Sparkety Spark Spark Spark

I finally got back on the scale, after avoiding it for the last several weeks.  Our "remodeling diet" of fast food, fast food, and more fast food led me to gain six pounds.  Honestly?  I was expecting ten. Doesn't matter in the long run cause it's all got to go.  I hated to move my little weight lifter girl in my blog header backwards.  I hope I get to see her zipping toward the goal again very soon.

With that in mind I dusted off my neglected Spark People account and started logging my meals.  I sent Walker to the grocery store, but get this:  on the way home he called me to see what I wanted him to pick up for dinner.  HELLO!  He just does not get it.

I also bought the shoes my physical therapist told me I needed back in ~ cough ~ July.  He told me not to exercise in my old shoes, as they aren't stable enough, which was leading to my knee pain.  So my exercise has been on hold until last week.  I've been taking short walks, about thirty minutes, each day, in my new shoes.  So far, the knee is fine.

Last week, and again this week, I have mandatory overtime at work.  I like being busy but at this point, I would welcome some down time.  About the jackass next door to my office:  Several of y'all suggested that I call the police, and I did think about it.  There were a couple reasons I didn't.  The main one was I felt it was like poking the bear.  You know, like if you're out in the woods and you come across a bear sleeping.  You don't get a big stick and poke him with it, you just quietly get the heck out of there.  I figured, this guy obviously has an anger problem, and if me reporting him gets him fired or something, then he's twice as mad with nothing but time on his hands.   I did write down all the details of the incident, including the time, location, and numbers on his truck.  The parking lot at his office is under video surveillance, so there is proof if I need it.  But since, on that day, I was coming into the office much earlier than normal, it's not likely I'll run into him again.  I'm using caution but I'm not going to dwell on it.

Ninety Percent

We're in the home stretch with our remodeling project.  Walker spent the day finishing the crown molding, sealing the seams and touching up the paint where the finish nails went in.  Bro came over and helped Walker put in the folding closet doors.  All we have left are some trim strips on the inside of the front door, the built in china cabinet, and the rest of the furniture, which is still scattered around the house.

Out with the old.....

And in with the new!  

Creepy...

Driving to work today on a two lane highway.  Coming over a hill, I could see the right lane up ahead was at a standstill.  The left lane was moving normally, so I moved over into the left lane.  This stretch of the highway is 50 miles per hour, and that's what I was going. No one ahead of me, no one behind me for quite a ways.  Suddenly, a jackass in the right lane got sick of sitting still and veered into my lane - right in front of me.  I hit my brakes and hit my horn and by the grace of God, I did not hit him.  I probably cussed, and my heart was pounding, but everything was okay.  Except.

At the stoplight, the jackass, who was right in front of me, started shaking his fist at me in his rear view mirror.  My first thought was, he can't be directing that at me.  HE was the one who didn't look where he was going.  He can't possibly be mad at ME.  I ignored him, until, at the next light, he did it again.  Then he pointed at me.

I got a pen out of my purse and wrote down his license plate.  He was driving a commerical truck, so I wrote that number down, too.  We both turned at the light, into a shopping area.  I figured he was making a delivery somewhere and I would lose him now.

No. Turn after turn, he was in front of me, shaking his fist into his rear view.  Finally we both turned down the street where my office is.  There isn't much down there.  I figured he was driving through.  I slowed to turn into our parking lot, and he slowed, too, turning into the lot next door and backing his truck up to the loading dock.  HE WORKS NEXT DOOR!

I continued to ignore him as I gathered my things.  I made sure I had my door key handy, and I set the alarm on my car. But he was standing in his parking lot, staring and pointing and shaking his fist, the whole time.  Finally, I called out to him, "Is there something you want to say to me?"  He just kept pointing and shaking.  I went into my office - which is not accessible to the public - and got to work.  A few minutes later Mr. Jackass drove past my window and showed me his middle finger.

Now I ask you:  what would possess someone to behave this way?  Forget that he almost caused an accident pulling in front of me like that.  The whole, "I'm going to behave in a threatening manner toward a woman who is doing nothing but driving behind me" thing is, in my opinion, a sign of an unstable person.  And I'm the lucky one who ticked him off just by being there.   Awesome.

Courtesy of Yahoo Images.  There was no way I was going to take a photo of the real jackass!

 

Around My House

Walker went grocery shopping.  Lovely tomatoes, right?

Or maybe not. EWWW!  From now on, no more shrink wrapped veggies ~

 

My latest project:  had to fill all the screw holes.....

With these teeny little pegs, lined up just right.  You get one shot to get it right, cause they DO NOT come out ~

Viola!

Walker's project:  crown molding going up ~

I just love how it looks!  It's a royal pain in the butt to cut, though ~

I'm trying my hand at growing a succulent.  Never had one before ~

Well That Stinks....

I've been trying to upload photos for quite a while today and all I get are error messages. In all fairness, I haven't had too many issues with blogger, all things considered. Except for the time they removed my blog for several days, the issues have been fixed pretty quickly. So I guess I'll have to come back later and try again. Hope you all have a great day!

Walking for the Cure

The list of things that can get me out of bed at 7am on a Saturday is pretty short. Cubby and Squeak are on that list. When they don pink tee shirts and walk four miles to raise money for breast cancer research, well, there is no way I'm missing that. I love my nephews. They make me proud, every single day.

I'm Back!

We're not quite done yet, but come on in and see the progress.  We still have a fair amount of work to do:  crown molding, closet doors, a bit of hardware.  But it's functional space again, and I really like how it's coming along.  Take a look!

This is our foyer and the new front door ~ The camera picked up the green undertones in the wall paint, but in real life it's more of a khaki tan color

Our living room looks so big now.  The new carpet is like walking on clouds.  The print on the far wall is of the Golden Gate Bridge.  We pulled all the colors we used from that print ~

I made myself a little reading nook.  Hope I get to use it once in a while ~

Our dining room.   We still need to install crown molding and the china hutch hasn't been put back together with shelving and doors, but we can use it again ~

My mom was so happy to have the dining room back, she came over at midnight and put this puzzle together ~

See You Soon!

Okay, y'all, I have to remove all the furniture from my living room for the carpet guys.  That would include my computer.  I was thinking, no problem, I have my laptop.  But the wireless modem is in the living room, too, so that won't work.  I have to have the room completely empty.  So I'll be seeing y'all in a couple days.  Miss Lucy, please take care.  You've been having such a time lately, it breaks my heart.  DD will have to look in on you for me, cause TT is on vacation.  I hope to be back online before the weekend. 

It's Almost a Dining Room

Check it out:

We have to finish the trim, put the doors back on the china hutch, add crown molding, and of course, the carpet.  Even so, it's clear we're making progress. 

Just Call Me Sparky

This morning, I had light switches that looked like this:

And I had outlets that looked like this:

Did you know, if you touch the sides of the light switches and the outlets, you'll get shocked?   Yeah, I learned that lesson.  I do a lot of my own home improvements, but I draw the line at electricity.  It scares me, frankly.  If you mess it up you can cause a fire, or seriously hurt someone.  So it makes me extremely proud to tell you, I took my time, exercised caution, and conquered my fear.  I now have light switches that look like this:

And outlets like this:
 

Oh, yeah, baby!  Bring on the next step!

Once in a Blue Moon

Remember my quest to photograph the moon? Despite not having the proper lenses and a tripod, I'm still at it.  So of course I had to shoot while the moon was blue:

Okay, I did take this photo of the blue moon, but I added the blue tint using Picasa.  

But you knew that, right?  =)

Busy Random Bits

All this "hurry up and wait"-ing we've been doing on our living room project has come to an end, and now we're scrambling.  We have mostly finished painting the walls, except for a bit of touch up.  We have wood pocket doors in the foyer and the dining room, which I originally wanted to leave natural, but we decided pretty much last minute that since all the other trim is white, we needed to paint the pocket doors, too. So Walker has been working on that.  Today, I hired my niece, Mara, to come over and help me clean up all this dust.  We took down light fixtures, ran the curtains through the washing machine, wiped off every surface, and vacuumed the floors.  Walker even brought in the ladder to clean the top of the kitchen cupboards and the top of the fridge.  I think we got most of it, which is great because all this dust?  It was pretty frustrating to deal with.  I would wipe counters and tables before I went to work, but by the time I came home more dust had settled and everything was dirty again.  That should all be taken care of now.   All we have left is to install the front door, reattach the trim, hang crown molding, and of course, install the carpet that started this whole project.  It sounds like a lot but most of the work will be done by contractors.

Because of all the dust, we haven't been cooking.  Walker goes out each afternoon and returns with a "bag of deep fried easy" or however that commercial goes.  We've run through all the options - burgers, pizza, tacos, subs, chicken, Chinese take out, gyros, pasta.  I am literally afraid to step on the scale.  I know the salt content of these meals has been heavy, as my fingers are constantly swollen.  I'm sure the nutritional value has been lacking, too.   Honestly, I feel like a lump.  I have to force myself to keep moving, because the energy just is not there.  I don't like it, and I can't wait to have my home in order so I can focus on something else for a while.  I still haven't found the shoes the physical therapist told me to wear when I go walking, so I haven't been walking.  I miss it.  Fall is coming.  I don't want to miss the golden days because I feel like I can't get off the couch. 

Right now, we're waiting for Isaac to bring us some rain, but it looks like it will fall short.  My neighbor is shooting off illegal fireworks.  It's hard to think straight with the windows rattling, and I've got my fingers crossed that the dry ground won't catch a spark.  Walker is going golfing in the morning.  I have a lunch date with my future sister in law.  Things are just about as good as they can get ~