2014 Year in Review

In January Dad, Mik, and I went to Walt Disney World. Dad ran the WDW Marathon and we enjoyed staying on the Club Level at Animal Kingdom Villas.

February marked one year in our house in Alabama. We still weren't unpacked, but we did get snow. Never did really unpack everything in Alabama. However, another move later and we are almost all unpacked in our new places (just a few boxes left in Mik's room and Mom's organizing her stuff at her place is just a forever ongoing project).

Mom, Mik, and I visited Walt Disney World for a quick weekend trip in March to get our DVC discounted vouchers for next year's Premier Passes and go to the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival.

I spent a lot of the first half of the year at the lake house we rented, especially after Charter finally decided we weren't too far from a hook up to have internet in March. Did quite a bit of fishing, but only caught one fish, which was early on Easter and ended up being our Easter dinner.

In March/April we decided that it made more sense to switch from saving for a dream house on the lake to a condo in the DC area as it actually made sense as a place for us to live long term. In April we went to check out different areas and condos. We also went to Opening Day at Nationals Park. We did end up making an offer on a place, but they refused it because they did not want to make reasonable accommodations to the entry. Loved that unit, but it turned out for the better because we ended up in a community with much better amenities and I got my patio.

As soon as the 2014 Cubs schedule came out last year we decided we would see a game at Wrigley Field during the 100th Anniversary season when the Dbacks were in town and we choose the Wednesday game because that was Dad's off day, so he wouldn't have to take as many days off to go. Ended up being the actual 100th Anniversary date!

We all ended up back in Tucson in May and visited the Titan Missile Museum, which we had never gotten around to visiting in all the years we lived in Tucson.

At the end of May we closed on Mik's and my condo in Alexandria. In June Mom got a job relocation to Virginia and her and Dad found a condo to rent in the same complex as ours. The moving process took four months, but unlike still having at least a room full of boxes a year later from the AZ to AL move we have actually pretty much entirely finished unpacking (or at least Mik and I only have a few boxes left in Mik's room).

When checking out the local used bookstore when we first got our condo in Alexandria I found a 1940s Virginia Guidebook that Mom got me as a housewarming gift. After finding 1940s book on Tidewater Virginia I decided to start a 1940s book collection by finding books printed in the 1940s at local used bookstores. I'm using a bookcase we put in our dining room for the collection, which now includes several books I already had from the books I saved from my Grandma Kjos' library, a dictionary my Dad had that was originally my Grandpa Wasiak's, and seven other books I've found at various used bookstores in my travels this year.

I enjoyed some time at the cottage in Michigan with Grandpa, Jeannie, and Kirsten in June.

Also, in June Dad and I checked out the mini golf that was set up along the sidewalks in downtown Huntsville.

For Mom's birthday in July I got us tickets to see the Blake Shelton concert at Wrigley Field. She said it was the best concert she's ever been to. Mine, too, but I still don't officially like concerts. However, it was awesome see Neal McCoy perform. He's a true entertainer.

Dad and I went to Poland in August for the 70th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. I enjoyed hearing the first hand stories from my Grandpa Wasiak as we visited the Warsaw Uprising Museum and the area he grew up in Old Town.

When we lived in Arizona we traditionally went to a Nats @ Dbacks game once a season. Now that we live a metro trip away from Nats Park we went to several games this season, but most importantly we started a new tradition of going to a Dbacks @ Nats game. Also, I got Mik to agree to be a Nats fan now that we live in the area. He's still a Dbacks fan, but he roots for the Nats, too, unless they're playing the Dbacks.

For my birthday in October we went on a Disney Cruise that included Mik and I finally going to Mexico (Cozumel) and a stop in Jamaica. Mom and Dad also did the Castaway Cay 5k. I also ended up with a fleet of Dumbos from collecting the popcorn buckets for my Dumbo lamp project and also Mom getting me a stuffed Dumbo, which Mik found quite snuggy.

For years I have been wanting to take Mik back to the top of the Washington Monument, but it kept being under renovations when we visited and then repair after the earthquake. It reopened around the time we moved to the area and in November we finally got tickets and did it. Mik couldn't enjoy the view as they did not have the periscope like when we took him in 2006, so he still has no idea what I have been trying to explain to him all these years because he doesn't remember it.

The weekend before Christmas Mom and I went to Nashville as she got us tickets to see the Opry at the Ryman as my Christmas present. When I heard about the Kelly Clarkson's Miracle on Broadway concert I got the tickets for that as her Christmas present (I told her not to get used to concert tickets as presents!). We also toured the Ryman, visited The Hermitage, got boots, and enjoyed music at a honky tonk.

Since moving to Alexandria Mik and I have enjoyed visiting the various museums, especially the temporary exhibits, in D.C. In December I took him to a variety of the holiday things including the Holidays at Union Station, Capitol Christmas Tree, National Christmas Tree, and our favorite Season's Greetings at the U.S. Botanic Garden. In December we also visited Walt Disney World mainly to pick up next year's annual passes, but also to enjoy the holidays at the parks.

Dumbo Lamp in Kitchen

Mom emailed me this morning and said I had to do an update on my Dumbo lamp. So here it is. Not only has Mik not vetoed the one Dumbo on the lamp in the kitchen; but the lamp has turned into a miniature version of the Dumbo attraction. Mik doesn't mind it; but it does drive Dad nuts as he's always banging into it when throwing stuff in the trash or recycling cans.

On our Disney Cruise for my birthday last month they had the Dumbo popcorn buckets at the theater concession stand. The first night we bought one; because I had been talking about it being cool to turn the light into a miniature version of the attraction with three more Dumbos. We were going to get more each night until I had three; but the next night they were then out. However, the next night Dad and I noticed they had them again; so we just bought two to ensure we ended up with three. Then Mom met up with us in theater and had bought one, too. Thus, I ended up with too many Dumbos; but I guess can you really have too many?

Bonus collage that I've been meaning to put together of riding Dumbo over the years (and one of the Dino ride at Animal Kingdom; because it is now the only flying ride Mik does as it doesn't require a transfer).

Redoing Corona Cooler

For years we have been meaning to repaint the Corona cooler, since after years of being outside in Arizona it looked pretty worn. Before we moved it from Alabama to our condo in Virginia, we decided now was the time to finally repaint it while we still had outdoor space for such projects. Dad did a great job of sanding it and spray painting it red.

Originally, Dad wanted to make it Coca Cola themed with stickers, but I told him we are no longer doing that since Mik and I have our porch Disney themed. (There are penguins in Mary Poppins, so having my penguin army out there fits the theme, right? At least that's my argument should Mik ever notice I put them all out there instead of storage like we had originally discussed.)

Switch and Outlet Plates for Our Condo

Back in 2012 I painted the outlet and switch plates for Mik and my rooms in our house in Arizona.  I meant to eventually do the whole house, but then we moved to Alabama.  Again, I planned to do them in that whole house, but that got forgotten and the only special ones there are the farm brand and heart shaped ones I had before the move.

When I mentioned to Mik that I was going to paint mine blue and that we should paint/decorate all the ones throughout our new condo, he at first did not know what I was talking about.  As soon as I reminded him about how I had painted them in his room back in Tucson, he got very excited about the idea.  I even suggested I try to get fancy and do sports themed ones for our living room, which is going to be sports themed with mostly the All the Ballparks souvenirs and other baseball stuff.  We agreed that my efforts at the fancier ones may stink, but we could just buy new plates or get some on Etsy or something if they ended up looking bad.  However, I think they turned out pretty awesome, although there's a chance he will veto keeping one of them.

Currently, I have finished all the ones in the bedrooms and the bathrooms and about half of the ones in the living room/entry.  The other ones in the living room may just end up being concealed by furniture, but I only did not do anything because I ran out of ideas for now.  The kitchen and dining room also need to be done.  No ideas for them at the moment other than leaning towards more creative like the living room ones and they will be Disney themed as that's the theme we have chosen for that part of the condo.

I've had a penguin bathroom theme in most places since my first house after college including the bathroom I shared with Mom and Dad in Huntsville having my penguin shower curtain.  I painted the light switch plate to be like an iceberg and the outlet cover to be a penguin.

Mik's bathroom already had a purple wall and we decided to keep it because in Alabama he has a painting with purples that he currently has in his bathroom because it does not go with the colors of his art collection in his room.  Also, purple is one of the Lakers colors.  He did not actually decide on what to do for the bathroom, but I think he'll like what I chose.  If not, I'll change them.

Mik did choose his colors for his room. He has one red wall and he choose a turquoise for the covers on that wall.  I think this combination turned out very awesome.  Might even have to rethink putting his entertainment center on that wall because that would cover up the outlets and they just look so good.

The rest of the covers in his room are red like the red wall.  This one, though, is in the hallway entry to his room and I added a coat of glow-in-the-dark paint.  It does not really glow because I only put one coat on and I wasn't sure he would like how it changed the color. Might end up adding more coats so it really glows or just make it red like the rest depending on what Mik wants.

I bought a pack of MLB collector's stickers that are random ones like trading card packs to see what I would get that I could maybe use to make some fun switchplates for the living room.  I ended up with a Nolan Ryan, which fits the theme with him being one of Mik's favorite pitchers of all time and the Nolan Ryan Exhibit Center being one of the places we went on the Ballpark Trip.  I also ended up with an Angels sticker as well as a Mets player and a Rangers player that I cut the team logos from.  If only, I had gotten an Astros player, then I could have had logos for all the teams he played for.  I painted it over it all with Glow-in-the-Dark paint. This one has enough coats that it can glow, but it is in a spot that doesn't have a nearby light, so it doesn't really get charged up.

Since Mik is big into basketball, I painted one outlet cover like a basketball and the light switch plate on that wall is supposed to resemble a backboard.  The basketball came out good, but I don't know if the backboard will make sense without explaining.

I made a Washington Nationals light switch plate using some nail art stickers Mom found when we were out buying paint.  This one is also painted with glow paint and it is in the entryway with a light above it, so it does end up glowing.  This is the one Mik might end up not agreeing to keeping, but I am hoping it won't be hard to sway him to allowing it to stay because I did make him a Nolan Ryan one and a basketball one.  Plus, there are still covers to do in the entryway and if I can just find something that works I will make one Dbacks themed.

Our Disney Yard Decor and Penguin Army Patio Style

We did not want to move any furniture on our initial trip to our condo to allow for easy painting and installing new flooring in the bedrooms.  Since we did not have to do anything to the patio, I did bring most of our collection of Disney Yard decorations.  Only things I did not bring were the grumpy plant (not going to be here to water the dill in it, so left in Alabama for now) and the lighthouse (I thought it might be too big, but it will go great in the corner I took the above panorama from).

 

I also brought some of the penguin army, which Mik says I cannot have on the patio except as a seasonal decoration, but for now he is not here and I have six on the patio (Christmas in July is coming up, right?). The ones I took were the extra sitting on the porch since we took them out of the yard after Christmas and the rest Dad would not let me take because they look good in front of the fake garage door in Huntsville.  Eventually I will move them all here and I will probably have to keep them in the storage unit except for December.  Maybe, Mik will let me have one out all year round, though.

Penguin Army

Sunday Mom and Dad went to Lowe's to get holiday lights.  They saw a display with bricks painted as snowmen and bought a brick to bring home to show me.  Dad wanted to buy a bunch right away for me to paint for the yard, but Mom said to just get one because sometimes I shoot down her project ideas as silly.  I did not shoot it down this time, but I did immediately decide the brick should be painted as a penguin and not a snowman.

After going back to Lowe's for paint and 11 more bricks, I got home and told Mik I was making a penguin army.  I finished one that day and placed it outside by the sidewalk.

Yesterday, I painted more of the bricks and also came up with the idea of painting one of them to have his belly look like the number 1.  Then when placed next to two with their regular bellies looking like zeros we have our house number.  In putting the three for that with Dad, I dropped one and Mik was sad he did not get it on video because I "killed" a penguin.

Today I finished painting the rest of the bricks and fixed the injured penguin, so we now have a dozen penguins in our yard as part of our holiday decor.  Now to get the inflatable ones out of the attic, which are involved in my scheme to earn us another warning letter from the HOA.

Time for a Modern Thermostat

Since we moved into this house, I have wanted to get a new thermostat because it is not programmable.  It is just one of the many things that make this house that is at least a decade newer seem actually older than our 1995 house we built in Tucson.  I even found the one I wanted to get a few months ago, but we just have not gotten around to buying it.  This morning waking up to my bedroom being 60 degrees and finding that the thermostat reset to a setting of 64 (yeah, my room runs 3 to 4 degrees less than the thermostat even in summer) is a real reason we need to get a new thermostat.

Perhaps, it just needs a new backup battery, as the power was only out for an hour and I know our one in Tucson did not lose its setting for power outages that fast.  However, instead of changing it, it is finally time to have one that can be programmed to different settings for time of day and is more energy efficient.  Also, the one I picked out can be controlled from our phones, so from my room I can override when Mom and Dad sets it down ridiculously low in the summer (we all seem to not need to touch it since we went to heat mode and picked the 70 setting, although yesterday we found Mik's room to be extra toasty, but he likes that).

So much for it being the spare microwave

Today Dad finally drilled a hole in the countertop and my cabinet area of my room is finally functional as my soap studio.  I had brought 2 microwaves with in the move to potentially use.  Dad hooked up the bigger seemingly nicer one and we were going to put the other in storage as a spare in case I ever needed it.  Well, it never got to storage because a little while later I went to use the microwave and found that it turns on and appeared to be cooking, but it didn't create any heat after the two minutes I set it for.  At least I already had a spare and I didn't have to mess up the kitchen, which finally has clean counter space after Dad and I coming home from the cottage to find the kitchen stuff, as we we call it, exploded.

Keep This Kitchen Clean Eat Out!

A few months ago when unpacking boxes from the move that ended up in my room, I found this cross stitch that had been stored in the garage probably since we moved to Arizona from California in 1994. It was made by my grandma for my parents' first anniversary.

Right away I thought it should not go in the kitchen.  It is not because I do not like it, but I know Mom and she does not need any more encouragement to eat out (i.e. spend money).  Of course, once Mom saw it, though, she insisted we hang it in the kitchen.

The pinkish frame color did not really go with our Coca Cola theme, so today I repainted it the Coca Cola red from the leftover paint we had from painting the big wall in the kitchen/breakfast room.  Now it not only goes with the kitchen theme/color, but the whole thing looks better since it brings out the red in the cross stich.

Repainting Childhood Nic Nac Shelves

The box I have had opened to unpack next has not been touched in weeks mainly because it has the items that belong on two pink shelves I originally came from my room when we lived in California.  I have long not liked them being pinked (yes, I know I originally must have picked the color for the shelves), but it did not really bother me with them being in the upstairs hallway.  Now, though, it did not make sense to put them back up with the things on them before repainting them a color I actually liked.  For once, the forecast looked clear, so I yesterday I set up one of my craft tables on the back porch and painted the shelves and the matching hat rack the Sorcerer Blue to match the one color wall of my room.

Before:



After:



Another couple weeks and maybe I will even get around to having them on the wall and unpacking a box.  Really, though, once I am done with my Masters by next Monday evening I do plan to pick up the pace on unpacking and ready to move my storage stuff to the storage unit, so the cabinets can be moved from storage to my room when Dad gets home, which is hopefully in the next couple weeks.

Finally Discovered an Easy Spot for Farm Brand Switchplate

While I haven't gotten around to painting my switch plates blue in my new room, one of the first things I tried to do when we moved in was put up my farm brand plate we used to have in the great room on a light switch near photos of my great grandparents farms in North Dakota. However, the plate was designed for rectangle switches and none of the lights have that in our new house. Eventually Dad may have gotten around to making one work for it, but tonight I realized the speaker control knob's plate was a rectangle.

Now if only the bookcase wasn't taking up that wall, as that would be the logical place to put the farm photos. I guess maybe, I will let Dad try his idea of switching the bookcase with the piano in his den, as then there would be wall space for the farm photos, but it will also make the furniture more crowded as it sticks out more than the bookcase and that feels almost too close to the couch as is.

Pool Noodle Sorcerer Hat Craft

When I saw the Use-Your-Noodle Headboard project in the February 2012 Family Fun magazine, I instantly thought it would be awesome to make a pool noodle Sorcerer Hat wall hanging for my room.  First, I had to wait for pool noodles to be in stores in April and it then took a couple weeks to find the right color ones and enough of them.  By May, I had everything to make the project, but the stuff just ended up being stacked in my room for months because I was not sure I could cut through them straight enough.  Thus, from May until a couple weeks ago all I had done was traced the Sorcerer Hat design on poster board.



A couple weeks ago, I finally decided to just try to cut the pool noodles in half and the shape out of the poster board on my own.  I did not exactly get the noodles in half using a steak knife, but it ended up being close enough they look fine.  I was all ready to finish the project then or so I thought, but it turned out the glue sticks I got did not fit in the glue gun I had purchased.  Thus, I had to wait another week to get the right size ones.

I finally got the pool noodles glued to the poster board or at least partially on Monday.  Monday I also cut out the stars and moon and spray painted them with glow-in-the-dark paint.

Yesterday, I then had to go back to some of the longer noodles and reglue them on half at a time because they did not stick with the glue drying too fast to get them on.  I then added the stars and moon, so it is finally complete other than hanging it up, which I cannot decide if I want to do or not with a move possible in our near future.

Painted Switch and Outlet Plates for Mik, too

On Monday I finally got my bed in my room and Mik came over to my room to watch Castle instead of our usual watching in his room.  It was the first time he had seen my room done.  The first thing he noticed was the awesome blue switch plate and he wanted his painted, too.

Earlier this week I talked with him to see what color he wanted his painted.  At first he just wanted his switch plate in his room painted, but we decided to do the two outlets that are not hidden by furniture and the switch and outlet plates in the bathroom.


For his room he choose a red.  Since we wanted to stick to the acrylic paint colors we had in the house, he got stuck with a color that is sort of orange red.  I painted them in my room and the orange seemed to stick out, but once I took them into his room and put them against the lighter colors of his walls they do seem more red.  Even the orangish aspect works, though, as he has a stained glass canyon painting that has reds and oranges as part of what I call his art gallery in his room.  The outlet that he plugs his strawberry wall flower fragrance holder looks especially awesome.

For his bathroom, I thought he would go with red, but he surprised me by saying the bathroom ones should be green.  I did not understand why he would choose green when his towels are black and red, but he explained it would match the green lines in the bathroom flooring.  I actually rather forgot that it in fact originally had a green color scheme.  The green I used ended up being rather dark and almost looks black, but since he has black towels it still works.

I totally jokingly said last weekend that I would slowly end up painting all the plates in the house, but what room to do next?