. My legs are sooo bruised. But my floor looks purdy. The part that has been completed, anyway. We've done the living room and part of the hall and still have the rest of the hall and three bedrooms to go.

Here's a sneak peak:


No, Jessica, the green isn't part of the decor. I know you're disappointed. (But you will be happy to know that we're using lots of tape. RED tape this time.)

In other news, I drove my baby SUV to Lowe's all by myself. I even parked it quite nicely (waaaaay in the back, far far from civilization). I deserve a friggin' award!

Oh, the shame!

I've been baaad, bloggy friends. BAD! A bad blogger, a bad bloggy buddy, a bad... well... enough alliterations for one post, no?

I'm once again in a funky place where I don't know what to write about. During any given day, you can catch me moping around the house, sighing and thinking, "Dangit! I don't know what to write about!" Ok, not really. Well, maybe the moping part a little. Or a lot. Moping is what I'm good at these days. I have a lot of deep things weighing on my mind lately with no real resolution for them and it's getting old.

I know all three of my faithful readers are missing my wit, my charm, and my ability to make them laugh with a single act of locking myself in the bathroom... naked. I'm sorry I've been neglectful of this most important duty. I'm also sorry I have not been visiting your witty, charmy, funny blogs and commenting as much as I should.

So what's been going on in Crystal land lately? Not much, really. I'm getting my hair cut next week. I haven't cut it in a long time. It's about at my shoulders right now, and I think I'll cut it to my chin. That's my favorite length. I'm not fond of long hair.

I have nothing new to report on the adoption front. In fact, we have not done anything on that front at all. I'm having some big feelings about it that I can't quite get past. Not about adopting in general, just the route we're considering taking and the lack of control I will have there in certain areas that are important to me. It's NOT a route I particularly want to take, but my husband does, so we are at a stand still. Plus, there is simply no time to pursue it at the moment, so who knows when it will happen. If it ever happens. At this point in time, I have great doubts about whether or not we will ever really become parents. I'm sorta leaning towards no on that one, but I guess time will tell.

Also, in the past year, I've had a major shift in thinking in many areas. I'm totally not the same person I was two years ago. Except for the phobias. Those are still there. No matter what changes, rest assured, the phobias will be there to keep me grounded! *rolls eyes* One of the things I have dramatically changed my thinking on is how I feel about certain aspects of parenting and disciplining. My beliefs on the matter no longer conform to what most of my family believes - including my spouse. And I feel so strongly about them that I am unwilling to waver from them. So this should be interesting (if we ever become parents, which, again, probably not ever going to happen!). But hopefully these things have a way of working themselves out... right?

At this point in my life I feel very much stuck in limbo. And to be quite honest with you, I don't like it so much!

I've been staying up way too late and sleeping late too. I reorganized how things are categorized on our website last night, and started working on paperwork for taxes. I baked bread from scratch for yesterday's dinner for the first time in a very long time. It was ok, but kinda crunchy on the outside.

We watched the first season of Heroes last month and loved it. We also watched last season's Lost and are very excited that the new season starts tonight (and are VERY excited that we love DVR so much). And did I tell you that we bought a friggin huge TV? Yeah. Right before Christmas, we found a 37" flat screen LCD HDTV and decided to treat ourselves. Apparently playing XBox on an HDTV is a lot better than on a regular TV. Do they even make regular TVs anymore? At first I felt really guilty about all the money we spent in the second half of last year. But then I remembered how hard we've been working the past several years, and how much we cut back and saved and scrimped and then I didn't feel so bad anymore. It took us years to get out of debt and build up a good bit of savings. We're FINALLY able to reward ourselves a little... and there's no shame in that, right?

But no more big spending for a while. Or at least until we decide to rip out the floors, which I'm hoping will happen around spring break. We've been planning that the entire time we've lived here (almost two years!) and have not yet done it. Well, I'm getting very sick of it not being done, so I am making a point this year that it WILL get done before my birthday in June. Even if I have to hire someone to come and do it, it WILL get done.

So maybe I have a little more to talk about than I thought...

Hey, at least I can laugh at myself, right?

I hereby nominate myself to receive the Almost Darwin Award of the year. Why, you ask? Well, perhaps I should start from the beginning...

As you probably already know, we are doing a mini remodel of our hall bathroom. We my husband and dad replaced the faucet, lighting, and toilet paper holder. Prior to this, we had some yucky looking cheap shiny stuff. Now we have brushed nickel everything. I painted the walls a lavender/gray and the trim a light cream. For some reason, every single freaking doorknob in this house is the shiny fake brass stuff. Have I mentioned before how much I HATE shiny fake brass household items? It is so not my style. I had the brilliant idea of changing them out one by one to match the brushed nickel things we have been installing over the past year. I decided that the bathroom was the perfect place to start, given its recent changes and the fact that the fake shiny brass one had not yet been put back on the door from when I painted it a few days ago.

Soo, off to Lowe's I go over the weekend to buy a lovely new doorknob. They are cheap, so I bought two - one for the bathroom and one for the linen closet across from the bathroom. My husband was sick all weekend and not up to helping me change it, and I decided on Monday that I would try to do it myself. I removed the fake shiny brass one, how hard could it be to put on a new brushed nickel one? HAH!

I had just finished scrubbing the front door outside, and I was overheated and in desperate need of a shower. So I headed towards the master bathroom. On the way, I saw that lovely new doorknob and it was just calling my name. "Cryyyyystal... CRYYYYSTAL!! You can install me yourself, you know!" I figured, well, now is as good a time as any, right? After all, it will only take a few minutes, and then I'll hop in the shower. Why my conscience didn't stop me from making this huge mistake, I will never know. I think my woman's intuition must have been thrown out with the ugly fake shiny brass stuff. Or perhaps I was born intuition-less. Either way, this lack of judgment has proven that I have somehow gone from graduating valedictorian of my high school class to the stupidest person still alive on the planet. I used to be smart. I promise. Does chocolate kill brain cells? Maybe I just ate too much.

I know what you're thinking: she must be overreacting. Why is it such a big deal to not be able to change a doorknob? Who cares? That's what men are for, right? Oh, but see, my story isn't even close to being finished yet...

I opened up the doorknob package and began to carefully study the instructions. I prided myself on opening the packaging with such care as to not rip it, and the fact that *I*, a woman, was going to actually read and follow the instructions, much unlike a man. I was going to install the strike plate first, but decided to do the knob instead. So I stuck the innards of it in the hole in the door. You know, the part with the piece that moves in and out - the piece that catches in the strike plate and causes the door to latch shut? I put that piece in first and was getting ready to put on the actual knobs when I had a stroke of genius. I figured that before I got too committed I ought to make sure it was going to line up correctly with the strike plate hole, so I pushed the door up against the door jamb. Ok, great, it looks like it will line up just fine. But did that satisfy me? Heck no, I wanted this thing done RIGHT. I had to be sure. Push. Click. The door was closed. Whew. It will work perfectly. Oh happy day!

I believe I failed to mention that at the point in which I "tested" the inner workings of this lovely new doorknob, I was actually in the bathroom. Remember, the actual knobs had not been put on at this time... just the innards. The part that causes the door to latch. Well, folks, the door latched and it latched WELL. It figures that the drunk aliens who designed and built my home actually did something right for a change (and just so my new readers know, that is not a racial comment. At least not a human racial comment. By "aliens" I mean the little green men that come from Mars... humans did not design my home.). I was trapped. In the bathroom. A teeny, tiny, windowless, claustrophobia-inducing bathroom. Without my cellphone. Hours from when my husband would come home from work. Hot. Sweaty. Hungry. Thirsty. Naked. Oh yes, did I fail to mention that part? I was buck freaking naked... on the way to take a shower, remember?

Bloggy friends, I panicked. Big time. I'm a phobic, you know, and claustrophobia is definitely one I experience. Can't breathe. Gonna puke. Tiny bathroom. No phone. No window. NO CLOTHES. *screams* - "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" Oh boy, did I scream. Like a person trapped in a car about to fall off the edge of a cliff and burst into flames, did I scream. Like a germaphobic nerd about to get a swirly. And cried. Oh, did I cry. Cried and screamed and panicked. I was going to die in there, you know. My husband was going to come home a few hours later and find my lifeless, naked body trapped inside that coffin of a doorknobless room. And if I didn't die, I would at the very least lose whatever smidgen of sanity I had remaining. These thoughts ran through my head over and over, along with many others, such as:

*I wonder if I scream loud enough, will the neighbors hear and call 911? Then the cops could find my lifeless, naked body trapped in the bathroom.
*Is the bathroom just big enough for me to back up and ram into the door hard enough to break it without breaking me?
*Oh for pete's sake, I'm NAKED.
*There is NO chocolate in here!!

I was just about to sit my naked butt down on the cold, bare floor and resign myself to my fate when I glanced at the vanity and saw the key. No, not the key, but the key... channel lock pliers left here from when the men changed out the faucet. Oh, oh, oh! Surely the combination of my adrenaline fight-or-flight response and the heftiness of these pliers could help me out somehow, right? I determined that I would either rip apart and destroy the doorknob innnards enough to be able to open the door again, or I would start hacking away at the wall. I mean, yeah, we'd have a huge hole in the wall... but I would be free! And then later, we could, you know, buy a mini counter top and install a bar under the hole. What bathroom couldn't use a bar?

Luckily with a few really good tugs, I was able to perform doorknob surgery and mutilate its innards and walk out of the claustrophobia inducing bathroom into freedom. I was then naked and free! What a shame we won't get that bathroom bar though...

There are a lot of lessons to be learned here, bloggy friends.

One - I am obviously NOT made to do home renovations. At all. I will never attempt to do house stuff involving tools and doorknobs again. From here on out, I will commit my creative and handiwork skills solely to making beautiful jewelry. I'll leave the house junk to my husband and dad. Let THEM get locked in the bathroom naked. I mean, who does that?!

Two - never attempt bathroom renovations without a phone and chocolate in hand.

Three - never change a doorknob naked.

Four - never test a doorknob naked.

Five - never, ever, EVER call your husband afterwards and tell him your story so he can laugh his butt off at you.

Lovely new doorknob: $8.75
Pair of channel lock pliers: $20
Can of paint to fix the gouge in the door: $28
Funny story to tell your coworkers about your hot, naked wife locking herself in a tiny bathroom and ripping apart the doorknob innards to regain her sanity and freedom only to realize after the fact that the actual doorknob was probably laying on the sink the entire time and could have been used to open it like a, you know, sane person: priceless

I almost died, people! So the Almost Darwin Award of the year goes to... *drum roll*... *sigh*... me.

What Would Your Lifeform Do?

So, I have this dilemma now. As I mentioned yesterday, things aren't exactly centered in my bathroom in a way that makes sense to, you know, a human. It might make sense to some other lifeform, but to mine? Not so much. The lighting I guess is sort of centered to the sink, but not perfectly. I think the builders were high on paint fumes (much like I am now) when they installed the box thing. Seriously, I think I must have picked the stinkiest brand of paint ever. I won't mention which brand it is... Martha Stewart... because I am ashamed.

The paint, apparently, in semi-gloss looks different than it does on the card. Apparently this is also a disclaimer on the back of the card. So, my lovely gray-purple color turned out more like purple-purple, which is ok. It's a pretty color, just not exactly what I was expecting. I like it, but I don't know about future potential buyers. I don't want to paint it again. I spent almost four hours in there today and I still need to do a second coat!

So, help me make a plan here. I have a rectangular mirror with a thick dark brown frame that I need to hang. Should I center it with the lighting, and hang it with the long sides going vertically and maybe put a candle sconce on the right side to "even" it out between the cabinet and wall? Or should I hang it with the long sides going horizontally so it's not as obvious? Or should I center it to the wall and let my OCD drive me insane for as long as we continue to live in this house?

Here's a photo. Sorry it's not good... I'm tired (and a little woozy still from the fumes... Martha, if you're reading this, make your paint less stinky PLEASE - I can smell it all the way on the other side of the house). Please ignore the lighting which is missing two glass things. I took them down so I'd have an easier time painting, but the third one was fighting with me, so I just left it. In case you're wondering, the hole on the left side is where the medicine cabinet goes. I took it down. Why? I don't know. Blame Martha. Actually, I'm going to paint it and I thought maybe perhaps it would be easier to paint while off the wall, but I'm not sure that makes sense to my lifeform.




What color should I paint the cabinets? They need it for sure. I'd rather stain them, but they're not entirely made of solid wood, so I can't. I'd replace them, but don't have the time right now. I was planning on painting them cream, as well as the trim, but Dustin suggested brown to match the mirror frame. I'm not sure how that would look. I'd like dark brown if I were staining them, but not so sure about the paint.

So what would you do (aside from just moving to a house that was built by, you know, humans).

Just Stuff

Guess what. I didn't bruise at all. For a girl that bruises extremely easily, this is a miracle. I mean, I hit my face HARD. I almost always have a bruise or five on my legs from whacking them on things as I walk down the hall or step over the dog gate or something (and don't hit them half as hard as I hit my face) and yet the face didn't bruise. The body is a strange thing. It just swelled a little and was sore for a few days. It's just a bit sore now, but at least I can rub it without wanting to scream. *grin*

I don't think there's any way I could have hit my eye. I wear my glasses all the time when I work because I can see better with them close up than I can with my contacts, and, well, I hate my contacts. They dry out too fast and drive me nuts. I've already tried two brands. I haven't decided if its worth trying another. I'm *always* careful when I work with the dangerous tools - like the saws (especially the flex shaft, which could quite literally cut a limb off) but pliers? It's not like you really consider the possibility of stabbing your face with pliers. I mean, who does that?!

My toe hurts though. My little toe on my left foot (just thought the visual would be interesting). It feels like it was smashed with a hammer, but I don't recall that happening so I have no idea what is wrong with it. I must have banged it on something because it is quite mad at me. Poor mad little toe.

Over the weekend, we started to work on our hall bath. We (read: my dad) replaced the faucet and we (read: I tried it all by myself but Dustin ended up doing it anyway) replaced the lighting. Then I (read: again, tried myself but Dustin ended up finishing it) replaced the toilet paper holder. Now everything is a lovely brushed nickel finish. Ahh, I love brushed nickel. Only, I'm a bit unhappy because, umm, the lighting box wasn't really centered with anything. How dumb is that? It's not centered perfectly over the sink and it's not centered perfectly between the wall and the cabinet. Huh? So now when I hang the new mirror, I get the lovely job of finding out how to place it without making the whole room look dumb. I swear, as much as I like my house, I will never buy another home designed by this builder again! Lots of strange things. Lots. The room is also taped off, ready for me to paint it today. Yay. Have I mentioned how much I hate painting? I decided I'm going to also do the trim and probably the cabinets too. Someone come help me!

I'm having a hard night. The stress of the upcoming stuff along with other stuff we're going through is wearing me out and I'm stressed and depressed and probably every other -ressed you can think of. Prayers would be appreciated.

I'll leave you with a piece I made the other night in preparation for the party. It won't be available on the website until after the party (provided it doesn't sell) but I thought you'd like to see it anyway. But of course, if you really want it, you might be able to pull my leg. *grin*

It's made with one of my favorite gemstones - blue crazy lace agate. The color is sooo pretty. It's a 2-in-1 chain made with hand sawed and woven rings. It's one of my favorite weaves even though it's so simple. It's just classy looking, I think. The clasp is also hand made. If the bracelet wasn't too long for me, I'd probably keep it. *grin*

Click for larger pictures.


And one more piece (this one made by Momma Belle) with my other favorite gemstone, smoky quartz. These stones are SO pretty and their clarity is so nice. It's hard to find good gemstones with perfect clarity without having to pay a fortune, but with smoky quartz it's possible. *grin* Plus, the color just goes with almost anything. Pretty, pretty! I hope this one sells at the party or show because it deserves a lovely model.


So do you have a favorite gemstone?

What is white?

Can I just say that I hate food? Ok, I don't really hate food, I just hate having to stuff myself with it until I'm miserable. HATE.IT. I've now upped my consumption of "nutritional drinks" to two a day, earning me 700 liquid calories. I'm used to the taste now and can almost chug them, which is weird considering I never chug anything. I am not a chugger. Chug not I do.

I decided I should eat more pasta since it's, well, yummy and also high in calories. I had a weird craving hit me at the store one day and bought a container of Easy Mac. Yes, folks, I bought Easy Mac. Can you believe that? I don't eat stuff like that, ever. I usually only eat one of three kinds of pasta... whole wheat penne or couscous, plain medium egg noodles, or Annie's whole wheat organic mac & cheese (which is rare). So what possessed me to buy Easy Mac, you ask? Well, the blue box mac & cheese just sounded good, and I've been home alone for about three weeks now and there's no way I can eat a box of mac & cheese all by my lonesome... stuffing myself or not. And let's face it, left over blue box mac & cheese just isn't good. "It's the Cheesiest!" turns into "It's the Clumpiest and Nastiest!" So I see the little container of lone serving Easy Mac and think to myself, "Self, don't do it!" but I did not listen. I brought it home and it sat on my kitchen table for a couple of weeks. Two days ago I decided that it sounded like it might be a decent lunch so I cooked it.

If you've ever made Easy Mac, you know that the directions say 1.) to ignore the white powder because it's necessary for the pasta to cook correctly, and 2.) don't drain the water after cooking; it's needed for the "cheese" sauce. Now, I'm not usually in the habit of ignoring random unknown white powders in things, but I figured that Kraft wants my repeat business so they're not going to poison me. At least not too badly anyway. So I ignored the white powder. As for the water issue... I was obedient and fully intended on leaving it in the container. However, the directions made no mention of the fact that the pasta drains itself. I'm not kidding. Apparently the pasta got nasty with the water, and the water jumped ship and decided to decorate my microwave. My pasta was dry. I poured in the "cheese" stuff packet, and it did not make sauce. It made "cheese" stuff clumps. I sighed and micro-boiled a mug of water and poured some in. It made a somewhat saucy somewhat clumpy "cheese" stuff mess.

It sort of tasted like mac & cheese, but Annie's is so much better. Now tell me, how is this process any more convenient than opening a box and cooking on the stove? I had to micro-boil a mug of water anyway since my needed water obviously did not read the directions on the container. I feel like I had reached the epitome of laziness. "Oh hey, look at me, I'm too lazy to cook from A BOX!" (I realize that these things are pretty much marketed to kids to cook, safely, after school or something... so please don't shoot me! I'm not insinuating your Easy Mac eating children are lazy. I, however, am... Easy Mac or no.) ;o) I still can't believe I ate micro-cooked bleached white noodles covered in "cheese" stuff. With some kind of freaky white powder mixed in. I'm telling you... this eating a lot of calories thing? It's highly over-rated.

I'm a horrible painter. So horrible that when I painted my house, I got "oopses" all over the ceilings. My lines are not clean. Sue me! I figured I would get a can of paint and touch it up. The whole ceilings don't need to be painted, just my mess ups. No big deal, right? You can't mess up white paint, right? HAH! I went to Lowe's this week and bought a can of plain white paint. I decided before I start painting all over the ceiling, I better test it to make sure it's the right color. So I tested it in a small part of a wall in my office. Now, my office is supposed to be painted buttery-yellow and rich red, but I have not done it yet even though I bought the paint a year ago. It's still plain old white with one very big blood splatter paint test spot. My dog used to growl at it. It looks that dangerous. Anyway, a few hours later I realize that apparently white is not white. My test area does NOT match. Huh? Now tell me how I'm supposed to match the "white" on my ceiling. It's not like I can just cut a huge chunk out, lug it down to Lowe's and say, "Hey! Match this, will ya?" I'm NOT painting the whole ceilings. So I see two options. One, leave the "oopses" and declare it "modern art" and two, hire a painter to paint all the ceilings in the entire house (plus my office... because if I'm hiring a painter, I aint playin').

Anyone need a mostly unused can of paint that could quite possibly be the beginning of the next unsolvable, universe altering question... "What, really, is white?"