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Ahhhh, sawdust sneezes.  Eau de Stain wafting through the air.  Stinky sealer.  Ah yes.  Cabinets for the first floor bathroom!  Bam, surprise!

Nearing completion they are, as a matter of fact!  Sooooo close!

Oh boy, cabinet teaser.  Mostly a wallpaper shot though it seems.  Heh.

I know, right?!  I can't believe it either.

Wait.  Wait wait wait.  The first floor bathroom will be done?!?!  Duuuh-...  Done?!?!  Whhaaaaaaatt.....?!

Poof, there went my mind.

(Wait.  Seriously?  It's been a year since I put the floor tile in?  A full year?!  What the....Wow I suck.  Where the hell did that time go?  Really?  A year?  Wow.)

This will also mean I can now rework the coat closet.  Coat closet?!  How does....  Yes.  I'll explain later.  I just cannot stop myself, it is what it is.

In the mean time, I thought I'd pop by with updates on things about the house.  Yay, updates!  Let's not dilly dally....

The peel and stick vinyl tile in the back stair?  Yep, peeling.  Flopping.  Flailing.  The runner is holding it all together.  Pretty sad.

Pardon the mess.  Fur, dirt, filthy walls....ugh this area makes me batty.

Fighting for top of the list next project, gluing those down and working on the area at the bottom with my tile-cover-over-without-removing-them plan.  Though so is my project with the amazing laser level.  That and a project for Mike.  Hmmm.

Anywhoooo.

I nearly killed our expensive fancy pants new plants up front by forgetting to water them.  Doh.  Genius.

Oh while we're on plants....

I tried the corn gluten meal on the backyard weed factory.  It does appear to have helped but not vastly; it's clear I did not use enough.  So next year I'll stock up and coat the entire plot.

Sure, yep, still quite weedy and I've been yanking what I can but this is the fullest our grass has ever been.  Thumbs up!

The back door awning?

Yeah, wow, it did indeed keep the piles of snow pretty well away from the back door.  I realize it's May so to mention snow is quite odd, yes.  But hey, nice, it worked!  Yes, I was quite pleased.  Quite very.

Except.  Heh.

Except, turns out snow piles up on top of the awning and stays there.  Sticks.  Especially since that is a complete and thorough no-sun-ever zone.  So when the snow melts and drips and those drips refreeze....yep, slippery.

And when you turn on the back light, you'd never know it was on, what with all that snow cloak, heh, funny.

It's always something, right?  Ah well.  Take the good with the bad I suppose.  I'm glad it's there, it does its duty especially in the rain.  As Mike succinctly proffered, "it's butt ugly but it works, can't complain."

The awning.  The light.  The back door closer.  Need to clean the siding.

While we're here....oh that dumb door closer.  My goodness.  It just, it... it just, never....ugh.  Eternally frustrating.

Remember how I picked up that fancy pants one?  Yeah.  Worked great for about a year.  Yeah, about a year on the nose, as I file back through old posts.

Now when we open the back door it sticks open.  Every single time.  See above.  Which is handy on occasion but clearly, no, not every single time.

Iiiiiiii dunno what to do.  Well.  Lemme rephrase:  win lottery, buy all new doors to the house.  It appears I am a broken record.  Regardless, as that scenario appears to be delayed, I shall preserver and resolve the issue somehow.

Stupid, grumble grumble mutter door, stupid.  Grumble.

Moving on....

Oh, speaking of stupid:  The Nest.*

Wait, what?, you ask.

Ah the Nest.  We picked up those cool giclee prints in New Orleans.

Quite honestly folks, it is not winning me over.  Indeed, I was gushingly excited to get one but it has been letting me down unfortunately.

Mainly?:  when the internet goes out, so does the Nest.  Which results in no heat.  This happened on several occasions on very cold days.  I contacted the Nest folk and they think I'm crazy and lying as their response was that it's designed with a back up to still run.

Nope.  Happened three times.  The internet goes out, the heat goes out.  Or the internet goes out, the Nest doesn't reconnect when the internet comes back on, no heat.

A fourth time the internal battery mysteriously ran out and the heat wouldn't come on which I blathered on about here.

The thing also mostly does not recognize when I'm away.  It's very fussy; it must wish me home so badly it deludes itself into thinking I am.

There have been several times I've returned home and the heat is on, full blare at "home" temp as if I'd been around (not just the turn-back-on-because-you're-nearby thing) plus the history rarely reflects that I've been gone.  I deleted and reloaded the phone app several times.  I dunno.

Plus too?  If you're a work-at-home person, the thing does nothing for you when it comes to savings.  Sure you can drop the temp while you're around, as the support folk suggested, but brrr bundle up.

The benefits and savings are reserved for folks who work outside the home which renders the entire point of the Nest moot for the at-home crowd.

You're better off getting a thermostat that cycles or has adjustable cycles.  In actuality, I think that second thermostat saved us more than this Nest has when it comes to heat.  The Nest does better with the air conditioning/"away" mode combo.  Or it did last summer; we'll re-test soon.

We do the budget spread out the gas bill payment over the course of a year thing which had consistently been going down until last mid-winter when it jumped up thirty one bucks per month.  A rather significant leap for sure.

After a message or two to their support Twitter over the internet issue, they did their freaky sneaky check our thermostat remotely thing and claimed they saw no issues.

I then spent over an hour on the phone with them, mostly on hold, to no avail.  In the end all they did was hint I'm hallucinating, email links (which I went through and everything is set properly) and a survey inquiring of their phone performance.

So anyway.  I am no longer enamored.  Shrug.  What am I missing?

Ah, the bathroom toilet that I suspected had a leaky flap issue?  Yeah, haven't heard it since that one time.  Thumbs up, cross it off the list!  Yay!

That new tank filler whoo-ha gizmo thingie* is stellar though -- shockingly quiet and Speed Racer fast.

Oh but speaking of plumbing....

Before we all met here, I installed a handheld shower in the basement bathroom as the shower is a walk-in and was perfect for Hailey baths, pre-surgery.  It was cheap, it was crap, shortly after install the top cracked, water sprayed everywhere.

Cheap a** crappy shower thing I bought.  I should know better.

After bath time, I always forgot to add a new shower thingie to my shopping list.  Finally, after a recent and particularly wet-for-all Finn bath, I remembered.  Mmm hm.

But instead of purchasing a whole new gizmo, I found parts.  Good* parts.  Handy* parts.

Yay!  Fix 'em up parts!  Cost less than a whole new shower head!  Yay!

And I completely forgot I had repaired it all until Finny got a bath over the weekend.  And then I completely forgot to tell Mike that the shower head has a shut off on it now too.  So hey, babe, there's a shut off at the top now.

Heh.  Go memory, yay team!

Several wraps of teflon tape* and the spiffy new shower valve is good to go.  Note the quality tile work the flipper did.  Mmmm.

Now we are leak and spray-everywhere-free with a convenient place to hang the shower head.  Nice, right?  I thought so.  I mean, it's not way fancy or ridiculously luxurious in quality, it's a dog shower.  But it's not shabby either.

Yay!  Drier bath time for humans!  I did discover there's regular drywall behind the tile.  What a surprise.  Not.

While we're on dogs....

In between projects I'll be working on a paint-by-numbers-ish dog portrait I donated to the annual Chicagoland Eskie Rescue auction.  The woman who won last year won again this year so I am quite flattered but mostly honored that I can memorialize another of her sweet fluffy bff's.

Ummmm....

Speaking of list....I finally decided I should have everything in one spot as opposed to in the binder, on my phone, and in my head.  Granted, it will always be a three way'er, but re-upping the master to-do list on paper helps de-scatter the brain.

Newly updated list.  Looks short.  Hm.  Troubling.

There are quite a few check marks on the individual room pages.  Huh.  Still feels like a million things to do though.  That and like I'm about to run out of things to do.  I'm weird, what can I say.

In more related news...

Finn is fine.  Big.  Heh.  Mike is good.  My stupid shoulder is not 100% yet but I'm a-okay, better able to do many a thing than previously.  Someday.  Someday I'll be all good.  Or I hope.

Ummm, what else?

Lately when I'm down at my schwanky workbench, I feel a strong desire to reorganize, rework the whole entire area.  Yes, the whole area.  Then I feel exhausted contemplating that prospect.  Then I go about my time until I'm standing there once again thinking how I'd like to reorganize.

Heh, a frustrating, vicious cycle that will end in me reorganizing.  Sigh.

Whoa.  Ok.  It is a mess.  Hm.

I'm feeling the itch to paint, do stuff, gunnin', so we should be, fingers crossed, in for a good productive run ahead here, my friends.  Which is good as (omg) half the year is nearly vamoose and I've done diddly squat.

And our four year house anniversary is next month.  Omg.  Four years?!  Mike had me going for a bit that it was five.  Hey, like I said, I needed a nap.  I think I still do.  Either way, years; I feel a major slacker!

Wow, the weight of Father Time is upon me today, huh?  Must get busy, folks, real busy.  Let's have at it!

*The Nest thermostat, toilet fill valve, shower shut off valve, handheld shower head wall mount, and teflon tape are Amazon affiliate links.  Mwah, thanks!  Please see the "boring stuff" tab for more info.
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