Another day, another contractor

I'm not so good at hiring contractors. Firing them, though? I'm a whizz. (Does that say more about me or the applicant pool?) Anyhoo, the electrician I had in last week was, um, good, as in nothing has caught fire yet. He sped through $800 of my list in three hours, partly because he didn't even turn off lights, let alone breakers. (Go live or go home, baby!!) Unfortunately, hanging vintage fixtures did not fit his ten minutes per task business model. But there's always some "whatever-I'll-just-do-it-myself" work left after a contractor leaves. (I do realize this is not normal, but I also realize that little about me is, so, yea, whatever.) So, all in all, success! Until I did laundry. You know that moment (probably you don't...good for you) when you feel and hear the splash of your foot hitting what should be solid, dry VCT tile and two thoughts go through your brain. One, am I about to be electricuted? No, that probably would have happened instantaneously and I wouldn't be having this conversation in my head. And secondly, what are the chances that that water has some nasty, sewage-based pathogen that's going to wriggle its way into the skin on my feet and cause some chronic, debilitating, impossible to diagnose illness? High? Yea, based on the smell of this reflecting pool, I'm going with high. The plumber came quickly. I called the dude I'd used in the kitchen. You know the one, the guy who used my hand towel dipped into toilet water to clean up excess caulk around the sink. That one. (He lives near by, okay? I knew he'd be quick.) After $60 worth of plumber time (2 minutes), he realized the ejector pump outlet no longer worked. So when the washing machine dumped into the ejector pit, it had overflowed into the sewer line which then flowed up the floor drains. Yeah!! The electrician came back and fixed what he assured me was someone else's mistake. Compensating me the $60 was not going on, and in fact, I should be grateful because he wasn't going to charge me for the return visit. What a guy. I kept the quiet part quiet, but he's fired.

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Present-ation!

I've finished making a whole pile of frayed ruffle hearts . They're cute the way they are, but to make them extra special, I'm putting them in pretty cellophane bags, with curly ribbons and hand-made tags. Sometimes I get lazy and don't spend the extra effort on great gift wrap, but it's so worth it, isn't it? The other exciting part of this is I'm not just sending these hearts to family and friends. I've got 3 set aside for Aunt Peaches Valentine Swap ! Yea!!!

Lessons from BlogHer '13

BlogHer '13—my first blogging convention—was last weekend. And I learned a lot! For example: #1 No Russians are reading my blog. When I look at the statistics for who's looking at Smalltropolis, it's very impressive. For example, today I have 43 pageviews from Latvia. Switzerland is represented, as is France, Denmark, China. Just a world-wide appeal I have goin' on. (Gloat.) Thing is, as I learned at BlogHer, that's almost certainly because the analytics I'm looking at aren't very accurate. Lots of spam is included. To get the real numbers, I need to sign up for Google Analytics. Блин! #2. Great photography doesn't come from the womb. The kick-off keynote speaker was Ree Drummond. I'd certainly admired the beautiful photography on her blog, The Pioneer Woman multiple times, so it was pretty enlightening when she showed some of her early photos. They were, quite simply, dreadful. It really drove home how good writing and good photography a

Perfect pickle weights

Making pickles requires keeping the vegetables submerged in the brine so they don't get yucky. But what to use as weights? Stones? Hmm. This may be traditional but I have a hard time believing I could get them clean enough. Plastic baggies filled with pickling juice? This is what is usually recommended but it just doesn't appeal to me. (Does the plastic leach anything out during the fermenting period?) Hand-made ceramic discs? They're lovely but they're $22 (plus shipping) for three, and each jar needs a couple so that would get pretty expensive to do the multiple jars of pickles I've got going on. No, the perfect solution are these little glass candle holders from IKEA. They're called Glimma and at $1.99 for a six-pack, they're safe, sanitary, and cheap. And they fit perfectly inside wide-mouthed Ball jars. So, fill the jar with vegetables (leaving a bit of headspace) and top off with brine, allowing the liquid to flow into the glass dish,

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