Bringing the Drama

this weekend i’m going to houston to see coldplay, as well as meetup with a couple of other friends. i’m hoping that fiona apple has a cool shirt to buy for jacob…preferably pink. saturday will somewhat heal the wound that was being denied TWICE of seeing coldplay back in september last fall.

i was talking the other day with one of my friends, the time pre katrina seems like years ago. seriously. i still have to adjust of how time has flown since then and to speak in terms of “that was months ago” instead of “a couple of weeks ago”. anyway, i’m looking forward to the upcoming month, should be interesting to see how things go.

so this weekend i have started the process of painting. my kitchen looks like a completely different place now with paint on the walls. i’ll post pictures of the finished product. right now my fridge is in the middle of my kitchen because i had pulled it out so i could paint behind it, and the room just has a lot of stuff in it right now. i am going to do little by little to put the first coat in the kitchen/breakfast room on before i leave for the weekend, then really attack the project over mardi gras (i have two days off!).

my run of luck with the powerball lottery ran out this weekend. i had won $3, then $7, so i figure logically the next step would be $365,000,000, but sadly someone in another state won the jackpot. oh well.

so everyone knows or should, that i got new sheetrock last week, and painted it this past weekend. well, problem was my security system wasn’t working right. it kept acting like a window was open, even though no window was open. now, when the tree fell on my house, it fell on a wall that had security system wires running across it, so they all fell out of whereever they were and had to be reconnected because the splicing came undone. this was done and everything was working fine. well, the sheetrock gets put up, and the system’s not working right. so i surmised that it could be the wires coming undone again. now mind you, the location of these wires is not convenient, in fact, they are up in the attic, all the way across the ceiling of my kitchen and breakfast room, past a couple of air ducts and over a lot of wires. so i climb up there, and there’s no wood to support you really, and i was thus balancing on the rafters like a tight rope walker. so i made my way with my trusty flashlight over to the area where the wires were. i noticed i had a ground wire loose, but i couldn’t figure out which wire it went with. so i was laying down balancing my body at four points across two rafters long ways. i realized there was no way i was going to be able to work with the wires because i was losing my balance, and i did not want to fall through the new ceiling onto the concrete floor below. so i make my way back out into the garage and find a flat and small piece of plywood to put across the rafters that i could lay down on. its not exactly easy to bring that over to where the wires were, but i knew it would work. so i get back up in the attic, make my way gingerly to where the wires were along with the plywood and flashlight. i fool with the wires almost laying down, because its at the area where the roof rafters meet up with the wall, and the roofing guys had nailed the roof on, so there are nails sticking through the plywood of the roof. dangerous business let me tell you. so i’m fooling with the wires, touching the suspected pair together and i can hear the security system beeping when i put them apart as if i’m opening a window. so i try fitting them back together, but they won’t stick. i had brought some wire splice twist things up there with me, and ended up using one of those. i make my way back out of the attic, first bringing the piece of wood out to the opening, then the flashlight. as i’m getting back to the door, i can hear my neighbor outside with her kids in the driveway next door. i can’t really hear what they’re saying, but i can tell who it is. anyway, i’m stepping over a rafter and wrap my hand around a vertical beam when it happens….A SPLINTER! right up my thumbnail on my right hand. OUCH! at this point i just reacted and unfortunately, dropped an f-bomb. not once, but twice! not really loud, and not really annunciated, so i’m hoping the kids next door and my neighbor couldn’t understand me. i felt terrible, but instead of opening the garage and going outside, i just kept hoping they couldn’t understand me. i don’t really talk to them that much anyway, but i sure don’t want to be the bad influencing neighbor next door. that’s all i need!

oh, and the security system is in proper working order now, so i do not have to call the company and have someone take a look at it. i love fixing things around the house.

i don’t think i want to lift my arms the rest of today. i spent yesterday putting up the ceiling paint. the guy at home depot recommended this really cool stuff, it goes on pink to let you know where you painted, then dries white. well, when i finished, i noticed there some spots that didn’t get enough paint (i did the latter half of the job almost in the dark because the sun went down and i didn’t have the lights put up), and i had kind of not done so well on the paint rationing, so i knew when i woke up this morning i’d have to go back to HD and buy another can of paint, plus a brush so i could do touch up work. i got home after church, and ate lunch, then attacked the ceiling again. i bought a new roller brush since the one yesterday seemed too shaggy. the new one worked great. and plus i was able to be more liberal with the paint since i had gotten more than a few spots with a good amount of paint yesterday. so then after i finished, i went about painting the edges. i could only do so much at a time, because lifting your arms to paint like that gets really hard after a few minutes. anyway, i finished that, put the blinds back up, and then attempted to put up the heat detector in the kitchen. i got it reconnected, then had a tough time fitting it back in the housing thing attached to the ceiling. it was getting bad, my arms were killing me, but once i started with the profanity, it understood and fit together perfectly.

so now really, all i have left is the painting and the floors and i’m done. i’m not doing the floors myself, and i figure painting walls will be a lot easier than painting a ceiling. plus, i get to paint in color.

sorry for having the lists up as the two most recent entries. its been a really busy week, but that’s a good thing. the sheetrock and ceiling came out pretty good. there are a couple of spots they could have done better, and they came today to fix them. there is still one spot, but i think it’ll be taken care of once everything’s painted. at least it doesn’t have a major problem like the roof did. now my main focus is painting, then i can call and get the floor installed. i am going to paint the ceiling this weekend, and get some paint samples. with the help of my painter friend lori, i have picked out the colors for my living room and kitchen. i can’t believe the entire process has taken this long. honestly, if you’d have told me last september it would take 6 months to get the house back to normal, i’d have wanted to have a few stiff drinks and then ask if you were joking. anyway, i’m anxious obviously to get everything back, and really, things will be improved a lot, so that’s exciting.

i’m supposed to rotate into another department at work early next month. i’m looking forward to it, because i was talking to my friend gary the other day (he’s in the same rotation program as me) and he said he overheard our bosses talking about phasing us out since we’re leaving. so both of us are just kind of sitting there. i guess its not that much different from before, at least there’s a reason behind everything. we were encouraged to get a mentor at work, so i now go meet with this one guy every couple of days, and that’s going great. its so good to talk to someone at work who understands not only your frustrations, but gives you ideas and feedback on how to deal with them. i’m actually doing some work for him now, which is much more interesting than the paperwork i was doing before.