Category Archives: Remodel From Hell/New Home

The Unluckiest of Phobias

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These are some of the phobias I’m currently cultivating.

C = Claustrophobia- Fear of confined spaces.
R = Rhytiphobia- Fear of getting wrinkles.
A = Arachnophobia- Fear of spiders.
Z = Zemmiphobia- Fear of the great mole rat.
I = Ideophobia- Fear of ideas.
E = Enosiophobia – Fear of having committed an unpardonable sin or of criticism.

T = Triskaidekaphobia- Fear of the number 13.
O = Obesophobia- Fear of gaining weight.
W = Walloonphobia- Fear of the Walloons.
N = Nucleomituphobia- Fear of nuclear weapons.

I know a lot of people that share my more common phobias; claustrophobia and arachnophobia, and most women over the age of fifty have a fear of wrinkles and gaining weight.  All the Catholics in the world probably share my fear of having committed an unpardonable sin and you’d have to be pretty obtuse not to have nucleomituphobia.

Until I wrote this blog post, I didn’t know I was afraid of the Great Mole Rat. Now that I know it exists, I’m definitely afraid of it.

Credit: Buffenstein/Barshop Institute/UTHSCSA

Credit: Buffenstein/Barshop Institute/UTHSCSA

And, in the spirit of full disclosure, I’m not actually afraid of the Walloons. I’m sure they are perfectly nice people, but I needed a W and the only other phobia was Wiccaphobia, the fear of witches and witchcraft. I’m not afraid of witches, as I think I might be one.

Triskaidekaphobia

Triskaidekaphobia

Unbelievably for someone with this many phobias, I’m not the least bit superstitious. I walk under ladders, step on cracks, cross paths with black cats and never blink and eye.  But, the number 13 always causes a little shiver to run down my spine.

And now, what have I gone and done?  Bought a 13-year-old house in the year 2013 with the number 13 in its street address and in its zip code.  This whole messy part of my life started when we rented Apartment #1301 after leaving our last house of, what? That’s right. 13 years.

I’m told (by people who know such things) that thirteen is actually a powerful number and that this house is going to be lucky for me.

I’m sure it was luck when the landscape guy’s shovel hit the unmarked buried telephone line.

What good fortune it was, to have the wrong colored tile installed in the bottom five rows of the backsplash.

Lady Luck really must have enjoyed that trick, because when the wall of tile was torn down and reinstalled, I had five rows of wrong colored tile at the top.

And, how lucky we were when the stump grinder hit the sprinkler system – seven times.

Lucky when the cook top installer split the gas line and filled our floor joists with explosive fumes.

I was charmed when the morning of our move-in, we discovered that after buffing, the floor stain had been removed from the edge of every board creating an interesting striped effect.

Or, favored when the special order pendant lights arrived with three different finishes.

And it had to be a stroke of good fortune that the countertop was cut in such a way that we would not have to pay the expense of installing an exhaust fan.

If anyone knows a way to remove this jinx from my life, I’d love to hear what I could do, before the number of mishaps reaches 13.

Crazy is as Crazie Does

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Good health gone bad

Good health gone bad

This is how I started my day – with liquified spinach exploding from my blender and spraying all over my kitchen walls.

Even though I’m tempted (by the turmoil in my life) to eat cases of Snickers bars, I’ve made a commitment to stick with healthy eating which means I start the day choking down enjoying a protein shake.

My life has been topsy-turvey pretty much since… well, since January, when we put our house on the market and sold it the same day. I know, I know. That should be a good thing. And, really, it is. But, along with the good, comes all the bad.  Sorting years of crap, selling years of crap and packing up the rest of our crap.

Then we spent six months in a tiny apartment that had some kind of weird Karma. I’m not kidding. My big, lazy dog, Lola, would be snoring away on the living room rug, then suddenly jump up with a yelp, and run away to hide in the bathroom with her tail between her legs. I kind of new-agey, so I purchased a Smudge Stick at Whole Foods and came home and waved it through the rooms, paying special attention to the corners as advised.  And even though it stank to high heaven, I did this at least once a week, which did seem to help for a while, but the next day I’d find Lola quivering in the bathroom again.

Then we found a house and started work on remodeling it into our (well, my) dream home. And even though every person I know warned me it would be awful, it turned out to be a bigger deal than I ever imagined. I’m trying to stay organized but when I tried to look for a pair – any pair – of reading glasses in my purse, this is what I found.

IMG_04201. The first third of the world’s longest receipt from Walgreens, where I purchased two items.
2. A gas receipt for $65.13 (18.40 gallons of gas.  My car readout said I had 12 miles left before I ran out.)
3. The business card from the woman at Capitol Federal who helped me cash in sixty-two $25 savings bonds from my Aunt Kathleen’s estate that I carried around for two weeks in my purse.
4. One of the hundreds of receipts I have for Home Depot.
5. Every pair of my reading glasses.
6. Receipt for my, now daily, mini chocolate shake from Freddy’s.

IMG_04217. Middle third of world’s longest receipt.
8. An inkjet cartridge that I’ve been toting around since March, waiting to be dropped off to be refilled.
9. Receipt from Restoration Hardware for a can of the only kind of white paint I like and therefore was willing to drive 30 minutes to the Plaza to pick up. I frantically purchased said paint, when I found out I had one day to paint all the baseboards in my house before the floors were done.
10. A mostly broken pair of headphones that I use because my bluetooth system in my car (that I insisted I needed) doesn’t work right.
11. My snack bag I carry around to keep me from eating unhealthy food. (It’s filled with bacon.)

IMG_042212. Bottom third of world’s longest receipt.
13. Receipt from dry cleaners where I left with two heaping handfuls of their free Tootsie Rolls.
14. A note with the number of electrical covers to replace at the new house. The switches and outlets are white, but the covers are tan. Not going to work with my OCD.
15. Phillips and flathead screwdriver to install said covers, if and when they are ever purchased.
16. Note to buy olive oil – which is used on princess dog’s food.
17. Flyer for alterations – needed after daily intake of mini chocolate shakes.