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.  ;)

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. 

But why Mommy? Why?

For some reason I thought the hardest part of walking my kindergartener to school would be getting there in time.  My 5-year-old loved to run ahead while my 3-year-old would doddle.  The 3-year-old would get distracted and want to collect rocks or point out cars as we walked by them.  We had done the trip to school a number of times before the first day just so I could get a sense of how long it would take and I could just feel that I would spend my mornings grinding my teeth as I tried to get us there before the bell.  Well school is now in full swing, and I have to admit that getting there in time has not been an issue.  If both boys run, we get there in 7 minutes.  If one of them doddles, we get there in 12 - and either way we aren't close to being too late or too early.

Okay so the most difficult part of getting to and from school seems to be in reminding the boys that it isn't safe to walk in the street!!  The sidewalk is clearly a different shade of gray, so it's not like they could easily be confused.  But every morning I get asked at least 5 times (by the 3-year-old) why he can't walk in the street.  Now I know he is familiar with the reason why, so what I can't figure out is why the question keeps coming.  Does he just like to hear my explanation?  Does he just want to ask me a question and can't come up with something else to talk about?  Does he want to hear his own voice?  Does he want to hear my voice?  Or is it truly that he is seeing how many times he can ask that same question (while standing barely in the street) before my head literally pops off. 

These boys definitely remind me why people who are mentally unstable might not be a good fit for parenthood - way too much patience required.  And why at the end of the day the only thing I really want to hear is the sound of... nothing. 

My Life is too Mundane to Blog About.

Are you curious why I started a blog?  Well, while I felt like I might be able to offer words of wisdom from the different things I had experience frequently, I never thought it was worthy of writing about.  And certainly not something anyone would ever want to read.  So I started the blog for myself.  My husband has left, yet again, for a few months abroad and my nights are pretty quiet.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that we have incredibly stimulating conversations every night, but at least having someone else there at the end of the day to share your moments with so nice and surely missed.  So that was the reason for the blog.  Since I can't be sure when he might call or send an email, this was my way of sharing those ridiculous thoughts that stream through my mind.  My hope is that if I'm able to get it out of my system in some format, then maybe I can sleep better at night, and I won't incur extra dental bills from grinding my teeth off.