Time to pick my pony again

It's a new season of Survivor so it's time to choose who the winner will be for the office pool. Not sure who I will pick just yet. Have to pick before next weeks show.

House Vid

Croc vs. Nail Week

As I lay in bed this morning thinking about my day ahead I heard an alarming sound outside. Oh! crap it's Wednesday and I forgot to take the garbage out last night and the truck is just down the street. I threw on some cloths and jumped into my crocs. In my rush I forgot about the jar of electrical wire staples I had tipped over the other night. Which at the time I knocked over I fully planned on cleaning up in the morning. As you can guess the soft cushy foam of the croc was no match for the 3/4" nails. OUCH!!! Thankfully it was in a thicker part of the shoe and nails only barely went into my foot. Nothing a couple of band-aids couldn't take care over. Plus it looks like a vampire bit my foot, so that's kind of cool. I'm still trying to figure out the moral of the story though, is it- a. don't forget to take out the trash, or b. don't wait till the morning to clean up spilt nails?

Perfect snack!

This is my favorite snack right now, Jello! Just fill up my 2 cup measuring cup half way, put it in the microwave for 3 min., pour in the Jello, (generic it's cheaper), stir, fill the rest of the measuring cup with cold water and finally fill up these five little reusable Glad cups. Yum yummy in my tummy!

I heart sanding!

A few weeks ago I put most all my house projects on hold until I get a day job. (let me know if know of any.) This became a good excuse for my continued procrastination of sanding the walls and ceilings. All of it too. It's part of a little project I like to call, "The Smoothing". The walls and ceilings were textured and I wanted to smooth them out. So after applying a few coats of joint compound it's been time to sand for a little while. I rented a power sander from Homedepot last night, man was that nice. It went really fast and cut down on the dust a lot. It doesn't really do corners so well so that's what I'm doing in the photo. Look how happy I look, maybe I should start my own fan page for sanding on facebook.

It's all the same.

So I've fallen of the no TV for the summer wagon. In the last year I have seen the same kidnapping ransom payoff scheme three or four times. The set up is that ransom is to be dropped off in a specific type of bag in a public space. Soon after the space is filled with people all carrying the same exact same bag. Maybe it's a bunch of kids in school uniforms with the same backpacks or it's part of a "flash mob" performance art piece. It's been done on Castle, The Unusuals, Rush (Australian show), and I think maybe one of the CSI's. It was also done in Leverage but it wasn't a kidnapping. I've tried to find out if this based on a really story or if all the cop shows just steal ideas from each other.

Adventures in Birdland

Yesterday I went to clear out the dead blackberry bushes from the side yard. After awhile of hacking away I looked behind me and saw a tiny naked baby animal squirming around. My first thought was, "oh crap! I have a nest mice". As I got closer it turned out to be a tiny baby bird. It was ugly as all get out but melted my heart in about 1/2 a second. After several fruitless minutes of looking for a nest I gave up and made a little one in a plastic dish. My thought was to put him back close to where I found him. I thought I would sit at a distance in one of the plastic patio chairs that I had dug out of the bushes earlier. That's when I started to hear multiple chipping birds,(5 in total now). The nest was between the seats of the two stacked chairs.

As kids we were all told that if you touch a baby bird it's mother will never come back. So I packed the nest up and made a trip the Audubon Society of Portland. The gals there were all ewing and awing. They let me know that it's an old wise tale that their mom won't come back. It's true of some mammals that rely on scent, but birds don't rely on scent. They told there best chance for survival was if I could put the nest back as best I could and see if the mom does come back.

So back home I went. Put the nest back between the chairs and back in the bushes. It was only a short time before their mom was back with food. It's great to see it all work out but I can't wait for them to grow up because I really want to get my side yard cleaned up.

DIY Desk

I made this desk a few years ago but most people seem to like it so here are some photos.

The legs I got years ago at IKEA: Vika Curry.
The file cabinet is from an old job, needs painting.
The top is OSB that I shaped and clear coated.




Wire management is also IKEA: Signum

Holly crap! I did what?!

My friend Jen Green told me this weekend that she had stopped watching all TV for a month. She felt like she watched way too much and wanted to cut back. She had been watching 9 different shows and has now cut it down to four. In my mind I thought, "holly crap I know I watch more than nine TV shows." In fact I have been think about this a lot lately and knew I needed to cut back.

Last year I moved into my new house and have never gotten cable. I watch all my TV on the internet. At first I thought this would be great because there would only be a few of my favorite shows I could watch. How wrong I was! You can find and watch everything online. It use to be when I had cable that I would turn on the TV while I was eating and just watch what ever random show was on the Discovery Chanel or something. Now I started finding myself starting to find new TV series to start watching when I had already seen my normal ones. For example one night I sat down to eat dinner and decided to watch an episode of NCIS because I was all caught up the other show I watch. This kind of thing happened a lot in the summer time. Back when I just had cable that my have been a one time deal, but with internet it's a whole new game. Basically for free I ended up watching all 6 seasons of NCIS.

This lead me to write down every TV series that I followed this last year. This included over the summer and the television season that is now finishing up. I knew it would be a lot more than Jen's nine shows but I was shock when the list ended up at 54!(really it's only 53.5, I didn't watch all of American Idol) I'm glad I did it though because it shows me just how bad it's gotten. I think I need to follow my friends example and just stop all TV for the summer. That shouldn't really be the hard part, it's trying to figure what shows I will keep watching next season that will be difficult. I'm sure Lost and the Office will make the cut but I will have to do some major cutting.

Spring Cleanning in January

It's been awhile since I took any debris from my house to the dump. I want to clear up a little space so I thought I take a load on Saturday morning. I just couldn't stop with one. It ended up being four full truck loads by the end of the day.

It felt great putting the old bathroom flooring, tub, toilet, etc... in their new home.

For my Bachelor friends

Ok, this is for my friends that spend their family home evenings watching the Bachelor. You know who you are. For those of you that don't know, no I don't watch every week. Just like to make these for my friends that do.