Sometimes being right is just no good at all

My sister called to let me know she won't be helping me paint tomorrow. I figured that. I've been waiting two months now for some help, and I really didn't expect to get it, so it isn't a surprise. I doubt she'll come over Thursday, either. I'm sure something will come up.

And even if it doesn't and she does come over, I'm not so sure that there's any point to painting the rest of the kitchen anyway. I got one set of cabinets finished. It took me a week. Keep in mind that

• I prepared the surfaces properly
• I removed all of the hardware to paint it too
• I used a fairly expensive high-adhesion primer that's supposed to make paint even stick to ceramic tile
• I used good quality paint and not the cheap stuff
• I put 2 coats of primer on (because I had to)
• and I put 2 coats of paint on (because the one coat paint wasn't covering in one coat like it promised to do)

I barely leaned a cabinet door against the cabinet frame until I got the hinges reattached, and it pulled the paint right off the wood. This is paint that's been dry for 24 hours now. What do I do when the paint just starts falling off the rest of the varnished surfaces, which, by the way, cover EVERY square inch of the kitchen walls. This primer was supposed to make the paint bond into the varnish, without sanding. (I tried the sanding and priming route last summer... It took 5 coats of Kilz primer to stop the old varnish and stain from bleeding through the primer and staining it brown.)

So... Kilz 2 doesn't really work. Bullseye 1-2-3 doesn't really work.

I looked up the estimated value of my house (which I desperately want to sell and get out of, because I hate it here) on zillow.com, and it's $13,000 LESS than what I paid for it 5 years ago. Now instead of worrying that the pecan tree is going to fall on the house in a tornado one day, I'm hoping that it does, and crushes me underneath the whole mess, so I'll stop trying to fix up this money (and time) pit. I feel absolutely trapped in this house and my life.

My dog was eating my spinach

I was sitting on the couch, having a nice baby spinach salad. (One of the few ways I'll consume spinach, but I love it that way.) Terra kept begging for it, so I gave her a piece, and apparently, she loved it. Well, maybe she loved the ranch dressing that was on it. LOL She ate a lot of my spinach! But nowhere near as much as I did.

I was thinking that maybe I ought to up my iron intake this week, since I'm planning on giving blood Thursday. Lifeline sent me a postcard requesting that I do so, so why not? It'll be donation #30 for me with them. I'm working on gallon #4. (There were a few times in college that I donated to a different blood bank from Memphis, but that "didn't count" and they never cared enough to keep up with me. heheh So technically, I've probably already donated 4 gallons of my blood, but it doesn't really matter anyway. It was all for a good cause.

And no, I never got paid for donating blood. :) Sometimes I get a T-shirt though. Actually, considering what I've heard about the paid blood donors from the colleges in Memphis (being drunk or whatever the night before donating), I'm kinda hesitant in the event of an emergency, to accept a transfusion from that bank. Not that I've been in the situation to ever need blood. The one time I had major surgery, I asked the doctor if I should have them store a unit of my blood just in case, but he assured me that what he would be doing didn't really cause a major amount of bleeding. Considering that I watched that being done on the surgery channel before having it done, I wasn't sure what he considered "a lot" of bleeding. (Through most of the surgery, it looked like a bad car accident, and then in about 2 minutes, the surgeon had everything looking like new again. Amazing.) Apparently, it would have to be a few pints. But then again, he wasn't working on an area that was just loaded with blood vessels anyway. Yay.

I guess if I was concerned about being "rewarded," I might not have skipped out on all the banquets they've invited me to for donating more than 3 times in a calendar year. I guess... it's just nice to feel needed and appreciated occasionally. *sigh* Obviously, I don't expect anyone to greet me with, "I love you!" when I get on the bus to donate, but that would probably freak me out if they did. Hearing someone other than my sister and occasionally my dad saying it would thrill me, but I doubt I ever will.

Now that I've finished my salad, I'm having some orange juice, which is supposed to help with iron absorption. I hope it works. It's awfully embarrassing to go to donate and find out you don't have enough iron in your blood, but apparently it's one of those things that happens to lots of people at some time or another, unless they like raw, bloody steaks for dinner.

I'm STILL painting that first set of kitchen cabinets... 2 coats of primer, 2 coats of paint. Turns out that I have to wait 4 hours between coats on the paint itself. Not a problem, until you consider that I have to paint the insides of the doors, wait until they dry, and then paint the outsides. I'm not sure if I'm going to replace the hardware or not. I'd love to put on some brushed steel or nickel pulls, but considering that the current pulls and hinges are a matched set, I'd have to replace all the hinges too. *sigh* I believe that would be too monster of a job for me. Maybe old-fashioned black hardware will look okay on butter yellow cabinets in a cream kitchen? It'll certainly match the outlets in the wall, which are, now that I think of it... all black. LOL If I want white ones... I'll have to rewire them!

Hmmm... the hardware may look okay after all. It'll be black and yellow in the kitchen. The oven right in those cabinets is black.... Lemme see... Why don't I just stencil our school mascot on there and tell everyone I was going for a school spirit thing? Black and gold... Trojans... Yeah, that'd look peachy. hehehe.

After all, the goal is to pretty the place up a bit so I'll be less depressed all the time and so that maybe sometime I'll be able to sell it for a house I'd actually like to live in. I definitely never want to cook when I'm in a dark kitchen. There are people who honestly think I'm lying about being a good cook, because I don't cook much anymore. But the kitchen is currently dark, depressing, and ugly, and it's pointless to cook for myself. There's nobody else for me to cook for.

I hate to say it, but in a lot of ways my life has turned into one huge disappointment. I have a house and two degrees, and nothing else. I'm glad that I have the job I was wanting when I was in college, but spending every day with lots of other people's kids is just a reminder that I won't ever have a chance to have any of my own.

I have so many kids' books on my shelves, that I bought thinking to save them for my own children. Now that I've stopped doing things with my imaginary children in mind (buying a roomy sedan, buying kids' books, making baby quilts and blankets), I'm thinking that maybe I should just start getting rid of all of this unrealistic stuff on eBay.