the beam is up

Joe came over this morning to check out the leak in the ceiling. He also told me that the landlord will be putting a deadlock bolt on the door which made me glad, as I was headed back out to Home Depot to get a chain lock. My new pal Bonnie told me that they have these chain locks that you can actually lock from the outside. Interesting. I guess the idea is that you get the lock PLUS the added feature of convincing outsiders that you are home. So I'm glad he's putting the extra lock on the door. He allowed me to spackle, sand and paint the bathroom wall, where I tore the bubbling paint off after the last heavy rain.
I took the liberty of going after every crack in the wallboards I could find. I think I'm going to repaint the hall and dining room since Joe said he painted about 10 years ago. It could use a fresh coat. SO...maybe I can stay here after all. Instead of focusing on moving, I can focus on how I am going to increase my income...Which is way more interesting than that sick dizzy feeling I get when I imagine picking up again. If and when that happens I am going to get 2-3 men from Freehold to do the job. I'll pay them well and buy the lunch and drinks.

Today I refinished my FA rocker. I started inside and when the fumes from the stain became too strong I hauled it outside. I took an old sheet, put the rocker and opened Minwax stain can on it, and went back inside for something. While inside, I got busy with other little household tasks, and forgot about the rocker out there. During the course of an hour I needed to pack up laundry, clean the kitchen, sand the spackle, one thing led to another and I eventually found my head under the kitchen sink looking for my hammer to hang a picture in the den. "What the heck am I doing here?" This thought led to my cleaning out the area under the sink. I went to put some stuff into storage which is right next to the front door. While opening the storage door, I happened to glance out the front door and see, to my horror, a stream of brown stain leading over the edge of the balcony. OMGosh, Oh.... NO....I could see that the sheet had sucked up a lot of the stain but was unsure what was going on with the rest of it that poured over the edge...

I ran to get some towels and my wonderful 7th Generation Household Everything spray. I kept telling myself to calm down. When I got back out there, I discovered that the rocker itself had started to absorb some of the stain. I basically donned some gloves and used the stain on the sheet to do the rest. The stain, as it turned out didn't make it off the balcony but stopped under the railing. It's all solid fiberglass deck covering out there and cleaned up well. After a coat of stain I put this stuff called Howards Orange Oil Wood Feed and Finish. It came out really beautiful and took no time at all. Maybe an hour to do the whole thing. So nice to see the beauty of the natural wood grain coming through. I am so happy I saw this rocker in the trash. It's from the late 1800s or early 1900s. I would LOVE to know it's history.

I have not been eating well. Need to go out and get real food and a work out.

I had a diary once. I remember not knowing what to write in it. So I decided to keep track of home improvements my dad was doing at the time. My one entry: The Beam is Up. It's sort of a joke in my family. Sort of. Like nothing else going on. The beam is up.