Picture Sunday

Ahhhh, hello, end of weekenders. It's been a very, very busy week indeed in Betland, and now that the martinis (I took the folks out to dinner) have settled, it's time for another round of Picture Sunday.

And you knew. You knew, didn't you? Yes, this week's PS shall be Picture Sunday - The Bathroom Edition.

Let's go back to the old days. Remember those? Lo those many years ago, in 2001, when I first bought the Poderosa? Well, for those of you new to Betland, here's what my bathroom looked like when I moved in.



Wow, that's not such a bad bathroom, is it? Off-white walls, sky blue tiles, I even had my soapdish on the wall back then.

Then the soapdish fell off, the tiles got old, water got behind it all, and well, I needed a new bathroom. And so my friend and Construction Hero Ricky Ricardo got on the case. Remember a couple of weeks ago, when my bathroom looked like this?



And then this?



Well, Ricky Ricardo finished up in fine order, a few days over time but an astounding $500 under budget. And all that was left for me to do was to put things back into place. But before I did so, I had my own changes I wanted to make.

First thing was to get shut of those brown wooden accessories, the towel rack, bathroom mirror frame, and toilet paper holder thingie. I sanded those down and painted them white. Then the walls needed sprucing up, and since my linoleum has a grayish blue pattern in it, I went for a grayish blue paint for the walls. I started on Thursday night, painting the fixtures and masking the borders of the entire room. Then on my Friday night, I painted instead of chilling. And here's what I came up with.

First of all, check out this tile work. The rubber duckie sure approves.



Now, how about the wall, with the new white painted fixtures?



Hey, I got a new faucet and spigot, too. No reason not to update them as well. Ricky Ricardo installed them beautfully.



I sat in the bathtub and took that one. And while sitting in the tub, I also got one of the far wall and bathroom mirror.



Finally, here's another of the shower, kind of a mirror image of the original Poderosa Bathroom Photograph.



Success and happiness.

You know, this was all finished on Friday night, which was funny, because when I told Ricky Ricardo I was going to have everything done over the weekend, he looked at me with a raised eyebrow. Then I began to doubt myself and thought maybe I was taking on more than I could handle. But I finished the painting at about 9:40 on Friday night. Then after a small nap, a coffee, and a rare burst of energy, I decided to unmask the borders, and that went so well I just started putting the steel rack over the toilet back together, cleaning and putting in its glass shelves, then went whole hog and put all of my items back into place. I may not have made it to bed till 4:30 Saturday morning, but it was, my friends, the sleep of satisfaction.

(The only other thing I want to do is change those off-white switchpates on the light and electrical outlet to white, but when I did that after painting my kitchen, it took all day and nearly gave me a nervous breakdown. Working with electrical wires and such. It can wait till I'm better equipped.)

Then I had time to spend in B'burg at Mr M's, where we went to the movies on Saturday night and played new clarinet duets. (Well, tell a lie, they were actually violin duets, but we played them on clarinets.)

You know, I did something extraordinarily handy on Friday night. Normally my homemade plans go way awry, but I did something that worked. Between the far wall of my bathroom and the cabinet at the sink, there was a strip of wall that was about 2 inches wide, and I had absolutely no idea how in the hell I was going to paint it. So I McGyevered it. One paintbrush, a yardstick, and the strip of velcro we use to affix Sherman to a music stand later, and I had this.



And it worked, people! Not only did it work, and I painted that strip of wall, plus the area of the wall over my toilet I couldn't reach, but that velcro was so strong I could have painted the whole room with it. (Yes, I did have an extender pole for my paint roller, but it was too large to reach behind the sink cabinet.) Boy, was I proud of myself.

And there you have it. A new bathroom for The Pod.

So now let's leave the bathroom and head to the kitchen. Because, yes, even with all that work I still found time for this week's recipe du jour.

For those of you who listen to the Hucklebug podcast, you heard me tell the story some weeks ago of trying to make a Waffle House out of waffles, and having it go very, very badly. I was left with a sad plate of waffles, peanut butter, and toothpicks. Oh, the plans I had for those waffles, but it was not to be. However! This week it is to be. Say hello to, from the "Vegetables" file at cardland, the Two-Bedroom Mashed Potato Cottage.



Well, this should take care of all the vegetable needs for any large family. Our little bungalow's body is made entirely of instant mashed potatoes, and is roofed with green beans. It has a carrot chimney and a lawn made of green peas. And in a stunning turn of events, this versatile little dish also becomes a dessert because the door and windows are made from chocolate chips - the kids will be begging for extra vegetable helpings now! The dish is topped off with a two-toothpick TV antenna and a picket fence. Enjoy.

You know, I've had that little fence forever and have been dying to use it in a recipe. I finally got my chance.

Happy week.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* As I said above, got the pleasure of taking my folks out to dinner tonight. This is because of their extreme generosity in the "Pay Ricky Ricardo Up Front And You Can Make Payments To Us When You Have Extra Money" area. God bless Mom & Dad.
* I also blew my dad's mind tonight, my dad, who has no use for computers and thinks they're a waste of time, by playing him live Hackensaw Boys tunes and showing him their "elevator" video on my little machine. It was as much fun watching him as it was the Boys.