Sunday Funny

What happens when I leave my camera laying around? 

Little Miss Sunshine takes pictures of her Nannie.

She did several versions, and while the exposure is off and they're not in focus, I think it's hilarious.

Obviously she's watched me taking multiple pictures of the same thing, trying to get it right.

Fun with Fireplaces

This week was a vacation week for us, and I spent my time diligently working on projects around the house instead of going on fun road trips with my sister. 

** I painted the vanity in the upstairs hall bathroom. The paint is still curing, so I haven't reinstalled the hardware yet, so no picture.

** I FINALLY finished painting the shelves for the bookshelves in the library. They're now curing also, so again, no pictures. While I was at it, I finished painting some other wood projects also.

** I worked on our living room. This included spackling and sanding the tongue and groove paneling, then priming it and painting it.  I then spackled the walls where the crown moulding used to be- I used an exacto knife to cut the caulk, but still managed to peel the paint when I took down the crown moulding. Then I sanded and primed in preparation for new paint. I also ripped out the fireplace surround and spackled and primed there as well. After that I taped off all the woodwork, and am now ready to paint the walls- no more dull gray!

I don't have pictures yet of the fireplace in it's spackled and primed glory, but here's a before picture. The black slate is ugly and I detest the 1 inch wide mantle- it's completely useless.

And here's a picture with everything ripped out, and the mess not yet cleaned up. I had to take a hammer to the slab in front of the fireplace and break it into 4 or 5 pieces to remove it- it was firmly glued to the plywood that was screwed to the 2x4 frame. Way more work than I anticipated, but at least it's done.

If you look closely, the hole above the fireplace looks a lot different. Turns out that the previous owners built a box that was smaller and less deep than the original TV hole (which is two feet deep). Our neighbors had mentioned that there used to be a TV above the fireplace, but I could never figure out how- the space was too small and there were no plugs. It all made sense once I pulled the trim off. We're still deciding what we're going to do with the gaping hole: drywall over it or create some hidden storage. I'm leaning toward the latter, but haven't yet figured out how to make the hidden storage look good and not be obvious.

 I'll post more pictures next week as I get more done. The fireplace probably won't get finished right away, as we're still deciding what exactly we want to do with it. Anything should be better than that nasty black slate, but we don't want to just slap something up.

Cub Scout Bat Neckerchief Slide

Not too long ago I was released from my calling as Relief Society president and called as a Cub Scout den leader. I've never done Scouts before, but I'm looking forward to learning new things, which happens with all my callings. I remembered that my mom was a Scout leader for a number of years and that she had quite a collection of neckerchief slides that they had made, so I gave her a call and she sent me some pictures of the slides for visual inspiration.

We'll probably do a new slide each month, which will help the boys build a collection, which is one of their requirements (at least it is for the Wolf Scouts). For our first slide we did an easy bat, which I thought was a good choice for the month of October.

Materials:
Black felt
1.5" black pom poms
.5 or .7mm googly eyes
1/2" conduit, cut into 3/4"long pieces (I used electrical conduit because it was cheaper than pvc pipe, but either would work, and I used a pvc pipe cutter that we already had to cut the pipe. A hacksaw would work also.)
cardstock for wing pattern
low temp hot glue gun (so the boys don't burn themselves)

 Draw a bat wing shape and cut it out of the card stock.

 Using card stock pattern, cut bat wings out of felt. A white marker of some kind would be helpful here. I didn't have one, so I just carefully held the pattern on the felt and cut around it.

 Use the glue gun to glue two googly eyes to a pom pom. I put a tiny dab of glue on the back of the eye, then stuck it to the pom pom.

 Glue the pom pom to the wings.

Then glue the wings to the conduit piece. My conduit had black writing on one side so to hide it I glued the bat wings over it.

All done and ready to be worn!

Living Room Paneled Ceiling Progress

The night we moved into our house, I took a nice long bath in our new soaking tub. While I was drying off, I heard water dripping downstairs. I rushed downstairs and found water dripping from the ceiling.  I grabbed some plastic bins for the water to drip into and some towels to clean up the mess. The next day was Sunday (of course), but on Monday I called a plumber who came out and found the source of our problem: the coupler between the drain and the drain pipe had crumbled. Unfortunately, he only found this out after cutting 3 holes in our ceiling. After replacing the coupler, he patched the holes, but left the mudding and sanding to us.

After very close inspection (once we knew what to look for), previous water damage to the ceiling could be seen. We figure the prior owners (who only lived here two years) used the tub once, it leaked, and they never used it again. And they didn't tell us. Not cool.

We discussed just breaking out the mud and finishing off the patch job. There was two problems with this: I was doubtful we could make the patch job really look good, and I'm really allergic to the dust that comes from sanding down drywall mud. I get sick even if I'm using my face mask. And the dust would spread throughout the house, continuing to cause problems.

After some thought, I decided I wanted to put tongue and groove paneling on the ceiling. Mr M didn't have a preference, especially since he knew he wouldn't be doing the work because of his crazy work schedule :) Once we decided what we wanted to do, we still had to wait till some in-progress projects were finished. Which, of course, took a while.

So for the last year and a half, the ceiling in our living room has looked like this:

We bought the boards back in July because I thought we'd be able to finally get started. Of course, it didn't work out that way, so they've been sitting in a pile on the floor of the living room.

Until Friday night.

Friday my dad came for one of his short visits. Since we still hadn't gotten the paneling up, I asked my dad to help me finally get it done. He was kind enough to agree and to stay up till 1:30 am with me as we powered through the project. It's a good size room, but it only took 5 1/2 hours to cut and fit and nail all the boards.

I love how it looks! It totally changes the look of the room- my dad got a farmhouse vibe off it, and I'm hoping once we're done with everything it will have a beach cottagey feel. I have to spackle and sand all the nail holes, but then I can paint it and put the crown moulding back up.

I had originally thought I could do this project myself, with the help of a tall tripod that would hold up one end of the board while I worked on the other end. After installing the boards with help I have to say there is no way I could have done this on my own- not with the 8' tongue and groove boards. I'm so glad my dad was able to help me with this!

Materials:
21 pkgs of 5 1/4"x 8' primed composite tongue and groove boards (4 boards to a package)
Lots of 2" brads (already had)
brad gun
radial saw (for cutting boards to length)
table saw (for ripping the boards that were put in last and needed to be narrower)
jig saw (for cut outs around the electrical boxes for lights)

Method:
These boards are actually quite lightweight and only 1/4" thick, so we didn't bother with adhesive or even finding studs- just used lots of brads, especially on the corners of boards that butted up to each other. We started in one corner and worked our way across the room. We also moved up and down the room, turning when we came to the wall and working our way to the other wall, where we turned again. We tried to stagger where the seams were by using boards of varying lengths, which sometimes meant chopping a board shorter before nailing it up so that the seams weren't too close to each other. Because I'll put the crown moulding back up we didn't worry about butting the edges right up to the walls. Since the boards are tongue and groove, each one has to be fitted into the one next to it. Most of the time this went pretty well, but on occasion we used a section of a 1"x12" board that I pulled out the scrap bin to help push the boards together. We had to be careful not to ruin the tongue of each board, and the 1"x12" did a good job.


Why did we decide on the composite boards rather than solid wood boards? I had read some reviews that cited many problems with the tongues and grooves of the solid wood boards (they were in a package and couldn't be inspected before purchase). There were no such problems cited for the composite boards. Of the 21 packages we went through, we only had one board that truly could not be used- the groove ended up on the bottom of the board rather then down the middle of the board.  We set it aside, but we ended up ripping it down and using it to fill in the narrow space between the last full width boards and the wall, so we were still able to use it. The composite boards are also lighter and thinner than the solid wood boards, which is good, since we installed them on the ceiling. We could have used adhesive, but I didn't want to do something quite so permanent. I was a little concerned that it would be obvious that they're composite, but I don't think that will be a problem, especially once I've painted them.

Now I'm trying to decide if we should put white fan blades on the ceiling fan. I like the gray metal and it's a decent style as far as fans go, but I don't think the cherry wood fits with the beachy feel I'm aiming for. Thoughts?

September Goals Re-cap

LMS has started her fall soccer season- and I'm not coaching this time (yay!)

Since I wrote down some new goals, I thought I should track my progress at the end of each month. So here's how I did in the month of July:
(August's progress report can be found here)
(July's progress report can be found here)
(June's progress report can be found here)

A few goals under Health:
1. keep strengthening my knee and start running for longer periods of time/distance
I'm still struggling to exercise on a regular basis. My sleep schedule has been off since I got sick, which has made it harder to get early am workouts in. Still working on this.
2. train for and run at least 4 races by the end of 2012 (at least one half marathon)
I ran the 4 mile race Labor Day weekend, which brings my total to three races this year, the first of which was a half. Now I'm working toward a 5k I'm doing with LMS in October.
3. be more careful with my eating and lose some weight
I lost 4 more pounds, for a total of 15 pounds lost so far (yay!). I'm still watching my portions and we've started eating our larger meal at lunchtime rather than at dinner time. This started because I was having problems with nausea and lack of appetite in the evenings after being sick in August. The stomach problems have mostly cleared up, but I like how I feel when I eat less in the evening. Now I just have to be more on the ball with meal prep in the am.

A few goals under House:
1. finish painting all the rooms
I finished the trim work in the upstairs hall, bath and master bedroom, and painted the stairway. More rooms to go still...
2. do the family room ceiling
Finally got the paneling up! post to come... I need to spackle and paint, but the hardest part is done.
3. finish building built-in shelves in the library
Still painting the shelves- I swear this is a never-ending project.

A few goals under Homeschool:
1. stick to the schedule I've worked out, as much as possible
We're still doing pretty good.
2. be more consistent with violin practicing
Since we started school we're doing better because it's in our school schedule.

A few goals under Habits:
1. practice the piano more frequently
No time yet, maybe in October...
2. index several batches every week for FamilySearch
Tried to do some, but I'm having problems downloading the program to my new computer. I've tried a couple times and it hasn't worked. I need to figure out why.
3. have more meaningful daily scripture study (start journaling as I read)
I found some great ideas here and have started a topic journal, focusing on people in the Book of Mormon. 

How did you do with your goals this month?

Conversations with LMS

My dad came for a quick visit this weekend, and Friday afternoon before he got here, we had the following conversation.

LMS: Why does Opa call me squirrel?
Me: Why do you think?
LMS: I don't know. I'm not a squirrel, I'm a human!

I don't know, she looks kind of like a squirrel to me!

Master Bedroom Progress

I've been busy working on various projects around the house, but the problem with that is that none of them are quite done yet, so it's hard to show the progress I've made. I've finally done enough work on our bedroom that I can post some photos, even though the room isn't finished yet.

Apparently I'm really bad at taking before pictures, since I just searched through all my old photos and can't find any since we moved in. Here's a photo from when we looked at the house. The color in the photo looks kind of yellowish, but in person it was more apple or lime green with a cream sponge job to tone it down a little. Not terrible, but not what I'd put in a bedroom.

This is the view from the hall door. The first thing I did was take down the hideous old fan (apparently no picture of that, either, but it was very large and ugly- wood fan blades, greenish metal faux finish on the rest, ugly glass lamp shades) and paint the ceiling flat white (my favorite color for ceilings)- it really lightens the room up after the drab beige that was there. I then installed a new white fan that is much less obtrusive. In general, I don't love the look of ceiling fans, but out here they're a necessity, so we looked for the least offensive style. I then painted the walls a light blue-gray that I mixed myself from paint we had. I was able to take in a sample and get it color-matched when I needed more. I installed crown moulding and painted it semi-gloss white and touched up the trim around the windows and doors and the baseboards. I also painted the doors- closet, bathroom, and hallway, because like everything else in the house they were builders beige. I love how crisp and clean and bright the white looks!

This view is from the bathroom door, on the same wall as the hall door. We used to have the bed on the wall on the left side of the room, but we're trying different arrangements, anticipating the day we'll need room for a bassinet (not that we know when that will happen, but you know me, just being ocd and planning ahead). I don't love the bed being in front of the window, but the room does feel more roomy.

Mr M and I designed and built this bed about 7 1/2 years ago, in the parking lot of the apartment building we lived in. We got a lot of comments from the other tenants- mostly amazed that we would even try such a thing. We love it, but we have had to tweak the original design a bit. We didn't want to use bolts to hold it all together (they look ugly), but quickly realized we had to do something to keep it all together. So we went with eye hooks and cables, which turned out uglier than bolts would have been, but you know what they say about hindsight. All these years I've been meaning to make some sort of cover for the cables, but never got around to it. That is on my list of things to do to finish off our room, as is a bedskirt and nightstands. 

I'm not convinced I like the dresser/hutch combo where it is. I might move it to the other side of the bed, or get rid of it entirely, replacing it with two nightstands rather than just one. If we keep it, I'll put different knobs on the drawers and get rid of the scalloped trim on top. I think the wood works well with the log bed, so I won't paint it. At least not right away :) The blue bench that you can only see a corner of in the lower right corner of the photo is a work in progress- it needs a cushion still, and I might end up repainting it now that the walls are done- I'm not sure I like the two blues together. I'd like a rug for the floor, but haven't yet decided on color, size, etc. The green bins on the shelf are pretty close to the former color of the room, and I'll paint them eventually. I'll also change out the lamp on the dresser- I like that it's a touch lamp, but I'm not fond of how it looks. But it was a wedding present and has been useful over the years.

The white fuzzies under the bed posts are pieces of carpet that we stuck to the bottoms years ago to protect the wood floors of the house we were living in.

I love how our room is much brighter and calmer. I actually want to spend time in here now :)

11th Anniversary

Not too long ago we celebrated our 11th anniversary, where we kept up our long-standing tradition of Mr M being out of town for our anniversary. Yep, it happened again :)

Good thing we don't get hung up on missing things like birthdays and anniversaries. Instead, we try to celebrate when we are all together, whether it's before or after the event. We just go with the flow and make the best of it.

Do you celebrate events when they happen, or when you get around to it?

Super Yummy Nightshade Free BBQ Ribs

ok, so they don't look pretty, but they taste good! we served them with steamed broccoli and mashed roasted cauliflower. Yum!

Ribs are easy to prepare, but BBQ sauces have tomatoes and peppers in them, and rubs have paprika and cayenne (also peppers) in them. Since nightshades and I don't get along, that was a problem. We've been doing some research, and after some trial and error, we've come up with some ribs that are yummy and don't have the offending nightshades.

Super Yummy Nightshade Free BBQ Ribs (adapted from a recipe found here)

Baby back ribs
Fauxmato BBQ Sauce
Sweet Dry Rub

Remove membrane from back of ribs. Place ribs on a sheet of foil on a cookie sheet and sprinkle dry rub on one side, then rub it in. Turn over and do the same for the other side. Let sit for 15 or 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees while ribs are resting. Spread bbq sauce on both sides of the ribs. Place a sheet of foil on top of ribs and fold over all sides, sealing the ribs into a packet. Bake ribs in oven for at least 2 hours. We've baked them for 2 1/2 hours and they've just fallen apart before we even got them on the grill. Experiment and see what works best with your oven. After removing from oven, carefully open foil and spread more bbq sauce on the ribs. Throw (or gently place) ribs on the grill for about 10 minutes each side. Be careful not to have the grill too hot or to leave them on too long as the sugars will burn instead of caramelizing. Remove from grill and enjoy!

This recipe is gluten free, dairy free, egg free, corn free, peanut free, nut free, coconut free, soy free, as well as free of tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, sorghum, tapioca, and shellfish. Always check labels before using to make sure the ingredients and/or manufacturing conditions haven't been changed.

Nightshade Free Sweet Dry Rub

When I made ribs this week, I first had to make the BBQ sauce and the dry rub.

BBQ rubs usually have paprika in them, but paprika is made from peppers and I can't eat it, even in small amounts. Because of the lack of paprika and the presence of black pepper, this rub is a bit peppery instead of spicy.

Sweet Dry Rub (adapted from a recipe found here, other ideas are there as well)
6 Tbl brown sugar
3 Tbl Sea salt or Kosher salt (you want a coarse salt that won't soak into the meat right away)
3 Tbl ground black pepper
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp mustard powder

Mix ingredients together and store in a cool, dry place.

This recipe is gluten free, dairy free, egg free, corn free, peanut free, nut free, coconut free, soy free, as well as free of tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, sorghum, tapioca, and shellfish. Always check labels before using to make sure the ingredients and/or manufacturing conditions haven't been changed.

Fauxmato BBQ Sauce (Tomato Free)

I made ribs this week, which meant I finally sat down and tried to figure out our BBQ sauce recipe. This version tasted close to the one Mr M made awhile ago (but didn't document) that we've been trying to re-create since. This sauce gets a Korean BBQ sauce flavor from the sesame oil and ume plum vinegar, but it's not over-powering. In the past we've used a bottled Korean BBQ sauce that was really good that contained whole sesame seeds, so you could easily add a tablespoon or two of whole sesame seeds as well.

Fauxmato BBQ Sauce

4 c fauxmato sauce
2 tbl worcestershire sauce (recipe found here, mix together the ingredients below)
     1/2 c cider vinegar
     2 tbsp coconut aminos
     2 tsps water
     1/4 tsp mustard powder
     1/4 tsp onion powder
     1/4 tsp ground ginger
     1/4 tsp garlic powder
     1/8 tsp pepper
     1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 tbl sesame oil
1 tbl ume plum vinegar
1/3 c brown sugar
1 tbl coconut aminos (soy sauce substitute)
1 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp molasses
1/4 tsp tamarind paste
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 bay leaf

Simmer for about half an hour. Remove bay leaf and use sauce. Freeze or refrigerate leftovers. Great on ribs and chicken.

This recipe is gluten free, dairy free, egg free, corn free, peanut free, nut free, coconut free, soy free, as well as free of tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, sorghum, tapioca, and shellfish. Always check labels before using to make sure the ingredients and/or manufacturing conditions haven't been changed.

Road trip with my sister

One of my sisters is in her 3rd year of residency and is trying to decide where she wants to target her job search. You can only learn so much online, so the best way is to visit potential places and see what they're like. She had some time off that coincided with our end of term break, so LMS and I got to go with her on her exploratory trip. Mr M had to work- we're saving his time off for a couple trips we have planned for next year, so it was a girls-only trip.

We did spend lots of time in the car, but we checked out some good potential neighborhoods and added to our respective light house lists.

Our first one was actually a pair of lighthouses on Fort Henry. The striped one is in use and you can't go up it, but you can climb the older brick one.

The view of both lighthouses from a pier not too far away.

We tried to see the Bodie Island lighthouse (we saw it last year), but this is what it looks like right now:

I thought perhaps it had been damaged by the hurricane last fall, but apparently it's several years into a reconstruction project, which should be finished by the end of this year.

We had much better luck at Cape Hatteras lighthouse, which we got to climb up. This is a cool lighthouse that was moved further from the waterline a few years ago. They moved it intact- jacked up and rolled about a quarter mile or so (over three weeks) to it's current location. Apparently it's the tallest brick building to be moved in the US. Very cool. Despite being still in use, they do allow people to climb to the top.

view of the original lighthouse site- the sand spot that's above and to the left of the parking lots- taken from the top of the lighthouse

We also saw the lighthouse on Ocracoke Island. It was quite short, especially compared to the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. It wasn't open to visitors either because it's still in use. We were less than impressed with the tiny parking lot in a residential neighborhood.

We got to ride a couple ferries during our trip, which was fun. I took the opportunity to take some photos of LMS.

One night we stayed very close to the beach, and while the water was too rough to go in, we did enjoy walking up and down the beach at sunset. We had a fun time!

Dragging Through More Food Issues

LMS with creepy googly eyes. Ick!

We've been having food issues again. I had to stop buying the pre-made guacamole because the peppers in it were giving me problems. Nobody makes guacamole that doesn't include hot peppers. It's not a huge deal, but it was convenient to have packets of guac sitting in the frig for whenever I wanted to use it.

Along the same lines, the paprika in BBQ rubs is also a problem. And every store bought rub and recipe I've found all include paprika. In case you were wondering, paprika comes from peppers. Grrrr.

We've also had to eliminate most rice products. LMS has been in denial about this for months now, but I noticed some time ago that our weekly pasta night was giving her intestinal issues. I've also noticed that pasta and rice were triggers for her- she would ask for seconds, then thirds of whichever was being served. Since she doesn't do this with other foods and I react the same way when I eat trigger foods, I was able to recognize it for what it was. I was also reacting after my morning bowl of gf rice crispies mixed with rice granola, topped off with rice milk. Yeah, it was a lot of rice.

We still have our gf rice crispies mixed with rice granola, but now we top it with hemp milk. I'm not super fond of the taste of hemp milk, but I'm not reacting as much and I still haven't come up other breakfast options. We've stopped eating rice and pasta and are substituting with cauliflower rice, spaghetti squash "noodles", and zucchini noodles. I have a package of kelp noodles and one of shiritake noodles in the frig, but we haven't been brave enough to try them yet. Some day soon....

We're doing better now that we're limiting the amount of rice we're eating, and I think it's helping me lose weight. Yay!

Over the last couple years as we've tried to figure out these food issues, I've noticed just how much what I eat affects how I feel physically and mentally. The physical part is fairly obvious, but the mental is the hardest to deal with, I think. I hate the fuzzy thinking, the memory problems, and the heightened anxiety levels. My motivation to do things plummets and my ability to focus and get things done also disappears. Combine that with my recent illness and we have the reason why I still haven't finished my current painting projects.  Thankfully I'm finally feeling better all around and have started making progress again. Now if I can just keep the status quo from getting disrupted....

Deck Furniture

Sometime in the spring we were at Lowes and found some patio furniture we really liked- solid build (not thin and spindly) and thick, comfy cushions. Unfortunately the price was higher than we were willing to pay.

So we've been waiting. And researching. And waiting some more.

Our boring, under-used deck

Apparently this particular style of patio furniture is pretty popular and never goes on sale. I kept watching the sales, and other patio furniture went on sale, but not the ones we wanted.

Then last week an email from Lowes popped up with info on a sale on patio furniture. I clicked over to their website and checked the sales items on the off chance that our patio furniture would be included. It wasn't, but I searched for them so I could double-check the price.

I found our furniture, and though it wasn't marked "on sale" or "clearance", the price was lower! So I wrote down the prices so I could compare the online price to the in-store price.

We stopped by Lowes later that day to see if the price was the same there. We wanted to buy in-store so we could use our military discount, which we wouldn't get if we ordered the furniture online. But the price in-store was the same it's always been. I was disappointed, but thought to ask an employee about it. The lady who helped us looked up the furniture online, confirmed that the price was indeed lower, and said they'd match the price.

So she went with us to the checkout, and lo-and-behold, it rang up at the lower price! The lower price was in the computer, but not on the shelf. We saved almost $300 by being patient and asking about the online price.

While it might seem counter-intuitive to buy patio furniture at the end of summer, we'll actually get more use out of it in the next month or so than we would have all summer. The heat, humidity, and bugs here make summer the season to stay inside. Spring and fall are much more enjoyable.

Our deck is finally looking like a livable, useable space.

Look how thick those cushions are!

They're made of Sunbrella fabric, which is supposed to stand up to outside weather conditions- I'm curious to see if it lives up to its claims.

I've thought about getting an outdoor rug to go underneath, but I don't think it's a very practical idea with our climate. Though I might do it anyway if I find one at a good price...

Lesson learned: if you find a lower price online, and the price is higher in-store, don't be afraid to ask an employee to price match. And being patient can save you a lot of money.