Life in a Nutshell

So, I've Made Some New Friends

2011-05-30T18:28:00.000-04:00

Ever had people say to you "You should go out more. Meet new people." Although I've never actually had anyone say this to me, I'm pleased to say that I don't need this advice because I've managed to get some new friends without ever leaving the comfort of my home.

My new friends are so great I wanted you to meet them too.

I call this one Holy Shit. Actually, I don't know what his name is, that's just what I said when we were introduced. He lives in my shed and enjoys long walks and eating unsuspecting insects. As a reference point, that round-ish spot where he's got his right hind (?) leg is about the size of a quarter. He's a big boy indeed. Probably a real winner with the ladies.

Then today, I met another new friend.

This one is Damn, There's Another One. He lives in the wood pile behind the shed. To be fair, I'm not sure that this isn't Holy Shit because, to tell you the truth, they all look the same to me. To get this all sorted out, I'm thinking of having a cook-out next week and introducing them to each other.

Emails Your Father Should Not Send You

2011-02-12T22:45:00.000-05:00

It is well documented that my father sends me (and everyone else he knows) the most ridiculous emails. Most of them I don't open because I'm very, very afraid. His computer always seems to be infected with one virus or another and I'm sure a lot of it has to do with him indiscriminately clicking links in emails that HE gets.

The other day I got one from him that the subject line alone had me terrified. This is not something a father should be sending his daughter.

The subject was "woodies."

That's just wrong.

Good News: The Nigerian Scam/Canadian Lottery People Have Got Jobs Now

2010-11-20T23:06:00.001-05:00

If you are like 99% of the online community you will, at one time or another, have got a poorly worded email from somebody half a world away from where you live telling you that you can easily make a cool $50 million just by following some simple directions as explained in the email in the same poorly worded fashion. I don't get a ton of these, but when I do I always feel compelled to hit the reply button and respond in some snarky way. For some reason I never hear from these people again.

About a week ago, I got a new clock. The directions included with the clock were clearly written by the same people responsible for these emails. For your enjoyment, I have include those directions, verbatim, here:

1. How to Using?
1. Turn off two accessory first. (For the uninitiated, this means unscrew the clock from the cardboard box the clock came in)
2. Take the clock out.
3. Turn the setting knob on the movement to set the clock to the correct time.
4. Put 1*1.5V AA in. Then the clock will be working normally.
5. Remove the battery before storing the clock.
6. Worn out batteries can damage your clock. Replace batteries worn or damaged batteries.

2. How to Hanging?
1. Hang the clock by using toggle bolt or strong nail planted in a firm, solid wall. You can see the hole on the back of the clock.
2. Find a truly vertical position for the clock on your wall. (As opposed to hanging it on the horizontal wall above your bed, for instance. On second thought, this might be a good idea. No more turning your head in the morning to look at the alarm clock when it goes off to see what time it is).

3. How to Cleaning?
1. Carefully wipe the unit with a soft, damp, cloth please. Be very cautious near the motor and heating elements. (Heating element? It's a clock. Why is it heating up?)
2. Do not immerse in water.
3. Never use gasoline, benzene, or thinner. This will damage the surface of the clock. (Damn. I ALWAYS use gasoline and benzene for my everyday household cleaning chores).
4. After cleaning, be sure to completely dry the unit with a cloth or towel.

I haven't hung the clock on a truly vertical surface yet. But I plan to. Very soon.

The Worst Customer Service Help Desk...

2010-11-04T21:06:00.001-04:00

…is staffed by me. I don’t want to be unhelpful, but sometimes I can’t help myself.

Some years ago, I was voted to be the computer support provider for my father. I was not in the room when the vote was taken, so I had no say. He has a computer at home that he primarily uses to do the bookkeeping for his local VFW. But he also uses it for personal reasons like sending me and anyone else he can think of ridiculous emails and looking up crap on the Internet.

I am not an IT expert by any means, but I know more than I should. At least, I know more than most people. I work in a small office that has no IT department and I happen to work for a guy that I can only describe as a “gadget guy.” His gadgets of choice extend to everything from home electronics, recording studios, model trains to, of course, computers. By necessity we’ve had to solve a lot of our own computer issues over the years and I’ve learned a lot from him, so this is why I was the likely candidate to provide the same services to my father.

My father’s knowledge of how to operate his computer is basically, how to turn it on. He knows how to read his email and he knows how to hit the forward button on same. (One time he accidentally forwarded my sister and me an email joke that contained a picture of a naked woman. When I got it, I immediately called my sister to see if she got it too. As we are laughing hysterically because we figure he has no idea how to selectively forward an email to people in his address book, my other phone is ringing and it’s him. As you can imagine he’s mortified that we got it, since he only meant to send it along to his cronies. The best part was that he sent it to EVERYONE in his address book)! He also knows how to check things out on the Internet. I’m not sure what he’s checking out, but I’m fairly certain that I don’t want to know.

Occasionally I will get a support call regarding things like the mysteriously disappearing toolbar, the attachment that won’t open, or my personal favorite: why won’t this document print? I got that call one Sunday afternoon.

Dad: Hey, I’m trying to print something and it won’t print.
Me: Did you accidentally delete the printer again?
Dad: I don’t think so.
Me: What happens when you try to print? Do you get an error message or something?
Dad: No. Nothing happens.
Me: Is the printer on?
Dad: Yes.
Me: Could the ink cartridge be empty?
Dad: No, I just put a new one in.
Me: {Thinking “ahah.”} Did you forget to take the tape off the copper part on the cartridge?
Dad: No. I printed something this morning and it worked ok.

I had him check a couple more things, ran out of ideas and told him that I would drive over and take a look. He lives about 20 minutes or so from me. By the time I got there he had left to go to a meeting so I had the place to myself. Good thing too. I took one look at the printer and wanted to pull my hair out or at least run around the house screaming in frustration at whoever was home. The printer was out of paper.

From this moment on, I knew I was in trouble. My patience was at an all time low and this was becoming readily apparent to me every time I was called upon to provide support. The latest call came a couple of weeks ago while I was at work.

He got a letter that the tax-exempt status for some group he belongs to was expiring soon and that he should visit www.irs.gov and then click the Charities & Non-Profits tab. He was having trouble finding this. So I immediately go to the website and have no trouble spotting the tab in question.

Me: Don’t you see the tab just under the big blue block at the top of the webpage?
Dad: What? No, I don’t see that.
Me: It’s just next to the picture of the happy people. Do you see that?
Dad: No. It says Bing… {the rest is lost as I try to speak over him}
Me: Don’t do a Bing search for irs.gov, just type that into the top of the page where you normally type in website addresses.
Dad: What? Where?
Me: Just click in the box at the top of the page and type in www.irs.gov. Then hit enter.
Dad: There’s already something there.
Me: I know, but if you click in the box it will turn blue and you can delete what’s there. Just do it.
Dad: Ok. {I hear typing.} It says Bing….
Me: {Starting to get frustrated} DON’T TYPE IN THE BING SEARCH BOX. GO TO THE TOP OF THE SCREEN AND TYPE IT THERE.

I’m pretty sure at this point I started thumping my desk in frustration with my fist and outside my office people were starting to congregate as they listened to the drama unfold. It took several more tries before I managed to direct his cursor to the address bar and got him to the stupid IRS website. By then, I was nearly shouting at him. He didn’t seem to mind which I don’t understand at all. I think he derives great amusement in these phone calls. Some sort of father/daughter bonding or something.

So, hats off to anyone who is in the business of providing any form of computer support. It can’t be even remotely easy. You must have infinite stores of patience (which I apparently don’t have). I fully comprehend that I stink at it. I wish I could be like you, but I don't think I've got it in me.

The Day I Let My Hair Down

2010-10-31T11:01:00.000-04:00

My sister and I were having a conversation the other day about Dippity Do. I’m not sure how we got started on the subject, but I’m sure we must have spotted someone with a gravity-defying hair do and that probably led to speculation about how to achieve the same look ourselves, which in turn led to us wondering if Dippity Do still existed. Well, my friends, it does.

When I was a kid Dippity Do was something that I’m fairly certain everyone had in their house. I remember having the green version, but apparently there was a pink one too. The green was the “extra hold” version which explains why I probably never saw the pink one: my family has very stubborn hair. Just a little dab in your hair, roll your hair around some rollers and presto! Curly, shiny, crusty hair. If you rubbed your crusty curls in your fingers you would eventually break down the Dippity Do-ness and then your hair would just look shiny and greasy. Magic!

Back then, my mother was forever playing beauty salon with my grandmother. This always involved perms, rollers, Dippity-Do, trimming, teasing and, of course, Roux hair tint to give Nana’s hair that soft blue sheen. One day as my mother was distracted fixing Nana’s hair, I picked up the hair razor and began to “comb” my hair with it. In my defense, it rather looks like a comb and the blade is encased inside of it, so to my young eyes I thought it was a cool shiny comb.

Luckily these things don’t take off a lot of hair. I’m sure I expected to smooth my shiny locks into some semblance of order and when that didn’t happen I stopped. I’m not sure how much hair I cut, but I don’t recall my mother noticing anything unusual about my new hair do. That is until we decided to go to the lunch counter at Fernandes. It must have been cold out because I wore a hat, and when we got to the counter my mother took my hat off and a large quantity of my hair came with it and spilled all over the floor. I’m sure she was horrified on many levels not least of which was why was my hair falling out? I don’t recall if I fessed up or if she found the evidence in the razor at home. In any event, I don’t know what happened to all my hair that wound up on the floor at Fernandes either. I doubt we took it with us. I wonder what the guy who swept the floor was thinking?

And the drummer was nearly naked

2010-10-23T14:07:00.001-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I went down to Quogue NY because the restaurant my niece works at was closing for the season and they were having a bash called Drink Dockers Dry. At least I think that’s what it was called. It was what I called it anyway.

My partner in crime for this little jaunt was my sister, The Interrogator. We caught a 9 o’clock ferry from New London and got to Quogue at about 12:30. We had some time to kill before the party so we went to the Canal Café and had their killer lobster roll. We had manicures then checked into our hotel. We got to Dockers around 6 o’clock.

There was tons of food, plenty of people and a band. The Interrogator and I sat at the bar because it’s usually way more fun. And as a bonus, you can make friends with your bar-mates. This crazy woman was sitting next to my sister for half the night. She was dressed in ratty sweat pants and kept her cell phone in her bra. I think it was on vibrate, because she kept taking it out every so often to send text messages. Maybe she was sending them to herself. She seemed to be having a good time anyway because she was doing the shake, rattle and roll to the 70s music.

Also present was the Tomboy. She was a teeny-weeny woman who loved to dance. I couldn’t stop staring at her because she appeared to be in her 50s but had the body of a 10 year old. She had perfected the chicken-head-bob dance and spent much of the night on the dance floor in a crouch position with her arms flailing around. The Interrogator thought her dance was similar to Elaine’s on Seinfeld.

The band was pretty good. They played a lot of 70s and 80s music, which was fun. I was sitting only a couple of feet from them and at one point tried taking a movie with my point-and-shoot camera. They were playing Play That Funky Music and I thought my other sister (who was supposed to come with us) would like to see what she was missing. Unfortunately, point-and-shoot cameras apparently don’t take the best videos because it came out kind of stinky. Lots of background noise. The lead singer, who introduced himself to me as Bobby, wanted me to email it to him but the file is too big. Not to mention that I’m not sure I want Bobby to have my email address.

The Interrogator managed to get the lowdown on the band and everyone sitting within a 10 foot radius of us. She spent a lot of time gushing to the band about how fabulous they were. I think she was laying it on a bit thick, because they weren’t THAT good. She found out that ratty-sweat pant lady was actually a very successful real estate broker, despite the fact that she wears ratty clothes and apparently doesn’t place personal hygiene high on her list of priorities. And she’s pretty sure she scared away a couple of young men who were friends of one of the bartenders because she was asking them too many questions.

Despite the fact that it was a cool October night, and the restaurant is open to the outside, it was plenty hot in there. By 11:00 or so I noticed that the drummer was a little hot.

I don’t know much about being a drummer, but apparently you can work up quite a sweat. And I think he wanted his pants off too. After the band played their last song, he gets up and proceeds to button and zip his pants up.

And one final note. What’s up with New York drivers? Everyone says that Boston drivers are one of the worst, but I would say that in Boston we drive with purpose. We know where we want to go and everyone else is just in our way. I can’t tell you how many times I was behind someone in New York that drove as if they had no idea what they were doing or how they came to be the master of 3,000 lbs of metal on wheels. Stopping in the middle of the road was a fairly common thing. Good thing I had decent brakes.

The Amazing Trailer Transformation Part V

2010-10-12T23:16:00.000-04:00

Well folks, it's been a while since I reported on the construction project going on next door. The construction people seem very diligent about showing up for work at 7:00 am sharp and I could see some progress over there. Finally on Monday I got around to taking a few photos.

This is the side of the house that faces mine. So when I look out my kitchen window this is what I'll see.

This is the front of the house facing the street. I've just realized looking at this photo that although this house looks like a cape, it might be a colonial where the first floor is actually below grade. All I know for sure is that there are two floors below the one you see here and the bottom one looks like a typical cellar.

This is a shot of the first floor that is below grade. I was mystified by that hole in the floor in the middle/right of the picture. When I reached the back of the house it became obvious what it was.

It was the stairway to the cellar. Duh!

This is the photo of the back of the house. I think this fairly represents the slope from the street to the back of the house. All I can think of when I walk around this property is "thank God I don't have to push a mower HERE!" It is quite steep up that incline to the street level.

I hope my new neighbors (whoever they are) will appreciate this journey on the construction of their new home!

Old MacDonald's Got Nothin' On Me

2010-09-26T17:51:00.001-04:00

I decided to grow potatoes in the garden this year. I found this helpful thing at Gardner's Supply called a potato grow bag. Apparently growing potatoes in the actual ground is quite a lot of work, involving hills and lots of dirt and god knows what else. I prefer to plant things in my garden that I can forget about aside from the occasional watering and fertilizing.

This potato grow bag seemed right up my alley. Put in some dirt, put in the "eyes" (that's old potatoes with shoots growing out of them for the non-initiated) and pile some more dirt on top. Then wait for them to grow a bit. Throw more dirt on top then wait for them to grow a bit. Then throw more dirt on top and wait for them to, well, grow. The catalog said I could get up to 13 lbs. of potatoes!

I was not nearly so optimistic, but I decided to give it a go. I chose to grow red potatoes. I would like to point out that the picture in the catalog of the nice full, healthy-looking green leaves above the grow bag does not in any way represent what my green leaves looked like. Mine were taller, scragglier, and ugglier. But nevertheless, I had a successful harvest.

That's right. Here is my harvest fresh out of the garden. I washed most of the dirt off and as you can see most are a pretty decent size. One or two cute ones are about the size of a marble, but for the most part I would be proud to find these in the produce section at the grocery store. The final take? A whopping 3 lbs. 12 oz.

Not too shabby, I say to myself.

The Amazing Trailer Transformation Part IV

2010-09-24T11:01:00.000-04:00

Finally someone has shown up at the trailer lot. It was the big digger operator and his job appears to be to backfill around the foundation.

Despite the astronomical amount of dirt that has been spread here, there is still a pretty good slope from the street to the foundation. I'm going to assume that more dirt will be added, otherwise the rain is going to run directly from the street in to this cellar.

I wonder if all that plastic crap is buried under there...

The digger operator has been back every day this week doing his back-filling thing. Unfortunately, I haven't made it home in time to take pictures of his progress, but I plan to as soon as I can.

The Amazing Trailer Transformation Part III

2010-09-22T23:00:00.000-04:00

There's been no action over at the trailer lot for quite some time. I'm not sure if the concrete foundation had to cure or what, but every day I anxiously awaited something to happen and was disappointed. But I needed to get over there to take pictures before something did happen and I figured my time was running out.

I don't think it's going to be a terribly large house and the slope of the lot accounts for the odd shape of the foundation here.

One good thing about living on a slope is the liklihood of a walk out cellar. To the right of the plank on the right side of the photo is where the door to the cellar will probably be.

Here we have some trash in the ditch around the foundation. I expect that in a few hundred years when some students from Bridgewater State University begin an archaeological dig of this site, they will find the plastic bottles and plastic wrapping and speculate and theorize about how we used them.

The Amazing Trailer Transformation Part II

2010-09-10T22:35:00.000-04:00

The lot was cleared without much fanfare. I wish I was there to see it. But the other day, when I was mowing the lawn I heard someone calling a greeting. Turns out it was Joe from Heritage Homes Real Estate, the godsend behind the amazing trailer transformation. He wanted to introduce himself to the neighbors. I assured him that I was over the moon about everything he was doing. He told me the foundation would be poured soon.

Luckily I made it home from work early enough to take some pictures.

This is what I found just a day or so before the foundation went in. I'm not sure what its purpose is. It was definitely poured concrete, but also definitely not the foundation. I had to wait to see what would happen next.

This is a view of the forms from my yard looking at what will become the side of the house. The lot slopes quite a bit down from the street (as you can see in the left of the photo), so it will be very interesting to see how this all turns out.

This is a view from the back of the house from what I would guess will be the "walk out" cellar. No need for bulkheads on High Street!

This is a view from the side of my yard diagonally toward the street. The yellow digger at the top of the photo is basically at street level. It's almost like the foundation is buried in the bowels of the earth, but it's really not. I've got some pics to post of the foundation once it was completely poured, so I'll post them sometime soon.

The Amazing Trailer Transformation

2010-08-29T20:18:00.001-04:00

I have lived in my house for nearly 18 years. It's a fairly old house, a colonial revival of the sort that was popular in the early 20th century. I have neighbors on one side that live in another old house, but more of an arts and crafts shingle style house. On the other side was the TRAILER. I have no idea how it got there, as this style of home is not usually allowed where I live. But be that as it may, it was there. An older couple lived there and aside from the fact that they didn't really do anything to pretty the place or the yard up, I didn't take much notice of their property.

Then one Sunday morning in 1993 (I think that was the year), the trailer caught fire. The neighbors were inside. After an amazing and daring rescue by this guy, they both made it out alive. The older woman never quite recovered and went on to a nursing home, the older man continued to live there (in a replacement trailer) for many years. We referred to him forever-more as Burned Out Bernie.

Eventually Burned Out Bernie passed away and he left the property to a friend of his, who didn't want it. He sold it to a woman from Maine who attempted to live there with her very odd son. They only lasted a couple of years before the call of Maine proved to great to overcome and she left. Soon the property became overgrown (mostly from thistle plants that the birds kindly planted thanks to an abundance of thistle seed from my feeders!). I despaired at what was to become of this unsightly situation.

Then one day last week as I was getting ready for work I heard a commotion in the street. A giant backhoe had arrived and seemed to be positioning itself near the trailer. Could my prayers really be answered? In fact, YES! Before I left for work that day, the backhoe was happily demolishing the trailer! I could only hope that a house was on it's way!

Here's what I found when I got home from work.

Trailer gone! Although satellite tv dish oddly remains. Just below this sloping pile of dirt and sand used to be a retaining wall. It too is gone.

This is a big pile of dirt at the back of the property. I can't wait to see what happens with that. I've never been this close to a construction project that I can monitor its progress on a daily basis. So far, the light has been good when I get home from work so I can take some decent pictures. I'm anxious to follow the progress.

As If the Guy Doesn't Have Enough to Worry About

2010-01-03T18:24:00.003-05:00

This past August, we went down the cape camping. It happened to be the same weekend as a big hurricane was passing offshore. We managed to survive at the campsite without getting soaked or blown away and we decided the next day to go exploring at the beach and see what kind of damage had been done.

First we went to Coast Guard beach, but couldn't get close enough so we went to Nauset beach instead. When we first got there they weren't letting anyone down on the beach, but eventually we were determined to be trustworthy enough to stay out of the water and we got an up close look at the waves. There were some idiots trying to surf, but the undertow was so bad, they couldn't make it past the first 20 or 30 feet into the water. I did get some good pics though.

On second look, I took pictures of these surfers on the NEXT day. They're still pretty good considering the storm has passed by two days prior. There were a LOT of surfers. I had no idea there were so many in Massachusetts. I never would have figured that we had prime surfing areas here.

Back to my original story. The day after the storm started out pretty gloomy, but by noon time the sun was out and it was hot. We decided to go to the Wildlife Refuge at Monomoy and take a walk along the beach. The weather was glorious and there were quite a few people out walking. Now, if you have ever spent time at the beach down the cape, you know there is no escaping the greenheads. They are flies that are all over the place and their main goal is to land on you and bite. Hard. There are boxes all over the place in saltmarshes that are designed to capture these little bastards, but alas on this day, we were being swarmed. It makes an enjoyable walk almost unbearable.

On the beach I found this cool weather-beaten tree that kids had obviously decorated with ornaments. It was kind of sweet. (Click on the picture to see it bigger).

They were all hand-made and had cute sayings like "Summer 2009 with Grandma," or "Happy Birthday Daddy Nelson 2009." There was no way to tell who made it. I think it probably started out as one or two ornaments then people just started adding to it. I spent some time looking at and reading a bunch of them. Then I found one at the back that needed a closer inspection.

Oh, if only after dealing with bailouts, health care reform, Afghanistan, Iraq and all the other things the president has to worry about he could actually make the flies go away.

I Need to Get Out More

2010-01-03T17:44:00.002-05:00

So, John found this link to a site where you can map all the states in the country you've visited. He's only got about five more to go. Sadly I've not been around as much.

http://bighugelabs.com/map.php

Pretty cool. You can check it out here.

I Think I Need a Nap

2009-12-25T22:56:00.003-05:00

I've been meaning to post this picture for a while. A few weeks ago, I stopped by the workshop to get my first look at the assembled bed. It was staggering to see it. I'm not sure I can describe what it was like to see the bed all together for the first time. I've seen the individual parts, run my hands countless times over the smooth surface, but nothing quite prepared me to see the whole thing.

John went to Wilmot's last week to see about matching the stain color to the other furniture in the bedroom. I've mentioned Wilmot's in Middleboro before, but they are so awesome they deserve another shout-out. They not only tried about eight different stain mixtures, they tried them all on conditioned wood vs. non-conditioned wood, shellac vs. no-shellac. They even called Zinsser about how to treat the shellac so that a spray on finish will stick to it. Seriously, if you need to buy paint, stain, wallpaper, or flooring and you live in southeastern Massachusetts, you will do well to rememer Wilmot's on Everett Street in Middleboro. They are awesome!

I'm extremely nervous about the finishing portion of this project because we basically only get one shot to get it right. I'm sure we'll be fine, and pretty soon I'll get to take that nap in my spankin' new, fabulous bed!

Good night everyone!

I'm Plastered

2009-10-26T21:01:00.005-04:00

These photos are a week late. The plasterer was here over a week ago hanging blueboard and doing the skimcoat. These are some in-between photos (in between the hanging and the plastering). Paint is next. Good thing I've been on vacation.

The closet. Unbelievably, this closet is the same size as it was before the renovation. For some reason, this big space existed behind the teeny-tiny door that was here before. Now, it's going to get all tricked out with fancy hanging devices and big amoir-style doors.

The SMOOTH ceiling. I wish someone could explain to me why people choose those bumpy, impossible to paint ceilings that seem to be in all the new houses now. In my opinion, there is no substitute for a smooth-as-a-baby's-bum ceiling.

Slow and steady wins the race. I hope I finish by Thanksgiving, because I need my dining room back. I got quite a bit accomplished while I've been on vacation these last two weeks, but I'm back to work tomorrow, so I expect that the rate of my accomplishments will slow dramatically. I'll do what I can.

Ready for Plaster

2009-10-14T16:04:00.003-04:00

And we have lift off. The new windows are in, the room has been insulated and we are anxiously awaiting the plasterer. By this time next week, hopefully the room will be painted and will start to feel like a regular room again. I went to Wilmott's yesterday and bought the paint (when did paint get so expensive, by the way) and the fabric for the valances has been ordered. Good thing I'm on vacation or this would never get done.

I Have a Lot of Plaster Dust in My Nose

2009-09-26T20:21:00.008-04:00

I think I have officially gone off the deep end. The last time we did a "project" I silently vowed that it would be my last. All I wanted was to get some new living room furniture and to paint the living room a color that didn't look like last week's moldy supper that I forgot to throw away. Simple right? Not if you live in my house. John took this as an opportunity to remove the wall between the dining room and the living room because it wasn't done "right." Turns out he was correct, but it turned a relatively simple project into a not-so-simple one that took several weeks to finish.

But I digress. Anyone who knows me knows that my dining room has been reluctantly transformed into my "craft room." If it wasn't supposed to be a dining room, this would not be a problem. I am into paper-crafting and I have a lot of supplies. Turns out, the dining room is big enough to hold all my supplies and it is conveniently situated next to the kitchen which has a tv so that I can watch it while I Create, and has ample counter space to spread my supplies on.

However, as I mentioned, this is actually a dining room. It's not supposed to hold crafting supplies. It's supposed to be used for dining. I caught a break last year from temporarily cleaning it out for thanksgiving because my mother decided to host that instead of me, but this year I feared the worst. Where the heck was I going to put all that stuff so that people would have a place to eat on thanksgiving? The answer: the spare bedroom.

This is one view of the room before its amazing transformation into my new, cool stamping studio. Why is there a big whole in the plaster, you may be thinking? This particular bedroom has walls that are in very poor condition. (I found this out the last time I painted it. Yes, that was me that decided on the bizarre random stripe, and no, I don't know what I was thinking). So I decided that it was time to rip out those old, crappy plaster walls and re-do them with nice, new plaster walls. And while I was at it, I thought it would be nice to replace the old, crappy windows with new, fancy, energy efficient ones. Sounds like a good idea, right?

Construction, or should I say destruction, began this morning. It will not end soon. I live in an old house which means lots of lathes (as you can see in the pic) and lots of horse-hair plaster (hence the plaster dust in my nose). Unfortunately, we only have one level B suit and I didn't get to wear it. I mostly stayed out of here while the destruction was going on, but I did enter on occasion to bundle up and bring out all those lathes. What I was doing in the meantime was stripping the paint off of the trim: windows, doors, baseboards. Yahoo.

I know it will eventually be done, but man, I gotta tell you hauling all that ridiculously heavy plaster debris downstairs and out to the bagster is hard work. One thing that I realized is that I'm not "young" anymore and doing all this hard labor is way harder now than it was ten years ago. My back is killing me and I'm tired of trying to get all that plaster dust out of my nose.

By the way, several years ago we hired a local company to blow insulation into the outside walls because we knew there was nothing there and it would help somewhat with the obscenely high heating bills we were paying. Although I can honestly say we did see some benefit from it, as you can see from this picture, trying to blow insulation into an old house is a crap-shoot. This is blown fiberglass insulation, which is not supposed to settle as much as the blown newspaper type of insulation, but settle it has. Something to think about.

The Mysterious Rash

2009-09-12T00:47:00.003-04:00

Let me first begin by saying that I am not a marketing expert in any sense of the word. I am, however, a consumer and like most consumers (and most people, really) I know what I like and what I don’t like. I was searching on eBay recently for anklets and happened on a listing where the thumbnail was intriguing enough that I clicked on it to get a better look.

I really wish I hadn’t. I think feet and ankles are not the most attractive feature on anyone, but this is just wrong. If I made jewelry for a living, I would pick someone with really nice ankles to model my creations. Not someone who is covered in bruises and who has recently gotten over a mysterious rash. I’m just saying.

Nate's Birthday

2009-09-11T23:22:00.003-04:00

The birthday boy. Some of those boxes are way too big.

Ah. So that's what was in the BIG box.

Born On Dates

2009-09-11T23:11:00.002-04:00

The experiment: Can John really tell the difference between new and old beer? He claims that he will not drink beer that has a "born on date" more than two months ago on account of it tasting foul. (This is Bud Light we're talking about). So Scott challenged him to a blind taste test. The beer on the right was born within the last two months, the beer on the left is from earlier this year (I can't remember the exact date, but it was way more than two months ago).

Here, he's drinking the newer beer.

This is the "old" beer. He thought Scott was playing a trick on him and that both beers were from the same bottle. However, in an uncanny ability to sniff out the newer beer, he did claim that one tasted really good.

The conclusion? Who knows. He still won't drink a beer more than two months old.

Batman's New Nemesis

2009-08-28T16:38:00.003-04:00

The Fiddler

He may be small, he may be ugly but he's got that really cool rockem sockem claw. After surviving fallout from a nuclear chemical spill, the Fiddler found that his left arm was imbued with super-crab strength. No longer was he the funny looking crab always poking around in the dirt at low tide. Now he was a dangerous force to be reckoned with. After learning that Batman enjoyed the occasional crab leg with a crisp Chardonnay, the Fiddler was determined to rid the world of the crazy-crab-eating-crime-figher. Don't be fooled by those beady little eyes flopping around on the front of his head. He keeps a very close eye on Batman's goings on. He'll be ready to strike.

Bed Knobs. No Broomsticks.

2009-08-15T20:42:00.005-04:00

We are so close I can almost FEEL the sweet dreams. These are the bed posts that will go at the top of the bed with the headboard. Everything is sanded except for the ball at the top and the square part where the side rails come into the posts.

Today we fit the bottom rail to the posts so that that the hole for the really long screw could be drilled.

This is a shot of the other post.

Detail of the post. In person this thing is so smooth. Smooth as a baby's bum.

It is officially together. Although I was outside watering and fertilizing the flowers while the real hard work was completed, I believe that it was not as hard as some had feared. We've been looking for brass bed post covers. My department. Easy stuff compared to the actual woodworking.

Entomologist Wanted

2009-08-08T10:32:00.003-04:00

Finally, a picture of the rare and mysterious bug that lives in my cellar. I have lived in my house for almost 18 years and have co-existed with this dude and his ancestors for the entire time. They mostly keep to the cellar, but occasionally I will find one upstairs. I think they prefer moisture because usually when I see them upstairs they are stuck in the sink. Once I found one in the washing machine (ugh!). As you can see they have lots of long legs, and I can assure you that these little bastards can motor. This one has a body about an inch, maybe an inch and a quarter long, but I have seen them bigger. I have never been able to figure out what it is (it's not in my bug book), so I have to hope that some bug expert (perhaps looking for a job) googles just the right combination of words to bring him/her to my blog and can tell me what the heck this is.

Saturday in Quogue

2009-08-06T22:47:00.000-04:00

Lisa and Jack

Sunset in Quogue.

Jack at the canal.

Summer Lovin'

2009-08-06T22:34:00.004-04:00

What a great picture.

Hi Wees. From Poop.

Ga and Auntie Neck.

This boat didn't make it through the first time. The junk at the top of the boat made it too tall to fit under the bridge. We thought they gave up because they turned around. But about 15 minutes later they came back with all that junk dismantled and sailed on through.

One of the many "cigarette" boats we saw. I think they must be the Harley's of the boat world because they sound exactly the same. They are quite loud. We saw several with some scantily clad ladies lounging on the back deck behind the driver there (I think I must mean the "captain" not the "driver."). I have no idea how they managed to stay on the boat if the captain punched it. I believe these boats are known for speed, and if the captain suddenly takes off, those girls are going to go flying back into the drink.

More Long (With a Hard "G") Island Pictures

2009-08-06T22:15:00.006-04:00

Although Scott forgot his dental floss, Steph was more than happy to pick out the food particles from between his teeth. Maybe she should consider dental hygienist as a career. There's probably no shortage of crap between people's teeth in that field.

It was a beautiful day at the canal. This is a great picture of Lisa and Jack.

The gang's almost all here. I have no idea why we didn't ask someone else to take this picture so that Lisa could be in it too.

Jack wore his Red Sox shirt on purpose to piss off the resident Yankee fans.

Auntie Neck, Wees, and Ga.

This picture makes Steph look so much like Rebecca. Or is it the other way around? By the way, how do you like the beach cover-up? It belongs to me, but someone started rumaging around in my beach bag (where this was) and decided it was much cuter than the one she was wearing. (As in the one with the hole in it). I haven't seen this since.

How cute!

Weekend at Bernie's...No That's Not Right

2009-08-06T22:06:00.003-04:00

We stopped for lunch on Saturday at a place on a canal with a lock. It was pretty interesting to watch the boats queue up to get in the lock to pass through. This is one of the more modest boats we saw.

I like to call this house "the guggenheim." I'm not much for modern-style archictecure, but I can recognize a beautiful home when I see one. In a similar vein to my previous post, this also is NOT where Steph lives.

And Finally, Sunset in Quogue

2009-08-02T22:21:00.002-04:00

It's All in the Family

2009-08-02T22:16:00.002-04:00

Auntie Neck and Ga. What a beautiful evening. I could do this every weekend.

The Intrepid Crew

2009-08-02T22:14:00.002-04:00

Boat ride somewhere in Quogue. From left to right we've got Spencer, Lisa, Scott and John. That smudge on the lens is VERY irritating.

Weekend In Quogue

2009-08-02T22:11:00.002-04:00

Ok. The picture is crooked, but you get the idea. We spent the weekend visiting my niece in Quogue NY. This is where she lives. Ha Ha.

Buffet and Biden

2009-06-26T11:03:00.004-04:00

Last night I went to the Jimmy Buffet concert at Great Woods in Mansfield. It was my first Buffet concert and it was pretty good. We had really good seats in the first section (thanks to our good friends Dan and Nancy Webber) but I found myself watching the jumbotron quite a bit. I had never really seen Jimmy Buffet up close and I kept thinking that he reminded me of someone, but I couldn't place who it was. Then finally it hit me: Joe Biden. Now I know they don't look exactly alike, but there's definitely a resemblance. Come to think of it, I've never seen them together, so how do we KNOW they are really two different people?

Living Room Digs

2009-05-02T21:24:00.005-04:00

This is one of the first things John did in walnut. I think that we got the idea from the magazine Early American Life. Although it's hard to see in the picture, this is actually a corner cupboard and it is mounted on a corner of the living room wall.

This is the TV stand (sorry for the flash reflection). The drawers on the bottom are big enough and deep enough to hold our DVDs and CDs. The upper portion of the cabinet is supposed to have doors, but we kind of like it without.

The coffee table. I had seen a similar design at Boston Interiors, but the wood was not right. I decided to design my own and my wonderful husband built it for me out of walnut. You will notice that the second shelf is a slightly different color. That's because the shelves are made of walnut plywood and the drawers and carcass are made of solid walnut. Once we realized that the stain on the plywood was giving different results than the solid walnut, we visited our friends at Willmott's in Middleboro who expertly matched the stain. They did a fabulous job and that's why the top shelf matches the door fronts.

Big shout out to everyone at Wilmott's. This is not the first time they have helped us match a stain in the house. We lived in our house for about 15 years before they created a stain that matched the existing woodwork in our house. That sort of thing is priceless.

Kerin Sylvester's Sketch Challenge

2009-03-22T22:19:00.001-04:00

This is my first attempt at using the Parisian
Breeze DSP. I just love it! The colors and the weight of it are fabulous! The inspiration for this card comes from several that I had seen on SCS. I used Kerin Sylvester's sketch challenge for the layout. Find it here. Thanks for looking.

Downstairs Bathroom

2009-02-28T11:50:00.007-05:00

These are some pictures of my bathroom downstairs. I got the mirror on sale from Pottery Barn. The lights were on the clearance rack at Home Depot. They are not the exact color I would like (I prefer an oil rubbed bronze), but they'll do for now. The shadows from the window obscure the true color of the walls.

This picture shows the wall color a little better. It's Ben Moore "Charlotte Slate" and I love the way it turned out.

This view is out the window to the side yard. The valance is just a brown toile that I picked up at the now defunct Fabric Place. The window trim is painted with Ben Moore "Gray Mist." It really goes great with the rest of the colors. They all have a nice tone.

This wall shows the Ben Moore "Bennington Gray" paint. You can just see the corner of the new toilet, Kohler's "Memoirs" which I love.

The Bed Project

2009-02-25T20:54:00.005-05:00

I went to John's woodworking class last week to see him in action at the lathe. He is making these gorgeous posts for our new bed. We've never actually had a bed with a headboard and footboard, so it's rather exciting.

HD is IN the building

2008-12-06T19:15:00.003-05:00

Without further ado, HD has come to live at my house. We have been contemplating HD TVs for about a year now. John built a cabinet to put it in (he's really the BEST husband) and I feverishly made deposits to the Christmas Club to pay for it. All of our efforts have paid off. Of course, the actual purchase of the TV was not without drama. On Black Friday we, not so happily, got up at 5AM. I went to KMart (to secure a Blu-ray player at a really great price), and John went to Circuit City to score the plasma TV we wanted. After waiting in line outside of KMart in the freezing cold for a half-hour I finally got inside to discover they had none of the Blu-rays in stock (why was I not surprised?!?). But I had a backup plan: the Blu-rays were the same price at Sears. By this time I had spoken to John several times and had revised the game-plan as necessary. At 6:15 he was still waiting in line to speak to a salesman as I was driving to Sears. By the time I arrived at Sears and had discovered where the Blu-rays were, he called to say that Circuit City would match the price so all my efforts were for naught!

But the story does not end there. We purchased the TV, the Blu-ray and the new surround sound receiver (which was not in stock and had to be shipped). I left to go to Wal-Mart to buy Iron Man on Blu-ray (which was out of stock!!), and John loaded the TV on the truck to bring it home. When I finally got home, I went out to the truck to check out the TV, and lo and behold - it's the wrong one! We bought a 1080p Panasonic and they gave us the 720p. This is not to be borne! So off John goes back to Circuit City to get the right one.

This, however, is not the end of our woes. The TV sat in the dining room for a week, since Firedog was not coming until the following Saturday to install everything. So on Friday (a week after we bought it) John takes it out of the box. And what does he find IN the box? A plasma TV with cracks ALL OVER IT! Thank goodness he took it out of the box, because the installation people were supposed to be at the house the next day between 9 and 11. This episode is, of course, followed by frantic calls to Circuit City to correct this very distressing situation. So what happens next? They are, of course, completely OUT OF STOCK of the model we bought. But in all fairness to Circuit City, they substituted the next model UP for the one we bought. All is right in the world. Now I'm off to watch Iron Man in hi-def!! Big thanks to Circuit City!!

The Dilbert Widget

2008-04-15T23:37:00.001-04:00

The Living Room is Done!

2008-03-01T08:42:00.000-05:00

The Inception

2007-10-20T15:28:00.000-04:00

My first post. Whatever will I write about?