A few Before and After pics...just from my cellphone camera, but enough to get across the scope of the transformation.

Office before:

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The new closet doors are hung, and the downstairs office remodeling is well & truly finished. So it seemed like an appropriate moment to sum up what I've learned along the way.

1. Power tools are well worth the effort it takes to learn how to use them safely and well. While often loud and frightening, they were invented for good reason: They make every ( Read more... )

I've been deplorable about updating this journal. But here's a random sampler of What's New:

• Just over a year ago, Theo shipped out to Army basic training and I wrote this entry. Now, he is completing his application to go to Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS), i.e. the course to qualify for Special Forces training. If you watch this ( Read more... )

In the wake of the barely-averted federal budget showdown, I've found myself pondering a question: "What do I want and expect the federal government to do for me?"

What I do want (and am more than willing to pay for through my taxes):

• National Security. I expect the federal government to protect the citizenry from enemies foreign and domestic. This ( Read more... )

Theo can already see the online pay stub for his April 15th Army paycheck, and it's been cut in half...i.e., it's his pay for April 1-8 only, in anticipation of the shutdown at midnight tonight.

Congress will continue to get their paychecks. But my husband and his fellow servicemembers--including those putting their lives on the line in war zones ( Read more... )

It's coming along nicely! And not only do I have most of an office floor, I still have all my fingers (knock wood...er, Pergo).


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Woo hoo, I have safely operated power tools!! I am inordinately proud of myself considering that I haven't actually laid a single Pergo plank in place yet.

However, I successfully changed the blade on the table saw and accomplished three kinds of practice cuts on my scrap wood: rip cut (lengthwise), crosscut, and a 45" mitered angle cut. And I still ( Read more... )

What I really need right now is somebody with a bullhorn shouting, "Step AWAY from the internet. Repeat: Step AWAY from the internet."

Because honestly, I cannot remember another news cycle in my life that has depressed and enraged me so much as the past month. I feel as though I've fallen into an alternate universe where every headline comes ( Read more... )

When it comes to home remodeling projects, I've done a lot of painting and not a lot of anything else.

I could blame this on a lamentable adherence to traditional gender roles, were I not such a tomboy in other ways. The truth is, I'm just sort of lazy. All about the path of least resistance, me. So when there was a handy man in my household ( Read more... )

Every so often,  I think to myself, "My husband is a mythical beast. Something like a unicorn, except without the virginity fetish ( Read more... )