Something's finally going right!

Well, I had a splendid night last night, thanks to my good friends who live less than half a mile from me. But first, some backstory. I’ll keep it short and sweet. Basically, about two weeks ago, my kitchen faucet, which had been acting funny for a while, finally broke completely, forcing my roommate and I to turn on the water using a pair of pliers. I finally got around to buying a new faucet last weekend, only to discover the next day when I tried to install it that there were several pieces missing. The weekend also proved to be disheartening. After spending an evening on the town Saturday night, we discovered that our bike lights had been stolen, and the next morning I woke up with a hangover to my roommate informing me that the toilet in her bathroom had started leaking all over. I was exhausted and not feeling well, and it seemed like everything was going wrong.

OK, back to the original story and why last night ended up so well. First, my roommate and I managed to take the toilet apart, replace the wax ring, and put it all back together in record time, with no accidents and almost no cursing. I decided to wait another day to exchange the faucet and buy new lights for my bike, so I made a quick dinner and settled down to eat. Just as I was finishing, my friends showed up. They’re a wonderful couple who are expecting a baby next month, and they came over to pick up some baby supplies my sister had given me to give to them. The husband, Mike, noticed the faucet sitting on my kitchen table, opened the box, found the one missing part that I actually needed (the other two were for an optional installation that wasn’t necessary for my countertop/sink type) and then proceeded to change out the faucet for me! While I’m sure I could have done it on my own, it was soooo nice to have something get fixed and not have to be the person to spend hours trying to figure it out and cursing a lot. Being independent and able to do everything for myself is nice, but it’s also really overrated. Sometimes it’s nice just to have someone around to fix things when they break. I feel like a huge load has been lifted off my shoulders. Tonight, I can go to happy hour with another friend and not worry that I’ve left my roommate without a working toilet or kitchen sink. Yay!

Oh, and a short update on the bathroom: Everything is done except the baseboards. The floor is uneven, but it’s not horrible, and the tile and colors and towel bars look awesome. My roommate did an amazing job decorating it, and it looks like a designer bathroom, and I absolutely love it. I’d like to get the baseboards in before the beginning of December so that I can have a combination Hanukkah dinner/bathroom grand opening. I’m just hoping to find the energy to redo my own bathroom next...

Things have been kind of tough the last few days, and I’m not exactly sure why. I’m in the middle of tiling the bathroom floor, and it’s much more difficult that I expected it to be. I’m worried it’s going to turn out horribly, although I guess we’ll see when I’m done. At least the bathroom colors look great, and it will be nice to get the towel bars up, even if the floor is uneven. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not the end of the world, that if I ever have any money, I can redo the floor (professionally!).

In other news, I’ve become obsessed with bento boxes, or rather, the art and science of creating a bento meal (and not the box itself). It all came about when I mentioned to a friend of mine that I was interested in buying a bento-type lunch box, and she directed me to the blog http://justbento.com and now I’m hooked! I’ve figured out which of my containers will work for making the appropriately sized meal, so I’m not going to go out right away and buy a portable bento box. Before jumping in and spending a bunch of money, I’m just going to practice making bento-type lunches to bring to work with me. Today was my first attempt, and I’ve packed two small boxes (although I haven’t actually measured these particular boxes, I know they’re fairly small). One box is filled with two types of salads – a potato salad with a creamy sun-dried tomato pesto dressing, and a tomato and avocado salad with oil and balsamic vinegar. This box is basically leftovers from a barbecue this weekend. The other box has a medium-boiled egg for protein, and three large figs from my friend’s tree. I left the shell on the egg because the figs have been kind of sticky and I didn’t want to get the egg all sticky, although I suppose it doesn’t matter too much.

I’ve learned a few things from reading about the construction of bento boxes that I’ve found to be somewhat enlightening (as an architect, I love using the term “construction” for my lunch!).

1. First, presentation is nice, but it’s not the most important thing, and it’s only as important as you want it to be. As a beginner, I’m finding it really easy to just think about the content and not worry about how it looks. Presentation can come later, once I’ve got the basic idea down.
2. Second, it’s a great way to limit portions. Apparently this is a well-known benefit of bento boxes, but it’s new to me. As long as I’m putting relatively healthy, low-calorie (which generally means low-fat) foods in the boxes, I don’t have to worry about exactly how many calories are in each item. If I stick to non-refined carbohydrates (whole grains, etc), lean proteins (as a vegetarian/pescatarian, that means beans, eggs, and tofu with a smattering of fish), plenty of vegetables and fruits, and a small amount of healthy fats, generally olive oils and foods like avocados.
3. Third, it can be a great way to save money and to eat a more diverse meal. I’m guilty of packing boring lunches, I’ll admit it. Usually my lunch is a huge amount of leftovers from the night before, and that’s it. So if I make zucchini soup for dinner one night, that’s what I have for lunch the next day, and often for dinner the next night and lunch the day after that too. Zucchini soup, and lots of it. Making bento means I’ll be incorporating a greater variety of foods into each meal, and since the portions of each food are small, I can use up some of the small amounts of leftovers that I wouldn’t know what to do with otherwise.
   

The rest of my life has been extremely out of control, unfortunately. I haven’t had time to concentrate on my garden, my house is a mess, completely cluttered and in a serious and continuous state of disarray. The garage is an even bigger disaster, and I feel like I'm getting behind on my projects, especially the time-sensitive projects, such as the quilts I'm making for my new baby niece and nephew. As soon as the bathroom is done, I'm going to clean up my house and then start concentrating on those projects. Wish me luck, the next few months are going to be super busy!

Remodeling sucks

Yes, I said it. I know i'll be incredibly happy when it's done, and i'm a staunch DIYer, but this bathroom is just killing me. It started out incredibly well. Removing the baseboards and the toilet and painting the walls was easy. Unfortunately, when I finished painting the walls, the color didn't look nearly as good as I was envisioning, and I was worried that I'd be repainting soon. Nevertheless, I pressed on. Repainting the cabinets was much harder than I expected. The paint began to peel off when I removed the cabinet hardware, and I knew I'd have to remove all of it before continuing. Removing the paint took a really, really long time. But it was all worth it, because the cabinets look fantastic and the color combination makes the walls look good too.

Then it came time to do the floor. It didn't take too long to remove the old laminate, which was badly damaged where the toilet had been. I smashed my thumb in the process, but that was no big deal. But when I pulled up the plastic underlayment, I noticed that the concrete had been painted. I quickly searched online and discovered that the paint would have to be removed before tile could be laid down. I grabbed a scraper and set to work, but it was extremely slow going, so I headed over to home depot (my second home these days) and bought a paint stripper attachment for my drill. While it did work with only a little less effort than scraping by hand, it also created a ton of dust and made me start worrying that I was going to overheat the motor in the drill. Also, it was extremely slow going, and by that point I was exhausted, so I gave up for the evening.

This evening, I will probably head back to home depot (again) and try to find some sort of chemical stripping agent. Hopefully I'll be able to get that done tonight so I can get the tile laid tomorrow and grout on Thursday night, so that Friday I can install baseboard and maybe even get the toilet put back. After that, all I have to do is install towel bars. Yay! I can't wait to see what it's going to look like, if I manage to survive that long. Wish me luck!

Life is busy

Life has been INCREDIBLY busy lately. I was in a wedding recently that took up an awful lot of time, and although I had a lot of fun with it, I've gotten way behind on everything that needs to get done. Here's a small snapshot of where I am:

PROJECTS
I have a huge long list of projects, including:

Redoing the guest bathroom (painting, redoing cabinets, and tiling the floor)
Redoing my bathroom (same stuff)
Building a bar for the sunroom
Furnishing the sunroom, including finding/making a low table and making floor cushions
Refinishing the sewing table a friend gave me, and building a shelf for my sewing maching to sit in it
Finishing the quilts I've started for my niece and nephew
A dozen other small projects, such as repairing the clock my friend made for me
Organizing my whole house and all my files

I don't know when all of these projects are going to get done. It makes me want to cry just looking at the list. I guess I just have to keep going one step at a time. Also, the September craft challenge on the Crunchy Chicken site is inspiring me to get at least one project done. Hopefully I'll keep you posted.

GARDEN
It doesn't seem like the season should be over yet, but my garden is definitely winding down. The tomato plants are all dead or dying, the squash is barely producing, and the cucumbers all died. Only my Japanese eggplant produced at all this year. On the upside, the tomatillo produced like crazy and the bell peppers are starting to, after a very chilly summer (relatively speaking, of course). I've learned a few things for next year. For one thing, I'm going to have to work a LOT on my soil. It doesn't drain well at all, which I think is contributing to my tomato problems. This year, I added a lot of composted manure, which I think is why the peppers and tomatillo have done well, and the zucchini did better than usual. Next year should be even better, I hope. It does get awfully frustrating, though.

HOUSE
Some of my house projects are listed above. I also need to get out into the yard and do some serious work out there, plus I want to completely purge everything. Just because I have room for something I will never use doesn't mean I should keep it just in case. I need to make better use of Craigslist and Freecycle to get rid of the extra stuff. And, on top of all of this, I got a call from the HOA for my neighborhood saying that someone had complained about my yard. So I got someone to fix the sprinkler system, which put a HUGE dent in my plans to pay off my credit card quickly (although I'm still hoping to have it paid off by the end of the year, even if it means I only get to eat beans for a month). And I have to wonder which neighbor complained, and why nothing has been done about some of the other residents whose yards truly look bad (whereas mine looked a little untrimmed, other yards could be considered a wholesale mess). It's not the most welcoming feeling when moving into a new neighborhood.

So I'm definitely looking forward to a long weekend this weekend, which will hopefully be spent completely redoing my guest bathroom. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

More gratefulness

I haven't written a gratefulness post lately, and today I'm actually feeling grateful for quite a few things, so here we go. I think the list might get quite long:

1. My house. I LOVE my house. It's like living in a mid-century modern resort. It's awesome. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. Granted there are a few things I'd like to change about it (new windows, new kitchen cabinets, new bathrooms), but overall, it's just great.

2. My furniture. I do feel rather lucky that my dad loved mid-century modern furniture and insisted on buying a lot of it in the 70s, and now that I have a house, my mom, who doesn't really appreciate the furniture, is foisting it all onto me. Hooray!

3. My cat, even though sometimes I think he's trying to kill me. After my alarm went off this morning, he got up, stretched, climbed up onto me, sat down on my shoulder and then flopped onto my face so that I couldn't breathe. He then proceeded to purr contentedly. At least he's the cutest cat in the world and has very few annoying and/or destructive habits. And he keeps me warm in the winter.

4. My bikes. I know, I have too many bikes. But I love them all.

5. My free time. I figure it's good to post some non-material list items too. I love that I've been able to work out a budget so that I can pay off my credit card debt very quickly and live very comfortably on my current salary, which by a college-educated Californian's standards isn't all that much (but more than I've ever made before).

6. My physical abilities. I love that I can go rock-climbing, running, swimming, biking, snowboarding, hiking, backpacking, and all that other good stuff.

7. Food. Good food. And lots of it. The fact that I have a community garden plot and that there are so many great farmer's markets in the area really compound this one.

OK, that's enough for now. Lunch is almost over.