Ceiling's the Limit

Today I have not been crafty.  Yet it is Craft Day.

I haven't forgotten, it's just that there was a big ugly ceiling in my way.
An ugly unpainted ceiling with a hole in it to be exact.
This is why I was scrounging small pieces of plaster board yesterday, from my neighbor's builder.

So my Friday finish this week was to patch and sand, and patch and sand, and patch some more.  I was eating plaster dust, everything went foggy with my safety glasses coated in plaster dust.

I treated myself to a new toy: a cordless orbital sander. It does the job but standing under that puppy is like having someone sift flour over your head.  And today was not only hair-washing day, but for a change I was having a rare Good-Hair-Day.  That is until I stood in a plaster board blizzard.

I filled the hole with my fifty-cent-piece sized Gyprock patch, I filled the edges with white goop and sanded again. And again.

Then I painted. Is there anyway you can roller paint onto a ceiling without getting covered in pin-prick spots? I don't think so.

I was a mess and I am now very tired. So no craft today.

But wait!
There was one other thing I whipped up this week and today I completed the second version.

That is my I Spy game but it's a bit like a scavenger hunt too. I put the first of these together to keep She-Who-Worships-Pink and her friend quiet in the car; the twenty minute monologues were driving me nuts.

The rules are that you can make a tick for as many times as you see anything on the list.

If it’s a photo/ graphic image, you must find something the same.

If it’s a cartoon, you can find something similar, like a poster on a bus or building or a toy in a shop window.

Pinkster and I walked to school the other morning with a good friend and her adorable little boy. I'd printed off two double-sided copies onto card and the kids brought pencils. It was so much fun seeing the energy and enthusiasm they poured into collaborating and finding as much as they could.

So today I've completed two versions in PDF format: one for my US readers and one for the Aussies (with our own roadsigns and post boxes).

If you have any trouble with the links please let me know and I'll email you the PDF right away.

Wishing you many peaceful journeys.  Good luck :0)

My Life Less Glamorous

Image Credit

In my jeans-bag today, I carried, several invoices, a power drill, a box of drill bits, a small saw, a piece of Gyprock (plasterboard) that I'd scrounged from someone else's building site, a saw guide thingy, my purse my phone, keys and doggy poo bags.

I had a call from the cabinet maker as we were leaving for the school run, then another from the tiler just after the bell rang. Try discussing logistics with a Tradie while about 100 noisy kids are racing past you from assembly.

In my capacity as a building project manager I was to be on-site on my 'tod' today after meeting with the cabinet designer to measure up and choose granite and laminates.  Yesterday I'd played hopscotch all over Sydney, picking up bathroom fixtures, ordering basins, buying tap mixers, trawling warehouses and collecting samples.

I made it back in time to pick Pinkster up from school, settle her with her French Coach and then set off again to take the trash out on our building site.

Today I was a bit lost. I get like that sometimes - there's so much to do I loose my focus. But the tiler had to put all his efforts into another job so it was time for me to sort out the bathroom ceiling before the wall tiles made it to the top.

There was a hole from the old light fitting and some plaster patchwork that had to be tidied up, and it all needs to be painted before the tiler gets back on the job.

So that was my afternoon; after gathering, buying and  packing more supplies and equipment - screwing on wardrobe board handles (except one broke) I patched and sanded a bathroom ceiling.  This process is not unlike doing porcelain fingernails (if you've ever done your own). You need to slap on the product over the gaps before it hardens, wait for it to fully dry, sand it back, then fill in with more product and sand again.

Except this is a really big bloody fingernail and it's above my head, which is pretty disastrous for my poor neck, having had one too many whip-lashes. Note to self: must make a booking with the chiropractor for Saturday to work out the cricks in my neck.

The tiler called tonight (while I was executing a bottie-wipe) full of apologies, because the other job is running behind.  I made his day at least, when I said I needed another day for sanding and painting the ceiling.  Incidentally in my spare time, I am trying to do my best as a single parent (Mr Frenchie is still in the US) and I'm three quarters of the way through writing a best seller. (I  hope). I could just do with a few more hours in my day.

Pretty much everyone else is happy. Including my chiropractor who can probably order his next Porsche going by the state of my C2 vertebrae.

Still loving my tool bag :0)

PS: One thing I haven't had time for is grocery shopping. We've run out of coffee and toilet paper, so it'll be a tough morning tomorrow.