… if i like, wrote things on a regular basis? Things that were not just the progress of the mold growing in my shower (a topic i have considered, so consider yourself lucky) but funny and cute and kid filled and craft filled and funny-amy-thoughts filled?

Yeah, I thought that’d be nice too!

Unfortunately, *I’M* the one running this blog so there’ll be none of that HERE, mister! and missy!

I was looking through the archives and it struck me that hey, I did used to be funny! And even kind of prolific! And you know what else? I took pictures of stuff! And of kids! And then I’d post those pictures here! HULLY GEE! I think that the 2006 Amy was more bloggy* than the 2007 Amy, but we’ll see how the 2008 Amy does.

Let’s see if the 2007 Amy can pull some blogginess out of her ass already even though 2008 Amy is just hovering right over there around the corner waiting to take over.

*bloggy: the turning of something mundane into interesting blog reading.

THE MOLD

HA! You thought you were saved, weren’t you? Yeah, me too, but this is about all I’ve got. HOW in the world does that mold get UNDER the caulk? Around the shower door the caulk isn’t actually white caulk (like it is in the corners) but CLEAR, and so as I’m showering, I can look right through this clear caulk and see this dots of black mold. Black mold is much scarier than just the orange normal shower grout mildew, which you can just scrub right off with James’ and old toothbrush. Black under-the-clear-caulk mold can’t be reached. So how in the world did it get there? But what is even scarier is the WHITE caulk in the corners? It’s turning a kind of dull gray. Which makes me thing that the black mold has infiltrated over there too, and not just in dot-form, but in “LET’S GET IN THERE, MOVE MOVE MOVE!” kind of form. The sad thing is when this house was built and they tell you, “write down all the issues you find and we’ll come fix it after 30 days, I WROTE DOWN MANY ISSUES ABOUT OUR SHOWER. I have this belief that someday, I will be an expert tile-layer, and in my efforts to make that dream a reality, I’ve watched many a tile-laying show in the DIY and HG networks. I examined the grout and saw pin holes. I looked at the wall and thought it looked like it was curving (and if the wallboard that the tile is on is curving, doesn’t this mean that proper cement backerboard wasn’t used? They didn’t just lay tile over drywall, did they? And if so, does that mean one day my shower is going to just fall apart?) I saw globs in the caulk, and I thought the shower leaked out onto the floor a little bit and I WROTE ALL THESE THINGS DOWN.

But they brushed me off. They said, there’s no curve, and they said, pinholes are fine, and they said, your shower isn’t leaking.

So now, 3 years later, the builder long gone (ie: no longer available for me to give lists to and for them to scoff at me and not fix things) there are black spots under my clear caulk and my white caulk is going gray. And the wall still looks all curvey to me. OH, and the leak? The molding just outside the shower in my bathroom has mold growing behind it from the leak.

*sniff*

So now I think, ‘I’m going to have to redo that caulking,’ which I can do (not as well as I do in my dreams, though of course) and have done (ditto) but I have this fear. This fear of stripping away the gray caulk and finding grossness beyond my wildest dreams. Grossness that I fear has crept behind the tiles themselves and that once I strip that caulk away I will then have to hire someone to come in and re-tile my entire shower, and they will shake their heads and state in a southern drawl, “these walls are all curvey, they didn’t use the proper backerboard! sorry miss, we’re in for a bit more than we estimated..” And since I wouldn’t want to pay all that money just to put in the same boring 4″ white tiles that the builder used, I would have to pick beautiful new tiles and do the bath surround as well and of course the floors and then we would simply have to paint as well and the sinks could use updating and suddenly I’d be digging into the home equity loan for a new bathroom and we would still be paying it off three years later when the white caulk in my shower corners would start getting suspiciously gray…

Do you see my dilemma here? Obviously, I need to just leave it alone. If I do recaulk, I’ll be instituting a “dry off the shower with your towel before you exit” rule.

Was that bloggy enough you think? I even have some pictures for tomorrow. Hold your breath.

ps – james has a final today. everyone go wish him luck!