Thursday, November 20, 2025
Breakfast: plain yogurt with blueberries, toasted coconut, roasted and slivered almonds, mexican vanilla; hot water. Home maintenance all day. Removed the half bath toilet tank lid which had some big chips alongside one edge and replaced it with a new lid which looks and fits perfectly. Applied tile grout and silicone sealant along the primary bathroom countertop edges. Foot care. Cleaned the soles of my heated slippers with Dawn PowerWash. Installed a self-closing door hinge on the half bath door. After we moved in, I had installed a hinge pin door stop on the middle of three door hinges. I removed this door stop and moved it to the lowest hinge. Then I removed the middle hinge. The new hinge didn't fit the cutout exactly; it was off by about 2 millimeters on one side. It didn't make sense why this difference existed, but I could see no way to resolve it except to chisel away 1.75 inch × 2 mm, and I did this on the door rather than the door frame. I chiseled with a tiny flathead screwdriver because I didn't have a chisel. The cuts did the job, but it didn't look very clean, so I used my Dremel-like tool with a circle saw attachment to clean it up. The hinge then fit, and I installed it and adjusted its tension. It works! Last thing to do: The new hinge had corners that were more rounded than the old hinge, so I filled the gaps with white wood putty. It was tricky cleaning after the putty application so that the hinges did not have wood putty on them and without disturbing the putty that was in the correct place. At one point I used a needle to scrape wood putty from a screw hole and from a screw head. The chiseling accidentally removed a tiny part of the door that was exposed and could be seen when standing in the half bath, so wood putty was needed there as well. The new hinge does make a squeak or squeal sound when the door autocloses from 6 inches or less open, but it's not so bad that I need to return it. Listed the old, chipped toilet tank lid for sale online. Lunch: Maruchan instant yakisoba to which I added sliced napa cabbage; water. Later, dinner at home with Patrick: penne with cannellini beans, red onion, and fennel-almond pesto, hot water. Dessert: earlier today Patrick made orange amaretti, which we ate with shots of Bailey's on ice (Patrick) and Kahlua on ice (me). Afterwards we watched Prehistoric Planet s1:e3 on Apple TV+ then 44 minutes of Atsuko Okatsuka: Father on Hulu. Patrick went to bed. I processed dirty dishes and cleaned the kitchen. Late snack: TJ's corn nuts, one dark chocolate toffee chip, salted cashews, water. Later snack: one slice of dried peach, water.