christ on a cross, kathleen

One week in and I'm still decorating. I honestly don't remember it ever taking this long. And I didn't even buy anything new this year! (OK, save some extra ornaments for the tree.)

But this year I know I'm being more meticulous and anal about things. Especially the 12-foot-holy-lord-that's-big artificial tree. In years past I didn't care about the back of the tree. Until I stepped outside and realized the back faced a large window. And it was obvious that not only was I a lazy gay for not considering the aesthetic sensibilities of passers-by but I was also a cheap gay for not buying enough ornaments to cover that part of the tree.

Well, the cheap part is right. The whole darn tree is decorated with plastic (read: non-breakable-just-throw-in-a-bag-when-you're-done) ornaments from Wal-mart that I bought after Christmas at 70% off. Which comes out pretty cheap when you can buy 5 ornaments for 95 cents at regular price.

So last year I stocked up on enough ornaments for the whole darn thing.

OK. Now to the question I was asked: "um, aren't you a fuckin' proud gay atheist? What's with the Christmas hoo-ha?"

Asked by a straight person.

Because no gay man would ever ask that.

See, gay men are all about the pageantry. The show. The 'magic'.

And I'm no different. So I don't call it Christmas decorations. It's "Festive Non-denominational Seasonal Shrubbery."

Plus, though I don't buy into the whole virgin birth thing (come on, folks. We all know Mary was a whore.) I do like the idea of giving and gathering. And all those twinkling lights help stave off the seasonal affective disorder just a little.

And though I usually don't believe a word of them, I'm a sucker for Christmas Carols. I don't deny that Christianity has inspired more than one hummable tune. And Christmas Carols rank up there.

Back to the house though.

I've been complaining that "I just want to be done with everything." This also includes raking the leaves from our 15+ full-sized trees and mowing a lawn that hadn't been touched since I started all this. And while the decorations are almost done and the yard needs one more once-over, I still think, "I just want to wake up and not have ANYTHING to do."

Then, while perusing the web, I find these folks. And I don't feel so bad.

THAT is some serious renovation. I could never do it unless I was single. And I wouldn't be doing it how they're doing it. I'd be ripping out all those walls and replacing them before you could say "historic preservation."

And some folks, who are spending tons of money, just aren't spending it the way I would spent it.

Like this guy. Those beautiful, brand-new craftsman style cabinets. Topped by a bathroom floor when it needed marble.

Sidenote: About the worst thing for a vocal music teacher is losing the voice. Mine's not gone, but it's getting there. All this left-over snot drainage, (I know, lovely picture.) is reeking havoc on my voice. When I tried to sing yesterday what came out can only be described as sounding like a cross between a donkey and a boy who's just hit puberty.

So it's video day in Mr. Hart's class.

it's all done

sort of.

During my last two week hiatus, I've had three evening concerts, two evening rehearsals, one thanksgiving dinner, and one bout with the flu.

But, thank the gods, the house is done.

Well, at least done to the point that I'm OK with it. The last big project will be tiling the master bath, replacing the shower, vanity and vanity lights. But I'm out of gas and I can live with what we have for now. There's no more brass. So I'm OK.

Here's a recap of the last two weeks.

Since day one in the house, I've had issues with the lighting fixtures and ceiling fans. All but two of them had been replaced. One was on the vaulted ceiling in the living room. It was a dusty brass relic. Most straight women would find no issue with it, besides being dirty.


But I hated the harsh, non-directed light it gave off. (the gays need soft light)

And since I couldn't reach that high, we hired it done. After getting estimates that ranged from $150-$500 (mind you, we already had the replacement fan. This was just install costs) and most of the guys saying it would take 4 hours, we settled on a $200 bid with a guy who told us it would take 2 hours. AND he could get it done before Thanksgiving.

While most folks have nothing but bad things to say about contractors, these folks were awesome. They showed up on time for every appointment and, sure as shit, came in this Wednesday afternoon. It didn't hurt that when the old man who gave the bid showed up to install it he came along with a cute 20-something guy.

After two hours, they said they were done. But when we flipped the switch, not all the new track lighting worked. So they spent another two hours fixing it.

But, get this, he still only charged $200.



While they were working on that, I was finishing up the master bedroom/bathroom paint job. It took more than a week because I didn't want to make us sleep on the couch. And, though I love it, I have regrets of buying solid cherry furniture whenever we have to move it.

Plus, the paint job was multiple steps.

1. clean the walls, remove old switches and outlets to replace.


2. Paint the wall color. Which was actually two steps because the first color I picked last March turned out a dark-purplish-eggplanty-this-will-depress-you-if-you-have-to-wake-up-to-this-every-dark-winter-morning color. So I went back and this soft grayish blue caught my eye. Cape Cod sprang to mind. And I loved the idea of waking up to Cape Cod.

3. Tape, then put two coats of primer on the woodwork. Followed by one coat of semi-gloss white.

This includes the double window, 3 doors, and a vanity.

4. Replace all hardware on doors and vanity (again, no pic)

5. Replace 80's throwback ceiling fan.


6. Tape the ceiling. Paint ceiling.

7. Touch up paint.

8. Enjoy my new favorite room.


The art is new. We framed some pictures I took in St. Louis a few years back. I took them on a cheap digital camera, never intending to do anything with them besides put them in a photo album. It was my wonderful husband who suggested we turn them to black and white, print them out and frame them.

Plus, it's the holiday weekend, so we got the frames for $10 each and the awesome girl at the store custom cut the mattes for $13... total. For five awesome original pieces it totaled to about $70. (Jake, you should be proud.)

Now I'm taking a break from the holiday decorating. It's at least a two day job.

I made a little montage you can see on youtube of what I did last year. It's all the same stuff, but different wall colors now and new fireplace.

Here's the link if you're bored.

On a sidenote: I started getting sick almost the moment I was done with all the painting and heading to  turkey day dinner on Wednesday. We were supposed to go to St. Louis for my family's Thanksgiving on Thursday. But five hours in a car while running a fever didn't bode well for either of us.

Count this year as one of only two Thanksgivings I've missed with the family.

And the first I've never decorated mom's house. Since I was in Junior High I've been mom's Christmas Elf. (some may argue Christmas Fairy.) I had it down to a science of how the exterior lights would be wired and plugged in so you wouldn't see any cords during the day.

I realized while on the phone with my sister who was trying to hang them that I'm not very good at explaining how things are done. Which is probably why I like to do things myself. That way I don't have to explain it.

Language laziness. It's a problem. It means I'm going to be a mean old man who gets frustrated when the young'ns don't understand me.

Love!

living life

Hard to believe it, but it's been 19 years, today, that I've been off of chemo for Leukemia.

Today, November 14, is my Life Day.

It's bigger than my birthday. Because today is the day that my family and I were told that, after three years, the cancer was gone and the chemo done.

Of course it was a good thing. But it definitely changed my life after that point. For three years I hadn't been a "normal" kid. Well, my friends and family would argue that I was never a "normal" kid. (can any little gay boy fit the mold?)

Sure I probably would still have done the artsy stuff like sing in the children's choir and play violin.

But being told, at age 7, that you might not live forces you to grow up. Really fast.

It doesn't help that in a matter of months I went from looking like this


to this


When I was thrown back into the world of regular 5th grade, I couldn't make it work. I didn't think I was better than the other kids. I definitely wasn't any smarter than them. But I didn't like the same things they liked and they didn't get my humor.

At all.

Not until my freshman year did my classmates (especially the girls) start to appreciate the full benefits of having a witty gay friend. (they knew it. I didn't.)

But to this day, one of the few things I regret is that I didn't get to be a kid when I was a kid. I can't blame the cancer. It was more my choice. I didn't want to act like the other kids.

Strange how things work. Growing up, all I wanted to do was hang out with adults. And now I spend my days with kids.

Again, my choice. But this time, it's a good choice.

I get to share my biggest passion every day with kids and hopefully show some of those gay little kids that it's OK to be a kid AND appreciate things like Mozart.

slow week

That title is not entirely true.

What is true is that it was a slow week in home improvement.

After 12 hour days at work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and after spending every free moment on Wednesday making 1380 copies for a meeting that afternoon thus missing lunch and then grabbing a chicken sandwich at McDonald's on my way to Parent/Teacher conferences that evening, I do believe I either got food poisoning or over-stressed.

Either way, I was running fever and slept most of Thursday. And after nearly 30 hours of sleep, I was alive and at'em on Friday, which I had off anyway.

So in one day... yes, *one* day, I finished the kitchen project.

The kitchen has been slow and ongoing for two years. Slowly, the cabinet handles got replaced, the cabinet hinges got replaced, the window treatments got replaced, the faucet got replaced, and the stove hood got replaced. The first and, ironically, last thing to get done in the kitchen was the painting. We painted over the 15 y/o contractors paint as soon as we moved in. We did a messy job, but it was right before Christmas and we didn't have time to touch-up.

Two years later, I finally touched it up. I replaced the tacky looking plexiglass splatter guard behind the stove with tile and installed undercabinet lighting.

My dear mom was smart enough to snap a picture of the kitchen the day we moved in.

[ALL PICTURES FROM THIS PROJECT HAVE BEEN LOST.  YOU'LL HAVE TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION]

And here it is today.


Stove before


Stove after


I had fully planned on working on the painting of the master bedroom/bathroom. I know it's just painting, but I keep putting it off.

However, I am proud to say that the dining room table is clear. And not because we hid everything in the garage. But because all the projects that we bought stuff for back in March and put on that table thinking it would take a couple weeks, is done.

And they didn't take two weeks. They took nearly two months.

My biggest lesson: However long you think your project is going to take, multiply by 3.

only two weeks

Unlike the month it took for my last project, this one only took two weeks.


You can see from the first picture, I tried to remove tiles the day before by chiseling them by hand. After two hours, I was crouched over the tile, sweating buckets, bleeding from all the porcelain shards and about to throw a chisel at someone. Two hours. 12 tiles removed.

Dustin replied, "Why didn't you just get a small jackhammer?" (technically called a demolition hammer.)

But I knew that if I had gone and rented one, he would have been pissed and wondered why I didn't do it by hand and save the money. I knew he'd have to see the blood and sweat to let me rent one.

So, the next day, I rented one. And got the rest of the tile off the entry and fireplace in less than an hour.


I wasn't surprised when I found that the builders had just tiled onto the drywall around the fireplace (a no-no) and just onto a wooden underlayment called luan on the floors.

So the Luan had to come up. The 200 or so staples that didn't come up with it got hammered down.



Put in new concrete backerboard.



I had in my mind what I wanted for the entryway. Something Roman looking. And after 50+ tile cuts, I got pretty close.

Here they are laid out just before laying in mortar.


The tumbled marble interior frame.


What I didn't take pictures of was laying the tile in mortar and then grouting it. See, in between all this, we hosted a game night. So the whole project came to a halt while we cleaned house.

But my next step was doing something with the fireplace.

The room it's in is huge. It has a 20 foot vault. And then this tiny fireplace.

Though I wanted to do a floor to ceiling stone fireplace, I just didn't have the $10,000 in my budget to do that.

I wanted to raise it somehow and had noticed that most fireplaces have this flat piece between the side columns and the mantel called a breast plate.

I looked at some fireplaces that I liked:

(but I hate that mosaic)

And this one:

But mine was going to be stained.

So I got to work building a breastplate. It's a flat piece of oak with 4 pieces of trim on it's edges. Here I am gluing the trim:


Then I stained an shellacked the new piece and shellacked the old pieces and laid them out to see how it all fits.

Here's my new breast plate:


200+ feet of blue tape and 8 hours later, the living room was painted and ready for the fireplace. But then I put it in and realized I need to shellac the rest of the wood work.

200+ MORE feet of blue tape and a couple hours later, the rest of the wood was shellacked and just a shade darker than it was.

and... VOILA! New living room:


New fireplace:


New entry:


Stove backsplash comes next.