Startling myself, nasal edition

There have been several different ways which I have startled myself by accident. One thick curl which I thought was securely attached to the rest of them, plopped free and fell across the side of my head, scaring me. I have had several a loose hairs shimmy down my bare arm and creep me out. Just now, I am feeling great, breathing through both nostrils, tending to things around my house when suddenly one of my unbothered air passages decided it wanted to mimic sounds. Now due to neither being clogged, it was a surprise when I suddenly hear what sounds like a muffled voice. It takes me a good second to realize where the noise is originating from and that it’s not a mysterious invasion happening but is instead the moist insides of my breathing passage suddenly wanting to murmur. What the heck, nose?!

Eew factor high: the spider web

The other day I had picked up some of the dried, dead palm leaves which had fallen onto the lawn and the company who tends to it does not pick them up. A bunch of them were pushed into one of the large garbage bins I have, tucked into the corner of the garage. When I was heading out to work, the hairs on my arm caressed the leaf of the palm with barely any impact but there was something else at the ends which managed to cling to those hairs and totally grossed me out: a spider’s web. In the few days those palm leaves had been sitting there, one very busy arachnoid went and built up their thin web from their booty to assist them with catching whatever meals it could but all that it met was my unfortunate arm. I was so disgusted but also running on limited time since I needed to rush into work that I brushed off what I could, plopped into my car and headed out. When I got to work, one of the first things I did was race to the bathroom and scrub my flesh until it felt as if the upper layer of epidermis had been removed. It wasn’t until hours later when I got back home that I finally scrubbed down from the tippy top of my head to the bottom of my feet, even though I had not fully walked into the web, it felt needed.

The glorious bidet

The first time I saw one was back in 1988, right after we purchased the house in PR and the one of the bathrooms had a standalone bidet right next to the toilet. It was a large porcelain one (almost 3/4th the size of the toilet beside it) with the little water fountain, which was perfect for spritzing your booty or, in my case, helping with the cleaning up of menstrual mess. Trust me that it was great for reducing the amount of toilet paper being used and it helped your tushy feel cleaner. Yes, you still needed a bit of paper to deal with the splash of water but it was virtually nothing in comparison.

Now that my new toilet was put in, I purchased a bidet attachment which only cost me like $40+ and it has been the best deal ever. Yes, I accidentally splashed my pants when I first turned it on, testing it out while standing in front of the toilet. I did not realize the strength of the spurt coming out and now I have an idea. I am super happy that one can now simply put in place a small attachment, connect a hose from the cutoff value and there you go, water washable bottoms.

The uncleaned kitchen

I do not go to bed while there is a single dirty thing in my kitchen. I hand wash all the dishes, scrubbing them clean with a wirey sponge and leave them out to dry. If the stove top is dirty I will give it a nice wipe down and make sure all the nooks are clean of grease or food pieces which may have splattered. I cannot say that I wipe up the floor each night but if it’s looking like it need a good wipe down, I break out the broom and then a flat mop with a cloth to at least do a quickie clean up. It’s rare that don’t clean up right after eating dinner, closing up the kitchen till the next morning. It’s rare but it does happen. A few weeks ago, I don’t know where my head was but I went to bed with the kitchen being a bombastic hot mess: chicken bones were left in the plastic bag which had not been closed up correctly, a dirty plate was left on the counter. When I walked into the kitchen, early the next morning the absolute horror of having left that out for hours made my stomach drop. I feared that the yucky critters had a field day, finding the food and pitter pattering across my countertop which was normally all clean. I swore that the clean had been cleared before I went to bed and completely misjudged to my absolute dismay. Since then, it has happened once more but now I am doing a quick looksee to make sure I do not repeat this error in memory.

Getting things updated at the house

So the two bathrooms have nearly been completed in getting the toilets and vanity sinks updated. The porcelain sink in my bathroom gets completed tomorrow and though there are still minor things like the floor tiles need to be redone in these spaces, I am happy that it’s moving forward. Yes, it takes me time to get projects going due to financial constraints but after pinching pennies (a little bit here and there) the phase is going through and I feel happy. The guest bathroom has been a burden to me for a long time and today that little party of three workers came in, took out the decades-old toilet and the ugly bathroom vanity to replace it with my choice items. Now I will need to paint the area which got missed when I painted the bathroom several years ago, and I am making it a project I swear to not procrastinate on (something I can be notorious about).

The wind chime

The front of my home does not have a lot of decorations or cutesy things, unlike my parents who have a colorful plastic whirlwind thing and some faux ceramic frogs and highly painted plant vases. I just don’t but one thing I do enjoy having in front of my kitchen window is a wind chime. When the breeze hits it, the gently melodic sounds drift into the front of the house and give it a whimsical tune.

Sadly, the last one, which lasted about five years or so, took its ending chiming with the last hurricane. One by one, the little tubes were falling off and the sound eventually disappeared once they all dropped off. I have been searching for the past few months for a replacement to dangle there while contemplating whether I wanted to go back to using a wind chime. Today while at a store, I found one with a lovely little metal hummingbird, which the last one had a plastic hummingbird, and its sound was pretty so it came home with me. There isn’t much of a breeze today, but I am hoping that the soft tinkling of those tubes will sing once more from the porch.

The back strain that rocked me for a week plus

I spoke about this in an earlier post, the delivery of a porcelain sink came in and me, in my infinite brainstorming, decided that the 60+ pounds it weighed was do-able and did not pay the $85 for the shipment to be brought into my garage. I was in pain. For over a week. Stabbing pain when I sat down to go potting, jarring pain when I rolled out of bed, intense discomfort as day after day passed. I thought it would never go away. Even going so far as to purchase a OTC medication which I should not take but it became too much and then I kind of did not read the dosage correctly, promptly overtaking what I was supposed to… oops. I used a heating pad for the entire time I was at work, then I lay atop my ice bag for 20 minutes when at home. Nothing helped.

Until finally on day eight, I was able to roll out of bed within my knees buckling from the sheer agony of standing up. I waited, expecting the sensations to begin but they were better. The fact that I could go potty without having to stop because the ache became overwhelming, the sensation of having what a knife puncturing the lower curve of my spine until being in a seated position while relieving my bladder, finally stopped. I did not take an hour to simply dress myself because I could reach my feet to put on socks. I was not constantly sweating from the delirium of hurt.

Now that my body is in recovery from the strain I caused it over a week ago, I give out a prayer to all of those folks who live day to day with a pain which overrides their body and mind. Those without the relief because their body has been broken, hurt, damaged or simply born the way it was and they hurt, every single day or often. I cannot wrap my brain around how much they go through simply to live and I send them all the hope that they do not have to be in pain every day.

Making a decision at the restaurant

I will sometimes venture into trying a different meal when I go to a restaurant though I do stack the choices by going online and looking at photos to make decisions. Now, when I go out with a friend and their meal looks better than what I chose, it can really put a damper on my meal. While mine looks and most likely tastes good, I see theirs and notice things which makes me envy it. If it’s withing my side of town and I can later return at a later date, I will do so to taste it and verify whether the meal was as good as it looked, killing that curiosity once and for all. Oftentimes, and with the advent of the internet and sites such as Yelp, I can visually pick out what looks the best to me, have it in my memory and run with that as my order. This, thank goodness, has nearly never failed me.

The new neighbors

The house across the street from mine, directly across, was recently purchased. I saw the older couple who previously lived there, about four times in the past twenty years I have lived in my home, and it was always from a vast distance. The new neighbors I have seen once when the younger male took his child to the front yard where they put a large pole with an American flag and a Marines flag beneath it. The thing about my neighborhood is that people keep mostly to themselves and its brief moments whenever I come across one. I recently saw a small video of some neighbors somewhere where they sit in the front of their garage, hanging out and drinking, enjoying their company and time. I applaud that and am very happy some folks can do that. Personally, I keep to myself and don’t do that, so it won’t work for me. If I get to know these new folks, awesome. If I don’t, that is fine with me as well.