Accomplishments

Well, we did finally get the bench be-hooked - hopefully we'll be trying that out this week. 

In addition, we bought some supplies for a wooden pony, because I've wanted one of those for like, oh, six years or something now. I found these delightful metal brackets for making easy sawhorses at Home Depot (how much do I love that store? A lot.) a while ago, and picked them up as I thought they'd make a good basis for a pony. We finally went tonight and got wood for the legs, sandpaper, varnish, etc., to finish the rest of it. For the top I got a piece of really nice "premium" pine that already has a rounded edge. It's just a matter of sanding it a bit more, putting the varnish on, and then putting it together. We'll probably have to make some height adjustments too, but that's what power tools are for.  That should hopefully be done this week as well.

Also acquired is a Twitter account for me. Apparently all the cool kids are doing it? Either way, you can find me here, or, you know, that button-thingy on the side there.  Sometimes I have things to say, but not what I think is a whole blog entry, so I'm hoping to post on a regular basis there, even if I don't post long things here so much.

Project plans

One of the biggest selling points of our current house was that there are enough rooms that both Jay and I can have our own, separate offices, and we can also have a guest room.  Jay and I are both the type of people who need space of our own, to do our own crap in, etc. and so on.

Better yet, my office is up on the third floor, which means there's a whole floor between it and the downstairs neighbors.  Meaning I can be up there with the stereo blasting, working on whatever I like, and they don't hear me.

And perhaps best of all, I can paint my office.

The office is currently getting painted a lovely deep dark blue called "Nocturnal Sea".  Eventually a painted, glow-in-the-dark moon and stars will go up there as well, and I've already bought a room-sized rug for it.

Once it's done, I will have a nice little office.  And Jay and I will have a nice little playroom, with a conveniently-located attic in which to store some of the larger pieces we're thinking about building, such as a wooden pony, and a spanking bench, and a bondage frame.

Sure, we could buy them, but where's the fun in that?  I <3 power tools.

We'll also have a nice bureau in which to store some of our toys, like the honkin' huge (seriously, it is titanically huge) dildo I just bought!  Apparently right now I am very interested in insertions, specifically, large ones.  Good times!

There will also be hooks for canes and crops and paddles and such, and nice thick curtains so no one can see in.  And air-conditioning, because fuck this summer heat and humidity, seriously.

The second coat of paint goes on this weekend, and then the stars, and then the rug and OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY.

My house looks like a tornado hit it

Best part? I haven't even been here for the past two weeks. And I didn't even host any parties! It's all leftovers from frenzied baking, present-wrapping, packing for trips, etc. and so on.

Pretty much the entirety of the past two months has gone by in a blur. From painting Elizabeth's house in early November, to Thanksgiving with Jay's family (oh god, why was that a good idea) to Christmas with mine and New Year's out of state and this and that and that other thing and HOLY CHRIST I have no idea where I just spent two months and sixteen hojillion dollars. Can't tell you.

I am not ready for it to be 2008. I am not ready to go back to work (which is why I didn't today). I am not ready to tackle the unpacking, the laundry, the cleaning (jesus christ, there's a spiderweb between my couch and my bookshelf), the restocking of food and coming up with healthy things to eat and the getting back on track with being healthy and just EVERYTHING. I am not currently prepared to cope with life as usual.

So I am going to put up my feet. I am going to do up my new calandar (that cost me twenty freaking bucks! What the fuck!) because that will make me feel more organized. I may or may not sign in to my work email. I am going to get myself a glass of wine, of which I bought a ridiculous amount this past weekend. I am going to throw my ski clothes in the wash, and then I am going to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special because I STILL haven't goddamned managed to do that!

I hope you all had wonderful holidays, whatever or however you celebrate, and wish you all the best in 2008 (jesus, it's 2008, that's horrifying).

Talk about anti-climactic

Well, the good news is that I do not have a kidney infection, nor do I have any of the other potential things that quite honestly, were a bit scary. I did have an ovarian cyst that burst, apparently, which is kind of sucky, but in terms of things I would rather have it be, there's not really that many.

Better news, there weren't any more abnormal cysts on the CT scan, and now that I'm not completely losing my shit, I should really start feeling better. Which, I do. At the very least, I'm much more calm, and that really does help a lot. Things are not perfect, but at the very least I have a diagnosis, and I have a timeline besides "we don't know".

Work... kinda still sucks, but now that I have one less thing to worry about, it's a little easier to take.

Mostly what I've been up to, I guess you could call nesting. I cleaned the blankets for my bed, and I made a wreath for my front door, and I'm cooking and baking again. I'm also starting a container garden on my back porch, which so far includes garlic. Yup, pretty awesome. I'm going to put some tulips in later this week. One of my garlic cloves is already sprouting (which I am told they tend to do and is totally okay), so that is exciting, because my green thumb, not usually so green.

Other than that, I am waiting on ski season. Oh, and feeling obligated (by no one but myself) to spend Thanksgiving with Jay's family. This puts a slight kink in my plans to go skiing on Thanksgiving again. Skiing just might win out, familial relations be damned.

Give me fucking steam, already

Now, I like to consider myself an intelligent person, but there are certain things I don't like (like fire), and certain things that are categorized under "I push the button and it works". My heat is under the latter, and the boiler that powers it is under the former.

My expectation, then, of the fucking heat, is that when I push the little switch on the thermostat to "heat", and program the temperatures on the thermostat to "not freezing", the heat will automagically kick in and make my house comfortable.

In large part, this is exactly how it works. My house is very comfortable. Except for my bedroom, which is fucking arctic.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people that likes their house to be eighty in the winter and still wears a sweater and wool socks. 70 is the highest my thermostat is ever set, and that's in the am so that we have extra hot water. That's really all I ask.

I investigated, because leaving my door open all the time to benefit from the heat in the rest of the house is clearly not an option. I put my hand on my radiator, and was thankful that it wasn't quite cold enough that my hand would stick. I put my hand on the other radiators, and quickly jerked it back because they were very hot. Not cute.

I go online and start trying to educate myself about steam heat and radiators (since that's apparently what I have, who knew) and am confronted with a miserable morass of obscure terms and incomprehensible troubleshooting instructions. I can't very well do anything if I don't even know what you're referring to, now can I. There was much waving of hands and whining and frustration and girliness.

The one thing - the one thing - I manage to figure out is that my radiator needs to be tilted towards the pipe going into the floor, so that water can run down it. Okay, that I can handle. I dig around and come up with a piece of cardboard, which I fold in half and attempt to place under the far end of the radiator. Mind you, I wasn't even aware of the fact that the radiators were not actually secured to the floor. (I told this to Jay. His response? "Well where the fuck are they going? Nowhere, that's where.")

I manage to heft up the end of the much-heavier-than-it-looks radiator and shove the cardboard under, all by my lonesome, and I realize that the cardboard will compress and thus be useless. I find a useless trade magazine and shove it under there too.

I am soon rewarded with mild warmness in perhaps 10% of the radiator. This is better than before, so I am gratified. The rest of the radiators in the house were cool, so I wasn't expecting lots of heat at that time. I slept with my door half open, to again benefit from the heat in the rest of the house and also freak my shit out, and went to work today.

I came home to discover the house toasty-warm, and my room, not so much. Once again, I had a cold radiator and no one else did. God fucking dammit. Okay. The knob is open, the system is on, I almost burned my thigh in the bathroom again (the radiator is RIGHT. NEXT. to the toilet. Seriously). What the hell else could it be?

Okay, maybe it's the air vent. I don't feel comfortable with actually taking it off, so instead I get the brilliant idea that maybe it's clogged and I can poke around with a pin! So I do. Thankfully, steam did not come rushing out at my hand.

However, the radiator heated up. Hooray! I enjoyed warmth and closed the door to my room.

And then froze my ass off, because for some reason, my room is determined to be cold.

I fucking give up. I pushed the button. Where is my heat.

Fweee!

The benefit to overtime, as I've mentioned, is that I get lots of extra money in the paycheck. That means that I have money left over after I pay rent.

Better yet, I also got a $500 bonus from work this week, so I have tons of money left after paying rent.

That means it was time to go shopping.

I've wanted to refinish my table for a long time. I got it for free from a close friend of mine, who absolutely did not have room for it in her apartment. It's pine - the top and seats of the chairs were shellacked, and the legs and chair backs were painted Wedgwood blue. Now, I like blue, but Wedgwood? I'm not so much in to that. And neither is the Mission furniture I have in my living room.

So, I've been planning to refinish it, well, since I got it. It also needs a little work; some of the legs are coming loose on the chairs. So finally I was able to buy the supplies I needed for it. Vinnie and I went to Home Depot, where he stood with the cart in confusion as I first picked out stains, then grabbed all of the supplies.

I'm planning on keeping the same style - stain and color - but it's going to be all stains, no paint. The original shellacked parts are going to be a light red oak, and the colored parts are going to be a navy water-based stain. It fits a lot better both with the decor and me - I don't so much do anything pastel-ish.

So tonight of course after I cooked dinner for the menfolk, I put down the dropcloths, took down the glasses from their racks, and started stripping the table. Honestly, I'd forgotten how much of a fucking pain in the ass this shit is. I'm trying to remind myself that after I'm done, I'll have a beautiful table. But I got most of the table top finished, and barely one of the legs, and I'm fucking tired. Admittedly, it's the end of the day, and really, I only worked for about an hour, but JEE-zus.
Scraping old finish and stripper off really works up a sweat, and I can think of many things I'd rather do to work up a sweat.

Perhaps I'll have to engage in some of them tonight. Sex raises endorphins, right? Maybe that'll help my sore back.