Faucets: You Probably Don't Really Care

So, I got the bright idea to paint two of our three bathrooms. I was smart and left the third untouched so I would have a place to pee and brush my teeth. Can't put nothin' past me.

One thing followed another and if I was painting, well, it made sense to update the lighting and the hardware. And the flooring. And the shower curtains (there's 2 in one bath, but that's another story).

Fine.

Except it wasn't.

See this faucet? It was misbehaving and being rather jerky when you wanted to precisely regulate the water temperature. Obviously we needed a new one. A poor faucet shouldn't be expected to perform flawlessly for 2o years, for heaven's sake.

Off I go to the big box home improvement (ha!) store. Have you seen the price of faucets lately?

Good God. A little piddly chrome one - not fancy brushed nickel or brushed somethingorother - is $45. And only one to choose from. Everything else is $89 and up. And most have two handles - you know the kind where it takes a scientific chart and 15 minutes to get the correct temp.

I much prefer the ones with the one knob. Anyway - I purchased 2 such faucets (45x2=90). I know! Talk about expensive.

Now, it doesn't end there. Go get a cup of tea.

Anyone who knows about decor, and god knows I do, all your hardware in the bath has to match - finishwise. If the faucet is chrome then all the towelracks, the toiletpaper thingy, the showerhead, the light fixture, the mirror...need I go on?

So, I wisely purchased chrome everything. I had to sit down on a display of toilet wax rings (yes! a display!) when I saw the prices of brushed metal stuff. Those brushing factories must be making a mint.

I haul home my haul. $380 worth (including tax). And this did not include mirrors, nor shower taps and heads. I had to draw the line somewhere, don't you think?

WonderHusband says: "Chrome? Isn't here something nicer? We had chrome when I was a kid. What about that brushed stuff."

Three days later we (he) installed all the chrome. WH went on a shopping trip and discovered....well, discovered what I had earlier.

Oh, so why the faucet photo you ask? Because we took back the chrome faucets! We're going to parlay that money into mirrors (WH doesn't know). WH fixed the old faucets. Now, that is reusing, or recycling or regifting, well something, but I know it's green.
He cleaned out all the grime and goop and calcium and now they slide around and get the correct water mixture like they were lined with silk.

Happy. Happy. Now I need to go scrub the old/new faucet. It looks like hell.

(ps: FabDaughter: if you read this - he fixed your faucet too!)

Well darn

So you wouldn't know it was near the end of March. Spring, even.

You can see that almost all of our snow has melted so to see more coming down was not helpful. Although it doesn't seem to be sticking.

See my horse just to the left of the tree? She really blends in. Her name is Baby and she's an Appaloosa (did I spell that correctly?).

She is demonstrating what she does best. Stand out in the pasture. Using the word pasture rather loosely of course. Don't get me wrong, she is a great horse. It is just that she's 25ish or so. I keep forgetting her age and it really isn't important; just to know she is old.

I stopped riding her last year because she really stumbled a lot out on the trail and that seemed dangerous for both her and me. She does have ringbone but the vet did say easy riding would be good for her.

She has the ability to fake disabilities though. She hates arena work so she instantly goes lame and has a real hitch to her gait in an arena. Take her out of the arena and all is cured. It really is annoying because you don't know real injuries from her fakes.

It really is an admirable talent though. She reminds me of those stories of women in the "olden days" who had mysterious illnesses and spent large amounts of time in bed. Fakers too, I'll bet. All to get out of something you don't want to do.

But I digress. Snow: I dislike you when you visit in late March. Just so you know.

A Saucy Gentleman

Doesn't he seem to be saying, "Whatcha doing there?"

My daughter was there (she snapped the photo). Well, so was WonderHusband. They were up in northern British Columbia, just south of the Yukon border. They had hiked and hiked one day last summer and amazingly found themselves sitting in amongst a group of mountain goats.

This is a male. It is hard to tell the difference between males and females. The males have horns with a slightly fatter base and their horns are gently curved at the top, while the female horns have a little kink at the end.

Incidentally, do you know the difference between horns and antlers? You can guess that I do! Horns are an extension of the skull bone and don't fall off each year. Antlers are not part of the skull and they fall off each year. There you go, now you know.

Apparently there were three of these guys that hung around for about 1/2 hour but then they got bored (the goats, not the sitting hikers) and wandered off to see if they could find something else interesting in millions of square miles of wilderness.

See what I've been doing...

Remember I said that I make glass beads?

Well, now I've got proof. I've been learning this fine craft for about five years, if you can believe it. I had limited time, given that I work 40+ hours a week at a day job that tends to leave me brain-dead at the end of the day.

Also, I had to slowly buy the necessary equipment: a dual-fuel torch, an oxygen concentrator, and a kiln.

Anyway, long story short, I have just recently felt brave enough to offer some work for sale. (www.paulinabeads.etsy.com - I'll have a link up soon)

I make mainly sets, meaning beads that all "go" together. I've been making these encased swirly beads like a crazed person. they really sent me into a Zen space.

Rather than offer them just as loose beads on a ribbon, I thought I would offer them on a stretchy cord. Is it a bracelet? Is it a loose set? Either! Snip the cord (I've heard that somewhere before) and transform into something else.

Look for these on Etsy in the coming days

My Scrounged Pot(ting) Soil

I'm so pleased with myself.

See my lovely trailer-load of nice, light, potting soil? For free, no less.

I actually scrounged it from the side of the road. Who does such a thing?

Why would lovely potting soil - complete with perlite - be abandoned on the side of the road?

Well, if you didn't want people to know that you were in possession of vast amounts of potting soil. So, who would need to keep it a secret that you had vast amounts of potting soil to dispose of?

Marijuana growers! That's who.

You probably have heard about BC's main ecomony: BC Bud. Apparently it produces 7% of BC's GDP. More than mining, forestry, and somethingelseIforget, combined.

I imagine that if you are involved in illegal activity you can't just take your old soil to the dump. Those snoopy dump employees might wonder, "Why does he (criminals are always hes) have all that soil?"

You get the picture. So some criminal had unloaded their load of illegal soil right out on the side of the road on the way to my place. I guess they thought it was a hardly-used road, but really it isn't.

So I cajoled WonderHusband to hitch up the trailer (which has now mysteriously developed a flat tire which it didn't have then)to the tractor and drive down to salvage this wonderful soil.
Wonderful soil is not plentiful around here so this goldmine could not be overlooked.


I'm going to use this pot soil in my little greenhouse.

Doesn't it look terrible? I sortof abandoned it last fall. All those grassy weedy things are from the manure I usually use.

I hope my pot soil does not have weeds. But it might have pot? Do you think so? I bet not. I think those pot seeds are not just sprinked willynilly about.

We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

Okay, I'll introduce myself

So, I'm middle-aged. Whoopee. I'm so excited about that. Not. I'm female, but you probably already figured that out.

Most of my time is spent at my job: I'm a public school teacher, grade eight. Don't shiver. It's actually a pretty vibrant workplace if you remember to laugh more than you cry. But I won't write much about that here; I don't want to get into trouble what with possibly violating privacy and such.

I've been married to the same guy for almost 25 years (in September). He's fabulous which explains the longevity. It has nothing whatsoever to do with me.

Our 2 kids are young adults. Our son hasn't lived with us for awhile but he does live in the same city which is nice. (I hate that word "nice"; I'll try to avoid it.) Our daughter is away at university but she hates it. She's be back at the end of April. She's a good writer so I'm hoping to convince her to guest-blog now and then.

I live in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, Canada. Google it and you'll see how fabulous it is. Expensive real estate, but still fabulous.

So why am I writing a blog? Well, maybe to force myself to be more exciting.
"Hey, Paulina, let's go skydiving!"
"Okay! I can blog about it."
Or
"Hey, Paulina, let's go skinnydipping!"

See? I'll have to do those things just to have something exciting to write about. Because let's face it - there is nothing inherently exciting about a 46 year old (I might be 47 actually. I'm not sure.) female.

Also, I make glass beads. It is the one "hobby" I have stuck with longer than all the others. I have an etsy store at www.paulinabeads.etsy.com. Check it out. I'll post some photos and an Etsy Mini at some point.

So there! Now you know. Don't say no one tells you anything.

IT IS NOT EASY BEING GREEN

Yesterday the sun was shining. Sort of. On and off. In one of the On moments I decided to be energetic and hang the laundry out on the clothesline. Even if I had to put on my winter coat. See, isn't it lovely?
So then I continued with my very productive day. Really.
I did notice the wind was blowing but that helps laundry dry, right?
Right.
It also helps laundry billow out like sails in the wind.
Then this happens....(just a sec, I have to go and snap a photo).

Apparently this is a blog for non-linear thinkers because the photos posted in a funny order. Not to mention at the top of the entry too, which they weren't supposed to.

Anyway, you get the idea that my laundry line is no more. Thankfully the clothes were all dry when it came crashing down.

But, you say, what is the point of all this. People's laundry comes crashing down many times a day all over the world. Yes, but... do you see in the post-crash photo that reddish rope that previously had been holding up the one end on the tree?

Well, that is a very old rope. A sun-bleached, past- its- prime rope. Why use such a rope? Well, no need to buy a new rope when we have this perfectly good piece right here.

Perfectly good.

Right.

Maybe you too live with a person who saves everything just in case you might need it.

You understand.