Wrestling Bathtubs and Other Remodeling Moves

Tonight my husband and I went to help our oldest son with his latest home improvement project. He is finishing his basement into a family room, bedroom and bathroom. We are helping with the bedroom and bathroom.

On our way to his home we stopped at Home Depot to pick up some sheet rock, 2 X 4’s and a bathtub/shower combination for his bathroom. We managed to get in all in the pickup truck and secured for the last half hour to his home. He doesn’t own a pick up truck so we have hauled whatever he can’t fit in his Impala with the seats folded down. I’m amazed at what he can fit in his car.

After arriving at his home we unloaded the truck and decided it was time to tackle carrying the bathtub into the house. His home is a split level entry so we went in the front door and started down the steps to the basement. My husband was at the bottom and my son and I at the top.

We made it through the front door with the beast but soon realized that we would have to change our plan of attack so it was back outside to turn the tub a different way and then back inside to try it again. We had to lift it high over the railing and head down the stairs.

We got to the bottom and got stuck. Back up the stairs to remove the hand railing to give us more room. Did I mention that the tub was made of fiber glass and by now we were itchy and had cuts on our hands from the fiber glass? Not fun.

Before we could remove the hand railing we set the tub down on the stairs only to wedge my son’s foot into a spot under the tub that we were having difficulty removing it from. He felt a little claustrophobic. We got it out and the railing off.

Back down the stairs with the tub. At the bottom of the stairs we needed to turn the tub 45 degrees to the left. Not enough room so we had to remove the packing feet from the tub. Still not enough room. My husband had to remove two studs from the wall at the bottom of the steps and the sheet rock from those spaces to negotiate the turn. We thought we were done with demolition last weekend.

After tonight we are taking tomorrow off from home improvement to take Dad’s sailboat out of the lake for the season. There may be large quantities of wine involved after tonight’s wrestling match. Then it will be back at home improvement on Saturday and Sunday. I hope we survive and his home.

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Smell-O-Vision: What My Family Would Not Be Allowed to Watch on TV

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          It hasn’t happened yet but someday someone will develop the ability to provide smell with our television programs or movies. There are just some things that my family would not be allowed to watch when Smell-O-Vision comes to television.

One of the top five on my list would be Animal Planet.  I hate the smell of animals when walking through the zoo. Don’t get me wrong. I am an animal lover and have owned several pets. At one time in college I worked in a pet store while the owner went on vacation. I just don’t like a concentrated area of animal smells.

The next on my list would be CSI. I love the show but they get into their work a little more than my nose would enjoy especially the autopsy room.

Another favorite show at our home has been Dirty Jobs. The host often tells us how bad things really smell but I doubt that it could compare with the actual smell entering my livingroom.

Dr. G is always an interesting show on how she solves medical mysteries but just like CSI, I can do without the autopsy scenes and smells.

Hoarders would also top my list especially the shows where they have hoarded animals and they measure the urine level as toxic to humans. 

This is my short list for television shows.

I’m sure that you could add plenty more to the list if I started adding movies to my list. 

Now I have a whole other list for the show that would definitely be allowed like Rachel Ray and all the other fabulous cooking shows. A person could gain weight just smelling their wonderful creations.

 

If there had been cream in our bags it should have turned into butter.

 This evening after work my husband and I went on a service call to a town about two hours away. We both love to drink coffee while we drive but it is a nearly impossible task in our flatbed truck even with covers on our cups.

We try to talk as we travel but we find ourselves constantly bracing for the next bump in the road and leave sentences half-finished which is okay because we’ve been married long enough that we each know how the other would finish the sentence if they could get the words out between bumps.

Each expansion joint in the road is felt as you pass over it along with every pothole. In Minnesota you can tell that spring is just around the corner with the appearance of little orange flags to mark particularly bad spots in the roads.

Some spots contain signs like “Dip” to let you know that a bump larger than usual is ahead. Some spots haven’t been marked yet and you find them as you fly over them with your usual speed and the bump sends you up towards the truck ceiling and anything not anchored down in the cab goes flying.

Tonight was a bad night for bumpy roads. The back roads are worse than the highways but some of those are just as bad. After a week of traveling in the car all we wanted to do this evening was sit in our comfortable chairs with our feet up to relax. We were instead treated to four hours of a makeshift roller coaster ride.

Before we started our two-hour trip home we stopped at the local grocery store. We decided to pick up a few things we needed since our grocery store is out of commission for a couple of months. We put the four bags of groceries in the back seat of the car we were hauling so we wouldn’t have to have them in the cab of the truck with us.

When we got back to the shop to drop off the truck we went to retrieve our grocery bags only to find the contents scattered over the backseat of the vehicle. Thankfully nothing spilled or broke. I was happy I had bought some eggs last evening instead of tonight.

I told my husband that if we would have had cream in our bags tonight  it should have turned to butter.

Maybe next time just for an experiment…

 

It’s Still Nice To Be Needed

I’m a Mom. That’s part of who I am and a role I have had for nearly 28 years so its hard to let that role change as your children grow up. Mine are:  27,24,22 & 20.  Over the years I have hauled my kids to one activity or another, doctor appointments, dentist appointments and to the mall when they weren’t old enough to drive. My kids don’t need me for these activities anymore because they all drive and have cars of their own.

My youngest son, the 24-year-old, asked me to drive him to the dentist this afternoon. He has to have his top two wisdom teeth pulled. I said I would pick him up and drive him to the appointment and home again. Our planned trip to the dentist brought back memories of the day I drove him to the oral surgeon to have the first two wisdom teeth our while he was still in high school.

I was teaching third grade that year but only as a reading and math specialist in the morning. His appointment was right after lunch so we left as soon as I was done with my students. We had a nice visit on our 45 minute drive. I was on a tight schedule that day because I had to get back to school for conferences that evening.

My son checked in and they said he should be in the recovery room in about 45 minutes.  Instead of waiting for him I decided to go to the pharmacy for the antibiotics and pain medications while he was in surgery. Just as I got back in the parking lot and got out of my car I heard a loud PSSSSSSSSSSST and looked to my right rear tire as it was going flat before my eyes. 

I started removing everything from my trunk to get to my spare tire. Most days this would not have been a big task but I had planned a stop at Goodwill on the way home and my trunk was filled with donations. It looked like I was having a garage sale in the surgery center parking lot. I got many interesting looks but no offers of help. I continued to go about getting ready to change my tire in my dress. 

Just when I was about ready to start they escorted my son out to the car. He was out of recovery. It was the end of their workday and they were ready to go home. We put my groggy son in the front seat and closed the door.

I jacked up the car and took off the flat tire and put it in the trunk. About the time I was ready to put the spare on the front car door opened and my son with a mouth full of gauze was trying to give me directions on how to change the tire. I said “I’ve got it handled, shut the door and stop wiggling the car”. I was afraid the jack would topple over if he moved too much. He shut the door and I continued to put the spare on, tighten the  lug nuts and let the car down off of the jack. Once again through a mouth of cotton he opened the door and tried to give me directions. Then he shut the door once again. 

After I loaded everything back in the trunk we headed back home with a quick stop at Goodwill to unload my trunk. I managed to make it just in time for my first conference after dropping my son off at our home. 

That evening after conferences my husband and I were at our shop repairing the hole in my tire. I told him I had to have hit something big as fast as the tire went flat. He took the tire off the rim to repair it and inside the tire there was the tiniest little wrench inside my tire. Only a mechanic’s wife would run over a wrench. I know you are thinking I must have run over it at our shop but it was an entirely different brand wrench than what the mechanics use at our shop.

I am hoping for a less complicated trip to the dentist this afternoon.  I may even have time to read a good book for a while….

 

Stuck In The Middle With You

It’s been an interesting week at the car lot.  On Tuesday we had an older couple come in to shop cars.  They had recently totaled their Buick in an accident and needed to replace it.  The couple’s names were Al and Bernice.  Both of them are 75 years old.

Al and Bernice came into the shop after lunch on Tuesday and spent the afternoon sitting in the different cars on the lot and test driving them.  They were there most of the afternoon.  When they were ready to leave they had narrowed their choices down to either a Buick LaCrosse or Buick Lucerne.

Wednesday afternoon they came back and asked if they could try some other cars on the lot.  I asked which one they would like to try and they said the Chevy Impala but not one of the ones with the shifter on the floor, they wanted a bench seat and a column shifter.  We had four Impala’s on the lot but only one had a bench seat with a column shifter so I brought that around and parked it next to the Buick LaCrosse so they could compare.  They sat in both cars and test drove both cars and decided that they really liked the Chevy better.  They said they would be back between 10-11 am on Friday to pick up the car.

Yesterday which was Thursday, Al and Bernice stopped back in to sit in the Chevy just one more time before Friday and to tell us to make sure we kept the car inside overnight where it would be nice and warm.  Also we needed to wash it and fill it with gas before they picked it up on Friday. 

Washing and filling the car with gas is something we already do for each car we sell but we don’t generally keep them inside overnight before pickup but we did last evening.  I asked Bernice how she liked shopping for cars while her husband was talking numbers with my husband.  Her unexpected response was “It’s a god damn pain in the ass”.  I didn’t know whether she was referring to the car buying experience in general or the car buying experience with Al. She looked exhausted.

Today we were busy with many jobs we needed to finish up on warranty items for customers before the weekend.  Ten o’clock, Eleven o’clock, Twelve o’clock all came and went and no Al and Bernice.  My husband and I left and went home for a quick-lunch.  It wasn’t long after we got home that we got a phone call to say the state inspector was there to look at all of my car sales paperwork.  This is an annual inspection but always a surprise inspection.  We headed back to the shop and I worked with the inspector through my paperwork but in the middle of it in walked Al and Bernice to do their paperwork for the car.

Inspector Dan sat at my husband’s desk while I did the paperwork for the car sale with Al and Bernice.  I tried to hurry through the paperwork as quickly as I could but Al was up for some visiting while we did the paperwork.  Dan waited patiently but I was constantly aware of his presence knowing he was waiting for me to finish and listening to every word I told my customers.  I wanted to get it right with him listening, he knows the rules and expects that I should know them too.

Finally it was time for Al and Bernice to head down the road with their new car when Al said “You need to come outside to the new car and explain all those new fangled gadgets on that car.”  I tried to find someone else to explain the car instrument panel to Al and Bernice but no one was available.

I headed outside with the two of them. 

Al said “I will sit in the driver’s seat and you can slide on in next to me and Ma can sit next to you. That way all of us have a good spot to sit.”

At first the three of us sat in the front seat with me stuck in the middle but left the car doors open.  It started to get colder so they shut the doors.  I was definitely squeezed in now.  Al said “It’s just like the old days, you get the girl sitting close to you in the middle and your arm would reach back behind her and draw her in closer.”  I tried to imagine Al and Bernice as a young couple dating.  I’m sure he was a handful for Bernice.

I began to explain each part of the instrument panel in the car. When I finally thought that we were finished, remembering Dan inside waiting, Al started to ask questions about the very first parts that I had explained.  I ended up re-explaining the entire instrument panel all over again.

After my last explanation of the panel Al said that if they had any more questions they would stop by or wait until their first oil change.  I got out of the car and headed inside after they departed.  Dan was still waiting patiently for me inside.  He and my husband were laughing about something  when I came back inside the office. I was wondering if it was the picture of me stuck in the middle between Al and Bernice with his arm wrapped around the backside of my neck.

 

Haircare: “The Gods Must Be Crazy” Style

Last Sunday at church I was talking to a young mom and mentioned the fact that when I was in junior high we didn’t have hairdryers or blow dryers as some people call them. Her mouth dropped wide open in disbelief. 

I know I’m dating myself when I say that in the 70’s I was in junior high. My first job with a paycheck other than babysitting was a newspaper route. I was excited to have some money of my own to spend on some discretionary items. 

In 1973 I went to get my haircut and the stylist used a handheld hair dryer. I was impressed with its convenience. The thought of not racing out the door in the morning to school with wet hair was enticing. I was never much for taking a bath the night before school. I always took a shower in the morning but never quite early enough for my hair to be completely dry.

I asked the stylist where I could find one of those hair dryers and she told me which store I could find one. It was within walking distance so I took some money out of my savings account and went to the store and purchased one. I was so excited to use it that I went home, took a shower and tried out my new dryer. 

In our home we only had one bathroom with a tub/shower for a family of eight. In the morning we were like a well-oiled machine. We each had our appointed time in the shower and then we would head to our rooms to finish getting ready. I left my hair dryer in the bathroom the night before after my shower.  

The next morning when I went to use my hairdryer it was gone. My sister had it in her room. I retrieved it. I put it back in the bathroom after using it and the following morning the dryer was gone from the bathroom once again. This time I found it in my brother’s room. It seems that he found it useful as well. 

Over the following weeks each and every member of my family found use for my hairdryer. I was so surprised one morning when I came down from my attic bedroom to the sound of the hairdryer in the bathroom during my Dad’s shower time. Not Dad too….

In the movie “The Gods Must Be Crazy” an empty coke bottle is dropped from an airplane into an isolated tribe. The tribe members all found uses for the newfound item. Each member “needed” the coke bottle even though they had never seen or used one before.

Finally the tribe leader who was tired of all the fighting that the coke bottle caused within the tribe decides to walk and throw the Coke bottle off the end of the earth to bring peace back to the tribe.

After several weeks of chasing after my hair dryer to retrieve it so I could use it, I was ready to throw it out our window because I never got to use it when I wanted to dry my hair. I was still leaving for school with wet hair. So much for new technology, what good is it if you never get to use it?

 

Couches Aren’t Just For Sitting Anymore

In 1997 my husband and I hosted his 20 year class reunion at our home for his graduating class of 32  along with their husbands, wives and kids.  We live on a lake with a nice beach.  The guys from my husband’s graduating class arranged to have a pig roast and corn feed at our home for the event.  The girls arranged for all the other food served with the pig and the corn.  They also arranged for a few kegs of beer.

The guys that were roasting the pig showed up early in the morning to get the pig roasting and everyone else arrived later in the afternoon.  The afternoon was a fun picnic with the kids swimming in the lake and Mom’s and Dad’s taking kids for tube and boat rides on the lake.  Later in the evening after the pig was served and people were done swimming many of the families headed home.  A few die-hards stayed around to reminisce until nearly midnight.

A couple of the guys that stayed around to drink beer said that they had been “couched” last evening.  My husband and I looked at each other for an interpretation of the meaning of  “couched”.  Neither of us knew what they were talking about along with a few of our other guests.  We asked what it meant to be “couched”.

Not sure whether we really wanted to know what is was or not,  they proceeded to explain.  Apparently when a couch has lost its usefulness and is ready for the dump they take the couch and put it in someone’s yard.  Someone they know, of course.  They have even gone to the trouble to set up an entire living room of furniture in someone’s front yard complete with a television.  This is all done under the cover of darkness  so when they wake up in the morning it is a complete surprise. 

One of my husband’s classmates had been the recipient of a couch the evening before.  They woke up to find a hide-a-bed couch on their deck in the morning.  It was still there when the party started.  The guys decided after many beers that they should “couch” someone with the couch that was still on the deck.  It didn’t take them long to decide on who they were going to bless with the couch.  A group of about four guys took a pickup over to his house to retrieve the couch.  They had decided to “couch” their old football coach who lives at the other end of the lake from us.

They unloaded the couch from the pickup truck and loaded it on the front of our boat and under the cover of darkness headed to the other end of the lake with the couch sitting perpendicular across the front of the boat.  When they got to the other end of the lake they lifted the couch off our boat and on to the end of his dock.  With dogs barking on shore and guys trying to muffle their laughter they headed back to our end of the lake.  They came back up to the house laughing until tears were flowing as they told how they had left the couch sitting perpendicular on the end of the dock.

The next day at football practice the old coach blamed one of the current football players for the prank.  Their family also lived on our lake.  He and some of his buddies were almost always in the middle of some trouble.  Everyone from the party kept silent.  The young football player maintained his innocence.

No one suspected a bunch of almost 40 year olds were responsible for the prank.  The coach convinced of the guilt of the young football player told him that he and some friends had better show up after practice to help remove the couch.  They showed up as requested and helped move the couch not wanting to be in trouble with the coach.

To this day he still maintains his innocence and a bunch of old guys still remain silent with a twinkle in their eyes when the subject of  “couching” the coach is brought up once again.

 

Dear Ann Landers, If I were a guest I’d be better behaved!

Dear Ann Landers,

If I were a guest I’d be better behaved.  This past week I had a guest arrive at my home unannounced.  My Momma always told me to call ahead so that your hostess would be able to prepare for your arrival.  My guest did not.  I don’t even know when he arrived.  Perhaps even in the early morning hours while we were sleeping.  I knew that he was here because I saw signs of his arrival.

When I went to the pantry he had been there and chewed through the corner of the chocolate chip bag that I intended to make cookies for my children.  Really if he had only asked for some chips I would have given them for sure.  I’m big on hospitality. 

Last evening I put some peanut butter out for him to dine on if he desired.  He did ,but he left such a mess on my kitchen counters that I feel it necessary to sanitize it before it can be used again.  Really, is that how a guest is to behave?  My Momma told me to always clean up after yourself when you were visiting.  It’s only polite not to make your hostess work more because you are there.

 Last evening while we were sleeping he kept such late hours as to keep the house awake with his chewing.  He must have known that I was displeased for each time I climbed from my bed to tell him to leave he quieted down but only long enough for me to crawl back into my bed.  It wouldn’t have been too bad but I think he invited some friends over as well for the amount of peanut butter he ate was surely more than one could consume.  My Momma would be appalled if I invited my friends over to another’s home without asking.

Just one more thing.  I find it particularly rude that my guest investigates every corner of my home.  There are places that I wouldn’t even show my Momma that he has been!  Momma said that you should only go to the places in another’s home to which you have been invited and by no means should you investigate another’s bathroom drawers or medicine cabinet.  That’s just plain rude.  Maybe he didn’t have as good of Momma as I do but really some things just make perfect sense. 

My Momma says that if you don’t have the answer no one does.  I would be eternally grateful for your suggestions for the removal of my unwanted guest.  It’s time for him to leave but I don’t want to be rude. 

Sincerely,

FlyingGma

 

Darning Socks and Other Lost Arts

This morning I was looking through an old Good Housekeeping Cookbook (Printed February 1926).  Thanksgiving is only a couple of weeks away and I thought maybe the old cookbook might have a new recipe that would be fun to try.  After paging through it briefly I was drawn to the back of the book where there was a household discovery section which included About -The- House Discoveries, About-The-Laundry Discoveries, Bath-Room Discoveries, Bedroom Discoveries (Not what you are thinking!), Cookery Discoveries, Discoveries Concerning Children, Kitchen Discoveries and Sewing-Room Discoveries.  The entire section was 26 pages long.

The title of one discovery in the Sewing-Room Discoveries caught my eye.  It was on darning socks.  When I first got married my mother-in–law talked about the socks she needed to darn.  I thought I don’t know how to darn socks.  My mom never taught me how to darn socks.  Not wanting to be a bad wife and let my new husband run around with holes in his socks I learned how to darn socks.  My husband asked me to please not do that.  He hated the way the darned socks felt in his shoes.  He said I think we can afford to buy some new socks when these have holes in them.  That was fine with me because I didn’t like darning socks.

 

In 1992 when my husband and I were in the middle of a major demolition/remodel/building project we moved in with my in laws for three weeks with our four children.  One morning as I was leaving for work after I sent the kids off to school my mother in-law said she would scrub our socks for me before she washed them.  I said I could handle the laundry after work but inferred that she thought that our socks weren’t white enough without scrubbing them.  I never did.  I just made sure they were turned the right way for washing and put them in the machine.  My mother in law is the Laundry Queen.  She does laundry like no one else I know.  Her whites are always the whitest and everything is always mended and ironed.

I felt compelled to meet the challenge of her whiter whites so before I left for work that morning I filled the scrub bucket with a various of cleaning agents, mostly bleach and soap, added our white socks and left them there to soak until I got home from work that evening.  I did the laundry as usual that evening and I was wowed by how white my white socks were.  I may be onto something here.  Cleaner socks with no scrubbing. 

The next day my oldest son was at the neighbor’s home afterschool and removed his shoes as was the custom in their home.  His friend’s Dad said “Curt, What happened to your socks?”  My son looked at his feet and all that remained of his freshly cleaned white socks was the ribbing around his ankle.  The rest had disintegrated into dust within his shoes.  My husband came home from work that evening and noted that his socks felt funny inside his shoes.  He took off his shoes and his socks had also disintegrated within his shoes.  He looked at me and said “Its okay if our socks aren’t scrubbed white like Mom’s, clean is good enough.”

I am so thankful for my husband and his unconditional love for me.  I don’t feel compelled to live up to someone else’s way of doing things.  I’m finally okay being me.  I still have high expectations for me but they are mine not someone else’s.

 

Dejanesia..When Deja Vu and Amnesia collide

A new word perhaps, but we’ve all been there before.  Deja Vu and amnesia.  We’re pretty sure that we’ve forgotten this before.  My husband and are both getting older.  He’s 51 and I’m 50.  We laugh now, but the more times we forget something you start wondering.  Am I really losing it?  Did you really tell me that before and I don’t remember or are you just messing with me?

It’s  not so funny as we get older.

Just this week in the car we were driving and my husband was talking about a part he needed to order for a truck we have for sale.  He hated to order it because it is so expensive for what it is.  I said to him why don’t you just have one of our boys draw up the plans for the part and have some manufactured.  In the long run it could be cheaper and if you have leftover parts you could sell them on Ebay.  Both of our sons do mechanical design work for different companies and are capable of producing the part. 

We drove a little farther and I was rambling on about the part for about 30 seconds and he looked at me like I lost my mind because he couldn’t remember what we were talking about thirty seconds ago and what I was talking about made no sense to him for what he was thinking about.  He tried to pick up some clues to what I was talking about and finally just asked “What were we just talking about?  I don’t remember.” 

Its not only him.  We both get so deep in our thoughts when we travel anywhere.  When one of us starts a conversation we first have to pull the other away from their thoughts and into the present to get their attention.  The older I get I can appreciate quiet and thinking time.

My grandmother had dementia when she died in her nineties.  I guess the fact that it waited until she was in her nineties to show up gives me a few more years before I need to worry.  Is it in my blood?  The thought creeps in when you head all the way down to the basement to get something, get there and can’t remember what you were there for then back upstairs to remember what you went to get or do. 

How many of us have headed down the road and then back home again to check, re-check some item before we head out on vacation?  I have.  I’ve even made it to the airport and called my next door neighbor to please go check if I left my curling iron on in the bathroom.  The old one didn’t have an automatic turn off.

Each year about this time my husband and I help my parents take their sailboat out of the lake for the winter.  It’s something we’ve done just the four of us each fall and then the reverse in the spring. for several years sometimes with snowflakes falling.    Every year we stand scratching our heads trying to remember what has to happen first.  Which cables to loosen before we let the 25′ mast down or wait…do we leave those cables tight until the mast is down then loosen the cables?  Do we have the front of the boat parked uphill or downhill one way was definitely easier last year? Did we remember all the tools we need?  Usually not!

This year so I don’t suffer dejanesia again in the spring I think I will make a list of the sequence of events for the sailboat so that in the spring we won’t be wondering just how we did it the last time.  But then of course we would have to do things in reverse which can create a whole new set of problems.  Some people just can’t comprehend doing things in reverse order even if its written down.  You would think that having the same four people at the same event each year at least one of us would remember the order.  We provide the entertainment for any local fishermen trying to put their boats in or out of the boat landing.  I’m reminded of the Three Stooges show that used to be on Sunday mornings as we got ready for church only now there are four.

I’ll let you know how it goes, unless, of course, I think that I already told you before even if I haven’t.  Dejanesia can be so much fun.