decorating

I’m an old woman. . .

/ wvfurandroot / 14 Comments

I’m a feisty one, I am.

[Editorial Note:  This post is my most popular of all time because of this image.  Someone posted it to Pinterest and I get daily hits.  If you want to know more..  Click here..}

I may have mentioned a time or two that I hate painting.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned that I’m an old woman.

When I was 30 or so, I had a sudden onset of back spasms. Doing the Granny Clampett walk, I waddled my way over to the chiropractor’s office. We’d never met before and he walked into the exam room and looked at me. Then he looked at my x-rays. Then he looked at me again. Finally, he said, “You have a lovely spine for a 70-year-old woman.”

My misspent youth was not kind to my back.

Between yoga and outright refusal to be one of those whiny-assed people who complains about their back all the time (preferring, of course, to whine about other things), I refused to accept his or the neurosurgeon’s diagnosis and have lived reasonably well without back surgery or a wheelchair.

Over the years, I’ve learned how to do things in such a way as to accommodate the limitations of my back. (I was, hands down, the strangest rock climber you’ve ever seen.) I have not found a way to minimize the physical agony of painting.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Lord’av’mercy, I hate painting.

It goes something like this:

I decide to paint.

I sit and ponder the painting.

I get up and gather a few supplies.

I repeat steps 2 and 3, sometimes for weeks.

I spackle.

Sit and rest.

(Rinse and repeat)

I sand. . .sit and rest.

I bite the bullet and get the paint out.

I repeat step 2 for hours.

I begin painting.

I paint 5 minutes, rest 40.

Eventually, 5 minutes at a time, I get the painting done. But my back curses at me the entire time and, in turn, I curse back. It’s rough having an old woman’s spine. It also sounds like a biker bar in here, what with all the cursing.

Instrument of Torture

It’s the ladder work that gets to me. That and the spots near the floor. And around windows. Let’s not forget the bits at eye level.

But ceilings. MY GODDESS I HATE PAINTING CEILINGS.

After two weekends of painting prep, I got the paint out yesterday. It took all flippin day to do about 20 minutes worth of ceiling painting. Tonight, I girded my loins, told my back to shut up, and set to. Three hours later, I have one coat of primer on the ceiling. I’m figuring on two coats of primer and two coats of color. It’ll be years before I’m done.

And since I’m now 50, I’m guessing that means my back is 90 – not too many 90-year-old women up to painting their study. I’m right proud of my progress.

Oh deliver me.

/ wvfurandroot / 5 Comments

It's a simple task. Really, it is.

It’s been a bad couple of weeks for my ability to play well with machines. To recap:

  • My circuit box went crazy to the tune of $1500;
  • one of my water heaters died;
  • the windshield wipers on my car take turns not working;
  • my Shark carpet sweeper is refusing to pick up anything;
  • I spilled a full cup of coffee on the laptop and it wouldn’t work [It’s working now, but sometimes the s won’t work and sometimes the w initiates a Windows voice recognition program while simultaneously starting msconfig];
  • the server at work, for which I’m responsible, is flashing scary red lights at me and is refusing to back up anything;
  • and my camera keeps resetting the date to 9 years in the future.

Nonetheless, I’ve pretty much been cheerful throughout this. Today, however, I want to go live in a log cabin without any machines at all.

I finally get up a head of steam to finish the cow bathroom. I finished spackling and sanding the multitude of nail holes that cropped up like ‘shrooms in the Spring as I moved frames around and around and around looking for the best configuration. The only thing left to do is to resize some photos and print them out, put them in the frames, and wallpaper the ceiling. [The frames have been hung, many of them empty, for months now. It’s well past time to complete this project.] None of this should have taken more than five or six hours. 

I need a drink.

I have a blue gazillion number of imaging programs on the upstairs ‘puter (an old Win2000 machine) and not any of them are the one, the name of which I can’t remember, that will allow me to resize the photos. I have cursed, thrown photo paper at the portable hard drive, and stomped around the house perilously close to a major tantrum. I cannot resize these photos to save my life. I have spent three hours trying. 

I do know that the imaging software included with Windows XP will do exactly what I want done with minimal fuss, but, given the past couple of weeks, the last thing I need to do is try to set up the XP machine HMOKeefe gave me to replace the Win2000 beast. The thought of initializing the wireless modem gives me the heebie jeebies. 

A tall one.

None of that changes the fact that I have resized and printed photos from Old Reliable before – many time, in fact – I cannot fathom what the problem is. 

I should be wallpapering the ceiling since I can’t do the photo thing. I’m now so frustrated that I’m not sure I should be trying to manipulate wallpaper glue and an electric staple gun (long story on the need for staples) while standing on a rickety folding chair and/or the toilet seat. 

What do you want to bet that WordPress will behave badly when I try to upload this post? 

I need a drink – a tall one.

[Yes, indeedy, WordPress did behave badly. Or I did. Hard to tell these days.]