A Little Crooked House

(I wrote this on Wednesday the 8th - today is Tuesday the 14th.)

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.

He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.

He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,

And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

That’s an English nursery rhyme, c. 1842.  If you take away the first three lines, throw in the words “girl” and “dog” and keep the last line, you’ve got my current situation.  Except I think it would have to be a “wicked crooked house.” 

Here’s a sunset from Saturday night, as seen from my driveway, overlooking the neighbor’s house across the street:

And here’s poodle keeping her eye on me when I went outside to take the picture:

My little trailer was full-to-overflowing on Saturday.  Kathy, mom, poodle and I drove up from Killington.  Ann came down from Hinesburg with Abby, Evan, Delaney and Hoagie (he’s a dog).  Aidan and Liam came over after snowboarding at Bolton. 

 

It was interesting, considering my current (borrowed) furniture consists of a card table and four folding chairs.  Saturday night the trailer living room was lined with air mattresses:  mom, Kathy, Evan, Abby, Delaney, poodle and I were all lined up in a row.  It was hilarious.  Before I show you pictures of what the painting crew accomplished, I MUST mention what we had for dinner.  Chinese take-out from a place called the Green Dragon.  Now I MUST mention that the Green Dragon is literally FOUR MINUTES from my house.  Did you get that?  FOUR MINUTES!  And it is one of THREE Chinese places I’ve seen here in town.  *swoon*  This may not mean much to some of you, but for those of you familiar with Bigfork, Montana, you know why this makes me deliriously happy.  Strangely enough, the Green Dragon even had french fries on the menu, so Evan was happy.  Chinese flavored french fries.  I think they cook them with the chicken fingers.

Anyway, back to the painting.  There’s a reason why I don’t paint houses for a living.  It’s a pain in the butt.  We started with the darker color for a couple of the living room walls. 

I know it looks orange in the pictures, but the color is called Armangac.  It’s a Sherwin Williams color – look it up.  Kathy is painting it on the stair risers as well.  (Those are the risers, right?  Not the treads, because that’s the part you walk on, right?)  In that first picture, Evan is not-so-patiently waiting for his first ever opportunity to paint with a roller.

On Sunday we moved on to the yellow (called Butter Up) in the dining room and the rest of the living room walls.  It was a fluorescent color right out of the can – not quite what I was expecting but you can see it is different from the peach color the previous people had in the dining room.  Delaney said it is a happy color.  And speaking of the dining room, doesn’t that space look tiny with people in it?  Yikes.

 

Poodle helped a lot.

Okay, what else.  I’m trying to remember what we’ve been doing the past couple of days.  I opened a bank account and got a post office box.  Notice I updated my mailing address over there on the right.  The post office computer randomly picks a box number for you, and when my number came up as 1612 the woman said, “Ah, the War of 1612.”  We don’t think there really was one, but I will forever remember my box number now by thinking of the War of 1612.

We’ve been to Big Lots three days in a row.  I didn’t even know what a Big Lots was until I moved here, and now I’ve been there three times.  Maybe four, I lost count.  I’ve been to the Aubuchon Hardware store four days in a row, and will be going back tomorrow.  Maybe tomorrow I can get a library card, too, because I have nothing to read.

Mom has been denuding the yard of lots of knick knacks and doo dads.  We took a bunch to a store that resells them as a benefit for the United Way, and next door found a master electrician looking for small jobs.  I’m going to call him tomorrow.  Hopefully he can come over and give me an idea of what I need to worry about first.  I’ve got enough small jobs to keep him busy for all of eternity, assuming he doesn’t have heart failure when he sees the wiring in this place.  Woo hoo!

Back to the painting.  Kathy picked a color for the two bedrooms upstairs and mom taped everything.  Both rooms need walls and ceilings painted.  Since the ceiling slopes down to a knee wall, I couldn’t decide what to do about color.  After putting the first coat on the walls in the bigger bedroom, I decided to go with a ceiling color that is tinted about halfway to the wall color.  Oh, and I couldn’t reach all the way up the tall walls with mom’s stepladder, so I couldn’t get an entire first coat on all the walls.  I kind of forgot about the whole before-and-after business, so these pictures are mid-painting. 

Sad poodle.

Ann brought down her Little Giant ladder today and I finished the walls and the inside of the closet in the big room, and painted the ceiling in the little room.  No, I didn’t need the ladder for the closet, nor did I need it for the ceiling in the littler room.  Amazing how easy it is to rub your head against wet paint when you are painting a low ceiling.

While I was messing around with this, mom was ripping the crap out of the carpet in the smaller bedroom. 

See, here’s the deal.  The previous tenants had a cat.  And somehow that cat turned into three cats.  And those three cats left one hell of a stink behind.  I have nothing against cats – I love cats - but I have everything against irresponsible pet owners who don’t know how to clean up after their pets.  If this is you, please stop reading right now and go away.  I have no time for you.  Because of some irresponsible pet owners, not only are we replacing all of the carpet upstairs, mom also ripped out the pad underneath and all of the tack strips.  We’re down to plywood.  And it still stinks.  Twice now I have sprayed almost a full bottle of pet odor eliminator on the entire floor of the small bedroom, which means my back hurts from bending over and my hands hurt from squeezing the trigger on the damn bottle.  A zillion times.  Plus I’m just pissed (no pun intended).  If this second application doesn’t help with the smell, the third time will be with barely diluted bleach.  Then we will paint the floors to seal them before the carpet installers come on the 22^nd.

One thing I did learn during all this, though, is that my mom is an animal when it comes to carpet removal.  She did it all herself.  Talking to herself most of the time, but she did it.  We got her somewhat hooked on HGTV a couple of months ago, and now she could have her own show.  I suggested she test drive the cast iron tub tonight, but I forgot to get Epsom salts when we were out today.  Guess I’ll be going back to Big Lots tomorrow.

WiFi, No Go

I wrote a long and tedious blog post on Wednesday night and have been unsuccessfully trying to upload it ever since.  First mom and I went out to lunch to a pizza place (I know, I had spaghetti) that had a WiFi sign in the window.  Turns out it's faux WiFi - you need to have a Comcast account in order to use it.  Then we went to the Morristown Library, which is where I am right now, and I got a library card and discovered you can access their WiFi from the parking lot.  So earlier today we sat outside and I tried to update my blog.  It was taking F.O.R.E.V.E.R.  So I bagged it and decided to put all my pictures on Nemo, my thumb drive, and use a library computer to get the job done.  But now that I am sitting here, I realize there is no place to plug in the thumb drive.  Tomorrow I will come back and bring my laptop inside, so if it takes forever again at least I will be warm and comfortable.

In the meantime, a tiny bit of trivia.  The Morristown Centennial Library, built in 1913, is one of four Carnegie Libraries in Vermont.  Look it up.

Holy remodel, Batman!

So mom, poodle and I took a drive up to Morrisville today to have one last meeting with the seller of the house I just bought.  (As an aside, let me just say this house-buying experience was one step shy of a nightmare, and it never would have come together without some serious help from my mom.)  The roads were mildly crappy because we are mid-winter storm.  In fact, as I was reveling in the fact that our cross-country drive ended before this storm hit, I remembered that my moving truck is still in Minnesota and has to work its way through blizzard conditions to get here.  Awesome.

Anyway, back to my story.  Cecil and Brigitta are an older couple who have lived in this house for a zillion years.  Almost.  I think they bought it in the mid-1970s.  It started its life as a 10' x 40' single-wide trailer.  Sweet.  Over the years Cecil added on to this happy home in every possible direction, and then in 1994 his son added a two-story house stuck on one end.  That's the part I will be living in.  The other side, which we affectionately refer to as "the trailer," is going to be my art studio.  Plus there is a claw foot tub in the trailer bathroom.  Oh yeah, baby.  I've always wanted a claw foot tub.

But once again, I digress.  I had been to see this property three times since May.  Mom went with me twice, my sister Ann went once, and my sister Kathy went twice.  It was pretty hard to get a good look at the place because Cecil and Brigitta have a lot of stuff.  Wait, let me rephrase that.  Cecil and Brigitta have a LOT.  OF.  STUFF.  There were tenants in the two-story house, so it was hard to get a good idea of the space over there, too.  Needless to say, I was pretty excited to see it empty.  But Cecil.  Oh the poor guy, I thought he was going to cry.  They have had their property for sale for I don't know how long - at least three years, but Cecil is so proud of all the work he has done, and I know it was hard for him to leave.  I told him they are welcome to come back and visit whenever they would like, although they are moving to Tennessee so they may not take me up on my offer.

So we get to Morrisville all excited to see the empty house.  Wow.  Right this minute I'm watching a rehab show on HGTV and the host just said, "I'm always curious to see what the people leave behind when they move out."  That, plus a sick feeling in my stomach, sums up how I was feeling in the car.  I guess in all honesty I have to admit I wasn't "excited" so much as terrified.  Yeah, terrified.  I knew it was a project house going in to it, but it's actually a PROJECT house.  And strangely, the interior didn't look bigger when it was empty.  I'm trying not to fall back into my old habit of becoming overwhelmed by the big picture to the point of paralysis.  This house is definitely going to require taking things one step at a time, and reveling in each small victory.  And I intend to have many, many small victories.

I'd love to show you some pictures from the first couple of times I saw the house, but I don't think it's fair to show someone else's stuff.  So here is my future art studio as we saw it today:

This is part of the living room in the trailer.  And here is poodle having her lunch in the dining room:

It's funny because this property has everything on my "yes" list but it also has everything on my "no" list.  For instance, I have been painting at my kitchen counter for the past 6+ years and I've been dreaming about having a bigger space that didn't interfere with my kitchen.  Now, because I'm so smart, my art studio will have it's own kitchen!  HA!

Okay, the rest of these pictures are from the two-story house where I will be living:

Now, do not be misled.  These pictures make the space look MUCH better than it does in real life.  But I love the walnut floors, and the old beam across the ceiling.  And windows.  I will have sunlight.  I can have plants for the first time in years!  The kitchen needs some serious work; I might need to live with it as is for a while before I figure out what to do in there (besides ripping off that tile backsplash).  First things first, though: tomorrow I am buying paint for the downstairs rooms and we go back to the house on Saturday to camp out for the weekend and paint.  Stay tuned for the progress - there will be a lot of it.

Bittersweet....

I started a blog post over a week ago - and this is as far as I got:

I've been trying to think of a way to concisely tell you everything that has happened in the past couple of months, including my house and lot selling, then my dad dying, then my commercial building selling, then my very dear friend Viki dying, then my offer on a house in Vermont being accepted -- but it's too much to fit in one sentence.  (HA, see what I did there?)  So much in my life has changed this fall, it has been almost impossible to keep up.  The end result will be my moving back to Vermont next week.  Roxie and I are having a goodbye party after work today, and I'm sure there will be lots of tears.

Perhaps later I will regret not keeping closer tabs on everything that has been happening, but right now I'm just overwhelmed.  I'm writing this final blog post of 2013 from the couch in my mother's house in Killington, Vermont.  We ended our five day drive today.  Since Friday mid-day, mom, poodle and I have been in Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and now Vermont.  We had some seriously bad weather in North Dakota and more seriously bad weather around Buffalo, New York.  Other than that, ... piece of cake.  We spent a night in Billings, MT, then Valley City, North Dakota (damn crazy wind), a night with Lolly and Paulina (and Max!) in Evanston, Illinois, and a night in Fredonia, New York.  The only casualty was the hydraulic arm on the rear window of the jeep, which gave up the ghost in the -13 degree temps in North Dakota and sprayed pink foamy stuff all over the place.  I hope that's not an expensive fix.

Tomorrow will be a day of sleeping late and doing nothing, partly because I'm ready for a day of not getting up when the number on the clock starts with a "7", and partly because I'm ready for a day of doing nothing, but mostly because I'm going to do laundry tonight so all of my clothes will probably still be wet tomorrow.  The moving truck with all my crapola isn't scheduled to arrive in Burlington until the 7th, which means I won't see it until the 8th at the earliest.  Between now and then we will be heading to Morrisville so I can have a last minute meeting with the sellers to get answers to all my little questions, like how to work the generator they are leaving for me and where to find the water shut-off valves.  Then we are going to a memorial service on Friday, and back to Morrisville on Saturday to paint some walls before the furniture arrives.  Pictures to follow.

Now, time for my second round of Chinese food, then some bubbly, then some serious mind-numbing tv watching.  The past few months have been so unpredictable with ups and downs - it reminds me of the post I wrote on January 2, 2011.  I leave you with that same post:

It's going to be a bumpy ride, whether you take the freeway or the road less traveled.  Potholes.  Black ice.  Construction delays.  Unavoidable detours.  Last year I hit a deer.  Last week I ran out of gas.  But for every valley there is a hill, and sometimes, when you least expect it, you crest a hill and the view just takes your breath away.  Crest more hills, my friends.  I wish you breathtaking views.

Peace.

One Tree, Two Tree....

ACK!  POODLE!  WHERE ARE YOUR LEGS???  That does NOT look comfortable.

Anyway, here we are at work, and not a single person has come in.  It is one hell of a dreary day outside.  So I'm varnishing the trees I painted after work yesterday.  I've got a sneak peek but first, did I show you the painting I finished the other day/last week/sometime in the recent past?

It's a poodle painting, because she is my little spoon.  Derek thinks the words are too subtle, but it's a night time painting, so dark and subtle are okay.  (Hark!  People just came in!  Back in a few....)

Okay, that was quick.  Here is what the work table looked like this morning:

That's seven new trees, plus the one I painted last week.  Tammy wants five so I figured I would give her a couple extra from which to choose.  Here are some quick pictures of how they look now, wearing their first coat of varnish:

I never know how these are going to come out, and each one is always very different.  My favorite is either the first one or the one with the crooked top.

I checked the extended forecast today and I'm glad I did - we've got some crazy cold nonsense coming our way.  By Tuesday or Wednesday the nighttime temps are going to be in the single digits, with a windchill in the negative numbers.  Time to turn on the heat in the upstairs bathroom, and maybe suck it up and turn up my living room heat.  I was hoping all the boxes I've got packed and stacked around my bedroom and living room would help cut down the chill factor but, alas, not so much.  At least I know the power outage the other day was due to some dumbass in a pickup truck hitting a transformer rather than a potentially worrisome repeatable issue.  Although out here, a dumbass in a pickup truck hitting a transformer IS a potentially worrisome repeatable issue.  I've got just under a month left in my very cold little home, so here's wishing for a December full of balmy days and low electric bills.  (Ha ha ha, yes, I know, but a girl's gotta dream.)

Plan B

I had big plans last night.  It took me an entire day to recover from Thanksgiving (which was a lovely, lively dinner with Eletra, Wayne, Derek, Mandi, Greg, Corina, Dylan, Denis, Helen, Anne, Jon and Suzi) but by the time the work day was over I felt I could think about food again.  Poodle and I drove to the grocery store on icy roads, then went home and immediately turned on the portable heater.  I call it the fire - I turned on the fire.  It was cold!  Really, it was C.O.L.D.  I was going to cook some dinner and eat it while reading the magazine I just bought, then pack a couple of boxes and cook some chicken for lunches and start some paintings.  I have been commissioned to paint five (FIVE!) tree paintings like this one as Christmas gifts:

Woo hoo!  I figured with the fire on, and the oven on, it might be warm enough to not worry about the paint cracking while it dried.  I was all set to experiment with drying the paintings in my toaster oven if need be; wicked low heat - it could work.  So here I am with bulk Italian sausage cooking on the stove and while I am mid-chop with the cabbage, ... wait for it ... the power went out.  Let me say that again.  THE POWER WENT OUT.  It was about 6:15 or so.  sigh.  I rounded up all my candles (five of them) and put fresh batteries in my tiny little flashlight.  Poodle and I huddled under a comforter on the couch, reading my new magazine by flashlight, with ten frozen fingers and one frozen nose.  The power came back on at 10:30.  Needless to say I had a really late dinner, no chicken was cooked, and I packed my stuff and brought it to work today so I can paint here after we close.

Note to self:  get more candles and a bigger flashlight.

A little here, a little there....

There have been crazy things happening around here, leaving me no time to update my blog.

Actually, that's totally not true.  There have been crazy things happening, yes, but I still have time to go home at night and become one with my couch.  But I haven't been writing anything here.  I think I'm so overwhelmed with the good, the bad and the ugly -- I don't know where to start.  So let's skip it all and just talk about paint.  Yes, I HAVE painted a few things lately.  First there is a butterfly.  I named it Jewel Tones:

It's not half bad.  The colors in the first photo are more accurate - the background is more of a purpley blue.  Next I painted a donation for the Museum's annual Festival of Trees fundraiser.  This one is called Lightly Falling Snow:

And since we were painting trees, here is a single for the gallery.  I named it Evergreen.  Hope I haven't already used that name.

Let's see, what else.  Oh - I found an older piece leaning against my refrigerator.  I hadn't varnished it because it is in the questionable pile, but now I like it.  It is called First Snow, Harvest Moon.  The panel is 18" wide x 14" high so it is on the big side for me.  It is nothing special, but I like the moon.

That's it for now, except for two things.  Thing one is a sunset in my jeep:

And thing two is a sleepy poodle:

That's my girl.
The end.