199
	h.i.
	04.30.02 - - 05.06.02

Goodbye Autopsy Fireplace..I will miss you! Yikes! This week has been nothing but home improvement tasks. So guess what that means! Another boring entry HIWEB! (Home Improvement Web! Who needs HGTV!?) And you thought this entry was gonna be about pot smoking! That was the last entry. Ok, here is the deal. Nicole brought be a flyer of a house on the east side of town. It looked promising. Called up my realtor and pal Bill Evans who checked it out, and he said it was promising. We went and looked at it. Yup..it IS promosing. Pretty darn near perfect for what my needs are. One problem. I am so not ready or prepared. Not only have I not been saving for this venture, but the house is a bit to..um...GAY for showing. We put a contract on it. We waaay low bid..so there is little chance they will take it. But it has got my aware that in the next 6 months I am prolly gonna move and I BETTER get the house in better shape. I went through and identified those things that are really gonna be an issue. 1. My stainless steel fireplace 2. The dead lawn 3. My wildly colored walls 4. Counter top in x-tra bathroom with the burn hole (but nicely covered up by Davids gas lantern thang) 5. The pond in disrepair. 6. Closets jam packed with stuff. I am so gonna miss my crazy colored walls. I will tackle those later though. The yard is the first thang...I'm gonna need curb appeal! Anyway, the house isn't even up for sale, and I may not even move anytime soon, but this stuff has REALLY got to be taken care of. And lucky you, you get to come help! Hmmm..that reminds me. Doing all this stuff by myself has been a bit tiring. I really wished I had someone to help out several times. Sure I got friends that would volunteer, but I prefer to only call in favors of this type for moving and taking my xanax ass to the airport. But I have to admit, things run a lot smoother when you are the only one making decisions. Sunday, now officially dubbed "The Morning" after, I was really feeling my age. I don't think I have felt so achy all over except maybe after doing a century bike ride. And so much more to do. It's gonna be a killer month.

I'm such a sod	Saturday
I don't know what the hell happened to my yard. In a previous entry, I mentioned going out and killing off all the grasses and weeds. That was last Fall I think. The grass did die off, but then I lost interest in doing the yard up. Well, the most amazing thing happened. Two weeks later, the grass all came back, as one type of grass. Winter Rye! My grass was green and lush all Winter long, in fact, I ended up mowing the yard throughout the entire Winter. That's WIERD! A week before my mom came down, I decided I needed to treat the yard to flea stuff and give it a nice fertilization. Ahhh..my lush green grass. Either because of the fertilizer or just the fact the days heated up, my yard literally disapeared in three days. Completely dead! Just in time for my mom to show up! So now I am back to where I was last fall and my original plan. There are still a few green-like things growing in the yard- not sure what is, but is most definitely not grass! I sprayed those down with Agent Orange, and called and had my cancer insurance upped. One of the hardest things (literally) about keeping the yard green is that there is no soil left. The yard dries out super fast and cracks like a desert. So I knew I needed some soil before sodding. It was off to the Soil Store! I came back with a yard of soil, enough for the front yard (I will tackle the back yard later..ugh!) But for right now the front yard takes priority, at least until Wookie is done with the golf course in the backyard. I moved a bunch a rock a couple months ago, and that was strenous, but this dirt was light and fluffy, so it was easy to move and spread around. Took me a couple hours, and was almost late to visit Bill Evans about the bid on the new hose. By the time I was finished, the sun was high, and I was out of energy. The next step is to rent a tiller, and just till it all together. I can't decide if I want to have the grass delivered, or just make two trips in the truck (prolly take two palletes for the front yard) Moving all that sod is gonna be tiring...sigh...next weekend's project.

Goodbye Pond!	Wednesday
The pond was really becoming a pain in the ass. I had to clean it every couple months, and as I mentioned in a previous entry, Wookie discovered a source of water to play in. She does have a lot of labrador in her, so its hard to keep her out of the water, except at bath time. I had sloppily chicken wired it up when she was just a pup (she fell in and couldn't get out) but now she is much bigger than the pond, and just knocks the chicken wire out of the way. She's actually not too interested in the pond, though she does soak in it, mostly she wants to chew up the plants in it. You can see how she has easily slipped over the top and had her way with it. I'm just tired of it. The point of having it was to block the sound of traffic, and the AC unit. Now that I have a nice stone fence on the backside, I can barely hear any traffic. Now it just seems like work, and the pond pump now makes more noise than the traffic. Out it goes! Anyone need a big black plastic bathtub? I bought a few plants that would grow quickly. Both of my selections are Wookie Resistant, that is, she is known for leaving them alone. The Oleandar really requires more sunlight then this spot has, but they should do fine--just not grow real fast. The other plants require lots of sun, so I am may need to watch and make sure they are doing ok. I'm gonna add a stone border, and call it a done deal. The frog stays though!

Fireplace Re-transormation	Saturday
beforebefore and after If you look at the first image, you will see what fireplace looked like. And ya know, looking at the picture, it looks pretty good. What you don't see are all the cracked tiles, and how yellow and 1970ish the tiles actually are. The second picture you see the new imroved stainless steel version. Not bad, for by odd tastes, but it's certainly not housewife friendly. I only spent 45 bucks on this makeover, so it wasn't a big loss. I knew I was gonna have to tackle it with real ceramic tile at a later date. I was tempted to call a tile guy that I did a website for, but he does pretty high-end work, and this seemed like a straight forward job. No curves, and if I get the same size tiles, only a few staight-edges to cut. I went to Lowe's (Homo Depot is too busy..no one wil help you there) and picked up a free "Do-It-Yourself" brochure. It outlined all the tools and steps. First I had to deconstruct all the metal stuff, and it all came off in about 10 minutes. This image does show the faded yellow color a little better than the leading image of this area. At Lowe's I found a relatively cheap ceramic tile that was very neutral. I spent $120 on tiles, tools and fixin's. I got two different sizes of the same tile, hoping to mix it up a bit. Of course I needed the bonding stuff, grout, sealer, cutting tools, and trowels. And don't forget the Goof-off! It helps take of all the paint, and really gets ya high! *(but it also leads to you thinking an Autopsy Fireplace is a good idea!) hey! This ain't so hard! Expecially if you get those little plasic tile dividers to keep everything all straight! ok, so here it is, pre-grouting. I had to get a little creative at the top, amazingly, the 6 inch tiles that are on there aren't really 6 inches, so the whole thing was off by a little. Go figure. I finished the grouting on Sunday afternoon..and that was HORRIBLE. It's so...so..so..MESSY! bleh! At that point I was ready to call an expert! The grout is still wet and dark, so I will wait till it is picture perfect.

Wookie gets HACKED!	Sunday
hehehe..oooh..David is gonna be soo mad! I traded some tree trimming shears for some dog clipper with Bill. I SHOULD have stuck to the tree trimmers! Omigawd! I forgot she has two coats...the under one is like tight lambs wool! I hacked and hacked and couldnt get it all off. I filled up a pillowcase of dog hair! The good news is..Wookie LOVES to be clipped! So I will take her to a professional next time..or get sharper shears. She looks like a mangie dingo! And she has bald spots on her head like brain surgery gone bad! hehe! She is pathetic! I love it! Bill snapped the picture below with me and the bush trimmers...NOT used, but you would think so! Oh yeah...before hacking up the dog, Bill and I went saw Spider-man! It was really pretty dang good. Loved Kirsten Dunst as MJ, and the acting was solid. Very moving at times. It's not rocket science, but a good solid movie..exactly what Marvel needed. Two thumbs up!!! Check it out!

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