Tag: Home Improvement

When I First Met You, Panties Droppin’

I was cleaning the bathroom up (Adam’s a great handyman but he can’t pick up after himself to save his life), and Adam was like, Oh, yeah, you want to take pictures. I told him that I don’t want to before the floor was done, but then I decided to because it’s progress, so I took some pictures 😊.

The featured image is our new bidet toilet, and that has been an emotional roller coaster. In short, I am not digging it and I want my bidet seat back. Well, I like it 90%, but the 10% hatred sends me into meltdown mode. The pressure for the spray is just nothing compared to my Bio Bidet, which broke while the water was off for the leak. The remote sucks and is complicated. I wish I could pair the BB remote with the new toilet.

I love the look of it (for the most part; I prefer shiny and not matte finish), which I was unsure about since it is U-shaped and other ones are egg or oval. I like the auto-rising lid, although it goes up and down while I am/we are walking around in the room or doing something. I think it will tire quickly. It supposedly has four pressure levels, and they all feel exactly the same to me.

I sat on the floor with my hand on the sensor and did a wash, and the water shot across the room and hit the cabinet (sounds like good pressure, huh?), so Adam brought me a towel and watched me hit the + button and there was no change. I don’t know if I am missing something or got a defective unit or what. They have clumped so many features together in a few buttons and trying to read the manual is surprisingly hard. I’ll show you, and add a funny part that we laughed heartily about.

Not very helpful.
🤣🤣🤣

There are no ratings or reviews for this bidet at Home Depot, and no one else is selling this brand. However, it is being sold on Amazon under another brand name. There, it has three 5-star reviews, but no questions asked or answered, no mention of the spray/pressure, all new bidet users without anything to compare to, and no obvious place to contact the manufacturer. Adam tried calling support from the manual, but there is no 800 number and he couldn’t make the international call with his phone plan. *Sigh* I should have taken the scratch/repair on the front of the toilet (below) as sign of what was to come.

One good thing is that the bathroom floor is almost done. What partially negates that is I can feel it give where Piper peed on the floor near the wall now that the sheet flooring is up 😒. Part of the floor will need to be replaced, maybe 1′ x 3′, which means the tiles we placed will need to come up, and I don’t think they will re-stick. Hopefully, I have enough left over. All that the floor needs now, on the good parts, is black caulking around the perimeter after Adam straightens some of the tiles. The photos really wash the floor out. It is black with marbly-looking veins.

I’ve been melting down and crying nearly every time I use the bathroom. We both said that if I cried, we would send it back because of what happened with the dishwasher, but I hope I’m just doing something incorrectly with the remote. If it’s defective, I have 90 days to return it. Adam put the (100-pound) toilet in and hooked it up, took it out when I was upset about it, and then reinstalled it when I told him I wanted to play around with it to see if I can figure it out. I hope the poor boy has been eating his Wheaties.

Allow Me to Take the Floor

The flooring has arrived, and the new bidet toilet is on the way! I started out with a bidet seat, but since the entire toilet is just a little more, I chose the whole unit. And, I found one in black that wasn’t too expensive! I’m sure Mom’s rolling right now, but I’ve done her bedroom and bathroom in black, so I wanted a matching toilet. I tried painting the old toilet but the paint wouldn’t really stick to the porcelain. I can be so destructive.

Adam took up the sheet flooring in the bathroom while I was sleeping, much to my surprise, and I’ve been putting down the new tile. I am doing the large, straightforward parts, and he is doing the corners and odd places. I just can’t get the measuring and tile cutting down; everything gets crooked and I waste an entire tile. There are a lot of odd places because of how much stuff is in the bathroom, especially the garden tub. The before photos are below. It’s not finished, so no after yet. I don’t know why the subfloor has green all over it. Adam thought maybe glue?

After the floor is down, Adam’s going to go around the perimeter with black caulking. I didn’t even think of water getting between the tiles, so if I see any gaps, I want to fill them in with sealer with a toothpick. The sheet flooring I wanted was much too expensive, and I figured the tiles would be okay for such a small area, but I never thought about them being in a wet area. I’m good at thinking of things after making a big purchase.

While I wait for the toilet to get here, I asked Adam to hook the old kitchen sink sprayer up to the toilet and I’ve been using that in place of the bidet 🤣🤣. It’s not the greatest, and I get the floor a little wet, but it works in a pinch. Sometimes it is good that I keep things I don’t need anymore. After having a bidet for years, it’s hard to go without.

Seriously Sick of Water

Anyone who knows me knows that I love water. It is one thing I love being in and around that soothes me, whether I’m looking at it, listening to it, or swimming in it. Now…I am so flippin’ sick of water! I never thought I would ever say or think that.

The Good

Adam got the leak fixed! It was down right at the meter (very easily could have been the water department’s responsibility to fix), so much so that Adam had to remove the pipe thing that houses the meter in order to fix the broken pipe. He dug a big ol’ hole over 5 feet deep, but I only took a picture of the small hole he dug when he found the leak site. I could see his blond head out there bobbing up and down at ground level when I checked on him. The new piece of pipe was cheap, but he had to change some parts that they don’t make anymore, and those cost $50 after buying the pipe 😒. He didn’t know he needed the extra parts, so we had to go without water for around 12 hours, give or take.

The Bad

Water is something we totally take for granted, so neither of us thought about the important-yet-mundane things like the ice maker and the bidet. I mean, that stuff is always there, you know? Oh, and the kids needed water, too. Oops. Adam went to our neighbor’s with a couple of gallon jugs, and they graciously allowed him to fill them up. We went to bed after that, and Adam finished fixing the leak in the morning when the parts arrived via Door Dash (Black Betty is still not fixed).

The Ugly

Our celebration turned to consternation when I went to the kitchen to get ice. The ice maker wasn’t working even though Adam had turned the water back on and the ice maker was on. That was distressing because a replacement is $100, and we could not find our ice cube trays. I know they are here somewhere…

So, he started tinkering with that, found some obstructions and cleared them and dried the ice maker, and then we just had to wait. Meanwhile, he discovered that the bidet was leaking. I remembered hearing it dripping in the morning while Adam was sleeping, but then I forgot about it. It wasn’t a huge drip. It’s just like a bunch of dominoes here, I swear.

He tried to fix the bidet and had no luck with it, so he unplugged it and turned the water off to the toilet. I can’t get a new bidet for several weeks, which really sucks because I love having one and need one because of my shoulders and stupid peri, and we don’t have to buy toilet paper since we use washable Unpaper. I thought it was an either/or deal, so when I plugged the bidet in and turned the water on to use the bathroom, I left the water on and unplugged the bidet so it wouldn’t fill back up and leak. That was the wrong thing to do.

The bidet leak was even bigger and water was running down the toilet and onto the floor and into Mom’s bedroom. Adam thought the dogs had bumped their water bowl, and I mentioned that it might be the toilet (because why not at this point?). It was the toilet 😑. When he was working on the bidet, he pinched the hose somehow when putting it back together and it snapped in two, so water was running continuously from the bidet onto the floor. He wanted me to see it, but I did not want to see it because I am pretty fed up with life right now, but I did the good wifely thing and took him a flashlight when he asked for one.

I don’t know which leprechaun I pissed off, but if you’re reading this, I am really sorry, and we are trying here. Really.

Is it Still Raining? I Drought It.

I bought the wrong size subfloor 🙄. Adam got the floor laid down in the tiny utility room but not nailed/secured because I have to get the right size. Since it’s a smaller room, I wanted to get , 2′ x 4′ boards instead of 4′ x 8′, so I searched for 23/32″ boards, which is what the rest of the house is, and bought them online without noting the thickness that showed up in the search results. The ones I got are maybe half that thickness and give when I walk on them. I looked up the size I bought, and they aren’t recommended for regular subfloor; more for attics. Certainly not in front of one of the main doors! I felt so stupid. For right now, he doubled what is down, and once again I have to avoid walking in there. It looks better than it did, though!

Adam is going to have to do some cutting and finagling so we have a floor instead of a bridge between the furnace and water tank houses, but since I got the incorrect subfloor, that isn’t something he can do now. To make my mistake even better, I wasted $79 for delivery. I’m sure I can find something to do with the boards, but I don’t know what yet.

I have been taking Phin out with me when I go out on the porch because he loves to eat grass and greenery, to the point that he will climb me if I have a flower in my hair (something I do when Adam brings me one). I put a small dog leash on him and attach it to the cable we have out there. He loves it a little too much and now nonchalantly walks out the door when I have it open to yell for the boys to come in. Luckily, since he can’t see, he doesn’t just take off and jump off the porch, so I have the time to step out and scoop him up before he gets too far. I have a knack for creating monsters 🤣🤣. He sits at the door and meows to be let out now, too.

A few days ago, I was lying in bed in Mom’s room watching TV, and I heard Phin meowing. I thought it was on my movie at first. I told Adam, so he started calling for Phin and looking for him, as Phin gets lost very frequently and cries until we find him or he follows our voice(s) to the room we’re in. Adam checked behind all the closed doors and outside. About the time I was thinking Phin could have climbed under the floor in the kitchen and was going to get up to help with the search, Adams walks into the bedroom holding a defeated-looking Phin and places him on my pillow. He’s a bit dusty and disoriented and sneezy. Indeed, he had climbed under the subfloor by way of one of the open spaces in the boards between the kitchen and utility room. Probably where the water pipes are near the furnace.

Adam said Phin came right to him when he heard him and he was able to lift him out. He was just down there walking around on the insulation 🙄. Adam covered the openings with our handy dandy coffee table top and a few other wood pieces from when he dismantled furniture I wanted to be rid of.

Phin was missing a day or two later, and the hunt was on again. Adam saw that the boys, Nev and Ollie, had messed up his patch job in the kitchen, and once more, Phin was down under the floor. It is going to be a nightmare when Adam replaces the subfloor in other parts of the house. I have some plastic covering set to buy for when that time comes, but I don’t know how well that will work on a determined, blind cat. Mom’s room is on the other end of the kitchen, so Phin trekked quite a ways under the floor for me to be able to hear him the first time.

I waited excitedly for an entire month after we switched to a tankless water heater to see how much it improved the water bill. It had been $80+ for years, and it was in the $60 range when Mom was alive. When the water bill finally came, I burst into tears. It was $405. For a month. To their credit, the water company lady had called us to say we had a leak a bit after the tankless was installed. However, I thought she was talking about the leak that was just fixed, so Adam told her it was taken care of. But, no…this was a different leak, and much worse. What are the chances? Seriously. Our latest readings were 13,000 gallons of water a month, compared to an average of 1,300 (which is still high for two people).

Since there was no water anywhere in or under the house, I asked the lady to send someone out to see if the leak’s on our end or theirs. She completely ignored me (which I should be used to) and let another month go by and another $400 bill come in. With that bill, she sent someone out and he had Adam turn the water off to the house and he watched the meter. The new leak is somewhere between the water shutoff outside our house by the porch and the meter, which is about 30 yards, give or take.

This new leak didn’t happen until we switched from the hot water tank to tankless, and I have no idea why. Adam didn’t bother anything underground, which is where the new leak is located. It is one heck of a coincidence.

I contacted the American Leak Detection place, and they are going to come find the leak with some equipment, but they cannot do that while it is raining, which it has been doing here since February. The guy is supposed to come next Saturday, God willing and the creek don’t rise…which, the creek is rising since it’s been raining for months on end. After that, Adam and I are going to get a crash course in plumbing because we certainly can’t afford to pay a plumber to fix an underground leak. The water bill is over $1,000 now since we’ve had to wait until we had the money for the leak detection guy, and I hate knowing that I have to pay that when I didn’t even get to enjoy all that water. The only silver lining I can see is that the ground should be fairly soft to dig in since it’s…well, mud.

Water We Going to Do?

I briefly touched on this leaky subject, but since I can’t remember what I said and this blog is mainly for me, I will reiterate because I want to.

I noticed a black spot on the vinyl flooring in the kitchen roughly eight years ago. It was at the door/wall to the water heater, so, obviously, I was concerned there was a leak there, and Adam unscrewed the door/wall and checked for a wet floor and water damage. We didn’t see any. I thought it was from ice cubes that my cat, Phin, liked to play soccer with and didn’t eat when he was done. The spot never grew, and I eventually forgot about it, wishing to replace the vinyl flooring (at least that section) in the future when possible, but nothing pressing. At that time, it had been two years since a plumber replaced our water heater tank.

Fast-forward to last September, when I noticed the floor from the water heater and furnace alcoves, which are opposite each other, and coming into the kitchen felt more like rubber than OSB. We have a few weak spots in the entire house, which didn’t surprise me for a 20-year-old foundationed double-wide with no renovations to date, and only general maintenance. The spots are in high-traffic areas, with one being where the house halves meet in the middle of the living room, which has been weakish since Mom was alive pre-2014.

Of course, this concerned me a great deal because we don’t have the money for major repairs, so I start mentioning to Adam that I want him to check under the house for wet areas. After several months, I finally put my foot down and got him under there, where he found some wet-ish pipes, but nothing accumulating on the ground. And so the research begins; typical AuDHD fare for me when faced with a problem.

I decided the leak had something to do with the water heater (but no clue what) and I wanted to get a tankless water heater, which I had low-key wanted for months. I’d seen them mentioned before on Reddit and they sounded cool and were supposed to be more energy efficient and take up a lot less space. It would be a win all around. After more research, some Home Depot shopping, and confirming Adam could do the task himself, I became the owner of a new tankless water heat that was so cute and compact, and I was very excited to get it installed, but I needed some additional parts from Amazon, as they were $70+ cheaper than Walmart (Weird. Weird.), and Amazon usually has reasonable shipping times.

Just like what happened after buying Black Betty, we had a massive snowstorm with feet of snow and state-of-emergency weather after I got the vital parts ordered. These things took three months to get here because the roads were so bad, and I had to reorder them three times due to Amazon saying my items were either delivered or lost in transit. The order was broken up into three or four separate deliveries for some reason, so I had to wait for the refunds before reordering. It was a very stressful and lengthy process. The floor situation in the water tank “house” had escalated fairly quickly in those months, considering something had been leaking for a decade unbeknownst to us.

Leaning tower of water tank

All the parts finally got here by the beginning of 2025, and my excitement was back. Adam did his manly thing and, miraculously, removed the water tank by himself, got it walked outside to the porch, and installed the tankless.

Much better, and more room! Maybe some painting later.

While removing the water tank, Adam discovered that the plumber who installed the tank had cut a pipe too short, and the overflow, or whatever it’s called, was going directly under the flooring and on/into the subfloor. For ten years. The circle of floor seen above should not be sunken; hence, the leaning tank.

Just like with Mom’s car, I have no options or means to right this wrong that the “professional” committed. The floor from the side door (the utility room with the washer and dryer and standalone freezer) to some of the kitchen is ruined, and subfloor and flooring needs replaced. No home insurance because I still don’t know how to get Mom’s deed and get my name on it, not that I could afford the insurance, anyway.

The coffee tabletop has been very helpful to walk on.

And…that’s just the one leak that raised our bill roughly $20 a month for 10 years, which I attributed to inflation and greed. The next one is a lot worse and a crazy huge coincidence, which I will cover soon.

I am Floored

I have a DIY issue in the foreseeable future, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it (advice is welcomed). I will be replacing Mom’s room’s carpeting with vinyl tiles and am mentally running into roadblocks. Firstly, Ollie is a digging pup (more on that below), which is really cute to watch, but I am afraid he is going to try to “dig up” the tiles unless I get the room done in a day. He already digs what’s left of the remaining carpet that I haven’t pulled up before he lies down on it, and he also lies on the floor and digs the carpet padding out from under the carpet that’s under the edge of the bed. Fortunately, he cannot fit under the bed to get at more carpet.

The bed is my next issue. Mom’s bed frame is a queen-size pine sleigh bed and it’s big and heavy. I got a springless mattress and box frame when I replaced the mattress, and they are ridiculous to try to move. It’s like trying to move a dead body. Like, if I need to move the mattress up toward the headboard, I literally cannot do it. It just bends and folds in on itself and won’t go anywhere; Adam has to pick it up and move it, which is hard on him because, as stated, the mattress is heavy.

Because the bed frame is so big, it won’t fit through the doorway in one piece. I thought about tiling the exposed floor, moving the bed, tiling the floor where the bed was, and moving the bed back into place, but since it’s so heavy and not on wheels, I am afraid of messing up or breaking the finished tiles. Plus, the room doubles as my office, so I have Mom’s large desk and the shelves attachment I took off the desk and set beside it so my TV/monitor would fit. I don’t know how much working room I will have, and it seems like it will be kind of Tetris-y if I don’t take anything out of the room. I don’t mind taking stuff out of the room, but my computer needs to be set up and working so I can work. Alas!

Oh! The digging pup! Well, somehow, we have two roses of Sharon growing where they shouldn’t be growing. Mom started a line of them to separate us from the neighbors (they were always sketchy before the landlady’s son, who I attended high school with, put in a house on the property), but these two bushes are right beside the cement porch steps. Actually, I found so much crap on the ground at the back of our side porch and I have no idea how it got there. It looks like a trash bag busted and wasn’t picked up, but we don’t keep the trash near the porch.

I want the bushes moved because one is right up against the steps and I have a feeling the roots are already under them and I don’t want my steps to break. The other one is farther away, but the bushes get big around and will block the steps eventually. Adam started to try and unplant them but they really want to stay. Since Ollie likes to dig, I called him over and started digging, which he joined me. He moved a lot more dirt than I did. He just went to town on it.

Yesterday, I went back out there and started digging at the side of the bush and he took it from there. The bush still won’t budge! However, Ollie did find a smoke alarm, like, 6 inches down at the bottom of the bush! I got rid of one years and years ago, but I have no clue how it made it to the backyard steps. Ollie was very excited about his treasure and Nev really wanted it. They play well together, but when Ollie tells Neville no about something, Nev backs off even though he is eight months older. Maybe because Ollie is 10 feet tall.

Oliver has started blocking when he is playing with Neville, and he’s really good at it. He does what basketball players do with their backs towards the opponent and looking back at them and moving around. The bad thing about this is he is doing it with me. I have acquired so many bruises over the past couple of weeks and I know they’re from the pups. I am very knock-overable, so I’m trying to get them to stop being so aggressive with me, which is going…okay.

We’ve been casually working on them not jumping up on me when I’m standing or walking. It’s very hard trying to train Ollie with Nev there because they influence each other and a lot of times it’s not good influence. Ollie is much more stubborn and wants to do his own thing; Nev really spoiled me because he was a breeze. I wish Adam had continued his training using actual training methods and not just yelling like a psycho.

My Passel of Abnormals

So, the cats and pups have completely ruined the living room floor, and I was stressing about replacing it but it looks like the subfloor will be the most expensive thing. Mom would have gotten rid of the cats a long time ago, but they’re my kids. The image above is a VR-generated image from The Home Depot of what the living room would look like with the flooring I chose. It’s kind of jarring because it’s a carpeted floor right now, but I like it. The dogs are not going to like sliding all over the place like Bambi on ice, however.

Piper hasn’t used the litter box since Merlin came here in 2015, Phin is blind and used to use the bathroom under the bed in the spare room (which I did not know he was doing) because the litter box was beside the bed and he could smell that he was in the vicinity, so I replaced that carpet with vinyl flooring. He now uses the living room floor since I had moved the litter box into the living room while doing the spare room floor, and he hasn’t stopped even though the litter box is in Adam’s room now.

Gandi hasn’t used the litter box since having a UTI even though he was treated. Piper has started peeing on her pillow she sleeps on. Only the babies use the box; 2 out of 5 😡😡. Because of Phin, I knew I’d be replacing the living room floor but the pups have peed in there and the floor feels like a boy’s face after hitting puberty. I have pee pads and clean the pee up, but the spots I missed are making big bumps. It’s gross. Luckily, vinyl flooring is around $260 for the entire living room, which is ~12′ x 28′, and half of the living room subfloor is fine, I think. I had Adam to look, and I guess the subfloor isn’t too expensive but he is going to need a different saw. I hate it, and Mom would kill me, but I know it’s my fault and I will be fixing it, so 🤷‍♀️.

To top it off, Ollie has started tearing up the living room carpet!! Who does that? He has so many bones and toys, and he goes and picks at the carpet like a methhead. There weren’t even holes or spots in the places he is digging/chewing up. Can I not have any normalcy here?

Come on, kids!

this is me trying

I just don’t know what to do anymore. I have talked, hinted, blogged, poeted, texted, reacted, proacted, and nothing has changed. Why do men continue to think that it is a woman’s job to assume a motherly role? There are not strict gender roles any longer for majority thinkers.

I can take the trash out, do the litter box, get myself up for appointments, and get things done, whether I outsource those jobs or do them myself. I don’t need a man, I need a partner (unless I want to be single, then I need myself, the cats, and Ollie Bear).

Don’t want to do the “dirty work”? Choose the more desirable tasks without being asked or told and those are what you get. If you unload the dishwasher and consider that your part, guess what the other person is doing? Loading the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. My brother and I had that chore after school and he would run home (he pushed me down a hill a couple of times to get home before me) so he could unload the dishes and I would have to touch the dirty, gross ones. If the dishwasher was empty and just needed loaded, he made sure I got home before he did. Siblings are great, huh 😂😂? But leave the decision-making to someone else and at their discretion, you’re on 💩 duty every time; quite literally with a puppy and blind cat. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.

My guts are spilling out (literally) and I’m still doing more than my part. Taylor dropped a lyric from the new album and it sums it up well, as she tends to do: Even statues crumble if they’re made to wait. I have seen a lot of instances where men and women think their partners will stay around because their parents stayed together regardless of how they were treated. I am not like that. My mom became a strong woman and taught me there is a limit and I can certainly stand my ground and say enough is enough (and I will).

I have changed everything for the loml in the last ten years. I went from having a caretaker my entire life, briefly having two in Mom and Adam for three years, to running an entire household by myself, having an independent, and trying to figure out everything. Mom didn’t know she was going to die and I would be flying solo. I think she thought if she didn’t make plans and preparations, she possibly could not die, which I totally get. She taught me many things but not everything (do parents ever get the opportunity to teach their children everything they want to before they die?).

I mean, I paid Mom’s house off with her life insurance by mailing a very large personal check via the post office… Obviously, that was incredibly stupid but I did not know that was a no-no because I knew about traveler’s checks but not certified checks or other secure ways to make transactions, like money orders, in 2014. I just knew I needed to get it done so I wouldn’t have to worry about the mortgage. The house bank called and asked if I was attempting to pay the house off and I think I started crying and told them what was going on. They were very helpful and took care of it for me.

All this is on top of living with someone who was too emotionally abused and stunted for me to be able to be myself. I never had to pretend or suppress with Mom when I got older because she was used to me and would back off and let me regulate on my own. Now, when I’m overwhelmed and need to decompress, I am asked “what’s wrong?” constantly until I answer or he marches off in a huff.

Even though we have a nephew on the spectrum, I am not supposed to behave or react out of neurotypical character. I have always had such expectations placed on me when other family wasn’t held to the same. I was supposed to be the good girl, the polite one, never speak up, never confront, let things go, etc. I cannot become irrationally frustrated or physical with things or have my entire mood ruined because one small thing was not as I expected or wanted it. That results in me containing everything, and my mental and physical health deteriorates until I can barely function and I break instead of merely snapping.

I really don’t ask for much, seriously. I want a relatively clean home free of ants or ladybugs (which means food and drink and trash not left all over the house), a mowed and trimmed lawn, and things repaired around the house. We’ve had a roof leak in the bathroom forever that should have been repaired a long time ago. But instead of getting it done, he’s going to wait until the ceiling caves in and then try to comfort me when I lose my 💩 because I don’t have the money to fix the roof or the ceiling.

When I just stop to see how bad he lets things get, it’s pointed out to me as soon as I fuss at him (well, you left this out and that there; you do this and that; you act this way; everything is a comparison with no responsibility taken, ever).

Of course, I’m the dramatic and unreasonable one for wanting it fixed yesterday, or wanting anything done, really. I already have to figure out how to replace the floors and subfloors in the kitchen, living room, and Mom’s room on my own because of the cats. I didn’t grow up in garbage and I don’t like being forced to live in it just because someone else did and has zero self-respect. Love and support are not the only things one needs.

home

Just a Stinky Yay Day with Some Weight

Well, yesterday was a yay and stinky day. I bought an under-the-counter water filter for the kitchen sink, which I only recently found out existed, and since I was getting that, I got a kitchen faucet with one handle because the last one I got had two handles, and the hot and cold were backward and couldn’t be switched. (US standard is hot is left, cold is right.) You would think that would be something I got used to but I constantly filled up the cats’ water jug with hot water, which is a bad thing for a PUR water filter. I don’t know why that is the case, but the filter would start squealing so I assumed it didn’t like it. Anyway, I was super excited to be able to do away with the faucet filters and have a normal-looking faucet that tall containers would actually fit under.

Look how cute my little sink drain bucket is! (left)

Arched faucets with a pullout sprayer in the faucet are a big thing now, and I had a hard time finding any without the sprayer under $100 to boot. I thought it would be convenient to have the faucet pullout and my awesome regular sprayer. NBD, I could use whichever sprayer I wanted at the time. That was not the case. Firstly, this faucet is so much bigger than my old one 😂. I was quite impressed with the quality since it was under $40, and it’s quite hefty. Secondly, Adam informed me that I could not have my regular sprayer and the faucet hooked up together because of how it is configured. Of course, that change in my plan automatically triggered a shutdown and I didn’t want anything else to do with the faucet at that moment.

I left the kitchen to deal with this unexpected change, and Adam finished installing the faucet and filter. With this faucet, the nozzle points out slightly and gets the small piece of counter in front of the sink, and me, wet. I keep forgetting the sprayer is part of the faucet and when I pull it out to spray something, I shoot water across the room. That’s not the first or second time I’ve ever done that, but I was already cranky, so I didn’t like that, either. Never one to be thwarted, I put an elastic hair thing around the faucet above the nozzle, which you can see in the picture. I have it bunched up more in the front than the back, and that makes the nozzle point down more toward the sink, thus not getting the counter and me wet. I was very proud of that idea. So that was the stinky part of my day.

As Adam and I sat down to lunch, his mom calls to say they were waiting for us outside. I had an endocrinology appointment in 30 minutes. Oops!! That was further frazzling for me since I was not prepared to be amongst people. The yay part of my day was that I found out my hemoglobin A1c was 5.7!! I’m a type 1.5 (LADA) diabetic and completely ignored that fact since 2014 when I was diagnosed. Mom’s death is what pushed me into LADA, which is an autoimmune disorder. I started out trying to keep my sugar under control, but every time it would get up, I would get mad and stop. I take a very all-or-nothing approach to everything.

My last A1c was in December and was 11 or 12, which is super bad. At that percentage, my average sugars were around 300, with normal being around 80 to 90 for non-diabetics and slightly higher for diabetics. The 5.7 A1c means my average is dancing around 120, which is really good for a diabetic. I was very shocked and pleased with this result. I’ve been trying to manage my sugars since April after my eye appointment when I found out I was starting to lose my vision, and that was the kick in the pants I needed to work on my health.

It is widely and falsely thought to be fact that being overweight causes diabetes when that is not the case at all. That’s nothing but complete ignorance and fatphobia. Most T2 diabetics I am acquainted with have healthy BMIs. Obesity certainly increases the risk of developing T2 diabetes, especially belly fat, but not all overweight people are diabetic and not all diabetics are overweight. Weight gain is a symptom of T2 diabetes due to insulin resistance, which can be a precursor to diabetes if no lifestyle changes are made.

Uncontrolled diabetes actually causes unintended weight loss because the body begins to burn fat and muscle for energy instead of glucose. An unhealthy diet (for people of all weights and body types, especially in the US), sedentary lifestyle, and high stress are three red flags for potentially developing T2 diabetes. Of course, trying to explain that to people is like preaching to the choir.

The public’s obsession with other people’s bodies absolutely infuriates me because it has zero to do with people’s health and everything to do with appearance. Most try to disguise their disgust of the overweight as concern, but that is hardly ever the case. Long-term studies (those that run for multiple years) have shown that being underweight increases one’s mortality rate and poor health more than being overweight, yet we as a society promote and encourage extreme thinness to the point of insanity.

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Paint It, Black

I think I’m done painting the bathroom, but that’s not set in stone. I’ve learned two things since starting this project: I want to (and usually do) paint anything I get paint on, and high-gloss black paint shows everything, including brush and roller strokes, hair, lint, dust, etc., and Heaven forbid I miss adding a second coat! Places that need touched up are easily seen, i.e., glaringly obvious with a flashlight. I hop around from place to place so much that there is no rhyme or reason to how much paint is on each wall so I just have to spot check. I wish my Concerta worked for me. I couldn’t work with the painter’s tape today because it wasn’t doing what I wanted it to, so I painted the sink.

Probably not the best idea.

I put the shelf that was at the bottom of the mirror over on the wall to the left, and I really like it there. It was in the way above the sink, and it fits perfectly on the wall! Unfortunately, first, I asked Adam to put it a little high so I wouldn’t hit my head on it, but after it was up, I couldn’t see over it and couldn’t really reach things, so I took it down and moved it lower all by myself (yay!). The holes are kind of visible on the batten strip but it’s cool.

Started out with the shelf a few inches higher but I couldn’t see on it.
Shelf’s previous place, right under the mirror frame.

I’ve had the shower done for a while, and while I love it being black, it shows soap scum so bad even though I spray it down after every shower. All the black has made the bathroom really dark, but it looks really cool when I have the smart lights on in color. I need to get some black silicone for around the shower frame so it’s not so ugly.

The clear silicone on the shower does not hold paint!

I listen to music via a Bluetooth speaker while taking a shower, so I stuck a piece of metal by the shower door so I can put my phone there and adjust the volume or change the song while in the shower. It works great and is hardly visible. I’m saving scrap metal so I can put it other places. I added a piece on the bedroom wall in case I go to bed with the phone. I always lose the phone in the bed.

Metal is in the middle of the picture. See the ugly silicone to the left?

I fear it’s a bit autismal of me, but nearly all of my posts are categorized/tagged as Autism because I’m autistic every day so of course each post is about autism. I hope it’s not misleading for anyone. I tend to take things literally a lot and most of the time people think I’m being sarcastic or obtuse when being sincere. My husband is getting better at clarifying when asking me questions and I answer in a literal way.

Oh, I haven’t talked about the closet!! I’m turning Mom’s closet into a sensory room, as previously mentioned, which is 5 feet, 8 inches inches wide by 12 or 14 feet long. I’m planning on getting this all-satin pink blanket from Amazon since “rubbing silky” is one of my stims, and I found the reversible sequin fabric on Amazon, too, which I want to get some of to put on the wall. I’m also going to put my alpaca pillow cover on the wall, as I love anything soft. I’ve had the pillow for years but can’t keep it out because the cats suckle on it and pull the fur off.

My super-soft alpaca pillow

One bad thing about the closet is there are no vents in there and the light fixture cannot accommodate a ceiling fan. Plus, there are no outlets, so I’ll need to get surge protector extension cords so I can plug things in. I saw a cool fiber optic light thingy on Amazon that I want. I always wait until there are good deals, so furnishing the closet will take a while. I would love to get a Drew Chair from Walmart but it’s $300. It would make an awesome reading chair ☺️. When I share something I like with Adam, he will say something like, “That would be good for your sensory room,” which makes me feel so heard and love him even more. He helps me think of things to put in the room because I rarely know when I’m stimming and he says, “You do [this or that] when you’re tired or overwhelmed,” and I don’t even realize it. Mom told me once that I rub the carpet when I’m tired and lying on the floor. I’ve done that since I was a kid and never realized it’s something I do when I’m sleepy. I tend to rub a lot of various surfaces and items to soothe myself.

I can’t start painting the closet until I patch the multiple holes left in the wall from the wire racks. There are a lot of them. I’m going to take one rack and have Adam cut it into several pieces and put them on the wall as shelves instead of racks. They are white, so they need to be painted as well. The spare room is now one big closet, but I’m cool with that since absolutely no one visits, let alone stays the night. I could probably squeeze the bed back in there, but what’s the point?

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