Sunday, April 29, 2012

Done


Done. 

Finally. 

The bathroom that has been haunting me is finally done.

I could go on but frankly I am tired and I don’t want to.  

I do have pics. 

Enjoy!
Just can't get back far enough.

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Yes, those are Monkeys.

Friday, April 27, 2012

My horn, its a tootin!


Sam helped pick out the shower head.  Then when I went to put it on it did not fit.  The arm wouldn’t let it.  So I swapped the downstairs one with the new one.  I cleaned it up and Viola! Problem solved.

This is what I do instead of goofing off at random Toby Keith concerts.  (USO, Kandahar, etc.)
Finished tub stuff

Full View

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Typical Wednesday


Things are pretty quiet at the moment.  I know it will explode at any moment but such is life.

We have Musicfest at Churchill High School for Jason on Wednesday.  He brought home a paper on Tuesday that said no jeans.  I thought he could wear the suit pants he wore to my dad’s funeral.  Wrong!  They wouldn’t even button and they hiked up to his knee!  Darn kids keep growing.  I raced to Target and got him some pants and a belt.  I am sure it already doesn’t fit.

He was one of 6 schools represented and the youngest group.  It turned out to be a really cool evening.  The music was pretty good and I got to see Jason play.  He looked confident.  When they had to clear the gym for the last performance he was a whirlwind of help.  He assisted everyone moving stuff out of the way.  Good to see in his non-home setting.

The last group was the marching band and flag corps.  I thought of Christine when the flag people started their routine.  Towards the end one of the band members ran around the front of everyone, took off his jacket, grabbed the sign and flowers he had hidden and asked one of the flag girls to the prom.  Very cool.  It was a neat performance.  They looked like they enjoyed themselves.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Venting


I know I probably shouldn’t but I need to vent. 

Sam just yelled at me because I won’t buy her any pants.  I don’t want her wearing long black pants to bed because I know she will wear them to school. 

“You won’t buy me any jammie pants!  You are always mean to me.”  I had to stop her and let her know she was wrong.  I most likely didn’t approach it right, but I am me and I like me.  I explained sternly, no yelling, that I have been trying for a couple of months to buy her clothes and she said no.  She told me very matter-of-factly no.  I explained that I have looked for clothes for her in several different stores and she does not want them due to all of the pants she has.  I have been throwing out the ones with holes.  Eventually we are going to have to go shopping as most of her pants have a hole.

For one so small, she can push all of my buttons.

Enough about me how was your day?

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Sam's Birthday Party


So today was Sam’s birthday party.  I ended up with 7 girls and 2 boys at Zap Zone.  It almost didn’t happen.  I left the house at 11:00 am to pick up Sam and Jason’s friend and swing by the bank.  I went to Sam’s friend’s house.  She was heading to our house.  I went home.  No one there.  Sam calls her and she is at home.  We go back to Sam’s friend’s house.  On my way to Jason’s friends house I realize we do not have Sam’s cake.  Back to my house.  Off to Jason’s friend’s house.  Bank is on the way so I swing through there first.  After he gets in the van I realize the 2 minutes I have left is not going to be enough to get me to Zap Zone on time.  I call to let them know and all is well.  I will jump on the freeway and I will be there in no time.  No such luck.  Of course the freeway is being worked on.  When is it not.  (That is a whole other rant!)  I pull a movie maneuver and swing off the freeway on to surface streets.  Now I am going to be really late.  Sure enough, my 11:45 party is now a 12 party.  The Dad’s that were there all looked at me and said “275 is a bitch huh?”  The mom that dropped off just looked at me funny.  None of the kids seemed to give a damn.  So our first game came up quick and the girls loved it.  No women in combat!  I need to get a bunch of generals into Zap Zone.  Those girls are nuts!

We ate and went right back in.  I got swarmed by little girls.  They are vicious.  I smoked Jason though.  He kept trying to hide from me and then ambush me.  Didn’t work well for him.  He He.  After the girls ran around and played games.  We opened gifts and Sam seemed to love everything.

I had told Jason he could have his friend sleep over.  I was relucticent to let Sam have a sleep over on the same night but by 7 pm since they were playing nice so I told her if she wanted to have a sleep over she could.  It must have been because I had just eaten or was distracted.  What was I thinking?   Now I have 2 9 year old girls, 2 11 year old boys and 2 dogs. 

Holy cow.

Two kids was definitely the right choice.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Home show people lied to me.

Saturday started out with a fun coughing fit.  I hate colds.
I need to grout today so I can seal the grout Tuesday.  I want to place the fixtures next weekend.  If the timing works out the sink and stand will be here by then.  Sam wants me to take her back to Walmart to see if those shoes came in.  I want to veg in front of the computer until the coughing is under control.  Grouting won.  I uber-medicated and feel much better now.

I have never grouted or done tile work of any kind.  It has been two decades since I did any cement work so all of this is new to me.  I had to figure out how to mix the stuff in a 5 gallon pail.  The drill mixer I picked up was useless.  It splashed the stuff all over my pants and shoes but mixed almost nothing.  I used a garden trowel and a big paint stirrer stick and viola! It was mixed. 

Trying to grout a wall is much tougher than it looks on TV.  Sam said I was doing a good job.  I asked her how she could tell.  She said I was doing it like the people on the home shows.  That was very nice of her but home show quality it was not.  I think as much dropped on the plastic as got on the wall.  As luck would have it I only needed one bag of grout.  I was able to get the wall and floor done in roughly an hour.  Fewer grout lines, the only good part of using huge tiles.

I ended up taking a shower and running the kids back to Walmart.  Sam found her size and decided she didn’t like how the felt on her ankle so we didn’t get her shoes.  We did mini-grocery shopping and went home.

I just finished washing the tiles and walls.  Hopefully I was able to clean off all of the left over grout.  It is not as easy to clean up once it starts to set.

I am not going to look for shoes for Sam tomorrow.
Threshold and floor tile.

Overview

Tub Surround tiles.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Laundry, Tiling, shopping oh my!

So I took Friday off as it was the last day of the kid’s spring break.  I went to Walmart to get the kids and myself some shoes.  Jason and I got a pair but Sam liked the shoes that did not have her size.  Of course.  Sam asked the worker if they had any in back.  She looked it up and said they would probably get them Saturday in different sizes.  So we went to Target to look and didn’t find any there either.  We picked up some milk and headed home. 

I needed to put the trim tiles up in the bathroom.  I am battling a fun head cold so I medicated up and dove into the bathroom.  The little tiles along the wall went up fairly easy.  I used painters tape to keep them from sliding and the little pluses to keep the proper space.  I figure if I give them until Saturday to set then I can grout.  Oh boy.
I started doing laundry and realized that many of Samantha’s pants have holes in the legs in various places.  I told Sam we could get new ones and she told me no because, “these are so comfortable!”  She flat refused to go and buy new pants.  She told me her clothes are fine and she didn’t want to get any new ones.  Man, if only I could get that attitude to stick around.

Back to laundry.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Spring Equinox festival day

Sunday came in with a list of things to do.  As I was picking up Jason from his friends house I heard the front brake grind.  A trip to Auto Zone was in my future.  I forgot how many stores were closed on Easter.  Costco and target were out.  Lucky for me Auto Zone, Kroger, Home Depot and Lowe’s do not have the same religious leanings.

I picked up brakes at Auto Zone, Food at Kroger and I swung over to Home Depot to grab a blade for the jigsaw that would cut my floor tile.

The brake job was pretty straight forward and a short time later I was setting up to get my floor finished.  I was hoping it would be the last time for a while I need to set up the tile saw.  I got my last two tiles cut to size and then I marked the circle I needed cut out.  It was mostly a half circle out of both of them.  I grabbed the blade I just picked up and set to work.  I might as well have been cutting with wet spaghetti.  Off to Lowe’s I go.  I needed a diamond blade for porcelain tiles, not a carbide blade.  

Now I have both. 

On the up side the floor is done.  With the tile work behind me, grouting the tiles is next.  Something to look forward to.
Wall and floor tile - check.

Floor tile with the threshold.

My ever present companion.

The toilet flange.  Those two circle cuts took 3 hours of my life.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Saturday

I was working on the bathroom Saturday morning.  I didn’t like the threshold I had. It looked awesome and had cool color variations but it was natural stone and it had natural stone imperfections.  I didn’t figure this would fly with Christine so I went to the tile store and Sam helped me pick out a better one.  Got it home, cut it, dry fit it in place and it looked really good.  I put a floor tile down and they looked good together.  I had Jason help me get the toilet flange in place.  Since the floor is going in I am not worried about breaking the flange.  Jason came in the bathroom to help/watch me glue the PVC together and he stepped on the threshold.  Since it was not glued in place it snapped right down the center. 

I did not yell at him.  I wanted to.  I should have picked them up.  I knew it was fragile until it was installed and I told Jay not to step on it, but I should have moved it.  So I took Sam and Sofia back to the tile shop and picked up another one.  It is installed now.  The floor is not as easy as I thought it would be.  You can’t step on the tiles so I got almost the entire floor done.  4 whole tiles and 3 cut tiles.  The last two need to be cut and then have holes cut for the toilet flange.
 
That is tomorrow’s project after grocery shopping.