The siding is done!

Whew - the siding is finally done.

If you want to see before & after, go here:
Before
After

Or if you want to see the whole painful process (warning: there are 110 photos):
Pics
Slideshow

Please let me know if you have any trouble with any of the links.

More ugly things gone

See the ugly knobs on this porch knee wall? And see them disappear!

Don't bring me a shrubbery

We had some shrub surgery done this weekend, thanks to the hard work of Hubby & changejunkie's husband. You can see the difference:
Before - note the ugly shrubs to each side of the porch.


After:

Now I've seen everything

A dining room table that turns into a pool table. If only my dining room were big enough for a pool table ...

(Warning: music will play when this page opens - at least they were kind enough to put a mute button in the upper right.)

My heart is broken

George Carlin is dead.

Wicked cool

Water ice found on Mars - I'm all squeeee over this news!

And ironically, I'm in the process of re-reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy - how cool is that?

People are weird

E-books with musty smell - hokay ...

Accentuate

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Neutral You're not Northern, Southern, or Western, you`re just plain -American-. Your national identity is more important than your local identity, because you don`t really have a local identity. You might be from the region in that map, which is defined by this kind of accent, but you could easily not be. Or maybe you just moved around a lot growing up.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

"I'm Voting Republican"

Please not to be drinking or eating while watching this; choking is hazardous to your health, and your keyboard and monitor don't need a bath:


(If the embed doesn't work, go here.)

Be sure to watch it all the way to the end.

No Republicans were harmed in the making of this film.

Slow death

Fair use killed, 5 words at a time. Be afraid, be very afraid ...

Edited to add: Bra-fucking-vo to the Daily Kos.

First contact

Here's the first look at our new siding. You can just see the old shingle above the siding, where they haven't yet put insulation. The siding's a lighter color than I expected, but it looks so vastly much better than the old stuff that I really don't care.

I've been taking tons of pics each day, and will create a Flickr set when the whole job is done, and link to it here.

It's all very exciting!

Surprise!

Imagine my surprise at finding out that the fugly white color of our house wasn't its original color:


That's some sort of blue or green shade there, clearly under where the downspout has been taken down. Ironically, we're putting up gray siding, so we're going back to something close to the original shade.

Why anyone would have painted the shingle white is beyond me ...

Menu for the week of 6/15/08

Simple menu again this week:
* baked potatoes with chili
* hot dogs (it is summer, after all!)
* chicken piccatta and/or chicken masala (simmer sauces from Trader Joe's)

One more cool thing

Something I forgot to mention in yesterday's exercise post is that I'm now below 180 for the first time since March of 2004.

Yeah, over *4* years.

How amazing is that?

4x7, Cycle 2

I'm at the beginning of the 4-day rest period between my 28-day 4x7 exercise cycles. I didn't do a particularly good job measuring myself at the beginning of the program, so the only thing I know for sure is that I've lost 2.5 lbs while putting on some muscle. Not too shabby ...

So I'm once again setting another intention to do a 32-day cycle. I'm beginning to understand the intention thing better - it's something we talked about at Ranch, how the simple act of saying out loud "in public" that you're going to do something makes it easier for your brain to understand that change is coming. Amazing ...

My next cycle starts on Wednesday, and I've changed things up a bit. I realized pretty quickly into the first cycle that I didn't set up exercises I could either keep up with or continue to be interested in, so this time I've taken all that into account. I hope ... :)

Day 1 - Moderate intensity: Nia
Day 2 - High intensity: FlowFit beginner's flow
Day 3 - No intensity: Intu-Flow beginner's level
Day 4 - Low intensity: FlowFit beginner's level asanas, plus yoga

My plan this time is to use IntuFlow daily as a warm up, and to try and move on pretty quickly to the intermediate level. The only things holding me up are the quad hops (imagine doing a push up on your hands and toes, looking like something about to hop - yes, it's exactly as uncomfortable as it sounds) and the spinal rock, both of which get a lot more complex in the intermediate level. I'm hoping a week or 2 of daily practice will get me to the intermed. level.

I just can't believe I'm actually exercising more days than not. How the hell did that happen??

Skynet lives

The British have built Skynet - and they called it that, too.

Did a chill just run down your spine?

Banging, oh, the banging

There is much banging today chez elsie. Hubby & I are having siding done on our house. Much needed, both from the aesthetic and the energy-efficient points of view. Our house is currently sided in dirty-white concrete *coff-asbestos-coff* shingle, that while perfectly functional, ain't pretty. Of course, it's 80 years old, so I suppose the fugly factor shouldn't be surprising.

The poor house also has no insulation. Just lath, plaster, and siding. You can imagine how high our utility bills are. So a happy layer of 1/2" insulation is going on as well.

We're also going to talk to this contractor about replacement windows, but I'm not sure if we're ready to take on that debt burden right now. We'll have to see how it all prices out. It would certainly help with both the aesthetic and the energy issues, but I don't know if our budget (or our debt load) can handle it.

So, for the moment, I'm listening to the dulcet tones of *bang* *bang* *ladder scraping as it moves* *bang* *bang*. And I couldn't be happier ... assuming it all works out in the end.

Weather geek heaven

The Sky, From Above

McCain's true colors

This doesn't surprise me one little bit: The wife John McCain left behind. I always thought his current wife was a trophy wife, even given her relatively advanced age. Reminds me way too much of Newt Gingrich. Ick.

Menu for week of 6/8/08

More poached chicken this week, since that worked so well last week, and since the weather really is waaaaay too hot for conventional cooking.

And maybe we'll actually get around to making the chicken salad. The crockpot casserole from last week was so good, that was pretty much all we ate. Maybe we'll get more variety this week.

Fun with demographics

There's a wonderful graphic breakdown of how various demographic groups voted between Clinton & Obama in the primaries in the NYT. The geek in me thinks this is wicked cool, and the sociologist in me is squeeing like a fangirl ...

Very sad

Jim McKay has died.

In the years when I still thought the Olympics were worth watching (I'm far more conflicted these days about it), his was the voice I waited for.

I'd forgotten that he was local, living in Monkton, MD.

Now he'll never know if Big Brown wins the Triple Crown.

Today I'm sad.

Taking stock

A week from today, I'll be done with the active part of my 32-day exercise cycle, with 4 days of total rest ahead.

I'm amazed at the progress I've made. I'm actually developing a tiny bit of tone and muscle. OK, I'm probably the only one who would notice it, but I certainly have been getting a lot of comments from people saying I look thinner, and that surely doesn't suck.

I did a mid-point check on my body fat, and at that point I'd already lost a percentage point. I can't wait to see what I'm doing at the end of the cycle.

And I've already got my next cycle planned and ready to go. Let's just see what I can accomplish ... If I do this 3 times, that's another 100 day cycle.

I like the sound of that.

Waves of love?

What the Beach Test Says About You

You like people, but you're careful about who you get close to. Friendship is important to you... so important that you aren't just friends with anyone. You fall in love with ease and confidence. Even if you've had bad experiences in the past, each new love is a reason to start completely over. You are deeply passionate about several things in your life. You're not passionate about much... and the few passions you have are truly obsessions. Your sense of humor is goofy and silly. You are good at making almost anyone laugh.

The Beach Test

(via Demo Reel)

What a wonder

I'm sitting here, breathing in fumes from the pest control guys spraying for carpenter bees and wasps, just feeling ridiculously happy. (No, I don't think I'm high from the fumes ...)

I commented last Saturday to changejunkie, without really thinking about what it meant, that I'm not depressed anymore. Just casually commented. It didn't hit me til later just how truly huge that is.

I've been depressed, ranging from suicidally to mildly, since I hit puberty. I hit puberty at 12, and I'll be 47 in December. You do the math - that's one hell of a lot of life to have missed.

But I'm free of that now, and the only thing standing in my way is myself. As long as I keep my eating program steady, things can only get better. Sure, life will throw me obstacles (my parent's deteriorating health is a big one that's looming), but I have the wherewithal to face anything now. Now I get to learn how to have a life - that would be step 7 of the program.

And, hey universe? This is NOT a general call for challenges, 'kay?

Well said

Everything I've wanted to say about the end of the Democratic presidential primary season, and about Hillary, has just been said perfectly and succinctly by author Jay Lake in his post this morning. Yes, that's it exactly, except I never did register as a Democrat. I'm still a staunch, stubborn Independent, 'cause both parties suck.

Oh, and Hills? You might try finding a dictionary with the word GRACE in it, and see if you can figure out what the word means. Then try applying it, like a dense rich lotion on desert-dry skin. It might feel good, honey, and it certainly would relieve the rest of us of the itch to hit you over the head with something blunt.

Menu for week of 6/1/08

After a month of madness (Ranch at one end, Balticon at the other), it's back to reality, and back to the weekly menus.

* poached chicken, to be made into other things
* enchilada casserole, made in the crockpot with some of the poached chicken
* chicken salad

(Do you sense a theme here?)

Grilled steaks and baked potatoes for tonight's supper - mmmm ...