anniemiz

The Men's Room

Some before and after pictures of Kevin's den, aka The Men's Room.  The goal was to remodel the room into a cozy, inviting place for Kevin to enjoy manly pursuits, e.g., drinking beer, wine, port; eating beef jerky, pepperoni sticks, mozzarella and prosciutto rolls, pizza, smoked nuts, chips, pretzels, chocolates; watching movies, football, baseball, basketball, occasionally bowling and poker; reading the newspaper; doing the daily Sudoku puzzle and the occasional crossword puzzle; maintaining his stamp, coin and map collections; bonding with the male cats, Nosey and Smudge; and, I'm sure, a few other male occupations of mysterious nature.

The room used to be the former owner's daughter's bedroom.  It was painted light yellow with white trim.  The carpet was yellow shag.

Pic #1: One corner wall after taking down a nasty wall of dark brown corkboard squares and preparing the surface for paint.  Kevin would like to have a large corkboard, but the one that was there was falling off the wall and just too dark and nasty.

Pic #2: The closet door.  There's some text on the door that reads, 'This room was painted by The Lyd [I think the daughter's name was Lydia] with the help of Scott Lambertus March 1979'.  Groovy.

Pic #3: The room is not quite finished, but it is very functional.  Here's Kevin enjoying his new manly chairs.   These chairs do rock.  I know bc I'm sitting in one right now, despite the fact that I'm not a man.  In fact, after I do a few things on the PC, I'm gonna call Dolly - another non-male - in here and we females are gonna take a nap together in this comfy chair.

I think it turned out quite nicely and I'm glad Kevin's got a nice den in which to relax.  He's thinking he'll eventually get a flat screen tv and reorient the chairs so they fit the room a little better.  The bathroom's right across the hall.  It may get to a point where he'll never need to leave this room.

Next we'll focus on the first floor.  Not the kitchen, though, bc that'll be a big undertaking.  There's not much we want to change about the living room and dining room (the foyer's fine).  I think it's all cosmetic stuff: paint the ceiling, walls and trim; maybe put different stonework on the fireplace front.  There is a little electrical work that needs to be done.  I think these rooms still have the original knob-and-tube wiring.  They need light fixtures, too.

We also want to finish the remodeling we started a few years ago in the former attic; it's now our room, bath, etc.  It's mostly cosmetic stuff that's left to do: picking out some fixtures, mirrors, furniture, etc.

We also want to eventually have some shelves put into the library on the second floor so we could actually, like, use it as a library.  That used to be a bedroom, but we opened up one wall so now it's an open room. 

At some point, we'll fix up the pc room - which is next to The Men's Room - into my room.  It'll be my counterpart to Kevin's den.  My den, I guess it would be.

And at some other point, we'll tackle the kitchen.  Man, that kitchen is fugly.  It's decorated in what I call 'Burger King brown'.  It was probably last done in the early 1970s.  It will be very nice to redo the kitchen in a lighter, more airy, more inviting vein.

Yeah, so, there are just a few things we want to do here and there!

Loss of Limb

This is a picture of where three backyards meet: ours, the next door neighbors', and the neighbor's around the corner.  About a year or so ago, we had a large maple tree cut down.  It stood to the left of the lopsided tree in the picture (as you're looking at the picture).  The cut tree had a v-shaped trunk and cracks were forming in the v part.  We figured we'd have it taken down in case the cracks were problematic for the tree's stability.

That left the funny looking tree in the picture.  I guess the cut tree really hindered this tree's growth because this one's underdeveloped on one side.  AFAWK, though, this tree is healthy; just funny looking.  We decided to see if this tree would fill out on the one side now that the other tree was gone.

Anyway, all this to say that, a coupla weeks ago, a limb from this tree fell on the garage of the neighbor, Joanne, around the corner.  She was away on vacation; we didn't even notice it.  I guess it fell off during a storm.  This tree appears to straddle the property line between our and the next door neighbors' (Rich and Susan) property.  She went to the next door neighbors' house (I don't know if she thought it was their tree or if we weren't home or what) and, from what I understand, told them about the limb falling on her garage and what were they going to do about it.  Well, we all called our insurance peeps and they all said her insurance should cover it.

Our next door neighbors called yesterday to see if we'd received a letter from the other neighbor to the effect that the tree should come down.  I missed the mailman, but he did leave a thingy to go to the p.o. and pick up a certified letter.  I'm guessing that's our copy of the letter.  I imagine her insurance person or lawyer told her that if she communicated her concern about the tree to us, that we would be considered 'on notice' that the tree might still be a hazard.  By this time, we had pretty much decided we would take this tree down, anyway, even if it's not a hazard.  I am miffed, however, that this chick couldn't have just walked around the corner or into our backyard to talk to us about this.  I mean, would it have killed her to do so?  And if, for some odd reason, we balked at taking down the tree, she could have sent her letter.

I feel a rant coming on.

Ya know, some people just don't know how to be neighbors.  When this chick moved in a coupla years ago, we went over to introduce ourselves, welcome her to the neighborhood, leave our names and phone number if we could ever help her, etc.  I even brought over fresh baked, homemade cookies!  What a waste of perfectly delicious cookies.  Since then, she's been invited to neighborhood things, our parties, etc.  She's never attended, which isn't a big deal, but she's never even bothered to rsvp, which I find very annoying.  How hard is it to phone in an rsvp?  I don't care if she never came to anything; several declinations on her part would have politely stopped the invites.  The invites have certainly stopped by now, but I would think better of her if she'd just rsvp'd like a normal person.

There's another Joanne that lives across the street.  She's more of a character.  She once left/mailed (I forget which) a note for the old next door neighbors.  Those guys were travelling Easter Sunday, leaving in the early afternoon, and would be gone for a coupla days.  Now, Monday is garbage day.  You can put your stuff out by the curb 6 pm or later on Sunday night.  Well, these guys were leaving before 6 pm and would be gone for a night or two, so they put their garbage out a few hours early.  So this Joanne lives right across from us and diagonally across from these neighbors.  She leaves/mails them a note about how they shouldn't put their garbage out before 6 pm, especially on Easter Sunday.  WTF?  These neighbors happen to celebrate Easter, but what's Easter got to do with putting out the garbage?  I'm unsure whether or not she signed the note; I think the neighbors wondered for a long time who wrote it.

Another time, the old neighbors on the other side were selling their house.  It was winter.  They plowed and shoveled their property.  Wanting to maintain curb appeal, they pushed the snow across the street...right in front of Joanne's house!  Again, she rarely uses this space.  And she has a double lot, so there's a fair amount of open street space in front of her property.  Well, she called up these neighbors and told them to move their snow back to their side of the street.

Oy.  Ya know, if I even noticed that the old neighbors put their snow in front of our house, i.e., lumped in with our snow, I would've guessed there was a reason for it and thought no more about it.  Annnnnd, Joanne has since been getting her drive plowed during the winter and where do you think the plow guy puts the snow?  In front of our house.  Do I care?  No.  Should I care?  No.

I once got a note.  I usually park in the driveway or on the street in front of the house.  Joanne never parks in front of her house.  Rarely - as in a few times per year - a relative or friend of hers parks in front of her house.  Occasionally, I'd park in front of her house, especially if I was facing that way when I came home, if I were going out again soon, etc.  She left a note on my windshield about how she doesn't know how to say this, but would I please not park in front of her house because she's hesitant about mowing the grass by the curb when my car is there, the street cleaner will miss that spot if my car is there, etc.  She did sign this note, though.  I thought that was a pretty stupid request...I mean, it's freakin' public property.  But I pretty much went along with her request, only occasionally parking there and for very short periods of time.

One time, I parked there on a Thursday afternoon, fulling intending to go back out shortly.  I had been feeling like I was coming down with something and it worsened while I was home at this time.  I ended up with the flu and home until Sunday.  So my car was in the verboten spot all that time!  When I went to go somewhere in my car on Sunday, my driver's side mirror was smashed!  Now, I'm not making any accusations here, but I will say the situation was rather uncanny.

Edited to add: I feel I should mention that the majority of our neighbors have been and are very good neighbors.

The Withered Arm

I haven't really felt like posting for a couple of days because I've been kinda cranky.  I feel like I'm working on stuff, but I have nothing to show for it.  It's not true, it just feels that way.  E.g., so I study math for the GRE, but all I have to show for it is the workbooks I go through.  It's not something you can put your hands on or see in plain sight.  So I'm kinda miffed about that.  I also had a coupla things on my mind and was crankin' out about that.

So this weekend I decided to get busy.  Dagnabit, I was gonna get some stuff done!  In addition to some miscellaneous household stuff, I did a ton of yard work.  I was bound and determined to learn how to use the weed whacker.  For some time I've wanted to edge the front yard where I planted a bunch of moss roses.  So Kevin got me started (there's not much to it) and he then went off to do errands.  I was having trouble advancing the line, so I started weeding until he got back and could show me how to do the line thingie.

Oy, did I weed.  I weeded by my flowers and then I started on the area between the sidewalk and the street.  I never really worked on that spot and I certainly never weeded it because I never would have attempted it again.  I estimate that that area consisted of 87% weeds, 7% grass, 3% unknown, 2% small trees and 1% (possibly) leafy lettuce.   But, in the spirit of getting things done, I was now bound and determined to weed the stuffing out of that strip.  Half of it gets a lot of shade, so grass wasn't growing there, but weeds were.  So that half is just dirt now; I manually pulled everything up.  The other half is 50% grass/50% dirt. I'm not too sure what to do with it.  I won't plant anything now because it's too hot.  Maybe I'll plant some perennial greenery in that whole strip in the fall.

Then I whacked.  My performance, although lacking in straight lines, was at least enthusiastic.  I whacked a few things that one doesn't usually whack, but my main fear was that I would whack myself in the leg. I can honestly say that no animals, people or even a single flower were harmed in the whacking of my front lawn.

Then I mulched.  When I planted the moss roses, I didn't put down enough mulch.  So I mulched all ninety-six of those suckers, trying to get enough mulch down without burying them.  Then I watered and fertilized all the flowers.

I called it a day at this point.  I'm not a tidy gardener, so I entered the shower with dirt everywhere: on my face, down my socks,  down my gloves, in my hair and in a few surprising places that will be left unspecified.  I looked like a 7-year old kid who'd been out in the playground all day, complete with dirt in the creases of my neck.  It was glorious.

So far, so good.  By the time I went to sleep, my left arm was feeling kinda funky.  I had a tingly kinda soreness almost all the way up my arm.  It felt weaker than the right.  Now, I knew nothing major was wrong, but it was rather uncomfortable and I was unable to sleep normally.  So I took my withered arm downstairs to the library, ensconced myself in one of Kevin's super-comfy new chairs, propped my arm up on a folded towel, settled Dolly on my lap, popped a coupla Tylenol and eventually fell asleep.

At about 5 a.m., Smudgie woke me up howling about something or other.  He occasionally gives out a few of his fat meows during the night, so I didn't do anything until he kept on meowing.  I went to see what was the problem - maybe he was facing off with an outdoor cat through the window - but nothing like that was wrong.  The emergency appeared to be that he and Clara were hungry and wanted to eat right then.  I caved.  At this point I was up and just stayed up.

My arm wasn't feeling any better, so I tried Advil.  That did help.  I do recall hearing or reading somewhere that Tylenol and Advil are better for different things e.g., maybe Tylenol is better for headaches and Advil is better for body aches.  That was my experience, at least; I don't know if that's true in general.

I took it a bit easier today.  I weeded a section I overlooked yesterday.  I watered all ninety-six moss roses and the baskets.  I do water them by hand.  I make a bunch of trips with the watering can.  Every morning, usually first thing when it's cooler and quiet, usually in my pyjamas.  It's kinduva peaceful morning ritual.  I swept up the crud that got blown around during yesterday's whacking.  There had been a chance of rain last night and I was kinda hoping that would happen and take care of all that stuff, but no such luck.  Then I did your usual household tasks: a bunch of laundry, change the kitty litters, etc.  I almost settled in for an hour or so of ironing, but decided to leave that be for now and just call it another day.

Although I no longer feel like I've been getting nothing done, I am soooooo exhausted!  It's only about 10 p.m. right now and I'm struggling to keep my eyes open.  I wanted to include some photos of the flowers - the baskets are doing well and the moss roses are finally growing and thriving - but I'm too snoozy to click the few times necessary to upload a coupla photos.  Goodnight!

A Plumber's Muse

I go to work for 6 measly hours and the place falls apart without me.  Kevin planned to work on his manly room today.  And he did...for a little while...until the clogged drain from the second floor bathroom got so bad that he had to attend to that.  When I got home he was soaking wet from (a) the effort of trying to figure out what is this drain's freakin' problem and (b) the blast of nasty crud that got him full force when he was working on the drain in the basement.  Fortunately, it was the drain from the tub and the sink, not from...elsewhere.  That would have been unacceptable.  I wish I had come straight home after work (instead of going to my nail appointment) or maybe even stopped home during lunch because as soon as I walked in the bathroom he decided to plunge it once more and see what happens and - swooooosh! - all of a sudden it cleared up.

In addition to plumbing problems, part of the living room ceiling fell down this afternoon.  A few years ago, we had a fire in the wall behind the fireplace.  As part of the restoration of that room, the walls and ceiling were replastered.  Well, they did a lousy job because they had only planned to replaster part of a wall and the ceiling, but when they got here they realized they'd have to replaster all the walls and the whole ceiling or there'd be different plaster patterns.  But they had scheduled a second job that afternoon.  So they blazed through it.  This is the second piece of ceiling that's fallen down; and there's a bubble in the ceiling in another spot; that will probably fall down in the not too distant future.

I was very lucky wrt the first piece that fell down.  We were sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the living room a coupla years ago when we had some remodeling done on the 2nd and 3rd floors (the 3rd is the floor formerly known as the attic).  I had just woken up and gotten out of bed when part of the ceiling fell on my pillow.  Very lucky not to have had a chunk o' plaster land on my head that day.

So, while I was laughing and yapping it up with library patrons and then getting my nails done, Kevin was home taking everything the house could throw out/spew at him.  When I got home, he was more than ready to take a shower and go out for a steak dinner.  We decided to go to Harrigan's in Montville; they've got yummy stuff.  I like their appetizer specials; I often order one for an entree; and that's what I did today: some kind of scallop in a plum tomato thingie.  Kevin got his meat fix with a New York strip steak.  We then went for a drive which, uncannily, ended up at Applegate Farm in Montclair, an ice creamery.  They're always yummy, but I gotta say I thought their Vanilla Fudge (with chocolate sprinkles, of course) was especially yummy today.  It was kinda fun there tonight because they had a small band playing, a buncha old timer types: banjo, tuba, trumpet, clarinet, drums (2!)...all dressed in red and white striped vests, like a barbershop quartet.

Yeah, I really like my chocolate.  When I was little, my friend Michelle and I went with her parents and little brother to Dairy Queen.  I ordered a chocolate ice cream cone with the chocolate shell with chocolate sprinkles.  Her father, Frank (who, at the time, was a dead ringer for Bud Man), got such a laugh out of that.  'Why don't you get a little more chocolate?'  Well, I would have if I could have.  Obviously.

Front Yard Progress

So the other day I potted some ivy and petunias together in hanging baskets and a mix of I-forget-what in two ground planters.  Now, the plan (and there's almost always a plan...whether it gets executed or not is much more variable) is that the petunias will face away from the house and get the full afternoon sun.  In the past, when I've planted petunias in the hanging baskets, the ones in the back haven't done as well as the ones in the front.  So they looked kinda ugly from inside the porch.  This year, I put ivy in the back of the baskets, where they'll get partial sun/shade.  So, if all goes according to plan, the petunias will look nice in the front of the baskets and the ivy will look nice in the back of the baskets, both of which we can enjoy from inside the porch.  I've always wanted to try ivy, so that's another reason for adding that to the mix.

The baskets might look a little low and they are lower this year.  In years past, I've only been able to easily reach two of them for watering, deadheading, etc. purposes and I have to admit I often neglected them because I didn't want to deal with percariously perching on a stepladder to tend to them.  I found some extension chains and now they hang low enough for me to easily tend to them, although they do look a bit silly.  But better silly and thriving vs. not-silly and dead.

I hope the ground baskets make it; I kinda just picked those plants at random.  I don't even remember what they are.  The yellow-orange ones are kinda neat because they close up at night (or when it's overcast). I also liked the yellow-orange ones because they remind me of Slim, as does the goofy little cat-fan plant ornament in the one ground basket.

Well, I'm off to water these very plants and then follow my plan for the rest of the day (again, there's almost always a plan...).

A Cushy Job

A very talented and creative friend, Robin, recently made new slipcovers for our porch furniture.  She did such a great job and the new covers are such a pick-me-up for the porch that I thought I'd post some pictures.

The yellow slipcovers are the old ones...they lasted 9 years before starting to lose it last summer.

The green ones are the new ones.  Kevin and I went into the garment district one Saturday, thinking we'd get fabric from one of the fabric stores there.  Turns out those stores are almost entirely geared toward fashion.  A few shopowners suggested we go to the stores by Canal St. during the week...most of those stores are owned by observant Jews and their stores would be closed that day.

So we headed back to NJ and stopped at Jo-Ann Fabrics.  We decided we liked the green fabric and then realized it was the same pattern as the yellow fabric, just in green.  So we ended up kinda going in a circle to end up at almost the same starting point.  It was a beautiful day and we had a nice, relaxing lunch and walk around the garment district.

There's a coupla more pictures in the Home photo album.

Homegrown

Just wanted to post some pictures of Kevin's lilies.  He's got orange, yellow and red ones coming out now.  I think there will also be white ones, too, at some point.  He's a little disappointed in how they're coming in this year...they may be a little crowded at this point and so I think he'll be divvying them up in the fall.

We like to put fresh flowers in this spot because (a) that's by our kitties' urns and (b) it's nice to come home or come downstairs in the morning and see some pretty fresh flowers.  Usually, Kevin picks up some flowers when he grocery shops, but we prefer to put his lovelier flowers out when they're available.

Yesterday, I potted two ground planters and five hanging baskets for the front yard.  I'm keeping them in the back for a day or two while I fertilize them and make sure they get a lot of water and get off to a good start before moving them out front.  Pictures to follow.

Does it seem like everything's going on in the front yard?  It is.  I plan on planning a long-term plan for the front flowers/bushes by the end of the summer and for the side flowers/bushes by next summer.  Eventually, we have to do something with the backyard.  Eventually, I will post pictures of our backyard, complete with yucky patio and driveway...and wait until you see the garage!

We're thinking of getting the garage rebuilt soon.  We bought the house with the garage "as is" because it was in such bad shape.  And it's in worse shape now.  We've never put our cars in it.  It has been home to raccoons (our neighbors tell us there's a family living there now), groundhogs and I'm sure a few other critters.  A number of cats use it as a place to get away from it all.  To rebuild it, we'd have them take it down to the stucco walls and rebuild from there.  We'll keep the stucco walls because they match the house's first floor stucco walls.  It was originally a one-car garage; when they added a second garage they added a second peaked roof instead of making one big peaked roof.  That left a valley where water, foliage, etc. has collected over the years and rotted through the roof to the inside of the garage.

Well, I gotta beat it outta here and get to my hair appointment.  Toodles!

A Summer Plan

So, what to do this summer?  I found myself without a plan recently.  (BTW, I ended up getting an A in that class...although I'm not sure how...there must have been quite a curve on the final exam and/or the overall course grades.  No matter how it happened; it was a very pleasant surprise.)  Now, so far I've got the following:

Re: school:

• Study for the GREs, esp. the stinkin' math section.  Kevin found a few good workbooks for me and I do get most of the questions right, but it takes me forever to do the questions...and I can't be taking forever to answer questions.  It seems like it's been so long since I had to solve any kind of math problem, I really have to think about what to do to answer the questions in the workbooks.  Ya know, one thing I wonder about is that in my corporate life, I did very well with data manipulation and stuff like that...but I stink at regular old math.  How is that?
• Produce a draft writing sample...uh, this item sounds all too familiar.
• Do any summer reading there might be for the fall PoR seminar.

At home:

• Replace 4 basement windows...this item sounds familiar, too.  I meant to replace the 6 of them last summer, but only got 2 in and I still have to paint the trim on them.  By the time I finished getting them in - with much help from Kevin - it was too cold to be outside painting.  It was kinda fun learning how to use a miter saw, nail gun (I think that's  my favorite implement so far), sander, etc.
• Paint the living room and dining room.
• Purge the house of all the extraneous, useless, unused stuff that's accumulated and just lying around the house!
• Plant some annuals.
• Set up the guest room, which is empty of furniture and just has a pile of miscellaneous stuff in it.
• Plump up Dolly.

And I've got some ideas for having myself a good summer, personal-wise, so it won't be all work and no play.  If I've thought it once, I've thought it a thousand times: I get so much more done if I have a schedule and stick to it.  So that will be key to getting the above stuff done.