Freako McWeirdypants

I think I just learned where I got my freaky streak from. It's gotta be from Mom. I just went through my box of childhood keepsakes for the first time in many years, and the amount of hair my mother saved borders on creepy. I counted six envelopes, from between the ages of one and twelve (they're dated). I can't help but wonder what my mom was thinking... I mean, I get saving a lock from a first haircut, but six? Over more than a decade?

And the weirdest part: the last haircut took place when I was nearly 900 miles away, visiting relatives. My cousin was in beauty school, and needed to cut more than six inches off someone. My hair was super long, so she cut it about shoulder length. It doesn't surprise me that my aunt would have called my mom to make sure it would be okay to chop all that hair off, but it does sort of surprise me that Mom requested a chunk.

Also in the keepsake box: a tin full of baby teeth. I plan on adding my wisdom teeth if they ever come out.

Now I know where to point when people ask me why I saved the skin tags I had removed several years ago. They're swimming in a little specimen cup. I plan on utilizing them one day in my plan to get back at my sister for leaving her teeth on my bed when I was 5. It scared the shit out of me, and I'm still plotting revenge over 20 years later.

I swear, my family isn't as demented as I just made them seem (although I may be the exception).

April 10th Edit: After chatting about this with Scott, apparently it's not that weird to save a bunch of your kid's hair. He suggested that it might be to see how it changes over time, which is sort of reasonable, I guess. But it still seems odd to me.

An Inconvenient Untruth

Remember the awesome new door we got recently? And how it came unfinished? Well, Scott and I have never stained anything, ever. So we asked the guy at Lowes and the contractors if we could stain the door on its hinges (instead of taking the whole thing down) as we have nowhere to put it, or anything to put it on. They both said yes. We should not have believed them.

Finishing a door on its hinges is a monumental pain in the ass. And the instructions that came with the stain kit are fuzzy at best. We sort of figured things out as we went, but consequently one side looks better than the other. Although I think overall it looks okay on the less-than-perfect side, so it's not a huge deal. We're in the drying stage right now, which will probably take 4 hours. Then we put on the topcoat. I still have doubts as to whether we did this right, and my fear that the stain will never, ever be dry has increased exponentially through the afternoon. Worst case scenario, we won't be able to apply the topcoat tonight, and I will take a half-day tomorrow so I can do it in the afternoon. Luckily, it's not supposed to rain until Thursday... although it will be below freezing, and I don't know if that would affect anything.

But seriously, if someone tells you it's fine to stain a door on its hinges, call them a douchebag. It would have been well worth the money spent on a couple of horses and 2x4s to avoid all the taping and pathetic attempts at using a Q-tip to get in the tight spots around the hinges. Better yet, find yourself a couple of migrant workers to do the whole thing. Way easier.

Edited To Add: It is now 7:30pm and the stain is still not totally dry. We put the doorhandle back on, and will leave it ajar until bedtime (to ensure the edges are completely dry). Tomorrow I will take the handle off again and apply the topcoat. Ah, good times. By the way, Thermatru's Same Day Stain can only be done in one day if your day starts at 5am and ends at like 9pm (even if you take it off the hinges).
We started at 8am and even if the stain was dry by 5, the first topcoat needs 2-3 hours to dry. Then I assume another 2-3 hours after the second coat until you could hang the door. Super. Oh, and the cherry on top? Our door is WAY darker than everyone else's. Either we got the wrong stain, or we did something very wrong. Probably the latter.

Yesterday was my 27th birthday, and I have to say it was pretty fantastic. First, upon waking, I found these in the place of my old, worn slippers:


Yay! New slippers! And they are Spencer-approved! Then Scott made me a delicious breakfast of coffee, toast, a blueberry muffin, bacon, sausage, and egg-in-a-hole with cheese on it. Mmmm....


After getting cleaned up, off we went to go yarn shopping!


We actually had a little adventure before this, as the yarn shop was closed for lunch when we arrived, but I'll get back to that in a minute. We first went to Knittin' Chicks in Mt. Airy. I'd never been there before, and found the owner to be super friendly. Scott liked her giant coffee mugs. Then we went to Eleganza in Frederick, my favorite LYS. I cleaned out some of their sale yarn, with dreams of making a sweater (but we'll see).

As for that little side trip... After seeing the Out To Lunch sign at the first yarn shop, Scott wanted to see what else was in downtown Mt. Airy, as we'd never been there before. We turned back onto the main street, and immediately saw a little gun shop. Intrigued, we turned around and decided to see what it was like. Scott and I had discussed buying a shotgun for the house several months ago, but it never really came to fruition. We walked into The Gun Shack (which is much larger than it appears from the outside), and browsed around a bit. Well, Scott browsed; I followed and tried not to get in the way.

Honestly, before yesterday I had never even seen a gun in person, except for on the hip of a cop. It was intimidating. Scott on the other hand, being ex-military, has fired all sorts of guns before, and previously owned several from what I understand. He talked to a nice woman, Sara, about business in general and about the Mossberg/Maverick line. She told us that guns have been flying off the shelves since about two months before the election. She was very concerned that Obama will eventually put her out of business, which isn't unrealistic. Even as an Obama supporter, I disagree with his (typically Democratic/liberal) view on gun rights. I think I'm more Libertarian in my views, and think people should be able to own whatever guns they want. Stricter gun laws mostly affect law-abiding folks buying guns legally- and not the criminals that will just get them illegally either way. Anyhow, Sara was very helpful, and in the end we walked out with a shiney new Maverick 88 8-shot Security Shotgun.


You can say it. I look totally hot with that gun. Scott taught me how to hold it properly, and when the weather is a little nicer we will practice shooting it. Honestly, I'm pretty terrified of shooting it, as it will likely knock me on my ass. But in the unlikely event that I need to shoot it, some practice may come in handy.


Later, we relaxed at home and Scott made me a lovely cake:

(It's true. They are pretty great.)

All in all, it was a great birthday. The only bad part is that it will be really hard to top this one next year!

R.I.P.

My Aquasaur died yesterday. He made it for nearly two months, and he was mostly interesting. I don't think I'll really miss having to clean that disgusting tank, though. He could fuck that tank up six ways from Sunday in about three days. I don't know how such a tiny creature made so much filth... But he was fun for a while. Hopefully, his short life was a happy one.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

Last weekend was sort of a mixed bag. On Friday we had our new door installed, which went great. The contractors came right on time, and were finished in about 3 hours. We went through Lowe's, and the guys they sent were awesome. I felt bad that they had to endure some griping from the grumpy old man downstairs, but told them not too worry about him. He hates everyone.

OLD DOOR:

(note damage)


GAPING HOLE:


NEW DOOR:


And the new door handle is superior, in that it does not spontaneously decide NOT to unlock from the inside. Sweet. All we have to do is wait for the weather to cooperate so we can stain and paint it. This weekend is looking promising.

But on Saturday, trouble came knocking at our new front door. We had purchased a new mattress the previous weekend, and the delivery guys brought it that morning. If you've had to buy a mattress in the last lifetime or so, you may be aware of how incredibly creepy mattress stores/salesmen are. The one we dealt with was a total shyster- worse than any used car salesman. So we were already mildly irritated with the whole process... then the delivery guys could not get the box spring up the stairs. Fucking Ryan Homes. Seriously. Who the hell designs a house in which you cannot physically fit a damn queen size box spring up the stairs. I want to punch these people in the face with a brick. We had to send the box spring back with the delivery guys, and go pick up a split box spring from the warehouse ourselves (which of course cost extra).

OK, it should all be good now, right? Nope. We unwrap the mattress only to see that the seam on one side is, well, not there for about six inches. Shit. And to add insult to injury, the Mattress Warehouse people were total assholes about getting it replaced for free- they made it seem like they were doing us a favor by exchanging it, then tried to charge us for delivering it. Doucheguzzlers. Luckily, I married a man who toes the line of legality if he feels at all slighted. I wouldn't be surprised the salesman wept a little in the men's room later, as a result of Scott's verbal assault. Anywho, the new mattress should be delivered on Wednesday morning. We'll see.

At least with the front door replaced, we can paint the living room. I'm really looking forward to that. Oh, and a fun fact: when the old front door was being removed, we learned it wasn't actually attached to anything. It took three pries with the crowbar to get it out. One contractor remarked, "I'm surprised [the battering ram] didn't just push in the whole door," meaning frame and all.

If you're considering buying a Ryan home, you might want to reconsider. The level of craftsmanship in this place leads me to believe drunken apes built it. More than half our doors are hung poorly enough that they don't close properly. Many of our windows aren't hung right, either. I don't believe the crackheads hung the doors and windows, which makes this the fault of Ryan Homes.

Do you hear me Ryan Homes? We're onto you. And blogging about it.

Of the many things that hatched in my little tank, only one Aquasaur survived. For a while I had two Aquasaurs and two fairy shrimp that had reached adulthood, but they died off one by one. The one that remains is feisty and really quite ugly. No really. Just look...

For reference, the blue marbles are 1/2 inch in diameter. He's big enough now to move them around to get at food. Scott really hates the desk lamp that must shine on the tank 24/7, and will be glad when the little guy's lifespan is up and the light can go out. He is sort of stinky and creepy, but he has his moments. When it's feeding time, he'll swim up to the little food pellet, grab it with his gazillion legs, then hold onto it upside down and sink to the bottom. He looks so thrilled, laying there, nom-nom-nomming on his munchy.

My little pine trees are doing well. Three have sprouted, and they look good- hopefully I can continue to not kill them.

Work has been hectic, but the overtime will come in handy when it comes time to fix up the house. Also, we're hoping to get a tax refund this year, as homeowners. If the tax calculator we found online is right, we might even have enough to do the floors! For now though, we are focusing on getting the front door replaced. We called a few places for estimates, and so far Lowe's is winning. Initially, we hoped to only replace the door (or "slab" as the contractors say) and not the entire frame, but we learned that doing the whole thing won't cost much more. Plus it will be more secure, as there are apparently some fancy-pants new features we don't have now.

Once the door is replaced, we can paint the living room, put up new window coverings (probably wood blinds) and replace the lighting fixtures. Then we can do the floors downstairs, and maybe even throughout the whole house. Yay! Hopefully we can accomplish more this year than last.

I'm a Murderer

It's true. I accidentally killed the Aquasaur last week. It was time to clean out the little "tank" for the first time, and the instructions explicitly say NOT to use tap water due to the chlorine content. Foolishly, I thought it would be okay if I let the water sit out uncovered for a day or so (letting the chlorine evaporate). In theory it would work, but in practice it did not. Either all of the chlorine did not evaporate, or there is something else in the water that killed him. I knew something was wrong when he started swimming around erratically, sometimes laying on his back on the bottom of the tank. It was pretty terrible. He died withing a few hours (although I kept hoping he would get better), and went to his porcelain grave the next day. The cheap ass tank that came with the Aquasaurs was pretty impossible to clean so I just pitched it. The reviews on Amazon aren't kidding when they say a Coke bottle is more sturdy. Karma dictates that I try again, and make sure to give the new batch of Aquasaurs the best life possible.

Friday, I went to Petsmart and bought a better plastic tank, a little fake plant, and stick on thermometer. I had some little blue marbles left over from a previous craft project, and decided to stick them in there too. Everything got rinsed off with spring water, and the eggs went in the tank. Yesterday they started hatching, and today I can see at least a dozen little things swimming around in there. It's too hard to tell how many are Aquasaurs vs. Fairy Shrimp at this stage, but it should be clear in a couple days.

It's hard to justify buying $10 worth of supplies for giant sea monkeys that only live 3 months, so I've decided that once the Aquasaur perishes (hopefully due to natural causes) we will get a feeder goldfish for the tank. Or maybe a few guppies.

The little pine trees are starting to grow too, or at least one is. Hopefully at least one more will sprout in the next few days. I'd like better odds, as apparently I have a tendency to kill things on my first try...