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Comments from a Home-Owner  |
Posted By : Susan
Posted: March 09 2008 08:09:00 pm
Category :
General |
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Well, I don't actually "own" my home...the mortgage company still does. But after 5 years of paying my mortgage, I think I now own a couple of door knobs and the window over my kitchen sink. You would think, since the mortgage company owns more of this house than I do, that THEY would send someone over to take care of all of the weeds in the yard.  And that is the real topic of this post -- the things that I have to do with my "spare" time now that I own a house.
I remember my years as an apartment dweller...wishing I had some home improvement projects I could do in my spare time. I really missed having "puttering" projects. Alas, I was in denial, as no house project is "puttering" -- it's a 3-month commitment at the very least as it always turns out that before you start the project you planned on, you realize that at least three additional projects need to be done BEFORE you start the first project you thought up. And, as you work on each project, you realize that there are even MORE sub-projects involved. Why is nothing simple?
Here is an example: One "simple" project I planned was painting my guest bathroom. Now, you would think that that would entail buying a gallon of paint and then taping off the things you don't want painted, and getting to work, right? Oh no...it's not that simple. The guest bathroom has the only shower in the house...and the reason I wanted to paint it was due to the fact that after all these years (it was built in '92) of house-inhabitants (there were two other owners prior to me, and the first one, the one who had this house built, was a total idiot!) showering in this one small room has taken a toll on the paint, drywall, fiberglass shower stall and even on the vinyl floor tile which is lifting. So, I decided that I wanted to re-tile the floor with ceramic tiles, and use ceramic tiles around the fiberglass shower stall to prevent water damage to the paint/walls. But, if I am going to do all of this, do I want to keep the same scuzzy fiberglass shower stall in place, or replace it? And, thinking ahead, I would like to widen the doorway to accommodate people with walkers/wheelchairs. So now it's become an expensive remodeling project instead of just a simple painting project, and it's going to take time, which leaves me to only being able to take baths until the guest bathroom is completed. So this entire project is now on hold. It would be different if I had a shower in the master bathroom...but see the reference to the original idiot homeowner above. *sigh*
There are many reasons that I think the first homeowner is an idiot...and I've met her siblings and they concur. But the biggest reason (not to mention the 48 Oleanders in the yard, which I have now removed, as well as having removed the 30 cement dinosaur turds posing as stepping stones in the front yard, which weighed between 30 and 80 lbs each) I think the original homeowner is an idiot is because of what she did to the master bathroom. There is NO shower in the master bathroom. Instead, there is a "garden" tub, with a 47"W x 58"H window behind it that exposes you from shin to way above your head if you are standing in the tub. No greenwall...oh no...because there was NO shower!
I thought and thought and thought some more, about how to turn this useless tub into a shower. But, due to the window and no greenwall, it's going to take a major remodeling project. The window and tub need to be removed, as does the drywall around the shower area. Replacing the window with a smaller glass-block window is an option, but still requires major greenwall work inside and stucco work on the outside of the house. If I am going to take on this project, what I want is a walk-in shower, without a rise of any kind, and accessible to handicapped people. So the walls need to wrap around instead of having anything you have to step up into or down into. And...the toilet area of this master bathroom is a long, narrow room with just the toilet in it. That room is wasted space and needs to be opened up. Plus, there was violence in the house (sounds like the first idiot owner from what my neighbors have told me) and there is damage to the double sink vanity, so that is going to have to be replaced as well. Remodeling the guest bathroom would be much simpler if the master bathroom was done first.
Now lets talk yard work, since I spent about five hours this weekend weeding my back yard as I won't use chemical weed killers due to my much-loved Border Collie enjoying the back yard regularly, and the chance that she will lick her paws and have problems, or my cats will lick her paws or something her paws were on, and have problems. I just won't use chemical weed killers in my back yard. And in the 5 years I have lived in this house, I must say that the weeds/grass this year are the absolute worst I have ever seen. (To explain to anyone without "desert landscaping"...many of us out here have gravel instead of grass in our yards, because gravel doesn't need watering, and covers the dirt that would be our yards without gravel. But weeds grow through the gravel, and when neighbors plant sections of grass in their yard, the birds eat the grass seed, then poop it out throughout the neighborhood, so we get grass growing in clumps where we didn't want it to grow. And weeds are a big issue this time of year due to winter rains. *GRRRR*)
For the last two weeks I have been researching alternative methods of weed control, other than me bending over and pulling, or kneeling on a pad and pulling, for hours and hours and hours on end. (My idea of a manicure nowadays is painting Nu-skin on my fingers due to all the cuts from digging out weeds in the gravel.) I'm getting old...I can't be doing this for the next 30 years. One option I really liked was the propane torch weed annihilators. My neighbor has one, and I was amazed and entranced from the first time I saw him "Mad Max" his weeds. For the last three weeks I did a major amount of research online about these propane-powered weed killers, but just could not make up my mind due to all of the options available. (As well as the fact that I have a healthy respect for any flammable gas that is pressurized and put into a container which can explode and become the force of several sticks of dynamite...which is why I have a charcoal grill and an all electric house. I am just afraid of any pressurized gas as a fuel source.) There were backpack models that looked intriguing, but I would be the one person who fell on their back while wearing this, and a sharp rock in my back yard would cause a tank leak that would cause an explosion that would annihilate me instantly. But I did finally purchase a propane-powered weed torch today, which I won't be able to use until I remove the very tall, very flammable weeds in my back yard which have been growing 2 inches a minute while I decided on a weed treatment product. I guess I will be doing more weeding this spring season, before I can torch the young-uns.
Gotta love the joys of home ownership! There's nothing like it...and nothing like not having any more "spare" time (not to mention any "spare" money) to go to the pool or travel or read books or chat online or anything that you used to do before becoming a "home owner".
Susan |
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| Politics - Part III - The Vice President |
Posted By : Susan
Posted: January 31 2008 06:43:41 pm
Category :
General |
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Can someone please explain to me why we, the people, have absolutely NO say so regarding who will serve in the second-most important office in our country, namely the Vice-President? And why aren't those candidates, running for their party nomination for the Presidential election, forced to disclose whom they would choose as a Vice President BEFORE we vote in the primaries?
It's not like the position of Vice President isn't important. My god, if anything happens to the President of the US of A, this is the person who will be running our country! Shouldn't we have a say-so in who this person is? Why does it have to remain a package deal, with the second-most important part of the package being a surprise until after nominees are selected from each political party?
Think about it...if McCain receives the Republican nomination, he could very easily select Dick Cheney as his Vice-President (unless there are laws preventing this, and I truly hope there are...for the sake of the USA)! And at that point, we can't do anything about it, except not vote for McCain. (Not that I would ever vote for McCain, anyway. I wouldn't vote for McCain for a cash sum equivalent to all of the trillions that have been wasted on Iraq. I wouldn't vote for McCain if there were a cannon pointed at my head. Sorry Mom, I love you lots, but I wouldn't vote for McCain if your life depended on it...that's how strongly I am against McCain.)
If you ask me (no one did, but it's my blog and I'm going to tell you, anyway, so there!), I think that the position of Vice President should be another elected position...and one that is determined by the POPULAR VOTE alone. No Electoral College crap, no primaries, and certainly NOT the choice of the person running for President. If the Vice President is from a party other than that of the President, oh well. Learn to play nicely and get along. This is what checks and balances are all about anyway! And since no politician has had the cajones to challenge the lack of necessity for an Electoral College in this day and age, which means that our President's aren't necessarily selected by the popular vote, I think that a good balance would be to have the Vice President elected directly by us...the citizens of the US of A whom these political bozos are supposed to be representing, but aren't.
I'd like to rant some about the Electoral College and our sham of a voting process, but that will have to wait for another day.
Susan |
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| Durian -- stinky or delectable? |
Posted By : Susan
Posted: January 30 2008 08:41:47 pm
Category :
General |
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There is a huge Asian market we go to in Chandler (Dobson and Warner) named "Lee Lee's Oriental Market". This place is absolutely amazing!
You can pick a fish swimming in a tank, and have them catch it, kill it, clean it, and fillet it or deep fry it for you on the spot...right in front of your eyes. You can't get much fresher than that, and yet their price/pound is equal to or lower than the previously frozen and of dubious origins fish that you can get at your local grocery store. They actually have these fish raised at farms in Yuma, we were told, and trucked in regularly. (If it takes the counter person more than two strikes to the head to kill the fish, ask for another fish as the taste will be affected.)
The meat counter is something else. Where else could you go to find pig uteri, chicken or duck feet, blocks of pork blood, snouts, ears, goat meat, etc.? We spend more time there wondering, "what the hell do you do with that?" than anything.
They have fresh fruits and vegetables we've never heard of, including purple potatoes, 3 feet long green beans, etc.
They have an entire aisle devoted to Korean canned goods and staples. Their frozen section is a cornucopia of meat and fish items...and there is a huge selection of dried fish items as well. Check those out for treats for your cat...much cheaper and healthier for them than the processed "treats" by the major pet food manufacturers.
But...the subject of this blog is Durian...the "King of Fruit". We first saw these in a freezer case to the far left of the meat section. They were big and ugly and had lots of prickly deterrents to picking one up. We asked around, and discovered that, if you can get past the smell, they are wonderful to eat. That was like a gauntlet to the face for my weird family. We don't shy away from trying anything once.
So, with one of my nieces in town for a visit last weekend, we did the "Lee Lee's" experience, and purchased a frozen Durian. We hunted down the few customers with Durian's in their cart, and asked them what we were supposed to do with this thing. Eventually, we found an English-speaking Durian buyer, and she told us how to look for the seam, and to cut it while it was still frozen because it would be "mushy" when unfrozen.
Late the night of purchase, with the Durian safely in a freezer to prevent it from reeking, I did a Google search on this mysterious fruit. Native to Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei (where the hell is that?). But while not native in Thailand, they are one of the major exporters now of this fruit (861,000 tons worth per year). The yearly harvest overall of this stinky fruit is 1,540,000 tons. That's a lot of clothespins-on-the-nose, folks! And while blowfish can kill if not prepared correctly, and even though I saw of lot of youtube videos of people upchucking after eating this fruit, I figured that if it won't kill us, it can't be that bad. Right?
I must post a link to the most humorous youtube video I found about the smell of Durian...do enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQj-hFfmYkQ&NR=1
Here's how to open a Durian:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VWrhD0uyMQU
And here is a chef talking about the good things about Durian:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ujDHgBo45U&NR=1
Here's my input:
1) It doesn't smell that bad! While there are youtube videos of people vomiting, etc., while cutting this open and after eating this, they must have been dealing with an overripe fruit in Malaysia or Thailand. The scent in my kitchen while opening our Durian was only mildly of onions or garlic. I've smelled MUCH worse things in health club locker rooms, trust me!
2) What smells the most, and tastes the worst, are the seeds (these are poisonous, so my reference was to smell...please don't eat the seeds!) and the membranes around the custardy insides. Those custardy insides taste like flan with a hint of nuts. Very yummy...if you can just finger up the custardy part and not eat any of the membranes.
3) Within each Durian, there are at least five membranes which pull easily from the outer thorny shell and protective inner fibers, if you cut along the seam. When we pulled these membranes out, we also were eating the membranes, and not just the inner custardy portion. The membranes do taste of onions/garlic/nasty stuff. If you eat just the inner custardy stuff, you will be amazed at how wonderful this fruit tastes. I wish I knew how to separate the inner "custard" from the stinky membranes. That is the key! Maybe it can just be squeezed out like baked garlic from its skin? I will be experimenting.
4) Supposedly, Durian eating causes hot flashes. I'm 50, and couldn't tell a Durian hot flash from any other regular hot flash, but this could be the fruit of choice for anyone in cold country, so you can turn your thermostat down a notch or two. Just think about it. 
Maybe someday soon I will have videos to support my above claims. But, if not, just be daring and try this fruit, with my suggestions. You may be pleasantly surprised! |
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| Politics - Part II |
Posted By : Susan
Posted: January 14 2008 07:56:07 pm
Category :
General |
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I've been saying the following for over 30 years: "The big difference between the U.S. and the USSR is that in the USSR, they know the Pravda (their main news source) is lying to them."
A majority of our population does not go out of their way to research news...and just takes what is being reported in the mainstream media (including on FAUX news) as being the gospel. Ignorant ostriches is what I call them.
If you take a few minutes online and do some research, instead of shopping on HSN or Ebay, and instead of surfing the porn sites, there is a LOT of information available to you. Information that could cause you to say, "hmmm...there might just be something to this!".
I'm not claiming that every website out there deals in truth only, but I am saying that, if you take the time, and do some research, and weed out the wacko's from the credible sites, you will be given much food for thought that you don't obtain via our mainstream media.
I can't count how many times I've read a very important article in mainstream media websites about bills being voted on, etc., but it disappeared minutes later -- like it was a mistake to have posted those articles in the first place. The same is true for websites questioning the policies/actions of our Federal government.
Just tonight, I received an email from a friend referencing a news item in England's Daily Mail, about how Hilary's "win" in New Hampshire went against all of the previous polls, and how a recount had been requested. We, the people, heard NOTHING of this here in the US of A. Does that make the info in the Daily Mail piece true? No...but it causes me to want to investigate and find out who is telling the truth...our country or theirs.
Let's talk Ron Paul. Why isn't he included in any information reported in the mainstream media? He hasn't been invited to Republican debates, and his Iowa results were listed as "0", when at least 31 people, who came forward after the votes were published, complained. The responsible parties claimed it was "human error". Yeah. Right. He is never included in the list of Republicans running, but Fred Thomson is? Think about it.
Now, let's talk Democrats. I think there are more people running than just Hilary and Oback. Aren't there? Our mainstream media would have us think that those are the only two Democrats under consideration.
Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico, just signed off. He had more experience running governments and being fiscally responsible for government budgets than Hilary and Obama. Was he scared off by Bilderberg or some other entity, or did he just see the wasted $ and futility in running against those two? And what about Edwards? He's well educated, doesn't cry on command, stands up to pee so could effectively deal with the Middle East powers that be...but he's been given NO press.
About Obama: inexperienced...needs seasoning before he's assassinated for being our first black President. (No, this is NOT a threat. But I fear for his life if he is nominated as the Democratic candidate as our country is still too racist and I would like Obama to have a long political life, if he can keep his ideals and not sell out to the lobbyists that he holds at bay at this time.)
My negatives on Hilary. She has NO experience. She was a lawyer, and a first lady for Bill's governorship and presidency, and has been a "junior senator" in New York for a few years now, but what are her credentials for running a country that is as screwed as ours is, thanks to Bush? Has she ever run a business or balanced a budget? Has she ever managed more than her well-heeled closet and her political social life? Can she pee standing up, and be accepted by the powers that be in the Middle East so that we can actually really begin "peace talks"? Does she want to continue "bomb, bomb, bomb...bomb, bomb Iran" (I know this is a McLame quote, but Hilary also believes this is right), or can she be a true woman, who would look for non-violent ways to all get along? Hilary is NOT the answer. Her only credentials are her name. And the press should NOT be leading the rest of us to vote along with what they have been forced to agree with.
I hate politics. But it's an evil that affects all of our lives. The more active and aware you are, the more we can overcome what is being forced down our throats. Please be proactive and do some research, instead of just relying on the US version of Pravda.
Please?
Susan |
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| Politics - Part I |
Posted By : Susan
Posted: January 07 2008 09:10:04 pm
Category :
General |
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For over 30 years now, I have been registered to vote, and in all those years, I clung to my "Independent" status as a sign of not being one of the "sheeple" who vote straight party tickets, and who don't even do rudimentary research on candidates before going to the polls.
Until 2000, I never payed any attention to any candidate's party...I looked at their history, listened to what they had to say, tried to weed out the blatant lies, and then made what I thought was an educated decision, based on any elected official being voted in as a voice of we, the people. But that all changed in 2000 when Bush was running for the first time. And I realized how dangerous he was, and how bad for our country he would be, based on his history as Governor of Texas and his history of running companies. He scared me most for his desire to "play soldier", but with human lives and not with toys. And everything that I feared about Bush has come true, in spades.
Our country is now in a crisis, thanks to Bush. Our economy is a run-away freight train on a steep downhill slope. Heaven knows how much money we've borrowed from China and Saudi Arabia to fund Bush's folly of Iraq. Our borders and ports are no more secure than they were before 9-11. And Osama bin Laden is laughing his Saudi ass off at us. I won't bore you with the rest of my thoughts on Bush's tenure as dictator-in-chief, but the next person to inhabit the Oval Office is going to have one huge steaming pile of merde to clean up.
So...a few weeks ago I decided that this upcoming Presidential election is so utterly important that I didn't want to forsake being able to vote in the primaries and to at least have some say this time around in who would be on that final ballot in November. And I registered as a....Democrat. Not that I am a "Democrat"...just that right now I hate the Republican party more than I hate anything, including liver, telemarketers and doing laundry. And I wanted my vote in the primary elections to count towards getting a decent Democrat nominated for President.
I am in a dilemma right now because, with only three hours left to change my party affiliation, I can't decide if I want to remain a Democrat until the primaries are over, or switch to Republican. I can't figure out where my measly single vote would/could do the most good.
The Republicans running right now are a scary bunch, that is for sure. Personally, I think that they are hoping that a Democrat gains entry to the Oval Office in January of 2009 so that they can blame the Democrats for all of Bush's follies. I mean, seriously, the crew that is vying for the Republican nomination is the BEST they could come up with? The only reason that I would switch to Republican tonight is to thwart senile, political chameleon John McCain from winning the nomination. McLaim would just be another Bush, I fear. And a senile one, at that. Back in 2000, during a press conference, he couldn't even remember where he stood on a key issue, and had to ask an aide to find out for him.
If I remain a "Democrat" for the primaries, my goal will be to ensure that Hilary doesn't make the cut. Let's face it, she's riding on Bill's coattails, and her only real credentials, other than being "first lady", are as a Junior Senator in New York since 2000. Frankly, with the mess that Bush has stirred up in the Middle East, a female President is not a wise choice at this time. No wiser than appointing Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State, when Muslims still consider women to be "unclean" and not worthy of talking to. Don't get me wrong, I think that a female President of the US of A would be wonderful, if the timing were different and if our entire country wasn't hanging by a thread with the mess Bush is leaving as his legacy in the Middle East. (Frankly, I think that all governments should be headed by women, as we would have less wars and would actually work together to get along, without guns pointed at each other. But that is fodder for a different blog.)
Two hours and 55 minutes to go...I need to make some decisions about what party I need to be affiliated with in order for my primary vote to count the most. (And yes, I do realize that voting in our country is a joke...but I still will use the power that I have to show up at the polls and voice my opinion, even if it doesn't count in the big Bilderberg scheme of things.)
If you haven't registered with a party, please do so now. You can always change later--before you get the official "party" tattoo on your arse. *LOL* |
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