Sunday Favorites: Who's Your Boyfriend

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to re-post an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on April 12, 2011:




I thought cutting my hair would be a really good idea for my year-off-travel-the-world-adventure. I regretted it almost immediately.  The cut would be adorable if it were possible to have access to a shower in a real bathroom and a blow dryer and flat iron and styling products every day. 

See?  Adorbs!

But that's just not the reality of it. Here's what usually ends up happening:

Even the Koala is embarrassed for me.

The fact is, long hair is just easier. You would think the opposite were true, but it's not. If there's no time, long hair can be thrown into a messy traveler's ponytail. Short hair just sticks up in every direction, and not in a good way.  And when you decide it's time to grow it out, there's no awesome consistent stylist to help you look good through the process.

A couple things have made all of this even worse:

• My travel companions have all been beautiful, long-haired women. 
• I have a propensity towards flannel.

"Awwww, so nice of her to bring her little brother!"

Flannel.  And backpacks.

_____

As you can imagine, some assumptions are probably being made.  In Nicaragua, I was with Dustin, Ted, and Nicole. We were walking around pretty late in Granada, and we were pretty sure that we were offered a prostitute. Dustin said, "well, we guys probably do look a little desperate and Kady's haircut isn't helping."

_____

While in Thailand, Summer had this to say (not entirely the fault of my haircut, but hilarious anyways):

"We saved 4 bucks a night by going with a fan-cooled room instead of air-conditioning. The fan was between two twin beds and the sound of it oscillating was unbearable. So we turned off the oscillation and pushed the beds together to ensure maximum fan-cooling. I may or may not have been guilty of knowing the fan leaned a full degree or two in my favor.

"We were awakened far too early by the housekeeper. I answered the door trying to cover myself up in my t-shirt with that blank look on my face one has at 8:30 in the morning when on a beach vacation. I declined any cleaning service and turned to survey the view the cleaning lady had just gotten- the highlights being: Kady lying languidly in a bed wearing not much more than a sheet... and a bottle of five dollar Thai rum at the foot of two twin beds awkwardly pushed together."

That day, she said to me, "don't move".  "DO NOT MOVE."  And grabbed her camera to take this picture:

Click here for Summer's full story.

Good Little Helper

I wanted so badly to be involved in my project. And I was sometimes! My brother-in-law and my old friend from way back when were my framing contractors and they were both very good about showing me how to do things and patiently watching while I screwed it up, and then fixing them.

Things I'm proud of:

• I made the cuts for every single stud wall on the upper section of my house!
• I helped shingle the entire front of the house (the short part)!
• I used a sawzall and cut stuff!
• I ripped boards!
• I routered the holes for some of the stair treads!
• I used a nail gun!
• This photo:

• I painted a lot of the exterior of the house.

• I painted almost all of the fascia boards - which included one coat of primer and two coats of black paint, all outside during the month of March:

But mostly, they just sent me to Menards to pick up stuff that I didn't know what it was. And so I have tons of photos on my camera like this which I would then text to the guys to see if what I was getting was right:

Which, by the way is a VERY IMPORTANT JOB AND NOT EVERYBODY CAN DO IT. 

I helped!!!

25 Years Ago

My sister Keri got married in 1990 -- Here's what my family looked like then: 

Five daughters, one curling iron, seventy-five yards of forest green lace, three under wire bras and two trainers:

Yes, the breast buds were coming in nicely...

Boss Lady

During construction I would have to run to the house to check on things after leaving my office-y job. Which meant that I could be seen climbing around a construction mess in a skirt quite often.

 

Here's a picture of me climbing out the front window hole on the second story to get out to the roof of the front section of my home and feeling something "funny" on the bottom of my high-heeled shoes: 



Job Hazards

Upside to Cancer?

SPOILER ALERT:

THERE ISN'T ONE.

But...IF you were counting, and you guys know I am an optimist and ever the consummate Pollyanna so: my mom did get a handicapped tag and I did get to put it in my car and that was wildly convenient in certain circumstances. 

Minnehaha Falls at Night

Look at this lovely waterfall not two miles from my house:

 

 

Moving Day!

As much as I loved that little 1+ bedroom upstairs triplex apartment, of course when I bought my little house that meant I had to eventually leave it. It was sad, especially when I saw all my worldly belongings laid out on the grass out front.

 

Life goes on, right?

 

...All of said worldly belongings went on to sit on a trailer in my new house garage for two months while I waited for construction to complete.

 

 

Sunday Favorites: I Don't Have a Microwave

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on September 26, 2014:

 


I don't have a microwave in my apartment.

1. There is no room for a microwave. My refrigerator is in the hallway for Gosh Sakes.
2. I don't want to spend the money on a microwave. I want to spend my money on plane tickets and bold-colored-printed-pants.
3. I am better than everyone and I wouldn't dream of unhealthily microwaving my food.
4. I like re-heating stuff up in a saucepan. It makes me feel like a pioneer woman taking care of my 5 kids over a campfire next to the wagon wheel.

However, almost every single day at work, I eat one of these:

Image stolen from http://www.missbargainhuntress.com

"Ready in 5 minutes"

Some day I'll tell you all about how I don't have a TV.

Stairway to the Loft

See these rectangular holes below? I made them! With a router. That I broke. Twice. The stair treads go in there.

 

It's Shake and Bake! And I helped!

 

 

 

 

 

They Grow Up So Fast

Providing transportation to and from my mom's appointments was difficult, especially during her seven weeks of radiation. every. single. day. If her appointments were right away in the morning, I could take her, but some days they were late morning and some days she had to see the oncologist and her appointments went pretty late, after I needed to be at work. We didn't want her riding the bus, because she would have to walk several blocks on both ends through neighborhoods that scare people from towns of 150 people like my mom (plus she sometimes needed a cane and COULDN'T walk more than like two blocks). And taking a cab would be WAAAAAAAAY to expensive.

 

Some days I rode my bike to work and gave her my car. But then my mom got approval from the State for a service called Metro Mobility -- it provides inexpensive rides to people who are disabled permanently or temporarily, or unable to drive for whatever reason. Metro Mobility was so great! They picked my mom up and dropped her right at the hospital. And then picked her right back up and dropped her right back off again, for only $3 each way. Door-to-door service!

 

I forced her to take some "first day of school" pictures, and ain't she cute!

 

 

Tile Choice

I can't put tile in my upstairs bathroom, because the joists for the loft are "three-foot-on-center" and therefore ceramic tile is too heavy, but I can put it in my little 4' x 8' bathroom on the main floor since the main floor joists are only 18" apart.

 

You learn so much when you remodel a house!

 

Here's what I picked - basically because it's what I had at my last apartment and it's vintage-y cute and basic and white.

 

 

Does Anybody Want to Explain This to Me?

 

Seriously, how does a person pee on the FRONT of their shoe? In the work bathroom?

 



 

Upstairs Flooring

Flooring in the upstairs -- the 99 cents a square foot stuff -- it's called Industrial Oak (scraps) 

You may have noticed too that there is no longer a chimney in the upstairs -- I decided to cut it off at the ceiling below -- it was right in the way of where my bed would be, and I would have had to build it up to the ceiling with more bricks.

So, bye bye, chimney! I tried! Don't worry, your bottom part is still in my kitchen!

GONE-ZO

Flooring and The Toilet Tarp

The bathroom used to be located on the north side of the house, but was relocated to the south side. Since the beginning it (one single toilet) has been tarped off -- in the beginning it was winter and so we had to keep the heat in -- remember there was no roof for some time and so only the basement was heated...and later for privacy.

We took to affectionately calling it the Toilet Tarp. It's the only place in the history of the universe and in my life where I gave myself permission to not wash my hands after using the toilet and then immediately eat a slice of pizza. Remodeling!

Here it is in its new location:

And here's the new flooring -- the old stuff didn't quite stretch all the way across the house, but I did want to salvage it if possible -- to save money and to channel my inner Nicole Curtis.

New front and side windows in the front office:

Farm Sink Project

I knew that I wanted a farm sink in my new house because I just love porcelain and that drain board they have and I love the vintage-y look of them.

SO I went on craigslist and started digging around but they all want $500 and they're just gross and they're in Milwaukee.

And then my brother-in-law surprised me with a free one from his garage! I was so excited! And then I found out my sister really wanted it and he gave it to me instead and so there was that whole mess and I felt bad but not that bad because look!

It was really gross but oh well.

I wanted to paint the cabinet a 50's vintage color and here was some inspiration colors:

And then I found out about a hip-hop store in uptown that sells graffiti spray paint. I marched in there like a proper graffiti artist and bought six cans of this color and then told them I was about to go tag the town.

With my name, only the Y would have an arrow on it.

I thought I was so funny. 

They didn't.

It's so hard to take a picture of color, huh? But it's SO CUTE you guys! p.s. I didn't do the work. My worker did the work. I don't mean to take credit.

I color matched it and painted the wall too! LOOK HOW CUTE!!!