Category: Blitherings

Aftermath of a Broken Wrist

I suppose I should also include the finger . . .

Hobbling around on a broken lower limb makes sense if activity levels are lowered, but a broken wrist?  Yep.  I didn’t go out scrambling on the trails nearby for the simple fact that I am right-handed, and if I started to take a tumble, the right hand is the dominant one.  Four weeks, five weeks later, a rather sedentary lifestyle, and I am sore as hell after going out to the local botanical garden, looking for the flowers I have been missing on my usual weekly jaunts.

Gardens change every day, and certainly after 5 weeks, a lot.  Spring is now in bloom and I was so happy to see so many flowers, wild and domestic, native and foreign.  A lot of work has been done, too, in the garden itself.  A new gate on one side.  Cleared brush and hillsides.  New plants, new labels.  Sheer heaven!

Yesterday I felt like a drunk all day, tottering around on extremely sore legs.  Oh, well!  A bit better today.  And, a few flower photos, too.  

Floors, Hidden Vanities, Studio, Office, Wrist & Finger

Okay, the shower is tiled, but now is covered in plastic sheeting, protected by the painter from the paint. Hidden but not forgotten as its door arrives Friday!

But what else has been happening? We now have floors. Not rugs. Not hardwood. Vinyl, 20mm thick, looks like wood and designed for dogs. You read that right: dogs. The flooring has textures so that dogs have traction and don’t go flying down the hallway. It’s actually quite nice. It feels good underfoot.

And, the vanities have arrived, but until the painter is done, they remain covered and mysterious. They need to be installed before the template for the countertops can be made, and then installed.

My studio and J’s office are beginning to become usable again. Funny how daily habits, when upset, are so nice to take up again. I like reading the news and drinking my coffee in the morning, and perusing other blogs. My cameras are back on the shelves – not all of them, but a lot of them – and I used my Nikon Df here, with the 85mm f1.8, to take some photos. I also used some film cameras outdoors … the drafting table is in place, and paints and paper and brushes are reappearing.

And, my wrist and finger are mending very well, and I am out of the finger splint altogether, but wear the wrist splint at night or when my wrist feels tires or sore. Hard to believe I went flying over Smudge (dog) 4 weeks ago.

Home, Sweet Home!

Now We Need A Door!

How incredibly silly, perhaps, to write about a shower stall.  But here it is, in all its just-finished glory!  Our tile setter did a great job, so impressive in fact that when the shower door came out, he asked for the tile setter’s name.  We plan on using him in the guest bathroom, which has a bathtub, when we re-tile it in the hopefully not too distant future!

The tile setter has a hard job to do, I think.  I sure couldn’t do it – not as patiently or as well as he did.  Paying him was worth every penny.  I am looking forward to the house repairs being done – let’s just hope there isn’t an earthquake any time soon, as we won’t recover that loss as easily as we did from the flood.

The agenda for the repairs moves forward.  Flooring tomorrow.  Painter starts Thursday.  Pick up vanities Saturday, and buy some new toilets, too!  (I am excited about new toilets!  Ours are not the most “effective” you might say.)  Vanities go in after the painter is done.  Tops are cut and placed.  Shower door placed last.

Maybe it will all be done by our wedding anniversary mid-May – that would be cool!

In Betwixt and In Between

The house is torn up.  The studio is empty.  The living room is filled with boxes, one corner for Josh, the other for me.  The shower stall will be done Monday.  The shower door will be measured and ordered on Monday, too.  The dogs will be boarded out Monday through Tuesday night because of the fact the flooring is going in on Tuesday day, starting at 730 a.m.  Thursday the painter starts.  Saturday the vanities arrive.  Wednesday next the painter finishes and the new toilets are installed.  Then the vanities are installed and the template made for the counter tops.  We will have a shower that works – finally!  hooray! – but we will not be able to use it until the door is installed.  We will be brushing our teeth in the kitchen sink (ewwwww!).  I go back to the doc on Tuesday to have my wrist and finger checked 3 weeks after my fall.

And . . . we have been packing, eating junk food, brewing beer, trying to have a life, and painting in between – pictures and samples of paint on the wall.

I will post photos of the new house stuff sometime later, but today, here are the things – little things, no bigger than 7×10 at the most – I’ve been painting and drawing, just to stay sane.  The painting of the barn needs a bit of help – the roof is too white, and it looks like the windows are some strange eye infection.  The meadowlark needs more contrast.  I could go on, but I need to go to work on my other stuff.

Click on a picture to start a slide show, and to see them larger.

Healing and House Repairs

Two weeks ago today I fell over one of our dogs and broke my right wrist and a finger.  Timing couldn’t have been worse as we are in the middle of repairing our house from a flood – small though it was – that is requiring new flooring, bathroom shower stall, and repairs to damaged walls.  This means 3 bedrooms need to be moved into the living room, things taken off closet floors, vanities demolished, toilets replaced, and a new shower stall door.  So, in the process, this also means buying hardware, such as shower drain, shower valve, and shower head, and while we are at it, bathroom fixtures and towel racks and so on (and on, and on).  The proverbial $20,000 for the new toilet.

And that comment is true – I have heard it from others, and now I am seeing it in action.  In a way, it was the kick in the pants we needed to get some things around here fixed.  Things were okay, but rather shabby, such as the original bathroom vanities from 40 years ago.  Taking things apart has revealed some interesting things – rather like an archaeological dig:

  • Josh found a flyer for “edible body paint” under one of the vanities – very 1970-1980s!
  • He also found that the master bathroom vanity top was originally too long, so the builders pounded it into the drywall under the window – leaving about an inch-deep indentation.  If they hadn’t done it, the shower would have had a vanity shelf in it.
  • The tile setter showed us how poorly constructed and improperly done was the sealant and prep below the tiles he removed.

Despite my broken wrist, I am able to help pack things up.  It just requires some thought and not lifting anything heavy.  I’m glad I can help because one man shouldn’t have to do it all alone while I rest in my delicate condition.  Yay, Josh!