Scenes from my recent grouting:
Act one
Scene one: Tuesday night... after stalling for days (well, technically speaking, I was preparing the surface for days) I finally slap on the grout. I read that I shouldn't buy regular grout; for a few dollars more it behooved me to get a polymer yadda yadda yadda. I also knew that I needed sanded grout because the space between the tiles and my tub is too wide. And, according to the experts at one site, it didn't matter that some of the spaces weren't very wide, I could just use the sanded grout everywhere.
So, I went out and bought PRE-MIXED sanded grout. (Forget all the crap about polymer blends - I thought my extra cents should go to avoiding the catastrophe that is moi + mixing precise amounts of ingredients.)
The directions said to use my rubber grout tray to apply the grout at a 45 degree angle, so, naturally, I used my finger tips to shove grout into the space. Surprisingly difficult to get the grout to cooperate. That sanded grout was so course that it didn't go into any of the grooves between tiles easily.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that I started on the wall around the faucet (the most vital area) rather than the back wall...
When I was done, I had a royal mess on my hands. It just didn't look right at all. The sanded grout didn't seem to be doing the trick on the narrower spaces - and it just didn't seem like this was going to be water proof ("Don't leave air holes," the instructions say). Sigh.
I said out loud to L. who was in the kitchen. "I want to kill myself." What a terrible thing to say. L responded a bit seriously, "No, you don't." (He said it twice because I replied something or other to his first, "No, you don't.") Just when I was about to feel really really guilty about what I had just said, L - bless his soul - saved the situation. He called out to me, "Drama queen." And that was that. I was being a "drama queen" rather than a puerile simpering baby... Situation defused. I went to bed feeling really really bad about the job.
Did I mention that L. had his choir concert and, what with having to wash a shirt for him by hand etc. etc., I didn't start shoving the grout into the spaces until about 9 pm?
So, I tossed and turned and the next morning went to a hardware store determined to buy a non-sanded grout. Oh, this is scene two...
Scene two: Wednesday morning at the hardware store. "Hmmm... this pre-mixed non-sanded grout is the right color. But what's this? Here's a pre-mixed non-sanded grout that is also a glue? That could be useful... not only would I grout the tiles, but I'd make sure they were still really stuck to the wall." My train of thought is interrupted by one of those rare employees (this was one of the huge hardware store chains). He's just asking me if an abandoned cart belongs to me. I say no, and then I ask him about the difference between the regular grout and the grout/adhesive combination. It appears he is Russian or something, because he doesn't understand my question. In a nice accent he just says that, of course I can use the grout/adhesive. With this expert advice, I decide to take the glue-grout.
Back home - I'm frantically cleaning the house, because V has called me to say she's at the airport. She's going out to eat with a friend (Sh) but she'll be home before too late.
Finally I'm ready to grout - this time I'll start on the far wall. My 45 degree technique with the rubber grout spreader is much much better. Or maybe not. I'm wondering WHY it didn't occur to me to look at a you tube video on grouting.
This tub of grout is used up long before the job is finished and long before I had actually covered the square feet that the grout should cover. hmmm...
Gradually - as I'm desperately trying to clean the excess grout off the tiles, it dawns on me that I've elected to spread GLUE all over the place and somehow I'm going to have to ger the glue off the tiles. The consistency is soon terribly sticky. I wipe and wipe (damp sponge - circular motion - just like the direction say). I scrape. I scratch. It just can't be cleaned. I give up. Tomorrow I'm going to have to figure it all out - and I still have half a wall to cover.
3) Final step: let everyone know that we'll all be sharing the other shower for a while... Luckily it's in my bedroom - because I'm really looking forward to having everyone traipse through at all hours. V doesn't even get home from work most days until 11 pm... Oh well, this too shall pass.
25 May 2011
19 May 2011
grout
I really have some serious things going on in my life now. I have scheduled the praxis test for early June (professional test). I have family crisis coming out the kazoo (extended family, fortunately, not anything too dramatic within this house). I have a _______ __ ____ _redacted __ __XXX ______.XXX.. Well, I am not going to fix any of those problems today. Today I am going to start to fix the grout in the downstairs bathroom.
V. is in Europe and I said I would do this. Evey day I wake up desperately searching for an excuse not to do it... The stupidest things can leave me paralyzed.
So, I have now announced this to the world. Don't say hi to me the next time we talk or write. Say, "So, did you do the grout?"
I need the pressure - only the guilt and embarrassment can save me now. I can't let V get back from Europe and find no change. She'll listen to my excuses; "I was able to fix the leak problem with this attractive plastic curtain that I have hung all around our shower/bathtub, and really, that is a much safer and cheaper solution." (Um, that's the only excuse I've been able to come up with so far.)
V will be nice about it, but - oh God - the shame. My reputation as a mechanical failure and inept house keeper will be further cemented in everyone's mind.
NO
I will not let that happen. God save us all - I'm gonna fix the house.
V. is in Europe and I said I would do this. Evey day I wake up desperately searching for an excuse not to do it... The stupidest things can leave me paralyzed.
So, I have now announced this to the world. Don't say hi to me the next time we talk or write. Say, "So, did you do the grout?"
I need the pressure - only the guilt and embarrassment can save me now. I can't let V get back from Europe and find no change. She'll listen to my excuses; "I was able to fix the leak problem with this attractive plastic curtain that I have hung all around our shower/bathtub, and really, that is a much safer and cheaper solution." (Um, that's the only excuse I've been able to come up with so far.)
V will be nice about it, but - oh God - the shame. My reputation as a mechanical failure and inept house keeper will be further cemented in everyone's mind.
NO
I will not let that happen. God save us all - I'm gonna fix the house.
17 May 2011
The tour?
Heard in my house last Thursday night.
My son P. is home for a visit with his new girlfriend Ja. Hubby picked them up at the train station and they came in to much general rejoiocing. They hadn't been in the door for 5 minutes when I hear P say to Ja, "Let me give you the tour."
The tour, P? The TOUR??
Why???
Whose family have you been visiting lately, P?
Around here nobody talks about "tours" because my home, dear as it is to some of us, well...
1 -- it's teeny tiny
2 -- anyone who knows me, knows that no matter how spiffy I managed to get the living room and downstairs bathroom... maybe even the front porch, THE HIDDEN PARTS OF THE HOUSE will probably embarrass me. If I had managed to finally clean the basement, I would have announced it.
3 -- some doors, such as the one leading to V's den, simply should never be opened, period
4 -- my closet (see point 3)
5 -- I have no taste, stomach or budget for interior decorating
So, right away Ja discovered who we really are. But, good news. I think she liked the cats.
My son P. is home for a visit with his new girlfriend Ja. Hubby picked them up at the train station and they came in to much general rejoiocing. They hadn't been in the door for 5 minutes when I hear P say to Ja, "Let me give you the tour."
The tour, P? The TOUR??
Why???
Whose family have you been visiting lately, P?
Around here nobody talks about "tours" because my home, dear as it is to some of us, well...
1 -- it's teeny tiny
2 -- anyone who knows me, knows that no matter how spiffy I managed to get the living room and downstairs bathroom... maybe even the front porch, THE HIDDEN PARTS OF THE HOUSE will probably embarrass me. If I had managed to finally clean the basement, I would have announced it.
3 -- some doors, such as the one leading to V's den, simply should never be opened, period
4 -- my closet (see point 3)
5 -- I have no taste, stomach or budget for interior decorating
So, right away Ja discovered who we really are. But, good news. I think she liked the cats.
15 May 2011
gooooooooooooooool (oops)
The score was SEVEN to ZERO, and - YES - my son was a winner even though he was goalie on the team with ZERO points.
Isn't that great?
L. is not the regular goal keeper, but the regular (and very good) goalie wasn't there... along with quite a few other players from the team. My son's team only had 9 players on the field and the other team had the normal 11. Plus the other team substituted players whereas the players on "our" side were exhausted because there was nobody to substitute.
The ball was in play in front of my son practically non-stop. The other goalie might have just gone to sleep and his team still would have won.
So, the first ball went past L. 30 seconds after the game started. And it didn't take long for 3 more to whiz (or meander) into the net.
At one point, a player from the opposing team ran into him - I can't even remember if L. stopped that goal. What I do remember is that he went down - and the other player was down. L. jumped up and ran back to the other player to give him a hand getting up. I was really proud of him. He later said that, since it was clear they were going to lose, he just decided quickly to be a good sport about it.
So, at some point during the first half, my son THE GOALIE, started stopping quite a few goal attempts. By the second half, he looked even more confident. By the end, he'd really gotten a lot of experience and felt pretty positive about it all. I'm so grateful. It's only the second time he has played an entire game. And he's only played as goalie in three games. During school soccer season this year (that is, fall 2010) he decided to create a niche for himself by working hard to get the position of back-up goalie. The first time he ever got a chance to play in that position it was because the regular guy was out; the game went well for him - with help from defense, of course, and the team won! Go team!
The second time a few weeks later.... dum de dum dum (dragnet music), . .
he came in when his school team had a solid lead, and after about 15 minutes in the position, enough balls had gotten past him that his team was losing. Plus, you could see that his confidence had taken a nose dive. Wow - that was a hard day for him and I was really proud of him because, after taking it really really hard***, he snapped himself out of it by the next morning. Another mother told me that her son told her that before practice (or a game?) the next day - L made a speech to the team apologizing for his role but MAINLY rallying the team in a positive way.
So, it is hard to see our kids fail, but fantastic to see that they are able to roll with it and bounce back and maintain the commitment to the team/sport. In our family, where none of us really has any excess talent in the sports arena, learning to deal with one's own lack of skill... well, that's possibly the most important part of it all.
Finally, and of course I can't resist taking some credit (even if it isn't credit for something I consciously planned to do "right") - I suspect it was an advantage for L. that none of us was pushing him to practice and to be better. It has to come from him. My bottom line has always been, "You HAVE to do at least one sport during the school year because exercise is really really really vital for human beings."
GO, MOM! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL oops
*** I personally wouldn't want to forget that difficult afternoon. I was watching the game in our town park. I had walked off during half-time with my friend D who had her dog with her. We were just coming back from our dog walk when, from a distance, I could see they had put L in as goalie and, seconds later , I saw the first goal go in. I'm not an expert at all, but it wasn't one of those balls that would have been impossible for anyone to stop. Sigh... Anyway, L was very upset after the game - Certainly, there was no way I could walk home with him or even talk to him at the field. At home, there were, at first, some theatrical gestures and L closed up in his room (literally and figuratively). I don't remember all the details, so I won't go on and on - but - at a certain point - I suggested watching a comedy on tv (netflix). He agreed, and was willing to snuggle with me there on the couch (no longer typical of him by that point in his life).
Then, as the evening wore on, he was kind of internally making up his mind about things. He said something a bit cryptic to me with a big hug (also NOT typical of him at this point in his life). It was along these lines: he hadn't always been honest with me, but he was going to change (I did not pursue this too much, because this was a fragile moment - but we more or less established that he was talking about school and informing me about school stuff)... Why would that make me feel good as a mother, proud of him? It's funny - it does make me proud even though, in all honesty, nothing changed afterward in terms of his "secrets." I think the best explanation for my attitude is that I saw him decide to respond to the day not by lashing out at how others treated him or saw him, not by feeling sorry for himself, but by saying to himself, "What kind of person do I want to be?"
That's the sort of lesson we should take from our failures.
Oh, and I feel ternura toward him when I suspect that what was going on was that he realized at that moment that I was --his parents were-- a source of strength and comfort for him and that he could rely on us. I'm perfectly happy to take that from him without demanding that he decide, as a consequence, to really change boundaries that he was beginning to build between me and him. That actually would have probably worried me.
Isn't that great?
L. is not the regular goal keeper, but the regular (and very good) goalie wasn't there... along with quite a few other players from the team. My son's team only had 9 players on the field and the other team had the normal 11. Plus the other team substituted players whereas the players on "our" side were exhausted because there was nobody to substitute.
The ball was in play in front of my son practically non-stop. The other goalie might have just gone to sleep and his team still would have won.
So, the first ball went past L. 30 seconds after the game started. And it didn't take long for 3 more to whiz (or meander) into the net.
At one point, a player from the opposing team ran into him - I can't even remember if L. stopped that goal. What I do remember is that he went down - and the other player was down. L. jumped up and ran back to the other player to give him a hand getting up. I was really proud of him. He later said that, since it was clear they were going to lose, he just decided quickly to be a good sport about it.
So, at some point during the first half, my son THE GOALIE, started stopping quite a few goal attempts. By the second half, he looked even more confident. By the end, he'd really gotten a lot of experience and felt pretty positive about it all. I'm so grateful. It's only the second time he has played an entire game. And he's only played as goalie in three games. During school soccer season this year (that is, fall 2010) he decided to create a niche for himself by working hard to get the position of back-up goalie. The first time he ever got a chance to play in that position it was because the regular guy was out; the game went well for him - with help from defense, of course, and the team won! Go team!
The second time a few weeks later.... dum de dum dum (dragnet music), . .
he came in when his school team had a solid lead, and after about 15 minutes in the position, enough balls had gotten past him that his team was losing. Plus, you could see that his confidence had taken a nose dive. Wow - that was a hard day for him and I was really proud of him because, after taking it really really hard***, he snapped himself out of it by the next morning. Another mother told me that her son told her that before practice (or a game?) the next day - L made a speech to the team apologizing for his role but MAINLY rallying the team in a positive way.
So, it is hard to see our kids fail, but fantastic to see that they are able to roll with it and bounce back and maintain the commitment to the team/sport. In our family, where none of us really has any excess talent in the sports arena, learning to deal with one's own lack of skill... well, that's possibly the most important part of it all.
Finally, and of course I can't resist taking some credit (even if it isn't credit for something I consciously planned to do "right") - I suspect it was an advantage for L. that none of us was pushing him to practice and to be better. It has to come from him. My bottom line has always been, "You HAVE to do at least one sport during the school year because exercise is really really really vital for human beings."
GO, MOM! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL oops
*** I personally wouldn't want to forget that difficult afternoon. I was watching the game in our town park. I had walked off during half-time with my friend D who had her dog with her. We were just coming back from our dog walk when, from a distance, I could see they had put L in as goalie and, seconds later , I saw the first goal go in. I'm not an expert at all, but it wasn't one of those balls that would have been impossible for anyone to stop. Sigh... Anyway, L was very upset after the game - Certainly, there was no way I could walk home with him or even talk to him at the field. At home, there were, at first, some theatrical gestures and L closed up in his room (literally and figuratively). I don't remember all the details, so I won't go on and on - but - at a certain point - I suggested watching a comedy on tv (netflix). He agreed, and was willing to snuggle with me there on the couch (no longer typical of him by that point in his life).
Then, as the evening wore on, he was kind of internally making up his mind about things. He said something a bit cryptic to me with a big hug (also NOT typical of him at this point in his life). It was along these lines: he hadn't always been honest with me, but he was going to change (I did not pursue this too much, because this was a fragile moment - but we more or less established that he was talking about school and informing me about school stuff)... Why would that make me feel good as a mother, proud of him? It's funny - it does make me proud even though, in all honesty, nothing changed afterward in terms of his "secrets." I think the best explanation for my attitude is that I saw him decide to respond to the day not by lashing out at how others treated him or saw him, not by feeling sorry for himself, but by saying to himself, "What kind of person do I want to be?"
That's the sort of lesson we should take from our failures.
Oh, and I feel ternura toward him when I suspect that what was going on was that he realized at that moment that I was --his parents were-- a source of strength and comfort for him and that he could rely on us. I'm perfectly happy to take that from him without demanding that he decide, as a consequence, to really change boundaries that he was beginning to build between me and him. That actually would have probably worried me.
02 May 2011
on the way to the recycling
Story of my life; I'm laughing, but ...
I have errands to do which involve dropping things off (at the recycling, at the public library, at the mail, even at the laundry). Well, I had my car key when I unlocked the car and I remember holding it as I walked back to the house. After that I didn't need to get it out again and I took several more loads of things to the car. I'm in spring cleaning mode.
Anyway, when I'm all ready to go, I can't find the fricking car key. This key is on my lucky key chain (which is a little purse that contains my license and a credit card etc.) Normally, in this case, I shrug and say to myself, "I know I had it and I can't have lost it anywhere - I'll use the spare key for now, and the key/license will turn up." But, this time, since I was heading out to drop things off all over town, I decided I had better find my keys before I threw them out with the recycling or something.
No. Not possible.
An hour later - My initial spring cleaning enthusiasm is waning at light speed. No keys. No errands started. I get this and that "done" as I wander around the house trying to figure out where I put those keys.
Well, I'm off. I'll just do all those errands really really carefully to make sure there's no key in the things I unload. Now I've thought of more errands also. I really MUST move.
move move move move move move move move move
move move move move move
move more move more move
move more more move move more move move
move move mvoe mvoe fgmov vmoe vmeov emvode mover remove moreve vroom vroom
move
ove it move it
Y colorin colorado este cuento se ha acabado
I have errands to do which involve dropping things off (at the recycling, at the public library, at the mail, even at the laundry). Well, I had my car key when I unlocked the car and I remember holding it as I walked back to the house. After that I didn't need to get it out again and I took several more loads of things to the car. I'm in spring cleaning mode.
Anyway, when I'm all ready to go, I can't find the fricking car key. This key is on my lucky key chain (which is a little purse that contains my license and a credit card etc.) Normally, in this case, I shrug and say to myself, "I know I had it and I can't have lost it anywhere - I'll use the spare key for now, and the key/license will turn up." But, this time, since I was heading out to drop things off all over town, I decided I had better find my keys before I threw them out with the recycling or something.
No. Not possible.
An hour later - My initial spring cleaning enthusiasm is waning at light speed. No keys. No errands started. I get this and that "done" as I wander around the house trying to figure out where I put those keys.
Well, I'm off. I'll just do all those errands really really carefully to make sure there's no key in the things I unload. Now I've thought of more errands also. I really MUST move.
move move move move move move move move move
move move move move move
move more move more move
move more more move move more move move
move move mvoe mvoe fgmov vmoe vmeov emvode mover remove moreve vroom vroom
move
ove it move it
Y colorin colorado este cuento se ha acabado
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