Project Suckage

Working a project involves a lot of long, labor-intensive hours sometimes.  But in the end I usually get to sit back and see this horrible thing that I've revamped into greatness.  It makes me happy and keeps my momentum going for the next project.

This current project is not one of those.  It has had the long hours.  But it's not resulting in greatness - so far.  I had considered not writing about it until it was just the way I wanted it.  Then I realized that a lot of people don't ever attempt a project because they fear it will look hideous.  They think they'll screw it up.  And I realized that a lot of projects I work on don't turn out how I envision them - at first - but then I take a step back, try a different approach, and in the end I get what I want.  So I'm showing you what I did wrong here, so you don't make the same mistakes, and so you can see that it doesn't have to be perfect the first time you try to fix something.  After all, you wouldn't learn anything if everything always turned out spectacular the first time.

I posted a little while back about filling the cracks in the driveway in preparation for resurfacing/resealing it.  The repair of the cracks went great.  But now I needed to push on to resurface the driveway to protect it from the elements and prevent future deterioration.  I went to Home Depot and picked up a 5 gallon bucket of Rustoleum Extreme Concrete Restore - this part I did right.  They have other Restore products, and some are for concrete, but this one you need for the driveway to resist hot tire pick-up.  It says it's 10x thicker than paint.

The first 2 mistakes I made were with the color and then look how I poured it out into a paint roller tray.  Well, I opened the twist cap to pour it out.  Huge mistake.  With this product you really have to pop the whole lid open and mix up the contents.  I figured that since I had just left Home Depot (where this bucket sat for a few minutes in the shaking machine, that I was all set... but that's not the case with something as thick as this.  By the time I got down to the bottom of the bucket I realized what I was pouring off the top was all the liquid and was left with a lot of sludgy stuff that I couldn't seem to roll onto the driveway.  So do yourself a favor and pick up one of those paint stirring paddles - and you'll want the metal one (it's sturdier than the plastic ones).  I just used the mixing paddle I have left over from mixing tile grout, so if you have one of those it works well too.  Put your drill on a low speed (so you don't splatter everywhere) and get that stuff that stuck to the bottom mixing into the more liquid stuff at the top.

This is what they look like.

So I took this fancy picture of my application equipment.  You can see (from left to right) my paint brush, the 9-inch plastic honeycomb-like roller, and the tiny 3-inch roller.  Now looking back, the 3-inch roller will be useless.  I was using it to get the edges better (as shown below) but since I had also poured all the liquidy stuff off the top, this was easy to do.  If you mixed this stuff the right way, this roller is going to be hard pressed to pick up and apply any of that stuff, so don't bother.

You do have to find a way to get the edges well and to also get in around things like where the driveway meets the garage, or the front steps, so use the paint brush for those spots instead of this little roller.

 

 The big roller is what will apply most of the product.  When I went looking for a picture of it I also found that they do offer a smaller one for little rollers... but you won't find it at Home Depot, or at least they didn't offer it at my local one.  Once I had the product thoroughly mixed up, I found it easiest to just dip my roller into the huge bucket, and take that super saturated roller and push it across the driveway.  You won't be going back and worth like when you paint a wall, instead you're just pushing it down into the concrete and moving the product forward until it all leaves the honeycomb roller, and then you go back for more.  Once you do a few lines of it you get a feel for how to push on it and how to keep from having a berm of the product left behind.  You want it smooth and uniform.  If you don't want to break your body, I'd get a good paint roller and an extension pole for it.  These you can find anywhere.  

Go for the simplest set-up.  And the thread on the end of the extension pole meets up universally for the paint rollers... and for brooms, and mop heads, etc.  They do make some [extension poles] that can be adjusted to different lengths.  And they're "oh so easy to adjust", but the one we have sucks something awful and doesn't lock well into position, which means it's constantly coming loose and shortening up when you push on it.  Terrible idea.  I won't buy one of those again.

Okay, so the next way I made a terrible choice was in the color selection.  I didn't want something ridiculous, like bright green or yellow, so I tried to choose a neutral color.  I went for a dark gray - called "Carbon" on the color sheet.  Because we can all tell from a 2x2 cm square how that's going to look on our driveway.  Grrrr.   You can't get a tester of this stuff either, so you really have to bite the bullet and hope you made a good choice.  I didn't.  It was too dark.  It might have looked good if you had a different colored house and front steps.  But next to mine it just looked weird, and had a blue-ish tinge to it.  I knew I was going to need 2 coats anyway, so back to Home Depot I went this morning to collect 2 more of these 5 gallon buckets, which incidentally only claim to hold 4 gallons of material (because the top 4 inches of the bucket is empty) and really their claim for 4 gallons is just them rounding up from 3.75!  

Picked up 2 buckets this time, thinking that would allow me to cover up the carbon color from yesterday, and finish applying the first coat to the untouched side of the driveway.  Wrong again!  You can see in the picture below, that I really only managed to make it back up the one side and part a few passes across the top of the other side.  I can't explain why this was the case.  The bottom portion of the side I covered hadn't received the first color, and was in really bad shape, so I think it was sucking up the product like crazy.  Perhaps that's why it took so much of it to cover approximately the same area.  So keep that in mind when you're trying to estimate how much of it you'll need.  The bucket says it will cover 100-120 sq feet with 2 coats - so that's 200-240 sq ft with 1 coat, and I had 2 buckets... so 400-480.  Ya, that's about right.  My driveway is just shy of 800 sq ft (including the sidewalk).  I think when I first looked into the product I had it in my head that one bucket would cover 400 sq ft, but clearly I was wrong.

So my second color choice was the "Graywash".  I don't know how I feel about it.  I have to let it cure for a while and then step back and look at it.  This is my biggest problem with a project.  I have such a hard time picking colors for things because it never is exactly what I want.  This one just seems a little bright to me, but maybe it will grow on me after a few days.  And if I don't end up liking it, I probably will finish up the other coat and the other side of the driveway in the same color and then look into staining it with something to add some brown/tan hues to it.  Note, the second coat is a necessary step.  I took a picture to show what it looks like in some places after just one coat (as the moisture is getting sucked into the porous concrete) and it develops some crackling (that you want on your shabby chic furniture, not your driveway), but this is smoothed out with the second pass.

 You are supposed to get enough product to do the whole project because you want to keep working off the wet edge of where you had just rolled to.  That just won't be possible for this project.  So I accept the fact that there may be a little ridge down the middle - but it will still look better than the cracked-to-hell falling apart mess that I started with.

I would have gone back to Home Depot again - naturally after changing my clothes and trying to appear different as I don't want them to think I'm stalking them more than once per day - but those massive buckets of goop are going to run you a solid $99 each!  And that's just not in the budget until another payday passes.  Plus, I was about to loose my cool with my 6 and 8 year old boys because they just couldn't manage to understand that I was unable to drop what I was doing to assist them in their projects.  They also kept insisting they should help paint but were already having trouble remembering not to walk on the driveway, so painting tips probably weren't going to be heard either.

So you can see it's been a couple of long days, without any sort of results to pat myself on the back about.  What a bummer.  And now I have to look at this every time I leave or come home until I manage to fix it to my liking.  Don't let the fear of messing something up keep you from trying.  How boring would that be?  And if I never messed something up, my husband wouldn't have any material when it came time to pick on each other.  ;)

Food Branding Hits at a Young Age

For the past few years I've been pretty disgusted during some of my trips to the grocery store.  It's not the particular store or the food selection, it's the fact that starting around age 6, my first born started asking for brand name food items.  I don't mean he wanted the Cheerios instead of the Tastee-o's (or however your spell that generic knock-off) - he was asking for crap food items by brand name.

"Mom I want Pepsi."
"Mom I want Dr. Pepper."
"Mom I want Mt. Dew."  -  AHHHHH

If I routinely allowed any of those, then it would have been understandable, but I don't!  In fact, at this point my husband and I don't really drink soda, and haven't for a few years aside from an occasional diet Dr Pepper.  Where was this coming from?  Pepsi?  Had he had this at a birthday party somewhere?  No, all the birthday parties he attended seemed to have soda in pitchers.  Mt. Dew??  Seriously!  Why does it seem that my now 8 year old is hard-wired to ask for a soda he's never even tried, which has got to be the worst of the worst for him?

Is this a test?  Is someone from the Commission on Dietetic Registration sending him scripts to read at the grocery store in hopes of catching me?  Are there hidden cameras at the store hoping to catch me at a weak moment?  Well, if so they can go watch someone else because I've perfected my eye-rolling and my firm "not in this lifetime" responses.

So I thought this would continue on, with every horrible-for-you food that was offered at the store.  Yesterday I got a pleasant surprise that really warmed my heart.  I had loaded up the boys and their bikes to go help a friend finish sanding her from porch railings and paint them so her significant other would have to eat his words ["she's never going to finish this"] when he returned home from a trip.  :)

We worked for a while and the boys got hungry.  She eats super healthy too... actually I think she has me beat by a mile in that regard.  So she made this most delicious chicken salad for us, and a sandwich for the boys using up some of the white bread that had only been purchased for recent house guest.  My 8 year old thought this was great since they have to suffer through 100% whole wheat bread consistently at our house.  I grumbled a bit and commented that, "...I like your healthy bod and I want to keep it that way.  If I didn't love you so much I would shove Spaghetti-O's in your face and not care."    ...wait for it... here's when my most fabulous moment arrived....

"What are Spaghetti-O's?"  AHHHHHH!!!  Success!  He really has no idea!  I was so giddy.  While I totally get that some parts of the country start their babies on this staple before they even introduce mashed up bananas, it's got to be one of the worst things to feed your child.  And acting as though it's nutritious in any way is just ridiculous.  Hold up!  Oh, wow they must be nutritious (insert: eyes rolling and most sarcastic voice you can imagine) they have added Calcium.  Ugh.  Here was my 8 year old brand whore with no clue what it even was!  Happy mommy/Dietitian moment.

I did go on to tell him that crap like that wasn't even fit for animals, as evidenced by the Beefaroni incident on Seinfeld.  Ah, I don't think Seinfeld references will ever get old for me.

The first part is just the feeding of the Beefarino, but the second video is the effects.  Horrible video quality, but seriously couldn't find another clip of it.  :( 

I don't like to run...

...but I sure love how I feel after a productive run, and I really like being able to fit into my clothes...

About 6 months back I started having an uncomfortable feeling in my knee.  I blew it off for a while, but it just wouldn't go away.  I made an appointment with my doctor just to be sure I hadn't really damaged anything.  She said it wasn't a meniscus tear and I had most like sprained my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament).  She sent me home with stretches and strengthening exercises, which I naturally didn't want to do, but occasionally did anyway.  But it wouldn't go away.  This thing was annoying beyond belief.  It didn't just bug me when I was running or walking, it was all day everyday, sitting, standing still, and then some in my sleep too.  Not that I wanted to overrule my doctor, but it just seemed like the pain was coming in a weird spot for it to be my ACL.  It was on the inside of my knee, but about 1-2 inches below the level of my knee cap.  And no matter what I did, or didn't do, it wouldn't go away.

I investigated further and finally came across information on "pes anserine bursitis".  They described the location where three ligaments converge and attach to your shin, on the inside just below the knee cap.  The ligaments are protected from rubbing on the bone with the aid of a sweet bursa (fluid filled sac) that lies between them and the bone.  Buy bad shoes, over-train, accidentally twist your leg while your foot remains planted, sport some tight hamstrings etc., and you can overstretch those ligaments and irritate the bursa.

Wait?  What?  Back that up?  Buy bad shoes???  AHHHHH!  Yup, 7-8 months prior I bought the worst pair of Adidas of my life and now I was suffering for it.  I love Adidas, they have never done me wrong, so when I saw a pair on sale I thought nothing of it, didn't even try them on.  I certainly wasn't over-training... I mean I'm no marathon runner and if my body can't handle 3-6 miles at a time without throwing in the towel, then I'm going to scream!

I read more on this pes anserine bursitis.  You have to rest the leg, stretch the hamstrings well, reduce inflammation... hmmm, rest the leg.  Rest is not something I relish in.  I'll sleep when I'm dead.  How was I going to keep myself on "the bench" for even a day after this thing felt better?  Our disgusting dog helped with that.  A while back (I'd say about 2 years now), I relayed a story of stress incontinence (http://www.mygradeabologna.blogspot.com/search/label/pee) for which I sought help and was granted the most miraculous "anti-pee-your-pants" device without surgery - and this thing changed my whole after mommyhood world.  It normally was stored in the safest of places  ;)  but on this particular day it was readily available in the shower and our adolescent dog was all over it.  Needless to say, after being able to run for the past 2 years without having to worry about wet pants, now I was back in that position again.  Anywhoo, certainly made it easier to rest my knee while I waited for an appointment to get a replacement device.

So I rested up, my knee felt 100% better, I bought new shoes, I got my new vagina accessory... and it was time again to go for a run.  Or maybe not.  I've been for 3 runs now, and the dull pain is starting to come back.  My knee doesn't feel swollen like it had before (though it was never really puffy, just didn't feel as bony as it normally does), but I know it's only a matter of time if I keep using it.  I'm frustrated.  I don't have time for this.  So I discussed it with a good friend who had knee trouble 100-times worse than mine.  She gave me some of the best suggestions, and the next time I see her she doesn't even know the sweet SWEET lovin' she's got in store.

She first suggested using Turmeric (which contains the active component Curcumin).  Now this I'm familiar with, because I'd been recommending it to a few people at the nursing home, and I had written up on it's uses as an anti-inflammatory spice, but I guess I was correlating it more to chronic systemic inflammation, not necessarily inflammation that occurs with exercise or arthritis - but she was so right to clear my head on that one - because Curcumin doesn't care what kind of inflammation it is, it helps with it all!  So I have some ordered and on it's way - and am so excited to test it out - though I will say I'm not looking forward to possibly orange-colored poop which can happen with so much Turmeric going through you.

hmmm, Curcumin BP?  Blood Pressure?  No that doesn't make sense.  Ah, BP stands for Black Pepper, they use that to enhance the absorption of it.

Then she suggested talking to a Physical Therapist about kinesio tape.  Years back when I played Rugby (and I mean forever ago in college) I used to get taped up a bit to support my dumb achilles tendons which had a tendency to strain.  I kind of thought it would be the same sort of situation, until I looked up a youtube video to see what she was talking about.  Found this one produced by KT tape, which is some awesome kinesio tape!

KT Tape Application for Pes Anserine Bursitis

Went to Walmart last night to see what was available.  They have tons, but I think next time I'll just order it off Amazon as the prices were pretty much the same and Amazon had a better selection.  There are 2 different types of kinesio tape, Cotton and Synthetic.  I would guess the kind used in the video was the synthetic.  I grabbed the cotton as it was cheaper and I just wanted to see if I could replicate the video, but next time I'm definitely going for the synthetic.  It stays on longer and provides more support.

 They have a variety of colors available.  I highly recommend going for a color as far away from your skin color as possible - because if you're trying to make it look less obvious, you're going to fail.  A flesh-toned tape is going to look like you had some sort of massive skin graft as opposed to looking like you applied the tape, on purpose, for an injury.  Just my opinion, but I'm usually right...  ;)

So I applied the tape, I think I did a pretty good job of mimicking the video.  And I can say that I instantly felt better.  It seems weird that tape could do that, no matter how fancy or flexible it is, but it really did.  It felt as though instead of those ligaments pulling at that sore spot by my knee, their pull was relocated further up my thigh which felt way better.  You don't take it off for a few days, which is fine with me.  It stayed on perfectly all night and I even slept better - maybe with 50% of the pain I was used to at night.  I'm in love.  If you have some other sort of injury, like a muscle or ligament strain, I highly recommend trying this stuff out.  KT Tape has tons of youtube videos to show you how to tape just about anything, or you could ask your favorite physical therapist to show you how.

why oh why do I do what I do...

From time to time people jokingly mention how excessive my activity level is.  My favorite remark is that if I'm not burning the candle at both ends and twice in the middle I must be on my death bed.  But to be honest, I'm just one of those people that really likes to be busy.  This doesn't mean I'm incapable of sitting back and relaxing.  I do that too.  I will sit on my back deck and watch my boys run and jump in the pool, or we'll go camping and leave all technology behind.  But on a day-to-day basis I like to keep in motion.

I think this has always been the case for me.  When we moved to the west coast it seemed to get worse.  Our move to Whidbey Island, Washington was a result of the Navy base in Brunswick, Maine closing.  We were fortunate to be able to choose such a picturesque spot to call home, but I found myself missing all my friends and family.  I hadn't moved anywhere with the military, and really hadn't been outside of Maine, aside from my first three years of life in New York and then a short stint in Keene, New Hampshire for my Dietetic Internship.

So here I sat without my usual Thursday night of dance classes (and the dinner and beer afterwards), no shifts at Joshua's Tavern, and no sporadic days of work at Parkview Adventist Medical Center to cover for the regular Dietitian.  I was bored.  I hate bored.  "Only boring people get bored".  I was lonely too.  I hate lonely.  I tried to make friends, but I honestly stink at meeting new people.  It irritates me the amount of small talk you have to endure just to get to a point where you can figure out whether you want to spend any real time with these new people.  What a waste!  Over the years, incidentally, I've reverted back to my old "shock and awe" campaign whereby I say something completely intimate and somewhat ridiculous when I first meet people and then judge their expression to determine whether I've scared them (no friend potential), drinking it in (friend possibility), or invite you to hang out (BFF).

So here I sat in a new location, with essentially no intimate friends, and suddenly my husband was gone.  And then he was home for a millisecond, and then he was gone again... and let's just put that theme on repeat for the past 4.5 years.  I'd like to say this is an exaggeration.  But my family was seriously starting to think I had buried my husband in the backyard because he was never to be seen.  And my friends actually started acting surprised if they heard that he was home.  If there is a short-end of any stick to be drawn, he'll get it.  I take comfort in knowing that he is just really good at his job, and of course they want him doing important things somewhere overseas - but naturally I choose to tease him about his inability to give a good blow job or his pheromones that smell of wide open prison ass being the reason they don't want him around the hangar.  Teasing is my wifely duty, one I take very seriously.  I think it's sad when marriages lack sense of humor.  Seems dull to me.

So I started doing things.  Soooooo many different things.  I didn't want to have all this time on my hands.  I didn't want to be bored and start missing my husband - because there's nothing you can do about his job demands and missing him doesn't make it any better; it just makes you angry.

We were living in a rental house at the time.  So all my tools were collecting dust.

My eldest sister was chatting with me one day.  She had recently opened up her own salon (Oasis Salon, Presque Isle, Maine) after what... 80 years working for other salons?  Jeez, she looks good for her age  ;)   and she would kill me if she read this.  She asked if I had ever made body products.  Nope.  They kind of scared me.  I had been making candles for 5 years at this point, but nobody was rubbing soy wax on their body unless they were into some kinky S&M relationship.  They scared me because I certainly didn't want to craft something that someone didn't like on their body or that made them itchy, etc.  But I also was intrigued.  I started researching.  I researched oils, butters, herbal ingredients, preservatives, cosmeceuticals, you name it.  Clearly I had the time, so why not?  In the end I crafted a few products so she could offer her clients unique products for their lavish pedicures.  But it was a new endeavor to fill up some of my time, and Uforya.com was born, with more than enough room to grow and keep me motivated.

I applied to go back to school.  I had always wanted a Master's degree but didn't think I wanted it in Nutrition.  I thought maybe a complimentary field would be better (back when I was wrapping up my Bachelor's degre) - but at this point in my life I actually wanted to continue with Nutrition and really hone my knowledge and skills in that realm.  So from September 2011 to April 2014 I was a full-time graduate student.

In February 2012 we bought our house.  Now this was my kind of project.  It was a foreclosure that was literally 1/10th of a mile from our rental.  It has been one of my favorite projects so far - certainly keeping me plenty busy as it just needed some TLC in every room, on every wall and every floor, and then some.

A few months back now, having my Master's degree under my belt, I applied for and was hired on as the Dietitian at a senior community long-term care facility.  In addition to that I also took on a few freelance writing projects, writing up reports and nutrition tips on every topic you can imagine - and some topics that were so horrifically dumb I wished I'd never agreed to them.

Bored Now?  No way!  Quite the opposite.  I've got something I could be doing at any second of any day.  Some consider me to be Type A.  Like I'm somehow neurotic and don't know how to relax.  I don't think that's quite the case.  If I want to relax I have every opportunity, and I indulge from time to time.  It just so happens that my style of coping with my husband's non-stop detachments (deployments where only portions of the squadron leave) is a little more productive than most.

I'm not mad at someone who deals with their separation by pining for their missing partner, but that's just not my style.  I don't watch tv, aside from the occasional late night show when I'm going to bed... I <3 The Soup on E!  All these reality [garbage] shows irritate me.  I hate listening to people singing on shows just to win some sort of music contract that they haven't spent years in the trenches to earn.  I don't do much pleasure reading.  I honestly hadn't read anything fiction in years because I was so wrapped up in textbooks... that is until the 50 Shades of Grey movie trailer came out and I seriously then had to indulge in that trilogy.  Holy Crap!  I mean that stuff takes "pleasure" reading to a whole new level...  but I digress.

I'm a worker.  I like to keep busy.  And when my husband is gone, I miss a little adult conversation from time to time, which is what I occasionally use my blog for - like the most ridiculous sort of diary.  I don't do it because I think people will actually read what I write - because my life is not exactly a "page-turner".  But I do secretly hope some who stumble across it might find something they could do to occupy their time if they're feeling lonely - and maybe they'll stop pinning things and starting doing these things.  Maybe they'll see some project I worked on and think they could do that too.

There is no perfect time to start your life.  Imagine if I had waited for my boys to both be in school, or for my husband to be home to support me and grant me uninterrupted time to work on my hobbies.  I'd still be waiting... and look at all that wouldn't have been accomplished... and imagine how many useless hours would have been spent sitting on the porch watching the grass grow. 

Say No to Crack

You ever have one... or a few... of those things around the house that just makes you nuts?  You see it on a daily basis, you want it fixed, you know it's going to get worse and more expensive if you don't take care of it, yet you can't quite seem to find a moment to devote to it?

For me that is my driveway.  I see it every time I leave the house.  Every time I come home.  Every time I go to check the mail... etc., you get the picture.  It's not horribly bad.  But it's full of cracks.  It looks like they poured the concrete slab and then were just too busy to go back and cut the lines to allow for settling and movement.  So the driveway created its own cracks.

They're huge.  I'm kind of surprised I didn't find missing neighborhood children in them when I was cleaning them out to repair them.  Yesterday the boys and I found a homemade weed killer concoction on Pinterest.  I've used Round-Up before, and don't get me wrong - it works amazingly well - but I really don't want to use chemical crap like that anymore.  The recipe I found was for 1/4 cup salt, 1 squeeze of dish detergent (how scientific), and then filled the rest of my 32 oz spray bottle with white vinegar.  We sprayed it all over the stubborn weeds that were growing out of some of the cement cracks.  Came back this morning and they were all brown and sad looking.  Perfecto!

I borrowed a pressure washer from my neighbor (example of it is pictured below).  It's so great to have friendly neighbors, especially ones with tools that I'm lacking.  But I really just need to go purchase one of these soon.  I sprayed the cracks until they were as clean as a whistle, and while I was at it I gave the entire driveway a nice cleaning too.  You could try using your garden hose for this part of the job, but you are never going to get the same kind of pressure.  The pressure washer was able to dislodge some of the wiggly pieces of cement.  Can't be repairing the cracks with loose pieces stuck in there.

With the driveway clean and dry, I made a run to Home Depot and grabbed my concrete patch made by DAP.  They only had smaller tubs of the premixed.  The amount you need really varies depending upon how big your driveway is, how many cracks you have to fill, and how deep/wide those cracks are.  Really wish I had picked up 4 of the tubs because I did run out.  :(

   

Ready to apply, I misted the crack I was about to fill (oh jeez, just typing that all I can think of is a line from a Bob Marley - comedian - sketch about filling a leaky crack with some caulk... but I digress) and then scooped out the patch mix and pressed it into place.  Finished by running my putty knife at a sweet 45-degree angle to smooth things out.  "Smooth" is not the best term to use to describe what you end up with - but really who cares... it's a driveway after all.  It's rough, and raggedy on the edges and all over.  But the cracks are beautifully filled and smoothed into the driveway.

  

While a plastic putty knife might help you fill one or two cracks, a stiff metal putty knife will take care of the whole driveway.

In about 24 hours I could park the cars back on it.  Or I can prepare to seal it with a stain or concrete paint.  Thinking the concrete paint is the way to go.  I'm actually excited about it, which seems like a silly thing to get excited about, but when you spend all day hosing down a driveway and scraping concrete patch into place the idea of lazily rolling on some paint for an instant transformation sounds so nice.

Now to go find me some After-Sun Soother (uforya.com) for the sunburn I'm pretty sure is developing.