10:29 PM

Ok Lion...you've made your entrance

I went to Home Depot around 6 o'clock tonight for some painting supplies (more on that later) and we had been melting most of the day. I could see brown grass, the sidewalk and most of the road other than some bits of ice at the edges.

Amazing what can change here in a few hours. I looked out the window here and it's snowing and apparently has been for a while.

Mother Nature has been playing the lion or lamb? game here since March began. Calgary weather is a bit like this all year round. Just when you think it's spring or a second summer compliments of a chinook, she wallops you upside the head with her purse and you get snow...possible in every month of the year here!

I used to think that long, cold winters were hard to take. Once I was here, I wondered how I had survived them even. But there is something to be said for predictability. In Winnipeg you know that winter is winter and summer is summer and all of the seasons are well defined. From November to March you'd better plug in your car and have snow tires or at least good all seasons. There is no walking out in crop capris with a spring in your step thinking it's spring and getting inches of snow and -18 under 12 hours later. And let me tell you that there is something cruel and harsh about thinking that winter is over and finding out that it's not...over and over again.

Some of you know I have moved a lot. And changed jobs quite a lot. So I can't say that I don't like change. Actually, I can say that I don't like it but that I have learned it's a means to something better...almost always. And the sooner you embrace that and get on with it - kind of like ripping off a band-aid - the quicker the painful part is done. Except for weather changes in Calgary. A lot of times the something better doesn't stay...which is just unfair!

....Back to the painting...today's warmer, sunny weather made me feel better about winter coming to an end. For me, that inevitably means that my spirits lift and I get more productive and back to renos and plans and all of that good stuff. Which meant that today I found myself hauling up paint from the basement and deciding the kitchen cabinets needed a refresh. I went to the depot for some paintbrushes and looked at other inspirations such as countertops and hood fans.

I came back home and dove right in...just like every other project. I took all of the cabinet doors off and decided to start with only the uppers - I did learn a bit from past jumping into everything at once experiences. I poured "Soho" into the paint tray and began painting the cabinet boxes noticing as I moved on that the paint was kind of acting weird but figured maybe it was the mini foam roller. And so I optimistically continued...loving the new color and congratulating myself for starting a project and getting out of the doldrums. I went over some of the weird looking spots from the beginning and the second coat looked more normal.


And then I thought...what if the cabinets weren't previously painted with latex. (Even though I had done a nail polish remover test that seemed to indicate that they were)

And the weird look is latex reacting over oil.

*&$*%#$@!!!

It was shortly after that I realized that Mother Nature was having a hissy fit of her own.

I wonder what she was trying to remuddle today. Maybe I'll leave her a bowl of chocolate ice cream on the steps...can't hurt.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

ok so you are better at prepping than me, in the sense that you took the doors off, but worse in the sense that you didn't WASH THEM FIRST. It's probably just the paint not sticking to the kitchen grease. Second coat might go on fine...

EPrairiegrrl said...

Lol...I didn't wash the doors...yet...Ive only done the boxes. And am thinking the finish isn't shiny enough. So much for my quick and cheap project. I might have to venture out in the foot of new snow we have to Home Hardware for the same paint but different finish....