Friday Fun

I woke up at 5:15 AM, again without the alarm, on Friday. I warmed up a cup of coffee and watched the morning news. I was surprised to learn about a blizzard in North Dakota (30 mph winds, 9 inches of snow and 3-5 foot drifts) that shut down 80 miles of I-94! What's even scarier is that they said Minneapolis, Minnesota (sorta south of where my daughter Amy and her family live) is also getting snow. I am not ready for this! Oh, wait a minute; I have my storm door on now, so maybe I am!

I filled out my bathroom tile spreadsheet with the numbers I got from Home Depot. All in all, Lowe's beat Home Depot by about $60. So, except for the backer board I'll buy from Home Depot, the rest of this project's materials will come from Lowe's.

I made up a short shopping list for things I still need today for food stuff I want to make this weekend; primarily for my Senate Bean Soup and bird seed and suet for my feathered friends. I also need three more Styrofoam cones for the new roses I planted this spring and some molding for the storm door install. Next I did the ToDo list for the rest of the long weekend. Thankfully, the two ToDo lists now fit on just one list.

So, I am easing into the day, but at 8:00 AM, still wearing my bathrobe, I washed the outside door windows and the inside storm door window downstairs.

Then I shaved and showered. I got dressed and headed out to Meijer's and Westborn for the stuff I needed/wanted. I was home and unpacked by 11:30 AM. I called the Redford Township offices to arrange for a "big item" pickup (all the crap I will tear out of the downstairs bathroom), but found the only thing they won't take is construction materials! They did give me the number for the landfill in Northville, but I think I have a better solution. We'll see.

So, then I finished emptying the downstairs bathroom. I used the shower curtain to cover both the toilet and sink (to keep crap out of my drains). I got a thick square of the plastic Jake gave me that his house's previous owner had used to make the pool for the bird bath fountain and covered the drain in the actual shower. Then I removed the shower head and the water supply knob in the shower (after turning off the water).

Before I got started, I thought some lunch/breakfast was in order. So, I warmed up a can of Hormel's chili with beans. While it was cooking in the sauce pan, I sliced up a scallion, (both the green and white parts). I topped the chili with a dollop of sour cream, the sliced scallion and some shredded sharp cheddar cheese. I ate that watching a taped TV show.

Now it's onto the downstairs bathroom project. Using the Sawzall (reciprocating saw), I sliced through the back wall of the shower. Next I used my pry bar and popped off the masonite, fake tile. Underneath, I hit gold! Instead of the drywall I had pictured, I found green board!

Now, green board is quite similar to the backer board I used for the tile in the kitchen. However, backer board is a cement product that resists moisture and must be screwed on, while green board is a drywall product that has a coating of some sort of green epoxy to also resist moisture. It's installed the same as regular drywall, using nails.

Since the coating is epoxy, the mortar the guy used is sticking to the masonite and leaving a pristine green board! So, I have saved myself hundreds of dollars and a lot of work if I can reuse it as the base for the tile.

However, the area where the fake tile had started to disintegrate was wet on the green board, up to about 18 inches from the bottom. So, I cut a straight line about 24 inches up and pulled it all off. If I can, I'll reuse the leftover backer board from the counter tile job to fill this spot in.

I gave a quick call to my friend, B___, to ask if he thought I could reuse the green board, or should I pull it down. He told me I had lucked out and didn't have to replace it, as long as it was dry. He also asked if I had a cold, so I explained I had been dealing with dust and sawdust for the last four hours and my nose was all plugged up. I thought I had some face masks, left from the kitchen remodel, but I couldn't find them, you see.

So, by 7:30 PM, I had three sides of the shower removed. I decided to quit at that point. I took a rinse-off shower and repeated blew my nose to try and get right for the night. I also set a small fan in the shower to keep the air moving.

Still trying to perfect that September pasta dish, I had bought five big Italian (or plum) tomatoes today at Westborn. I cut them in half; put them on one of the remaining cookie sheets I still have, drizzled them with olive oil, and then seasoned them heavily with salt and pepper. I turned the oven on to preheat it to 400 degrees F.

Meanwhile I heated up some salted water to cook the Meijer's frozen cheese tortellini. When the tomatoes had been in the oven 15 minutes and were still not charred, I turned on the broiler. That charred 'em!

I minced up four big cloves of garlic and put them in about three tablespoons of olive oil I had heated in my big skillet. When the tomatoes had cooled a bit, I seeded them and added the tomato juices and seeds to the garlic and let that reduce.

When the tortellini was finished, I drained it and added it to the skillet. I put in the rest of the tomatoes (after rough chopping them) and 1/2 cup of rough chopped, pitted Kalamata olives. I let it all get happy for a bit, and then plated it.

Results? Well, taste was good, maybe even excellent. But the texture was still not as good as the original dish. I used raw, uncooked and seeded tomatoes in that first dish, you see. So, I give up trying to improve it and must accept the fact that the best dish was the one I just made up by accident!

I watched some TV, but turned in early as I was beat.