I Aten't Dead*

[frau kaleun]

*only makes sense to Discworld fans, and if you aten't one you should be. :O:

Holy prolonged absence, Batman! Long time no Subsim!

So... uh... sorry I haven't been around. Does anybody still remember me? It feels like forever since I've checked in. I swear I've thought about you guys every day, it's just been the spring/summer/fall from hell at work and now it's finally started to calm down over the past couple of weeks altho given our recent track record we're due for another major upsetting of the office apple cart any minute now. :dead:

I've gotten back to working my "normal hours" and I'm keeping my fingers crossed but it does seem like ten hour days are once again the anomaly instead of the usual thing, which they were for a while, and while I enjoyed the $$ from all the overtime, I had no time or energy to do anything fun with it. Just mentally and physically worn out all the damn time. Now over the past few weeks I've gotten into somewhat of a comfortable routine again at work after all the changes, gotten a few long overdue things done in the condo, finally hung up the pot rack I'd been wanting in the kitchen for instance, it's been over a week and IT HASN'T FALLEN DOWN YET :woot::know: :smug: and I've got a few other projects in line like replacing the back patio light that fell off the place during a big windstorm back...uh...in the summer some time, I can't remember. :oops: In my own defense I did try to replace it once before but the light fixture I bought wouldn't work with the mounting plate that is used with this siding I've got, go figure, so I had to exchange it for something that I hope will work and I guess I better get on that in case I need to return the second one and start over. Again.

Ran into another major snag on the current project, and maybe I'll post about that in a separate dedicated thread and solicit help on that one since it's got me stumped and I got to either find a solution or pursue a different option ASAP. :hmmm:

Anyway - I hope ya'll are doing well, I've tried to look in and around and catch up on what's been posted but that may be a lost cause at this point. :88) I'm hoping I can get back into at least checking in more regularly if things stay relatively calmed down at work. :yeah:

[Sailor Steve]

Well, I've certainly missed your singular wit, and wondered if we'd ever see you again. It's good to hear your...see your...read your stuff. :D

[frau kaleun]

Well, I've certainly missed your singular wit, and wondered if we'd ever see you again. It's good to hear your...see your...read your stuff. :D

Thanks!

I'm still trying to get back into what I used to think of as my normal routine, or at least reincorporate those parts of it that I enjoyed and actually miss and that are still available.

I swear I think at one point over the summer I went almost a month without checking even my email, except to log in from work to see what bills I owed and get them paid. Most of the rest of my time online was spent at Amazon ordering stuff I didn't want to haul my butt to a store to get. When you start ordering your groceries from Amazon, you know it's bad. :O:

After being really excited for the new season I watched the first episode of the new Dr. Who when it premiered and haven't seen an episode since. I've avoided catching reruns of them because I want to see them in order, I guess I'll have to see if I can get them Free On Demand or on Amazon Prime at some point.

I still don't have cable in my bedroom which means I see no morning news when I'm getting ready for work which means most days I see no news at all, so if somebody doesn't talk about it at work or on the radio the few minutes a day I have it on, I got very little clue about what's going on in the world. And Subsim General Topics was my OTHER major source for keeping up on current events, so I've been waaaaaay out of the loop all around. :haha:

[Cybermat47]

Welcome back :woot:

[Rhodes]

Welcome back! :salute:

[BossMark]

Welcome back :woot:

Welcome back! :salute:
I will third that :salute::salute::salute:

[Wolferz]

We've been so lonely without you.:wah:
Welcome back to, uh, normal?:yep:

Without your misadventures in home repair I actually found time to get a lot of projects done around this homestead over the summer and fall.:up:

[Oberon]

Welcome back Granny! :03: :up:

[Jimbuna]

Welcome back young lady :sunny:

[Schroeder]

Welcome back Granny! :03: :up:

Welcome back young lady :sunny:
Make up your minds.:doh:

And welcome back.:D

[Onkel Neal]

Hi, glad to see all is well with you, I was just about to list you. (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=159552):shucks:

[kranz]

I remember you.
Did I win anything?

[Schroeder]

I remember you.
Did I win anything?
Yes, the certainty that you don't have Alzheimer's.:O:

[Wolferz]

Turn the circuit breaker back on. :03::O:

[Sailor Steve]

Make up your minds.:doh:
It's all relative, depending on your point of view. To a youngster like Oberon she may seem like a granny, or at least mom. Me? I usually call her "kid".

Hi, glad to see all is well with you, I was just about to list you. (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=159552):shucks:
Neal, you need to update that list. CCIP has posted at least once in the last few days. :sunny:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2257169&postcount=2004

[Onkel Neal]

It's all relative, depending on your point of view. To a youngster like Oberon she may seem like a granny, or at least mom. Me? I usually call her "kid".


Neal, you need to update that list. CCIP has posted at least once in the last few days. :sunny:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2257169&postcount=2004

He is on the list? Ok, thanks, glad he is back.

[frau kaleun]

Turn the circuit breaker back on. :03::O:

I DID!!!! But the powerstrip still only gives love to the tester thingy, and none to my Dustbuster or Swiffer Sweeper. I'm assuming we're talking about my powerstrip woes.

Thanks for the warm welcome back, everybody. It's good to be here again.

[Gargamel]

Hey Fk!

*wave*

[frau kaleun]

Without your misadventures in home repair I actually found time to get a lot of projects done around this homestead over the summer and fall.:up:

Oh dear lord lemme tell you about the pot rack. You'd think it would be easy, right? There's already two holes from a previous owner, right under one of the joists over the kitchen peninsula. So I buy a pot rack, only I get it and it needs to hang from four hooks, not two. Fine, I get out the studfinder thing and get a *bing* for the center of another joist about 16" over from where the two existing holes are, right about where it should be. Awesome!

So I measure and mark where the second two holes should go. I buy four big ol' screw-in hooks. Go to put them in the existing two holes only... wouldn't you know, the person who hung something from them, instead of using something that would screw all the way up into the joist that's RIGHT THERE, used a shorter something into just the ceiling, er, stuff - is that still called drywall when it's on the ceiling? Anyway they didn't use the joist, they made a hole and stuffed some kind of drywall anchor in there for whatever it was, which I can't get out without tearing a much bigger hole in the ceiling.

No problem, I've got room, I just moved everything down by a couple inches, remeasured, remarked all the spots. Get the first two hooks into the joist all nice and solid, great. Go to put in the other two and guess what? THERE AIN'T NO JOIST THERE. Despite the fact that my studfinder, which otherwise works flawlessly everywhere else, tells me I'm right under one. So I had to go back to Lowe's and try to look for something else to hang the rack from, preferably with two things in the joist and then the other two using anchors of some kind. Explaining the situation to the salesman there was fun!

Lowe's guy: Some of those cheap studfinders give false positives, you should always stick with higher quality products.

Me: I bought it here.

Lowe's guy: Er... maybe it needs a new battery?

Me: No, it works fine everywhere else I test it.

Lowe's guy: Maybe there's a knothole in the joist right at that spot.

Me: It would be a pretty big coincidence if there was another knothole exactly 28" down from this one and 16" across from the first joist. :shifty:

And on and on like that. In the end it was impossible to find four matching hooks that could be using with AND without anchors, in the existing spots. So I ended up having to get four jumbo metal hooks for hanging plants and stuff, and use all anchors, and use four entirely different holes and just patch the existing ones. What I expected to be a quick trip to the store to buy four hooks and a couple hours on a weekend afternoon hanging the thing turned into hours and hours of frustration and wasted effort, several trips to two different stores, and several messes that had to be cleaned up in my kitchen without anything worthwhile having been accomplished. :stare:

But it's up now and shows no signs of coming down, and I love it, so I guess it was worth it. :D

Edit: I forgot to mention the part where I poked holes in the ceiling every two inches in either direction from the hole-without-a-joist, at the suggestion of the Lowe's guy, trying to locate the joist that the studfinder said the first hole was right in the middle of. Yeah, there ain't no joist there, at least not one low enough to screw anything into, and wherever the next one is it's not anywhere close enough to the peninsula to use for the pot rack. Harumph.

[Garion]

Welcome back Mistress Weatherwax, that'l teach yoo to go 'borrowing' bees, very tricking thing 'borrowing' BeeeEeZZzzzzzz. :D

Cheers

Gary

[frau kaleun]

I see Oberon and Garion know their Pratchett. :D

[Aktungbby]

Jeeze! I had just looked you up a few days back and noted recent activity so I wasn't worried ...WELCOME BACK! :up: beware of errant studfinders!! I had the same problem rehanging all the bike hooks after the earthquake in the garage sheetrock. :nope:

[Jimbuna]

Neal, you need to update that list. CCIP has posted at least once in the last few days. :sunny:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2257169&postcount=2004

STEED has been here almost on a daily basis for a good while now but can't say that of Penelope Grey for example, he's not been around since August 09.

[vienna]

Welcome back, Frau! You've been missed...

Now a couple of questions:

Pot rack? Is that legal where you live or are you adopting a counterculture lifestyle a' la the 60s?

Stud finder? Are there no single bars in you area?

Enquiring minds want to know,,, :hmm2:


<O>

[u crank]

Welcome back Frau K. Good to hear from you.:salute:

[Tango589]

Also, how are the cats? Are they full-grown house wreckers by now?

[Pisces]

Welcome back Frau.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Remember who?

Oh, the old* lady with the cats. Thank goodness you're back, Steve's been spending extra at Amazon to cover your absence.

Welcome back Frau, we missed you. :yeah:

*not too much older than me but enough for me to be a cheeky young whippersnapper!

[frau kaleun]

@Vienna: lol, the only ones getting high around here are the cats, on catnip. And I'm sure there are singles bars, but I wouldn't go to one. I have a job, a home, and two feline dependents. The last thing I need is another something/someone to do for and worry about.

The kitties are doing fine, we celebrated their first birthday on July 4th and they have their yearly vet checkup for shots and stuff next week. They are as big as they are going to get, I hope, and seem healthy and happy. They still come running to meet me every day when I come home and spend most of their time hanging out wherever I am, or where they can keep tabs on me from a comfy napping spot.

[vienna]

Catnip is almost as much fun for a cat's human as it is for the cat. A friend of mine had a cat named "Meow" (my friend is smart but not very imaginative) and every Xmas, I would buy my friend a gift and include a little something for Meow. One year, I gave a box of catnip to my friend for her cat. My friend wasn't quite familiar with catnip, so I told her to just take a bit of the 'nip, put it in an old sock and tie off the end to make a little 'nip ball. She was amazed and amused to watch her normally serene cat go a bit wild over the 'nip. Some days later after Xmas, my friend arrived home to find Meow had found the 'nip box and knocked it off the shelf. There was Meow, on the floor, rolling around on the floor in the pile of 'nip, in state of sheer bliss...


<O>

[Rockstar]

Welcome back Frau. You haven't missed much here same ol' polarizing subjects. Islam, not islam, londonstan, democrats, neener, neener, republicans, troll, islam, dems, gop, ukraine, more about islam. Oberon trying hard to bring calm and reason.

Btw, the studfinder could have detected a big rat taking a nap. But if you found one joist you could measure from that and find the next one over. Spacing between floor joists are standard could be 12 or 24 inches between them, sometimes 14.5 inches. All depends upon building codes for your area. My house built in 1894 has 24-ish inchs of space between rafters and 12-ish inches for floors.

[frau kaleun]

Picture time! Here's the pot rack:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/picture.php?albumid=158&pictureid=7749

What you see hanging from the ceiling is the entirety of my successfully completed projects from the past few months. :haha:

Other than hanging a couple little decorative things on a small bit of wall, and all the rearranging I've done in the cupboards since I got the pot rack up and had extra cabinet space to play with, that's about all I've accomplished.

Of course I *did* manage to raise two happy, healthy, very sweet kitties.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/picture.php?albumid=158&pictureid=7751

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/picture.php?albumid=158&pictureid=7750

[Oberon]

Good to see that you've trained them with small enclosed spaces already. Box, laundry basket (those are the most fun because they can put their fur all over the humans clothing), I'm surprised that you haven't had one of them in the bread bin already. :hmmm: :haha:

[frau kaleun]

Suprisingly enough neither one of them seems all that interested in boxes, if there's a new empty one they might jump in to check it out but they don't "hang out" or hide in them. At least not when I'm home, what they get up to when I'm gone is anybody's guess. When I'm home they usually hang out near where I am, of course if I'm working on something that just came out of a box they're more interested in anything small enough to bat across the floor and under the fridge. When they wander off to take a nap they usually do that in one of their beds or at the top of the stairs. Sam in particular likes to nap on my bed, sometimes he crawls up under the covers and sleeps there for hours.

I'm sure they'd be in the bread bin if they could get it open long enough, altho they're usually pretty good about staying off the counters (when I'm looking). Reorganizing the kitchen cupboards was fun though. There's not a thing in any of the base cabinets I won't have to wash before I use it again because it's had little cat paws and noses on it.

I finally had to give up and move everything off the top shelf of my desk, as you can see from that one picture they've taken that over entirely. When they were little I still had my wireless router and modem parked up there but eventually they got so big they'd just knock them right to (or over) the edge when they stretched out. It's still better than when Sam sets up shop on the corner of my desk just to the left of my keyboard and then gradually works as much of his body as possible over top of my left arm and hand. He doesn't usually like to sit in my lap, but he loves to lay with his front paws, legs, shoulders, head, or entire front half of his body sprawled over my arm whenever possible. Makes playing Skyrim a whole new experience when you can't control your character reliably because there's a big chunk of cat draped over your WASD hand. If he rolls the wrong way *he* ends up controlling my character. I've lost a couple fights because Sam decided I should zig when I wanted to zag. :haha:

[fireftr18]

Welcome back from your leave Frau. You were definitely missed. :salute:

[frau kaleun]

Sam and Carrot had their yearly vet check-up after I got off work this evening, which will now be referred to forever as the Night of a Thousand Yowls. :haha:

Boy, I remember when they were little and rode in one carrier and would just curl up in there and be perfectly content to go anywhere. Now, not so much. They're too big for the one carrier so now have separate ones, and they don't like being carried around in them AT ALL and start howling like they're going to die as soon as I get them in there. Carrot burrows under the carrier mat and eventually shuts up, but Sam... Sam yowled all the way there and back. :dead:

That said, they both behaved magnificently once we got there and I've been told they look fantastic so I should just keep doing whatever I'm doing and barring sickness or injury they're good for another year. Carrot now weighs 13 lbs and Sam has topped out at 15.5 lbs. He's a baby, but he's a big one. :O:

[Buddahaid]

Welcome home Frau.

Your cats are great! The dried laundry basket is tops on no account. :sunny:

[nikimcbee]

Glad to have you back. So you money pi....house is doing good.:up: We've replaced the roof and furnace in ours, now totally in debt.:dead:

[Garion]

Sam and Carrot had their yearly vet check-up after I got off work this evening, which will now be referred to forever as the Night of a Thousand Yowls. :haha:

Boy, I remember when they were little and rode in one carrier and would just curl up in there and be perfectly content to go anywhere. Now, not so much. They're too big for the one carrier so now have separate ones, and they don't like being carried around in them AT ALL and start howling like they're going to die as soon as I get them in there. Carrot burrows under the carrier mat and eventually shuts up, but Sam... Sam yowled all the way there and back. :dead:

That said, they both behaved magnificently once we got there and I've been told they look fantastic so I should just keep doing whatever I'm doing and barring sickness or injury they're good for another year. Carrot now weighs 13 lbs and Sam has topped out at 15.5 lbs. He's a baby, but he's a big one. :O:

Is Carrot a Giant muscular Dwarf Cat with a Birthmark? :shucks:

I'll get my coat :smug:

Cheers

Gary

[frau kaleun]

Is Carrot a Giant muscular Dwarf Cat with a Birthmark? :shucks:

I'll get my coat :smug:

Cheers

Gary

Nope, but you've sorted out who he's named for. :yeah:

The kitties' full names are Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson and His Grace, His Excellency, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, Duke of Ankh, Master of the Summoning Dark and Blackboard Monitor.

More commonly known as Carrot Cake and Sam I Am.

Even more commonly known as Stop It Sam and Carrot Get Down From There. :O:

[Wolferz]

I just have to say...
NICE RACK, Frau K.:yeah:

Got all your potfors in a nice handy location for easy accessibility.

[frau kaleun]

I just have to say...
NICE RACK, Frau K.:yeah:

:rotfl2:

But I still can't believe nobody's commented on the fact that I have TWO full blocks of knives in the counter. It's always the first thing I notice when I look at that picture.

Which may explain why I have two full blocks of knives. I do seem to have a propensity for shiny pointy things. :hmmm:

[vienna]

None of us wanted to mention the knives out of fear you might actually use them on us... :o


<O>

[Wolferz]

:rotfl2:

But I still can't believe nobody's commented on the fact that I have TWO full blocks of knives in the counter. It's always the first thing I notice when I look at that picture.

Which may explain why I have two full blocks of knives. I do seem to have a propensity for shiny pointy things. :hmmm:

Pots and knives. Knives and pots.

Just handy for those burny, burny cut, cut inclinations or sacrifices to lesser gods.:timeout:

[Jeff-Groves]

:rotfl2:

But I still can't believe nobody's commented on the fact that I have TWO full blocks of knives in the counter.

I didn't notice them due to the missing drawer handle which seems to have the hole ready for it?
:o
As for Cat names? Jasmine I refer to by her nite time name.
Do you have to lay on my head.

[frau kaleun]

I didn't notice them due to the missing drawer handle which seems to have the hole ready for it?


The cabinet hardware is another project for the future. The drawer fronts each have two holes drilled 3.5 inches apart for handle-type pulls, but at some point a previous owner put wooden knobs on all the cabinets and on the drawers they just put them in the holes that were there and didn't drill new center holes for them. So every drawer has two knobs instead of one handle.

Except for the drawer nearest the oven, you can't put a handle pull because the size required to fit the existing holes would cause it to block the oven door when you try to open it. There should be more clearance there, but... there isn't. :/\\!!

So the plan for the future is to drill center holes and then put new hardware on everything, fill the existing holes on the drawer fronts, and then repaint. OR to buy backplates, with one center hole, that are long enough to cover the existing holes, and use a matching center knob on the drawer fronts. Which would make repainting unnecessary. However the white cabinets don't look as white next to the white appliances, so I might want to repaint them all anyway. Haven't decided yet.