Home Improvement

Hello, my name is Anna, and I watch too much DIY Network.

There you have it.  Don't judge me or hate me, just learn to accept me.

My latest escapade involved staining our concrete floors in our house.  Since we built our living quarters/house in the south end of our shop, it came with industrial, jailhouse-gray concrete floors.  Excuse me, correctional facility-gray floors.  Sometimes I forget to be PC.

I watched one of those remodeling shows on T.V. and it took them roughly the three minutes of time between commercial breaks to stain their floors.  I roughly estimated that this would equate to three days "real time".  I bought the materials, watched the instructional video AND planned ahead by doing an extensive taping and protective-barrier-making job.  (Yet one more way that I am slowly turning into my mother... no more 'winging it'.  Sigh.....)

Although the video and instruction manual all swore that this was a simple, one step staining process... they lied.  Big time.  Three coats later I decided to call it quits and we would just live with it, no matter what the floors ended up looking like.  Poor Wesley, he got quite an earful about how I was going to write a strongly worded letter to the makers of this staining product.

I applied the clear coat sealant and..... vuala!  Amazingly beautiful, shiny floors.  Emphasis on the shiny.  Needless to say I was quite happy with the outcome and Wesley and I had to sit down for one of our "chats" where we remind the other spouse that "patience is one of the greatest of virtues, my dear".  (One of my grandpa's favorite sayings.)

Annnnnnnnnddddddd, much to Wesley's dismay, this temporarily disgruntled attitude did not dissuade me from pursuing further home improvement projects.  Next up, bathroom floors!  Stay tuned...

Correctional facility gray.  We lived with this for a year before I worked up the courage to change it.

Yes, I lined our walls with deconstructed beverage boxes.  It was a cheap alternative to purchasing expensive drop cloths. 

Bottom half of picture: crappy stain job (or so I thought)
Top half of picture: pure genius (or so I thought)

Our final, finished product once the clear sealant had dried.  Its very condusive to sock-sliding.  Not that I would know, but I've heard...

Fuddy Duddy, Part 2

We finally got rain here in east central Kansas last night!  Yipee!!!  I sat in the quiet of our house with the two little girls resting comfortably at my feet while I crocheted away on a small blanket. 

The power went out due to the storm and the three of us were left sitting in the dark. 

I got up from the couch, felt my way to the cabinet where I keep lighters and matches and proceeded to illuminate the house with the glow of several burning candles.  I then proceeded to sit myself comfortably back onto the couch and resume my previous activities - crocheting on a small blanket. 

It was then that I realized that a) I have a very boring life, and b) I really may have born in the wrong century.  Sigh......

Ahhh, the power of water

Recently, I wrote that my mother feels water is the cure for most human ailments.  It seems that she wasn't completely off base.  Feel free to peruse the attached link:

http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/healthy-eating/5-immune-system-benefits-of-drinking-water.html

Freezer life

I have a subscription to the Taste of Home cooking magazine.  (Thanks again to Wes' Aunt Kim for that!)  The Thanksgiving issue arrived last week and in it were all sorts of great recipes for things like turkey enchiladas, turkey sandwiches, turkey meatballs, turkey pie.... pretty much anything you can think of to get rid of all those turkey leftovers.  As I flipped through, page by page, I came across a handy little guide on the freezer life of random items: beef, pork, milk, veggies, cheese,... the list went on and on and nothing on that list had a freezer life of more than 12 months (remember that).

I read the chart and I laughed.  HARD.  I started laughing so hard that tears were coming out of my eyes.  The only thing I wanted to do was cut out that chart and mail it to Dr. Teresa.  Then the tears in my eyes got bigger and bigger and I bawled.  HARD.  I cried my eyes out and the two dogs just sat on the floor and stared up at me, very confused as to what was taking place.  I finally got all the tears out of my system and I sat back and stared at that stupid chart and I started to smile.  Then my smile turned into a chuckle, the chuckle turned into a giggle, the giggle turned into a laugh, and I got tears in my eyes again, but I didn't cry nearly as much the second time.

Now let me explain.

Dr. Teresa was one of the coolest women ever.  EVER.  She died last year and now it seems like every little thing reminds me of her all the time.  After she passed away her brother and sister and their families came into town to clean up her house and give away many of her belongings.  One of those belongings was a large chest freezer- FULL.  Dr. Teresa's brother said that if I wanted that freezer I could have it, but I had to take it - FULL.  So my family helped me scoot that freezer that weighed a ton (literally, it felt like) onto a trailer and it came to our newly wedded household. 

At first I was very excited about inheriting a full freezer - I wouldn't have to shop for months!  But I quickly found out that everything has a freezer life. 
Cornish game hens, circa 2001: Not so good
Buy one, get one free brisket, circa 2002: Buy one, get one tough piece of meat
50% off turkey, post-Thanksgiving, circa 2007: 50% off taste, if that's even possible with turkey
Lamb chops, circa 2005: Well, even if they weren't terribly old, we probably wouldn't have eaten them.  They're lamb chops.  Seriously. 

The take home lesson that Dr. Teresa taught me by bequeathing me with a freezer was 1) stock up on food that you can eat in a reasonable amount of time when it goes on sale, and 2) everything has a freezer life. 

I've cut out that handy freezer guide and stuck in on our fridge at home.  Sure, it may come in handy someday to know how many months goat's milk will last in the freezer, but really I keep it around so that I get another daily reminder of one of the coolest ladies I've ever had the privilege to know.  And so now, every day when I walk by the fridge and see it, my smile turns to a chuckle, the chuckle to a giggle...

Fashion Sense

If you will remember back to one of my previous posts, I mentioned that I am very much like my mother in the fact that we cannot do "cutesy".  Trendy is not really in our vocabulary, either.  If I do try to copy a trend, its usually 6 months after it goes out of style.  (But why not?  Its on sale then!) 

Last week I went to the elementary school to sub for a friend who works there.  I decided to dress especially nice for the occasion (like wear makeup AND earrings) and also try out a new belt I'd gotten just a few weeks before.  It was a concho belt, the kind that other people have been wearing over their tops and jeans for about a decade and I just now am attempting to copy. 

I walked into the school feeling especially good and I had a little extra pep in my step. 

By lunchtime I had three different kids ask me in very gentle, polite voices if I knew that I had accidentally forgotten to put my belt through the loops. 

I give up. 

The Year of the Owl

The Chinese seem to have an animal label for every year: dog, tiger, dragon, duck-billed platypus, etc....  After celebrating/surviving our first anniversary, I have decided that this was the Year of Learning in the Curry household, and thus, "The Year of the Owl".

Things that we have learned throughout the course of newly wedded bliss:
- Wes is a terrible loser at bowling
- I am a terrible loser at mini-golf
- Sometimes we will go to bed angry at each other (it sounds like those first two statements are related to the third, but they are not)
- Don't get sassy when someone is holding a knife, preparing supper.
- I married someone who acts like a 60 year old or a 6 year old.  There is rarely any middle ground.
- I married someone who has the inability to talk normally to our dogs.  However, why would I want him to?  The 6 year old voice is fine.
- Neither one of us is crazy about ice cream.
- We can work cattle together alllllll day, but we cannot work together with anything involving any sort of vehicle, tractor, or implement for more than five minutes.  Even then there usually ends up being bloodshed and tears.
- I have learned that I can complain about the state of something for days, but it does not become an "issue" until he decides that it is, in fact, an "issue".  And then something should be done immediately.  Or yesterday. 
- He is starting to accept the fact that sometimes I do fall off the deep end and just go nuts for no apparent reason.
- And....... the longer we are married I really wonder why we didn't do this years ago when we first became best friends.  I really did marry the most perfect man for me.  Whoops, I guess that should have been #1 on my list of things I learned.  Although its not so much something I've recently learned... more like an affirmation of prior knowledge...

Yipee!  1 year down, fifty-plus more years to go!!!

Safe and Sound

I think I'm a helicopter dog-owner.  You hear the 'helicopter parents' that they talk about on television - the ones that hover incessantly, smother their children with love, attention, or... well.... just physically hovering.

I'm trying to get better at it and let the two dogs play unattended in the evenings when its getting dark.  I figure that the impending nightfall will keep them fairly close.  Last week; however, this theory did not hold water. I left the little girls alone outside to play while I went inside to fix supper.  Ten minutes later, with very little daylight left I started my usually holler and whistle routine and expected the need to defend my lower legs from blue heeler wrestle-mania.  Just like normal.

I hollered (we don't yell around here) and hollered and hollered till my voice started to crack and I couldn't possible do it anymore.  By this time Wesley had come home and I sobbed my worst fears to him: the little girls had run off and would never come back and we'd have to get new dogs someday but I didn't want new dogs because I liked these two and they were irreplaceable, etc.  You know, typical irrational fears.

I cried the rest of the night, didn't sleep very well, got up the next morning before light and cried through my shower.  (Yes, I realize I sound like a toddler but dangit - I was sooooo sad!)  I got out of the shower and it was starting to get light.  I walked to the window just like I do every morning (reference one of my first posts on this blog.)  I looked at their pen and said through my sobs "Good morning little girls."

Just then I saw something move in the bottom of my eye.  I looked down to see two little girls curled up next to our bedroom window, looking up with the saddest, most forlorn looks on their faces.

Their apologies were accepted, needless to say.