So the last time I did one of these quite a few people knew what I know, and that’s disappointing.
So I’m upping my game, reaching deep into the grey matter to find some heretofore unknown tidbits because….
Did you know….
Hedgehogs were called urchins in medieval times?
The first recorded use of the word “hedgehog” wasn’t until the 15th century.
Did you know…
In France you can marry a dead person?
Article 171 of the French civil code states, “The President of the Republic may, for grave reasons, authorize the celebration of the marriage where one of the future spouses is dead.”
Maybe it’s just me, but is that really cause for celebration?
Did you know….
Pope Adrian VI died after a fly got stuck in his throat as he was drinking from a fountain?
That couldn’t have been pretty.
Did you know…
Robert E. Lee wore a size 4 1/2 shoe?
That doesn’t speak well for the size of his….
Oh, never mind.
Did you know…
Endurance training that involves alternating between high and low intensity is called fartlek? It comes from the Swedish word fart, meaning speed and lek, meaning play.
Oh, those silly Swedes.
Did you know….
The amount of potato chips Americans eat each year weighs 6 times more than the Titanic.
Damn. That’s a lot of spuds.
The only truth in advertising you’re ever apt to see.
You may remember me posting pictures of our little red barn/shed.
We use it as a shed, but it was originally a small barn complete with horse. The horse is long gone…. and 40 odd years later?
The barn/shed is almost gone as well.
Falling apart?
You could say that…
Rotted wood?
The mere fact that it’s still standing never ceases to amaze me.
It’s horrible. An eye sore on our otherwise lovely property. The bane of my existence for a long, long time.
It’s state of disrepair is the main reason we spent $50,000 and 7 years of nights and weekends building a new and much larger barn.
The plan? All the mowers and weed whackers, the snow blower, the tractor and assorted yard tools that were in the shed/barn were supposed to go into the new barn…. and the eyesore would be torn down.
But that never happened, and now the husband….. who has already filled the new barn with CRAP wants to rebuild the shed/barn to continue housing the mowers, tractor etc.
So this is happening.
Husband deemed part of the interior framing sound, and started what I thought was deconstruction of the back half…. which needs to be completely rebuilt..
Now my idea of deconstruction consists of ripping off the roof, then the walls. The husband’s?
I’m not quite sure.
He put up a new piece of wood…
Ostensibly to brace the roof… though why you need to brace something you’re tearing down is beyond me.
But look at the piece he’s bracing! Rotted doesn’t begin to describe it…
Then…
Yeah. He trimmed it…
The rotted piece of wood.
He sawed off a section of wall… by hand, even though the chainsaw was right there.
And made a bigger hole.
He elongated the brace….
And added wood running along the bottom.
He was supposed to be tearing it down…. so WTH?
Naturally I had to ask.
And naturally, he wouldn’t answer.
It was hot, he was cranky and I dared to question his technique.
Going out to the barn for something and finding the husband has bought another…. yeah, whatever the hell that is.
It’s a good thing he has a fold up cot in there. He might be needing it.
I don’t like….
Going out to the barn for something, and not being able to find it because the husband has too much rusty old useless crap treasure stacked in there. And I really don’t like having some of that crap fall on my still sore, recently broken, now permanently out of whack toe.
Yeah.
Another month of not wearing a shoe. Good times…
I don’t like…
Getting out of my car after driving to the store and finding I’d committed Monarchacide.
Poor little beauty.
I didn’t see you…. honestly.
And finally,
I don’t like….
Unicorn onesies for adults.
Come on….
I say, that’s who.
I will not have a good time cleaning and organizing my house in a unicorn onesie.
You all know I like them. You all know my husband is the evil man who won’t let me have them.
(Okay, so in complete honesty he says I can have them… but I have to be the one who goes out in the minus 20 degree winter temperatures to feed, water, and clean the coop in mid January and we all know that’s not happening.)
Yeah… no.
But if I did have them?
I would totally be on board with the latest chicken trend.
Tutus!
Chickens…
In tutus!
Granted, not all of them look thrilled with the idea.
And okay, watch out for that one. He looks homicidal….
The hunt for a new refrigerator continues, and just as I had finished extensive research and narrowed the field down to this one…
The husband decided he wanted to go shopping and check them out for himself.
Granted, it’s a large purchase and I wanted him to like what I chose.
But ya know what?
I took him to the store and showed him my choice, which he walked right by and made a bee line for:
No.
And again? No.
Aside from the jaw dropping price tag? There’s no way I’m going to buy a refrigerator that tells me I’m out of cucumbers or what to cook for dinner.
Christ, do we really need “smart” appliances?
The day I’m too old and doddering to realize I’m out of cucumbers? I’ll stop cooking altogether.
In case you’re unfamiliar, there’s basically a computer on the door. You can make grocery lists, find recipes with the ingredients it knows are in there, and it will even link with your phone so you can check your expiration dates from remote locations.
Among other useful things….
Geesh.
All I want is cold food and ice.
Great. Scratch the ice.
So we shopped, and shopped, and shopped.
And the husband said that one’s shelves were too small, that one’s lights were too bright, that one’s drawers were too deep…. etc etc etc.
To which, after grueling 5 hours I said..
“Come on Goldilocks!”
So he picked one.
And though it’s almost exactly the same as the one I’d picked a week earlier?
This one is $700 more.
So, men?
I don’t want to hear you say your wives are spending all the money.
Every few years it’s time to repaint the bulkhead doors.
They’re metal and tend to see a lot of abuse.
Rain, snow, and baking sun all take their toll… and since the husband disappears every time the paint brushes come out?
The job falls to me.
I usually go out with some sandpaper to smooth and remove the flakes… but this spring the husband bought an old sander at a yard sale. Old.. with a capital O.
So he tossed it at me and said it would be much easier than my sandpaper.
From the look of the cord it was from the 1950’s…. and I think that was the poundage as well because just lifting it hurt my wrist. So when he came back to check my progress? I was using the sandpaper again.
Which… because he’s a man and can never be wrong… made him determined to prove his $5 purchase was worth while.
He got no argument from me.
I stood back, nodded sagely and mumbled yes dear, that’s so much easier dear, at appropriate intervals.
Momma didn’t raise no fool.
He sanded that baby from top to bottom.
Inside and out… even though I rarely paint the interior.
BTW, if you search Google images for power sander memes?
Anyway… when we moved into this house, the doors were painted a barn red so that’s what I’ve always repainted them.
Until this year, when I couldn’t find my usual brand of metal paint in barn red and went with Rustoleum’s Regal Red.
Itwas a bad idea.
Very bad.
Really, really bad.
Because when Rustoleum says red?
They mean red!
Fire engine red.
Candy apple red.
Holy Crap that’s red… RED!
It’s positively blinding.
On the bright side, the doors do now match my hanging geranium.
Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 