Chatter Boxes

Oh Kim, thank goodness you're here. Every other social worker has left already."

Someone sent a big box of fortune cookies to the office this week to say "Happy Chinese New Year".

I opened my fortune cookie and here's what was inside.




"Pleasures await you by the seashore"

Which is weird because ten minutes before that, I bought our tickets to here.

After several months of just enjoying the house and not feeling like we have to spend every spare moment building, painting, sanding, staining...we're back to our Saturday routine of working on the house.

We have a pretty good system I think. We alternate weekends. One week John gets to choose what we work on and I'm the helper. The next Saturday, it's my turn.

This weekend was my turn and I had big plans.

Remember this...when I said that "eventually there will be tile..."



Well that time has come and you're invited to come along for the ride.

Sometimes we get these ideas about how to add small details that make our house unique (you know...other than the fact that it's made out of logs, has trees in the kitchen, and was built by amateurs). We also have some ideas about how not to spend money. This was one of those ideas.

We needed a back splash for the kitchen island. I was drawn to those strips of mosaic tile you can buy ready made. Like the trim in our shower.



We still had pieces of floor tile left and I thought, "How hard could it be to make our own?" Turns out that it's not that hard. Long and tedious but not hard.

We took a sledgehammer to the tile (and for the sake of full disclosure I'll add that my preferred method was throwing them down on the concrete driveway but John scoffed and made me use the sledgehammer.) We rolled the broken pieces around in this bucket to rough them up a bit.



I made a template of the space and set to work on putting the pieces together.





John adjusted electrical outlets and secured the cement wall board.

We taped off sections of the tile to speed up the actual application which worked like a charm.





We almost got away with not spending one more penny on this project. But what weekend home improvement project is complete without a last minute run to that place that rhymes with "Foam Repo". Turns out our old grout was a little too petrified.



So for a whopping $13 - Here's the finished product (almost anyway - it still needs to be washed and sealed).







Not too shabby!

I believe proper blogging etiquette says that you should link to things you copy from other blogs. However, I just happened across this little ditty on a blog I don't normally read and wouldn't recommend (there's nothing wrong with it - just not that interesting) so I'm not going to follow blog protocol.

I thought it was kind of interesting nonetheless and since I don't seem to have intriguing thoughts of my own at the moment I thought I'd go for this. Here's how it works...I bold the things I've done and leave the things I haven't. Simple enough huh?

Follow along if you like.

Started your own blog (this is a dumb one to list on a blog)
Slept under the stars
Played in a band
Visited Hawaii
Watched a meteor shower
Been to Disneyland/world
Climbed a mountain
Held a praying mantis
Sang a solo
Bungee jumped
Visited Paris
Watched a lightning storm at sea
Taught yourself an art from scratch
Adopted a child
Had food poisoning
Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
Grown your own vegetables
Seen the Mona Lisa in France
Slept on an overnight train
Had a pillow fight
Hitch hiked
Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
Built a snow fort
Held a lamb
Gone skinny dipping
Ran a Marathon
Rode in a gondola in Venice
Seen a total eclipse
Watched a sunrise or sunset
Hit a home run
Been on a cruise
Seen Niagara Falls in person
Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
Seen an Amish community
Taught yourself a new language
Had enough money to be truly satisfied
Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
Gone rock climbing
Seen Michelangelo’s David
Sung karaoke (why is it "sung" here and "sang" up there?)
Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant
Visited Africa
Walked on a beach by moonlight
Been transported in an ambulance (Happy Birthday to me!)
Had your portrait painted
Gone deep sea fishing
Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
Kissed in the rain (I don't really remember - probably. I mean I've done so much kissing in my life, it's hard to keep track).
Played in the mud
Gone to a drive-in theater
Been in a movie
Visited the Great Wall of China
Started a business
Taken a martial arts class
Visited Russia
Served at a soup kitchen
Sold Girl Scout Cookies
Gone whale watching
Got flowers for no reason
Donated blood, platelets, or plasma
Gone sky diving
Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
Bounced a check
Flown in a helicopter
Saved a favorite childhood toy
Visited the Lincoln Memorial
Ate Caviar
Pieced a quilt
Stood in Times Square
Toured the Everglades
Been fired from a job
Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
Broken a bone (just a toe - I don't think that counts)
Been on a speeding motorcycle (sorry mom)
Seen the Grand Canyon in person
Published a book
Visited the Vatican
Bought a brand new car
Walked in Jerusalem
Had your picture in the newspaper
Read the entire Bible
Visited the White House
Killed and prepared an animal for eating (and I'm not gonna!)
Had chickenpox
Saved someone’s life
Sat on a jury
Met someone famous
Joined a book club
Lost a loved one
Had a baby
Seen the Alamo in person
Swam in the Great Salt Lake
Been involved in a lawsuit
Been stung by a bee (right on my bum!)