THE TOILET PAPER SITUATION

Disclaimer:

For your own sanity, don’t let your husband read this. At no point did I use a level, volt meter, or stud finder. Even though nothing went amiss and the levelicity of the end result is perfect, we all know how this knowledge will effect men.

I also have used some fairly loose terminology. i.e. do-dads, thingy, hicky-do, etc.

You do what you want… I just don’t want any hysterical emails saying your husband blew a gasket because I “eyeballed” something.

Be safe!

 

Screw it! I’m just going to post this thing on a Sunday, even though I know hardly anyone reads their… reader on Sunday. And since I have been incarcerated on hiatus for so long it’s down to you and that other person at this point anyway.

However, I am too happy with myself to let this opportunity slip by. I must toot my horn and all that happy crap.

There has been a TOILET PAPER SITUATION here for some time now. By this I mean that john is super cheap and only buys the sandpaper kind we haven’t had an actual toilet paper rack in our bathroom in… a long, long time. This was due to several factors but mostly, the old one was shitty, (HAH! SHITTY- toilet paper! Did you see what I did there?) and I was tired of fighting with it and while it looks as though I yanked it out of the wall before the paint job, I actually took it off very calmly.

So there are these huge gaping holes in the wall and wouldn’t you know, all toilet paper holders are about the same size and the holes for all of the damn things are in about the same place. Where the giant holes in my wall are.

I am guessing this could be because all toilet paper is the same size?

Let’s not over think this.

 

So, after visiting The Goodwill Store and scoring a brand new, in the package, Delta toilet paper holder for THREE DOLLARS, ($3.00!), I devised a plot to thwart the efforts of toilet paper dispenser manufacturers and, ultimately, I believe, rise above the evil t.p. manufacturers as well.

I took my happy ass to a local craft store and purchased a wooden plaque. But not before I traced a template of the t.p. holder so I would know how big a plaque I needed. (It must be said here that the holder came with a template in the packaging, but… something happened to it, so I made my own.)

I then painted said plaque and did TWO COATS. Cause that? is just how much attention I pay to details, people.

I proceeded to screw in the little, stupid toilet paper holder…. holders.

And then drill holes in the middle of the hicky-dos so that the freakin’ molly bolt’s I got that are HUGE and capable of holding firm in, like, a sponge, or something equally squishy, can go through the middle of the t.p. thingy and THEN I screw the little folding do-dads on the ends of the screw thingys and plunge them into my Swiss Cheese wall.

 

Oh, wait a minute. Even though there are thousands of holes in my wall, none of them appear to be in exactly the right spot. Well I can just drill new ones and the plaque will cover up the old ones.

I do.

Then I stick the folding do-dads through the holes and start screwing in the bolts while applying pressure against the do-dads so that the screws tighten the whole mess up.

After that it’s just getting the rack ends on the hangy things via the tightening of the teeny-tiny hex screw that they have strategically placed where no one can reach it on the bottom of the deals. Right against the wall.

You know why they are called “hex screws” don’t you? It’s not because they are shaped like hexagons. It’s because you realize someone has put a hex on you and you are screwed the moment you attempt to use the teeny-tiny little allen wrench. The plaque, actually, does make this easier than usual because it gets the hex screw further from the wall and makes more room to work.

Now. All done.

Shit.

We’re out of toilet paper.

 

Well, of course I didn’t forget that I was going to show you the upstairs bathroom! The Peace Corps, dear Mither, Kessa, and I are finished and there has been a HUGE improvement.
Behold:
The gallon of paint was an extra Mither had from some project she was doing at her house. It was a color that the girls didn’t really like. Kind of a soft creamy yellow. It was also a high dollar Sherwin Williams paint, so we took it up to their mixologist and he fooled around with it until he came up with this shade. I call it Orange Sherbert. The girls liked it. And when you consider it was covering an 80’s wallpaper that made the paper in my bathroom look current, we were tickled pink.

It was BLACK METALLIC WITH DARK PURPLE… SWISHES. Some sort of horrible impressionistic thing gone terribly, terribly wrong.

It sucked every ounce of light out of those two tiny little rooms. I think we expanded the space by several thousand square feet. (My rough estimate.)

Here we are looking into the part where the tub is. That’s Henry on the wall. Why did they name the lizard a boy’s name for a girls bathroom?

I suppose the better question would be why is there a lizard in their bathroom?

What can I say? I felt a connection.

Henry’s closeup. I don’t want to freak you out by getting too close… he’s sticking his tongue out. He has a bit of the sass.

And, of course we have to have a shot of the pot. Note the Pretty Potty Picture!

 

This is a shelf adjacent to the wall Henry is on. The clock is an old one I hauled out of the closet and replaced a truly horrid large blue fish with a clock in it’s belly. Yes, just as tacky and juvenile as it sounds.

Here’s their new curtain for the shower. Actually it’s two curtain panels instead of a shower curtain. The old plastic liner is behind them and still hanging by the fish shower curtain rings… need to replace those.

That is as far away as I could get to take the picture. We either need larger bathrooms or I need a better camera.

Well, there you go! You have been witness to another HalfAsstic makeover.

Next? I paint the utility room.

 

First off, I actually did repaint both bathrooms. OK, right that only took a couple of days and Mither was down here helping. BUT, both bathrooms were in such disrepair I had to house a lot of peace corps people in order to carry out the make over. Yeah. That’ll be a good deal of my excuse right there. Cause I couldn’t just kick them out as soon as they painted my bathrooms! I mean what kind of jerk would do that? They were going to deploy to…. Bosnia in a week, so I let all of them hang here until time to leave.

How many? Oh.

Uuuuh, lets say 30. Yeah, that sounds good.

Are you having a hard time swallowing this?

What I need here is a touch of evidence. Here are some bathroom pics!

Behold, BEFORE! Go ahead, click on it and make it BIG!

Master bathroom 80's wallpaper BEFORE the paint job. NOW you see why The Peace Corps was needed.

 

Now stop that! I know you can control your gag reflex better than that! You’re being a sissy! Only a few of those Peace Corps folks tossed their cookies. And there were 45 of them staying here, remember!

Allrightythen, moving right along. I’m guessing you are  now wanting some eye relief. Let’s try showing some improvement, but not quite done.

This is the loverly Kessa. She was a tad upset with me cause she didn't have any make up on. I know... I can be decked out to the nines and sporting a tiara and not come close to looking like that.

SEE! Isn’t it a beautiful shade of blue/teal or whatever it is? Talk about “lighten and brighten”! That’s what we did!

Here's the mess aaaaall over the counter. There is so much mess you probably can't even see the Peace Corps workers in there doing their thing.

Here's Mither bent over painting the wall behind the counter. I realize you can't see that much of her, (go with me, here), but she's peeking out between that bucket of joint compound and blue plastic cup of paint.

Here's a close up of my new shower curtain. I got it for six bucks at a garage sale and so the bathroom color was picked around it. SCORE!

This is a really great shot except that the paint is so totally NOT that color. I really did have a hard time getting pics that represent the shade of blue/aqua/turquoise/greenishblue...

See what I mean? The paint in the potty room is the exact same as the paint in the rest of the bathroom. However, I can point out here that the far wall in the potty room does look more like the actual color. I don't know why it makes it such a baby blue in the foreground.

 

Here we are, still needing bath mats down and towels, but doesn’t it look fresh? You have no idea how much brighter it is in there!

Doesn't this long piece of ribbon look pretty with my shower curtain? I wish I could figure out something to do with it in here.

It's hard to stand where I can get a good shot. Here is a look at the mirrored side, so you can see the reflection of the other.

Now, this has been so long and I have taken so much time to do it that the girls bathroom, upstairs, is going to have to be another post… I have to go… I am a volunteer firefighter and there is a raging skyscraper fire in downtown Houston that I am going to be airlifted to. Yeah. That’s it.

 

Oh, for the love of God!

Do you guys remember waaaay back, over a year ago when John was in hospital and I discovered that he had been misled into believing his test for diabetes was negative when in fact, it was positive and his blood sugar was 566 upon admission?

Well, (refresher here), he had been losing weight at a really alarming rate and so had figured he must have diabetes. We have never known anyone with this disease before and really had nothing to go on besides Wikipedia and medical websites, but it seemed obvious.

Also, understand that John was adopted, so there was no family history.

So, he made an appointment and went in and got his blood drawn and peed in a cup and just basically gave them all the info he could.

For some reason I will never understand the doctor didn’t just prick his finger right there in the office and look at a glucose meter. But, who am I to wonder at the wise and mysterious ways of quacks?

Aaaaanyway, a couple of days later the chick with the test results called and told John he was fine. His cholesterol was just a tad high-he needed to work on that.

He came right out and asked her, “So… I don’t have diabetes?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Lopez.” He was good to go.

So now, I am panicked. How could he have lost literally close to 60 lbs in 2 1/2 months?

Crap.

You know what I was thinking, don’t you? Cancer. And so was John.

We were scared to death.

OK, cutting to the chase now.  That was in February. In October John was admitted to the hospital with congestive heart failure and that’s when his blood sugar was 566.

I had the presence of mind to call the old doctor that USED to see him and ask for a copy of those test results from back in February.

You guessed it. He was very clearly diabetic. It was circled and everything. It was on the page after the cholesterol count and apparently she just hadn’t bothered to look at it.

Color me livid. And panicked, since there was some misinformation at the bottom of the page that said he tested positive for some kind of cancer. Come to find out that bit of info was for another patient and John was fine, which we knew as soon as the hospital ran the same test on him.

OK, now. Guess what I received in the mail from the same clinic that screwed up the delivery of his test results? Go ahead. You never will.

Unless you are skipping ahead before I tell you…

Are you?

Stop it!

OK. I received the test results for a Juan Lopez. Along with his correct address on the INSIDE.

The good news is Juan’s culture was negative. The bad news is I’m pretty sure I am supposed to be oblivious to this.

When I called the clinic and told them I had his test results in my hand there was a lot of gasping and a collective “Oops!”. They asked me if I would please mail it back to them. I asked why not just tear it up and throw it away? She indicated I could do anything I want with it, but they would prefer I mail it back to them.

I would prefer they get their shit together and communicate better with their clients.

Too much to ask?

AND, Is it evil of me to want to just hop in the car with this and run it over to Juan’s house and hand deliver it while explaining why it’s opened and the envelope is addressed to a John Lopez?

  • I have a bug bite on my arm that is itching like the dickens. This is odd because they usually don’t bite me. My family says it’s because I’m not sweet.

The dirty bastards.

  • John was off today and will be tomorrow and somehow we made it out of the house and ran errands and got at least a third of it done.
  • People will buy the damnedest shit on ebay. And over look some really great things that I felt sure would go. Weird. I never know what’s going to be snatched up.
  • We have dumped 5 bags of decomposed granite into the hole that Kes has wallowed out where she drives off the side of the driveway when she pulls in and out.

I think it will take another two and some crime scene tape to fix and maintain the levelicity of the yard.

  • “Levelicity” is totally a word because it is going to be in my Dicktionary, (when I get around to writing it), and it is practically self-explanatory. For instance I know my readers are too intelligent to need me to define it for them… 😉
  • Poor Keelan got into an auto accident the other day when some jerk ran a red light and T-boned her in the passenger side door. Her cute little red bug is in need of some body repair, and is in the shop, but the worst part is one of her best friends was in the car with her and has a shattered arm and severely bruised ribs.

Thank you God for side air bags and the fact that VW bugs are made of metal and not fiberglass. Otherwise this would have been a LOT more tragic.

As it is Keelan looks like she has a gigantic hickey on her neck where the shoulder belt caught her.

She SAYS this is not the look she’s shooting for.

  • There are bags of mulch outside waiting for me to dump them out into the flowerbeds and this is exciting!

How sad is that?

  • I have an actual, functioning guest room now and you are all invited over! We finally got around to buying a bed and I just recently bought the coverlet and the bed skirt is on order. When I go to pick it up I will get the two matching pillow shams because I know you people are too classy to sleep in a room that doesn’t have coordinating bedding.

There is a new blanket under there, too! Nothing but the best for you guys! I will even crack open a new cake of soap for the guest bath lavatory and break out the GOOD toilet paper! (When I say, “Your ass is safe with me!”, I’m not just being crude- but literal!)

Now, I just have to find some nightstands…

That’s a folding TV tray over on the other side of the bed.

Yeah… I know. I CAN DO BETTER!

Just go ahead and trust me and book your vacations at La Casa HalfAsstica today!

That’s all for now!