Thing-a-day.com

…besides exhaustion and plain old fashioned laziness, I haven’t posted in a number of days…but, I have been working on various projects.

Project #1 - Installing rope lighting under the toe kick of my bathroom vanity. Not an easy task, given I have mentally insane contractors who can’t seem to get anything installed correctly. In addition to getting the clips installed on the inside edge of the toe kick (the easy part), I had to physically route and drill out part of the cabinet to be able to run the electrical cord, but also to make room for the actual plug in since the outlet was set too low in the cabinet….grrrr… The pix that I do have below are of the ridiculous plug situation (not my most subtle work…but it will work perfectly fine) and a long shot of the rope light clips. Will take a photo of the finished product when the construction adhesive is set.

Project #2 - Reorganizing my freaking hardware organizer. Yes, there are drawers for wood screws, machine screws, safety pins, anchors, wooden dowels and plugs, springs, miscellaneous knobs and my favorite….mystery tubes. (Hey, you never know when you might need stuff!)

Project #3 - Making my bubbling bath salts. I am still perfecting the recipe, but I am getting close. This is the recipe so far for the Passion Flower/Hibiscus/Chardonnay scent:

2 1/2 cups dead sea salt
2 Tbl unscented bubble bath
2 tsp unscented body oil
Equal dashes of fragrance oils:
     Hibiscus
     Passion Flower
     Chardonnay
6 drops of liquid soap dye
3 drops of liquid soap dye

Mix in large stainless steel bowl with a rubber spatula to equally disperse all ingrediants.

The scent is great, but I am still not 100% happy with the amount of bubble bath. I will adjust in my next batch.

PROJECTS THIS UPCOMING WEEK:

Condition wood work on new windows, sills and closet to prepare for stain.

Install two timer wall switches for my bathroom exhaust fans.

Install cord cover in the living room to cover home theater speakers.

Prime and paint upstairs and downstairs hallways.

So, tonight, in an attempt to do something other than cleaning, oiling, polishing, plumbing, sorting and other generally un-fun things, I thought I would make some ‘bubbling bath salt.’ It’s not an original idea. There is a store called Bath Junkie that I am addicted to. The problem is, there is not one to be found near Minnesota…and frankly, their products are *way* expensive. Basically, they have a small tub filled with sea salt and over 200 different fragrances that you can choose from and they ‘customize’ a bath salt for you. They also put in a little unscented bubble bath, coloring and if you want a tiny bit of bath oil. I have been collecting the ingrediants for a while - the sea salt, the colors and the essential oils, saving my used tubs and thinking I could just run out to the local drugstore, buy an unscented bubble bath and bath oil and mix it all up. HA! That’s where I was wrong. Do you know how hard it is to find an unscented anything? I did find Neutrogena oil that was unscented but no bubble bath, or shower gel or anything! I went to four different stores to find something and I came up empty-handed.

Defeated, I came home and made some miso soup.

After all, tomorrow is another day…

Given that my life has been pretty much chaos for nearly five years there are parts of my house that have been severely neglected. The basement, which I am sure is indicative of some psychological something or another, is my dirty little secret. No one goes down there, so it’s become a virtual dumping ground for everything that I can’t deal with.

The workbench has been a major source of consternation for me lately, given my remodeling projects. I can’t find tools, I go out and buy hardware only to discover I already have three boxes of the same thing….that kind of thing…so tonight I began the cleaning of the workbench. I am still not done, but that’s because I am easily distracted. I became irritated by the cable and phone wires that my contractor pulled, but never bothered to attach to their proper outlets in the basement, so I took it upon myself to tack up the wires, cut them off at the proper length and then figure out how to attach them. (Even he didn’t have the six wire phone wires attached to the outlet properly…thank god for the interweb.) But, I digress…

Here is a picture of the workbench before.

Here is the workbench in mid-stream.I have this pile of miscellaneous bags of crap that I need to sort and put into the organizer at the end of the bench, but that thing is falling apart and I think I need to either fix that or buy a new one. Anyhow, right now, there is space at one end and things like tapes, wires, brushes, tubes, boxes of nails and screws are all sorted and in their own places. Whew.

More tomorrow.

P.S. My phone and cable are both working great in the new space!

Tonights meal, I used fire roasted tomatoes with alfredo sauce on Farfalle. I also snuck in a little fried tempeh for a little extra texture. Yum.

This was after a long day of scrubbing ceilings. Barf. (At least I have some really cool light fixtures called beauty spots…makes scrubbing a little more worthwhile.)

Yeah, I told you my life was fairly uncreative these days….I feel like everything I do is to propel my life forward instead of being able to create things to help me reflect on my life. Given my life the last few years….maybe reflection is the last thing I need to do…

Yesterday, Day 6, I spent an ungodly amount of time installing the plumbing in my new shower. It shouldn’t have taken nearly as long as it did, but I felt like I was suffering from a major brain cramp.

Today, Day 7, I think I may have burned a small hole in the ozone layer with the sealer I used to seal the stone in my shower. It is onyx, which is a very soft, translucent marble, which could stain and sealing should help *prevent* that. The sealer smelled like living hell, thank god there are two exhaust fans in that bath.

I also brought my lovely chrome & leather Breuer chairs back into my space. They have been sitting in the back bedroom during my remodeling project, but today, they are now in my living room. I polished up the chrome and cleaned the leather, so they look shiny and new.

In another (non) fascinating project for the night…I oiled my cutting boards.

Hold yourself back….I’m a crazy woman.

So, after working on the shoes, I watched The Josephine Baker Story on my new t.v. I hooked up last night (see TAD #4). I decided what was in order was a little comfort food.

In some parts of the country, they call it goulash, other parts call it casserole…but here in good ole Minnesota, we call it HOTDISH. (Then there is what I used to call it….Welfare Spaghetti….much to my Mother’s chagrin.) I won’t go into explanation….I’ll just let my pictures do the talking…ENJOY! LOL

SOUNDTRACK WHILE MAKING HOTDISH- CD ON SHUFFLE

Crispy Ambulance - Fin
The Birthday Party - Live 81 - 82
Elastica
Sophie Tucker - Some of These Days
He Said - Hail

Today I put in the hardware and shelves for my shoe cubbies in the new space. They look really awesome. Time to start moving the shoes upstairs.

So, my days are filled with non-stop running and by the time I have a chance to post my TAD, I am horizontal in bed..so, this is my catch up post. Not that any of these are necessarily horribly creative, but, such is my life these days.

TAD #2 - CLEANING AND SEALING THE COUNTERTOPS

This was Saturday and I felt like crap. I had attempted to do a little too much the day before and I was having aches in places that I shouldn’t have. So, my big thing was to clean off all of the tools, adhesives, pieces/parts and so on that were cluttering up my onyx countertop. I cleaned it really well and then sealed it.

TAD#3 - MAKING A CLOSET WHERE ONE DIDN’T EXIST BEFORE

Sunday was a whole new task. I had to figure out how to install a somewhat decent looking rod to hang my clothes in my new closet. The problem is, the wall is on a roofline and most pre-made closet things you buy are made to go in square, not slanted spaces. So, after spending a good deal of time in the hardware section, I came up with a solution using hitching rings, 1×4’s & a nice chrome closet bar. It’s amazing how much time this took to install. I still need to stain the 1×4’s, but I am very happy with the final product.

TAD #4- THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT

Last night the task was to figure out how to set up the new TV with the legacy receiver, DVD, CD and make it all work with the in-ceiling speakers.

I am working on final touches of my year long project to remodel my attic space. (Which also involves having to rearrange most of my house, so putting everything back where it belongs is another piece of ‘thing a day for me.’) Today I installed a towel bar in my shower on the back wall. The shower wall is multi red onyx. Since I didn’t want to drill into the stone, I did what most tile setters do when they install ceramic towel bars….I used good old silicone to adhere the towel bar to the wall. I held the towel bars in place with blue painters tape to help the silicone set, which should take about 4 hours.

MORE POORLY DOCUMENTED ‘THINGS’ I DID TODAY:

Installed the heated towel rack, the toilet paper holder and the lever for my toilet!