My kitchen, or something like it

 ... or what's left of it. Let's see if I can post these pictures. These are our lovely new curtains! They do a marvelous job keeping the kitchen climate from encroaching on the rest of the house.

To the right (I think)(not sure about the format here) and below are the cabinets before Superman started tearing things out.

 Superman cut a wedge from the squishiest part of the floor, there next to the A/C vent. It's our first look at the underlayment. She don't look good, boss.

My sexy Superman removes that ugly-ass counter. Ain't he cute?

The sink and counter are gone from this cabinet.

 Superman uses the reciprocating saw (that's fun to type: reciprocating saw)

 and something shiny to break up the cabinet.

He has a small pry bar,

  but not a large crowbar. Here's another good (?) use for a large pipe wrench.

 You can see the water damage to the underlayment underneath the cabinet he just removed.

 Twitch holds a board that shows some rot.

 This dark icky stuff looks like tar paper to me, but it's the wet moldy particle board underlayment beneath the sink cabinet. Yes, it smells bad. 

 These next two shots are more of the underlayment, I think, that extends beyond the sink cabinet.

 And it goes all the way under the stove. That's where the stove was. Superman has it off to the left, blocking the narrow path from the kitchen to our tiny laundry room. I haven't washed clothes in weeks because I can't get to the laundry room. Superman can, though, so I have clean clothes. That's why he's Superman!

 See, there's the back of the stove. And he has a box fan in the window blowing icky air toward the back yard. 

 This is what the floor looked like as Superman broke up the damaged particle board. The orange cat (sometimes called Saratoga, sometimes Caramel, sometimes Marmalade) loves to "help."

 And here the subfloor is revealed. Oh look! It's wet, too! And for some reason it's painted white. I don't know why. And only a portion of it is painted. Weird.

Superman let this dry out for a couple of days, but to no avail. It was still pretty damp.

See, only part of it is painted. And this is the subfloor, which gets covered by the underlayment for the vinyl. No one will ever see it unless the floor gets damaged somehow... Oh, right. 

 What a mess.

 Oh look! Superman went to (only big box home improvement store in town) for supplies!

The subfloor must come out. He had hoped to remove and replace it in one day so our house wouldn't be exposed to the crawl space overnight. No such luck. He did this Monday, if I recall, and it's early Thursday morning now and still looks like this.

 You can see sawdust on the insulation. The insulation is wet, too, no surprise.

 No more insulation! But wait, what's that on the ground? We've got a huge swath of plastic covering the dirt in the crawl space. I forget what that's called, but the plumbers said it's a good idea. It adds to the value of the home, too, a little bit. Maybe. It also captures water that drips from the house. Yep, there's a big puddle of water on the ground under where the sink used to be. Does that mean there is still an active leak? Superman disabled the sink the day after Thanksgiving. Nothing has gone down the drain for a month. Are the supply lines leaking?

 Ah, there are the supply lines. Superman called the plumbers back out here to check their work. They came Wednesday. Nope, it isn't the supply lines. When he talked to the plumbers Tuesday they said that water can sit for a long time, and to give it some air flow. He put the box fan across the joists pointing down, and the puddle was nearly gone Wednesday morning.

Can you see the damage to the wall studs and sill behind the supply lines? He's going to have to replace the sill and studs under the window where the sink was.

I need to take pictures of our makeshift kitchen in the living room. I have some shots of the living room in its Christmas glory, such as it was.

This evening Superman and I went out to one of our favorite date locations: the big box home improvement store! We bought two small heaters which are now set up on either side of the hole in the floor, blowing toward each other. The idea is that the dry heat will help dry the joists, which Superman really doesn't want to replace. He's going to sister the joists anyway, so there will be more substance to the joists when he's done. But he doesn't see the need to remove and replace the ones there. The heaters and the fan are working to dry out what's left.

We also bought a new sink. As shown in one of the above photos, the old sink is a big beige cast iron clunker with bits of enamel chipped off the edges. OK, the photo probably doesn't show that much detail, but trust me. So we got a new 20 gauge stainless steel 8" deep double bowl sink. It was on clearance for a decent price, and Superman wanted to buy it now before it wasn't available anymore. There's no place to put it, but whatever. We also looked at cabinets, and tentatively decided on the prefab unfinished suckers. They're cheaper and quicker than building our own, and we can choose a counter top and then finish the cabinets to match. 

Since we're putting the new kitchen on the (big box home improvement store) credit card, we've decided to add a new refrigerator to the deal. We've needed a new fridge for ages. The one we have isn't big enough for the size of our household, and is old and inefficient and falling apart. So we looked at refrigerators, too. I know which one I really want, and it's come down in price since it first came out half a dozen years ago. It is 22.5 cubic feet and now less than $1000. Barely less, but less is less. Used to be only the 18 cu. ft. fridges were that cheap, and most of the smaller ones don't come in the configuration and with the features that I want. Don't know if that's the one we'll end up with, but I hope so.

My land it's late! I'm tired. And this post is way too long now. It's mostly pictures, though, for what that's worth. I'll be back in a day or so with Christmas pictures (maybe) and more updated shots of the kitchen. Heck, I might add photos of the bathroom that Superman has been remodeling for 2, maybe 3 years. This kitchen best go faster than that!

Tales from Boxing Day

If I were in the UK I'd celebrate Boxing Day, but I don't quite know how to do it here. I need British guidance.

Christmas was wonderfully low key. The kids each got two gifts from us, one major purchase and one handmade thingie from me. The two teenagers got handheld games - PSP for Sproing and DSi for Diva. Twitch got a vacuum cleaner. That was fun. It's so practical and not at all elegant, and I enjoyed that much. We also got a vacuum cleaner for Light, but she wasn't with us for The Day. She'll be driving down from PA in a couple of weeks and we'll do Christmas with her then. I knit a scarf for Sproing, made a fleece blanket for Diva with a length of purchased fleece and a couple of packs of blanket binding. I made a balaclava for Twitch, sort of like this...

only not too much. Made it out of fleece, added extra insulation over the ears and face part. I am making a big woolen winter coat for Light, but haven't done much with it. The pattern pieces are cut out, but I haven't begun construction yet.

And for C I bought a mock turtleneck and a pullover sweater, both of which he really likes. He's been wearing the sweater, and he looks sexy in it, imho.

Since my kitchen is out of commission we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner yesterday. That was great! We might continue to do that in years to come. I like cooking, and when Light is here we all have a good time in the kitchen. But man, it's so easy to go out for Chinese!

My big project for today, and consequently my big gripe for today, is buying bras. Penney's has a good sale on bras today (this week?). I bought eight bras for $111.28, which for those of you who don't purchase bras is a pretty good deal. I bought eight bras, came home and threw away all my old bras because... damn. I haven't bought any bras in a couple of years and all of mine were in various stages of nasty. So I'm starting fresh with all new ones. And I HATE shopping for bras! When these wear out I'm going to the plastic surgeon and getting my boobs cut off. OK, not really, but the idea is tempting. I want the FTM sex change boob surgery. Well, probably not really, but having these boobs is a pain in my neck (back, chest, arms, etc.). (I wear a D-cup size, and that's enough boob to weigh things down a lot.) When I got home from the store I asked Superman if he really really really likes my boobs. He assures me he does. He had better show some strong appreciation for them or I'm cutting them off.

There are lots of pictures of this kitchen floor fiasco. I will get a picture post together soon. I find it difficult to get pictures onto this blogspot thing. I have to put them in just the right order, and do the pics first because they don't insert where I want them. And it's hard to move them from one place to another in the post. Perhaps I don't know how to do it right, but that's my life. Anyway, I want to share pictures of our kitchen. And perhaps a photo or two of our understated Christmas decoration.

Until then, I'm going to have another beer. Because bra shopping drives me to drink.

Another take on reparative therapy

My brain. It isn't working correctly.

Do you ever have those days when you just can't think clearly? And not due to the effects of mind-altering substances, either. I woke up this morning and have been unbearably stupid ever since.

A horrible thing happened to me Saturday. Lander University graduated me. I am no longer in school; no longer can I claim the title "student." And look! It made me stupid!

Diva is on my last nerve. She's pulling all manner of passive aggressive shit around here. She's being disrespectful, sassy, etc. I'm about to pinch her little head off, as Superman says.

I'm depressed. Horribly, terribly depressed. There is no Christmas here, and I don't want one, but everyone else expects it. I don't want to do Christmas at all.

My house is torn up. Did I mention the kitchen drain leaks? We can't use the sink. If I had any gumption at all I'd post pictures. Maybe I will later.

We got a replacement washing machine, which I may have mentioned. It works. It doesn't frighten me. It's good. I even used it once.

That's all I can think of. My brain, it isn't working.

Let's try a brief update*

Lots going on, long time since I last told you about it. No time now, really.

• The replacement "a" key was a bust, so I ordered a new keyboard for the laptop. Installed it yesterday. Am loving words with a's in them again. Again. Aging. Aggressive. Aggregate.
• Just in time, because I'm ready to write my big paper for that course work I've been avoiding. I saw my advisor on Tuesday. I haven't done jack about this thing aside from gathering some information, so I went in to tell her that I give up, I'll just take the F. She didn't like that idea. Told my sculpture prof the same thing and he freaked. My GPA is high - not 4.0, but something around 3.7high or 3.8low. Yeah, a zero would fuck that shit up. So my advisor gave me a pep talk and some direction and said "you've got 10 days." It's down to 8... well, 7.5 now. Last night I organized shit and wrote a rough draft outline. This morning I started reading the research articles I've chosen. As I suspected, once I get started I really get into it and regret procrastinating. I drive me crazy.
• Diva is home from jail, on probation, doing relatively well. There are more details about stuff with her, but I won't go into it now. She turned 14 last Sunday. And she's been wetting the bed every night for a week. My house stinks like sour piss. I HATE that!
• Which leads to the next bit of excitement around here: the washing machine broke. Diva broke it, actually. For those who don't know but want to, check the labels for "washing machine" to get lots of gory detail about my struggles with this washer. Diva failed to cinch the strap around the machine to hold the door closed. She put the strap on, but didn't tighten it. And she put an uneven load in it - one heavy thing and a bunch of light stuff. So of course it was shaking like Elvis. The door latch broke, but Superman fixed that one easily. However, the computerized control panel above the door also came loose and rattled around for I don't know how long. It now doesn't control shit. Superman looked up info about replacement parts for that, and can't figure which of the three things are the right one. The cheapest of these things is almost $200. Together he and I declared it totaled. It's been busted for about two weeks. He hopes to take it today to the place in town that sells used appliances to trade it for something that works. I've given him carte blanche to pick out a new one. He does laundry more often than I do anyway.
• In related news, I have been to the laundromat a few times in the past two weeks. I don't actually mind the laundromat most of the time, but I dislike the time and money it uses. This morning I spent almost $14 on the whites, Diva's stinky sheets from last night (I did three loads of her bedding yesterday morning), and the clothes Superman and I have dirtied in the past less-than-a-week.
• To make matters more complicated, the drain in the kitchen is leaking. Behind the wall. Into the wood under the vinyl flooring. The kitchen smells of rot, and has for a while. It took us a while to discover the source. Superman crawled under the house Thanksgiving morning as I was cooking the feast. Wow. Happy Thanksgiving. He turned off the water to the sink the day after Turkey Day and we haven't had the use of it since. Plumbers and insurance adjustors have been lurking around. Alas, the cause of the damage is not something our insurance covers, so it's all up to us. Superman and a good, handy friend of his say they can do it. His friend is one of these motivated, fired up people who will help get us going. They say they can finish the job (or most of it) in a day. Oh, I hope so! In the meantime we are using a lot of disposable "dinnerware" (Greg! Plastic utensils!) and eating out. Expensive! At Christmas time!
• I could go into a rant about Christmas, but I just can't afford the time. Perhaps after next Friday.

TTFN

*Turned out to be not too brief. No surprise there.