The Old Lady Was a Bathroom Hipster

I bought my house about 4 years ago. It's an older home, born the same year I was and I'm not gonna tell you how long ago that was. Suffice it to say that the old girl has a lot of class and character, just like I do!

This old girl (the house...not me) has some cool little details and some not so cool ones as well. It has a cute corner sink that I fell in love with the first time I saw the house. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that because the sink is in the corner, only one person can stand at the sink at the time thereby giving others an "out" when it comes time to help with the dishwashing!

On the plus side, there is a nice little ledge above the sink that I didn't get a picture of where I can display things. They change from time to time but right now there's a wine bottle, a fancy bottle for olive oil that is beautiful but I never use it and a candle. Because it's so handy my mom often likes to put random things up there that don't really go with my vignette, like for example my travel coffee mug or some tupperware items she needs to remember to return!

In the bathroom there is a very unique soap - toothbrush - cupholder which you can see pictured here. I know this looks like it has some pretty butterflies and flowers on it, but it's actually all silver, with a mirror surface, the butterflies are a reflection of the shower curtain across from it.

When you push on the right side of that silver square, it swings open to reveal this....

Please ignore how cruddy it looks because we never, ever use it, but it's just so cool and a neat little trick that we can show people when they come to visit. Hey! Shafter is a small town and there's not a whole lot to do with company when they do visit!

It is a cool way to hide things right?  But with the size of toothbrushes now a days, it's not very practical...but a neat little detail don't you think?







Another neato thing is this Thermador bathroom heater. Now don't worry about that pretty little plant getting scorched or over heated as this bathroom heater has never worked.

I know many people have fancy-schmancy bathrooms with heated towel holders and heated floors, but I'm just as impressed with this broken bathroom heater that I have never, ever used. I bet it was pretty cool to have back in the day when it worked!

I imagine this house was state of the art when it was first built. With all it's fancy swinging toothbrush holders and a bathroom Thermador heater and all!









So that brings me to the point of my title of this post, "The Old Lady Was a Bathroom Hipster".  In the bathroom is where one of my favorite little handy-dandy objects resides. It's this little wall-mounted Dixie Cup Dispenser.

Do you know that you cannot find that dispenser anywhere on the worldwideweb? At least I couldn't and I'm pretty good at googling and amazoning and whatever. So I was telling my son that I need him to figure out if that little dispenser can be taken off the wall so we can take it with us if and when we ever leave because I love it and now they only make these ugly plastic ones that sit on the counter and you pull the cup out from the top and I don't like a bunch of crap on my counters.

My son said, "Just find another one online." So I said, "I can't find one online, this is a vintage item!" He replied with, "The old lady was a bathroom hipster." I don't know exactly what that means, but I'm just hoping the old lady he was talking about wasn't me!


Actually, the old lady that owned this house before I did was pretty cool and very cautious and prone to pre-planning in the event of a natural disaster. For instance...the inside of this kitchen cabinet had this Earthquake preparedness plan taped to it. I don't know how old this is or how relevant to today's information, but I didn't have the heart to take it down because I'm sentimental like that. The old lady was not only a bathroom hipster, she was also one darned prepared old lady!

More Than I Ever Wanted to Know About Stuff like Medicine Cabinets...

So I'm doing some home remodeling lately and last night I realized that I am finding out way more than I ever wanted to know about stuff that I care absolutely nothing about!

For instance...medicine cabinets. Here's a picture of the really rusty, yucky medicine cabinet in the home I am remodeling.

I always assumed these types of recessed med cabinets are cemented and attached forever into the wall...but that is not the case. There are four little screws, two on each side wall that you screw out and the whole thing should just come right out.

UNLESS....unless there are several coats of paint and the paint has sealed that cabinet in there forever. Ok, well maybe not forever but at least until you get a blade and cut all the way around it and pry it loose gently with a screwdriver.

I never in my life wanted to know all of this about a medicine cabinet, or how to remove rust or how to spray on a sealer and how to spray on white paint, etc. I've been checking out blogs where others have re-done the medicine cabinet...but I think I'm just going to buy a new one as by the time I buy the rust remover and steel wool and sealer and paint plus my time it would have just been cheaper to buy one.

Ok...so here's a fun fact that I never knew about medicine cabinets and would have been ok going the rest of my life not knowing. Do you see in the photo of the rusty cabinet above there is a little slit in the metal about one quarter up from the bottom of the cabinet? Guess what that is for?? Give up? It's for depositing of razor blades. You know back in the day when men shaved using one of these?

Seriously, you would take the used up razor blade and slide it into that little slit for disposal. I haven't taken this one off the wall yet, but I hope I am not going to find this when I do. Pretty gross huh?

I showed my sister Lisa this photo and first thing she wondered was, "What about when there's a hurricane or tornado and the house gets blown away and the medicine cabinet becomes separated from the house? That means there are all these sharp razor blades blowing around and they could kill someone!" That's my sister! I would never have thought of that at all. I think I would be much more worried about a semi-truck trailer hitting me than a razor blade...but she worries about everything!

So I'm thinking of replacing that ugly, rusty one above with maybe one like this? I'm not really sure I'm loving the dark wood, but believe it or not, this one is only $39.00. I know that normally, you get what you paid for...but I have read the reviews and everyone who bought this one seems pretty darned please with it.

I'm hoping I will be able to remove the old one without too much trouble and even if the paint peels or comes off I'm planning to have that bathroom painted anyway.

I'll let you know how that all turns out.

OH...and another thing that I am finding out way more than I ever wanted to know about are kitchen sinks. But I'll cover that one another day...for now I'm off to continue the hunt for the perfect recessed medicine cabinet that will fit my budget.

If any of you have any hints or ideas on replacing that ugly medicine cabinet feel free to let me know.

CEO Chorizo

It's been a while since I did a post about my little grand-puppy Chorizo. My daughter sent me the most adorable picture of her so I thought I would share. Here Chorizo is at her new job, sitting in her desk chair hard at work being super adorable! CEO Chorizo!!

Happy Easter to everyone!

Puppy Rescue in Bakersfield

It seems that things that happen in Bakersfield never make national news! But I really thought that this story should have. I wish I could have found the original video showing the firefighters pictures while they cut through the pipe to rescue this puppy, but I could only find this follow-up.

In the original video they mention how difficult it was to protect the puppy while they cut the pipe to rescue him/her. They worried that the pipe might get too hot so another firefighter put his hands through the back side wrapping the puppy in a towel to protect it.

The gentleman who found the trapped puppy said that his wife saw the momma dog with a bunch of puppies in the area and she looked hungry so she told her husband they should take the momma dog some food. Good thing they did as that's how they found the trapped puppy!



A happy ending. Hopefully someone wonderful will adopt the rescued puppy and his brothers and sisters and especially the poor momma dog!

Bacon Don't BBQ

Remember last month on March 8th when I mentioned what a terrific adequate BBQ,er I am becoming? Remember my BBQ'd corn? Remember my telling you how I come from a long line of BBQ,ers  extraordinaire? Well since I've BBQ'd once and it turned out perfect ok...I thought I'd BBQ again yesterday. I again made burgers and hot dogs and they came out much better than last time. So feeling cocky and confident, I decided that I would BBQ strips of bacon, just like my dad and my brother Fred do perfectly all the time.

Here you see The Men in my Life. My brother Fred in the white t-shirt with the tongs...he's the King of BBQ Chicken; my brother Jaime in the red shirt with his hand in his pocket...he's the King of Assisting as he's usually the one helping Fred and while I understand from his daughter Clarissa that he's a great BBQ'er, I've never eaten anything he's BBQ'd. And of course the King of BBQ plain and simple, my dad Federico standing in the back there with his hand on the BBQ grill which was custom made for him by his brother Manuel. Dad has taught these two boys all he knows about BBQ'ing and a little, tiny bit of what he taught them kinda/sorta rubbed off on me.

So I figured with all those BBQ genes roaming around inside of me I can probably BBQ Bacon just like they do. WRONG!!! Wrong, wrong, wrong! This is what the stuff oozing out of the bottom of my little BBQ grill looked like. I kid you not! All that bacon grease caught on fire and was just oozing out looking like molten lava! It just dripped out all over the concrete slab underneath and continued to burn!

Now see...I don't have a fancy custom made BBQ grill like my dad has. One that you can lower and raise the grill if the heat gets too hot or too cold. Nope, I just have your standard Weber BBQ Grill with the grill just sitting on the coals. I tried putting the smoker lid on it but that damn Bacon wouldn't quit burning. And the smoke!!! Geesh, the smoke! It was crazy. You would have thought I was burning a forest in my backyard! And I do believe yesterday was a "no burn" day in Kern County! I'm lucky the fire department didn't respond and fine me!

I removed the few strips that didn't totally disintegrate into the river of molten lava and finished them off in the microwave, but I'm pretty sure I will never try to BBQ bacon ever again!