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Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Art car progress -- sort of

I further researched the decoupaged quotes art car idea and didn't find a good sealant that I thought would work, so we're on to Art Car v3 -- covering the car in bottle caps. When I was little, I collected bottle caps, and my dad found them in the garage attic this summer and brought them to me. I was very excited to sort through them and think about what I could make with them now, and we have plans for further bottle cap art after the car is complete.

A week and a half ago, Steph and I went to dinner at Ralph's Great Divide with Dan and Douglas. While we were there, we thought to ask them to save bottle caps for us. Our server gave us about 200 that were still in the cap catcher under their bottle opener, and I stopped in last night and picked up another 330. A box of 4000 caps from eBay should be arriving soon.

The bottle caps are sorted by color, although I haven't figured out yet what design I want to make on the car. The caps are divided into containers of blacks, golds, whites, greens, yellows, blues, silvers, and reds.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Quote of the day

Scene: Pizza Ranch, Washington, Iowa. We are there with Steph's family for dinner.

Riley: ...and my science teacher, he's...

Todd: Does he teach biology?

Riley: No, he's bipolar.

Todd: Oh, so he teaches geography.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

NYR update 8

1. Floss: Still flossing consistently.

2. Lunch: Doing a little better recently, although this is directly related to a sale on Healthy Choice and Marie Callender's frozen dinners at Marsh the other week.

3. On time: I have been leaving the house a little earlier.

4. Flip: No flip appearances, but I landed my loop doing a section of my program while my coach was watching last week.

5. Save: Truck is paid off! Now to save for the replacement for the Honda and pay extra toward the second mortgage.

6. Recipes: I made some garlic cheese biscuits from scratch a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, I picked up the wrong measuring cup when I added the milk, so they were three times as wet as they should've been. They turned out very, very flat, but they were tasty.

7. Trans fat: Steph found Crisco with no trans fat (I blogged about it last year, but I hadn't been able to find it anywhere yet). I can make my M&M cookies again!

8. Perfume: The third bottle is almost gone. I think I'll be able to start on a new bottle in a week or two. Or I might use a variety of perfumes until the end of the year.

9. Compact: Yesterday Steph and I went to several antique stores, including Midland Antique Mall, which is one of the places we went on our first first date in September 2000. I got an old coffee pot to use to heat water for tea -- I'd been wanting one for several years, and this one was only $6 and is very heavy. I also got a book and a vintage winter coat, which solves my problem of wanting a coat that doesn't look like a ski jacket to wear to work. I'll still wear that one when it's really cold out, but I can wear my new one the rest of the time. Last week I found an ad on Craigslist for several bags of business and casual clothes in my size; I ended up with 45 items of clothing for $50, and three of them were new with tags still on. Most items fit; I'm taking many of the ones that didn't (and some others that did but that I didn't think I'd wear) to work to share with some co-workers who might fit in the clothes. I'm also saving a few items for a friend's daughter, and I've put aside one particularly unusual piece of clothing for a gag gift or a white elephant exchange. (Yes, it's that good.) I wonder if the new-with-tags items fall under Compact guidelines or not.

Reason #1007 why I love my girlfriend

She likes the same kind of toilet paper I do. (We found this out early in our relationship, but it still makes me happy. Plus it makes the shopping easier.)