Not quite sure where I got the idea to read And Then We Hit a Rock by Greg Buenzli – it had a catchy title – sometimes that’s all it takes. Greg and his family bought a catamaran and sailed around on it for a year and a half. Four stars. It would have been five stars if the good stuff / bad stuff had been more balanced. It was about 90% the bad weather, the things that broke (legend!) and other things that went wrong; only about 10% (most of it in the last 10 pages) of why it was a good experience. An OK read, just not as good as it could have been.
The reason I’m telling you this is a warning. Do not attempt any home improvements projects right after finishing this book. It’s cursed.
Now that YA has finished painting all the hallways, she’s been at me to re-hang all the pictures. I was ready; I had purchased some new picture hangers, I’d sorted through the photos and stacked them by where they should go, I’d dusted everything off. No worries – I’ve certainly hung pictures before.
It was a nightmare. If it could go wrong, it did. Hallway is just dark enough that everything I dropped (repeated little nails, anchors) needed the flashlight to find it. I only dropped the hammer once – the only luck of the day was that it didn’t land on any of my toes. Two photos had to be re-hung because I just did a bad job the first time. The wire on the back of one photo ripped off after it had been on the wall about 15 minutes. The box with the various tools was right underneath it at that point or the glass would probably have shattered. Also the number of tools kept expanding as I went along. Level, hammer, pliers, painters tape, scissors, flashlight, ruler. And have I mentioned my poor fingers? Mashed, crushed, banged, pounded, beaten, whacked, smashed, bashed, battered…. I’ll stop now. Suffice it to say I hung 17 pictures and bashed a thumb or finger at least 20 times. I did try using a little pliers to hold the nails, but it wasn’t very effective.
I couldn’t bring myself to do the destination photos that go down the stairway after getting the upstairs done; hopefully I’ll have the nerve tomorrow. Maybe 24 hours between me and the cursed book will make it not so painful!
Ever read a cursed book before? Bashed a finger recently?
Trail Baboon 
I find hanging pictures is generally harder than it seems like it should be.
I like the 3M velcro hangers, and you can just stick it to the wall, but that doesn’t work on large heavy photographs.
And getting a good layout of multiple photos can be tough. And we don’t have enough wall space.
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A couple of days ago I did try the velcro picture hangers and had no luck whatsoever so scrapped that idea for nails. I figure that the next time these pictures are off the wall, the little holes will be somebody else’s problem!
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OT. Blevins reminder. Sunday at Jim & Kathy’s. 2 p.m.
Technically the titles are Around the World in 80 Days (Verne) and Around the World in 80 Plants (Drori) but there was a bunch of confusion about the plant book and some folks decided they weren’t that crazy about the Verne, so it’s kinda of a free-for-all. Be prepared to talk about whatever book you want! And if you didn’t read any – I’ve read enough for everybody!!
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Hanging pictures is on my to do list, but not scheduled.
Mine are all old things from ancestors, and I keep thinking “someday”.
Maybe when/if my “bashed finger” gets more functional.
For those who may be wondering, yes, that email is really from me.
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No cursed books, just a lot of poorly written or painfully long and boring reads. The only upside of reading those is that I’m reminded what bad writing and lax editing looks like and can work NOT to do that with my books.
No bad finger bashes lately. But a couple months ago I partially slammed the car door on a finger. No blood or breaks, just a forehead slap to remind myself to pay attention whenever I’m around things that can hurt me.
Chris in Owatonna
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Usually when you do that (slam your finger), there’s a split second where you realize what you’ve just done and think, “this is going to hurt”.
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oh yeah.
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I don’t have much difficulty hanging pictures but we don’t have nearly enough wall space for all the stuff, already framed or matted and ready to frame that I would like to hang. I guess the only option is to rotate some of it.
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Sherrilee’s mention of the boating book inspires me to move Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat into my “to be read next” pile. It’s considered a classic, a boating adventure of an entirely different sort with disasters mostly of the boaters’ own making. I got my copy at a marvelous used bookstore in Sheboygan.
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I think you’ll enjoy it. I thought it was great.
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Husband grew up in Sheboygan. What is the bookstore?
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It’s called Inklings, named after the group that Tolkien and C. S. Lewis and others formed at Oxford. It’s out near where the river channel joins the lake.
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I read that years ago. It was a sweet book.
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