Home Improvement, stupid wall anchors, spackle and Liz...

Okay... it's out of order, but i have a Liz story... i took this picture...

while driving...

while talking to Liz.

i told her i was taking the picture and i got this "what? are you crazy aunt sher? stop that! you can't take a picture, drive with your hands!" (i'd told her i was steering with my knee). so i of course do what Liz says, but she's mad and continues to berate me... and finally she says "Aunt Sher, if you wreck it will upset Grandma, and if you upset Grandma, i am going to be SO mad at you..."

and while i was a bit disconcerted that not upsetting grandma was liz's #1 priority, i can also appreciate it... i try really hard not to upset my mom.

so we talk for a little while longer, then liz has to hang up and as we're exchanging i love yous and just before i pull the phone away from my ear, i hear "and REMEMBER... TWO hands on the wheel!"

gotta love Liz.

so onto home improvement... i had big plans for yesterday... BIG. the salvation army messed me up completely. they said they'd be here between 8 and noon... come to find out, even though i'd confirmed it twice, trevor told me there was no way anyone told me between 8 and noon. trevor, you callin' ME a liar??? so the yahoos don't show up until about 2... they had difficulty identifying my address... i wish i had a picture of the 3 foot tall numerals on the building... or the large kiosk on the corner of the road with the big 5500 at the top... so anyway, einstein and einsteiner finally figure it out, they pick up my stuff and i head off to home depot. i get around the corner, and i forgot my paint info. so i go back, run upstairs, get my paint numbers and off i go again.

more einsteins at home depot... they can't match my paint. i only have numbers. the women asked what they looked like, i told her the one was sort of greenish, she thought she might be able to mix up something for me. i told her thanks, but maybe i should go to benjamin moore. she was very helpful then too, assuring me that there was one in virginia.

SO... i get towel bars, a new tp holder to replace THIS gem... drop cloths, those rolly things for paint and the pan thing the rolly things go with and i'm off to benjamin moore. who knew how many shades and tints and hues and stuff??? seriously... it took FOREVER...

by the time i got home yesterday, i was stressed, tired and in no mood to do anything but sit on the couch. MY plan... my plan was to return home around noon with a whole day to tackle my projects... yeah. thanks salvation army. today i got a better start... after church and lunch with some friends, i tackled the bathroom. task 1: remove horrifying old towel bars. easy enough right? NO.






NO NO NO

wall anchors... unbelievable. i always use this one favorite kind of mine... it's metal.
you pound it into the wall, the arms spread out when you put a screw in. later, when you take the screw out, you can pull the anchor out because the arms will kinda come back together. it's a bigger hole, but nothing a little spackle can't handle...

well... the heinous towel bars were secured with plastic wall anchors. i have never worked so hard at getting something out of a wall... when i took the 2nd one down, after wrestling with a screwdriver, an exacto knife, a hammer and vise grips, for well over half an hour... on the second one, i left the screws in the anchors and tore the whole stinking thing out of the wall. a slightly bigger hole than one would like, but again, nothing spackle can't handle...

which brings me to spackle. who knew it took so long to dry? have you ever tried to sand spackle that wasn't? i have. just now. the directions say "let dry". i thought i did. apparently spackle doesn't work on sheri's time line.

















I'll leave you with a couple picutres of my mess...