I’ve decided to stay with “Tom’s of Maine” toothpaste. I like waking up without the artificial sweetener aftertaste in my mouth. It turns out “Tom’s” has several flavors: Spearmint, Peppermint, Wintergreen, and Cinnamon. I went with the cinnamon. It actually tastes good! It doesn’t take on the spit-like flavor that the spearmint did. I just may stick with this for a while.
I now use two personal products made by “Tom’s of Maine”: toothpaste and deodorant. Having all-natural toothpaste isn’t so bad. It has things in it like flouride, zinc citrate, silica, and cinnamon and clove oils. The dodorant has witch hazel, coriander and aloe vera, but it also has lichen. Lichen? Under my arms? The deodorant seems to work without burning though (which is always a concern). Maybe I can handle having lichen under my arms. But I’m drawing the line at moss. There’ll be no moss under my arms!
I’m to the point of putting shelves in. I’m having a heckuva time figuring out how high to put them. Besides doing some shopping yesterday, all I could figure out were three wall cabinets:
The corner cabinet was pretty easy. I thought the top shelf had to be at least reachable, so I figured where that would go. Then I worked down. I found some big lazy susans that almost fill the shelves. I plan to put larger things here like mixing bowls and casserole dishes.
The dishes cabinet was a little harder. I finally decided to space the shelves pretty much evenly. I just had to make sure they were tall enough for glasses.
I’m quite excited about the Cereal Cabinet. It’s to the left of the sink. A whole shelf for cereal! I will put various small appliances above the cereal. I don’t know what will go on the tiny top shelf.
Here is my most clever idea from yesterday. The IKEA slidey-outey cabinet came with drawers inside. I didn’t install them because I wanted to put a trash can in it. I got the trash can yesterday and there was space above it, so I put only one drawer in, and I put it way at the top. Voila! I have a place to put trash bags. Genius! (If I do say so myself.)
I got the sink working yesterday! Yay!
Finding the right parts for the water supply lines was a bit of a challenge. Getting the drains in was too. The right side drain didn’t quite work in the hole provided for it. The top part and bottom part were too far apart and couldn’t be screwed together. Bending one of them slightly did the trick.
So here’s the running sink!
The drain pipes were another challenge. I still don’t think I have them connected right. Either I screwed too tight, or not tight enough, or I needed to use something besides teflon tape in the joints, because there is still a little bit of water that shows in the joints when I test the drain to the max. I’ll be doing some reading today to see if I did something wrong.
I think the drain pipes look like something from Dr. Seuss.
So now on to the title of this post:
Before the drains were installed in the sink, I had to test the one that was bent. I wanted to make sure it could still hold water when the plug was pushed in. It did hold water. Cool, clean water. I was thirsty, so I took a sip. Then I wondered: had anyone in the history of the world taken a sip out of a drain before it was installed? I think maybe not. I think I may have been the first person ever to do that. Especially if you’re talking about an IKEA “Atlant” drain. So I insisted on taking a picture. I need to record this “first” for history’s sake!
Incidentally, I may also be the first person ever to open a walnut with a cordless electric screwdriver. I did it in the late eighties when cordless electric screwdriver technology was new. Alas, I don’t have any proof. I didn’t take a picture, and I traded the walnut shell with a friend in college.
Here’s Jabba the Hut in the clouds. Jeez, it took a long time to draw this. I definitely do NOT like drawing with a mouse.
We had torrential rain yesterday. It started with sprinkles and showers, but by the afternoon it was huge, sideways-falling drops with crazy-strong wind. We have already converted to heat at school, so it gets really hot when we close the windows. I left my windows open. It got a little wet in my classroom.
The worst part about the storm was that the kids were CRAZY! I felt like I was HERDING CATS or something. I was worn out at the end of the day. I’m glad I stayed to grade some papers though, because when I came out of the school building, there was a full-blown arch-style rainbow in the sky. I couldn’t get it all in the camera shot, and the picture doesn’t nearly do the rainbow justice (maybe I should’ve used a slower shutter speed?), but here’s my best shot:
