Tile Saw

When tiling a bathroom with porcelain tile, for the love of Jeebus, don't try to cut the stuff with a classic score and snap rig. It won't go well.

How do I know this? 'Cause I've tried. When creating perfectly halved tiles, the scoring method works okay. If okay actually means poorly. The score and snap rig is about as dependable as a 1981 Chevette's build quality. Which is to say nearly non-existent. When trying to create narrow cuts? It's as good as Britney's ability to keep her legs together.

Yeah, not so much.

The solution? A tile saw. Now, even here, you have to be careful. Why? The cheap tile saws are only rated for ceramic tiles. Try them on porcelain tiles and I'm not sure what would happen. Grievous bodily harm would likely be involved. But fear not, young grasshopper! I have found the answer. And lo, here it is:


The QEP 60088. The cheapest thing we could find rated for porcelain. For once, cheap does not equal flimsy. This little baby has been cutting through the 1/4 inch think hard ass tile (approx 8 Mohs!) like buttah.

Buttah!

Don't be fooled by the similar appearing 60087, seen here:

60087 = grievous bodily harm.

Grievous bodily harm = bad.

Now, back to the land of home improvement... body intact.

Waah!

Our spiffy new plasma TV arrived today - CRACKED! The driver had just left the complex when we unboxed the big beautiful BROKEN beasty.

We're both ready to cry. Hopefully the return process won't be too painful. Although how you return something that weighs ~80 lbs. I don't know.

Waah!

Back from STL

So I'm back in Houston... and as I was flying into town, I realized that I don't much like Houston.

Oops.

But I'm stuck here for a while yet, so I just have to suck it up.

On the plus side, Chris is going to buy a HDMI card to make our new fancy TV even MORE better. Or maybe an amp... we haven't decided.

Then again, there's this Denon receiver that's just the coolest thing. So I think we're going to get the HDMI card and save up for the receiver. Have I mentioned that I'm excited about this TV? Plasma! HDTV! Flat! Huge!

So awesome.

(But I'd still rather have my Mommy. I miss my Mommy.)

Productive!

Today I've managed to:

1) Finish my orientation to my new work, which means AS SOON AS my license comes through I can work.
2) Go to the dentist, get a cavity filled and get my teeth cleaned WITHOUT ANESTHESIA.
3) Cleaned my fishtank.

I have to say, the last of the three is the one that has required the most effort. Mostly 'cause I've been ignoring my tanks for the last four weeks or so. Why? 'Cause I was depressed as hell. But now? Now I should be golden. The glass is nearly spotletss, the plants and rocks are rearranged, and the fish are swimming around with all their fins out.

Life is good. And hopefully, I'll have my real job back by the end of next week.

Please please please - I want to be a doctor again.

Let is be so.

Yargh

The best thing about Thanksgiving is the gathering of family and friends without the pressure of religion or presents. Perfect holiday for a poor atheist, eh?

But the worst thing about Thanksgiving is the cleaning. At least, when the Thanksgiving is at my own house. Yesterday was fun - cooking, baking.... basically goofing off in the kitchen. One of my favorite passtimes. Today, however, has been mostly cleaning. I even ironed! (Gasp!) I decided to start at the east end of the townhouse and work my way westward. So far, the kitchen (except the sink) and dining area look pretty good. You can even see the top of the dining room table. Anyone who knows me knows that a clear dining room table is a feat of monumental proportions.

Now I'm on to the coffee table. EEK!

Turkey Day!

For the first time, we're having Thanksgiving at our house. (Okay, okay, we had a Thanksgiving in our apartment in Boston, but that was an apartment, not our HOME.) Which means, for the first time, I can actually do some prep work with my stuff in my space. How cool!

So today I kinda went apeshit with the prep. Here's the list:

2 pies (sweet potato, not pumpkin, alas)
one bread starter
four pints of veggie stock
four pints of chicken stock
and a huge ass grocery run

Not to mention tiling a half of the north bathroom wall. Oh yeah, and halfway through my pressure cooker broke so I had to go get a replacement. Yargh. But that wasn't all bad, 'cause my first pressure cooker was a lesson in why product research is good. Ya see, I bought a model of pressure cooker that can only create an internal pressure of 12 psi. The international standard for pressure cookers, and thus all pressure cooker recipes, is an internal pressure of 15 psi. That was a little factoid I had not grasped before making my purchase. Oops.

I'm sure you can understand the problem.

But now that the under-researched pressure cooker has kicked it, I had an excuse to replace it with the real deal. Yay!

And tomorrow? Bread baking!

Cool new toy

So as I've been posting about previously, we're redoing the bathroom's shower surround. One of the steps required putting up a layer of #15 felt paper just under where all the backerboard is going. Now, in order to get this stuff stapled down to the corners, we had to use my hairdryer to soften it up. At the same time, asphalt mastic caulk was flying everywhere to seal the seams between sheets of felt paper... which is some nasty, stinky, sticky shit.

Nasty, stinky, sticky shit that got all over my hairdryer.

So off I went to Sally Beauty Supply and got a new hairdryer. Which is cool, but not the impetus for my post. I happened to pick a hairdryer that was part of a buy one get one free deal I hadn't even noticed. So I got a flatiron, and man does this thing rock.

I feel like I've finally discovered some kinda hair secret - suddenly I have shiny, not frizzy STRAIGHT hair on a day when I haven't been to the salon. How cool is that? I've never been able to make my hair look like this on my own.

See you guys in a bit, I gotta go back to the mirror to stare at myself some more...

Bathroom renovation and nasty suprises

So we have to re-do the bathroom. Our pipes broke, requiring the plumber to bash the walls up a bit. I know, I know. There should be a panel behind the bathroom wall that gives you access to the pipes. We didn't have one. Ya see, our builder apparently ran out of money about 75% of the way through the project. So a lot of the little details (like wall panels and nice kitchen countertops) got skipped. And our tile was nasty anyway, so what the hell, right?

Last week I went to work taking out the old walls and tile. Drywall saw? Check. Sledgehammer? Check. Bugs crawling out of the walls scaring me half to death and giving me the heebie-jeebies? Check!

Ohmigod, we had cockroaches the size of Texas and carpenter ants. I could take the studs out with my bare hands they were so crumbly. I was so skeeved out that I had to call my husband at work and skeeve him out.

Fortunately, due to better living through chemistry, the bug man came and told me what to do. All them buggies be DEAD! Dead, I say. Dead like the relationship between Donovan McNabb and T.O. Dead like Elvis. Dead like the proverbial doornail. (That's right, bitches!)

Now we've replaced the studs and insulation, covered the lot with 15 lbs. felt paper and replaced the tub. Did mention that we had to remove the tub? No? Well, it's easier than it sounds... provided you have two strong men to do it for you! Thanks, Rob! We're almost ready to start the original project - the damn tiling. It's gonna seem so easy after all the other crap we've already done.

Yargh.

I respect the housewife

As an under-employed wife, I could be called a housewife.

But I'm not. 'Cause a true housewife does house-y things.

And I don't.

I could... but I'm just not interested. Without that interst, I'm completely, totally, utterly bored. Staying at home is horrible. I wake up when my hubbie goes to work to make sure I get out of the damn house.

Don't get me wrong - I love our (relatively) newly purchased townhouse.

But I was never meant to stay here for most of my time.

I was meant to be doctor. I was meant to bust my (metaphorical) balls against the walls of pediatrics.

So to the women who keep house, do it well, and make it into an art form - mad props.

Domestic productivity

Yes, I can occationally be bothered to do things around the house. This weekend we gardened - a lot. There is a little segment of land between our townhouse, the one across from us and the nightclub behind us that has been sad sad sad for many moons. We were seriously sick of looking at its weed infested yuckness. 'Cause Texas weeds are ugly.

Where I grew up, the weeds were pretty - ya know, dandelions and such. Here they are these horrible clingy vine like things. Horrible! And such a pain to dig out of the ground.

So anyway, the condo association has been bitching and moaning about this ugly parcel of land since we bought here. But nothing has happened. So we just dug the damn stuff up and planted vinca. Vinca is supposed to be an annual plant, but here in Tejas (where winter never happens) it has become a best bloomer. I swear, those vinca grow like rabbits procreate! Lovely, huge, and low-maintenance. Awesome.

And I got to mulch today. Mulching reminds me of all the good things about my childhood - my dad, romping around the yard, getting dirty. I love the smell of the stuff. Apparently everyone else thinks mulch smells like poo, but I think it smells like love.

I had a good day, playing in the dirt. I hope your Sunday was just as cool.

I am the Mistress of IKEA

So we're having a party. Hopefully, a really big party with lots of red meat and dry martinis.

But there's a catch - we moved into the new place in March 2005. Why is this a problem? Weeeell, we never really finished moving into the new joint.

Oops.

So now that we're throwin' a really large shindig, we gotta get our asses in gear. Hubby has made a Microsoft Project Gantt chart outlining what we hafta do in order to create a actual 'put together' home before the par-tay. Get this - 6.5 hours per person per weekend day + 3 hours per person per weekday.

Hah!

I'm skeptical. Then again, we really want to throw an excellent Meat and Martini party. And today, we did make our goals.

We woke up early, went to the awesome Ace Mart Restaurant Supply Company and IKEA then assembled not one, but two pieces of IKEA furniture. Meanwhile, hubby slapped a second coat of paint on the bedroom doors and started on the other random doors on the first floor.

Now, the division of labor was natural. I rule at IKEA assembly. I've put together so many damn IKEA items it's not even funny. Seriously - our place is 80+% IKEA. And the stuff that isn't IKEA, well, about half of that we wish we hadn't bought. The rest is from Ace Mart.

I never said we were normal, just that I am the MISTRESS OF IKEA!

Awesome freakin' weekend

Or, how I learned to love crazy Cubans.

Anyway, Friday night was a gas. My hermit friend (referenced in an earlier post) threw another juggernaut of a party. This time, there weren't any homosexual singing surgery interns, but there were Jello shots. And it was good. Oh yes, it was good.

It was made even better because before the pah-tay we went to see Molly and the Ringwalds. They are an awesome 80's cover band - everything from Oh Micky to GnR to Black Sabbath to Depeche Mode. Aww yeah! So, so good.

Then there was Saturday. Saturday was filled with shopping for one of my favorite things ever. Kitchen supplies. We went to Ace Mart Restaurant supply, Sur la Table and Penzi's Spices. We got spatulas, spice containers, spices, roasting pans, wine glasses... so, so good.

And it wasn't over yet. Next was... billiards! And beer! And friends! Yippee!

Then, the coup de grace, Harry Potter! Again, so, so good. Right after the movie, there was a brief interruption in the goodness when our crazy Cuban friend lost his car keys, but because it was such a good damned weekend, we found them without too much panic.

Today was also super good - I got new fish! Yay fish! And the crazy Cuban kept me from buying some less than ideal Frontosa. Instead I got some beautiful haps and some mbosa. My 55 gallon aquarium is officially purdy now. And tonight I'm baking home-made bread. I'm not even cheating and using a bread machine - I'm doing it all on my own.

If the rest of my vacation goes like this, I'm in fat city.

Psych!

Expectations are a bitch. I'm currently a 'float' resident, which means I can get called in at any time. I've been told this... but of course as soon as I get called to work I start to bitch and moan. I don't wanna work. Especially not today.

I mean, I know that today wasn't a guarenteed day off. I know I know! But I had plans. Rock and roll, baby - isn't that more important than stoopid patient care?

(Um, yeah, I guess not.)

In other news, I'm making my first foray into furniture restoration. A minor foray. We just got a nice buffet from my mother in-law (thanks Sarah!) that, well, suffered from a little benign neglect. So I found this stuff to help. Although the packaging claims that it "eliminates white heat rings and water marks, scratches" the product doesn't quite live up to the hype. Yes, the piece looks better. No, not all of the water marks are gone.

But hey, beggars can't be choosers. And now we have a place to put the china. Cool!