Bye Bye Mazda?

We had baseball-sized hail tonight while while we were both driving home. I think the result may be that I'm looking for a new-used car sooner than previously planned. Yes, the Mazda 626 has served me well, right up until what I believe may be the end -- it took the damage and kept me safe. Back window is gone (spewed glass over the interior when it broke), front window is cracked, huge welts on every body panel, and the hail even broke thru the rear speakers. I was in the car at the time. Pulled over and waited it out half-way under a bank drive-thru. I can't imagine how bad it would have been without that little bit of cover.

I told Matt it felt like someone was hitting it with a baseball bat. His response: "Someone hitting it with a bat would have gotten tired and given up long before they got that many shots in."

Matt's car fared better, but it's still not in good shape (broken back window & many dings). He got caught while in our driveway - so close!

Check out pics at flickr.

I know there are many worse things that could have happened today. So, for that, and for the fact that we're safe, I'm thankful.

Go Boilers & Jacks!

Matt posted this tonight elsewhere on the interwebs...

Listening to SDSU's game online. Could the Boilers and Jacks win tourney games in the same weekend? I doubt they ever have before.

I'm confident that the wins the same weekend are a first, since this is SDSU's* first year of post-season Division I eligibility.

We just went out to dinner to celebrate (leftover pizza can wait until tomorrow!). Depite highs in the 80s here today, I wore my SDSU sweatshirt. I figure I'm one of very few South Dakota State grads living in Austin, so I had to represent!

It's been a while since I've been this proud to call myself a Jackrabbit. :) The score says it all tonight: 90 to 55. I just hope these talented women do half as well on Tuesday night against Baylor or UTSA. (And, even if not, it's still been a great season.)

Matt & I figured out that our two teams could face each other in the Final Four. Not that I think it's likely, but that would sure be interesting!

The only bad thing about today was the coverage on ESPN2. We were in the "whip-around" coverage area, meaning we were supposed to get a little bit of several games. Matt & I figure there were, at most, 15 seconds of live coverage of SDSU (which, if I recall correctly, was actually in the pre-game warmups). At one point they said they'd cover SDSU after a break, but never did. Dreadful" is our word for that. I'm sure the score played into it, but if you advertise coverage, show something, please.

I heard from several people who did get the entire game (people living in South Dakota) who were ashamed at the number of times the announcers got the school name / state name incorrect. *sigh* When you grow up as just one of 700,000 residents of a state (that has a name quite similar to two other states), you ought to becoeme used to that kind of mistake- but somehow, it's still sad.. Hopefully Tuesday's coverage will be better.

*And by SDSU, I mean South Dakota State, not San Diego State. I get that there can't be two SDSU's on ESPN's crawl, but I wish they'd remember that "South Dakota State" means SDSU while "South Dakota" means USD, at the very least.

edit Monday morning... Not the best picture of me ever, but this was a nice moment to capture:

Post-Electrician Update

The electricians came today for our lighting re-do project. Here are some "in the middle" photos (you'll see why I say that instead of "after" as you look below.


This shows the kitchen ceiling after the old box was removed. This is the strangest bit of sheetrock/drywall work I've ever seen - it was dropped about 1.5" from the ceiling.

You can also see the holes they had to make in the wall (why that big, though?) which will need to be repaired also.









This picture shows the hole in the ceiling now after the extra sheet-rock was removed. The electricians roughed in two places here for pendants (where there used to be just one for the fluorescent fixtures). Obviously, we will be having this fixed! After we have a ceiling, we can install pendant lights.







I know this is a little blurry - I'm not the great photographer in the family. :) But, this is without a flash to show the level of light in the kitchen at night with the new recessed cans turned on. It feels brighter in reality.










Moving now to the Living Room. This picture is looking up at the back of the room (farthest from the street). Notice the extra hole at the top of the photo; directly above is our master bath plumbing, so this fixture had to be moved over. Originally, the electricians left the fixture on the other side of the room in the place that's now a hole, but I knew the fact that they didn't align would bother me. So, I asked them to move the fixture to make it align, which they did easily & cheerfully. This means two holes in the living room ceiling, but we're going to have someone come in to fix the kitchen ceiling anyhow. (Initially we feared that there would be a 12-15 foot long by 1 foot wide strip cut thru the ceiling, which didn't have to happen - so two holes aren't that bad!)






Another blurry photo, but it's just to show level of light at night, without the ceiling fan light turned on (and without a flash on the camera).

Now, if I could just figure out how to arrange the furniture! This room is long & narrow, with a large window at the front and french doors/windows at the back. One long wall has the fireplace and the opposite long wall is trisected by the door to the kitchen and the front entry.

Add the fact that we have two sofas (his/hers from pre-marriage), and the need to somehow use both the TV & fireplace as focal points, and you can see our trouble. I've been playing with shapes on graph paper all night. I had to stop before I got any more annoyed! I wish there were a way it would all fit without looking cluttered, but that's going to be awfully hard!

More home improvement before photos

Here are additional photos from our kitchen. Read more about this in the previous post.

This photo is from the breakfast/laundry area (back of the house) looking thru to the dining room.

Notice more honey-oak cabinets. When Matt bought the house (about a decade ago), the walls had a faux-southwest-motif. He changed that to this lovely butter yellow color (from Restoration Hardware) before we got married.

There are only a few things I like in this photo:

1. The flowers. They're clearly not there all the time. :)
2. The framed pictures on the wall behind the flowers. That frame was a gift from a really nice guy who played on Matt's softball team and is part of our church. I put in close-ups of bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush (red), and some random yellow flower from our honeymoon.
3. The containers over the stove (clear glass with metal tops - from my parents).
4. The abundance of kitchen equipment. Turns out that Matt & I both enjoy cooking from scratch, so we use the blender/food processor/knives/etc. a lot.
   

What I don't like:

1. The original-to-the-house stove, which is hard to clean, and lacks today's bells & whistles. The thing refuses to die, however, so it's still here.
2. The cabinets & counter. I wish the cabinets went to the ceiling, so there'd be a little more storage (for infrequently-used items). I wish the counter were some other material. I'm not totally against laminate, but I am against bad laminate like this.

This photo is looking from near the stove towards the sink. Seeing it this way reminds me that I need to straighten the magnets on the fridge again!

What I like here:

1. Dishwasher. It's a Bosch and cleans well (though you have to clean it every couple of months to avoid it smelling funny). We got it scratch-and-dent at Sears, for a fraction of the price. I can't tell where the dent is anymore.
2. The pictures of friends & family & vacation spots on the fridge.

What I don't like here:

1. The side-by-side fridge. Not good for holding pizza boxes or large trays.
2. The fact that so much stuff sits out (i.e the cooking wine we use maybe twice a year). Normally, the island would be covered as well as the counter & top of fridge.
   

Final photo for today. This one is looking from the dining room door towards the back of the house.

The doors behind the island are a built-in-pantry. It provides almost all of our food storage, so in that realm, I love it. However, it's not built for efficiency (many regular-size bottles/cans/boxes don't fit).

The white door to the left is the half-bath (the bathroom we've been doing all the work to). Next to the half-bath door (out of this picture) is the living room.

The microwave sits on the counter, occupying maybe 10% of our counter space. It would be nice to have one that's integrated with the stove hood, to save space.




We're not re-doing the entire kitchen right now, just installing some new lights today. But, we hope to someday work on the kitchen - so I figured it was good to capture true "before" photos.

More home improvement

I think Matt & I (both of us - but especially him, who's lived here the longest) will celebrate tomorrow, providing the electrician we're hired does something with this monstrosity:


It's a light fixture, built into our kitchen ceiling. The wood (we call it a cheesy '80s honey oak finish) matches the cabinets.






What we don't like about it:

1. The cheesy honey oak finish.
2. The sheer size - it is far larger than the island it sits over.
   
3. The missing panel (the panels are plastic, and are sold at Home Depot, so we could replace them - but every time we try, another panel falls down and breaks).
   
4. The fact that it has fluorescent tubes.
5. The fact that said fluorescent tubes don't actually work. (Believe it or not, the light switch was in the "on" position in this photo.)

We're hired an electrician to install recessed lights in both the kitchen, and in the living room. He's also going to wire the space where the honey oak monstrosity light currently is to work with a pendant or other hanging light.

Hopefully this is just step 1 towards improving our '80s-era kitchen. If only we could magically have more storage space without the expense of remodeling and new cabinetry... :)

Pledge To End Hunger

Cheer for the Jackrabbits & Boilermakers

Matt & I are happy today since both of our alma mater's basketball teams are headed to the NCAA playoffs (Purdue for men at least, I didn't check the women) and SDSU for women.

Coming from SDSU, this is probably more of a shock for me than for Matt (since Purdue is a frequent participant in post-season play). In the first year of eligibility for division I post-season play, the SDSU Lady Jackrabbits will be in for the tournament. Brackets will be announced tomorrow, I think. My only lament is that it's next year when one of the rounds of the women's tournament will be in Austin, not this year.

Pi Rho

Today is Pi Day (3.14) and we celebrate with our friend Sally & her family with the annual "Pi Rho Festival." We go out to a farm & fields near Granger, TX and shoot of rockets, have a pot-luck dinner, then (if Williamson County's Burn Ban is off -- as it is this year) have fireworks. Some people then stay and camp out with a huge bonfire (where, I hear they torch their Christmas trees).

We've had several days of constant rain, which is good because there's no burn-ban, but it's bad since we may be plodding thru muddy fields in chilly/damp conditions to gather up our rockets. But, I bet it'll still be fun.

This is our third year to make rockets. The first year, both Matt & I made small rockets. We move up to larger and more complex rockets each year. This year, I made two - one small one (from a leftover kit) and another that's about 3 feet long.

Rocket kits are readily available online, at hobby stores, and also at Hobby Lobby. Most kits are simple enough that an older elementary child with a steady hand and some patience could assemble them. More serious kits can get expensive, but basic kits & motors aren't much of an investment for a day of fun.

This year, I did a lot of work to create custom decals for my big rocket. I designed it to look like a Viper (space ship) from Battlestar Galactica. Yeah, it's geeky, but geeky goes over well in this crowd. I did hours of work making custom decals and adhering them to my rocket. Then I made what turns out to be my mistake -- I used a black paint pen to add a few more lines. Turns out that paint pen + shellac = runny mess. So, my rocket appears to have some battle damage. Oh well, part of the charm I guess.

My other rocket was too small for anything much, but it is called "I Can Has Rocket" (as an ode to icanhascheezburger.com). Matt's rocket is Simpsons-themed (courtsey of graphic files they released for thier anniversary poster contest). He has lovable Professor Frink and other motifs adorning the "Redorkulator"(look for relevant quote here).

I'm sure I'll post more pictures later (considering there's not a picture yet of my completed rocket) but here are a few for now:


Matt, with his Redorkulator!

















This is my tiny rocket (it's sold under the name "The Sizzler."













This photo shows some of the battle damage my viper took in the great shellac battle.

Too bad -- since I really liked the decals! You can just barely see the name plate (BSG fans know that each Viper has a name plate for the pilot who flies it - which lists their call-sign and name). Mine says Lt Becky Laswell "Quilter."

Sabbatical info

Check this out to learn more about the sabbatical I'm taking during parts of April & May: Becky's sabbatical blog.

I figured I'd keep the sabbatical-specific stuff there, to not clog up my regular blog. Not that I write much here or have a whole ton of readers, but well, it makes sense to me.

Going on sabbatical

The news is leaking out to a few friends, family & coworkers -- so I'll let it leak out here, too. I'm going to be taking a sabbatical from work starting at the end of this month. At my work (which is our church, for those who don't know), sabbaticals can be granted after 7 years of employment (a milestone I reached in January). A sabbatical in our world is not an extended vacation (in terms of complete flexibility to do nothing or anything you wish), but is instead an extended time away from the office and away from normal work responsibilities, with goals in mind. It's time to spend doing things that are spiritually enriching, restorative, restful, as well as study/research to fuel new ideas for ministry. I'll be going to a retreat center, a conference, reading a lot of books, and generally being restored to come back with renewed energy. We're planning to take vacation at the end of the sabbatical - more about that later.

My coworkers will be getting more info soon, and I'm going to start updating a little blog about it too (which isn't ready yet, but I'll link it when it's fit for consumption). This is a great gift, one which I wish everyone could have.

More to come...

Half-Bath - demo day!

We demolished our half-bath on Saturday. Here are some pictures.


The bath had bright red walls - a color from the historic homes collection. The walls had wallpaper before, so as you can see in this photo, the red color didn't quite cover.

There was a white cabinet with a marble-looking top. The cabinet bottom was not in great shape due to a small water leak (thankfully it was directly over concrete, not wood, so no long-term damage). At least that made it easier to take out!

The faucet was shiny metal, but the other accessories (towel ring, etc.) were brass.






This picture shows the toilet-paper-holder. It was an odd brass color, with severely stripped screws (which prevented a good paint job around it -- since it couldn't be removed easily).

The toilet, as I mentioned in my last post, had developed an odd tendency to flush itself. Not to mention, it wasn't exactly comfortable to sit on...










Here's the wall behind the toilet, after we removed it. You can faintly see the old faux-southwest-motif wallpaper that hadn't been fully removed.
















This is the last picture for today - it shows the wall that had the vanity and mirror - after the mirror was removed. Here you can see the light fixture (which Matt picked out -- and which matched the faucet). You can also see that there was thankfully no wallpaper behind the mirror.



On nights this week, we hope to finish sanding the walls, and then give them a coat of primer. That should put us in good shape to paint on Saturday and get a new toilet in on Sunday. Our new vanity won't arrive for another few weeks, but that gives us time to finalize what counter & faucet we want.