Downsizing

Yesterday, I cleaned out my closets. Literal closets-- don't get all excited. Things I hadn't worn in the past year or two were thrown out. Things that were of questionable fit were thrown out. Gone were any shirts picked out by old boyfriends. Pants I could slide off over my hips without unbuttoning or unzipping were thrown out (When I started medical school, I weighed 125% of what I do now.). Oddly, things that had been tight that I would have thought would look good after losing another 10 lbs were still ill-fitting. And, things that were flattering when I was heavier, still hung on me with good shape. I guess there is some truth to clothes just being well made or not. By the time that I was done, I had SIX filled garbage bags of clothes to haul off to the Salvation Army. I think I got rid of about half my clothes (not counting workout and housework stuff).

Part of the motivator is that next weekend I am getting a roommate. My dear friend Ru will be here for an extended stay. She has whittled her material possessions down to what will fit into her compact car and has been heading my way over miles and miles of asphalt trails. She is braver than I am. Rather than moving out of employment obligations, she is just picking up and relocating for a while. It will be fun to have a friend in-house. I'm hoping we'll do some local trips and have many misadventures while she's here.

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This morning I ran a 5K with one of my friends. We banged it out pretty well, but our time was actually almost a minute slower than the last one we did in May! There's another 10K coming up in a few weeks' time, so I had better up my running schedule again.

The weather has been beautiful lately. A few days of rain have been followed by perfect skies. This afternoon I finally finished the second coat of paint on the deck, so gone are the ugly boards of pinkish-tinged primer that had been exposed for the past year. Unfortunately, the whole thing now needs a third coat to hide all of the brush strokes, but just being all one color now already makes it look much better! Suddenly, there is an almost air-conditioned cold to the breeze through the leaves. It's a warning of cold days ahead. There are so many projects I had put off last year until "the weather is nicer" and I am suddenly realizing the weather's now about to worsen. Argh.

Screw Job

I worked late on Friday night, but now I have until Monday evening off. This is the first time I've had two days off in a row all month.

My weekend didn't exactly start off the way I wanted it to. Saturday, I rolled out of bed and went to open the blinds on one of the windows in my bedroom. I was surprised to see that some of the siding of the house was hanging off in the breeze! There had been a pretty rough storm the day before. Several trees lost some limbs on my street, but I didn't think it would tear part of the house off!

Luckily, I could reach the section by hanging out the window without having to climb out onto the roof. I could just picture myself falling off the roof and having to go into the ER-- definitely not how I wanted to spend my day off. I hammered the section back in, adding a few extra nails. However, it wasn't flush with the wall.

I decided to find the longest screws I had and drill through the siding into the old wooden stuff beneath. Unfortunately, this meant a trip to the hardware store for pilot point drill bits as the "all-purpose" set I had wasn't meeting my purpose. The new bits went through the aluminum like butter, and I bought some all-purpose caulking as there was still a gap between the siding and the window ledge.

This is where my project went downhill.

I squeezed and squeezed on the caulking tube and got nothing. So finally, I used both hands, only to have the back end pop off and the stuff started to ooze out the back of the tube! Then I tried spackling the stuff onto the side of the house (mind you, I was upside-down hanging out the window doing this), but it wasn't working. Finally, I just started sticking my bare fingers in the tube and slathering it on like frosting. It sort of worked, and luckily, since it is clear and high up, I don't think it is too noticeable. I wouldn't recommend this "technique" though, as I'm not exactly sure that caulking is non-toxic.

The gap definitely needed to be fixed though, as I have old plaster walls in my 82 year-old house. Just under that window the wall kind of bows out and I put my knee through it when I was cleaning the window a few months ago. Maybe with the siding water-proofed there it will stay dry and when I get around to patching the wall it will stay nice and smooth. Finally, because I'm a girl and care about such things, I put some clear nail polish over the screw heads so that they won't start rusting later. Pretty resourceful, eh? Or I guess I could have just used better screws.

Last night I was over at my buddy's for a movie and a few beers. He was impressed, right up until the finger-painting part. He said, "Why didn't you just use a caulk gun?" This is the part where my head spun around and I said, "WHAT?" Apparently, the back end of those tubes is designed to slide forward, which is why the stupid thing popped open when I squeezed it. I thought it was just supposed to work like a large tube of toothpaste! I have another tube to redo the mildewy part around my bathtub, but luckily I hadn't gotten into that yet.

I guess part of the problem is that I have all of these home improvement books, but I don't technically look up things before I do them. I just do them and am then later shocked to discover that there's a better way to go about it. Apparently, J isn't as clueless as he likes to pretend to be. I may have to start enlisting his help around here.

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Today's mishap was in the kitchen. I am trying to do more cooking around here, as I basically use my stove to heat up frozen pizzas. I am smart enough to not attempt new dishes for other people, and am first trying things out on myself. Tonight's attempt was at stuffed peppers. One of the peppers split open down the side. I briefly thought about suturing it back together. It turned out that it didn't even matter, as the stuffing only filled four of the COLLOSSAL bell peppers I had rather than the six the recipe called for.

Other than trashing my kitchen , I thought that things were going well until I saw this:


Here's a closer look in case you missed it:


That would be a tupperware lid, melted on one of my burners. Luckily, the thing peeled off in one piece once it cooled down.


The peppers actually didn't turn out too bad:


I was too full to eat more than half of it though, as I also made some Beer-Cheese soup which was quite tasty... and it didn't involve harming any innocent tupperware!