Dust in my eyes…and throat
Feb 9, 2012 What's Going On
My entire house is coated in a layer of dust – super thick on the bottom two floors, thinner but still gross on the top two. And this dust is different than the dust that’s usually present due to my lackluster housekeeping skills. No, this is construction dust, from a week of renovation work on our brownstone.
We’ve been here for five years, but still had an entire floor that we couldn’t use, except for storage (as long as you didn’t mind what was being stored getting covered in rubble and overrun by mice).
Why couldn’t we use it all this time? Well, it had no electricity or heat, one corner had bad water damage, and the ceilings were falling down in two out of the three rooms. There were large holes in the walls from when we’d had new plumbing put into the rest of the house. One of the rooms has a carpet so disgusting I felt bad for the mice. The other two rooms have linoleum glued over the original wood floors, and in some places contact paper had been put over the linoleum. WTF? And to top it off, the entry doors to the main room are huge and heavy and close to falling off. They’re probably just waiting for an orphan holding a puppy to stand under them.
This is what the second floor looked like just a few short months ago:
There used to be a wall there. It held up the house. We stopped them halfway through tearing down a doorway that we kinda wanted to use.
To put a cherry on top of the whole mess, different workers from the first stage of our renovation five years ago ripped out a wall by mistake. We came home one day and it was gone. The fact that it was a load-bearing wall meant that the back of the house has been held up since that day by some 2x4s.
If this wreck of a floor had been on the top or bottom of the house, we could’ve just ignored it. But, it’s the second floor, so we had to pass by it every day, dozens of times.
My husband started going through the massive piles of disorganized stuff a few months ago. It all started out neat and organized when we moved here, but after five years of frantically pawing through boxes trying to find something it was a disaster. He managed to get three rooms full of stuff down to just this. It still looks like a lot, but it fits in about a third of the biggest room (and all that stuff from the bike forward belongs to the workers).
Well, late last week the workers descended upon that floor and got down to business. If you’ve ever been through any kind of renovation, you know how messy things can get. You can tape up plastic sheets, but it won’t matter. This stuff gets everywhere. Someone other than me would probably go crazy trying to keep up with the mess, but I take a much more Zen approach: I accept that it is there, and when the work is completely done, and the dust settles, I will start cleaning.
Nobody else is home during the work but me, so I’ve been the one breathing most of the stuff in. I didn’t realize how it was affecting me until I went for a jog. I’d planned on going three miles, but after a mile I was coughing like a pack-a-day smoker.
So far, a truck load of crap has been taken out, the old carpet has been gotten rid of [I discovered this morning that it's still there - I must've just been wishing hard that it was gone], and the missing wall has been turned into a load-bearing archway connecting the two rooms. One ceiling was torn down and replaced, the another repaired. Now they’re working on filling in the numerous holes that dot the walls and the hallway.
I can’t wait until this is done, for so many reasons. A more energetic, practical person would’ve just unpacked everything years ago and then adjusted as more rooms became available. But being neither energetic nor practical, I’ve just been waiting. For years. Telling myself that it would be stupid to organize everything and decorate when we’ve only been living in 3/4 of the house. Now that the day is approaching when I can actually set that floor up, I’m salivating!
My piano. Jake’s drum set. A place for the kids to do homework that’s not our dining room table. Some place to set up Rock Band where it won’t be in our way. And apparently a pool table, according to The Ass, but I’m not really on board with that one yet.
But regardless, I will no longer have to apologize for my house. Playdates can come over without being lectured about the dangers of that floor. When I have parties I won’t have to tape up the stairway so that nobody wanders upstairs and sees the disaster.
I can get organized. And finally, after all these years, we can settle in. Better late than never, right?
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: brownstone, cleaning, renovation
Today’s Agenda: where did the day go? edition
Dec 15, 2011 Today's Agenda
How in the world is it 1pm already? I have so much to do today and I feel like I got a lot done this morning, but it was all little stuff that had been collecting up – I have no one big thing to point to as an accomplishment.
Except maybe the fridge. My husband was home last night when Fresh Direct got here, so he put everything away that needed to stay cold. This is what I came home to:
Several items fell out when I opened it this morning.
To his credit, he told me he did a sucky job, and that the fridge needed my organizational magic touch. Then again, maybe he was just flattering me so that I wouldn’t post a picture of his terrible putting away job. :-)
So, fifteen minutes later I at least have an organized (but still too crowded) fridge. What else have I gotten done? Nothing interesting (assuming you consider the fridge interesting, which you probably do not).
But, I do have interesting things coming up today. I’ll be posting about a very fun twitter party I’ll be participating in tomorrow, including telling you how to RSVP so that you can win prizes. And I’ll be posting my totally non-secret totally package mix recipe for how to make the gooey-est, bestest brownies ever.
And if you have a chance, check out the post I put up last night about a shoe subscription! Because magazine subscriptions are so 20th century.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Today’s Agenda: 3rd try edition
Dec 9, 2011 Today's Agenda
I have gotten SO much done in the past two days. Unfortunately none of it was on this blog. Grr… I get sucked into projects. I am now completely caught up on my invoicing, my project follow-ups, and I’m actually getting there on laundry. The kitchen is clean. I even showered every day this week. (Yes, I know, that shouldn’t be a big deal.) But I can’t seem to find the time to write. Except for these “Today’s Agenda” posts.
I’m glad I don’t have a traditional job. I’m thrilled that I can (mostly) arrange my work around other things I want to do or have to do. But sometimes I wonder how much more productive I would be if I had an office to go to every day, outside of my house, where I wouldn’t get sucked into doing other things, and then at home I wouldn’t be sitting in front of my computer at 10 or 11pm trying to get work done.
Time management is my biggest stumbling block to being super productive. I flit from thing to thing, sometimes finding something else to occupy my time if I don’t want to do what really needs to be done, and other times I just get sucked into getting other things done and never get to what I really want to do. There’s always something else waiting to be done. I’m never finished.
I was at an event the other day with my friend Mitch of Gay NYC Dad, and I complimented him on how consistently he posts about things very soon after they’ve happened. I mean, we went to the same circus performance a month ago. I think his post was up before I got home, whereas mine just went up a week ago. He said that he has to do that, that he can’t have things hanging over his head – he said he used to live that way, and it was terrible. I agree. I have hundreds of things hanging over my head.
I don’t know what the answer is, except saying no to more things until I can get everything under control and caught up, even though I already feel like I’m saying no to pretty much everything. I don’t want to run around the house finding clothes for the kids every morning. I don’t want to stay up all night working on projects that I should’ve started weeks ago. I live in a perfect storm of procrastination, trouble saying no, and mild attention deficit disorder (or as I call it, the “Ooh, something shiny!” syndrome).
And the sad thing is, things are so much better than they were a year ago. But I need to step it up. I think it has to start with time. I won’t get all of the laundry done. But if I work on it for a solid hour each day, it will be fine. I won’t get the house clean, it’s just too big. But an hour of cleaning every day will make a huge dent, instead of letting things get so bad that I’m too overwhelmed to start. If I take an hour at the end of each week to invoice and update tax info, I won’t have to spend hours catching up.
I won’t get all of my work done every day – there’s an endless supply of what I want to write about. But if I sit and work for a certain amount of time without flitting to something else (you know, I really need to fix that shelf right now, even though it’s been broken for months), I can plan things out better and know how much more I can take on, or if I need to say no.
This started out as a “Today’s Agenda” post about how I was going to try for the third day to post about Thanksgiving and cake pops. But just writing about it has helped me crystalize in my head what I need to do to get out of this hole. So, I’m off to do an hour of cleaning.
And, uh…post about Thanksgiving and cake pops. :-)
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Blogging, cleaning, time management
Today’s Agenda: not eating cake pops edition
Nov 22, 2011 Today's Agenda
So over the weekend Fiona & I tried our hands at making cake pops. It was a smashing success. Literally. I let her do all the cake smashing by hand. Actually, I let her do everything. So they tasted fantastic, but didn’t look as good as they could have (even though she did an awesome job, for a seven-year-old). For that, I’m so sorry Fiona, but you have to be out of the picture. So I’m making some more this morning. Of course, if they still don’t look great, then I can’t blame Fiona.
I’m going to do my best to figure out how many calories are in each, and then only eat one. Or two. We’ll see how that goes.
Last night I posted a review of the most comfortable over-ear headphones I’ve ever worn. They’re a little pricey – around $100 – but would make a great gift for the audiophile in your life, especially if she’s complained in the past about headphones being uncomfortable.
Later today I’ll be sharing a little sponsored gift guide I wrote for “Gutsy Smurf” from the new Smurf’s movie, which is coming out on Blu-ray. Basically, it’s all stuff an adventurous ten-year-old kid would love, blue or not, so if you have one of those you can find some great gift ideas, in a range of prices.
And after that will be my cake pops post. Hopefully they’ll be beautiful, but no matter what, they’ll be delicious. I mean, cake mushed together with frosting coated in chocolate? No way that doesn’t taste great.
And, the cleaning continues. Despite my mom leaving the best comment anyone’s ever left on my blog.
Enjoy your Tuesday!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 1 (headphones, Smurfs’ Blu-ray). Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
My two Sundays, or how I flooded my moldy bathroom
Oct 10, 2011 What's Going On
So yesterday was kind of split down the middle in terms of how I like to spend a Sunday. I had nowhere to go, nothing I absolutely had to do, and my husband took the kids to Coney Island right after lunch, leaving me with an empty house. I popped a bag of popcorn, grabbed a Diet Dr Pepper and my Kindle, and settled in on the couch to read the last four chapters of a really good book. Then I reached for my laptop and wrote about the book. Then I just leaned back right where I was and took a little nap. I don’t think I moved from the couch for about four hours. It was heavenly.
When my family got home a bit after six I decided that it was time to do the job I’d been dreading for months, re-caulking the upstairs bathroom. This is our only bathroom with a tub or shower, so the timing has to be just right: the next day nobody can bathe, and this being a holiday weekend it was perfect. My husband could go shower at his work gym, and the kids – who have no school today – could just be a little stinky. We aren’t going anywhere, it doesn’t matter. I can just send them into another room when the smell becomes unbearable.
Of course, while I was doing the caulk – which at this point was black with mold in many spots – I might as well clean the grout, too, which hadn’t been deep-cleaned in the five years since it was put in, and the ceiling, which had started developing mold about a year ago. If there’s one thing I know about mold it’s that it keeps coming back if you don’t get it all, so I thought I would just take care of everything at once.
I stripped naked (didn’t want to get bleach on my clothes), put on a shower cap (or on my hair) and safety glasses (or my eyes), grabbed the bleach and a sponge, and balanced myself on the side of the tub, holding onto the shower rod for dear life (since the moldy part of the ceiling is over the tub I can’t reach it with a ladder). How I didn’t fall is really a mystery, since I’m the clumsiest person on the planet. An hour later, the ceiling was free of mold, and I moved onto the grout, which took just as long but did not involve me almost falling and breaking my neck. Plus I got to use a fun little gadget.
Then I had to remove the old caulk and let the space dry overnight. Now, I’m not going to go into the completely convoluted way our bathtub is set up, except to say that our architect made a monumental mistake (which I apparently OKd, not knowing what I was OKing), necessitating a fake-Corian deck around the top of the tub to prevent shower water from running onto the floor instead of into the tub and down the drain. This is not an easy space to caulk, and there’s a couple inches of empty space between the deck and parts of the tub. Caulk had to be removed from the top of the deck where it meets the wall, and the bottom of the deck where it meets the tub. And last night I discovered that the space between had become filled with black mold. I’d had so much trouble keeping the caulk clean these last few months because the mold was coming up from underneath!
So, I was doing my best to clean that space out (a space I couldn’t see, by the way). I was flushing it with hot water as carefully as I could and jamming a sponge in there, but I realized after a few minutes that I was flooding the bathroom floor: with the caulk gone we were back to our original problem of the water not flowing into the tub. I reached for the handle to turn the water off, and heard my husband screaming “Stop! Stop!” and running up the stairs. The water from the bathroom floor was flooding the room below, a storage room that would someday also be a bathroom, but for now only had pipes and a bunch of our crap in it. Our wet crap, thanks to me.
About fifteen towels later, I threw in the proverbial towel and just went to bed, bathroom a disaster and mold still probably thriving under the deck. Today not only will I have to caulk the tub and clean the bathroom, but also go through that storage room to see what was damaged. Fun way to spend a holiday.
Some day we have to get that tub replaced, but it’s a monumental job. It’s not a standard sized tub (unusually wide and deep), so if we don’t find another one the same size the fixtures won’t be in the right place. The entire thing is framed in tile, and attached to tile shower walls, and we’re told it will be difficult to rip out part of the tile and then get new tile to match up again. And, you know, we don’t have the money. There are about seventy other much more pressing things that need to be done the next time we do have the money, like getting electricity on the second floor or replacing some windows that are falling apart.
For now, I’m just going to seal the mold in as well as I can and hope it takes a while to creep back out. Lovely.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: bathroom, cleaning, renovation
Today’s agenda: mosquito wake-up call edition
Oct 10, 2011 Today's Agenda
It’s the tenth of October and I can’t believe I’m still talking about mosquitoes. Today is a holiday, the kids have no school, and I’d planned on sleeping in until at least nine. But at sixth-thirty, I woke up when a mosquito buzzed my head. I tried to get back to sleep – completely under the covers, hoping he wasn’t trapped in there with me – but couldn’t. After about fifteen minutes I got up and tried to find the little bugger.
I found him – and missed him – four times. Finally I went downstairs to get our mosquito zapper racket, and when I came back into my room I found him immediately. He was perched on my bedroom mirror, and was pretty small. I couldn’t believe that that little guy had woken me up. I killed him and was about to go back to bed, when I spotted a giant mosquito on the ceiling. That was the guy. That was the one that had buzzed my head.
One of our smaller step ladders was in our room, so I slowly opened it up and climbed to the top. The surest way to kill a mosquito with the racket when it isn’t flying is to bring the racket parallel to the surface and move in, giving the mosquito nowhere to go but straight into the racket. I wasn’t high enough though. I waved at the ceiling and as he took off, I took a swing at him and…saw one tiny blue spark. If you really hit one of these guys there’s a big blue flash and a loud pop, and if it actually gets trapped in the racket it crackles and pops for about ten seconds. I’d just barely touched this one it seemed, and wasn’t sure if it was still alive. I thought maybe I’d just injured it, so I searched around the floor but couldn’t find it. So, here I am, staying awake for a while reading and writing, waiting to see if it reappears. Then I’ll try to sleep some more.
I really wanted to take the kids to the movies today and do a little shopping, but I don’t know if it’s in the cards. Jake has to finish a big project for school, and I’ve got about half a day’s work to do on the bathroom (I’ll post about that later). And after my mosquito wake-up call, I’m guessing a nap will be part of the plan as well. Fun way to spend a holiday.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: cleaning, mosquitoes
Today’s Agenda, in pictures
Sep 26, 2011 Today's Agenda
Today is my husband’s birthday, so I’ll be baking him a cake. I baked him a completely last-minute cake from a mix on Saturday for his birthday party (how the hell did I forget a cake?), and I think he would be happy to skip it today, but we’ll be having dinner tonight with the kids so this cake is really for them.
I wanted to make a homemade cake and homemade frosting, since this one won’t be last-minute. He said that a homemade cake is fine, but that the store-bought frosting is non-negotiable. And I hate to admit it, but no frosting I’ve ever made tasted as good as Duncan Hines’ chocolate frosting. If you have any recipes that taste like that, please send them my way!
Next up is trying to straighten the shoe shelf. Apparently I’m trying to set a record for the number of Container Store shelves stacked on top of each other, and it’s leaning pretty badly. My husband says the solution is to have less shoes. Isn’t he adorable?
The rest of the day will be spent trying to get a handle on the laundry situation. It’s bad. All of those bins are dirty laundry, plus everything on the floor, plus on the floor in the next room!
And even the stuff that’s clean isn’t put away.
Plus, you know, actual work. Sigh. Monday. Busy. Nothing exciting. You?
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: baking, cleaning, organization
Today’s Agenda: Last day without kids edition
Aug 23, 2011 Today's Agenda
So tomorrow I drive back to Pennsylvania to pick the kids up from their week at sleep-away camp. Today is my last day to soak up the kidlessness until…Saturday. When they go to Florida with The Ass for five days. I think I hear many tiny violins playing…
So today I will try to tackle all of the laundry that is not theirs, since I anticipate them coming home with some very stinky and dirty stuff.
I’m also going to redeem some Gaggle of Chicks vouchers. I did some work for GoC and got paid in credit on their site, then I won another big credit on their site, and went on quite a spree. I’ll start off by shopping on SharpShades.com and InspireYourWalls.com. If I’m not too shopped out I might tackle custom chocolate bars on ChocBites.com. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of deals that I have waiting for me. I have a big cleaning and organizing credit coming from Next Level Services, so I may try to book that for when the family is gone. Let them come home to cleanliness and organization. Aren’t I the best?
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 1. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: camp, cleaning, Gaggle of Chicks
