Vestiges of sanity

It's done....almost. The bulk of the missives here have been gasconade about all the work we've done on our bathroom and ya know what? It is FINALLY paying off. The pay off isn't elaborate or immense, it's simply that we almost have our bathroom back again. Sure, we're immensely proud of the fruits of our labor and all the tricks and methods we've learned along the way. We've enjoyed or maybe I should amend that, I have enjoyed, seeing the guts of our house. It was a thrill to find a pile of old razor blades in between the walls underneath where the old medicine cabinet used to be, and the measurements of the dimensions of the old medicine cabinet scribbled on the backside of the adjacent walls. Even the old blown insulation and shower pipes were interesting in their own way. Some of these things haven't seen the light of day in almost 60 years. But now if we lean forward sticking our arms way out in front of us we can almost break the finish line tape. We tiled the final wall of the shower yesterday, so now we have to wait 24 hours for the whole hot mess to dry and then we can grout it/caulk the seams, seal the grout, hang our shower curtain and for the first time in almost 2 months take a shower in our own shower. Oh and we have to hang crown moulding too. Compared to hanging backerboard and drywall on uneven walls or installing a pedestal sink that has a pedestal with 12 inches of open space in the back for access to the pipes (as opposed to the traditional fully open back pedestal) and leveling floors, crown moulding will be a damn picnic. We're running the moulding around the perimeter of the entire room including over the shower tiles. The tricky part will be wrapping the trim over the edge of the tile onto the wall itself. Normally most people would opt for something different but hey this is what we want to do. So we're looking at possibly cutting a return at the edge to wrap the moulding over the tile. Oh and the tile is about 1/8 of an inch thick. I'm damn handy with the miter cuts but that is splitting hairs. We'll see, maybe I'll uncork my finest miter cut yet. Anyway, we can't do anything else in there until the adhesive cures, so we have to wait a little longer before we can return to a realm we once knew: Normal.

1 Step Forward and 2 Steps back

Or maybe it's the other way around, I guess it depends on your where you're standing. So the bathroom is still under construction, quell surprise. We had a super productive weekend, we got the second wall of the shower tiled and installed all the window and door trim as well as all the baseboards. We even hung our trusty new medicine cabinet. But now our sink is leaking. It's a pedestal sink and it's not just any pedestal sink. Most pedestal sinks have a pedestal that is fully open in the back. But ours, ours a special, so very special that it has 2 small openings near the top and the rest is all enclosed. So to do any work on the pipes requires you to take apart the whole sink. I've installed it and taken it apart several times now trying to clear up the leak and have been met with early success only to strike out a couple hours later. The most recent attempt resulted in one of the best plumbing jobs I think I've ever done, everything lined up perfectly and fit nice and smooth. I turned on the water and let it run, no leaks. Voila problem solved. I felt like we were on top of the world, walls were getting tiled, sinks were working rabbits were jumping out of the toilet and turning into 100 dollar bills. Then we returned a few hours later and found a small puddle at the base of the pedestal. We hadn't used it in hours and it was leaking. Neato. I wanted to turn the thing into a planter and never water it. I wanted to deny it the one thing it was created to do as if that would somehow solve my frustrations. I've checked all the slip nuts, hand tightened all of them, and tested them for leakages and can't feel any water leaking out from any of them. I even resealed the base of the basin and the drain pipe, still no water there. I don't want to call a plumber for a multitude of reasons but I'm just about done with this damn thing. There are only a few parts to it and they're all dry and clean, I'm beginning to wonder if I didn't line up some pipe inside just right or something. We've been busting our asses on this bathroom and are finally getting to the finishing touches stage and now the sink gets a case of diarrhea. Eh. At least we only have one more wall to tile.

And....Go.

They say you get the dog that you need. I've heard this said about other things in life, i.e. a job, a promotion, a demotion, all sorts of major life events. I don't know if I fully agree with all of those, I don't know if you get the promotion or demotion that you need. I suppose in some ways it's true maybe the demotion or promotion spurs you onto something new, bigger or smaller, better or more enchanting. Long story short it does something for you. Sometimes it does nothing at all and it simply becomes your new reality. I feel that's often the case because most of those events are a result of decisions that are made by others. Sure you have some input directly or indirectly and sometimes you think what you're doing is valuable substantive input that will weigh heavily on the outcome only to find out in the end it didn't. Getting a dog though, that's something you and yours decide. The dog doesn't decide you get it. You might think it does "It ran right up to me and jumped all over me, it's a sign he/she loves me already!" No, no it doesn't. It's curious. Throw your ass down a well and see how much that dog really loves you. Is it sending a tweet to the Fire Department to come pluck you out of the well? Is it building a ladder out of twigs and rope it found laying around? Jeffrey Dahmer could have risen from the dead and walked into the cell and the dog would respond to him the same way it did to you. It's curious, it has little to do with it loving you by seeing you. So when you do decide to bring a dog into your happy little world they say it's the dog you need. It's karma or the universe working its magic with you and delivering some sort of message or lesson. Maybe you bring home a dog that is a couch potato and it's the universe telling you to slow down and appreciate the little things in life. Maybe you have an energetic happy go lucky dog that is going to be the kick in your craw to get outside and move around everyday.

The Fantastic and Loving Wife and I adopted a wonderful rescue dog named Cecil. Our furry charge is a teenager, he's only 2. He's afraid of just about everything, snow blowers, trucks, the cat, the vacuum, any loud noise and a whole list of other things. He also seems to have the amazing ability to change the size of his intestines and his bladder at a moments notice. We feed him the same amount of food each and everyday, he also goes for 2 walks a day. Ideally they're a half an hour at least but with winter wrapping its arms around us we have to cut that down because it's dangerous for the little guy. We can go for a walk and he'll come home and have breakfast and then lay down on his cushion in the sun and relax all day. Then we can take him for a walk at night and he'll usually poop and pee. Then, we'll come inside and he'll have his dinner and within 20 minutes he has to go outside to poop and pee again. 1. He just pooped and peed 15 minutes ago what else is left in there? 2. We went through this routine 11 hours ago in the morning and he didn't have to rush out and fill up the backyard, why now?

We've had our wonderful little furry child for 3 months now and I spend the most time with him, because I'm unemployed. Some days he's chilled out and mellow, other days he's a typical teenager. I'm a patient relaxed kind of guy and I found once we brought him home he was getting on my nerves like there was no tomorrow. I had no idea how it happened. How did I go from relaxed and mellow to plucking my eyes out after he whines for the umpteenth time in 2 minutes. I later concluded that he's a physical manifestation of my job search. Looking for a job is a job itself and to me anyway it feels like it's a rock in my shoe that I can't get out. It's always right there sometimes you step and it's shifted just enough that you don't notice it as much. Then you take a step that one step, and its like a boulder fell in your shoe. So I began to associate him and his various needs, trips to poop and pee every 10 minutes periodically, his need to leap around the icy roads while we try to traverse them, his need for constant attention at times, his need to investigate the cat, (the cat has told him in no uncertain terms she doesn't need him around for anything.) Then I realized that's only part of it, he's not the sole reason I got more frustrated all of a sudden.

I feel like I need to find a job and get back to work. Pretty simple. I know what I'm looking for and what I want, the economy and the companies that have the access to The Button aren't seeing it my way. "I'm perfect for this job, I have years of experience, why won't you call me for an interview at least!?" Seeing as things aren't going so well in my chosen field I'm branching out and looking at other things and things are finally starting to come around there. I'm still out of work but things are progressing. Progress. Progress is good. I felt since I've been out of work that while I'm here at home I'll do the things around the house that need to be done i.e. do the dishes, make dinner, tidy up here and there, take out the trash or buy groceries, you get the idea. It was monumentally helpful in planning our wedding I had 8 hours a day to do nothing but work on the wedding, it was perfect! When I joined the ranks of the unemployed I felt like doing things around the house pulled me away from finding a job. They're all wonderful things and they all need to be done, and since I'm home all day I should be the one to do them. But, that still didn't help me find a job so my frustration never really went away it just sat there just idling under the surface until Mr. Cecil came into our lives.

I was talking with the Fantastic and Marvelous Wife last night and told her what I was thinking, about Cecil being my job search and doing the things around the house while I'm happy to do them, I felt like they pulled me away from trying to find a job. I feel like its my job to find a job. She pointed out that yes, you should continue to try to find a job but that's not the only job you have right now. Your other job is Stay At Home Dad and that the house runs more smoothly with me home all day than it did when we were both at work all day. No, we don't have chillins, just a dog and a cat. But the dog as mentioned above can be a handful. And no, you don't need someone to stop working and stay home 8 hours a day with a dog. I am a Stay At Home Dad for him, for the house and most importantly for us. My job is the laundry, the dishes, cook the dinner, take the trash out, run all the errands that need to get done during the day, clean the place up. (And, work on Project Make Our Bathroom Less Ugly and at some undetermined point work on Project Make Our Kitchen Less Ugly.) She helped me to see that finding a job and working at a job is not the only thing out there. Keeping the house running is a big job that we spread out between us when we were both working. Now that I'm out of work, it's my job and Cecil is simply a part of the house. Cecil is still a physical manifestation of my job search (I feel he is anyway) but I now realize he didn't make me frustrated by his presence alone, he was just something that we couldn't control that took me away from working on finding a job. We can do the dishes another time, we can take the trash out later but we can't skimp on taking him for his walks or taking him outside to bomb our backyard. He's just a dog being a dog, and a great one at that. We are very very lucky we ended up with him. For all the things I throw out that he does, there's a massive list of things that he DOESN'T do. He really is a marvelous intelligent loving and cripplingly cute little guy and we love him to pieces.

After talking with the Stupendous and Magnificent Wife last night, I woke up today and feel better engaged in my task and ready to take it on. We got up super early and trekked into town to pick up one of our cars, stopped at the gym, came home and made breakfast and coffee for the Awesome and Spectacular Wife. Then I took Mr. Cecil for a sporty little jaunt, fed him his breakfast, rocked out the dishes, cleaned the sink and the rest of the kitchen. I then rocked out some laundry. I took a break for lunch and a little Wii bowling and Wii tennis. I absolutely pummelled the computer at tennis, it was vulgar. They didn't score one point until late in the second game in a best of three. After that I did some job searching, figured out what to cook for dinner and once I'm done with this epistle I'm shipping up to the grocery store. There is also some laundry to fold and put away too, so now I must be going, I've got a job to do!

Sparing

Project Make Our Bathroom Less Ugly has cleared its biggest hurdle, the floor is in! Don't all applaud at once, simmer down now. To get to this point we had to take the toilet out (and leave it out) for a few days while we installed cement board on top of the existing floor and then lay the tile. On TV laying tile looks as easy as making a pb and j. So not true. Here's how it really works for those of us that don't draw a paycheck from spinning a trowel. You get the thin set down and it sticks to the neighboring tile. Then it's too thick over here and way too thin over there so you spread it out. By now half the tiles you're going to lay are coated with thin set and you have tile spacers stuck to your fingers and maybe an errant one stuck to the dog. Then as you're laying it on the floor it catches the edge of a spacer and pulls the spacer down into the thin set underneath the tile but this isn't realized until you actually get the tile laid on the floor and sit there pounding on the high spot swearing wildly because it won't flatten out. Once the little bastard is found and removed and the tile is re-laid, you realize the thin set was put on way too thick and has oozed up in between and onto all the tiles. How that can be I spread it super thin over there? So you peel it up again spread the thin set around again, and drop it again. As you can tell by now the first round of tile laying didn't go very well. We had them all in but yours truly muffed laying a majority of the sheets of the wonderful hexagonal tiles, in the center of the room. It wouldn't be so bad if it was in the corner behind the toilet, but no, right smack dead center of the room. It was like it they were daring me to do something about it, "Hey there slappy, we're shifting to the left and the right and creating all sorts of awkward gaps! Touching! Not touching. Touching! Not touching." We ripped them out and taught the dog and the cat some new swear words, then drop $50 bucks on 2 more boxes of tiles. Part of the reason the tiles in the center went in poorly (well, 99% of it is my fault, the rest isn't, really!) is a ridge that runs right down the center of the room. I saw it before I put the tiles in but thought it would be hidden and not a problem. It was like a small mountain range running from the toilet out towards the wall. I tried sanding it down but that was futile so we bought some floor leveler and leveled it out, and what do you know it worked! The ridge is a lot less pronounced and the tiles went it much more smoothly this time around. My back didn't cramp up from being hunched over on the floor for several hours, the stream of profanity was almost non-existent and it just looks a lot better. We can't take all the credit for this, we did have assistance from a very generous friend of ours who used to do general contractor/home construction work.

Tonight we're going to grout it and provided that goes smoothly we can call the floor 'done.' Then Thursday is install our new pedestal sink, hang the mirror and medicine cabinet day. This weekend we're setting our hands to laying the shower tiles and you all know what that means....finally taking a shower in our shower. Oh ya and calling this thing done.