The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,600 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 27 trips to carry that many people. All for the 6 posts I wrote this year!
I’ve been in pain for about a week now and I can’t wait to see the chiropractor on Monday afternoon!! Last Tuesday, I woke up and my upper back hurt so much that I thought I was going to throw up. I took a very hot shower, which helped to relax some of the aching muscles, and headed to work. Thank goodness the athletic trainers at THS are just has helpful as Coach Bowman and Coach K were at SPHS! I got a 15 minute electro-shock treatment (I like to joke and call it electro-shock therapy but I have no idea what it’s actually called) and headed to the middle schools. The rest of the week was rounding out okay and my back wasn’t hurting nearly as much, thanks to Aleve and hot showers.
Then on Friday I woke up really cold – the thermostat said my house was 10 degrees colder than I’d had set it for. After a hot shower to get my brain working, I went out to the heater and saw that the pilot was lit but no fire on the burners. 😐 Turns out the HVAC unit is unrepairable so I get a new one….on Tuesday! Thank goodness for a great landlord because he left me two space heaters that have kept the living room and master bedroom nice and warm.
Having to go to the cold rooms in the house for various reasons hasn’t helped my back. The pain is mostly in my neck and shoulders today. I’ve managed to get some laundry done as well as unload/load the dishwasher. That’s about it though. I’m having a hard time thinking about what I need to do, much less get much done. So if this blog entry has bits and pieces that don’t make sense, that’s why. I can’t wait for tomorrow’s chiropractor’s appointment!
Love you, mean it!
~C
I live in an older home here in Amarillo (very Frank Lloyd Wright inspired, 1950s era home). It’s a 4 bedroom house with very little closet space. In fact, one of the closets has been made even smaller when the landlord created a 2nd bathing space (stand up shower and sink in the room). So I decided to make the 9’x 8′ room into a walk-in closet. I have been able to finish 95% of the room with inexpensive (~$25-$30 each) closet solutions from Walmart as well as the dresser from IKEA I’ve had for several years now. I was home to grab some lunch one day when I heard a crash in one of the bedrooms and found one of the closet solutions had crashed down from the weight of the clothes. I have mostly blazers and long sleeve shirts on that one so I guess it just got too heavy for the plastic end pieces at the bottom.
Today, I went to Home Depot to get some supplies to build my own closet solution. I can now see why they offer such inexpensive closet solutions at Walmart and any other choices are expensive. Here are the parts (from the floor up) I got for my hanging rack. All the parts are galvanized steel.
I also got a pair of pliers that would help me put everything to together. So, the total cost was just at $200.00. Definitely more than the $25-$30 I paid for the others, but hopefully worth it.
If you’re going to put this together, it’s important that you remember it’s not about making all the joints as tight as they can be but about making sure all the openings line up correctly (90 degree angles). So here’s what I did:
On both sides of your rack, you have 2 floor flanges connected to the street elbows. Those go into the 6″ long nipple, which connect together using one of the tees (middle joint facing upwards).
From there, connect the 1″ x close nipple (I can think of no clean reason why they would call any of these pipes nipples) into the tee and another tee into the nipple (middle joint facing inward).
Next, I connected the two sides together with the 3/4″ x 36″ pipe (actually also called a nipple) using the 1″ x 3/4″ bushing.
Here’s where it can start to get tricky. I realized that with a closed “circuit” like this, at some point I’m going to be disconnecting a side as I’m connecting another. If you connect the top portion to the “legs”, there’s no way to connect that to the bottom portion completely, etc. So I connected the 1″ x 3/4″ reducing elbow to the 1″ x 60″ pipe (again, called a nipple) and connected those to the bottom section (sorry, no picture of that step).
Then I connected the top crossbar (where my clothes will eventually hang) to one side as far as I could screw it in. Then I pulled the other side over (because of the reducing bushings at the bottom, it’s a touch narrower at the top than bottom) and as I unscrewed the side I just tightened, it screwed in the other. I’m fairly sure it’s at halfway screwed on both sides. Ta da, you’re hanging rack is done!!
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Last tip – you’ll notice as you put this all together, your hands will be filthy. Wet a paper towel with hot water, put one squirt of dish soap on it and wipe down the whole thing. After that, “rinse” by doing the same thing with another paper towel without any soap on it. That second paper towel shouldn’t turn very grey at all.
I’m now in Amarillo and happily living in my house. Except it feels like a big storage unit because it’s still filled with boxes. I’ve gotten quite a bit of unpacking done but there’s still a lot of organizing to do and some of it I can’t get done until I can purchase a few organizational tools and that’s not going to happen until after I get my first paycheck (maybe even second). So, storage unit living it is.
I have some time and motivation to get stuff done today but I’m finding that I’m not sure what to work on because every project I have to start is going to take more than a day and I don’t want to 1/2 start anything new. So, I wander around my house, trying to figure out what’s next and waste time. In the words of the comic strip Cathy, “ACK!”
I’ve started band stuff with the leadership and drumline camps last week. Both went very well and I’m really looking forward to getting started with all the kiddos. One foreseeable problem – how am I going to function during marching rehearsal with these insane allergies I’ve developed? And taking allergy medication isn’t working. I’m hoping it’s actually just my body adjusting to the drier air and once my body is used to it, my nose will stop running. It’s really annoying in the mean time.
Okay, time to wander the house a little more. I do have to do laundry, put away clean dishes and go to the grocery store so I have that.
Love you, mean it!
~C
Well, I’m moving. Again.
In case you didn’t see the FB post, I’ve been hired as the Director of Bands at Tascosa HS, a 5A high school in Amarillo, TX. I’m really excited about the new job! We have a BAND-tastic creative team in place with Daniel Montoya, Jr., composer, Daniel Wiles, drill writer, and Nick Angelis writing the drum book. I have an amazing staff (minus one for the brief moment) and an incredibly supportive administration. What else could a girl want?
MOVERS. I hate packing and I have a lot of stuff! I have plenty of boxes and packing material and I’m very blessed to have Angela helping me pack this weekend. I’m also very blessed that my current landlord is letting me store my packed boxes in an empty unit in my building. That helps SO MUCH because it gives me room to keep building and packing boxes. I can do this.
I’m picking up the truck on Monday and the movers are coming Monday afternoon to load the truck and we leave on Tuesday morning for Amarillo via Austin. Clipford has been in Austin with my parents then with my sister and brother-in-law so I’m picking him up on my way to Amarillo on Tuesday.
Any suggestions on how to move plants? I have quite a few of various sizes that will need to be moved and because I need to leave room in my car for Clipford and his stuff, I don’t think I’ll be able to put them in my car. I’ve put a lot of work into potting and caring for them, I’d hate to leave them behind.
Okay, I’m grungy and tired so more packing will happen tomorrow. For now, shower then bed. G’night.
Love you, mean it!
~C
Benford's Musings 
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