Yesterday morning our coldest temp was EIGHT degrees. We had frozen water pipes, but nothing burst. This morning I was up at 5am and the pipes are totally frozen this morning. Yesterday we had water trickling through, this morning, nothing. That has to be one bad thing about being so clean and tidy, no water in glasses sitting about for hand washing and face washing use when there is no water! I did find one jar with about an inch of water in it, next to the stove. Luckily someone had been cooking recently, probably last night and brought a jar of water to pour into whatever they were cooking... so I was able to wash the sleep from my eyes. It is currently 61°F in the house. Brrrrr. I'm sitting at my computer with a sweat jacket on, with the hood pulled tight around my neck.
So I've been kind of busy in the past week. Haven't had much to blog about. I usually try to think of something to blog about as a writing exercise, but didn't force myself last week.
I didn't shine my sink for several days. I remembered, thought about it... but didn't. Last night, ds2 and I did our "30 Minute House Blessing". We are seeing the results of spending just TEN minutes ONE TIME A WEEK, in the living room...
We found that last night, it only took eight minutes. So we are making progress, slowly but surely. Also, vacuuming took the full ten minutes previously, but last night took only eight. Next we shine mirrors and wash doors. I tackled the back porch door, the inside part of the door was really dirty. These pictures really don't do justice to the new sparkly clean look. Even if you click on them to see a larger image, you probably won't be too impressed. Trust me. When you turn the light on in the entryway now, you are nearly blinded by the shiny clean backside of that door.
While ds2 vacuumed, I swept and mopped the kitchen floor. Then we emptied trash cans (only three in the house - we need more!!). Since it doesn't take anywhere near 5 minutes to empty the trash cans, we're incorporating scooping the cat litter boxes. I finally got a cat litter box set up in my bathroom, and am making that part of my morning routine, to scoop that box every single morning. When I grabbed the trash from my bathroom can, I also picked up a few more pieces of trash off the floor. I need to start doing some 5 Minute Room Rescues around the house. And more decluttering. After we emptied trash, we brought all the laundry we'd washed into the living room and dumped them onto a sheet on the floor. Folded and put everything away. Ds2 says he understands why people fold clothes -- he says it's relaxing. Okay, never really thought of it that way. Actually folding clothes ALWAYS makes my back ache... but he's a great help with getting clothes put away. I still have a huge pile on the couch that need to be tended to.
I was awake early this morning. Before 5am. I decided to do some decluttering in the kitchen. There's this three basket hanging thing we keep over the sink for housing metal lids and the milk strainer. There are a lot more lids in there, than we have jars for. Plus, all the canning jar lids are in there, and we only have two or three canning jars out right now! I got these metal boxes with a plastic lid from Walmart and the larger one is going to house the canning jar lids. That will keep them clean, too. The smaller one is going to house the odd shaped jar lids that we seldom use, but sometimes need. I've also cleared out this one cupboard that is just a big mess all the time. I've been wanting to put up another shelf inside that cupboard because there is a lot of wasted space at the top of the shelf. We keep things in that cupboard like the long wooden spoons, long Kitchenaid spatula. So when those long things are on the floor of the cupboard, you can't put other things in there, because they topple over. It's awful. But I'm going to make it better. A few months ago I got this really nice piece of oak wood from Home Depot for only fifty-one cents in the cull lumber section. Would you believe it's EXACTLY the right size for the shelf in that cupboard? Wow. Thanks, God. That was a nice surprise. If it weren't so dark and freezing cold outside, I'd go find the screws for putting it up right now. I have the drill and four screws, but I'm going to need a few more screws. 8 more to be exact. I even have the shelving pieces to hang it. Then I'm going to put that shelf up in that cupboard with just enough room to slide cups in there, and the wooden spoons and long spatula can lay at the back. Ahhhhhhh... can't wait to make that shelf more usable.
I am very hungry. I must eat something. I am finishing up the bookkeeping for the small company. Just have to complete W-2's today. And prepare some reports for the guy that does the taxes. Then I'll be done. I have a website I need to update, and minutes for the board on which I serve. OH. And HOOF TRIMS. Which have still not been done!! And the baby sweater that is half sewn together. AGH.
Until next time.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Weather Report *8* degrees!
Monday, January 08, 2007
Lemon Tree
Our lemon tree is producing this year! How exciting! We have about five lemons on the tree right now. The fire ants are busy eating the other blossoms though!! Stupid fire ants! I must remember to get out there with AMDRO and get rid of them.
Until next time.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
What Kind of Flower Are You?
Labels: blah blah blah
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I guess I do try to make people laugh. But I don't think of myself as a prankster.
Wait a minute. I took this quiz earlier this year. Back in September. I was a violet then: "You have a shy personality. You tend to hesitate before trying new things or meeting new people. But once people get to know you, you open up and show the world what you are really all about."
THAT is actually more like me. I don't think this quiz works very well.
Until next time.
My First Buttonhole!
Labels: Home Improvement
Okay, actually maybe this wasn't my very first buttonhole EVER, maybe my first buttonhole was for my very first sewing project, a skirt. There I am, 10 years old in 1973. Not sure what the goofy look on my face was all about.
ANYWAY... so I worked a bit more on the curtains this morning. Anything to procrastinate and keep from working on the bookkeeping. I really have to get to it this weekend... or... maybe only the 1 hour's worth of bookkeeping needs to be done. But I really need to stop procrastinating in case my job decides to allow me to work one more day a week. Really could use the money!
I decided I definitely needed sashes to be able to tie back the curtains. Also, the top valance bar was hung lopsided (I futzed with the picture so it wouldn't look crooked). Probably because the curtains aren't perfect is the reason I couldn't sleep last night. I finally slept until 8:30am. I think I'll make myself a kefir shake this morning for breakfast. I digress. I rehung the bar but now I see that my curtains are lopsided, too.
Back to the title: Buttonholes. I feel like I got a lot of machine for $65. There is a setting to make automatic buttonholes. I guess this is standard issue for sewing machines, but it sure wasn't back when I was in my twenties. It feels like a stretch to follow the sewing machine manual because they are using all these terms that don't mean anything to me like, "the front bar tack will be sewn first, " and "attach buttonhole foot and push the outside frame back until the sliding insert is in the front."
HUH?
But I muddled my way through and say, making buttonholes is pretty fun!!
So here are the sashes themselves. Pretty simple. I had two squares leftover after I cut the panels for the bottom of the curtains, so I cut the squares in half, sewed them together, folded them lengthwise and sewed down the edge. Reversed the sash, then sewed the end together. Then sewed in the buttonhole and I also don't have a seam ripper tool, so I used a box cutter to cut the material. Now I see that I forgot the last step. Reinforcing the buttonhole with a Straight Stitch. I'd better do that. We seem to be hard on things in this household.
I decided against those cup holder things to hold the sashes. As I just said, we seem to be hard on things in this house. They would be pulling out of the wall within weeks, so I just used a long drywall screw.
Here's another picture of the curtains now, complete with sashes. See how you can see under the sink area? That is what the other set of curtains is for. I'm also going to paint underneath the top cupboards - the area that is white will become turquoise, as will the white alongside the window. But not this weekend. 
And, I've decided! I want this to replace my old falling apart dish drainer (besides it is pine green and the drainer thing on the bottom is clear:
It sells for $29.99 from Target via Amazon.com. Amazon wants almost $40 after shipping and tax. I don't know if I want to spend THAT much, but I *do* have gift certificates worth that much left. Although I am tempted to buy a stainless steel dish drainer. They have one at Amazon also, for $50. Probably the shipping will be high. But it would last longer than these Rubbermaid ones seem to do. I have replaced mine twice since we've lived here, about four years.
Until next time.
Insomnia
Labels: FlyLady
I don't experience insomnia very often. I used to experience it a lot more in my "dieting" days, back in my thirties. But it is rare nowadays. I looked back through my blog to see if I'd blogged about having insomnia, and the last time I mentioned it was on July 28, 2006 Insomnia Strikes. It usually seems to be nutrition related. My stomach does feel funny. Not quite like I'm hungry, but kind of like something isn't right. Kind of like I feel hungry, but not. Hard to describe. I drank some kombucha, thinking maybe it was a bit of indigestion. My "diet" has been dismal lately. Why today I even ate a Twinkie and drank Dr. Pepper! I am not eating many traditional, whole foods, instead I'm relying on quick foods. Also, I sometimes wonder if it's not a low blood sugar thing going on.
I went to bed late as it was, 11pm. I slept until 12:30pmam. By 1am, I was up and on the computer for a while. I realized I was hungry and I ate a bagel with cream cheese. I drank some milk and went back to bed and just laid there. Finally at 2:45am, I decided to just get up for a while. I washed three loads of dishes and I shined the sink. Wiped off the stove and the counter to the left of the stove. Started to declutter it just a bit. Need to work on that area more tomorrow. It is definitely a "hotspot".Tomorrow Today is a big day for me. I can't just stay up, I'll be exhausted. I am finally starting to feel a bit tired, so maybe I can go back to bed and try to sleep again.
Ds2 is going to help me do hoof trims and we will hit the house quickly for half an hour, doing that Sunday house blessing thing. The house stayed pretty neat all week long. Usually when we clean up, we don't do another for like a month. I can already see, if we hit the house again today, we will get a little bit more cleaned up. I'm actually feeling kind of excited about it.
I have to remember to wash clothes tomorrow.
Until next time.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Ooooh, Lookee What I Made!!
Labels: Home Improvement
I'm so excited, I'm so happy with my results!! Look, here is the new aqua colored paint and the old curtain. Ick, nasty, ugly aqua, yes?
I got the paint from Home Depot. Five gallons of "OOPS" paint for $15. Someone's paint that got made into the wrong color. I actually bought it because my dh was building a new shed, so we could turn the "milking shed" and into an actual milking parlor. The paint looks like a very soft green color, like Crayola crayon seagreen. But once it dries, it becomes more of an aqua color. At any rate, how can I shine my sink every day, when the curtains are so ugly?
So today I became obsessed with replacing the curtains. I found out quickly that Walmart has about two choices for kitchen curtains, the one in the picture, and another one with other colors that don't match my paint...
I went to one Walmart and perused the one dollar per yard shelf. Like for an hour. I didn't have a paint chip, and was going by memory. I know what I envision the color to be, and what the color actually is when I see it again are not the same color. I asked ds2 to take a picture with his cell phone and send me a picture. Oh... he couldn't find his cell phone. Then he finally remembered it was in his pants and his pants were soaking in the washer!!! Agh!!! Hopefully his cell phone will dry out!!
Anyway, so I looked and looked and looked and looked. Nothing seemed like it would be the right color. Finally I made myself stop looking (and wasting time) and did the rest of my shopping. I had to go to the next small town to make a pickup, and there was a Walmart there. These are the only two stores with fabric in them unless I want to drive 50 miles, so that's why I went to Walmart instead of JoAnn's or Michael's.
At the next Walmart, the choices were even slimmer. Ugh. Nothing but ugly material for $1/yard. I couldn't even find anything that caught my eye for $2/yard.
By now, I'd asked ds2 to take a picture of the window sill with the digital camera and email it to my phone. It was a dismal picture, the green looked almost white, so it was absolutely no help at all.
On the way back to the first town, it struck me finally that I had my employer's digital camera in my purse, with pictures of the window sill!! When I got back to the first Walmart, I had a brainstorm. I went to the Kodak photomaker machine - which I've NEVER used before - inserted the SD card and within a minute I had a picture printed out of the window sill!! It took longer to pay for the photo, than it did to make the dang thing. The guy behind the counter said they have to scan the picture, put it into an envelope and then ring me up. Maybe they think people will try to print out pornographic photos or something and so they scan every photo that goes out so they can bust them? Or maybe they think the photo will be a professional one, with copyrights (again with more busting)?
Back to fabrics. I started looking again. By this time, I'd given up on the idea that I'd be making two sets of curtains for $4 (I'd figured I would need 4 yards and was trying to buy $1/yard material). I was ready to accept the fact that my material would cost no more than $2/yard. I found some material that I liked, but it was so pretty I figured it was in the wrong area. I was right. It was $3.96/yard. So I gave up on that one. I finally asked the ladies if they would help me find something. They were really trying to help me. One lady kept finding turquoise colors that I just didn't like. One material looked like something I'd make pajamas out of, not kitchen curtains. Another was too "sissy" - my guys would refuse to cook again if I put that in the kitchen. Another was turquoise camouflage, ugh. She found material after material, and I didn't like them. She was so cool, because I apologized for being so picky and she told me, "Oh no, you HAVE to like it. This is going to be in your kitchen, so you need to REALLY like it."
Finally I hit upon the idea of taking the first material I'd seen that I liked, and making a valance at top, just a straight piece, and then the bottom sections would be a matching cream color, with a straight panel across the bottom of the valance color.
Can you see the adorable nursing calf?
Now, remember the picture I had developed? The color in the photo matched the blue in this fabric PERFECTLY. I thought the contrast would be beautiful. I also love that I could bring some more colors into the kitchen, like granny apple green, and barn red, and maybe even some cow things.
My next problem was that I was planning to sew all this by hand. Yes, the whole time I was searching for material (at least THREE hours), in the back of my mind I was realizing that I probably wasn't going to have enough time this weekend to sew curtains by hand. I began entertaining the thought of buying a cheap sewing machine, even though money is *tight*, and can't afford to buy even a cheap sewing machine.
But by now, I'm committed to putting in these new curtains. And I have been wanting a sewing machine for YEARS. So, I bit the bullet and bought the cheapest Walmart special available. A Brother Machine, $65.00. Can you believe you can buy a sewing machine for only SIXTY-FIVE dollars?
Also, my fabric ended up costing SIXTEEN dollars, not FOUR, and not EIGHT. OUCH. BUT, I love it, and I've spent most of my life buying the cheapest thing possible, just to save a dollar and in the last few years I'm getting really sick of getting ugly stuff just 'cause it's cheap. I had a major fit of guilt once I left the parking lot, and called my mom. My dear mother, who enabled me by saying she wanted to buy me something nice for Christmas and could she give me the $65 to pay for the sewing machine? So I was able to get over the guilt fairly easily.
I had to feed the goats and milk once I got home. And then process the milk. I'm at a place in my cycle where I'm just in a mood, real cranky, alternating with feeling depressed. I was hungry, but wasn't about to take the time to cook. I had CURTAINS TO MAKE!!
So I had a plan formulated in my mind, and set about making it happen. But first, I had to figure out the sewing machine. THAT took me longer than making the curtains! When I finally got the bobbin filled, the thread threaded, and started sewing, it was 8:25. I was done with my curtains by 9:35pm! I made two valance pieces at the top, and two panels at the bottom.
I bought enough material to make an extra set of matching curtains for under the sink, where I removed the doors since the one had fallen off and the pressboard was damaged, making it impossible to put the one door back on. So I decided to just remove them altogether.
Now I MUST get into bed. I have a big day tomorrow. Two big things on my TODO list. Hoof trims and then end of year accounting for the little business for whom I bookkeep. (Will I ever figure out how to say that correctly?)
OH, did you want to see the finished product? By the way, the photo I had printed out does NOT match the window sill in person. But the fabric still works to make the paint color look nice, instead of ugly.
Until next time.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Hogging the Bed
Labels: LJ
I was reading one of my books on the American Pitbull Terrier a couple of nights ago and found that they can grow to weights of 75. LJ was 74 last time we weighed him, and he is not even one year old yet. He is one muscular little boy. He is long and lean. That is our bed he's lying on -- it is a queen-sized bed -- he dwarfs it! It looks like maybe a regular-sized bed.
He is not so happy when I come to bed, and make him move over. Sometimes he even grumbles at me. When he does that, he gets OFF the bed until I give him permission to get back up.
He continues to be THE BEST dog I've had in my entire life. He remains friendly and loving with people, even when the meter reading guy comes onto the property, he's right there nuzzling the guy's hand.
Until next time.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Coyotes Yipping
Labels: LJ, Things You Don't See In The City
I was awakened this morning before my alarm clock went off with the yip-yip-yip-yodeling of coyotes nearby. Times like these make me VERY, VERY happy for my pack of dogs. What you say? They cost a lot to feed? Pshaw! $40 a month is nothing compared to the nice feeling of knowing they aren't going to dig their way into my property and try to kill all my chickens or young goats.
LJ sleeps in bed with me and he also woke up, head alert, ears perked. I've trained him to not bark while in the house, so muffled sounds were coming from his throat. He kept jerking his head back and forth, trying to get a better listen.
The sounds the coyotes make is just freaky. Even worse when you are outside, it can make shivers run down your spine and raise the hair on the back of your neck.
Finally we both got up and I let LJ out the front door so he could investigate with the girls. Soon the coyotes left and LJ was at the front door ready to come in.
I feel tired already.
I did put a roast in the crockpot so that we have a headstart on today's dinner.
Until next time.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
FlyLady Entryway
Labels: FlyLady
I worked today so I didn't have much time to devote to FlyLady, although I did spend 15 minutes like she asked, in my entryway. It already felt difficult to get motivated, but after eating dinner and sitting down for thirty minutes, I felt I could get up and tackle it. I didn't get a lot accomplished, but I did *do* something in that area for 15 minutes. Then I set the timer for 15 minutes more and cleaned the dinner dishes, and shined the sink.
I'm very tired tonight. I was almost falling asleep while driving home. Our steer broke loose and were running around our entire property. Ds2 got them to go back to their corral and secured the area they broke through.
This was when I just got home. I drove my truck over to park it where I usually do, to see that our Nubian buck was loose! Weirdness!
Until next time.
Challah Bread Sandwiches
Until next time.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Front Porch FlyLadied
Labels: Burst of Energy, FlyLady
So FlyLady said to go spend 15 minutes on your front porch. PUH.
Since we enter our home via our back porch and don't really have a front porch to speak of (only steps leading out), ds2 and I decided to tackle the front porch.
We finally started working on it this morning about 10:00am. We set the timer for 15 minutes, and we hadn't even made a dent. But now we were on a roll. Set the timer for another 15 minutes. Uh, little dent. 15 minutes more.
We are finally done at 2:00pm. Here are some before and after pictures.
We are SO PROUD of ourselves!!!
I'm going to put some things on my "to do" list for the porch. It isn't 100% decluttered, and I never did get around to wiping down the door. There are several panels on the porch which need to be replaced. Ds2 says he will do that at some point in time. Then I want to scrub the porch and paint it to protect it.
Do you see those giant clodhopper shoes in the last image? I have tripped over those SO many times. I am so happy they have a home now!!!
Until next time.
Happy New Year!
Labels: Burst of Energy, FlyLady, goats
Oooooohhhh... ouch. My stomach is burning. I just had a bean and chili burrito with salsa that the neighbor brought over last night. The salsa has red chili peppers in it, the dried little ones that are whole. Green onions and purple onions. Tomatoes, of course. Good stuff.
So I was just about to blog about the "projects" I had planned for today. Continue the gravitation from the sink area. I was going to clean under the sink and maybe try to clean off the pipes which are so ugly and grungy looking. Then I was going to tackle the counter on the right side of the oven. I also promised myself I'd clean a path in my bedroom so I don't have to almost fall and break my neck when I get out of bed in the middle of night.
But then I got a FlyLady email and she says to clean my front porch. Only in our case, the entryway is our back porch. Boy, does it need some attention! I did pick up some clothes that were on the floor by the washing machine that were covered with dirt and sand and washed them last night. But the porch needs a LOT of attention. The email said to spend only 15 minutes. I'm hoping ds2 will help me tackle this, since we'll get 30 minutes worth of work done if we both work for 15 minutes on it. It would sure be nice to sit outside on the couch like we used to be able to (can't now, it's really bad off). I should take before and after pictures...
I also really, really need to get hoof trims done. At very least, for my milkers. Hopefully I can persuade ds2 to help me with that, too. I also need to do the finances and get the mortgage check written.
Until next time.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
More FlyLady Stuff - Enough Already
Labels: Burst of Energy, FlyLady, Holiday Banter
FlyLady has something she does on Sundays called "The Weekly Home Blessing Hour". You are supposed to set your timer for ten minutes and do each of seven things. Vacuum, Dust, Mop, Polish Mirrors and Doors, Purge magazines, Change Sheets, Empty all trash. Okay so since we are just starting, we have to just follow along instead of trying to catch up. We omitted dusting, purging magazines and changing sheets. Ds2 and I tackled tonight's event together. The living room floor was a mess - the cats have been tearing up a roll of paper towels for the past few days... so you can imagine... We set the timer for 10 minutes and both worked together on the living room. Next we set the timer for 5 minutes and ds2 washed the boys' bathroom mirror and the boys' bathroom door and I tackled ds2's bedroom door. Then we tackled ds1's bedroom door together. Next we set the timer for 10 minutes and tackled separate jobs. Ds2 vacuumed the living room and the area between the boys' bedrooms and the boys' bathroom, while I swept and mopped the kitchen.
Then one of our neighbors called to say they made some food and wanted to bring some over for us. They butcher and roast pig for every holiday that they can, it seems. :-) They brought over some roasted pork, homemade salsa, two tiny limes and some corn tortillas. I drove out to the front gate to get the goodies and was standing there appreciating the coolness in my short sleeved shirt. Since we'd been working steadily for some time in the warm house, I was sweating. It felt so good out there, but when the neighbors showed up they had on knit hats, mittens and jackets. Heehee. They probably wondered if I was a bit nuts. When the wife called, the vacuum was going and I couldn't hear her very well, so she probably wondered what was going on, lol.
When I got back in, ds2 had finished vacuuming and was on his laptop. The last thing we'd agreed to do together was take out the garbage. There were only two cans to empty, so I just did it myself. I also folded most of my laundry, but haven't put it away yet.
Then I washed some more dishes, put the night's milk in the freezer, and washed some more milk jars. I decided that I'd worked enough and forced myself to stop.
I don't want to burn myself out. We put a ham in the oven about 3pm. It has to cook for six hours. We just put potatoes in the oven at 7:30pm so the ham and potatoes should be done at the same time. Now I just need to make one more thing, a vegetable and then we're set.
I am already feeling tired, but am trying to stay awake to see the New Year in.
Until next time.
Cleaned The Window Over The Kitchen Sink
Labels: Burst of Energy, FlyLady
I'm not fooling myself into thinking this FlyLady thing is working. I know it has to do with my cycle. Typical "burst of energy" which comes every few months (rather than monthly like it used to when I was younger). But I can hope that I can cajole myself into doing one little project. Yesterday was a big project -- changing out the sink faucet. Today I decided I'm going to clean up the kitchen, and one more little project every day (or even every few days). Today my extra little project was to clean the window over the sink. Ds2 cleaned some of this area a few weeks ago, but it had been splashed and dirtied, and was covered with cobwebs again.
The window sill was disgusting. I tried to take a picture and it's probably best that I couldn't manage it. I took off the curtain and it's in the washing machine as I type. I am going to see if I can get a matching curtain to put in front of the sink to cover the pipes below. The one that goes in the window will fit the bottom part just perfectly, but I'll have to hem it up just a couple of inches. I have seen that in people's kitchens before and so I think that will work just fine to not have cabinet doors there. Ds2 thinks the cats will scratch it, but we'll just have to see if it will work out or not.
This is kind of fun posting my success.
Now to work on whipping the kitchen into shape. I wonder how long that will take if I really focus on it. I also need to give some attention to the refrigerators and "dump anything dead" and wipe up any spills. As far as I can see, the refrigerators still look fine, but I'm going to give them a look-see, just in case. That's one of my problems, is seeing a little bit of a problem and thinking it's not worth the 10 seconds to clean it up, I'll wait until it gets worse. Problem is then I wait until it's so much worse that it takes hours to get it cleaned up again.
I did sit for half an hour and watch an episode of Twilight Zone "Dead Man's Shoes". For all the years I've watched TZ, I am just amazed that it was one I'd never seen before.
The picture above was taken later in the day. I scrubbed and scrubbed on the window sill - until I was removing paint even, but I could not remove the dirt and grime embedded in the little cracks and crevices. So I decided to paint the window sill with the green "oops" paint we got from Home Depot a few weeks ago (5 gallons for $15). It could be construed as light turquoise... I just don't know if I like the green color there... it is the only paint I had on hand, so I thought it would look nice. Maybe I can find some material to match for making curtains and the curtain for in front. The curtains there now definitely do not go with the green paint, actually looks pretty gross.
Until next time.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Fix Your Sink
Labels: FlyLady, Home Improvement
Okay, not quite a FlyLady suggestion, but when your sink sucks as much as mine did, it's hardly worth shining the darn thing. So I did the only thing I could do. Changed out the faucet. I ended up driving to the nearest Lowe's (25 miles away). Because we live in a manufactured home...
...you can't just buy any faucet and hook it up. I won't go into detail about all the details... what I ended up doing was buying a faucet which I didn't like. I've been really, really wanting a hi-rise faucet. I was sure it would make washing the half gallon jars and milk buckets easier. The one I ended up buying had one handle, like the last one. The reason I bought another one with one handle is because the salesclerk told me that was my only choice. He said if I was using a one handled faucet already, then that meant my sink had only two holes. He said I'd need a sink with three holes in order to use a two handled faucet. I don't know how many holes are in the sink so I believed him when he told me mine had only two holes (since my original faucet had only one handle). I know this is probably really confusing.
See, the hi-rise faucets with two handles were cheaper than the hi-rise faucets with only one handle. For example, I could get a one handled regular faucet for $42 or a two handled hi-rise faucet for $48. Or if I wanted a hi-rise faucet with two handles, it would be more like $60. I was willing to deal with two handles for the hi-rise spout.
So I bought the faucet, then got out to the truck and looked in the box. Also called home to see if ds2 could look and see how many holes were in the sink. As I looked at the faucet again, I realized that it was going to need THREE holes in the sink to hook up correctly. Within minutes, ds2 confirmed for me that the sink has three holes, plus one more for the soap dispenser. I also decided to replace the drains. The old ones were plastic. One was white, one was grey. I bought stainless steel replacements. They were $6.95 each. They are beautiful, commercial grade and the stopper fits in their so perfectly and they match!! For years we have had to use a flat lid type "stopper" instead of the kind you put into the hole.
The last faucet had a sprayer, which was nice for the couple weeks that it actually worked. This would have also increased the price of the faucet, if I wanted a sprayer, so I decided that wasn't important either. The hi-rise feature of the spout was the most important thing!
Once I realized that the salesclerk had given me incorrect information, I decided to go back into the store and talk to the older man who worked in that area. He said the younger man had given me wrong information, and thanked me for telling him because he needed to know that the younger man didn't know that, so he could teach him.
I ended up buying the two handled hi-rise faucet that I'd wanted in the first place. I kept the other one and took both home. As I suspected, ds2 liked the hi-rise faucet better. So we tried to hook it up. Only because we live in a manufactured home it wasn't possible. See, our plumbing is made of this specialty stuff called Quest. The fittings don't always work with regular plumbing replacement.
This time I took the old faucet with me, so I could show the guy at Lowe's exactly what I needed to make things hook up. I wasn't able to talk to the same guy, he was off for the day 20 minutes before I got back to the store, but he told me to look for another guy wearing shorts and who was bald. Paul was his name. I found him and explained my problem, and sharing that we lived in a manufactured home. At first he said they didn't have anything that would work. At that point, I pointed out that the faucet I was holding in my hand had been purchased from Walmart less than a year ago, and was not original to the manufactured home. 
Sometimes people hear "manufactured home" and they won't go on from there. I was very patient and asked him if there wasn't something I could use, with a connector piece or something. So finally he started to think outside the box and found a solution for me. It cost just under $9 for the new connection pieces. I needed two "Reinforced PVC Faucet Connectors" 1/2" FIP Inlet x 1/2" FIP Outlet 20 inches (iow, both ends were female). I didn't need 20" but apparently that's the only size this particular connector comes in, at least from Lowe's. I also needed two nipples, both ends male.
Then back home again. I hadn't eaten since breakfast and I was experiencing low blood sugar and was feeling shaky and very grumpy. Ds2 was helping me. Note to self: When you set out on a home improvement project, don't assume you have all the necessary items, even when you see them before your eyes. For example, the plumber's putty... we almost didn't have enough, and it was almost too hard to work with. Had it been any harder, we'd have been in trouble. The other thing was teflon tape. I found a container of it, under the sink. When ds2 opened it to wrap the threads, there was only a few tangled threads left on the roll.
Thank goodness we had more out in the toolboxes. Whew. I was not interested in another trip into town to finish this project!! I would have had no choice though, since we don't have a turnoff under the kitchen sink! We have to turn off the water to the entire house. Dh told me he hasn't had a chance to hook up a turn off valve.
Finally, ds2 and I got the sink puttied, screwed together and back in place.
Next I got the sink clips that we'd bought a few weeks ago. The final step. Secure the sink into place. Sorry it wouldn't be that simple! The ones were bought were for a different kind of sink. I don't know where to get the ones we need. I might need to go to someplace that specializes in plumbing supplies, like Evergreen. Because Home Depot only had one type of sink clips. They won't work for our sink, because our sink doesn't have a rim around the bottom for the sink clips to hook onto.
Anyway, we finally got the whole thing back together. I washed milk buckets tonight and jars and some other dishes and it was really great to have so much room to work, instead of having to try fitting everything under the sink faucet.
Later on FlyLady insisted I clean the kitchen, so to humor her and myself, I washed one sinkful of dishes, and shined my sink. I know that I'm supposed to take it slow getting started with FL, and I'm sure she's assuming my kitchen is clean except for the dinner dishes. Not hardly. It was WONDERFUL washing dishes with the hi-rise faucet! Seriously! Usually I'm having to hold things so low under the faucet to rinse them.
Today I plan to work some more on that kitchen sink. My next goal is to take down that filthy kitchen curtain and wash it. The window sill needs washing, and so does the window. I also want to clean under the sink again. Most of the stuff under there previously was garbage. Oh, the cabinet doors in front of the sink... one fell off a few months ago. I don't even know where it's at. I removed the other one altogether, plus the framing. I think I will look into buying a matching kitchen curtain to just cover the under sink area, instead of trying to put the cabinet doors back on. My kitchen is sort of falling apart. At least three drawers are hard to open and close.
Until next time.
Shine Your Sink
Labels: FlyLady, Nourishing Traditions
All right, I'm going to break down and try doing FlyLady. I should say try doing FlyLady again. I tried her years ago when she first started out. Prior to that, when ds1 was an infant, I tried getting organized with The Sidetracked Home Executives aka The Slob Sisters.
That hasn't worked yet. I've been trying on and off for the past 19 years. I have pretty much given up that I'll ever be organized.
But a couple of friends of mine have had success with FlyLady (my sister also loves FlyLady, but you know how that "my sibling does it, so I certainly am not going to" thing goes?). So I am going to give FlyLady another try. The first thing she says to do is shine your sink. So I actually got up and went and did that.
The thing about my sink... it's such a mess...
The spout is broken away from the connection, so we have learned to deal with the spout being floppy. Being that the water turns on and off with the one handle which is connected to the spout, you have to hold onto the spout and then turn it on with the handle. The faucet was replaced not very long ago, maybe six months or at least less than a year. It was a Walmart special for about $40.
When we moved in here, dh took out the original sink, which was one of the normal ones that are very shallow and we took our nice deep one from our last home. Traded them out. I guess dh didn't use the sink connectors which holds the sink in place. I have a packet of them sitting right here, which I had hoped to connect by now. Apparently it's a really awkward job to complete because you have to lie under the sink. So the entire sink is always shifting around in its slot. That means lots of nasty crap gets under the rim of the sink and when it shifts, then there is that nastiness exposed. I really must get those sink connectors in place, but that means I'd have to find the plumber's putty first. You put plumber's putty under the sink rim.
Then the cabinet doors on the front. One side fell completely off. I don't know why or how.
I have company coming over this morning, in less than two hours. I am panicked because it is such a mess outside. With dh being out of town for the past five and a half weeks, things have only gotten worse. The dogs decided to tear up an old couch we have and there is fluff everywhere. It looks like it snowed big billowy puffs all over the yard.
I did warn the people coming. Sometimes I think that's the worst thing to do, because then they are focused on it. If I just act nonchalant, then they can't say anything. People *ALWAYS* say don't worry about it, our place is a mess, too. But then they are freaked out to see how messy this place is. I should snap a picture or two, but would rather not incriminate myself.
Anyway, now's as good a time as any to make New Year's Resolutions, which I NEVER make because I can never follow through.
But these are the two I am going to make for this year:
Now, out to tidy up in the yard as much as I can. Please God, don't let them need to use the bathroom for they aren't coming inside the house.
Until next time.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Cell Phone Car Charger
So this is just a helpful tip... my car charger for my cell phone stopped working and coincidentally at the same time, the cigarette lighter wouldn't light cigarettes (for a friend of mine). So I thought the cigarette lighter was broken.
I remembered that I have a second cigarette lighter in the back of the console for back seat riders, so I bought another car charger and that one worked okay.
So the next time I needed to use my car charger, it wouldn't charge my phone!!
I decided to stop at a T-mobile store to see if they could test my cigarette lighter and see if that was why my car charger wouldn't work. They brought one out, and we didn't turn the engine all the way on, just the ACC. You know, turning the key so you can listen to the radio without killing the battery? Anyway, I knew if it worked without turning on the car, that would be enough to know if it was working or not, and then I'd just buy it.
But this other guy (one of the other employees) standing to the side kept insisting that we turn on the engine otherwise it's not a true charge. I guess he thought I just wanted to borrow the charger long enough to charge my cell phone battery? I dunno. So he kept saying that and we finally turned it on just to humor him. Then he was talking about how people start their car with the phone plugged in and it's a circular thing that ends up blowing out the car charger.
So now I finally know to never leave my phone plugged into the car charger, turn the engine off and turn it back on. I'm glad I finally know that, and now you do, too.
Reminder to self: Never buy Original Manufacturer's Equipment from the retail stores, whew!! Over $30 for a car charger and I've bought them for as little as $15.
Until next time.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Merry Christmas
Labels: Holiday Banter
Some of the gifts we received this year.
5 gallon glass beverage jar with spout.
Photo album, test tubes spice rack, snowman mug with hot cocoa, greeting card organizer, snowman tea towel, watermelon tablecloth weights and Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory chocolates.
Until next time.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Make Your Very Own Font
Labels: geek-stuff
I have wanted to make my own font for years. I finally found this really awesome program available on the Internet where for only NINE dollars you can purchase your own font. That is so cool. I have some tips to offer if you want to try this yourself...
The first thing you want to make sure you do when your template is printed out -- make certain that the entire frame is complete. I did try to pull my scanned template into Photoshop and fix the frame, but I was not successful. The resulting font ended up looking like the image to the left. Click on it to see a larger image. Basically what happened was The Fontifier scanner was unable to properly align the page using the frame lines, so my font ended up with lines at the top of every letter. NOT what I was expecting or hoping for. So when you get to Step 5, if you see those lines, you need to start over and make sure your frame on your template is complete. I actually ordered my font like this and it was such a mess that I requested to have my money refunded. It took them several days to get back to me, but they finally did and refunded my $9 so I could try again.
This time with a better idea of what I was trying to do, I had better success.
Another tip, be sure to use a black felt tip marker. A regular ink pen won't work. It is too light.
There are a couple of things I'd do differently if I had the chance. Of course I could just redo my font and pay another $9, but it's not that necessary. I don't know that I'd try cursive again, although that was my preference. The reason I wouldn't do it again is because it doesn't look as "flowing" as I thought it would. My goal was to be able to type, instead of writing by longhand as I can type faster than I can write, and my hand doesn't start cramping and my fingers don't go to sleep when I'm typing. Well, at least not as soon as they can when I'm writing with a pen.
I would also make my colon and semi-colon larger -- equal in size to an alphabet letter. Right now they are very tiny.
I did pull my scanned alphabet into Photoshop and futz around with it a little. For example, I noticed that some of my letters were not exactly on the "invisible line", so I was able to cut and paste the letters and move them onto "the line". The Fontifier directions do suggest drawing a very light pencil line so that you get your letters right on the line perfectly (but of course be sure to erase before scanning). I also took all my matching symbols, like open and closed parentheses and picked the one I liked best, then cut/pasted and reversed the image so that my symbols look the same whether they are the right or left symbols.
I would like to also make a print font.
I think it would be cool to have your young children write the alphabet in the template, scan them in and have a font of your child's handwriting at that age. You'd name it something like Johnny Font Age 7.
Oh something else I did was to customize two of the characters that I would never use, with two characters I would use. I use the temperature symbol a lot "°" which is created by holding your ALT key, then typing in the numbers 0176. The other symbol I use is "ë" for our --- no, oh no... no, no, no, no!!! I guess I am going to get my chance after all to redo my font. I thought it was the "o" with the two dots that I used all the time!! LOL!!! Anyway... this is probably geek to anyone reading it. Dang. I can't believe I messed up like that. Well, it will be another $9 if I decide to perfect my font.
So now I can make my letters look more personable by typing them in my own cursive font. Pretty cool. I have looked into making my own font and it can cost hundreds of dollars for the software (at least the last time I looked), so $9 is very reasonable.
Until next time.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
18 Degrees
Brrrrrr... I had to go out in the cold this morning to throw hay. I put on a sweatshirt jacket with a hood, and secured the hood around my neck. Next I put on some thick gloves and finally my really warm jacket that a friend of mine gave me a couple of weeks ago. I was toasty warm except for my feet, which were sockless and I was wearing capri
pants which left my ankles bare. I need to either find, or buy some more sweat pants. Ds1 is wearing my only pair of sweat pants as I type. I may have mentioned in prior posts that we have switched chore times around here. We used to do everything in the morning: throw hay, feed the chickens and turkeys, fill all water buckets, milk. Now we just throw hay. We do everything else in the afternoon, when it's not EIGHTEEN degrees out. Thing is, it really doesn't stay too cold for too long around here. I heard on the radio either yesterday, or the day before, that it was the shortest day of the year? So our days should begin to lengthen again and it will warm up. Most Christmases for all my life that I can remember, I barely needed a sweater to keep myself warm.
I wish I had more time and energy. I wanted to get my garden planted with more seeds, and have never gotten that done. Now today I want to get some housework done, but I'm growing more sleepy as I type. I think I will take a bit of a nap and then when I get up I can start working on something.
BTW, for the past two days, I have not been able to log in to Blogger using Internet Explorer. I use IE most of the time, but am trying to move over to using Firefox. I still find that there are browser conflicts with some sites with Firefox. At any rate, all I get is a blank page that keeps attempting to load when I try to log into Blogger. Blogger doesn't seem to listen to my pleas for help, so I'm not going to bother notifying them about this problem.
I am planning to make some kind of soup for dinner tonight. Probably some fresh bread from the breadmaker also. Too bad the bread will not be "NT-friendly" since there isn't enough time to soak the flour.
Until next time.
Friday, December 22, 2006
The Elusive Nintendo Wii
Labels: Holiday Banter, PTL
Earlier today, I was ready to sue Nintendo for mental anguish. Ds1 and Ds2 have been anxious to own the Wii. We've been here and there and to and fro looking for the damn thing. I can't believe that Nintendo decided to release Wii's just a tinkle at a time. Come on! AGH!!! They can't tell me they don't know they would be wildly successful at anything they put out. We didn't even try for the new system on launch day, figuring there was no chance at all for getting one. Then it became apparent that Nintendo was planning to drag this out forever, not getting up to full production...
...until sometime in January. At which point, ds2 began to feel desperate to have the Wii sooner.
So on Sunday the 17th, I was up at 5:00am driving to the nearby small city which is 22 miles away. There were already 20 or so people in line waiting at the GameStop. I didn't even bother looking to see what was going on at the GameCrazy. I headed to the "big city" which is more than 50 miles from there. Ds2 was directing me by phone where to go and try. I happened to pass by a small gaming store, I believe it was a GameStop, but not even sure. At least six or so were in line already. I then went on to a Best Buy, where about 40 people were standing in line. There was a light hazy mist falling while we waited. Within moments, an employee from Best Buy came out to tell us that they only had 15 units and they had already given tickets to the first 15 people in line, most of whom had been waiting in line all night long.
I ended up going back over to that first little shop, and camping out for a while. We didn't have to wait too long, about 20-30 minutes, before the shop owner arrived. He came out within a few minutes and had tickets to give out. He gave out either 6 or 8 tickets. I was two people too late.
Ds2 and I were both very upset. Ds2 had gone back to bed, and I was very hungry. So I decided to stop by one of our local stores that has a pizza oven and makes pretty good pizza. I called ahead to order the pizza, but the pizza department never answered the phone. I went in to order and the lady asked me if I'd like the one sitting under the heat lamp because she was supposed to make only two pizzas, but got carried away and made three. The third one of which happened to be our favorite, pepperoni and black olives. So I felt like God was looking out for us, and felt very grateful for that.
I brought the pizza home and knocked on ds2's bedroom door. I asked him if he were hungry, he was. So I came in and we ate pizza together from the box. I also brought a piece of german chocolate cake. I knew we were both hungry and too depressed to spend time making food. He perked up a little after that, and told me it was a good call to bring home pizza.
So the next possible chance was on Thursday, yesterday. I stopped by a Toys R Us on the way home, to find they had sold out three hours earlier.
Ds2 and I found we had not communicated very well on this venture. He was actually surprised to learn that I'd be willing to "camp" at the small gaming shop. I told him I figured it was a given. And that I'd actually been looking forward to it, because it would be time spent that I wouldn't have to earmark for anything else. Dh is out town, has been for 4.5 weeks and so I've been very stressed, trying to do everything by myself. At any rate, I'd brought Christmas cards to address, and my crocheting. Because ds2 now knew I was willing to camp, he wondered if I'd be willing to camp early Friday morning. As he perused the "where do I find a Wii" boards, he started feeling the chances were slim to none and he told me he had given up on the idea of getting a Wii until end of January.
I had already decided I'd check the local shops in the small town we live close to, so I set out about 9:30am. I first stopped by Kmart and asked if they were expecting a shipment before Christmas. She said maybe Sunday.
I then went by the GameCrazy and asked them if they were expecting any Wii's today. They said I should check by around 3:00 to 4:00pm.
Next I stopped at GameStop. I was waiting in a line so I could ask, and the lady in front of me turns around and says, "That line over there is if you are buying something. This line is for the Wii." My eyes almost bugged out of my head, and I saw several Wii boxes... I wondered how they got hold of so many. After a couple of seconds I tapped the lady on the shoulder and asked her, "So do they really have the damn things?" She said they only had three, and there was a big line a while ago, but when they found out only three came in, everyone left. I waited around until the two people (#2 and #3) in front of me actually paid for their Wii, then I left. I wanted to make sure there wasn't some fluke with their credit card! I would sure be happy to buy theirs if they couldn't, for whatever reason.
Then I checked at Walmart. Then I stopped at Dairy Queen for a small cone.
Funny thing... as I took the first lick, it tasted kind of like it burned my tongue and had an acidic bite to it, almost like alcohol, but more like fermented something. I took 3-4 licks, and decided it was spoiled. If it were my own fermented concoction, I'd have eaten it, but since it was from a fast food joint, I didn't want to take any chances of getting sick. Hopefully the kefir I've ingested in the past year will keep me from getting ill from that little bit of spoiled ice cream that I had. I did go back and get another cone. The lady apologized and got me one from the "front" machine.
There was another Walmart 20 miles away, so I went there next. This is a small town and you can tell most people are poor there. I walked in the store and had walked about halfway into it, when I heard this over the intercom, "Attention: There are 2 Nintendo Wii's available in Electronics." I noticed a man in front of me lurched to the right and started walking very fast. I could have sworn I heard one or two people whoop somewhere in the store. I anticipated finding dozens or hundreds of people trying to get those TWO Nintendo Wii's. When I got back there, I was #3 of 3 people. Total. Just three of us. And of course, #1 was the man I'd seen walking fast, and #2 wanted the other Wii.
I again waited, in case their credit cards didn't work for whatever reason... but they both worked just fine. I then just asked the lady if they were expecting another shipment by Christmas and she said that was the last one they expected until after Christmas followed by, "Sorry, Sweetie."
I had some shopping to do. I forgot to charge ds2's cell phone last night, so his battery was totally dead. My car charger wasn't working, so I had no cell phone. I was so distraught that I went to find a pay phone. I called ds2 and told him, "No Wii's here. None." And then I told him what happened. I was really upset about it, and crying, and mad at Nintendo for doing this.
I'm using ds2's phone because he had 2600 anytime minutes, and I was down to about 160 with eight days left until the cycle ends. So I've been carrying his phone. We each get 3000 anytime minutes. A grandfathered plan from T-Mobile from 5 years ago.
So I was pretty upset, actually crying in the store. I did a bit of grocery shopping and paid. I had to stop at another store, to pick up the "shred". Did that, and headed back to the small town. I had plans to go to the GameCrazy and ask if they got their shipment in, if they had not, I was going to ask if I could be #1 in a line someplace in the store.
There was a lot of traffic in the small town. Very congested, very unlike this small town to have this much congestion and traffic. I finally got to the GameCrazy and went in. The same young man was there.
Me: "So did your shipment of Wii's come in?"
Employee #1: "I'm noooooot surrrrrre."
Ambles over to Employee #2 who says to me: "What was the name?"
Employee #1 to Employee #2 (barely discernable): "She came in asking earlier today."
Employee #2 motioning toward cash register: "Go ahead, give her that one."
Employee #1 walking towards me: "We have ONE left. We just got our shipment about half an hour ago."
Me, incredulously: "You're kidding!?"
Employee #1: "Nope. It's yours."
Me: "YOU'RE KIDDING!? OH my gosh, I'll take it. And one of those and one of those. And do you have those nunchuck things? What does it come with? I have to buy some games, but I don't know which ones and my cell phone is completely dead."
Employee #1: "Here you go, use our phone."
I notice they didn't try to push that GameCrazy membership card on me. Had I thought about it, I would have bought one, because I think it takes something like 15% off your first purchase!! Dang! Anyway. I'll list off everything I bought. In case you think we're rich, we aren't. The initial purchase was paid for with plastic and this is the only Christmas present anyone is getting this year. Ds2 has been saving his money toward this game system, and had $160 for me when I got home. Also, my MIL has generously agreed to pay for half, which I don't know for sure how much "half" will be, since the console itself costs $250 before you add anything else to it.
Grand Total -- $597.20. OUCH.
Ds2 paid $160, so that leaves $437.20. If MIL pays half of that, that leaves us responsible for $218.60. My mom will probably give us some money for Christmas, so maybe we can apply that directly to the Wii fund.
I was so happy that I was thanking God for this small miracle. It will really take a load off my mind.
Until next time.
Monday, December 18, 2006
No Comments Since November
If you've tried to comment to my blog, I finally just figured out why I haven't received notification of your comment. I had to change my most used email address due to receiving literally thousands of spam emails each week.
At any rate, I haven't been ignoring comments, I have never received notification of them. I changed my email address to my blog, but I forgot that I had to go into the settings and change the email notification addresses. I guess those notifications just disappeared into cyberspace.
I never got many comments to begin with, so maybe everyone's just been busy. [Update 12-24-06: A few days ago I discovered that *DUH* I could go to "moderate comments" and approve any comments made to my blog. So I have done that, and if you posted a comment it should be present now. Thank you to those who have commented.]
Until next time.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Signs of Christmas
Labels: Holiday Banter
Sometime back in either 2000 or 2001, my dh (who can be quite the romantic guy) made some Christmas decorations big enough to go on the house and be seen from quite a distance. One of the items he made was a very tall angel. When we lived in the "big city" in the mobile home park, my poor angel was out of place......but when we moved out to the country, she fit in quite nicely with the big open outdoors. She is so beautiful on the porch and she can been seen for a mile down the road. I love my Christmas angel.
Dh made her with old parts and pieces. He's very talented at doing that sort of thing. The very bottom round hoop piece is an old bike rim. The wings are cut from sheet metal, with gold lights taped around the edges with aluminum tape (which is very good tape - I daresay better than duct tape!), there are also gold lights around her halo. Her face is a mask made of sheet metal that my dh picked up years and years ago at a thrift store. He thought it was unique looking, and being made out of sheet metal (his specialty), he bought it.Speaking of angels... my dh wrote this poem for me:
Borrowed Angel
I can see it all around you
Your hair, eyes and face
A warmth, a glow, an aura
Surround your every space
I hear the saints are mourning
How heaven's not so bright
They pray the earth gives up
Its angel that took flight
The angel belongs to me now
On earth she'll be my wife
Heaven learn some patience
God sent her for my life
Her time down here's not over
You see I love her so
I need her more than ever
I'd miss her awesome glow
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Swoon.
Until next time.
I'm Purple, Once Again
Labels: geek-stuff
In spite of my busy life, as I said yesterday, sometimes I have to have a bit of fun and distraction. So I busied myself last night (was up until 11pm!) returning my blog to the purpleness it was prior to Blogger Beta.
In my journey I found a neat little freeware program called Pixie...
...what a spectular little gem of a program!! I was able to match colors so closely on my blog that you probably can't see the color differences unless I showed them to you. The difference is barely perceptible to the human eye. You can get Pixie from the creator's website, Nattyware. The Nattyware site was down yesterday when I tried to get the program, so it can also be downloaded from download.com
It works wonderfully in conjunction with Adobe Photoshop 5.0. I have the newest version of Photoshop at work, and it has some fancy updated features, but 5.0 works fine for me here at home.
I still haven't heard back from Mr. Hackosphere. Maybe today. In the meantime, since I decided to purple-ize my blog again, it won't be so easy to undo the hacks... I will have to go in and retrace my steps and remove code. I won't be able to just upload the last saved copy! I am sure I'll figure it out!
Until next time.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Peekaboo Posts
Labels: geek-stuff
I am testing out my newest hack from Hackosphere, Peekaboo Posts. This is where you have a summary of your post, and allow your readers...
...to read the rest of the post once they click on Display Entire Post. Neat! The only drawback I can think of is it will no longer be possible for me to print out my blog pages for hard copy archiving, since many of the posts will be in summary form to allow my readers to continue reading if they have interest in what I'm talking about, or not. I don't think I'll use it with EVERY post. [Update: Although I could go through the whole page, click Display Entire Post on every post and then print out, so it is still workable.]
Update: 8:47pm. There is actually another drawback, which is very disturbing to me. When using Internet Explorer, the title and labels disappear unless I move my mouse over where the links should be. I have written to the Hackosphere guy, to see if he has any suggestions. I am trying to be patient, but I hate SOOOO much that this is happening that I just want to upload my previous saved version of my template and be done with it and phooey with hacks!
I am going to leave my blog in place as is, though, at least for a day or two, to give him a chance to respond. Hi Mr. Hackosphere!
Until next time.
Labels at Top of Post and Drop Down Labels
Labels: geek-stuff
I woke up at 4am this morning. I'm working from home this weekend, as I did last weekend. This is to prevent my having to drive into town 2 additional days each week. I have 15 days worth of work to complete in 9, so I'm having to take it home.
Instead of working... I'm playing with my blog. I have to have some fun, sometimes. And I did get up MUCH earlier than necessary, although I will probably need a nap later.
I have been trying to figure out how to change my labels to the top of my post so that my readers can decide whether to skip my post for the day due to label content.
During my search for the answer, which I never found, btw, so I guess either I'm using the wrong search words, no one else cares, or maybe it's so simple no one has bothered to post about it? Anyway... I found a beta blogger hack for making my labels into a drop down menu, rather than having them span such a long distance on my sidebar. So far, I like it. It was REALLY easy to do. If you are interested in doing the same, go to Hackosphere.
Then, I decided to play around with the HTML coding and see if I could figure out how to move my labels from the bottom to the top. Oh, btw, I did use the new easy, drop-n-drag feature in the templates section, and according to that editing area, my labels ARE at the top. However, they continued to show up at the bottom.
So here is what I did.
1. Save your template. Do not skip this step. You don't want to make a mistake and lose all the other changes you've ever made.
2. Check the box that says "Expand Widget Templates".
3. Search for these two lines of code:<div class="post-header-line-1">
<div class='post-body'">
4. Remember where those are at as you are going to insert some code in the middle of the two lines.
5. Find this code, highlight these lines then go to Edit > Cut:<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'>
<span class='post-labels'>
<b:if cond='data:post.labels'>
<data:postLabelsLabel/>
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<a expr:href='data:label.url' rel='tag'>
<data:label.name/>
</a>
<b:if cond='data:label.isLast !="true"'> ,</b:if>
</b:loop> </b:if> </span> </p>
6. Now you are going to paste the above few lines of code, in between the first two lines of code as such:<div class="post-header-line-1">
<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'>
<span class='post-labels'>
<b:if cond='data:post.labels'>
<data:postLabelsLabel/>
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<a expr:href='data:label.url' rel='tag'>
<data:label.name/>
</a>
<b:if cond='data:label.isLast !="true"'> ,</b:if>
</b:loop> </b:if> </span> </p>
<div class='post-body'">
7. Now you are going to make one final change at this area:
<div class="post-header-line-1">
<p class='post-header-line post-header-line-2'>
<span class='post-labels'>
<b:if cond='data:post.labels'>
<data:postLabelsLabel/>
<b:loop values='data:post.labels' var='label'>
<a expr:href='data:label.url' rel='tag'>
<data:label.name/>
</a>
<b:if cond='data:label.isLast !="true"'> ,</b:if>
</b:loop> </b:if> </span> </p>
<div class='post-body'">
8. One more thing to do, and you are done. Find this line of code:<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'>
9. Change it thusly:<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-2'>
10. If you hit preview and get error messages, you will need to upload your saved template. Then you can try again.
Until next time.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Be Careful What You Ask For
This post was written by me originally on April 24th, 2005.
This is a really funny story of a blessing and a sign to me that God cares for us and answers our prayers.
Ds2 needed a new pair of pants. He's a big boy, and we do our shopping in a small town which doesn't have a "big and tall" men's store. Ds2 measured himself at home and told me over the phone that he needed pants with the waist size 58". When ds2 told me that, I said a prayer that God would help us find him a pair of pants that would fit. His only pair was pretty well worn out. I knew that Kmart or Walmart only went up to 50" so we decided to take our chances at a closeout mall. I asked the salesperson if they carried pants that big. She said they only went up to 50" but I could look on the rack of the pre-worn returned Levi's. I was standing right next to it, and started looking through the pants. I was so surprised to find ONE PAIR of 58" jeans!! I immediately gave thanks to God for this blessing! It really made me feel so cared for!! The other option would be to drive into the big city for a pair of pants. I was so happy about this. So we got home a little later, and I showed ds2 the pants and told him about the blessing.
Ds2 looking at the pants: "Don't you think those are a little big?"
Me: "You said 58", didn't you?"
Ds2: "I said 58"? I meant 48"!"
So the morale of the story is to be careful what you ask God for, and be specific. :-)
Until next time.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Which One is the Pitbull?
Labels: blah blah blah, Busy Times, LJ, My Faith
Did you know that most people can't even identify a "pitbull" from a group of pictures with dogs that are often mistaken for pitbulls? I couldn't, when I first saw that page. Did you know that "pitbull" isn't even a breed of dog? It's a term used to describe three breeds of dogs.
We were thrown a few curve balls; things got so busy and overwhelming that I had no energy left at all for blogging. Although I feel a keen longing at the moment, so here I am.
It continues to be busy. I have not had one moment to even lay my hands on the baby sweater, although I continue to carry my crocheting bag with me wherever I go. It would be nice to have it done in time for Christmas.
I have had some revelations and as a warning for those who will be grossed out or intensely offended at the mere mention of God, my blog may begin to contain more religious references as I continue my journey in life. Stay tuned or change the channel, your choice. ;-0
Until next time.
