You made what?! (An unposted adventure reborn)

So I was looking through my blog history today (sorry I haven't been keeping up, there is too much crazy and I'd never get anything done!) and I found this gem from 2015 that I started and never posted.  It details how I started making soap. Enjoy!

It all started with the decision to buy a cow. What? Isn't that how all new hobbies start? With the decision to buy a large ruminant animal? Well, in our house, that's how things roll. "Lonnie" and I, after getting our gigantic freezer moved to Wichita from the Colorado pot house, felt that our money would best be used by buying a nice grassfed cow and having it butchered, thus providing us with a years worth of meat. As part of the discussion was "Lonnie's" question, "Hey, should we get any of the fat, they are just going to throw it away?" Now, I hate waste and I knew that there are things that could be made with beef fat. So I started researching and sure enough, both soap and candles can be made with tallow, or rendered beef fat. A new obsession was born!!! We got our dead cow parts in May, with about 40 pounds of frozen beef fat. It took me an additional 3 months of procrastinating before I tackled that rendering job. Rendering is simply melting the fat, straining out the yuck and chunks, then removing the pure white tallow. However, cutting up 20 pounds (I started with half) of frozen beef fat is hard (I got blisters), smelly (I could never be a butcher), and not something I will repeat in the month of July. Now, I started the boiling part with only about 5 pounds. Just a small amount to practice the process. I put the pot on the stove, loaded it with fat and water, and waited. I felt like a true prairie pioneer, using all my resources and saving the planet one dead cow at a time. 

Now, if you've never smelled boiling cow fat you are truly one of the fortunate. I didn't notice the smell at first, being as I was standing there watching it. "Lonnie" came in from outside and was like, "where are you hiding the body? It smells like a slaughterhouse in here!" Sure enough, I walked out and came back in and almost puked. Immediately I opened windows, turned on the fans and tried desperately to air out the kitchen. The only smell worse than boiling fat is...well, I'm sure there are some hospital smells that are bad but right now I can't think of anything worse than what my stovetop was producing. I did not stop boiling though, we were almost finished and I was going to see this through dang it! Bottomline, I finished that pot, got beautiful tallow the next day, and thankfully there was no effects on the house. When I rendered the rest of that 20 pounds, I used the turkey fryer outside! 

So then it took me another 3 months of procrastinating and research to get down to the nitty gritty of soap making. It can get off the hook crazy with colors, designs, smells, OMG! There is the lye, and weights, thermometers, it was just too much to absorb. So I decided to just find a simple recipe, try that a whole bunch, and if it all went bad then at least making candles was easy (melt tallow, add scent, pour into container with wick, done). Once I had all my ingredients and had done a few dry runs (like a surgeon preparing for an open heart procedure), I donned my evil scientist goggles and gloves and went at it. I really felt like Dr. Frankenstein pouring over my potions and the stove. But, my preparation paid off and I made a great batch of lavender soap! I followed that up with some color experiments (yellow and blue make green, not blue, duh) and some smell adventures (vanilla smells like play-doh, yuck!). But all in all, for me, this little adventure was a success and did not involve any emergency rooms, fire departments, or further damage to the house. It was so boring I almost didn't blog it for you all.

Fall house cleaning... pinworm edition

There are a lot of really great things that can occur when you go away for a military job. Often there's the satisfaction of doing a different job, there's a focus on the mission, and it doesn't matter whether it's a deployment or just a temporary duty, sometimes you're just in a really fun place.
For most people the best part of military duty away from home is returning to home. The loving family so glad to have their service member back...it's heartwarming (que the tear jerking YouTube virals). But that's not what happens at our house. If you have lovingly feral children like I do, homecoming is the least favorite part of any military duty away. And it's not merely because the house is usually a disaster or the kids may not have had a shower in a long time, it's simply because, like most feral creatures, my children had worms.
To make this homecoming even worse was that "Lonnie" (my beloved...but not after this) left for a last-minute deployment 2 days after I got home.
About a week after I had returned and "Lonnie" have left, I noticed one of our sons going to town in his pants. No, this is not an unusual experience. When you have sons, particularly autistic sons, everything down below the belt is super interesting all the time. However this particular incidence of butt picking was accompanied by screams of discomfort. I checked him out (I did pediatric nursing for years) nothing seemed wrong, we washed his hands and I sent him on his merry way. Two days later he wakes up in the middle of the night with the same issue. The next day he is at therapy and I get a similar report. At this point, my old pediatric nursing spidey sense tingles...it's probably pinworms. Thanks to the delightful Veterans Day holiday, I can't get in to see a provider. I also am not going to go an entire weekend with the possibility of pinworms in my house. I call the on-call nurse tell her I'm going to treat everybody and we leave it at that.
If you've never had the distinct pleasure of treating pinworms, get ready for the sterilization of every single thing that your disgusting child touches, breathes in or on, or essentially looks at. First, you have to take a dose of the over-the-counter medication, easily found at Walmart. This was not a problem with the exception of the fact that Orion (the infected) decided, while we are in the grocery line, to scream at the top of his lungs, "Mommy, is this the medicine that will kill the worms in my butt?" That was after we were walking through the store and he was yelling at the top of his lungs, because autistic children do not have a volume control, a cyclical hymn that he is infested with worms, worms are in his butt, and he is going to destroy all the worms in his butt. In addition to this Ode to Parasites, he asked me if I have worms, asked other people if they have worms, and then expanded the conversation to tapeworms because that seemed appropriate. If the video ends up on People of Walmart, please copy me on the link.
After you take your first dose of medication, know that in two weeks you have to take a second dose to kill anything that might have been missed. You also have to wash everything in your house that is made of material that your child might have touched with his or her bottom or his or her hands that inevitably would have touched his or her bottom. You also have to treat every single member of the house as if they also have pinworms.  That means all the bedding, all the pillows, all the blankets, any rug that's washable, and all the towels need to be laundered in scalding hot water.  Any toys that are stuffed most also be punished. After the 16th load of laundry, I just started putting things in large garbage bags, tied them up and stuck them in the cab of our pickup truck outside, not to be seen for another 3 weeks (time it takes pinworms to die without food). I'm sure my neighbors were wondering which person in the family I had murdered and chopped up in little pieces and put in the truck! 
Then after you have everything washed, you also have to Lysol all the floors, all the door knobs... anything your child might have touched, and did I mention that pinworm eggs can go Airborne? Meaning that you can inhale them and reinfect yourself. Which is why it's so important to clean all the floors and the doors and any surface your child might have come in contact with ... AKA anything in your house. The only consolation is that dogs do not get pinworms, so I didn't have to worry about the puppies getting sick. However, I did have to give them a bath because my son touches them with his disgusting germ hands. And this delightful routine of hot water washing of everything has to continue until AFTER the second dose of medication. Yes, you read that correctly. Two weeks of hot washing everything your feral child touches, everyday, for 2 weeks.  #whymommydrinks
You have to wash the clothes that they wore the day before or any towels they come in contact with in hot water every day to ensure that none of the eggs that might still be present will reinfect the child. And the most difficult thing is still keeping the damn boy's hands out of his butt even when the itching stops. Because again, for little boys, everything below that belt line is super GD gold-plated Wunderness.
My ingenious Mom hack was just rip their beds of everything except the mattress cover and they are all sleeping in sleeping bags. Sleeping bag is way easier to wash and deal with then an entire set of sheets every single day. Also we're no longer allowed to have baths because pinworms can spread in the bathwater. Who f'ing invented this horror?!?!
During one of our evening showers, my delightful little boy decided that he was going to yell at the top of his lungs, "I'm going to spread my butt cheeks and let the shower water burn the pinworms to death." Go ahead baby, that'll probably be one of the things that'll fix them.
We are now one week post apocalyptic pinworm cleaning frenzy, the bottom itching has ceased, the entire house is Lysol fresh, and we are still awaiting our next dose of medication.
Now the boys are fascinated about whether or not they will get a tapeworm and how long that tapeworm could be in their stomachs.  Heaven help us if they discover Guinea worms.

So if you have wine by the box, please send it to us because we can't leave the house until we are clear of infection and Thanksgiving is coming. I'm out of alcohol.

"A superior dog, one that had speed, scent and brains" - George Washington

It was nearly 17 years ago when I walked into my volunteer job with Mt. Vernon’s livestock program and fell in love. I fell in love with a black and brown ball of energy who had white socks on her paws. As of this moment, she and I have been partners longer then “Lonnie” and I have even known each other! Today, that little ball of beagle-Doberman (beagelman, deagle?) was released back to the stars.

Chewbacca Magilicuty McCarthy-Ihme, lovingly known as Chewy, The Chew, Chew-Monster (or “pain in the ass dog” depending on the day!), was a fixture in my life since her birth at George Washington’s estate almost 17 years ago. Her mother was Suzy, a work dog in the estate’s orchard, who despite the invisible fence, escaped and had an assumed night of ecstasy resulting in a litter of 7. Only 2 puppies were left that Saturday I came to volunteer and it was an easy choice between them. My puppy went home with me that day, curled up in my lap as I drove my MINI Cooper down GW Parkway, happy as could be with this adorable fur baby.         

Names for this hyper puppy ranged from Leia (but she didn’t really look like one), Carrot, Pumpkin, to No Don’t Pee There…Ugh. It was after she ground her teeth on multiple chairs that Chewy was her designator which fulfilled the need for a Star Wars name and also honored her personality. Everyone who met Chewy thought she was a pretty dog, but man was she hyper (perhaps a small reflection of her adoptive mother).  She loved trying to play with Sweet Pea, my friend Katie’s cat, and also loved eating her cat food and her poop. That was an interesting problem to solve, keeping Chewy out of the litter box while ensuring Sweet Pea could get into it! Luckily she didn’t continue to chew on the furniture, but she was a trained killer of stuffed animals, a champion food scrounger, chaser of squirrels, and remained a fan of  cat poop until her final days.

Chewy was also nearly impossible to house train. She was a quiet puppy and she would stand by the door and we would miss it, so accidents happened. I finally put a set of bells on the door, and voila, she rang the bell to go out!  She was a smart little thing, sometimes too smart!  Chewy was also an escape artist just like her mother. Fences, doors, gates…nothing could contain the Chew-monster. To this day, I am grateful that I had a microchip put in her when she was little, because that dog would dig her way out of any backyard, especially if she was not let inside in a timely fashion. There were at least 3 instances I can recall of Fairfax Country animal control calling me to tell me they had Chewy, when I didn’t even realize she had escaped!

Chewy would also escape when she was feeling put out. When I returned home after 5 months in Iraq, Chewy was apparently upset that I had been away for so long, leaving her in the company of “Lonnie” and Oliver (her step-brother dog). She escaped that afternoon and we were frantic. She gone overnight and we had printed “missing” posters. It was the next day when our neighbor, who owned a biker bar up the street, asked if she was our dog. Apparently, Chewy went to the local biker bar and spent the night there. Little shit!  And when we moved to Wichita, she escaped and wandered the neighborhood until she decided to cross 4 lanes of traffic and waltzed right through the doors of the nearby hospital emergency room! They sure got a kick out of that. We had collars made with her name and our phone number on it, and believe me we received a lot of calls. One great way to meet the neighbors.

      

My mom remembered the time when I was deployed to Germany, and she watched Chewy for 3 months. When she brought her home, her dog Penny hid behind the couch for 3 days! She kept running away from my parents house, and would sprint around the yard as fast as she could with my brother chasing her. When I returned months later to get Chewy, she jumped into my MINI and wouldn't get out at all! She missed me that much.  

Anyone who met Chewy, I believe, loved her. Even though she was a famous jumper and would occasionally whack people in the nether regions with her nose as a greeting (sorry Luke), she was extremely sweet. She loved having her butt scratched, ripping her toys apart, and using her super sniffer skills on our walks. You could tell Chew-monster was happy on a walk when her gait changed to an unusual side by side pattern. Her nose could find her anything, and even after her hearing failed, and her eyes started to fail, her nose never quit.  Heck, she didn’t even starting calming down until she was 10 years old!  As she aged, her greetings were less exuberant, she would wag her tail, sniff you, then promptly turn tail and walk away so as to properly ignore you.

I was one of those parents who made her pet wear sweaters and Halloween costumes. Chewy suffered through Santa hats and bunny ears, but she did love walking around Old Town Alexandria in her monster costume and getting treats! Once the kids came around, she put up with aggressive loving from them. She and Oliver got along eventually, even though during their very first meeting he took a chomp out of her, resulting in a vet visit and some stitches but they became squirrel hunting buddies. They were both present at our wedding, where Oliver managed to cut his paw!

She loved hiking the Appalachian Trail (OMG ticks!!) or camping in Colorado. She enjoyed going to Mt. Vernon with me to play with her dog-mom and harass the horses.  Chewy was even our mascot at field training in Maryland when I was cadre. She slept in the camp with us and rode around in the Humvee. At the end of the month-long exercise, we were discharging all the unexploded dummy bombs, and someone threw one and Chewy decided, after all that time, to play fetch. About 20 people screamed at once “CHEWY NO!!” and she stopped just in time as the bomb exploded about 10 feet from her. She jumped about 3 feet and ran so fast back into the Humvee and wouldn’t come out until we were done!  We also knew she would never be a hunting dog after our first dove hunting foray saw her quivering under the back seat of the car at the first shotgun   blast.

Chewy was my friend, my confidant, and my reason for living during some of the toughest years of my life. She shed all the time and was a huge pain, she would only poop on the carpet instead of the tile floor, she would eat the most disgusting things and vomit them up in the middle of the night, but when she would give kisses or curl up next to me at night, all that went away. I have been a very lucky person to have had the companionship of this wonderful dog for a large part of my adult life, and the void left by her passing will not be soon filled. I miss her greatly.

An Unexpected Journey--A Non-Hobbit's Tale

As most of you know, it seems that I cannot really do anything in a normal way. This is through no fault of my own. I really do set out to do things normally. I do. I try. But the Universe usually has other ideas for me.

I am in Colorado for a month doing work for Space Command. When we lived here, we never hiked the Manitou Incline, a notorious trail with an average grade of 45% and as steep as 68% in places. The Incline gains over 2,000 feet of elevation in less than one mile. Not sure why, we just never got around to it. So when I found out about my extended visit to the Colorado, I made the Incline a scheduled event. When I arrived, though, I found out the Incline was going to close for several months, which required me to attempt the hike a week earlier than I wanted to (I wanted to adjust to the altitude). But that’s fine, I can handle a little less oxygen in my brain. No worries!

So at the end of the work day last Friday, I was chomping at the bit to get out of the office and get hiking. I did not want to try and fight a weekend crowd and I wanted to get up-and down-before dark. Despite some issues finding a roadside parking spot for the gigantic truck, I made it to the base of the Incline around 6pm. As I stood there, taking stock of myself (camelback-check, good shoes-check, water-check, flashlight-check, jacket-check), the Emergency Alert system rang on my phone (and the phone of several others in the area) to issue a flash flood warning. Well, I wasn’t near a river and there were no clouds, so I ignored the warning and started up the Incline (I know, “Lonnie” already gave me the lecture, so you can all save it).

The first part was the hardest on my lungs, but I kept going. About halfway up, it started drizzling and I just mentally prepared myself that I was going to get wet on this ride. What’s a difficult, straight-up-in-the-air-hike without rain? A few minutes later, the lightning and thunder started, and the Heavens opened up! Yup, I got wet. Seriously Universe?! I can't have just ONE normal experience?! Knowing that many people die of lightning strikes every year in Colorado, I was counting the flashes for distance to determine whether a continued ascent was wise. I stopped in a little cut out for a few minutes, taking stock, and trying to keep my phone dry. A girl and her mom were also waiting and said they checked the weather and expected the storm to blow over.

I weighed my options:
1. Keep going, risk getting struck by lightning and earning a Darwin Award
2. Keep going, hope the storm subsides, succeed in mission, have awesome story
3. Turn tail and go back to car, hate self for failing, especially if rain stops
4. Panic and try to fly

I went for option 2. I continued going and the lightning moved away. People on the descent would say it was bad at the top and one guy actually stopped me and said, “Are you going to the top?” (No moron, I’m going to stay here), and I reply, “Yes”. He said, “What’s your name?”, “Kelly”, he says, “OK, Kelly, I’m Jason, I will remember you.” And he leaves. I stand there a minute thinking it’s good someone knows my name and at the same time I was like—does he expect to see my dead body on the news in the morning, WTF?! So I keep going. The storm intensifies again and I get off the Incline and stoop under a boulder for a while as the lightning passes close by. Again, I take stock of my sanity—yup, it’s gone. The lightning has moved away, might as well push on.

I am wet, I am muddy, but I’m warm and feeling good as I continue to hike/Spiderman climb up the stairs. As I get to the last bug-out trail before the top (about ¾ up), I see a shirtless man and a young kid approach the stairs. They ask if I have seen a man and girl and give me a description. I reply that I haven’t, but that I’m headed to the top and will deliver a message if I see them. The message, “your son Nick is lost and looking for you.” Well, I continue up, and the kid (Nick) starts to follow me. Shirtless guy (Andrew) yells up to the kid “Hey, what are you doing, you’re gonna wear yourself out”. The kid ignores him and catches up with me. Andrew shrugs his hands and follows us. I start talking with the kid and find out he got separated from his family (we still don’t know how), who are here on vacation from Minnesota. I also learn he has hiked the Incline before, is 13 years old, and loves to write graphic novels. Andrew (shirtless guy) found Nick on the trail and was trying to help him. We are now the Fellowship of the Kid.

We get to the top, and I war-whoop my success. Mordor has nothing on the Incline!! The rain has stopped, but the top is covered in a surreal layer of cloud and mist. I take a deep breath and revel in the moment and the calm. Andrew starts doing jumping jacks to keep warm. You cannot see the Incline going down. It is 7pm. My revelry is jarred abruptly to a halt by Nick, the kid, who is sitting down on a rock. His family is not at the top. Nick looks at us (shirtless Andrew and me with no backpack) and says, “I’m really cold. Do one of you have an extra jacket? Can they send a helicopter to come get us, I don’t think I can make it down.” It is getting chilly and we are all wet, Nick has on shorts and thin button-down shirt that is see-through and soaked.

At this point, Andrew and I look at each other and know trouble might come. Andrew says, “I’ll go down whichever path you don’t and see if I see the family. Which way were you going to go?” I had been considering going right back down the Incline because it was getting dark and it was the quickest way. But I knew the kid was not going to make it down that way and he seemed on the edge of going into shock, both from cold and panic. I gave him my dry bandanna for his head and gave him some water. I told Andrew, “I’m a nurse, so I’ll take Nick down the trail, you take the Incline and hopefully see his family.” OK, we have a plan. Break. Did I mention the trail down was 4 miles of switchbacks?

 Nick and I start down the trail and meet up with another hiker, Hatheed. I was determined to stay with him just in case Nick decided to lose it on the trail. Which he did about 3 times! The first was a freak out because he was tired (and wet, and cold), the second time he stopped dead in his tracks, had a million-mile stare and said “I don’t think I’m going to make it.” My ass you’re not going to make it!!! I gave him water and did a quick assessment-not dizzy, not blue or green, no bleeding. All major systems check, so he’s just panicking. I encourage him on and slow down a bit. Hatheed stays with us and we all chat and try to keep the kid’s spirits up.

About ¾ of the way down the trail, we break through the cloud barrier and can see the lights of Manitou Springs. This helps Nick, and he starts keeping a quicker pace, because darkness is going to fall before we get to the bottom. The last freak out from Nick came close to the bottom, when he yelled out, “I can’t feel my fingers!” Thankfully, Hatheed offered calmly, “I can’t either, we are all cold, just keep moving them” and I said, “It’s not cold enough to get frostbit, so we’re OK, just wave your arms like a bird.” Nick flaps away. What I did not tell him was that he was most likely hypothermic, and getting him off the mountain was urgent. What I was also thinking was that we were NOT going to spend the night on that mountain either, because I did not want to have to choose which warm body to spoon with (teenager or strange man, hard choice!)

Darkness falls, and Hatheed shines his light for Nick to see. I am leading and can see fine, and give out obstacle warnings as we descend. We finally get to the parking lot, and Hatheed offers to drive us to the restaurant near the Cog Railroad, where other parking is. I gratefully accept for both of us, and we get in the car to warm up. As we get ready to leave, a jeep pulls up with Andrew inside who says, “I found his family!” Hooray!!! We drive down to the restaurant, and I support Nick, who is pretty shaky at this point, into the lobby. His sister and father are there. She grabs him in her arms and Nick just bursts into tears. Then she hugs me and thanks me, the father shakes my hand and thanks me. We get Nick in front of a heater that the restaurant staff already had out for the sister. Apparently she and the dad had a rough time as well getting off the mountain. We get Nick out of his wet shirt, and wrap him up. Dad goes to get hot chocolate. Andrew comes in, shirt on now, and another round of handshakes and “thank you” happens. I tell Nick good-bye and that I hope to see our adventure in one of his graphic novels someday. He smiles, a kid reunited and with a good story to share at school.

Andrew and I decide we need to “unpack” this event, and share our separate stories over dinner and Irish coffee. Driving with my freezing fingers was an adventure in and of itself. I found out that Andrew, newly arrived in Colorado and stationed at Schriever AFB, had finished the Incline and was taking the trail down, when he heard a scream. He didn’t know what/who screamed, but said, “All I thought was that whatever was wrong, it was going to get ‘Real’, real quick.” He found the kid, just out on the trail looking terrified. He said that he suggested they hike toward the Incline to see if his family was there, and that was when they saw me coming up. Andrew said, “I was actually shocked to see you, because I didn’t think anyone would be left on the mountain!” Well, that’s me…Miss Unexpected. He also said that after we separated and started down, he passed people still coming up the Incline. We both paused and thought about those people, now in the dark, maybe still out there. I relayed our experience on the trail down and how I’m just really glad that we all were able to get back safely. After dinner, I drove my exhausted body back to the hotel and got in the burning hot shower with all my clothes and shoes on. The Fellowship of the Kid disbanded, all safely back to The Shire. To sleep, perchance to dream.

Treaty of Versailles (aka, our offensive has failed)

About a month ago I was going to do a post called “Stripping for the Neighbors”, however absolutely nothing insane happened while I was doing this activity outside, in the driveway.  Either I’ve lost my girlish touch or people are just not interested in watching two grown women strip four layers of lead paint off drawers and molding from the bathroom.  No limbs were lost, no children eating paint chips, basically nothing remotely typical of my life occurred.  Needless to say, no post.

Today, of course, is a different story.  You see, I’ve come to realize that there comes a point when living in an old house where you and the house must call a truce.  At some point, the amount of rooms you have torn apart and dismantled will overwhelm you and the house, in the meantime annoyed to be so violated, keeps throwing little hiccups your way that prevent you from actually fixing the destruction you’ve wreaked.  For example, we have open plaster on all of the upstairs bedrooms that need to be finished and a gaping hole to a parallel universe where our main floor bath used to be.  The house has decided that our basement toilet should start leaking (and it’s out of commission waiting for parts), the hot water heater is leaking (still working though), and tonight we found an active leak (running water and mold) in the ceiling of the keg closet next to the dining room (don’t ask how this amazing space came to be).  The keg leak has necessitated “Lonnie” cut a hole in our ceiling to find the leak source, only to discover that it is from the master bathroom toilet (now out of commission awaiting parts). The truce is called to prevent anyone from getting hurt—“Lonnie’s” injuries stemming from some random construction accident and the house’s injuries from me slamming sledge hammers into it in abject despair.  Did I mention that the neighborhood historical society decided to have our block on the garden tour this year?  Of all the fricken years, you pick the year we move in and are up to our ears in projects?  Three weekends wasted getting landscaping done.

New awesome moldy hole in ceiling

Gaping Hole to Parallel Universe





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So the white flag is up (actually it’s a set of dirty tighty whiteys we use as rags) and we will have a meeting of diplomats to establish a peace treaty.  The refugees are down to one bathroom!  The keg is in the formal dining (horror!), there is a new hole in the ceiling (and the accompanying dust that followed which I'm not even bothering to clean), the main floor hole to a parallel universe that hasn’t been touched in weeks (and I’m antsy to finish it), and I need to defrost the 1950s freezer AGAIN.  We’re not ready to surrender, but boy oh boy this truce is needed.  And I can’t figure out how to get the smell of dog pee out of the carpet!  Peroxide is not working and I’m taking suggestions because scissors is my next level of attack and I guarantee there will be casualties.

Now, I don’t want to scare anyone away from getting an old house.  They are lovely and have tons of character and fun things to discover.  But when invading a foreign country (i.e. old house), do not plan to completely establish your own government right away (i.e. fix broke shit)…work with the locals and go slowly to avoid an insurgency of busy work (i.e. everything else breaking) that prevents effective leadership.  See that, see what I did?!  I merged concepts from ACSC into a post about home remodeling.  Woo Hoo, the lead paint is starting to work its magic on my synapses.  I’d go take a nice bath to relax…if I had one.  Instead, I shall endeavor to save the beer that’s left in the keg from spoiling.  It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make in these uncertain times.

We've Discovered a Wormhole!

As many of you know, we bought a house that was built around 1924.  It was famous back then for having a curved green shingle roof and was the subject of many newspaper articles in the past.  The house still has the curved shingle roof, although the last owners didn't make it green (we will fix that!).  Many other parts of the house are original as well, including all the bathrooms.  We know this because spearmint green tile is ugly, and the stamp on the bottom of the bathtub says 1928 (it was in the added bathroom).

In an effort to modernize the house a little, like adding wiring that won't burn the house down, we are tackling projects one room at a time.  The focus of our zeal is currently aimed at the main floor bathroom.  This bath sits in the back of the house and was part of a late-1920s addition on the house.  The floor sags just a bit here and so removing the bathroom is part of a effort to lift and support this section of the house.  The foundation is solid all around, but the bathroom was completely lined with 3" of solid concrete, then tiled over, then a 500lb tub was added.  In total, over 3000lbs.  I'm not sure WHY the floor would sag???!!  So, we needed to remove the entire bathroom to support the floor joyces (sp?) underneath and create an oasis of calm in our new main floor bath.

Our friends, Deana and Homer, came over to help with demo which pretty much involved grabbing anything metal and heavy and slamming it into the walls and floor.  Talk therapy has nothing on renovation demo!  We were able to save some of the green tiles to add to the new bath, for sentimental purposes, and the old cast iron bathtub (which is worth about $900! Can you believe that!?) is currently for sale on craigslist.

Homer smashing tiles

The toilet and vanity were pretty easy to get out, but the tiles were directly attached to the concrete beneath it, which was attached to a thick metal mesh, which was nailed into the struts, which were lined with 2x6 wood sheets, which I think was put together with some sort of ancient mystical force field to prevent anyone from ever removing the ugly green tile.

We were hoping to find gold ring or some massive wads of cash in the walls, but we only found some vintage linoleum pieces, 2 adult diapers (unused thank Gods!), and bricks.  Seriously, who hides bricks in the walls.  Did one of carpenters think, "well, I've got these extra bricks and I have nowhere to store them, I think I'll just encase them in the wall".  Who does that?


Taking out concrete floor

Once we had everything out, even the ceiling, we could see into the center of the universe.  Or the basement crawl space, at this point it is all about equally mysterious.  After the men got creative with the saws, hacking off any pipes they found offensive, they started jacking up the floor.  It was pretty incredible to actually watch the doors we couldn't close actually move and close!  It's amazing what true perpendicular lines can create.

Of course, in the process of all this incredible workmanship and demolition, Lonnie forgot to put a cover over the hole that goes into the office.  This means our demo managed to put a huge layer of concrete and plaster dust all over my computer, school work, and pretty much everything else in the office.  Does anyone remember our last little adventure with a "fine layer of concrete dust?"  Yeah, my reaction this time was similar, hide in the corner and suck my thumb because the dust makes me crazy and I don't want to clean it again!

The beauty of this newly opened space, besides watching Lonnie clean up all his dust mess, is that we will have a level floor with heated tiles and a premier access to a wormhole that goes to Andromeda.  Can't you see it?  It's on the lower left hand side of the picture...our excavation to China can continue unnoticed.  All I need it a Tardis shower surround and all will be right with the world.

And at some point I should probably figure out the design of this bathroom, now that the dust has settled.
 

Welcome to the Neighborhood

So about 3 years ago, when we moved to the house now referred to as "the pot house", I was 6 months pregnant with twins and it was -7 degrees out.  I vowed I would never again move in the month of January.  The Universe said "hahahahahahahha, whatever Be-atch" and here were are again...moving in January. 

"Lonnie" found our beautiful 1924 home when he first arrived in Wichita and spent 3 months without me and the kids.  I'm sure there are tons of fun things he did he won't discuss, but walking the neighborhoods was definitely one he will.  Within a week of our arrival, he walked us by this house.  It was cool, but from the outside appeared to need a lot of work.  When we came to a dead end of looking at places, we discovered our realtor's husband had actually grown up in the house.  We took one look and were hooked.  That was in October.  When it was warm.  And I wasn't up to my ears in a broken workplace and a PhD program.

It is now January (technically February).  They are calling for 8" of snow tonight (note: we got it!).  To make matters worse, we decided that there were some big projects in the house that we wanted to get done before our move.  The timeline always makes more sense when you just talk about it.  One project was to remove all the wallpaper.  You all know how that went!!!  I managed to get most of the second floor done.  Another big job was to refinish the floors on the second story.  Since the house was empty, this project made sense.  That was until the floor guys couldn't start until the week we moved, meaning we would need an alternative sleeping arrangement until the floors were finished.  We debated doing the floors over the summer, but the thought of having to move everything to the upstairs then out of the upstairs and back again just made me want to hurt something...mostly "Lonnie" because it was his idea.  We choose to press with floors now and sleep in the camper for a week.  Totally not a problem.  We lived in the camper for a year.  No big deal.

Living Room, isn't it gorgeous!?

It never gets below 30 degrees in Montgomery, Alabama.  If it did, I was sleeping through it.  However, it is really cold in January in Wichita, and since there is no water hooked up to the camper, we were still planning to use the bathrooms in the house, and just sleep in the camper.  No one gets up at night to pee!  No one!  (flashbacks of Iraq living, getting fully dressed and armed to pee, not cool). 

This would all be fine, except that about 2 weeks before we moved in, the main floor bathroom was discovered to have a major leak making it unusable.  Additionally, the plumber was unable to fix it because there was no access to the pipes via the basement without the crawlspace having 2 feet times 209 feet of dirt removed (hooray for unexpected major projects!!!).  Sooooo, we had to find someone willing to dig out the crawlspace so we could access the pipes to fix the plumbing to be able to use the main floor bathroom.  She swallowed the spider to catch the fly....and it couldn't be started until, wait for it...the week we moved in.

All our usable bathrooms are on now located on the second floor.  We can't access the second floor because of the floor refinishing.  The camper is not hooked up to water and sewer.  Dare I say that we should have our own reality show?!  (note: we actually discovered a working toilet in the basement when we moved in, no really, we didn't know it was there.  It's in a room that looks like a closet near the stairs, Harry Potter style. Problem of potty kinda solved, kids haven't had a bath since Sat because we haven't figured that out yet).

Home Sweet Trailer...Again

So our big, and extremely dirty, camper is parked in front of our new house, in this older posh neighborhood, and we swear our neighbors must truly think the Clampett's have moved in!  This was all just funny speculation until the cops showed up at our door yesterday morning.

Apparently, some (or one with OCD) of our neighbors have called to complain that someone is living in a trailer in the neighborhood.  Gee...who could that be?  So the cops came to inquire about the complaints, which I might add have never been addressed to anyone in this family.  Nor, might I add, have any of the neighbors knocked on our door in welcome, disgust, or just plain curiosity.  As a matter of fact, you can't really see or hear anyone in the neighborhood at all most of the time and the loudest sound I ever hear is me yelling for Chewy the Deaf Dog to come inside.  When the situation was explained to the cops they just shook their heads like "really, we are here for this?"  First world problems, sigh.  No one arrested, no one pregnant, no pot...first 6 months here and we're doing good!

So here's the real problem.  I'm torn between TP'ing all the neighbors' homes in spite or just letting it all go.  Because the tattler is probably just the mean old lady that "Lonnie" met a few days ago who just scowls at our trailer everyday she walks by with her evil little dog who tried to attack "Lonnie".  I would actually wish her ill except that the Universe would bring it back on me in some terrible way, like forcing me to a week of unusable bathrooms in a new house in single digit weather (oh, wait...).  So instead, I hope that in her next life she lives in a trailer park.  In North Dakota.

Editors note: I wrote this last night, and today we learned the plumber is able to come by tomorrow because they can access the pipes. Soon we will have a shower and main floor potty.  Also, today we had a snow day (even the base was closed) and we did meet the neighbors across the street.  They totally understood our trailer issue and had done something similar when they were restoring their home (which you can see behind the trailer in the picture). They have 3 girls and definitely will not get their house TPed by me.