How Is Summer Almost Over?

Posted on by thepoelog

Whelp, it’s finally here. Sheryll’s Solo Summer (SSS) is coming to an end next week, as my schmoopies-for-life comes back from his sabbatical taking care of his father.

It truly has been a long three months.

And a lot of physical and emotional work for my beloved XFE in the midst of an unprecedented heat wave. Now he’s coming back to me and the cats and I will be running around this weekend trying to prepare and cleaning like a fiend. My lackadaisical summer cleaning schedule is probably not going to impress him.

But it’s been a fairly good summer, overall. I did not write as much as I had hoped but I did read a lot. I made jam for the first time (turned out well) and pickles (not that great – not enough snap, I think). I cooked and ate all my favorite things (lots of cheese and veggies and beans) and binged on true crime documentaries.

I was socially engaged with friends out here at the cabin – including volunteering for our Lost River Pride Festival in June and attending all the fun activities around that event.

I wrangled up the cats, closed up the cabin and drove the 2 hours into the city all by myself in early July so I could fly out to Vegas and visit XFE and his dad. Then I came back to the city, grabbed the cats and returned to/opened up the cabin again. I used to think it took both of us to snag the cats (without a major incident), but I’ve gotten pretty good at it on my own.  

I had out-of-town guests for four days in late July and we did all the fun things, including tubing, wine tasting, vintage shopping, hiking and more wine tasting. I even fired up the hot tub for them (literally. It’s a wood-fired hot tub) and cleaned it out all by myself after my guests had left). I did all the planning and cooking and prep cleaning for the visit, including cleaning the grill, which I was also in charge of cooking on (again, usually XFE’s domain).

My favorite picture of the whole weekend.

I caught and relocated a mouse and took care of car maintenance. So, I managed okay. I’m actually pretty proud of myself. But I do miss my partner-for-life and I’m very much looking forward to having him back in the driver’s seat – both figuratively and literally.

Plus, we have a nice Mexico vacation coming up, before we jump into fall work schedules with both feet. XFE already has work obligations piling up in September, as well as ongoing dad care, so I suspect the rest of the year will be busy.

But, the main thing is: I survived. XFE survived. We are all going to be okay (I think).

We’ve never been apart this long. Especially during the pandemic – we didn’t have family nearby or a pandemic bubble. We spent every waking minute together for 2.5 years. What if things have changed in our relationship? Will I be willing to relinquish control of the remote? Will I step up more on the meal planning and cooking? Maybe XFE will be so exhausted he won’t want to be in charge of everything anymore? Then who’s going to make sure things run smoothly?

I guess we’ll just have to figure it out – starting next week. This weekend, I’ll be watching all the true crime documentaries while eating roasted veggies off the grill that could really use another cleaning. Who knows? Maybe I’ll fire up the hot tub again just for me.

What is the Deal with Toilets: A Reluctant Buyer’s Guide

Posted on by thepoelog

Over the past year at the corona cabin, we’ve been making quite a few updates and changes to our little chocolate box.

We gave the front porch a refresh, replacing the old-fashioned wood balusters with a cool wire system and painting the door and railings black.

We swapped in new appliances throughout the house, including replacing the original water filtration system and the original, incredibly noisy HVAC.

As I write this, someone is outside replacing and staining pieces of cedar siding that got destroyed by the woodpeckers and carpenter bees.

We’re slowly coming to the end of the initial list of projects we wanted to undertake here at the cabin.

But there is a project that is still on our not-immediate-but-eventually project list: replacing the toilets in our two bathrooms.

New meaning to “flushing money down the toilet”

And, oh my.

As someone who has never shopped for toilets before, I had no idea there were sooooo many options. Like, a lot of options.

  • Do you want a one-piece toilet or the traditional tank and seat setup? Or what about a tankless option?
  • What sort of flushing options do you want or need? Gravity flush or pressure assisted? Or you could really splash out and get a dual flush model.
  • What bowl shape can your space accommodate? Do you want a round or elongated bowl? Maybe even square elongated? How about that?
  • What about the height? Should we get the traditional 15 inches or maybe a taller 17 or even 19 inches?
  • How much water will the new toilet use (that would be “gallons per flush,” for all you lay people out there)?
  • Do we want floor mounted or wall mounted (that one is pretty much already decided by existing plumbing and all)?
  • What color do we want (again, this one is pretty much already decided – we have one white and one “almond” toilet already in the house, but maybe we just want to live less wild and go for two whites? Or one white, one biscuit? Or linen? What is the difference between biscuit and linene? I don’t know!)
  • Do we want a discreet quiet flush model?
  • Where do you want the handle? Right, left, top? If we go with top flush, do we want oil rubbed bronze or brushed gold?
  • What about slow close seats? That seems like it might be nice, right?
What about a gold throne? This one at the Guggenheim is actually art.

This is a lot more than I expected to have to ponder. And the stakes feel very high here. It’s an important part of your daily routine, so you want it to be the best you can afford. But—and here’s another thing I never knew—toilets can get really, really expensive. Sure, you can go with a pretty basic model at around $100, but once you start adding in all these nice-sounding features, it can really get up there, like, $1,500 range. Generally, for a one-piece, elongated, single or dual flush, comfort height, soft-closed seat model, it’s around $400 to $600.

A fully-loaded TOTO toilet with dual-flushing system, heated seat and air purifying system? That will set you back $14,000. (BUT, it does clean itself, which I argue makes it totally worth it.)

Bling, bling, poo, poo.

Plus, I mean, how often do you really replace a toilet? Not very often. So you want to make sure you get it right. You don’t want a toilet that’s going to be obsolete in a year or two. You want the latest toilet innovations and a commode that’s built to stand the test of time.

There’s also the tricky issue of disposing of the old ones. How? Where? Will the trash guys just take them?

And so, the toilet replacement project is at a standstill. Clogged, if you will, by indecision on my part and an unwillingness to spend silly amounts of money. Maybe we’ll get to it in the spring.