The (Five) Weekend Project: Tiling the Counters

It might have taken six weekends.  Or even seven.

All I know is that we finally got that gawdawful chore done.  Let me tell you, it definitely seemed like a good idea at the time.  C'mon, how hard can tiling be?  Really?  I mean, people with no experience do it all the time on the DIY home makeover shows.  Jay and I are reasonably intelligent people (but not intelligent enough NOT to take on this project).

Everyone assured me "tiling is easy", "don't worry about it".  They are all liar-heads, for the record.

We decided to start with the "little" counter - really just a free-standing cabinet we have by the stove for storage.  We figured we couldn't screw it up too badly.  It started out nicely enough. 

We borrowed Mr. Nebalee's tile cutter and Jay went to town making the cuts we needed.

And that was the last thing that went right with our project.  When we bought the supplies for the project, all we saw was mortar that we'd have to mix ourselves.  No problem, we can follow directions.  So we did.  And we ended up with some nasty mortar that was more like crunchy peanut butter instead of the smooth stuff. 

We fought with it for a while, then just said fuck it and slapped the tiles down, mushing them into the crunchy stuff as well as we could.

It doesn't look horrible, but there's not a single level spot on it.   That little project drove us to drink and we decided we were not doing any more that night.

When I bitched about it on Facebook, someone asked why we didn't just buy the pre-mixed mortar.  Pre-mixed mortar?  Are you kidding me?  We didn't see any while we were at Home Depot buying our supplies.  Sonuvabitch, we could have made our lives so much easier.

We finally made it back to the store to return our not pre-mixed mortar and buy some sensible stuff.  Jay and I put on our grown-up unders and started again.  He had a couple of hours before work one morning, so he started and I "finished".

 

I should say I finished all but the last seven pieces that needed to be cut.  I tried to bribe Deejo into coming over to cut them, but he couldn't make it.  I'm perfectly capable of running power tools, but I'm partial to my fingers, so I wimped out on the cutting part and left it for someone - anyone - else to do.

A couple more weeks went by and Jay had enough of having a partially complete kitchen project and we finally finished setting the tiles.

A day later, we grouted and now we can say the damn project is finished!

I'm all about learning new skills, but this is a skill I never want to use again.  Maybe if it had gone smoothly from the beginning, but it didn't and set a bad tone for the whole project.  I think our last weekend home project will be to build the benches for the picnic table.

Wait ... no, we're going to install a dishwasher.  That should be fun, right?

Adventures in Canning

From my Facebook on Sunday:

So.

I've run into a little problem with the pressure cooker. I can't get it to unlock and open. I followed the directions, I let it come down to zero pounds of pressure on its own and even let it sit a bit longer before trying to get the lid off.

The lid wouldn't budge.

So I ran the whole thing under cold water to hopefully cool everything so the lid would unlock and come off.

Nothing doing.

I decided to let the whole thing sit overnight and cool to room temperature. Certainly then the lid would come off.

No way, Jose.

That lid is locked on tight, so we used a rubber "persuader" and one handle broke off, which cut Jay's hand.

Still nothing doing.

How the hell am I going to get my eight pints of pork green chili out of the pressure cooker?! 

I got all sorts of helpful ideas from my Facebook friends.  A couple even suggested shooting it.  Dudes, there were eight pints of green chili in there - shoot it and lose eight pints, are you crazy?


I was using my Great-Grandma Wheeler's pressure cooker (the one I remember from childhood) and I thought everything was in working order.  The gasket looked great, but turned to glue with the heat and the pressure. Oops.  

I removed the gauge to equalize the pressure inside and out (it said it was zero, but could have had negative pressure) and that didn't help.  Then I followed someone else's suggestion and pushed down on the lid as I rotated it, like you would a pill bottle, and that didn't work.  I finally decided that in all likelihood the cooker was going to be a loss anyway and pulled out The Greatest Little Tool Ever (the pry bar from Man Crates).

I used The Greatest Little Tool Ever to try to pry the locking teeth apart on the cooker.  At one point, I thought I was going to break the pry bar, but it's a sturdy little dude.

I tried rotating the lid to unlock it from the pot and it didn't work.  I was about to give up and then thought, "you dummy, you only did half of the pot!".  So I went back and did the other half and gave the lid a twist.

The lid rotated, but still wouldn't come off, but I hadn't wasted almost two hours trying to get the blasted thing off to give up!  I did what any frustrated woman would do - I beat on the lid.  I slammed it back and forth in rotation, picked up the whole pot by the stuck lid and slammed it on the floor a couple of times.  Finally, the gasket started to give, but there were still some sticky parts that didn't want to let go.

What the hell?  I'd already used the pry bar a couple of times, why not to "help" the sticky parts along?  Next thing I knew, the lid was off!  Success!!

You can see the black gasket still firmly attached to the pot.  I was so excited about getting into the cooker that I didn't even care about the brackish-looking water.  I'm assuming the water was discolored from the metal oxidizing over the past forty years or so the cooker has been in use.  (And, yes, my kitchen is so old it still has the 50's kitchen carpet in it.)

Looks like all I need to do is replace the gasket and get a new handle for the lid to replace the one that broke when Jay was "persuading" the lid to come off and we're back in business!  Now, who knows where I can get a new gasket for a pressure cooker that is at least as old as I am?

Water-bath processed green chili on the left, pressure canned pork green chili on the right.

Never a dull moment in our household, I tell you.

My Girls Came For A Visit!

I'm a whole week late posting this, and not because I don't love my Robs and Sue. My computer is on its last legs (I think) and is really slow, so I get impatient give up.

Last Saturday was a busy day.  First, Copper got out of his gentling pen, then my girls came up.  It's been forever since I've seen them and Robs' kids have grown so much.  I swear they were just born, but here they are, over a year old already!

Remy, Ruby, Lucy, Robs, Sue (and Skeeter and Copper in the background)

Remy, Ruby, Lucy (hiding), and Maddox

Maddox is such a good big brother.  I have three siblings of my own, but I can't imagine having triplets for sibs!

I'm so impressed with Robs.  I always knew she was amazing, but watching her handle four kids three and under is awe inspiring.  Sue has been spending one evening a week (or more) helping out Robs since the girls came home from the hospital.  I wish I was close enough to do the same, darn it. 

I miss them so much and every bit of time I get to spend with them is so special.