Did you know?

Did you know that needing to paint the trim in your kitchen will cause your windowsills to be the ONLY place in the entire 3200 sq feet of house suitable for lounging and play? It renders all other furniture and expensive cat trees unusable, apparently. Go figure. A minute before this was taken I had all 4 cats lounging, parading and sitting on the long windowsill in the dining area. They got camera shy when I tried to get a picture of that though. I am an unpopular Mama today. I finally had to resort to locking them all up in 1 room with food, water, and a litter box long enough to paint and then let it dry (probably an hour and a half...?). Because you know they would absolutely die of starvation and dehydration in that amount of time.
I hope they forgive me because that was just the first coat. I'm gonna have to do it all over again....LOL.

Poverty

Well, to add to my kitchen-remodel induced poverty, we went ahead and ordered the stainless Samsung fridge that I have had picked out for months now. Our fridge is still working, but its 16 years old and has seen much better days. Realizing it might not last much longer we have been out looking at options. I fell for this one mainly due to its interior layout. Its not the french door design. I am not really sure I like that pull out freezer drawer thing. I have looked at them and opened them and tried to imagine myself adjusting to it, but I just don't think I can.

This one is a side by side, with ice and water in the door (gotta have that). But it has a space saver ice maker in the door which frees up a lot of shelf space in the freezer. That was its selling point to me. I also like how it gives you options to adjust shelves and drawers easily. I haven't found another one that I liked more and am excited. It will be here next week, but we have delayed delivery until we get back from Las Vegas....so I have to wait until Nov. 2nd to get my hands on my new toy.

We also looked at stainless induction ranges. These things promise to boil water on the flat cooktop in 90 seconds. Wow. We waivered and almost.....seriously almost...got one of those too. But then I decided to do a little bit of research on them first. I think we can wait on that a little while. My range (glass top) is working fine for the moment. And while these induction ranges are seeming to get great reviews, they are so new to the market that they are really pricey. The prediction is that they will be more common and more popular and more available within the next year or so and then it might be something to consider. Prices are almost guaranteed to drop into a more reasonable range. Hopefully.

Its been a learning experience, having not paid attention to any of this stuff for years. Appliances, colors, finishes....all of these things have changed a whole LOT since we went through all of this back in the early '90s.

Keeping to a Minimum

I am trying to keep my whining to a minimum. Because seriously? Even though I haven't slept much, feel jittery, hungry, and can barely focus my eyes....The soreness and the swelling are quite a bit better already. I feel fairly confident that this is going to heal up fine without resorting to other treatments. Even after letting it go on for far too long. I guess it is all going to be ok.

We have another company coming out to measure our kitchen in about an hour or so. We have done a lot more research of whats out there, and believe it or not (I had to see it to believe it, multiple times) they are making some amazingly REAL looking vinyl planking. It comes in strips that lock together (with glue tabs) and goes down almost just like laminate. Its considered a "floating floor" just like Pergo. Its more flexible, more durable, more feet-friendly, and definitely more waterproof. I think I might like it. It is more expensive than laminate though. If you go with one of the better brands like Congoleum, or Armstrong.

We picked a beautiful pattern out in Home Depot and came home to research it before committing to anything. Thank God and all things Holy for the internet. How did we manage before it? As good as the stuff looked, and as reasonable as the price was it got such a mixed bag of reviews that we made the decision that it was NOT for us. It is called "Allure" and is manufactured in China. 50% of the reviewers LOVED it. The other 50% had horrible problems. Things like the adhesive being defective and not sticking. Or the most scary...some people said it emitted toxic fumes that literally made people sick. And it didn't dissipate over time, either. One woman was still suffering it a year and a half later because she couldn't afford to replace it. All vinyl is going to have that new vinyl smell for a few days, but if it goes on for more than a week then something is wrong. If the Chinese can put dangerous melamine in our beloved pet's foods....who knows what is in that flooring. It seems to be a 50-50 gamble as to whether you get a "good" batch or an evil one. Its not worth the risk.

The more expensive and better known brands all have gotten rave reviews. I think we can go with this stuff with confidence. It is so pretty. One other thing though.....do you know how fast money disappears when you are doing remodeling? Geez! We painted, needed a new floor, then decided our light fixtures were crap, so we have replaced those. Now I am no longer sure I can live with the countertops or sink, so we are heading out to look at those after the floor measuring people are finished. And that is just the kitchen!! We need paint, new carpet and light fixtures ALL over the house. And new den furniture as well. I can only hope I win the lottery in the near future. I don't actually buy tickets so that seems a bit unlikely....damn it. Maybe I will put one of those paypal donation buttons on my facebook page and beg for people to help me fund my projects. LOL. Think that will work? If you are so inclined to send us cash, please go right ahead. Its not necessary to wait for me to get the donation button installed. I accept cash and checks, too. :)

Day 2

Its the 2nd day of a 10 day round of prednisone. I can't tell you how bad I hate this stuff. I feel so jittery that I am jumping out of my skin. I am really tired but can't sleep. I am having trouble keeping a coherent train of thought. And the hunger is starting to make its presence known. I am starving, even after having a reasonable dinner and then a snack of grapes just a little while ago. At the same time, my stomach hurts. How can I have a stomach ache and STILL be hungry? It should be impossible, but its happening right now. Also? I'm getting that strange blurred vision. That doesn't describe it exactly, its more like eye strain that makes it feel difficult to focus my eyes properly.
Ok, I will try to shut up with the whining now. Its only 10 days, and I know from previous experience that while the side effects SUCK, this stuff does work for the purpose of relieving inflammation. I can do this. I may not like it but I will live.
I may not be blogging a whole lot if I keep having trouble seeing....that unpleasant part of it goes away pretty quickly after the course of the drug is finished. I just hate it so bad. I almost panic whenever I hear a Dr. start to prescribe it for me. Not that I have taken it a lot, but this is probably the 3rd time around. The first was for a sinus infection that would NOT go away (it worked). The 2nd was for back pain that hit right around the time that Stephen graduated from ASU (I was on pain meds, muscle relaxants, and prednisone just to make it there. The 5 hour drive was awful, it hurt to sit for long at a time. But again, it worked). And now this round for the ankle thing. Blech. But it will be worth it in the end....right?

Day of the Doc (or just shoot me now)

I called in sick yesterday to go see my regular Dr. because my lower back has been bothering me (again). I have some very common degeneration of the lower vertebrae....which most people over 40 have to some extent. It flares up every now and then, but generally a few days of rest and a course of prescription anti-inflammatory meds will beat it back into submission. I've gotten used to the drill....at least twice a year or so. Whatever. I can deal with it.

So, I got there at 8am and sat in the waiting room for 2 hours. Ugh. Then I sat back in the exam room for another looonnnggg time. I didn't check the time because it was making me too antsy. My doc comes in, and somehow over the course of asking me questions like "does it hurt more to sit or to stand, yadda yadda...." I made mention of the fact that I was having some problem with my ankle too. Actually I have been having a problem for months. I have sharp pain in the bottom of my heel all around the back of my ankle and part way up my calf. It comes and it goes. Ibuprofen seemed to take care of it and although my family has heard me complain (a LOT), I didn't think it was anything much. My back hurt far worse than my ankle, so I almost didn't even mention it.

The doc fixated on my ankle. She keep palpatating it, and making a concerned face and finally decided that she felt a cyst of some kind. She told me to wait a minute because she wanted to get me an appointment with a podiatrist "Today!". And she did.
So I left with my usual prescripts for my back and feeling a little scared. I overheard the phone conversation and I heard my doc say, "No I want her seen TODAY".

Anyway, I had a late afternoon appointment with the podiatrist. I was nervous and had no idea what to expect. After the way my doc sounded I was worried about amputation or something. Not really but I was uneasy. They took a million xrays of both of my feet. The appointment took forever, which made me unusually antsy because Erica was driving home. She came home to an empty house (inexcusable) because Bruce went with me. Mainly because my doctor said that they might do some kind of needle/draining thing if it was just a normal cyst. I didn't like the sound of that. But anyway....it took an eternity. I have some pretty bad inflammation of the achilles tendon in my right ankle causing a big mass of swelling, (but no cyst...yay). Apparently you need to address this quickly because it can cause a rupture. That tendon takes the most abuse of all the ones in your body. Its important if you want to walk. I wasn't doing myself any favors by letting it go on for so long. I also have the same thing in my left ankle only not as severe yet. Also? I have arthritis in the big toe on my right foot. LOL.....didn't need or want to know that.

They put me on the most dreaded of all medications: steriods. Hate them passionately! I get jittery, can't sleep and can NOT stop eating for the entire course of the meds. But its necessary. They also put me into this temporary cast/boot-like thing for ten days. It is both HUGE and UGLY. It looks like a ski boot, sort of. It velcros up and then you have a valve that you pump the insides up to conform tightly to your foot and ankle. I hate it. I also have a lighter one that is no-less obtrusive and ugly that I have to sleep in. What the heck? I just wanted a break from this back pain!!!

Anyway, Erica made it home safely. She and Bruce have mocked my ugly boot plenty.
And if anything good comes from this I have to take 10 days off of work....so....between that, the muscle relaxants AND the steriods, I should be healed and pain-free before I go back to work. And that will be a very good thing.

It's a bust

Well, its back to square one as far as the kitchen floor goes. The installation guy came out today to measure and determined that we have too many spots that are not quite level enough to make the pergo laminate feasible. It is too rigid, and would likely snap at the high spots eventually. Oh he will install it if I really want it but he won't guarantee it. So that pretty much makes it out of the question. It also takes hardwood, and tile out of the equation too. Apparently its not all that uncommon of a problem especially in older homes.

We could attempt to level the floor, but that is going to be expensive, under the house, mess around with the foundation kinds of stuff. Not worth it to me. So....that leaves basically one option: vinyl. At least there are a lot more options in vinyl nowadays. We saw some vinyl planking that looks amazingly like real wood. It has gotten good reviews online too. I checked. And there are lots of vinyl tile patterns.
So, we will see. We headed out to Lowes and Home Depot as soon as we got the bad news and we saw some things that we could live with. Nothing grabbed us quite like the Newland Oak pattern in Pergo though. Oh well. Its a set-back but its not the end of the world. We just need to make a decision soon. We have no furniture in our kitchen since it was in our way for painting and we were planning to have the floor installed within a week. It is all piled up in Stephen's room right now.

We hope to have some time to go look around at some of the flooring specialty shops to make sure we get a look at all the choices before we commit to anything.

Give and Take (mostly take) :)

We had to go shopping this afternoon. We have decided to go (almost) all out and redo light fixtures and the faucet and stuff while we are doing the kitchen. I say "almost" because the one thing we aren't doing is the countertops. We may eventually, but for now the old ones will just have to suffice. We have been looking at light fixtures, and ceiling fans for a while now without finding anything we really liked. We went to a specialty lighting store today and then to Home Depot and to Lowe's. It made for a really long day. But we were successful. We were in Home Depot, finding some things that we liked. We had them all piled up in the cart (ceiling fan, and 2 new light fixtures) when Bruce stopped to look at the under-counter lighting. My old fluorescents have seen better days. When we turned around to shop some more, our cart was gone. We walked around peeking down a couple of aisles, and we found an employee restocking our stuff. LOL. Bruce was like "Noooooo.....we want to buy that stuff!" The guy was nice and we all had a good laugh about it. One of the fixtures had been up really high and we had to wait on a guy with a ladder to retrieve it for us. We didn't want to have to wait on that again.

But later, after more shopping at lowe's where Bruce found the right length of LED under the counter lights finally, we were so tired and so hungry that we just went across the parking lot to Pizza Inn. We haven't eaten at a Pizza Inn since the kids were little. But we remembered they had a decent buffet....and it was pretty good.
Not great, or excellent but we were so hungry that it was satisfying. Bruce had eaten half his salad, set it aside to have a slice of pizza, and when he set it back on his empty plate to finish it, the waitress just breezed by and whisked it and the empty pizza plate away right under his nose. HAHA. We had a good laugh about that. Apparently its just the day for people to take our stuff away. No harm done, there was more salad at the salad bar. It was just so funny to see him poised to eat it and then it was just gone.

So about all the home improvement stuff....we remodeled this house back in 1994. Everything in it was new. But now, its all aging and needing to be replaced at the same time, it seems like. Appliances are dying right and left. The fixtures are all so outdated. Bright shiny brass was the choice of metal finishes back in the early 90's. Now, not so much. In fact, given the fact that our shower doors are trimmed in yellow brass, and our bathroom faucets....we were thinking we would need to go with that again. The lighting bars above the mirrors are in crappy shape. But right now you can hardly find brass even if you wanted it. Which I don't. Not really. But since we are doing this updating a little at a time, it is going to mean a hodge-podge of finishes for a while. Brass shower trim with brushed nickel faucets and stuff like that. We are going with chrome finishes in the kitchen this time around. The only thing that bothers me, even more than mismatched metals, is how no matter what I pick, it will be out of date long before the things wear out. Oh well.

Speaking of faucets, we didn't buy it yet because we were overwhelmed by all the choices to be made today, but I am in love with the Delta faucets that have the pull down nozzle with the high-powered magnet. Bruce was kind of digging the one that you can turn off and on with just a touch anywhere on the spout, but those were really pricey. It just looks like something made to break to me. We looked at Moen's and Kohlers and a million other brands, but Delta is the only one with magna-tite to hold it in place. I think I am going to have to go with a Delta.