I have never been accused of being Holly Homemaker, but I can fake Handy Mandy pretty dang well. I find myself with some time on my hands and a honey do list that is many years in the making. Just a few things that I've said "I should really....naaaahhhh!" To begin, both the shades in my room and in FB's room have been broken, mine for over a year, FB's more recently. The cords had been snapped, more than likely during a vertically challenged raising or lowering of said blinds. Needless to say, they look a tad...redneck is the kindest word I could use. I dreaded the thought of needing to buy new ones or sending them back to the manufacturer as they were quite expensive. So, I decided to take these suckers apart and see if I could fix them myself. I had purchased some drapery cord and began my most excellent adventure. My first little glitch arose when I realized I didn't remember how to get the blinds down. Tugging and pulling, twisting and turning was not helping, and it didn't work on the blinds either. I decided they must just be muscled out of the brackets and put all my strength behind it when...the bracket broke, the shade flew off and smacked me right in the cheekbone. Cue my favorite word. Luckily, the children were at school and I realized how not to get the shades down. Oh, look, if you press this part of the bracket down, the shade just slips out. Gee, how neat. Having now injured myself, I lost the lust for home repair until later that evening. I figured the best place to attempt this, perhaps abortive attempt at shade repair, would be downstairs. And the only place that came to mind was my dining room table that is so covered in craft and other projects that it can no longer be considered a surface for eating, but rather a surface to dump crap I have some vague idea of completing in the distant or not so distant future.
I removed both header and footer of the shade, not really knowing what I would find and whether it would be fixable.



Imagine my surprise and joy when I saw that there was a convenient little bracket for the cord to go through and all I needed was a way to get it through all the way to the bottom. Aha! I thought, as I often have such exclamation when talking to myself, I will pull the remaining cord tight and tie the shade together so I can effect my repair. Once again I only fake being Handy Manny, or Mannette in this case, and so I tied it not with zip ties....jeez, I actually had those, but they were in the frosty garage....but with nice. cozy, yarn.
I then completed my repair, released the shade and extended it so that I had plenty of length, and voila! Repaired shade. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. I did, however forget to accommodate the length of the drapery cord to the height of the window, so when it is retracted all the way up....I may need a chair to release the shade. But! Redneck no longer.

My project today consisted of replacing the towel bar in the kids bathroom. This towel bar was placed by my a-hole contractor who told me, "That will fall down; call me when it happens and I'll replace it." Yeah, you'll be the first one I call when you just told me you did a half-assed job putting it up in the first place. And really, it has hung on for almost 6 years.... .which coincides with how long SoS has been on the planet. So, now that he is old enough to shower and dry off all by himself and he wants to put the towel back like he's supposed to..........you get the picture. I had some nice, heavy duty toggle screws to replace the cheap ass plastic mollies the a-hole used but when I went to get my drill, I couldn't seem to find my screwdriver bits. I can attribute this to FB and SoS feeling the need to string my tools from one end of the garage to another, kick them under cabinets and all manner of mayhem. I needed to go to Home Depot to see if they had brackets to replace the one I obliterated with my brute mommy strength anyway, so I thought I could pick up a screwdriver bit for my drill while I was there. The drapery people at Home Depot acted like I was from another planet and suggested I call the manufacturer, even though I purchased the shades through them. Crapped out on the bracket. Then, I found I couldn't buy single bits, but I did find this:




Oh, my heck, I almost creamed my jeans, and I'm sure my nippies got hard! See, I'm easy. Give this chick a Home Depot gift card and a chance to run wild, and I am yours forever! I've got the guts of one more toilet to change out and a set of roman shades to make and then, nothing but painting. Woohoo. I friggin' hate painting.

In other news, SoS had a belt test for a belt that wasn't for Little Ninjas. It was, in fact, the first grade belt for kids who are continuing on in Tae Kwon Do. He did very well in his counting, skipping only 2 numbers and never slipping from Korean to Spanish. And he sat quietly and respectfully for the next hour while others tested. Take that kindergarten Nazis! Of course, he did spend his afternoon grounded on bed arrest, but I don't know if that had any bearing on anything.

Yeah, that's my little Ninja, starting his road to black belt. And here he is tonight after his shower awaiting a little root beer float action:

Yes, he did come up with ensemble himself. I call it " junior douchebag in training."