and now i have help! help in the form of a husband who knows his way around power tools. and we've acquired an angle grinder which is a great addition to the stable of tools we're using to remove paint, bondo, and the galvanizing layer.
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and now i have help! help in the form of a husband who knows his way around power tools. and we've acquired an angle grinder which is a great addition to the stable of tools we're using to remove paint, bondo, and the galvanizing layer.
]]>many years ago i happened to catch a few episodes of dr. andrew weil's "six weeks to optimum health" and for one of the weeks a news break was the goal. "if something big happens, you'll hear about it," i remember him saying. i still think it's pretty solid advice.
in other, um, news i've started photographing my outfits after work every day because you know what? mirrors lie! i am kind of horrified, and after today feeling a little demoralized. tomorrow i plan to break out my favorite - and what i think is my best looking - cold weather ensemble. we'll see how it stacks up.
no plans to submit said photos to wardrobe remix at this time. they're pretty much for me and me alone to be horrified by. still fascinated by fashion blogs (or, in the parlance of the community, personal style blogs).
]]>looked at my christmas present, which is now ready. it's beautiful and perfect. it's furniture.
drove out to my company for a special walk - through the woods behind my building, where i discovered recently you can get a pretty good view of the solar farm if you make it up this one really steep hill. it's such a nice place to walk. i really consider the campus to be one of the side benefits of working there.
drove around and looked at some neighborhoods i've recently become intrigued with, and saw some incredible houses.
had sandwiches at parker & otis.
inspired by reading vintage vivant i bid on an inexpensive vintage silk slip on ebay.
cleared a lot of residual clutter that's been hanging out in the bedroom for the last year and moved furniture around to accommodate my birthday present. this feels like a big accomplishment to me after having this stuff sitting there in my way and bugging me for so long.
one category of stuff i had to deal with in the bedroom is costume jewelry from one of my grandmothers. i realized a few things; first, that any clutter tendencies i have, i come by honestly. she had a LOT of jewelry. second, frankly some of it was just crap - broken, earrings without mates, cheap bits of plastic, findings that are showing signs of corrosion.
i found i was able to sort through it fairly dispassionately. i threw away the things that were no longer usable. most of it i will offer to a friend who makes jewelry to see if she can harvest from or remix any of it. anything she doesn't want i'll give to goodwill.
i'm still left with a pretty impressive collection. much of it is clip on or screw on earrings, which i won't wear. i'm hoping to convert some over to pierced earrings and some to brooches.
after getting the bedroom ready for the new furniture we went to WFM for a few things then made dinner.
now i'm super tired. whew.
]]>we've been getting a LOT of all three the last couple of weeks and i HATE it now. this doesn't mean i'm going to go sun myself on the beach, ever, but i'm kinda wishing it would warm up, dry out, and start looking a little greener outside.
WHO have i BECOME???
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this means that everyone's neighborhood is a sheet of ice, but larger roads are varying levels of passable. perhaps not as passable as some may like to think, but passable enough for a lot of businesses to be open.
yesterday it was more crispy snow than clear, so we walked (trudged?) up to Piedmont for breakfast. we had it to ourselves, a rare treat on a sunday morning. i got one of my favorite seats in the house - up in the loft, with a direct view of the kitchen. i watched them take my home fries up from the fryolator, drain them and toss them in a bowl for seasoning.
the dog still needed walking after that, so we went on two trudges yesterday - it's really rather tiring to negotiate snow. i had forgotten.
today my company was open at 11am, but our street was still an ice slick at 10am so i decided not to try it. most of my team worked from home as well. we're fortunate to have that option. i was quite ready to go somewhere without trudging, though, so in the afternoon when things had turned to slush J and i went out for lunch. as expected, it's mainly the smaller roads that are problematic.
during this evening's trudge - which was much less trudge-ey - we encountered some bits of sidewalk that were completely clear. i commented that, as much as we complain about the state of the sidewalks in durham, they are clear of snow most of the time, and after all the trudging one can appreciate even heaved concrete and sidewalks obscured by debris and puddles.
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I loved the little dusting on reese. We were worried about his feet, but he did fine.
for others: i've been pondering whether my mom would enjoy an iPad. right now she uses a windows desktop. she's definitely into communicating online with friends and family so maybe doing that from the screen porch would be more fun than being up in a little room in the house? OTOH, maybe she doesn't want the internet to intrude into the living areas. i can see her feeling that way.
if it were five years ago i'd be trying to think of a way to run a mobile web cam off the thing. but not so much these days.
]]>It's
Frozen
White
Death
From
Above
and it's threatening our town!!
GO NOW AND BUY MILK! BREAD! EGGS!
you must be fully prepared to make french toast if you cannot leave your house!
:|:
okay, more seriously, i am fearing a days-long power outage. we've made our preparations (which did not involve either milk or eggs, but did include a 40 lb bag of salt, which will last us for the rest of our lives, most likely, given the infrequency of ice storms in central NC).
if things go well and we just get a nice snow, i plan to try my hand at waffles made with a yeast batter. how lovely to have several inches of snow, no power outage, and fresh hot waffles!
:|:
and in other, other news, style blogs have become my favorite places on the internet to visit. i even found one that's local; it's fun to guess where all the locations are in their photos.
while i'm tempted to join the style blogging fray, this might be one internet group that i'll just choose to lurk on, mostly. i've joined plenty of online groups in my time going back to the early 90's and i'm not sure i have it in me to join another. plus, posting photos of myself all the time would just feel... vain, i guess.
somewhat related, fluevog has been running a series called "everyday shoes" via twitter and facebook; people who own lots of fluevogs post photos of themselves wearing a different pair every day for a month. these photos don't usually include the wearer's face, so if i had enough fluevogs, i could do that and it would be a fun challenge.
so, i have been asked many times how many fluevogs i have. well, that's a trick question because i own at least one pair that i'll never be able to wear comfortably (they're a size too small, and i keep them on display at all times). there are a few pairs that require the attention of a good cobbler before they'll be wearable again. but assuming i had those pairs repaired... well, i don't quite have a month's worth, although I almost have a non-leap February's worth. I could do it if it were only weekdays, or if I recruited a couple of local pinch-hitters.
]]>The name "effective methods" comes from a conversation we had with Stephanie and Steph while traveling to Roswell one year in which one of us said about J, "his methods are effective." I remember the conversation being funny, but I can't remember any of the context. Anyway, the phrase stuck, and seems appropriate. His methods are effective.
Today's installment is about steak. If you're a vegetarian or squeamish about meat, my suggestion is that you skip this one.
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j's house has sold (yay!) and after the money came through we visited a sprint store so he could look at an HTC Hero, which runs google android and just came out on october 11th.
it was disappointing. i also played with the much-vaunted palm pre, and found it to be disappointing as well. after just a week of using the apple touch i have no desire to put up with a less intuitive more cluttered interface - which both of these devices sport.
J may replace his phone - but i bet he won't get a smartphone. we're back to waiting until mid-2010 to see if verizon - his carrier - gets the iphone. if it does i imagine we'll both get them although verizon doesn't seem to get any better reception at my house than at&t. sprint gets stellar reception which is one reason to stay with them for now, and one reason J was tempted to switch away from verizon.
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