To Make A Sailor Blush

Posted on December 29, 2006 by Frog

The better-half installed a platform for me over the back stairwell so I could perch on the 6-foot ladder and get cracking on the painting of the stairwell and back hallway. I needed to move the ladder off the platform and started to fold it back up. That’s when my middle finger (what other one would get hurt) got pinched in the ladder.

The cloud of blue that flew out of my mouth was enough to make it impossible to see much of what was going on. I seriously considered opening the bedroom window and hurling the ladder out the second story. But, I chilled.

I cleaned up the wound which is actually a big chunk of flesh gone from the pad of my middle finger–on the part that would be covered in nail if this were the top of my finger. I then threatened the ladder, the paint, the platform and the house that if everyone didn’t get their shit together and leave me alone I was going to get the reciprocating saw out and go off. All the inanimate objects in the house took in a deep breath and I finished painting with only some difficulty as I kept trying to not bang my finger.

The better-half got home and said he couldn’t believe I didn’t destroy anything in my rage. I told him about chilling and threatening.

He’s the one who got to clean up the brush and roller since the thought of cleaning up paint with a gaping hole in my finger made me a little faint. Don’t say ain’t, your mother may faint, and your daddy might fall in a bucket of paint. Must be the paint fumes.

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The Bathroom Project

Posted on December 29, 2006 by Frog

Here are the pictures of the bathroom renovation over at my sister’s.

The room is very small. If you stand in the center of the room, you can touch most of the walls and you don’t need freakishly long arms to do it. Now the room seems more spacious.

The paint on the top half of the wall is called Restful and the lower half of the wall is Bright White. My sister’s friend painted the room and did a great job.

My sister had a good idea to get some storage space without using any more space in the room. She thought there must be some way to put a cabinet into the crawl space that runs along the back of her house between the master bedroom and the upstairs bath.

The better-half built a cabinet:

My brother-in-law thought of the idea to use towel hooks instead of towel rods to free up space:

When we took the old sink and cabinet to the landfill, the cabinet popped like a balloon as it hit the ground. This new sink won’t be going to the dump anytime soon:

The beadboard you can see in all the pictures is also new. Nearly everything in the room is new except the tub/shower.

My sister and I went to the Home Depot on Christmas Eve and bought some supplies. The glass shelf box was devoid of brackets (thanks Home Depot). We took that back the other day and got a complete shelf/bracket box and now the shelf provides storage space without looking too heavy:

The toilet is one of those ADA models because my sister occasionally has back problems and it is easier to sit higher. The cool part of this toilet is how fast and efficiently it moves the contents out of the bowl. That toilet doesn’t mess around.

We had to pull out the drywall on one wall because it wasn’t the right size to match all the other walls and it didn’t actually go all the way to the floor in one spot (the original, crazy jack-legged things done in this bathroom boggles the mind). My sister’s family had been looking at 2X4 studs for 9 years. When we ripped out the half-done drywall, we had to replace the door so all the trim would match up. My sister and I couldn’t find a threshold that would work so we spray painted the old one to make it match the nickel finish selected for the other hardware bits in the room. Here’s a shot of the new floor:

Posted in House Proud | 2 Comments

All Quiet Like

Posted on December 27, 2006 by Frog

It’s been a bit quiet around here lately because most of our time has been spent over at my sister’s house. In her upstairs bathroom in particular. We’ve been renovating the room and it has taken us much longer than we expected, but today we finished.

My sister has a few places where she needs to touch-up some paint but mostly all the room needs is to be used. She promised to take pictures and send them to me in the next day or two. I’ll post those over in the House Proud section, because even though it isn’t my house, it was some proud work.

I don’t think she has any before pictures and we didn’t take any ourselves before the demolition started. But I think I’m being fair in saying that the room was pretty bad. My sister and I were talking about that show on HGTV about saving the bathroom. Her bathroom needed saving.

Update 12/29: Pictures are now over in House Proud.

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Take It To The Bridge

Posted on December 25, 2006 by Frog

We just threw down at 10+ dB. I couldn’t let him go without some dancing.

Shake your arm, then use your form
Stay on the scene like a sex machine
You got to have the feeling sure as you’re born
Get it together, right on, right on.

Posted in Listening | 1 Comment

‘Tis The Season

Posted on December 25, 2006 by Frog

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Holiday Greetings From Everything

Posted on December 22, 2006 by Frog

I’m considering this a holiday card from my car:

Posted in Thinking | 1 Comment

She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck

Posted on December 21, 2006 by Frog

To the woman sitting in the window at the New York Deli around 1:30pm on Thursday, December 21st:

Pull up your pants or pull down your shirt because as you leaned over everyone on Cary Street could see your thong.

Sincerely,
The Frog

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Rice Salad

Posted on December 21, 2006 by Frog

Several weeks ago, I was walking along Main towards campus and I had a serious craving for rice salad wrapped in a pita. There once was a restaurant–more like bakery/sandwich shop–where we like to vacation that had the most marvelous rice salad. That shop has changed hands and, sadly, there’s no rice salad on the menu. Anyway, that shop is six hours away. They also had the best black cherry strudel I’ve ever had.

I’m still looking around for a rice salad recipe (have one?). I’m feeling a bit lazy but my first use of The Google didn’t produce the result I was looking for. Now I think I’m going to have to hunt down the grains and beans cookbook we have. I’m not sure of the name of the cookbook but it only features recipes made from grains and beans. Perhaps I’ll put on my birkies while I look through recipes.

Posted in Eating | 4 Comments

Mwahahaha

Posted on December 19, 2006 by Frog

We were dissed by Santa tonight. Once again, we were discriminated against because we don’t have children…Santa sped out of the neighborhood without even bothering to look at us. Hey, maybe next year the donation letter to the volunteer fire department (hosts o’ Santa) will look like this:

To Whom It May Concern:
Please find enclosed a dollar as our total donation for the year 2007. As you will notice this is significantly less than last year’s donation. This is what happens when Santa doesn’t even bother looking at our house.
Signed,
Evil Frog and Goat

Why are we evil? We just cooked up a batch of this. Our habanero plants produced really hot peppers this year. I once read that if pepper plants have to struggle and suffer they make H-O-T peppers. Our peppers suffered like someone who steps on a pepper and has the liquid squirt into their eye.

The first stir in the microwave had us counting to infinity before the burn ensued. The second go around had us counting to five before we detected heat. The third go around we added more oil and some frozen jalapeños that we just happened to have on hand. After the spin in the microwave we counted until three for the burn. The last time around had me leaning into the microwave cackling. I turned to the better-half and moved my fingers like a mad scientist and said, “this is a mwahahaha moment.” Indeed it was. Burning immediately.

We have a very lethal jar of pepper oil in the refrigerator doing its thing. There’s a slight burn in the air that’s affecting my eyes. Mwahahaha.

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My Report Card

Posted on December 19, 2006 by Frog

Posted in Thinking | 1 Comment