Monday, May 27, 2013

Choosing only 5 hats to display

For over a week I have had a hat rack mounted over the door in my office just waiting for me to hang hats on.  Initially I had to find my ball cap collection.  I found that box on Friday, but couldn't at all decide what hats to put up there as pairing down my collection to fit in that box last summer seemed hard enough.  After three days of thinking about it, I finally decided what hats to hang up there and two of the hats came out of other random boxes I unpacked this weekend.

The finalists are a Stanley Equipment Stanley, N.D. hat; a Turkish Naval hat given to me on my first trip to Turkey; a USS Crommelin FFG-37 (ship Daf served on) hat; a well worn Nats Park Opening Day hat; and my Students on Ice hat.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Computers have almost outgrown my desk

Since even before we moved to our new house, we had no idea where we would put the desktop computer.  While Mom and Dad were gone for most of April, I ended up putting it on a desk Mom had "temporarily" put in the living room.  I kind of liked it there to play on and watch television, but no one else did.  For awhile I had thought of putting it on my roll top desk because that's what it was designed for.  Today with my laptop going in for repair I was finally motivated to move the desktop to the roll top desk only to find it just barely fits in the opening for computer screens.  I kept thinking computers were getting to be too big screen size wise when I got my last laptop and if it was just a half an inch wider or taller the desktop wouldn't fit on my desk.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

I Need a Magic Clock like the Weasleys

In the Harry Potter books/movies the Weasleys have special clocks that show roughly were each member is at.  Such as home, work, school, etc.  I so need one that says things like out walking/running, out of town, at work, etc. because it seems like just when I expect someone to be at home (Dad!) I cannot find them.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Who knew making frozen pizza was so hard?

Mik asked Mom to make him some food for dinner tonight and she decided to make a garlic cheese bread sort of pizza thing we had in the freezer.  To make it, though, she first asked me how to do it as if I knew off the top of my head and I only have made one once.  I told her to read the box and she still needed pretty much word by word help, as in she didn't know how (or at least pretended not to) to set the oven and then the timer.  In setting the timer she ended up setting it for 90 hours and then it got stuck at 10 hours and I just set the microwave one, which I like better anyways.  The craziest question, though, was when she took it out of the oven and asked if it was precut or if she has to cut it.  For one, I don't know of any precut frozen pizza, but even if it was you would think it would have been noticeable that it was when she put it in or took it out of the oven.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

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:

Childhood Nic Nacs Shelves

After:

Childhood Nic Nacs Shelves

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.

Monday, April 22, 2013

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.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Mom, Mik, a Mustang, and a Shoe

This afternoon Mom came home driving a rental Mustang.  I happened to be outside running my scooter to keep it from being ruined sitting totally unused so long and I was confused at a random car parking in front of our mailbox.  Mom's first words were "I didn't buy it!"  I did not think she did, but I did kind of think she may have lost or left her Prius keys somewhere and had to get a rental.  Turns out, though, she flew into Nashville because it is so much cheaper than Huntsville (actually right after we moved here I saw on the news it is the most expensive airport to fly in/out of).

She is headed back out of town tomorrow, so there was no point in getting her car from the airport.  Also, she thought Mik might find it fun to go for a ride in a Mustang, which is one of the types of cars he likes to check out whenever he sees them.  So, I disassembled his manual chair and managed to get it to fit with enough room for me to still sit the back and Mik in the passenger seat.  I had figured that out before bringing Mik out, though, so he had to drive his powerchair out to load into the car.

Instead of just putting him from his powerchair into the car, Mom decided to just hold him sitting on the hood while I drove the powerchair inside the house, which I am proud to say I managed to do without driving off the sidewalk even once (see previous post about last attempt)!  Mik and Mom were not so successful at what would have seemed the easier task of just waiting, as I came back out to the two of them laughing as Mik was sliding off the hood and the two of them almost falling on the ground.  I grabbed Mik and held him up while Mom got a better grip and I could get into the back seat before putting Mik in the car, but nicely even if I was not there the guy from across the street had seen what was going on and came over to help if needed.

In the whole fiasco I had seen that Mik lost his shoe and assumed that Mom had, too and had picked up the shoe.  However, we get to the restaurant and I pick up the other shoe that had fallen off in the car thinking it was the one he lost outside the car, but then realized Mom had not picked up his shoe.  Not surprisingly, it was still were we left it went we got home from dinner and a movie five hours later.