May 26, 2016
PROJECT DARKSTONE: Day 468
I have been remiss on the house updates. One of my readers called me to ask about my kitchen since I haven't posted any pictures recently (I like to keep things really personal, so feel free to call me any time!), so I decided it was finally time. I had to clean my kitchen to take these pictures. I hope you appreciate the effort I go to just to keep you happy. (I didn't sweep the floor though. Your happiness isn't THAT important to me.)
We've got doors, knobs and pulls! There will be some nifty little spice cabinets on either side of the oven there. Install date TBD.
As you see, the microwave is down in the island. The plan was to have it all nicely built in, but we're not sure how to do it. You can buy a trim kit to go with the microwave, to give it that built it look and still have it vent properly, but it costs more than the microwave does. Dumb. I don't really mind it just sitting on the shelf like that, but it kind of slides around a bit. We'll see.
The cabinet you see in the above picture has two drawers inside.
They are too tightly wedged in there to be able to pull out however, so we are waiting for them to be adjusted before we utilize that very handy bit of storage space.
There is a panel that matches the cabinet doors that is supposed to go on the dishwasher. Not sure the status on that. Not a huge deal. A bigger deal is this: In the picture, you can see a board just to the right of the dishwasher. It is temporary. They didn't have the right one with them with they put in the cabinets. So we can't really install the dishwasher all the way, so I can't actually use it. Which means I am still washing everything by hand. Surprisingly, this has not yet killed me.
Next to the dishwasher, we have my desk. Which is covered with stuff.
And if you'll come with me around to the backside of the island you will see that there are also cabinets under there. There aren't any shelves in them yet, but someday there will be and I will fill them up with games!
Most importantly, I put a table runner on the dining room table. Such a difference, right?!!?
I don't know at this time when we'll get the upper cabinets, but it is mostly just an issue of storage at this point. I still have several boxes of kitchen stuff stacked up in the mudroom.
I have some serious doubts that we will be able to fit that stuff into the upper cabinets, but kitchens are kind of magical in their ability to store obscene amounts of stuff, so you never know. For now though, I can get to what I need and that is all that really matters. That. Nothing else. It's the only thing that matters in the world. Sorry. I'm sure you thought that your stuff mattered, but it doesn't.
May 20, 2016
Bracing Insight from the Diary of A Normal Girl
All my life I was taught and encouraged to keep a journal. I took that counsel to heart knowing that one day, if it didn't inspire a nation, my diary would at least inspire my daughter or granddaughter as she worked her way through struggles just like my own.
In spite of the problems with this: including the fact that I don't have a daughter and even if I manage to have a granddaughter someday, she will be too busy colonizing another galaxy or fighting off the sentient robots to read my journals, there is one more major problem: These journals are filled with completely useless, ridiculous nonsense. I've read it. It is mind numbing. It is boring and tedious. Someone should have slapped me upside the head. Who would ever want to read that drivel??
YOU, THAT'S WHO.
Because I spent years of my life filling those journals with my deepest, most heartfelt and secret emotions and I am not going to let it go to waste. Lets take a look at one of my earliest journal entries, shall we? (Some punctuation and spelling mistakes have been corrected to aid with comprehension.)
April 17, 1988
I'm 10 now. I turned 10 sixteen days ago. Through March we had roadshow rehersal on the 30 and 31 of March. Last Tuesday we bought a new Toyota Corrola from my grandparents. It's really nice. I found out how to make the back seat go forward and make it stay down. Faralee and G.B. know too, but know one else! Dance show was on April 8, 1988, and it was a good one. I left my ballet shoes there, but I have them back now. We got the Gremlin lisensd and we got it inspectid. It's noisy, the Corrolla is very quiet. We named all our cars.
The Subberbans name is "Godzilla".
The Nova's name is "Little Red Riding Hood".
The Corrola's name is "The Limo".
The Gremlins name is "Gismo".
There you have it. This is only my 3rd journal entry ever (the 2nd is one line long and reads: "I'm in thired grade now and I'm eight and 2/1.) and what I thought was worth sharing was not anything about my family or the town I lived in, but the names of our cars. You're welcome, posterity! May this information change your lives for the better! (FYI: Faralee and G.B.--more accurately known as Gaea--are two of my younger sisters.)
Besides that, this is actually a pretty newsy entry for me. Just wait until I hit middle school. You're going to want to gouge your eyes out. Stay tuned!
In spite of the problems with this: including the fact that I don't have a daughter and even if I manage to have a granddaughter someday, she will be too busy colonizing another galaxy or fighting off the sentient robots to read my journals, there is one more major problem: These journals are filled with completely useless, ridiculous nonsense. I've read it. It is mind numbing. It is boring and tedious. Someone should have slapped me upside the head. Who would ever want to read that drivel??
YOU, THAT'S WHO.
Because I spent years of my life filling those journals with my deepest, most heartfelt and secret emotions and I am not going to let it go to waste. Lets take a look at one of my earliest journal entries, shall we? (Some punctuation and spelling mistakes have been corrected to aid with comprehension.)
April 17, 1988
I'm 10 now. I turned 10 sixteen days ago. Through March we had roadshow rehersal on the 30 and 31 of March. Last Tuesday we bought a new Toyota Corrola from my grandparents. It's really nice. I found out how to make the back seat go forward and make it stay down. Faralee and G.B. know too, but know one else! Dance show was on April 8, 1988, and it was a good one. I left my ballet shoes there, but I have them back now. We got the Gremlin lisensd and we got it inspectid. It's noisy, the Corrolla is very quiet. We named all our cars.
The Subberbans name is "Godzilla".
The Nova's name is "Little Red Riding Hood".
The Corrola's name is "The Limo".
The Gremlins name is "Gismo".
There you have it. This is only my 3rd journal entry ever (the 2nd is one line long and reads: "I'm in thired grade now and I'm eight and 2/1.) and what I thought was worth sharing was not anything about my family or the town I lived in, but the names of our cars. You're welcome, posterity! May this information change your lives for the better! (FYI: Faralee and G.B.--more accurately known as Gaea--are two of my younger sisters.)
Besides that, this is actually a pretty newsy entry for me. Just wait until I hit middle school. You're going to want to gouge your eyes out. Stay tuned!
May 4, 2016
More Toys for Bots
Thanks for coming to the toy review on my blog. Today we are looking at a brand new toy that has just hit the market, the very cool X-Robot!
Also known as the X-5 Robot, it comes loaded with all kinds of built in features. Lets take a look at them. Come on!
Woah, woah woah. Slow down. Left AND right? Forward AND backward? What kind of out-of-this world, futuristic space toy is this? How much do they really think kids can handle? FOUR DIRECTIONS? I don't know. One Direction seems to be working pretty well for that funky boy band and all their loyal fans. Adding 3 more directions might just make some poor kid's head explode.
But wait, there's more. It ALSO dances to the sound of gun fire. Just like One Direction would in an Old West Saloon. I'm not sure anyone can handle this much Super-Dazzle. It is hard to Grow Up in Happiness when you have to dance away from bullets.
On the other hand surely there are still places where a kid can go to watch real Robots dance to the exciting sounds of real gun fire these days. A place they can go close to home to see the artillery boogie without being overstimulated by all the different directions that they would be exposed to with this toy. Buyer beware. It may not be a good fit for all kids.
May 3, 2016
The Pillow Predicament
Here is the thing about me. I didn't handle remodeling very well. (Actually, I don't handle a LOT of stuff very well. I often wonder how it is possible that I was raised so well by such good parents and still managed to grow up into such a nut case. Anyone else with me? Am I the only one who feels completely insane half of the time?)
It drove me crazy, for instance, that since none of the rooms we were living in were really "Done" yet, we couldn't really decorate them yet. This has been the case for almost the entire time we lived here. I was ready to decorate, darn it, but we still had to replace joists and rerun wiring and probably pull down wallpaper and paint and redo all the plumbing and I JUST WANTED TO DECORATE ALREADY.
So I coped with it in the usual way. I bought throw pillows. You would have done the same. It was too soon to buy art, or furniture, or fabric for curtains, But throw pillows are timeless and go with everything and so I told myself it was ok to buy them and buy them I did. For 10 years I have been buying pillows and putting them in bags in the attic until the time arrived to finally use them.
Well.
I guess you could say that the time has arrived. There is nothing stopping me now. Lets pull out those throw pillows!
So.
Hmm.
Thats a lot of pillows. It is possible that I have more than I need. It is even more possible that I don't even like half of the these anymore. Pillow Therapy is still in its infancy. Naturally there are some kinks that will need to be worked out. But I am on the home stretch of the remodel and I am still alive and who do I have to thank for it if not the pillows?
So it is ok if I give most of them away. Right? RIGHT? I saved the ones I love, and the ones I love saved me. What else matters?
It drove me crazy, for instance, that since none of the rooms we were living in were really "Done" yet, we couldn't really decorate them yet. This has been the case for almost the entire time we lived here. I was ready to decorate, darn it, but we still had to replace joists and rerun wiring and probably pull down wallpaper and paint and redo all the plumbing and I JUST WANTED TO DECORATE ALREADY.
So I coped with it in the usual way. I bought throw pillows. You would have done the same. It was too soon to buy art, or furniture, or fabric for curtains, But throw pillows are timeless and go with everything and so I told myself it was ok to buy them and buy them I did. For 10 years I have been buying pillows and putting them in bags in the attic until the time arrived to finally use them.
Well.
I guess you could say that the time has arrived. There is nothing stopping me now. Lets pull out those throw pillows!
So.
Hmm.
Thats a lot of pillows. It is possible that I have more than I need. It is even more possible that I don't even like half of the these anymore. Pillow Therapy is still in its infancy. Naturally there are some kinks that will need to be worked out. But I am on the home stretch of the remodel and I am still alive and who do I have to thank for it if not the pillows?
So it is ok if I give most of them away. Right? RIGHT? I saved the ones I love, and the ones I love saved me. What else matters?
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