1. Before you start caulking, make sure you take a shower, you never know how long your simple project is going to take. Plus, you can only asked to use your friend's shower so many times before you feel like a loser and asking the new neighbors is just awkward.
2. Make sure, especially if you decide to caulk on a whim because you find it under your sink, that the caulk is pliable.
3. Invest in a couple of things: caulk remover, your favorite alcohol, and the books Caulking for Dummies, How I Caulked and Lived to Talk About It, and When Caulk Goes Bad: How to Heal when Silicone Hurts.
4. Be aware that when you go to the hardware store, you will feel like a complete idiot. Thankfully you can make yourself feel better by buying ice cream and sunglasses.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Paranoid Daydreams
I have been going to a different church for the last few months. It has been an adjustment since I struggle to concentrate before I started attending the two hour services. Yesterday, in one of my moments of drifting off, I noticed a reddish blemish on my arm. I started inspecting it and couldn't figure it out.
I had never noticed it before, and since I had totally fried my body in the sun the day before, I started to wonder if it could be cancer. My next thoughts were naturally wondering about if I should go to the doctor. But I don't have a doctor, and realistically, my insurance is crap. I mean it basically just is catastrophe insurance, which cancer would be, but was the blemish really cancerous? While all of this was flying at a high pace and bouncing off the walls of my head, I realized that now on top of being cancerous, the blemish itched. The itch became unbearable, I really had no idea what was going on in the sermon. I just needed to scratch it, so I could contemplate having a horrible itchy cancer another day. Having scratched it, I began to refocus on the sermon, but then I looked back to my arm - the cancer was growing. I then realized that instead of having cancer, I was just a paranoid, unfocused person with one of the first signs of summer: a mosquito bite.
I had never noticed it before, and since I had totally fried my body in the sun the day before, I started to wonder if it could be cancer. My next thoughts were naturally wondering about if I should go to the doctor. But I don't have a doctor, and realistically, my insurance is crap. I mean it basically just is catastrophe insurance, which cancer would be, but was the blemish really cancerous? While all of this was flying at a high pace and bouncing off the walls of my head, I realized that now on top of being cancerous, the blemish itched. The itch became unbearable, I really had no idea what was going on in the sermon. I just needed to scratch it, so I could contemplate having a horrible itchy cancer another day. Having scratched it, I began to refocus on the sermon, but then I looked back to my arm - the cancer was growing. I then realized that instead of having cancer, I was just a paranoid, unfocused person with one of the first signs of summer: a mosquito bite.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
This Weekend
First of all I was incredibly daring - I went swimming outside on June 7th in Wisconsin. Along with being really cold, I managed to get a vibrant new red hue also. I guess it might have been a good thing that we have had non-stop rain since so I am not tempted to be outside.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Mother/daughter bonding
The countdown to my sister and nephew coming is in neon lights at my parents' house. Preparations are well under way. It is a good thing royalty will never come to our house, I can't imagine how we all could be on higher alert.
Since I had a gap between subbing and my other job, I went to my parents' house to say hi. My mom told me she would be right down, but I figured it would be a good daughterly/sisterly move to go upstairs and help. I found my mother among wood, screws, casters and tons of instructions. Super Alli to the rescue.
I have a little known fetish - I love putting things together. I remember my sister and I putting her whole library together - all 9 book shelves. Last fall I had the joy of creating a dresser for my spare room from a bunch of pieces of wood and a sheet of instructions. Maybe this love goes back to the first day I stepped in IKEA and saw that the world was filled with possibilities if you are only willing to read instructions and invest in a screwdriver.
Less than an hour later my mom and I were done with the assembly. All that needs to be done is to put the sheets on and Derek has his very own Wisconsin crib. My next baby related tasks are to clean my car enough so that Derek won't be exposed to every known germ in the tri-state area and install the car seat (my sister even got a black-and-white cow cover in honor of all our neighbors).
Since I had a gap between subbing and my other job, I went to my parents' house to say hi. My mom told me she would be right down, but I figured it would be a good daughterly/sisterly move to go upstairs and help. I found my mother among wood, screws, casters and tons of instructions. Super Alli to the rescue.
I have a little known fetish - I love putting things together. I remember my sister and I putting her whole library together - all 9 book shelves. Last fall I had the joy of creating a dresser for my spare room from a bunch of pieces of wood and a sheet of instructions. Maybe this love goes back to the first day I stepped in IKEA and saw that the world was filled with possibilities if you are only willing to read instructions and invest in a screwdriver.
Less than an hour later my mom and I were done with the assembly. All that needs to be done is to put the sheets on and Derek has his very own Wisconsin crib. My next baby related tasks are to clean my car enough so that Derek won't be exposed to every known germ in the tri-state area and install the car seat (my sister even got a black-and-white cow cover in honor of all our neighbors).
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Chicken Pot, Chicken Pot, Chicken Pot Pie
My sister called me today and told me that we hadn't talked in so long. She said it probably was because even though we talked a week ago, I haven't been posting anything recently. So here I go.
Last night about 6:30 I decided that I really wanted chicken pot pie. I don't know why I love it so much, but for me it is a total comfort food. It is just so yummy, and realistically it is the only time I eat carrots, peas or green beans with any sort of relish. I am laughing right now at how ambiguous that last sentence was . . . you know because relish is a food product, but I didn't mean it that way. I know you are laughing to, just probably at how dumb I am. It also reminds me of college and Lynn and I saying, "Chicken pot, chicken pot, chicken pot pie," because it was used on one of the shows we watched.
So, at 6:32 I realize that all but two of the ingredients that I need for the chicken pot pie are in the freezer, which is good since I want to clean out the freezer, but bad because it means they are frozen. What a weird connection things in the freezer being frozen. Mind boggling.
Now comes one of my pet peeves in making food: I hate defrosting meat in the microwave. It just bothers me that it doesn't equally defrost and then some of the chicken starts to cook even though parts are still frozen; it just majorly weirds me out.
I turn on the oven and place the pie crust and the cream cheese on the stove top to defrost (my back burner is the vent for the oven or something, so it gets warm, so I figured that would be good for the cream cheese, while the stove top gets warm whenever I use a burner which would hopefully work for the pie crust).
I trek downstairs. Let me explain, well over a year ago I decided to remove my microwave from my kitchen for four reasons: I love my toaster oven, making things in the microwave isn't the best nutritionally, I rarely used the microwave, and the microwave took up a whole counter! I make the basement journey probably once a week, so it really doesn't bother me, and whenever I have a twinge of thinking I am crazy, I just think about the extra exercise I am getting due to my idiosyncrasies and all the extra counter space I have. I plug in the micro (do you know how much extra electricity is used by appliances that are just plugged in?), and start to defrost the chicken.
To avoid the play by play of the next 30 minutes, I'll just tell you that I was enjoying my chicken pot pie at 8:00. Is it bad that since 8 o'clock last night I have eaten half of a 9 inch pie? I mean having chicken pot pie for breakfast is atypical, but it's so yummy. And realistically it is better than my usual breakfast of chocolate.
Last night about 6:30 I decided that I really wanted chicken pot pie. I don't know why I love it so much, but for me it is a total comfort food. It is just so yummy, and realistically it is the only time I eat carrots, peas or green beans with any sort of relish. I am laughing right now at how ambiguous that last sentence was . . . you know because relish is a food product, but I didn't mean it that way. I know you are laughing to, just probably at how dumb I am. It also reminds me of college and Lynn and I saying, "Chicken pot, chicken pot, chicken pot pie," because it was used on one of the shows we watched.
So, at 6:32 I realize that all but two of the ingredients that I need for the chicken pot pie are in the freezer, which is good since I want to clean out the freezer, but bad because it means they are frozen. What a weird connection things in the freezer being frozen. Mind boggling.
Now comes one of my pet peeves in making food: I hate defrosting meat in the microwave. It just bothers me that it doesn't equally defrost and then some of the chicken starts to cook even though parts are still frozen; it just majorly weirds me out.
I turn on the oven and place the pie crust and the cream cheese on the stove top to defrost (my back burner is the vent for the oven or something, so it gets warm, so I figured that would be good for the cream cheese, while the stove top gets warm whenever I use a burner which would hopefully work for the pie crust).
I trek downstairs. Let me explain, well over a year ago I decided to remove my microwave from my kitchen for four reasons: I love my toaster oven, making things in the microwave isn't the best nutritionally, I rarely used the microwave, and the microwave took up a whole counter! I make the basement journey probably once a week, so it really doesn't bother me, and whenever I have a twinge of thinking I am crazy, I just think about the extra exercise I am getting due to my idiosyncrasies and all the extra counter space I have. I plug in the micro (do you know how much extra electricity is used by appliances that are just plugged in?), and start to defrost the chicken.
To avoid the play by play of the next 30 minutes, I'll just tell you that I was enjoying my chicken pot pie at 8:00. Is it bad that since 8 o'clock last night I have eaten half of a 9 inch pie? I mean having chicken pot pie for breakfast is atypical, but it's so yummy. And realistically it is better than my usual breakfast of chocolate.
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