We got ready to go skating today and got a call first from Joan asking if Sharon was going to be there and then a call from Sharon warning us that school buses with 90 kids had just arrived.
We cancelled.
The ceiling lights Home Depot had run out of were supposed to be in yesterday, so we went there to get them and they hadn’t shown up.
Meanwhile the ‘do not overtighten’ warning on the new sink meant Jane did not overtighten the faucet connection to the metal sink. Now it’s loose and we’ll have to take everything out from below and try to work with a Big Wrench on a sink part that is supposed to be fully assembled before the sink is installed.
And after getting a nice new large tank for the two bichirs, (freshwater fish that look like stegosaurus) one of Jane’s fish died. We thought maybe ammonia, which can get stirred up during a move. But that was a bummer. I did some online research and it turns out they’re susceptible to a parasite and I got a recommended med. Which may or may not work, but we’re giving it a shot at saving our remaining one. This is touchy because they’re predatory and trying to get two to live together is iffy.
I, meanwhile, am working hard on the promised short pieces, and discovered a major technical glitch in one, ie, I misread a certain item which now causes me to have to go back to a total rewrite, but I’ll fix it. That’s annoying.
For weather, we get really cold weather, and frozen mud. If there’s one thing as bad as soppy squishy mud, its mud frozen in ridges.
And the downside of actually losing weight—I’m fighting a battle with my mirror: when you wait late in life to lose weight, you do go through a little phase of realizing you do have a few facial lines as your skin loses some of its padding. On the other hand, if you’re careful and use every miracle preparation known to vain humanity, you can diminish that. So I’m trying not to look like Boris Karloff, with a pound and a half of cold cream, as the song goes…Well, you change out every cell in your body after x-many years, and I am serving notice that the next ones to be recycled will be useless cells, thank you, which I do not wish refilled. Take note, procrastinators! Lose it before you join the cold cream club! And if you’re where I am, well, we can sympathize with each other.
No signs from the fish yet: the pond is mostly frozen but wouldn’t support a cat safely. We wake up with a dusting of snow and by noon it’s slush.
Jane’s in there serial-cooking a large purchase of Costco chicken: little ziplock bags of diced chicken mean I don’t have to cook much for supper, and it’s not been fortified with tons of fat and sodium, which is often the case with convenience foods. I made some cheese bread yesterday: we enjoyed a couple of slices and then I froze the rest. Cheese bread toasts wonderfully—but we have to hold back on how much bread we eat. Jane can have fruit, apparently, now that we’re this far along in dieting. I, alas, gain weight if I eat fruit the way she does. So she owns that nice batch of pear apples we have in the kitchen. I stick to cheese. Our metabolisms work mostly alike, but my system tends to love any fruit sugar way too much!
I’ve been wondering about the diet, but you are so swamped with work, I didn’t want to ask. I was bad on Sat. and Sun, but it was planned. I’ve been good since, but it was harder than the first time to get rid of the leftover breadsticks, pizza, and homemade desserts. I am one size down in pants, but I am not weighing myself anymore. It was too depressing not to see the numbers decreasing. Now, I am only going by clothes and how I feel. It is so SLOW though.
I’m eligible for the cold cream club! When the extra lines appear, I hope I don’t notice, just like my new gray hairs every day don’t bother me too much. I’m not 20, so why should I LOOK 20?
Hey, friend, it didn’t come on overnight and certain weights will take time to get past. You’ve got company. I’m battling the same 3 lbs since December—but perseverance finally—finally, though briefly! got me down 4 lbs, past that mark and nearly into territory I haven’t seen in three decades. I’m back up 3 again, through no apparent failure of will or diet, but it’s going—slowly, but surely: I’m meaner than those 3 lbs are. So hang in there! Remember to freeze food or flatly to throw it out once a treat is done! There is no food so expensive as that which makes it onto our hips!
Add me to the cold cream club. I try not to look too much in the mirror.
Carolyn, you do *not* look anything like Boris Karloff!
I can’t believe Jane’s fish died! I thought they both looked so good last Friday except maybe for the weird behavior we commented on — one resting on top of the other. I wonder if that was a harbinger?
Definitely it was. We may save the other one: jury’s still out.
oh yes, I know that look! my chin gets enormous, apart from the wrinkles … my mother overdid the weight loss once (she was not really overweight at all) and her face went into vertical seams, extraordinary! but I think once you get into a steady weight the face pads up a little again. and do put your mirror in a more favourable light!!! probably the only person who is shocked is yourself ….
If I could lose the weight, I’d take the wrinkles!
I’m sorry Jane or you will have to do battle with the sink again. I’m trying to think if there’s a way to cram yourself and the necessary tools in behind the disposal without having to discombobulate the rest of the plumbing.
I have noticed that plumbers, including pool plumbers, don’t seem to tighten anything up anymore. new bathroom = leaking sink connection, leaking immersion connection into tank (never resolved, there is still a slight seep 10 years later) leaking loo cistern connection, loose handles on bath. and so many leaks on the pool, we have torn our hair out, water being such a precious commodity in Spain. oh yes, there was a leak under the new house in Spain too … what is it with these guys – have they become limp-wristed all of a sudden? or is it just they are following the instructions like Jane. I’m so sorry that you have to go under there again!
CJ, it’s not completely clear to me from your description which sink nut needs tightening, but if you refer to the large-caliber nut which holds the faucet assembly to the sink rim (or counter, depending on design), and NOT the nuts which attach the water lines to the taps, then you should be able to tighten this without removing the sink. Your home improvement store sells a wrench made especially for this, I don’t know how much it will cost but it should not be more than 8 or 10 bucks. It has a long rod which attaches eccentrically to a plate with a hex-shaped hole sized to fit that nut. You have to dive headfirst into the under-sink cabinet, never a pleasant trip (I, at least, am too wide to do this easily as the opening usually has a divider mid-span), but the idea is that the wrench reaches up behind the sink to allow access to the nut while all is still in place. It takes a pretty good wrist to put the whammy on the nut, but it can be done. Maybe OSGuy can perform heroics here?
I have no idea about sinks, but OSGuy certainly does — as well posses the aforementioned heroic wrist strength. He replaced our kitchen faucet a few years ago. Great suggestion, Jcrow9!
Carolyn & Jane, let’s talk about when OSGuy should come over & help.
We’ll see: we’re going to get that wrench JCrow recommends and see if it can be gotten. The right equipment makes any job easier.
On these instructions, you wish they would be specific, such as, do not exceed 15 lbs of force in tightening; or do not exceed 30. Are they talking about a 125 lb woman doing this one-handed and upside down or Hulk Hogan using both hands before the sink is installed? Are we talking about a power wrench?
Congratulations on the new sink and counters. There’s something neat about redoes. 😀
Ah Memories! When Proge replaced our kitchen sink faucet and drains we ended up with a *very bad leak*. He thought he had forgotten to tape one of the joints and was going to have to take things apart. When he started to unscrew pipes he discovered that he had never tightened a main joint! He works on the idea that you tighten everything evenly and then go back and snug things down. But you have to remember to hit all the joints.
@purplejulian, hope your wrists are getting better. Wedging clay takes its toll on the body.
@smartcat – thanks, well, wedging not so much the problem as all the heavy stuff, and the glazes that settle in the bottom of the dustbin …. it’s the poor old shoulders that suffer most and I do awful things to them forgetting to sit properly at the computer as well … I don’t think I could write for a living!
CJ: “my system tends to love any fruit sugar way too much!”
Aha! Our Favorite Author is a stationer!
😀
It beats the alternative (wrinkles, that is). I had the misfortune to see Joan Rivers interviewed after the Super Bowl. She’s had so many Botox injections that her face looks set in plastic; you could barely see her lips move. It called to mind way to many bad horror flicks and we skipped to something else immediately.
My work under a sink has gotten so much easier since getting this sink tool:
http://www.ridgid.com/Tools/Faucet-Sink-Installer/
Home depot carries it for about $20. It lets you get up there from below and tighten up nuts for connected hoses like a line wrench for car brake lines would. The metal inserts come out to let you get a grip on the plastic holddowns for holding the facet to the basin and flip around to let you put a screwdriver through the lower end for more leverage or fit a different size nut.
I’d recommend it to any homeowner who does there own minor plumbing work in the kitchen/bath.
Collectively, WWAS can solve anything. We’re always for new gadgets.
Got the thyroid blood test today, time for the semi-annual checkup. I’m feeling as if maybe there should be an adjustment this time: he started out saying I probably didn’t have a problem, but—
Then he got the next results and the doses started going up. And I feel way much better. So right now I feel a little like there might be a dose increase in my future. Not sick, just not totally as energetic as I normally am. This stuff is like that.
Proof of which, the brain’s not ‘on’. I couldn’t take my thyroid meds before going to the test, and can’t take it if I’ve had anything to eat: it’s a thirty minute wait, then, for food. So Jane packed me off to go get stuck, and I came back, took off my coat, and started cooking breakfast. Before I had my pill.
Jane got a hot breakfast.
I got mine somewhat reminiscent of warm thirty minutes later.
Various and assorted medical tests are NO FUN. DH has been going through the diabetes battery and the colonoscopy series, and after observing both, all I can say is UGH. Finding out if you have a problem is often worse than treating it.
Indeed it is. I hope whatever’s there to be found is found and well treated; and my thorough sympathies. They’re good at the clinic, and as long as I point them at the arm that actually has a vein they can find, we’re all happy.
Apropos facial lines, staying well-hydrated always helps. As a skin cream, a surgeon recommended vitamin E to me for reducing lines or scars. His best tip was not to spend a fortune on facial vitamin E products: get vitamin E gelcaps; poke, cut or snip a hole in one end; and squeeze. After all, if you can take it internally, how could it harm you externally? Cheap at Costco.
I must try the vit E, sounds a good idea
hoping for good health and no more invasive and brutal testing procedures for anyone here!
And I finally got that pesky pound off! One more and I’ll be in territory I haven’t seen since 1979. It’ll be new jeans time.
very exciting!
Oh frabjous joy! 😀 You and Jane inspire me to get back to smart eating!