Well, that was Exciting!

I am the absolute last person who should be messing with electricity.  Seriously.

Luckily, we found this great electrician (kind of sketchy on how official that title is) who knows what he is doing and does so fairly cheaply (that is the part that makes me feel suspicious about the title.)  So, for the most part, I let him do all of the stuff with the electric.  (Do you like how I said that just like your grandma might?  That's to emphasize how little business I have messing with it.) 

If you read here even occassionally, you know that I am OCD about weird things. For instance, the fact that the outlets in the old house were all almond colored really annoyed the shit out of me. So, I wanted to switch the outlets to new white ones. Well, Mr. Electrician man, switched about a third of them and then just broke down and taught me how to do it and some special tricks to do it correctly with fucking aluminum wiring, which if you don't have it, say a prayer of thanks, and if you do have it, I have the number for a great electrician.

So cut to the new house.

The run down dream house. 

Guess what color all the outlets are?  Yep, fucking almond.  And somehow all are filthy.  Like, how the fuck do you get goopy dirt all up in an outlet without killing yourself?? 
Anyways, this house has copper wiring. THANK GOD!  It's only about a million times easier to work with.  Even I could do this!

Well, yes.  I successfully replaced the outlets in my son's room and in the upstairs hallway as I painted. 

Here is a before




















Here is an after

See?  Such an ass I am!  The wretched brass and shiny wall plates had to go.  I considered just spray painting them all, but this being my dream house and all, I decided to spring for new oil rubbed bronze covers.  They look awesome, yes?


Well, let me tell you a little known secret.  Metal, specifically, oil rubbed bronze conducts electricity like a champ.  Like a champ, I say!  Did you know that a loose METAL outlet cover and a plug that's half in creates a very interesting situation? Trying to screw on the metal cover while having a plug half in with a live outlet may be a dipshit idea?  (An instance where one's laziness may even kill you?)  Did you know that electrical current can even cut metal?

Now you do and so do I.  Fuuuuuuck.

 

Yeah, yeah

I am actually doing something worthwhile this week...  Painting my sons room.  But I thought you may like to see how filthy the shower was when we moved in...

My Laverne "L" is thanks to the magic eraser.  Ew.
More about this shower later.

Halloween Scare the Shit outta Me

So the new kids bathroom had a smallish mirror that was hung too high for little guy to see himself in.  Bad fend shui, and not safe because that little monkey was climbing up onto the counter twice a day so he could see himself brushing his teeth.

In a moment of sheer genius, I decided I would take the bathroom mirror and use it above the fireplace and use the one from the old house in the bathroom.  (It was just a tiny bit too large for on the mantle.) 
It's nice when things work out, isn't it?
Oh yeah.   (You better have fucking said that like the Kool Aid guy...)

The morning of Halloween at 4 am the mirror in the kids bathroom decided to commit suicide and jumped.

Nothing like loud crashing accompanied by shattering glass to wake a person up.  I even had earplugs in and it scared the shit out of me.  Then the kids had a hard time getting back to sleep. (Well, duh.  A huge adrenaline rush will do that to a person.)


Btw, did I tell you why it fell?

We had it hanging in the old house with those picture hanging strips and although I was surprised that it didn't fall off the wall, I decided that if it worked there, why wouldn't it work here?!

See those picture hanging strips still stuck to the wall?   yeah....

Maybe the fact that the paper backing was totally shredded after taking the mirror off the wall in the old house should have told me, "beware!"   I just kept saying fuck it.

This was a serious pain in the ass to clean up.  Every little fleck here is a piece of glass.  This is where my kids are most likely to walk barefoot.

There must have been a magical fountain of glass that shot up and out into the hallway.  I'm sure it was pretty, but what a pain in the ass to clean up.  Even being very cautious, I still had bloody hands when I was done. 

 

Oh - and my solution to the clearly unsafe condition of the hall bath so the kids would not go into it?

 

Gah! I am still annoyed with myself for breaking that mirror with my laziness. 

And just like anytime you cut corners, I spent at least three times as long cleaning up that fucking mirror than I would have if I had just removed the damn paper and stuck those strips right on the mirror and frame.  (See, my laziness STILL will not be tamped down!)

Why? Why so Fucking Difficult?

So - in an effort to make the laundry room even more functional, I've been organizing the cabinets and hanging hooks.
Yeah, totally boring.
But let me tell you about the fucking ironing board hook. 
So, the funny thing here is that I iron mayber once every 4 or 5 years.  Really.  I can't stand that shit.  What a goddamn waste of time, because....no iron shirts exist, people.  Why in the hell would I ever iron ever again?  Really.
So I have an iron and a board and of course I would like to keep them in the laundry room...  Makes sense right?

Well, I had them stashed behind the door, but every time I shut the door I worried that the board would tip and make a buttload of noise and wake the children.  And god knows, once the kids are asleep there is nothing I hate more than having to do the whole bedtime shit again.

So I decided to get a simple hook to hang it on the wall behind the door.  (No, most definitely not on the fucking door.  Do you want to hear that shit clanging around every time you open or close the door or brush against it.  FUCK NO!)

So, it's a fairly simple installation.  The directions sucked my ass, but big fucking deal - I can read engrish with the best of them.

First I decided the height to hang the hook and marked the holes.  Then I drilled for the anchors that were included with the hook. 

The directions said to use a drill bit that was the appropriate size.  This was my first inkling of trouble.  Seriously?  Most directions will have the drill bit size, as part of the idea of a wall anchor is a tight fit. 

So I went from small drill bit and trying to tap in the anchor.  When I looked at the anchors as well, I thought something was fishy.  They had these fins that stick out, but nothing that looked like it would grip the wall.  Plus, said fins make a hole in the wall as you tap them in.  Really.

So I finally got the holes drilled and the anchors tapped into place.  I hung the hook and started to attach it to the wall and into the anchors.  The first one went off without a hitch.  The second was a little trickier.
The third, the screw was all the way in and not gripping anything.  Spinning free.  What the fuck?  So I did what any normal person would do and said Fuck It! and moved on to the next.  Three out of four isn't bad, right?!

Guess what, motherfuckers?  The fourth and final anchor betrayed me and THAT screw was spinning into nothing as well.  SIGH.
And because I'm such a fucking genius, I just thought, well,  I'll just use longer screws.  Yeah, the first one just pushed the "anchor" into the wall cavity and the next one didn't work either.

And you already know what a good workman I am.  I was toast.  I had the power drill above my head for at least one minute total, and my arms weren't having it.  The top two anchors were solid - so what the fuck was I supposed to do, take them out and have to patch the goddamn wall to start all fucking over?  HELL NO.
Two out of four ain't bad.  I'm batting .500!  The ironing board is hanging and the iron is neatly on the hook.  If this motherfucker falls, it sure as shit isn't my fucking fault.  Seriously, the person who cheaped out on these one tenth of a cent anchors should have something heavy attached to the wall above their bed with said crap anchors!  They could have at least not included any anchors at all, so then I wouldn't have been lulled into a false sense of security with the crappiest anchors ever, designed by a person who clearly didn't know what the hell the fucking purpose of anchors are in the first place.  ASSHOLES!

And, if any of you readers see that there was something obvious that I should have known to get those anchors in correctly, just keep it to yourself, because if I ever see an anchor like that it's going straight in the trash and I'll use the ones I fucking understand that also tell me what size drill bit to use. 

Just this...

I know this is silly but...
Just this....

 

What the hell did I sign up for?  Every. single. one. looks. just. like. this....  or worse.

Carpet Cleaning.... My Ass!

Get ready for a fucking rant over here.  Seriously.
The carpets in this house are filthy.  Disgusting.  Full of dog and cat hair.  Totally barf worthy.  Sooo, instead of hiring a carpet cleaning service to come in on the day the house was vacant, I decided that we would just get bids when we moved in.   Then I decided, nah, fuck that, $150 is too much to spend on a carpet cleaner, so I decided to rent a carpet cleaner and do it myself for $50.  Oh, inner Martha Stewart, GFY.

So as I was researching which machine to rent, I came across this gem on you tube.
Click here for a Cleaning Orgasm....
Woah!  Sign me up for the Bissell, post haste!

Yeah, let me show you my reward for spending 50 bucks to rent a 75 pound machine that I had to haul up and down stairs and go over each precious square of greasy carpet at least 4 times.   And pushing and pulling this monster is a total pain in the ass - it's heavy as shit and doesn't turn for shit, so when you complete one row, then you basically wrestle it like a greased pig to get it set up for the next row.   (I'm sure there is an easier way, but come on!)
Now get ready for the before and after...

  This is the before...

This is the after..

 

Yeah.  After all that it doesn't look like I did a god damned thing.  My fucking arms are sore, my legs are sore, I had to move a bunch of fucking furniture, the skin on my hands is peeling off ( which may be unrelated, but I am on a streak here!)I had to haul this fucker from lowes and power lift it like a Russian Olympiad up into the van, COME ON!   I am seriously pissed and now wondering if a service would do a better job.

Here is my booby prize though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buckets and buckets of filth.  So it may not look cleaner, but at least I know it is.   Also, it may not look better, but it totally smells better.

So after all this, would I ever rent a carpet cleaner again?  Hell no!   Shhh, don't tell my husband, but he was totally right.  I told him my cheapskate plan, and he said that those machines never work very well.  Sigh.  Fucking you tube...

Big Shit over Here

I know I haven't blogged in a fuck of a long time.  Sorry.  We moved.  (Yay!).  To the dirtiest house EVER. (Boo!)
In real life, when I talk about this I go through all the possible easons why this house was filthy.  On this blog, I never present my best self, more like my worst, so with that in mind,  the family that lived here lived like filthy pigs.
Speaking of pigs - I am a sexist pig because the person I blame that the house is dirty is the mom.
Why is it that I blame the mom?   Seriously, so fucking sexist of me, and totally unfair, but I do feel like it's the mom of the house who decides how clean or dirty a house is.  Maybe it's because I assume all boys would live like frat boys if left on their own, which is also fucking sexist.  Seriously, what is wrong with me?

Anyways, I've been running around feeling superior as I clean up the filth.   I do feel a bit like I'm in a Mr.Clean commercial, although it is getting fucking old.

I'm gonna keep you in the loop for all our projects around here.  And how shit really goes down.  Hopefully I'll be able to log more than once every fucking six months.  No promises, but I'll try.