IN THE DARK

http://www.keepingthepoundsoff.com/2011/10/illumination-light-changes-things.html

Jane wrote about turning off the lights and looking for a missing object with a flashlight. Highly effective. I have done that. It works.

I found another effective one, over the weekend, vacuuming in the dark.

Of course your vacuum has to have a light on it for this to work. One of mine does. Usually that vacuum is upstairs, but middle was using the downstairs one and I brought the one with the light down to get the kitchen and hall rugs and the living room.

WARNING - you have to be sure all the charger cords and anything else that might come to harm is put away because you can only see a small area as you go.

But then if you turn off the lights and vacuum only by the light of the machine on the floor, you are going to see things you have never seen before, so much dirt.

WOW.

Very shocking.

This focused light method shows dust and hair and the like that cannot be seen normally. Like it is not enough to vacuum the rugs, the floor needs to be dust mopped extensively.

Evidently my laminate floors do not show dust, blond hair, or either of the dogs' hair. At all. All of that shows on the rugs. And I vacuum the rugs a lot. But the floor usually looks pretty good and does not get much attention.

Aromas and smells

Jane mentioned being assaulted by an aroma opening a bag for work.

I have mentioned being really annoyed by restaurants who pump their aromas (what seems like it must be on purpose) out into the areas around their locations.

One restaurant, attached to our shopping mall, exudes such a strong scent that I do not park/enter on that side of the complex.

I think I mentioned previously, one business in our area with either a grill or a smoker had the surrounding neighbors take them to court over the aroma. I think the guy might have died (unrelated) during the process, so there was no decision. Or there was a decision, but he was gone around the time it came.

There is a big bakery, downtown, and I totally avoid the shops in that area because of the baking smells.

I worked at a donut shop when I was in high school. Just one summer I think. And did not eat a donut for years and years. The smell became nauseating by the time I left that job.






If you remember, I changed grocery stores, after decades of being a loyal customer, because they had too many sampling stations, every day of the week.

That was several years ago.

This same, my new, rarely sampling, grocery store added a big, hot pretzel station a few months ago. This is just like one you might see at a mall, major baking station.

I had three (self help) options:
1. Switch stores again.
2. Shop late at night when the station was closed.
3. Acknowledge it was there and then ignore it.

When I need something, I need something, I like to settle down for the night early, the late night thing seemed too disruptive. I did not want to shop at Walmart and that was really my last option. I decided just to not let it impact my life any more than the cookie aisle or the pop aisle or the crunchy snack aisle.

I have to admit, I was pretty annoyed the grocery store added this station.

There are two of these stations at the mall, not located in the food court, and that annoys me too.

But I was not interested in making each shopping trip an angry event. So, I just got over it.

And now I entertain myself by seeing if the grocery store pretzel stand is busy. Youngest does this too. Instead of wishing for a pretzel, we look to see how many employees, how many customers, and if the employees actually have any work to do. We suspect business is not good.

I notice the aroma of the pretzel stands at the mall. I do not at the grocery store. So, either I am used to it, or perhaps there is a volume difference. The stands at the mall are super busy so they are probably always baking. The stand at the grocery, not so much.

Vision Boards

Jennette Fulda (formerly known as PastaQueen) wrote a post about a Vision Board Party she attended earlier this winter.


Really fun (I think) that this is an annual event for this group of women. This would make a great non-food, traditional, holiday activity for an extended family too. Perhaps New Year's Day during all the games (for example).






If you remember middle is a RA in college this year. Part of her job is to have activities for her floor. She and the other RA's usually double up on these programs so it is half the work and a good turn out of attendees.


As soon as I read Jennette's post, I knew it was something middle would love. I wrote to Jennette to see if middle could borrow Jennette's Vision Board picture for middle's announcement signs. She said "yes". Since we have a colored printer, I printed a stack of these pictures so all middle had to do was add the date, time, place.

Youngest and I, on one of the few warm days, went dumpster diving for magazines (for middle who was at college and had no access to magazines). Believe it or not, I mentioned this to another mom, and she just stared at me. It turned out that when her kids needed pictures, she went and bought magazines for them to dissect. .  .


Our recycling center is very clean. Magazines (and the like) are put in two large bins. The bins are about about 4' tall and probably 4' across both ways. So these are huge bins. Luckily they were mostly full, that day, so it was easy to dig. If they had been nearly empty, youngest would have had to climb IN them to reach magazines for us.

We had to dig through a lot of catalogs and phone books, but found a wide variety of really great magazines. There was a horse one, athletic, house, gardening, etc. We collected several dozen magazines that day. Middle is actually going to keep this collection so as a teacher she has magazines for kids to use for projects.

I had a 20% off coupon and also a $5 coupon for our local art store. I bought 12" x 18" heavy weight tag board for middle. This is heavier than construction paper but thinner than poster board. In my opinion the 12" x 18" size was perfect because it made the project doable in one sitting and is a nice size for hanging on a college door or bulletin board.





Her dorm would have picked up the cost of the paper, but then the leftovers would have been theirs. I bought a mega pack for $8 (with my coupons) and then she had lots left for other projects.

This is not middle's board. It belongs to a friend. Middle's (still in progress) is very similar. They decided to just use words. The friend finds/cuts words and middle arranges/glues. They just happened to finish this one first.

Here is Jen talking about Vision Boards (2013).

Here is Karen (2012).

Here is Jane on her Inspiration Board (2011).

Doll House Explanation Post - tomorrow is the pictures

2011:
Youngest and I were walking through a local store and saw a floor sample doll house on clearance for $100. One of the front porch posts had been broken, it was dirty(ish), there was glue residue from signs being taped to it over the years, but it was assembled with the outside finished. And it was very cute.

I bought it.

It sat, upstairs, from 2011 to May 2013.



2013:
When middle came home from college (this spring), one night I had middle and my husband up in the attic with me, combing the shelves/floor for my old cartons of doll house furniture.

We found three cartons, one at a time.

I wasn't sure how many there were, but as we opened the first one, and then the second one, I could remember missing pieces, so we kept looking until we found the third. 

I had kept all the original (tiny) boxes.  So in each carton were more little treasures to be opened.

In one of the cartons was a full inventory. We can tell from the list that there are still a couple things missing. Not enough for another box. Tiny things that some how were lost.

So that night, very late into the wee hours, middle and youngest unpacked cartons and opened tiny little boxes in sheer delight.

Yes, it was charming and fabulous stuff.




And that very next day, we started working on the inside of the saved, clearance doll house.

We went to the craft store and bought the very lightest pastel acrylic paints (because middle did not have any pastels in her massive paint collection).

And we started blue taping and painting.  Youngest did half the attic over that first weekend. (She is not very arts and crafty, so half the attic was about right.)  

Middle did most of the painting.

I did a couple wee hours stints after everyone else had gone to bed. Getting a lot done those nights, when middle was stuck on an area, as the week progressed, and I had inspiration, so she could be thrilled when she got up in the morning.

If you are in your 50's you may relate to this. I tend to get things right up to my nose for detail work (eyes aging). In a doll house, can't get your nose all the way to the inside back of a room, because your head does not fit.

I left this note for Jane: Do you remember hunting for something in your car with all the garage lights off, and using a flashlight, CSI style? Middle and youngest and I are painting the inside of a dollhouse. It is setting in front of a HUGE window. During the day, sunlight aplenty, I can't see. At night, room lights off, using a high power reading light like a flashlight, I can see perfectly.

We got started the weekend just before middle's wisdom teeth. But most of this (painting) happened after wisdom teeth, during her recoop time.

Middle painting. We went and bought that lamp specifically for the project. It was my over sized CSI flashlight in the wee hours.

Middle still painting. We tried to do the stairs in two different colors (brown where your foot steps, white on the vertical part, but it was too difficult with the house assembled. 

She came home from surgery, with a shake mixed with protein powder, and a spoon, and instead of taking a nap, she listened to Say Yes To The Dress and resumed painting. She loves a good project. It was a very quiet, sit down project. It might have aided in pain management, it gave her something to do with her mind.

When I worked on the house with her, we had to switch to another show, but by the end of the week, I was watching Yes To The Dress too (amazed at what people will spend on a dress, and amazed at all the people whose breasts should not be in a strapless dress, like anyone over an A cup, but they buy it anyway).

At the end of that same (wisdom teeth/painting) week, our little 4 1/2 year old friend was coming to stay. So, we sort of had a deadline. We could either pick everything up, unfinished, or we could push to finish so we were picking up for real. We did finish. So, by the time our little 4 1/2 year old busy bee arrived, the painting was done. The furniture was in place. A scattering of wee rugs had arrived with the UPS man.

The 4 1/2 year old spent a great deal of time peering into the doll house and telling us all that she saw. She loved it. She understood she could not touch.




I am (now) on the hunt for a one room house for a detached kitchen.

My/our doll house kitchen stove is massive. I must have been attracted to kitchen stuff, because there was a lot of it in those three cartons. Since I was just in Charleston where most all the old houses had separate kitchens, it is an easy solution.

After painting an assembled house (challenging) we are looking for a shell to paint and then finish the details. Painting the walls before windows and doors (and stairs) are in, would be much simpler.




This was the explanation post.

Tomorrow's is all doll house pictures.