Awwwww.... robots!

Would you stop to help a robot?

Robot/People art by Kacie Kinzer

Funniest relay ever

Thanks D, I laughed till I cried.

DIY Headboard Project

My mother recently refinished a table that belonged to my grandmother (where are the pics, ma?). I know where I get the DIY urge from. She's the only woman I know that has a subscription to the Family Handyman magazine. The Better Homes and Gardens mags gather dust, the Handyman magazines have bookmarks and highlighting.

She inspired me to tackle a small project I'd been putting off. One of the guest bedrooms needed some work, so I decided to redo the headboard. The is the before. Nothing was wrong with the headboard except that I've gotten tired of it.



I decided to make a padded headboard of a sort. I cut plywood boards and foam padding to size, glued the two pieces together, then covered with batting. The batting was stapled onto the boards over the foam to make the basic rounded shape of the pillow and soften the edges. An electric staple gun (mine cost $19) works much better than the manual kind and saves a lot of time.



Then fabric was added, stapled to the boards over the batting. Since the project requires so little fabric, I could have checked the salvage rack at the upholstery fabric store. My local store usually has 50% off remnants. For this project, I only needed one yard of fabric.




I also painted the headboard a dark brown, then dry brushed it with a mixture of black paint and glaze to break up the flat matte look of the paint.


The boards were glued and screwed to the headboard and here's the finished product.

I'm smiling

Last night, I dreamed up a much simpler approach to a program I'd been rewriting. I woke at 7AM today and got started. By 10am, the program was completed and tested. This reminds me of when I really loved my job and I could get lost in the code for hours chipping away at confusion and molding a logical solution. Now, if I get lost, someone's gonna come get me because I'm missing a meeting.

But all in all, I'll accept this revelation as a xmas present. I still do like my job a lot more than I thought I did.

Clearing it out

My new year started early. I needed it to. I couldn't wait until January for a new start and new resolutions. The clutter was taking hold. And the unfinished projects were in the background whining. And I ran across this article: How to live with just 100 things.

No way in hell.

I am such a pack rat. And I have the horrible lure of a large walk-in attic. I know that attempting to whittle the clobber to 100 items would be futile and laughable. So instead of insulting myself with an unachievable goal, I will instead at least get rid of 100 things. And then I'll take it from there. A new year's resolution should really be attainable, right?!

So far I've tossed, sold or donated to Goodwill:

5 picture frames
2 lamps
2 bookcases
2 sets mini blinds
1 rug
1 comforter
2 blankets
8 pair of shoes
4 pants
7 shirts
2 purses
2 space heaters
2 vacuums
1 hair dryer
2 dog leashes
2 pieces of cookware
1 feather bed
1 photoshop software suite
1 large stack of magazines
2 sets of sheets

50 things.

The house actually feels lighter.

The truth hurts

That Novel You're Workin' On


I recently found a 15 year old THREE INCH stack of 3x5 note cards on which I'd written various scenes to a novel that I will never finish. I can't help but laugh as Stewie stomps on my toes.

Cashin lecture

The perks of working at a university are great!

The author of The Agitator's Daughter, Sheryll Cashin, will give the annual Walter Murray Jr. Commons Lecture on Nov. 6 and the lecture will be available on video afterwards.