S
saucywench
I decided to start a thread to include anything you would like to toot your own horn about. As we all know, one of the many negative stereotypes about fat people is that they're lazy. From what I've observed, so many of our members (fat and fat admirers) are talented, creative, industrious, and motivated.
So I'll start. Apologies for length and detail--I don't expect others' contributions to be this long-winded or self-indulgent.
(background) As some of you know, I suffer from occasional bouts of depression. Over four years ago I experienced my worst one, which lasted about a year. During that time and, unfortunately, for a lingering period afterward, I had blinders on to my (home) environment around me. It got so bad that there were some areas of the house that I had difficulty navigating through. At some point in the beginning stages, though, I was able to get my entire house clean. It hasn't been completely clean since then. Yes, I was able to get a room cleaned here and there--I was even able to repaint the spare bedroom and, during some of the deepest depressive times, I tilled and sodded my front yard and half of the back yard (which I killed due to neglect :doh:, but that's another story.)
Anyway, once the depression began to lift and I became employed again, I was never able to have my house completely clean. That bothered me, but obviously not enough to the point that I set my mind to tackle the job. This summer, though, I began two projects simultaneously, which was unplanned and lead to a certain degree of anxiety on my part, but maybe that's what I needed to get the ball rolling.
First, my hallway was combination painted/papered. Problem was, I have an old house, with plaster walls, and the walls hadn't been prepped to hold the paper. (I blame my mother for this as she used to own a wallcovering shop and she knew better. :huh
So the paper started to peel from the walls. I had left it like that for quite a few months until I decided to rip it off. It stayed like that for another few months until I embarked on scraping the remaining stuff off and cleaning all the paste from the walls. Voila! It was ready for some action. I found some great paint marked down at a tent sale ($5.50/gal., woot!) around the Memorial Day weekend, and got the hall painted. The improvement was so amazing, it began my commitment to get the rest of my house in shape.
Also during this time, and for many months prior, I had some serious bathroom problems. (No, not that kind.) My toilet had overflowed a few times (had a comb stuck in the plumbing for 11 years, of all things) and my subfloor had begun to rot in places. My tub had sunk about 3/4" and the base of my vanity had begun to rot. In addition, I had had a constant leak from my tub fixtures for, ohh, about a year, to the point that the porcelain had begun to wear away at the drain. Had I known it was a simple problem to repair I would have had it done long before, but I was told by a plumber (same one who retrieved the comb) that they would have to enter from my bedroom closet to repair and that was going to cost more than I could afford.
My sister had offered to cover the cost of the bathroom repairs a few months before, but we didn't get the arrangements in place until the time that I was wrapping up the hall paint job. A two-day (estimated) job took about a week, but I got new partial subfloor, new vinyl floor (a remnant I picked up for $10), and new vanity. Another huge difference! Oh--and that tub leak? A $2 part fixed the problem.
One thing that has delayed completion of the bathroom is that I decided, once the door had been removed, to strip it of its 5 or 6 (!!!) layers of paint. This task proved more than a little daunting, folks, once I got started, but I soldiered on. The latex layers came off fairly easily, but the older layers (lead-based, I presume) were considerably more stubborn. It took so long to get just one side done that I gave up thought of stripping the other side. Meanwhile, I was working on stripping the bathroom-side door facing. Yes, I know I should have done that first, as it was very messy, but that's just not how things worked out. Once I got to the bare wood of the door and door facing I was reluctant to even paint over them after all of that hard work, as the wood is really beautiful (one of the charms of having an older home), but the door had a couple of flaws, so on went a coat of paint. Still beautiful.
The boss was out of the country for a while recently, so I had a good seven days of vacation time to devote to my projects. I finished the door (although it's still on my back deck), got the living room and dining room clean (deep cleaning involving the usual), part of spare bedroom, part of bedroom, steam-cleaned carpets, some yard work (mowing, raking, etc.), washed car, and fine-tuned the painting of the hall trim where I had a few boo-boos (oops). Oh yeah, and I tackled some paperwork which, if neglected, can be very time-consuming.
This past weekend I tackled the kitchen, pulling out refrigerator and stove and scrubbing (ick) and painting behind them. I painted the area above the sink and windows and back door, area above the cabinets, and half of the entrance wall. The remainder of that wall has a very large, very heavy, old bulletin board (slate chalkboard on reverse side) that is bolted to the wall, so I'm not sure how I'll tackle removal of that.
I'm really proud of myself for how much I've gotten accomplished the past 4-5 months. It's hard work, but a constructive way of spending my time. I woke up today wanting to continue with the momentum, so I'm taking another vacation day to get more done.
Oh yeah! I almost forgot. Last weekend I found this wardrobe
View attachment 10386
at an estate sale for $40. Forty bucks! Can you believe? It's (almost) a perfect fit in my bathroom and I can use it to hide all that bathroom junk that I had out in plain view. Today I'm going to pick up some paint and get that painted so I can complete my bathroom project. I expect it'll take the rest of my October weekends before I'm all done.
So--if you've gotten this far without your eyes glazing over--what nifty stuff have you been doing to feel proud about? Home? School? Work? Family? Let's hear it!
So I'll start. Apologies for length and detail--I don't expect others' contributions to be this long-winded or self-indulgent.
(background) As some of you know, I suffer from occasional bouts of depression. Over four years ago I experienced my worst one, which lasted about a year. During that time and, unfortunately, for a lingering period afterward, I had blinders on to my (home) environment around me. It got so bad that there were some areas of the house that I had difficulty navigating through. At some point in the beginning stages, though, I was able to get my entire house clean. It hasn't been completely clean since then. Yes, I was able to get a room cleaned here and there--I was even able to repaint the spare bedroom and, during some of the deepest depressive times, I tilled and sodded my front yard and half of the back yard (which I killed due to neglect :doh:, but that's another story.)
Anyway, once the depression began to lift and I became employed again, I was never able to have my house completely clean. That bothered me, but obviously not enough to the point that I set my mind to tackle the job. This summer, though, I began two projects simultaneously, which was unplanned and lead to a certain degree of anxiety on my part, but maybe that's what I needed to get the ball rolling.
First, my hallway was combination painted/papered. Problem was, I have an old house, with plaster walls, and the walls hadn't been prepped to hold the paper. (I blame my mother for this as she used to own a wallcovering shop and she knew better. :huh
So the paper started to peel from the walls. I had left it like that for quite a few months until I decided to rip it off. It stayed like that for another few months until I embarked on scraping the remaining stuff off and cleaning all the paste from the walls. Voila! It was ready for some action. I found some great paint marked down at a tent sale ($5.50/gal., woot!) around the Memorial Day weekend, and got the hall painted. The improvement was so amazing, it began my commitment to get the rest of my house in shape.Also during this time, and for many months prior, I had some serious bathroom problems. (No, not that kind.) My toilet had overflowed a few times (had a comb stuck in the plumbing for 11 years, of all things) and my subfloor had begun to rot in places. My tub had sunk about 3/4" and the base of my vanity had begun to rot. In addition, I had had a constant leak from my tub fixtures for, ohh, about a year, to the point that the porcelain had begun to wear away at the drain. Had I known it was a simple problem to repair I would have had it done long before, but I was told by a plumber (same one who retrieved the comb) that they would have to enter from my bedroom closet to repair and that was going to cost more than I could afford.
My sister had offered to cover the cost of the bathroom repairs a few months before, but we didn't get the arrangements in place until the time that I was wrapping up the hall paint job. A two-day (estimated) job took about a week, but I got new partial subfloor, new vinyl floor (a remnant I picked up for $10), and new vanity. Another huge difference! Oh--and that tub leak? A $2 part fixed the problem.
One thing that has delayed completion of the bathroom is that I decided, once the door had been removed, to strip it of its 5 or 6 (!!!) layers of paint. This task proved more than a little daunting, folks, once I got started, but I soldiered on. The latex layers came off fairly easily, but the older layers (lead-based, I presume) were considerably more stubborn. It took so long to get just one side done that I gave up thought of stripping the other side. Meanwhile, I was working on stripping the bathroom-side door facing. Yes, I know I should have done that first, as it was very messy, but that's just not how things worked out. Once I got to the bare wood of the door and door facing I was reluctant to even paint over them after all of that hard work, as the wood is really beautiful (one of the charms of having an older home), but the door had a couple of flaws, so on went a coat of paint. Still beautiful.
The boss was out of the country for a while recently, so I had a good seven days of vacation time to devote to my projects. I finished the door (although it's still on my back deck), got the living room and dining room clean (deep cleaning involving the usual), part of spare bedroom, part of bedroom, steam-cleaned carpets, some yard work (mowing, raking, etc.), washed car, and fine-tuned the painting of the hall trim where I had a few boo-boos (oops). Oh yeah, and I tackled some paperwork which, if neglected, can be very time-consuming.
This past weekend I tackled the kitchen, pulling out refrigerator and stove and scrubbing (ick) and painting behind them. I painted the area above the sink and windows and back door, area above the cabinets, and half of the entrance wall. The remainder of that wall has a very large, very heavy, old bulletin board (slate chalkboard on reverse side) that is bolted to the wall, so I'm not sure how I'll tackle removal of that.
I'm really proud of myself for how much I've gotten accomplished the past 4-5 months. It's hard work, but a constructive way of spending my time. I woke up today wanting to continue with the momentum, so I'm taking another vacation day to get more done.
Oh yeah! I almost forgot. Last weekend I found this wardrobe
View attachment 10386
at an estate sale for $40. Forty bucks! Can you believe? It's (almost) a perfect fit in my bathroom and I can use it to hide all that bathroom junk that I had out in plain view. Today I'm going to pick up some paint and get that painted so I can complete my bathroom project. I expect it'll take the rest of my October weekends before I'm all done.
So--if you've gotten this far without your eyes glazing over--what nifty stuff have you been doing to feel proud about? Home? School? Work? Family? Let's hear it!
