Another Zombie Conversation

It's a rare day that we don't talk about zombies at work. For example:

Lisa

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/06/18/hyundai-zombie-survival-machine/?intcmp=trending

S

Spikes seem impractical; you don't want the living dead stuck on your car

Lisa

Although, if you drive fast enough, they might spin off, fly through the air, and serve as another kind of weapon.

S

True; plus, depending on their level of decomp, they might just get torn in half depending on speed of impact

Lisa

Ewwww! 

R

I wonder if that would become known as zombie guts on the windshield....ya know like bug guts?

R

Sooo....what was the last thing to go through the zombies mind when he hit the windshield?

Lisa

Going to be tough to clean those off without getting out of the car

S

I bet they make a special spray to remove that; like tar and bug remover spray

R, probably his ass

R

<me chortling!>

Lisa

The more important question is.... do zombies really have minds? 

S

Let’s define "mind", shall we?  Brains yes, instinct yes, mind probably not 

R

I still think the Bradley fighting vehicle would still be my preferred mode of transportation.

I might consider the Stryker if I couldn't have a Bradley

Lisa

Is it disturbing that I've started thinking about dream home designs in terms of surviving the impending zombie apocalypse? 

S

No, just means you'll be well prepared when others laughed and scoffed; plus then, when those that laughed and scoffed at your preparedness plans are zombies, you'll be able to cap them, in the head

A

Is that better than dreaming about zombie apocalypse?

Lisa

Good point. And here I thought all this talk of zombies was making me crazy.

Yes, A. I'm planning, not just dreaming! 

S

lulz @ A

R

We should have all contributed to buying the old missile silo that has air filtration and water and everything to survive a direct thermo-nuclear hit as our preferred place of habitation.

A

I have five dollars

Lisa

Let me check the popcorn fund.... 

S

We should set that as our rally point when all hell breaks loose

S

I've got . . . a car tire

R

That'd give you like your own floor to decorate etc.  It was like eight or ten stories deep

I've got an idea that involves BB guns and banks.....any takers?

Lisa

Plenty of room for all of us

A

Which floor has the emergency escape route?

S

R, that should be discussed over beers, not our IM system

R

Bottom floor

S

Does it come with its own missile? This silo you speak of?

R

Point well taken....my bad

S

Yes, only serious communication via Lync :)

Lisa

Now that would be a good zombie killing weapon -- a missile! 

S

I was thinking for escape . . . course landing could suck

R

It does not include the cost of the missile....that’s separate and arrives in a plain brown wrapped package from Iran....some assemble required!

S

LOL

Lisa

So pack a chute and jump

S

Good call; man, I'm sooooo unprepared!!

Lisa

Yet another thing to add to the preparedness list. 

And don't forget your towel! 

S

HAAHAA!!  Well played

R

I already packed an electric green banana hammock...it’s going to be all about the creature comforts of home for me!

Lisa

Nooooooooooooooooooo!

R

Yyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeessssssss ma'am!

A

Maybe a blindfold should be added to the survival list if surviving with R

S

Speechless

Lisa

Um. Yeah. 

R

Wow!  I'm being very productive....I bet I'll get to live in my subterranean missile silo alone!

A

Just don't visit any other floors?????

Lisa

Or locked on your own floor -- never allowed on others. 

What A said. 

S

At this rate, you'll probably be the last survivor; I'd almost just be willing become a zombie in order to NOT see that

R

A guy’s gotta have a plan!

S

Self-preservation via neon green "hammock"; well thought out

Lisa

Of course he throws that idea in our faces so often I’m starting to become immune to it. 

One can only bleach one's eyes so many times before giving up

S

LOL--good choice of words!!

R

In the words of my kids’ favorite song:  I'm sexy and I know it!  

S

Wiggle wiggle wiggle

Lisa

You know.... it's like every conversation around here starts on top of a steep hill. There’s nowhere to go but down -- and we do it in a hurry. 

S

Wish I was part of the EOC's bobsledding team

Lisa

And might I add that there's big muddy gutter/ditch at the bottom of the hill? 

 

Ken's Favorite Cake

Oatmeal Cake

Cake

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1 cup uncooked oatmeal

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter or margarine

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups flour

Grease and flour 13" x 9" baking pan. Preheat oven to 350.

Pour the boiling water over the oatmeal in a mixing bowl and let stand for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, mix in the other ingredients. Pour into the baking pan and bake for 30 minutes - or until a toothpick comes out clean. 

Topping

1 cup butter

1/2 cup cream

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup brown sugar

2 cups coconut

Melt butter, then add other ingredinets and stir. Spread topping on the cake (works best if you do it soon after removing the cake from the oven). Put under the broiler until the coconut is lightly toasted and brown. 

~ ~ ~



Ken and my work husband Ron are always tag-teaming me, making me bake cakes. Okay, "making" is perhaps not the correct word. It's more like they both nag me constantly and I finally give in to save my sanity. Ken loves this cake and would probably have me make it once a week if I would. But it's an alarmingly unhealthy pan of wonderfulness, full of sugar and butter and eggs. Yummy, but only for occasional consumption.

I do have plans to experiment with the Oatmeal Cake to make it less unhealthy. I'm not sure how Splenda's Brown Sugar blend will work in the broiled topping, though. That's my favorite part, so I hate to mess it up. Anyone every try that? Anyway, I'll post about my experiments in the future -- success or miserable failure.

Oh -- Ken must have felt obligated to help out my work husband in the cake department after achieving success with the oatmeal cake. So he bugged me until I made a lemon cake to bring into work. It's nothing special -- just a box mix with some lemon pudding and cool whip. It was a bit of an experiment itself (with the pudding), so we'll see how it works out. Definitely an eat-with-a-fork (or spoon) cake -- no eating with your hands!

Laundry Room, pt 1 - Done!

On Friday evening, Ken, Jeremy, and I assembled the cabinets for the laundry room and moved them into place. We leveled them and screw them to each other, then moved on to attaching them to the wall.

Oops. They came with this rather wimpy plastic bracket which was supposed to be attached with a screw to the top of the cabinet and then to the stud in the wall. Since we were putting a countertop on the cabinets, that wouldn't work. But.... the drawers in the cabinets left enough room that we could screw a bracket up into the cabinet top from underneath and into the wall.

Except... the back of these cabinets are pretty much just cardboard with a white laminate over them. None too sturdy. That's fine -- since they are going up against a wall anyway. But when Ken screwed through the back of cabinet to the stud, instead of tightening up the cabinet to the wall, it just pulled the backing loose.

His other concern was that the screw going up into the cabinet top was going to pop through and show. I pointed out that we were putting a top on anyway -- so it wouldn't show. In fact, a slightly longer screw might be good. Help the glue hold the top in place.

So we glued the countertop in place and clamped it. Then we retreated to bed for a good night's sleep and thoughts about the attach-to-the-wall quandary.

The next morning while I was attending to important stuff screwing around on the computer playing my favorite RTS game (Illyriad -- great stuff!) I heard Ken downstairs in the laundry room, wielding his drill. When I got down there to supervise help, I found that he had used some steel L brackets to attach things. Those cabinets weren't going anywhere!

He'd also put up the shelf standards, so I could put up the shelves. With a little caulk around the countertop and wall, the first part of the laundry room project was done!

Cabinets where The Beast used to be. 

Right side of cabinets with shelves above

Left side of cabinets with shelves above. 

Yes, there is a gap between the left side and the wall. It's about 8" wide and is intentional. First, we'd have had to use different cabinets to fill the space completely. Second, the baseboard heater goes back too far and we'd have had to work around it. I didn't want a 2" gap for the heater -- and to collect stuff that fell off the counter. Third, the larger gap is useful for storing folding tables and chairs, the leaves for our dining room table, or other tall stuff.

I wish these were better pictures, but the laundry room is rather limiting when it comes to allowing me to back up and get a wider view. Imagine me squished in against the wall by the washer trying to line up the picture without looking through the viewfinder. Ha! you should have seen some of the cock-eyed shots I got! 

Since taking the pictures I've filled up the shelves with stuff from the kitchen that needed a new home -- like the triple crock pot that we only use for parties. It takes up a ton of space and the top shelf here is a great place for something we don't use often. I also took all the rags (old towels and washcloths, mostly) off the other shelves and put them away in the drawers. I still have one drawer that is mostly empty and I think that will be the home for my tablecloths. 

Every time I went in there this weekend, I was happy. I even folded laundry as soon as it came out of the dryer because I was so delighted with having a nice clean countertop for doing so. Yes, it's the little things in life that make me smile. 

Next up on the project list for me is to finish the painting and decorating of the stud (cat) quarters. But I'm going to Colorado the end of the week for my niece's wedding. House projects on hold until after that.

Friday Potpourri

A hodge-podge of stuff for a Friday morning. I'll start with a true story from earlier this week.

Clean out mouse nest in cabin air filter in my car:                                       $69.12

Replace cabin air filter in my car:                                                               $30.19

Install screen to prevent mice from making nest in air filter:                         $95.27

A dozen cats:                                                                                            WORTHLESS!

I'm still marveling at the nearly $70 they charged for removing the nest in the air filter they were going to throw away anyway. I have a picture in my head of two service techs in their hazardous waste removal suits arguing about who has to touch the mouse nest. Geez, it was just a mouse!

Although maybe it was a dead mouse? Ewwww! But that could explain the smell in my car about a month and a half ago that I couldn't get rid of. I cleaned and cleaned. The smell came back. It was a little less strong every time I cleaned, and then disappeared completely. I wasn't sure why it was gone, but I was happy. Now maybe I know why... /me prefers not to think too much about this!

As for the worthless cats... to be fair, they aren't outdoor cats. Spaz and Shira are hunters who do get to go out sometimes. But apparently hunting for mice in the garage -- and in my car -- is not nearly as exciting as hunting for them in the tall weeds in the someday water feature spot in our yard. I do think they might be spending more time in the garage in the future though.

Moving on.... This morning's weird discussion in the EOC... The Overlord gave us his annual quarterly (yes, that's what he said!) lecture on doing the dishes instead of just putting them in the sink. My work husband replied, "Fine. I'll do the dishes this morning. I do them at home, I might as well do them here, too. And where's the washer? I'll do the laundry, too!"

Night-shift Dan then says, "I've got a pile at home this high" while holding his hand about five feet off the floor.

Really?

The Overlord didn't quite buy that, to which Dan replied, "I don't have a washer, so I only do laundry once a month. I have a LOT of clothes." (Yes, ladies, he's single!) This led to him announcing he had 40 pair of underwear at last count and had bought more since he counted.

At this point, the Overlord declared that this was TMI. I couldn't help but point out that after hearing Dan say he only did laundry once a month, that I was glad, perhaps even relieved, to know that he had more pairs of underwear than there are days in the month.

The  conversation deteriorated badly after this -- comments about going commando, making three pair of underwear last for an entire week, other things I don't want to think too much about... Except for the lack of mention of the impending zombie apocalypse, a normal conversation here in the EOC.

So I've talked about two things that were kind of disgusting -- I know, let's chat about flowers! I'll end this post on a better note.

Our growing season here in Helena is depressingly short. While the rest of the world is welcoming green grass, lilacs, and buds on the trees in April, we're still watching it snow. Or it's gray and dismal and winter... with no snow. :-(  So I LOVE when things start turning green and blooming. Some of my favorites are the old-fashioned roses on the south side of our garage. They only bloom once each summer, but when they do, they are magnificent. Every year I go out and take some pictures, as if by doing so I'll extend the pleasure of their beauty a little longer. 

While I was taking pictures of the roses, I decided to take a few of my favorite flower, the columbine. We are slowly turning one of our flowerbeds into almost all columbines. As we add or replace plants there, all we put in are columbines of various colors. Still, my favorite colors of my favorite flower are the traditional blues and purples.

Ken and I like a "natural" look to yard and flower beds. I'm not big on formal, neatly lined up plantings. It makes me happy to see the columbines reseed themselves all over. Same with the pansies. But from time to time, they choose places that just aren't all that suitable. Case in point:



Columbine growing between the steps up to the deck.



This beauty sprouted in the dirt underneath the steps to the deck and is thriving. I know I should move it -- and I will -- but for some reason it makes me smile every time I see it there.But it's going to get trampled. If not that, then it's going to become a casualty to our deck cleaning, sanding, and restaining project later this summer. So it has to move. Probably five minutes before the project starts!  

I occured to me the other day that some background on our house and gardens would be useful if you don't know me (ha! like strangers are going to bother reading my blog!) so I'll close with a link to some pictures and comments about our home. Our New House (It's not so new now. It was new to us almost six years ago, and built in 1984.) The pictures on the page are thumbnails, so click on them for larger images. But I apologize -- there are a couple pictures on the site that are HUGE and take FOREVER to load. I should fix that. Someday.

Laundry Room, part 1 (cont)

The Beast is out of the laundry room and now living in the cat room. I'll get some pictures of it in its new home soon, but I was busy last night cleaning and painting in preparation for the cabinet installation.

Moving The Beast was every bit as painful as expected. First we put it on its back on the floor. We took off the heavy doors so they wouldn't swing open while we were moving it. Then we turned it on its side and slid it out of the laundry room into the dining room.

After maneuvering it around to head for the cat room and discovering the angles would be very tight, we ended up taking off the door to the cat room and the closet doors in the cat room. This gave us enough room to push The Beast all the way into the room and then turn it. Once it was near its new location we tipped it on back and then onto its bottom. We pushed it into place and replaced the doors. Then I put on two new door catches because the magnetic catches had never been enough to hold those heavy doors closed. I replaced the door pulls because we'd broken one in the moving -- and they were ugly. The Beast was moved!

Onto cleaning, preparing and painting. It really didn't take long as I didn't do the entire laundry room. I will later -- but for now the goal was to get the area where The Beast lived ready for the new cabinets and shelves. I choose Behr "Sapphireberry" in a satin finish for the walls. Because we live in a fairly dry climate and our laundry room is large with a window for ventilation, I decided satin was adequate rather than going to semi-gloss. If your room has more moisture or humidity, semi-gloss would be a better choice.

I did have to question the color name "Sapphireberry". Who came up with that?! I don't know about you, but when I hear sapphire, I think about a medium deep clear blue -- not as dark as royal blue, but close. And berry makes me think of blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, or blackberries. Again, not a light color and definitely a color more on the purple side of the blue section. But Sapphireberry is actually a muted, light blue with some green in it.





Old dirty white next to newly painted Sapphireberry  blue.

 


Boring picture of of blue walls -- but soon there will be cabinets and shelves here.


 Tonight the plans include disabling and covering the outlet that will be covered by the cabinets. I considered asking Ken to move it up the wall so it will still be usable, but I don't know if the wire would reach and Ken isn't a big fan of doing electrical work. Plenty of other outlets in the room, so I guess I can live without this one. Oh -- those other two holes are also outlets that the previous owner had disabled when he put The Beast in there.

We'll also put up the standards for the shelves since it will be much easier to do that before the cabinets are in place. No leaning/climbing over them to reach the wall. The cabinet boxes are in the back of my car (a Toyota Highlander) so we'll bring them in and maybe assemble them. Maybe. Depends on how ambitious we're feeling. Could be I'll have a date with a pina colada instead!

More to come....

The Laundry Room, part 1

We have a good-sized laundry room. It's one of the things I love about our house. It has a long L shape and plenty of storage space. When we bought the house, the walls on both sides of the narrow section had a row of coat hooks on them. There was one 18" wall cabinet above a freestanding laundry sink. There was one 24" base cabinet (which doesn't match the upper) sitting next to the sink, with a fake butcher block laminate top.

The original laundry room

In the back of the room, on the east wall in the deep part of the L, there was a very large cupboard, presumably built by the previous owner. While we've seen some examples of DIY efforts in the house that are less than stellar (note the wanna-be electrical outlets that are at the wrong height and covered with plates in our bedroom) one thing I have to say is he built things to last.

The cupboard, christened "The Beast" by Ken, is 86" high, 68" wide and 24" deep.  The doors to the beast are two solid wood 32" doors, attached to each other so you have to open both together. They take up a LOT of space when open. It's painted a not-so-lovely shade of yellowish green. It provides great storage and work space, especially since The Beast includes a pull out table for working on crafts, folding clothes or sewing. (Sewing is what I think the previous owner used it for. Me, let's not go there!)

The Beast

The first thing we did in the laundry room was replace the flower print vinyl with a neutral vinyl. No more daisies! Then I took down the coat hooks on the west wall. We put up wire shelving on the west wall above the washer and dryer, and where the hooks had been. It's messy, but functional.

Messy wire shelves -- but at least things aren't on the floor!

With everything else we (me especially) want to do with the house, the laundry room hasn't received a lot of attention and love. It's been a place for love-lorn boy cats who need to be separate from the girls. It's been the place where all our crap valuable possessions land if we need to hurriedly put things out of sight. It's been a place to give cats baths before shows. And of course, it's been the place to wash and dry clothes! But in the back of my mind, I've had a plan to put in cabinets all along the west wall where the shelving, sink, washer and dryer sit. I hadn't really considered doing anything with The Beast. First, it's perfectly good storage. Second, I suspected it would be a pain in the *** to move.

But a couple of weeks ago, Ken informed me that we were going to get rid of The Beast.The conversation went something like this.

"What? I like The Beast."

"It's in my way. We need storage that we can use. I'm tired of tripping over things."

"If I'd keep things picked up, it wouldn't be so bad in there. I'll clean."

"No, The Beast must go. We'll put in cabinets with shelves above."

"How about wall cabinets above?"

"No, they'll be a pain to put stuff in."

"But stuff on the shelves is just an invitation for the cats to sleep on it.... or worse."

Sigh.... after an extended discussion, I conceded that shelves would be okay. For now. I still think there could be cabinets in our future, but on the plus side is the fact that we already have the brackets, standards, and shelves. No cost (now) remodeling! Gotta love it! Of course the no cost designation doesn't apply to the entire project, as we do need to buy base cabinets and a countertop.

Having settled that, I broached the subject of cabinets for the entire west wall of the room. A girl can always dream. Unfortunately, the family budget director replied, "this winter." He did, however, ask me to design and price everything out -- both for The Beast replacement and the west wall.

Keep in mind that we are on a limited budget here and we have limited options for purchasing home improvement materials unless we want to go out of town or shop on the internet. Home Depot is our favorite place and after the Money Pit remodel last year, I'm VERY familiar with their stock cabinets, etc. I asked Ken whether he wanted white, hickory, oak, or unfinished (which I -- not he -- would need to stain or paint.) He replied, whatever you want.

I priced out three of the options (having crossed oak off the list). While The Beast replacement had only about a $200 difference between the least and most expensive, I could see that being multipled considerably by the number of components needed for the west wall. That was confirmed when I had the final numbers -- $1550 for unfinished (not including the paint or stain and my labor), 2280 for the white, and 2770 for  the hickory.

But numbers aren't the only consideration. (yeah, I know, I did mention that limited budget, didn't I?) I was batting around the idea of the hickory because I truly love hickory and had been considering it for the someday, in-my-dreams kitchen remodel. However, I think I've decided against them and so the idea of matching the laundry room to the kitchen is moot. No expensive (relatively speaking) hickory for the laundry room.

Unfinished won my mental debate. I've had a color scheme in mind for the laundry room for awhile: sky blue walls, with a lovely sandy cream trim and cabinets. I could see it in my head -- something light, airy, beachy (never mind that we're 500 or so miles from the ocean!) I don't mind painting and even with the painting supplies this choice would be the least expensive.

Then I suggested Ken and I go to Home Depot and look at shelving. I knew what the white cabinets look like -- no need to stop by there. We headed off to the corner of the store with the shelving, closet organizers, etc. And there is where the plan changed....

Home Depot carries a line of ClosetMaid utility cabinets that are just slightly shallower than standard kitchen cabinets -- 18 5/8" vs 24". While this might not sound like a plus, the west wall (remember those future plans?) is exactly 24" deep from the wall to the door moulding. This means that we'd have to notch the moulding to accomodate a counter top. Doable, but not optimal. The shallower cabinets mean a much easier and neater project. The only minus is that we have to assemble the cabinets ourselves. But this option is about the same cost as the unfinished cabinets, without the need for painting (or the cost of the paint). They are white -- which works fine with our white washer and dryer. And it will still look good with the sky blue walls. No sand in the color scheme, but the fresh airy look is still there.

We are doing The Beast replacement (Laundry Room, part 1) this weekend. To be continued...

And So It Begins

Welcome to my new blog. Fair warning: I'm not sure how much I'm going to post here. I always start out with great intentions, but then I get busy or distracted or idea-less and don't post for awhile. Still, I've been thinking for ages that I wanted to place to just write and share.

So... the laughter, inspiration, storms, and adventures tag... the first letter of each word spells out "lisa". Kinda of silly, but what do you expect? Don't look for brilliance here.

Laughter is self-explanatory. Quite often I write funny stuff. Oh, I'm not The Bloggess. If you came here looking for that level of insanity and humor, I'm not it! But I do think a good lot of life is funny -- or at least I can find something to laugh about or mock (yeah, it's a weakness, what can I say?) in nearly everything. I speak fluent sarcasm and it may be used from time to time. Beware.

Inspiration is again pretty obvious, I think. It might be something that inspires me. Or maybe I'll be trying to inspire others with a DIY project, a new recipe, my latest choice of paint for the kitchen, some thoughts about the world. Or maybe just a really cute pair of shoes. Oh wait -- there's Pinterest for that! (You could just follow me there.)

Took me awhile to come up with a word for the S. Silliness? Covered by laughter. Social? Um... not very specific. Social? As in Social networking? Social services? Social interaction?  Just being friendly social? Strike that one. Hmmm.... nouns starting with S.... Sandwiches? Scissors? Soffets? Shoes? Sunlight? You can begin to see how my wandering mind works. As in, not very well when pressured to come up with something clever.

Storms came up as a tag to describe both the problems in life as well as the storms of thought I have. And perhaps the storms of words (aka rants) I think/write about issues. I could have called it "Soliloquies" but then you'd have just thought I was being pretentious by using big words! :-) (which then begs the question, "can one appear pretentious when using emoticons?")  So Storms, it is! Oh, and I do have an evil twin -- ask Ken -- but I don't let her post. So we should all be safe from her rantings and rage.

Adventures. You're probably thinking this is applies to travel. And you'd be right. Sometimes. While both Ken and I want to travel all over the world, our trips tend to be less far afield than that for now. And one can have plenty of adventures just getting to work each day. So you could hear about my adventures trying to find the a restractable clothesline for the laundry room or pots for the deck or my distress about the crazy and clueless drivers out there on the road.

One thing you won't find much about here is the cats. I can't say I'll never talk about them. They are a big part of our lives and it seems like a lot of our projects deal with them one way or another. But I'll continue to post my cat stories and pictures over on the LostWoods blog.

This isn't a decorating blog. It's not a cooking blog. It's not a political blog. It's not a parenting blog. It's all that and more and less. It's just a blog about life in my world. Me, lost in the woods.