Congratulations to Gerb who won the auction for Nie at $30 for a set of two superhero capes! I’ll be emailing you shortly to work out all the details.
Supergabers just missed the auction deadline with her bid of $40, and I felt terrible at the thought of more money not going to the Nielsens, so I’ve decided that if anyone is still interested, I’ll sell custom capes for a $20 donation. Email me at tresa at reesedixon dot com and we’ll work it out.
I’m having a terrible rotten no-good very bad day over here. I’m so sore from head to foot that I can barely move, and my eye is covered in a makeshift patch of toilet paper and adhesive gauze. I’m typing this with one eye held shut and tears watering down my face turning my eyepatch into mush.
Saturday started beautifully. We had a little family outing to a local nursery to pick out fruit trees to replace the overgrown jungle nightmare our backyard used to be. We hauled the Rookie around in the sunshine and debated varieties of lemon and lime while I daydreamed about glorious bounties of homegrown persimmons in the backyard.
I spent all the rest of Saturday elbow deep in concrete and cinder blocks, building up a retaining wall, and I still managed to do a lousy job of it. I only had to add two layers of brick onto the existing retaining wall, so the thought of buying all kinds of equipment I’d never use again, let alone actually hiring a professional for such a small job, was ridiculous to me. I’d seen my dad work with concrete enough that I thought I could easily do it myself. I’ve done plenty of mosaic work in my life, so as I was slopping the mortar around I thought I could work with it just like grout, only to discover that once the concrete landed somewhere, it stayed there.
On top of that, I had to kind of makeshift a corner because I wasn’t willing to rent some kind of tool to cut one brick, so it just couldn’t possibly be more slapped together and ugly.
I didn’t want to buy a wheelbarrow when my backyard is maybe four feet deep, and I didn’t want to buy a mixing drill bit when I never plan on working with concrete again, so I ended up mixing the concrete with a hand trowel and my bare hands, leaving several layers of skin behind. The skin that remained is so dry and peeling I look like the palms of my hands are recovering from a sunburn. I would not recommend this method.
My one consolation is that the only reason I went to all this trouble is because I’m going to fill the planter with dirt so the flowers I plant will actually be visible above the edge. If this gorgeous bit of masonry was actually going to be visible above ground, I might have to knock it all down and try again.
Last night I laid on the couch moaning and groaning and generally whining about my aching muscles, one of my cats jumped up on my chest for a snuggle, and in trying to push him away, he managed to fall in such a way that he nicked my eye with one of his claws. It immediately started running and running and felt like I had something lodged in it. From past experience with my clutsy self, I figured my eye must have been scratched so I went to bed and hoped it would be better by morning. It wasn’t. Instead I’ve been trying to take care of Atti by myself while Bear was at work with one good eye, when I can manage to keep it open, and a back and thighs that still scream every time I try to use them.
I finally reached my limit and called Bear to come home from work and take over baby duties. He took Atti to go pick up some lunch for us, went out to my car, and discovered that I somehow got a flat tire.
I’m a disaster area. Hopefully I’ll get out all my bad luck and inconveniences in one crappy day and I’ll have great karma for months after this. Knock on wood.