fails on fails

This weekend was full of spectacular fails.

My goals were to complete a few house projects to get it closer to putting on the market, and get this work project wrapped up.

House project #1. Replace the rotted board near the front window. I'm not going to replace every rotted board, but this one is right near the front walk and would definitely be noticed by a potential buyer. Ashley and I went to Home Depot, picked out the wood, got it cut, and nailed it up. Now, we had the paint color matched and I figured if it wasn't perfect it was no big deal, it just had to be close. Well, it was not close. It was very bad. Small fail. So I had to go back and pick out a color sample that was the closest, and it still doesn't match but it's good enough, I think. If it looks really bad the next time I check on it, I'll just plant something to block it. Azaleas are really pretty right now and could definitely deter the eye from the slightly different color window trim, right?

House project #2. Replace the doorknob in the guest room. Succeeded without incident. I replaced every other doorknob in this house so I guess I know what I'm doing.

House project #3. Find a replacement cover for the kitchen light fixture. Simple enough. The old one broke and I've ignored it for several years. Well, we couldn't find the right one at Home Depot. The problem was, there was nothing to identify what kind of light fixture it was. No model number or manufacturer. So I couldn't even search for replacement parts online. I took a closer look at the fixture and saw that it was held onto the ceiling with 4 keyhole slots. I could slide the fixture off, take a look at the other side to see if there was information on it, and then slide it back on.

See, that's where I was wrong. I should have known better. Because what happened was, the fixture was not mounted to the ceiling properly and when I slid it off the screws, the screws fell out or got pushed back up into the ceiling. So I struggled on a stepstool trying to get the darn thing to latch on the one remaining screw so that I could let it go and not have a fire hazard on my hands. After struggling for a while, I finally got it to catch on one screw, and now it's hanging there all wonky. To make matters worse, after all that, there was no product information on the other side. I eventually looked online and found a product that looked identical, and it turns out the manufacturer does not sell replacement covers.

So I had to go back to the store and buy a new damn light fixture. I ended up buying the exact same one (because it's one of the more attractive flush-mount fluorescent light fixtures out there), so I can pay an electrician to replace it. And maybe attach it correctly. ALL of this could have been avoided if the damn manufacturer sold the replacement covers.

House project #4: Caulk and prime a few patches on the ceiling from old water damage and re-paint. Valuable cosmetic fixes. So the caulking and priming went ok, but when I opened my can of flat white paint, it was really thick and more beige than white. I guess I've had it longer than I thought. So I bought another can but haven't painted yet.

House project #5. I started cleaning. A clean house sells for more money and gets more offers than a dirty house. Now, I clean pretty well but I'm not a big fan of dusting or windows or baseboards. I started with the windows and the outside siding, which is in really bad shape. But I brushed the cobwebs off, and everything was so dirty with dirt and mildew and pollen that I actually had to get a bucket with warm soapy water and clean off the grime with a rag. Hard work, but the areas I tackled look SO much better. The windows also let in a lot more light. I didn't finish but I got a good start. Now I hope they don't get dirty again before the house goes on the market.

Then we come to the work project. By far the most frustrating part of the weekend.

I've been busting my ass the last two weeks to stay on this really tight timeline. I put in 60 hours last week and 50 the week before. I even stayed late Friday to finish all of the testing so that I could review all the data this weekend.
All of the data has to be entered into this new software program and we're still working out the bugs but I was making good progress and was about 90% done.

So today I go to finish it up, and my finger slipped and I accidentally deleted everything. EVERYTHING. Now, I've backed up all of my stuff to the master database, so I should be able to recover it, but I tried and it didn't work.
So now I have to figure out if the data can be recovered and if not, I've go to re-do EVERYTHING. Which is like 30 hours worth of work and which will seriously make me cry. I'm really, really hoping that it can be recovered.

If not, I guess I get more practice using this software but really I'll just be pissed off the whole time.