Nawlins. Yeah, I said Nawlins.

I fell in love with a brown eyed girl in New Orleans.  Everything else that happened in New Orleans stays in New Orleans (unless I buck up and upload some pictures).

Busy busy busy month

It's been a busy month of itinerant living, but Singer's been a sport about it.  As a treat (for me and the girls!) we took them on a group dog hike and to an off-leash beach.

The hike on Saturday was BoBo's first and we weren't sure how she would handle the terrain, given her penchant for lying down in the middle of the road during walks.  Apparently peer pressure works wonders on her.  She plodded/ trotted along for 2.5 hours over 3.6 miles of decent terrain, and didn't stop once!  She had a ball with the other dogs.  Singer, no stranger to the dog hike, did just fine, running around like a maniac as usual.

The next day, we took the girls on a spontaneous beach trip--- their first, to my knowledge, trip to the beach ever. Judging by their reactions, it certainly won't be their last.  Although I now know why people throw balls into the ocean and not down the beach.  No one likes a mouth full of sand.  Not even BoBo.

Summertime Firepit

Didn't have a chance to post this earlier, but had a terrific time with wonderful friends over Labor Day weekend breaking in the new fire pit AND (new to me) grill!  Perhaps if I knew how to use my camera I'd have a cool, slow exposure picture of everyone using their sparklers...  Doh.

Carpenter Ants-iness: how to build a simple and inexpensive bookcase

Simple sketch...

A few weeks ago, I decided I was qualified to design and build a bookcase.  It would be a simple affair: 4 feet wide and 4 feet high.  Nothing fancy, just a utilitarian bookcase.  I sketched up a bookcase, and went to Home Depot to pick up some lumber.

That's when things got expensive.  A sawdust bookcase at a big box store will run about 40 bucks.  However, the off the shelf tally for these materials are roughly:

Screws...........................nomimal
2 2x3's for the four legs...<$4
4 boards.........................$24
8 support bars.................$2

The materials

This was more than I wanted to spend on my bookcase, considering the fact that its chances of eventually ending up as bonfire wood were quite high.

Enter the Helpful Sales Associate!  After spying me out of the corner of his eye, he asked what I was up to.  I told him I wanted to build a bookcase and had a Plan.  I also asked him if Number 2 was the cheapest grade of pine he had.  There is no shame in being honest.  After he pointed me back towards the lumber I already thought was too expensive, I asked if he had any offcuts.  What are offcuts?  Known by many other names, it's the stuff that lumber yards try to get rid of for cheap because parts of the wood are damaged, knicked or were the scrap from a larger project.  Helpful Sales Associate told me that indeed there were offcuts and that there was a piece of plywood from the morning that might be quite useful.

Spying this terrific piece of wood, I asked him if he could rip it into four pieces, one for each shelf.  Ripping means perforating with the grain.  Cutting means perforating against the grain.  And that is the end of my lumber know-how.  So after this kind gentleman ripped my wood (for free!), I went on my merry way.  That's when the Helpful Sales Associate came back and said he had an idea for my support bars that would save me some money.  He said there was a stick of wood that he could cut into 8 pieces.  Terrific!  I ended up buying the 2x3s at full price. Final tally:

One of the "ladders"

Screws...........................nomimal
2 2x3's for the four legs...<$4
4 boards.........................$2.01
8 support bars.................$0.51
Total...............................<$7

Under $7!  Except this is where the hard work really began.  Basically, my shelves would consist of two side "ladders" connected by the shelves.  The shelves are not only supposed to hold up the books, but hold the two sides together.

Almost final product!  Please excuse the garage mess.
Most of the stuff is BoBo and Singer's.  No really, it is.   That's
their extra beanbag, the bike I purchased to ride with Singer, the bike
 trailer I got for BoBo to come along, a spent bag of dog
food, the Radio Flyer wagon I got to tow BoBo along, the crate they
don't use anymore...

Each of the rungs are screwed into pre-drilled holes on the 2x3s.  After completing two ladders, I screwed the shelves onto the rungs.  Since this bookcase wasn't intended to be a show-stopper, I screwed the bottom three shelves in through the top of the shelf.  The top shelf was screwed in through the bottom, since the screw heads are more likely to show on the top shelf.

And.. TADA!!!  (Nice and level too!)  I will be adding a backing to provide more support and also to prevent the books from falling out of the back.

Birthday Freebies

Aww, what's sweeter than a birthday?  Getting free stuff during the entire month of your birthday, and to the coupon clipper go the spoils!  This takes a little advanced planning in most cases, but remember to sell your soul to the man, I mean, sign up for your favorite retailers' email clubs.  They'll usually ask for your birthday month and bombard you with emails during the year.  But in return for the hassle, they send you a freebie coupon during your birthday month. Some retailers even mark your email club anniversary with another coupon!

Drum roll please...

Redeemed:
Eastern Mountain Sports: $5 off $5 purchase
Buffalo Wild Wings (birthday): free cake with ice cream (no separate purchase required)
Buffalo Wild Wings (email club anniversary): 6 free wings
Ruby Tuesday: free burger
[Ahem] Mill Restaurant: "free" entree, lots of caveats

Ladies in Waiting:
Baskin Robbins: one free scoop
Texas Roadhouse: free appetizer
Hooters: 10 free boneless wings (wings aren't wings if they don't have bones!)
Joe's Crab Shack: free appetizer

I'll update as I redeem. :)

The world is your oyster

Five years ago, I had my first Glidden Point oyster at a Mitchell's Fish Market.  It was so fresh, crisp and clean that I committed its name to memory and looked up its provenance.  Turns out, Glidden Points are harvested in Edgecomb, Maine a mere bajillion miles away.  Over Labor Day weekend, I fulfilled an epicurian goal and made a trip up to Maine.  The oysters were even better and fresher than I remembered.  As an added bonus, I managed to open six oysters without puncturing my hands.

Just beet it

Success!  My first harvested beet.  It was delicious and wonderfully fresh.