Category Archives: Potpourri

Christmas Trees & Cats Don’t Mix

Happy New Year!

When I woke up this morning and looked out my bedroom window, the frosty tree limbs grabbed my attention. Maybe we should’ve cancelled coffee? Later, I found Brian standing in the middle of the alley looking like a caroling Peanuts character in his trapper hat. Through a crystal canopy that lined the way, he looked toward the golf course.

“It’s quite beautiful,” he said. “A real winter wonderland.”

He was on coffee duty. On Saturday mornings, it’s his job to set up the table and plug in the coffee pot in time to be ready for whoever shows up. When I moved my car to the front – also in preparation for our guests – I ran into Emily and Justin who were on their way over. When Emily stopped to notice the ice crystals that had formed on some dried wild flowers, “Close up!” was a natural thought. Despite the fancy camera and the tripod, these are mediocre snapshots.

Born of the pandemic, we’ve been hosting coffee for just over two years. Here’s what I posted about it in the early days:

“Three weeks ago, Brian Harmon and I bought a coffee urn. On Saturday mornings we’ve been offering coffee to the neighbors on the lawn (or in the garage if it rains). It’s BYOC (bring your own cup). I’ll be curious to see how far into the winter we can go before people quit coming. Or maybe that’s exactly when we’ll need such a thing, when we’re feeling even more cooped up. People have appreciated this (someone just left a medium roast from the Mississippi Market on my porch) and have done a good job of maintaining the proper social distance. We know that sometimes it might be just the two of us because it’s drop-in-if-you-feel-like-it, no RSVP needed. But so far that hasn’t happened. If you ever want to drop in to say hello, feel free. Rain or shine. We will be there.”

Rebekah Smith, Facebook, October 2, 2020

With all eyes on a beautiful sunny day, no one at coffee noticed that my shoes didn’t match. I didn’t catch it until I took them off, prompting me to quiz Brian.

“What’s wrong with this picture?”

Seeing Miss Ruby this morning was a treat. Zipped up in a comfy bag, she and her doll arrived on a Norwegian push sled pushed by her dad. Upon learning that her favorite song is Dancing Queen, Brian brought out the Red Sox Bluetooth speaker, a gift from his sister.

She let me off easy this year. It could have been a bedroom set.

After coffee, Brian usually makes a “rail hand breakfast,” a reference to the eggs and hash browns I used to order pre-pandemic. We haven’t been in a restaurant ever since a server at Pizza Lucé gave us her roller derby card. It was right before the first “safer in place”/lock down mandates. And I remember it feeling eerie sitting at the bar, like “Should we be doing this?”

Thank goodness for my friend Alex. We were discussing a time to meet and he mentioned Zoom, which was unknown to me at the time. “I’d rather meet in person,” I said. He set me straight. Along with the NBA shutting down when Rudy Gobert tested positive for Covid-19, it’s one of my first memories of “Oh, this is serious.” It was odd because I had recently attended a rally for Senator Bernie Sanders who was running for president. There were thousands of people there. I remember seeing one person – just one – with a mask and thinking, “What’s up with that?” The rally was at once exhilarating and foreboding. As the arena, twinkling with magical screens and going round and round and round in feverish waves, I couldn’t help but think: “Should we be doing this?” Now it’s strange to listen to the recordings I made that day. It was the last time since the onset of the pandemic that I have walked up to a random person on the street and said, “Can I ask you a question for my podcast?”

Maybe I’ve lost my nerve.

In addition to making breakfast on Saturdays, Brian names them. Today, he knocked on my office door, cracked it open and announced, “Your ‘Dancing Queen Irish Cream Rail Hand’ is ready.”

We covered “Dancing Queen,” Ruby’s favorite song. As for the Irish Cream, I assure you that coffee in the yard is usually alcohol-free. But it’s New Year’s Eve. So, when I brought out some chocolates, I grabbed a bottle just in case anyone might enjoy “a snort.” Is that how you say that? It’s not something I normally say but I heard it at coffee this morning and thought I’d give it a try.

Speaking of… Dancing Queen.

Speaking of… Irish cream.

Speaking of breakfast… specifically eggs. Do you notice anything funny about this picture?

In one case (the eggshell on the right), the break is clean. In the other case (left), the egg is cracked with cartoon zigzags, like this:

As for Christmas, it was lovely. As Brian has said (and I have repeated too many times), “We’re up to our asses in socks, books and Clinique!” In fact, these words made it into my five-year journal, something I highly recommend that you keep:

Lovely Christmas Day with Brian and cats Michael and Bert. Chicken dinner reminded me of Grandma Choate. “We’re up to our asses in…”

Christmas, 2022 – Five-Year Journal, Rebekah Smith

The journal makes it easy to look back five years per page. For example, the entry above this was:

Brian made a roast for dinner. Nice gifts. Lots of stuff for woodworking. A router. Clamps. Power stapler…

Christmas, 2021 – Five-Year Journal, Rebekah Smith

And above that:

It’s hard to find a podcast that I like. Brian made a rail hand breakfast and we opened presents. He said he missed shopping this year and the Christmas vibe.

Christmas, 2020 – Five-Year Journal, Rebekah Smith

As I sit here right now, my ankles are warm thanks to my new socks and I am grateful.

The big question this year was whether to put up a tree. For the past few years, we’ve been skipping it, partly due to these two clowns:

Now that Michael and Bert are older, I thought maybe they could handle it.

I was wrong.

They cannot handle it.

“No one can see me, right?”

Bert didn’t get interested in the tree until after we decorated it. And then he proceeded to undo it.

Captain Innocent.

It was lovely for about a minute. But now the tree is a mess because I’ve given up on fluffing it up and rearranging the lights every morning. So, I’ll probably take it down sooner than I normally would, which is just as well. Valentine’s Day is late for boughs of holly.

We were supposed to look at cross country skis today. Maybe tomorrow? Tonight, there will be a movie because my friend Craig insisted that I watch The Glass Onion. The coffee crowd agreed. We’re guaranteed to love it. Good. The last movie that Brian and I watched together was The Vanishing. As a palate cleanser afterwards, we went to Tom Papa. It was a good movie (I think). But it was intense. Tragic. Sad. Disturbing. Usually, my kind of movie. Not so much Brian. We still haven’t talked about it. Not much. Brian called it a story about breaking from procedures. Initially I saw it about – not greed exactly – but shifting morality. Pivotal escalating choices. However, the more I think about it, the more I like Brian’s perspective.

At coffee, Ralph said that he was in a Quaker group that would bring in the New Year with a meditation. From 11:30 p.m. until midnight, they would sit together in silence, except for the ticking of a thousand clocks. None of them synced. Insert smiley face here.

So, that’s the report, as disjointed as it might be.

Happy 2023.

Rebekah

Broken Mop Handle

In yet another installment of “There, I fixed it!” we have a mop handle repair.

The handle came in two pieces that were screwed together with plastic threads on the inside of the rod. At least that’s how I remember it. Initially, I put a Band-Aid on the inside of the wider piece to add some grip and tension. It worked but required periodic attention. I can’t vouch for my current solution. However, five minutes after the repair it’s rock solid. As before, I padded the inside of the wider rod. This time I used a dab of tape that Brian bought for his tennis racket. I tapped the rods into place with a mallet. Then I covered the seam with more tape. Finally, I added a hose clamp. I wanted this mop to know that I meant business!

As with most projects like these, it required a stop at YouTube. While I had the inspiration to use a hose clamp, I didn’t actually know how these clamps worked. Now that I see how turning the screw feeds the band through a slot and tightens it, once again I’m in awe of tools. Sometimes I can be in the garage and screwing two boards together when – for a flash – I’m aware of how amazing it is that we live in a world were there are screws and screw drivers and electric drills… The history of joinery must be fasten-ating!

Fascinating. I never thought of that. To fasten. To fascinate. To hold. To hold one’s attention. To grip. The two words must be related, right?

In other YouTube news, I found instructions for making a jig so that I can make straight and uniform cross cuts with my circular saw. I’ve gotten by in the past but I want to build on my skills and make cleaner more precise cuts. The guy in the video puts the thing together in a few minutes. It took me two days (albeit not full days!) and three trips to the hardware store to get it right. I enjoyed figuring it out. At the same time, these days I feel nagged by other chores and projects that are always lurking in the background. I miss getting lost in a project where nothing else exists.

So, did the jig work. Yes!

As I was assembling, disassembling and reassembling my jig, a scene from Sex in the City kept looping through my head. In it, Miranda who is obviously pregnant is buying a wedding dress. When the store clerk suggests white she says, “The jig is up!” But it’s only now that I’m thinking about what it means. Would you hear “The jig is up!” in a factory. Like “order up”? Then maybe it came to mean that I recognize your pattern (a pattern of deceit?) and you can no longer fool me?

It was a nice theory, but it would appear that I’m wrong. After a quick search, most sources, including a second-hand account of what the OED has to say on the matter, attribute the phrase to an Elizabethan dance, the jig. “The dance is up!” In addition, jig also came to mean a trick or a practical joke. In other words, “The jig is up! Your trick has been exposed!”

Sometimes I think it would be fun to dedicate a YouTube channel to me following the directions for all manner of things I find on other channels. How to make fresh noodles. How to tie a quilt. How to remove a broken screw. But alas, it might lurk in the background along with the garage door that needs painting, the weeds that need pulling, rebooting a podcast that has been dormant, and outlining my next book.

I hope you are amazed by something today. Something simple. At least for a flash. And I hope that whatever you are doing, you can enjoy it fully. Those other things can wait their turn.

There, I fixed it.

It has been a long time since my friend Paul introduced me to a website that featured DIY plugger repairs. “There, I fixed it,” perfectly summed up the eyeglasses that were held together with zip ties or the mirror that was taped to a car. My latest low-budget solution indeed made me yell those words out loud. I solved a problem that had arose from the solution for a different problem, which in turn gave me an idea for a future episode of my long-dormant podcast, QuOTeD – The Question of the Day.

It only took 14 years of living in this house to realize that the door on the dryer is reversible. Making the switch would mean that I could transfer clothes from the washer to the dryer without the door blocking me. However, one improvement exposed the need for another one. The dryer isn’t level. Now the door swings closed from a resting state. It might be worse than the original problem was. The solution is to level the dryer. But until I get around to it, I’m using a magnet to hold the door open. It’s taped to a random wire that will be removed – again – when I get to it.

Hold dryer door open with magnet.
There’s a magnet buried in the blue tape.

In more fix-it news, I made some updates to the various websites that I manage. Had I been pinged by the social scientists who are collecting happiness data, it would have been a low point for me. But I don’t think it was the task itself that I hated. It was having to do it instead of something else. In fact, I might have preferred to troubleshoot websites over putting up the apples from my neighbor’s tree. In this case, any unhappiness I might have been feeling didn’t stem from a specific task, annoying that it might have been. But it was about the perceived or real pressure to do more than can be done in a day. I suppose one lesson here is to ignore the dire messages to make software upgrades until you can put it on the schedule. In the meantime, find your happiness in crossing your fingers and trusting that it’ll be fine.

Taking a walk this morning, Brian and I stumbled upon another swell fix-it job.

Cheap landlord or ingenious solution?

It’s nice when things fix themselves. I was late planting my garden this spring and on top of that, it appeared that I had planted some non-producing beans – if that’s such a thing. But then one day I was working in my yard and saw green beans hanging from the top of the arbor.

Nature doing its thing.

I wish the environment could fix itself on a timeline conducive to supporting life as we know it. Regardless, I’m still heartened by the bees that make the yard hum.

Bees go wild for the chives and sedum that line the back walk.
Chives and sedum make a pretty mix.

If only I would fix the compost, maybe Brian wouldn’t cringe whenever I hand him a bucket to empty. It’s pretty wild back there.

Can you spot the compost bin in this jungle?
You’ll have to fight the raspberries to get to it!

There’s a lot yet to fix around here. But it’s important to remember to stop and take pictures of the flowers.

As for my question, given that it took me over a decade to make a simple improvement – reversing the swing on the dryer door – I’m wondering if others have such projects. Are there easy home improvements or repairs that you put off doing until, for reasons you might not fully understand, you woke up and decided today is the day. You tackle a task only to wonder: What took me so long?

Organizing Screws, Nails, etc.

In the summer of 2020, I spent some time organizing the garage. This included facing the yogurt containers full of miscellaneous screws, nails, paperclips and the random cafe curtain ring. It was a tiresome task that used up my allotment of decision-making power for the day. Nevertheless, it felt good to do it. Tidying up always gives me a sense of accomplishment. And it’s particularly satisfying when I can benefit from my effort down the road, as I recently did.

I was, once again, organizing the garage and needed some really short screws that could be used to attach container lids to the bottom of a shelf. At first, it was looking like a trip to the hardware store was in order. But then I remembered that not only did I save some random screws, I organized them in such a way that they could be useful.

In one case, I used scraps of foil insulation to further divide the drawers in the hardware organizer that I was using. Other materials like a piece of thin cardboard would also work. Take a strip that is the width of and a bit longer than the drawer. Make a crease for however many dividers you want, being careful that the resulting divider doesn’t exceed the height of the drawer. Pinch. Staple. Insert.

Here’s a picture where you can see how two different types of nails are separated within the same drawer:

In another case, where I had a handful of onesies and twosies, I punched the screws through a scrap of foil insulation. This keeps them together nicely.

Then you can just put these little sheet of screws in a drawer:

As for why I wanted to screw container lids to the bottom of a shelf: more storage.

Ironically, as I was tidying up this year, I found three – count ’em! three! – yogurt containers full of random hardware.

Ugh!

MP3 Experiment

I’m preparing for a talk I’ll be doing at WordCamp – Minneapolis. I’ll be talking about podcasting with WordPress. It’s the old story. When you try to explain something, more questions pop up. In this case I want to take a look at the RSS feed of a post where there is an audio file attached. I’m assuming that it will not have the ENCLOSURE tags required that make a podcast a podcast. But I’m not sure. So let’s see what happens.


Apparently I was wrong. Without doing anything special, the media ENCLOSURE tag is included. I found this in the feed:

<enclosure url=”http://twopeopleandacat.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/EnclosureTest.mp3″ length=”1236639″ type=”audio/mpeg” />

Interesting…

So I read more about podcasting with WordPress at the source. Here’s part of what it says:

Podcasting is seamlessly supported as of WordPress 1.5. Add a link to an audio file in a post and WordPress will automatically add the necessary enclosure tag to your RSS2 feed to make it useable as a podcast.

The example RSS feed given did not work for me: http://example.com/wordpress/?feed=rss2. I’m not sure if I am misunderstanding something or if this is outdated information.

In any case, this did work: http://twopeopleandacat.com/feed/.

The above feed includes the most recent posts of all of them. By making a blog category that only includes posts with podcast media (in my case MP3 files), I can make a separate feed for that. In this example, I used “OurPodcast” as the category. The rest of the URL is generated automatically by WordPress.

http://twopeopleandacat.com/category/OurPodcast/feed/

What I found especially exciting, again from the WordPress Codex is that I can use the iTunes protocol instead of http://. This will open the feed in iTunes. On my laptop, it was a bit clumsy. But it worked for both the whole site feed and the podcast only feed. In the first case, the non-podcast posts were ignored. I’m not sure what this does if iTunes is not installed.

itpc://twopeopleandacat.com/feed/
itpc://twopeopleandacat.com/category/OurPodcast/feed/

How will this behave on my iPad that has the iTunes podcast app installed? “Safari cannot open the page because the address is invalid.” Darn!

Did I just accidentally start a podcast?

I think I might have just accidentally started a podcast. I have an episode, a dedicated podcast RSS feed that people can use to subscribe using any RSS reader. Apparently the show is called “Our Podcast – Two People & A Cat”. Had I known what I was doing, I might have given this a little more thought, but I’m willing to let fate take charge and roll with it.

What more is there to do? Do I even need the PowerPress plug-in? I thought the whole point of it was to create a dedicated podcast RSS feed and do stuff like insert those pesky enclosure tags into the feed. WordPress already does this. I mean, when you can accidentally start a podcast like you were falling into a manhole, how much easier can it get?

This is just a guess

In order to submit your RSS URL to podcast directories so that people can find your show, the feed must contain certain information. Here’s part of the feed that PowerPress generated for my show QuOTeD – The Question of the Day Podcast.

To view the whole thing, you can just go to my podcast and click on the RSS link. Or you can download this PDF file to see an abbreviated but more easy to follow version.

So is the idea that even though it’s technically super easy to start a podcast using WordPress alone, plugins such as PowerPress facilitate getting your show into the various podcast directories? Now that I think about it, PowerPress does guide you through the process quite nicely. For example, “This is your feed URL. Submit it to these various podcast directories. To be added to iTunes/Apple Podcasts you will need to have published your first episode, artwork in the following format…” blah, blah blah

In addition the plug-in offers short codes so that you can easily add a player for a single episode, a playlist and podcast subscription options, including a subscription page that can be customized. I also just discovered that you can make an embed link available so that people can embed an episode of your podcast that includes a player on a blog or website. For example here’s an embed link that I got from my podcast site.

How did that painting end up in our living room? A story improvised by dinner guests.

The embed code did not appear to work in a Facebook post. However, I recalled seeing a POST TO SOCIAL link on my Blubrry dashboard, so I gave that a try for the first time by posting something to my podcast Facebook page. The feature creates a video using the podcast artwork and the first two minutes of the episode. I’ll be curious to find out if it will use episode level artwork if it’s available. Up until now, I haven’t tried episode level art, but this might give me a reason do it.

In trouble with the law?

Brian and I were in downtown Minneapolis taking a walk and along the way I was photographing buildings. In one case, a security guard told me to stop. He assured me that if I continued to take pictures of privately owned buildings, other security guards would approach me as he did. He said that I was on private property, standing in the green space outside of the building, and as such I needed to get permission to take pictures of the building. I asked him if Google asked for permission to take photos of the building for its maps. With a straight face, he told me that they had. Last year a similar thing happened. Two security guards told me that the skyways were private property and that photography was prohibited. I can’t take a picture of Brian with the background of the city behind him from a skyway? No, according to these guys. Even after joining us in singing “Happy Birthday” to my sister over the phone, they wouldn’t allow it.

As I understand this article, this is off base, but I’ll need to learn more. I’m particularly interested in this:

You can take photos any place that’s open to the public, whether or not it’s private property. A mall, for example, is open to the public. So are most office buildings (at least the lobbies). You don’t need permission; if you have permission to enter, you have permission to shoot.

And this…

Note that the limits have nothing to do with where you are when you take the shots; it’s all about the subject’s expectation of privacy. You can be on private property (a mall or office-building lobby), or even be trespassing and still legally take pictures. Whether you can be someplace and whether you can take pictures are two completely separate issues.

Wouldn’t skyways fall under this definition of “private space that’s open to the public?” Wouldn’t the green space outside of a building that is open to the public fall under this definition? Legal or not, I’m baffled by the objection to photographing buildings, especially from the outside. I could guess at a motivation. My mind goes to the fear of getting sued. There must be more to it.

Moreover, if I did nothing wrong, don’t the actions of the security guard amount to harassment? Shouldn’t there be a penalty for making up laws to get people to do what you want them to do? Had I known that I was not breaking any laws, what would have been my options in any case? Argue with the guy? Refuse to stop taking pictures on principle?

Had I been taking pictures with a smart phone, I doubt I would have raised concerns. In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that I took numerous pictures of advertisements at the Mall of America*. The Mall of America, for crying out loud. No one said a word about it. But take out a real camera on a quiet Sunday afternoon and suddenly the security guards are enforcing phantom laws. Apparently, we can take pictures anywhere we like as long as our camera is attached to a selfie stick.

In the age of surveillance where not even our email is presumed to be private and where there is a security camera on every street corner, who’s getting whipped up over an amateur photographer taking an interest in the architecture of her city? I think it comes down to who has the power.

On the upside, that day I did meet a photographer along the way (this was before the security guard incident, so there wasn’t a chance to get his take). He asked me if I got this building, that building, this bridge or that one. He was full of encouragement and didn’t think to warn me that I might be breaking the law. I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn he teaches photography or that I had been talking to a famous photographer. I regret that I didn’t directly ask. I would have liked to talk to him again.

Here are some pictures I took. I’d like to get better at this. Right now I’m just trying to figure out where the buttons on my camera are.

DSC_0155.Brian
[Leaving the house. Brian being a good sport.]

DSC_0163.Road
[This new housing development caught my attention in Northeast Minneapolis.]

DSC_0166.WireFence
[Mixing the old with the new.]

DSC_0169.weights
[They incorporated a lot of rusty relics on the grounds, but I’m not sure what any of it is.]

DSC_0173.Roses
[Flowers on a wire fence. In this case, I’m focused on the building with the number “513” behind them.”]

DSC_0173.Roses_002
[This time I’m focused on the fence.]

DSC_0173.Roses_004
[Flowers, wire fence with grain storage in the background.]

DSC_0176.Roses_004
[More of the same but different.]

DSC_0179,BlackAndWhite
[I have no idea what this structure is. The black and white and the straight against the curved caught my attention. I also like the tufts of yellow in a line in the background.]

DSC_0180.ViewFromBottom
[A view from the bottom of a tower. Greens in rusty planter. Sky.]

DSC_0181.ViewFromBottom_002
[A view from the bottom where there are sticky things on the ground. I think they are berries of some kind.]

DSC_0182.WhereDidBrianGo
[Where is Brian? #1]

DSC_0183.WhereDidBrianGo_002
[Where is Brian? #2]

DSC_0184.WhereDidBrianGo_003
[Where is Brian? #3]

DSC_0185.BricksAndSky
[Bricks and sky. #1]

DSC_0186.BricksAndSky_002
[Bricks and sky. #2]

DSC_0194.Brian
[Brian has posed for a million pictures in this spot.]

DSC_0209.Brian
[A million and one.]

DSC_0210.Brian
[Two.]

DSC_0217.Brian
[Friends.]

DSC_0226.Building
[Building on building.]

DSC_0228.art_deco
[I am in this picture too.]
The building is a gem we discovered one winter walking the skyways. We tried out the funky furniture in the lobby and freely wandered throughout the spaces that were open to the public. No one tried to shoo us away until I showed up with a camera. I wasn’t even inside the building.

DSC_0229.art_deco
[Last year’s discovery. Yummy lobby.]

DSC_0230.art_deco
[This is art deco, right?]

DSC_0231.art_deco
[Is that marble?]

DSC_0232.Brian_art_deco
[The scene of the crime.]

DSC_0233.LaSalle
[LaSalle #1]

DSC_0234.Lasalle
[LaSalle #2]

DSC_0235.LaSalle
[LaSalle #3]

DSC_0236.Brian
[On the steps of a sad kind of place.]

* After producing the first episode of QuOTeD, the Question of the Day Podcast where I asked “What does it mean to be grounded”, I started to notice how certain advertisements aimed to counter groundedness. So I took a picture of a bunch of them at the Mall of America.

Photographing a Lamp

Today Brian and I stopped in at Classic Retro @ Pete’s in Saint Paul. I was looking for some possible candidates for wall lighting in the kitchen and found a mid-century table tulip lamp instead. Lamps are a weakness. I used the lamp as a subject as I experimented with my camera. The room where I’m shooting is green. The lamp has red fiberglass shades. The tulip leaves are red on the outside and whitish on the inside. The only light comes from the lamp, which has two 75 watt LED bulbs.

dsc_0474-lamp

[F/4, 1/60 sec, ISO 100]

This was the first picture. I’m not sure why the settings were what they were. A few more bad photos followed. Then I watched this video to get a baseline. [11-15-2020, Unfortunately the YouTube video that was so helpful to me is no longer available.]

dsc_0486-lamp

[F/22, 1/2 sec, ISO 400]

dsc_0498-lamp

[F/22, 2.5 sec, ISO 100]

We’re starting to see that the wall is green. That’s something.

dsc_0499-lamp

[F/16, 2.5 sec, ISO 100]

dsc_0531-lamp

[F/16, 1 sec, ISO 100]

dsc_0532-lamp

[F/16, 1 sec, ISO 100]

dsc_0533-lamp

[F/16, .77 sec, ISO 100]

dsc_0534-lamp

[F/16, .62 sec, ISO 100]

dsc_0535-lamp

[F/16, 1/2 sec, ISO 100]

dsc_0538-lamp

[F/16, .62 sec, ISO 100]

dsc_0545-lamp

[F/16, 1/3 sec, ISO 100]

dsc_0546-lamp

[F/16, 1/4 sec, ISO 100]

So I thought these were generally getting better. Then I realized I had paid no attention to the white balance setting. When I took video classes at MTN, I remember the instructor stressing setting the white balance. I always think of him whenever I see a video where the subject might have an unflattering bluish skin tone. So, I checked my Nikon D3300 for Dummies and made some adjustments. Given that there were no pre-sets for LEDs, I made a guess to get an idea of the effect. I’ll have to look more closely at the instructions to learn how to set the white balance with direct measurement (i.e., using white card stock). As far as I can see, adjusting the white balance brought the green wall closer to its natural color.

dsc_0549-lamp

[F/16, 1/3 sec, ISO 100]

dsc_0550-lamp

[F/16, 1/3 sec, ISO 100]

dsc_0556-lamp

[F/22, 1.6 sec, ISO 100]

dsc_0559-lamp

[F/22, 1.6 sec, ISO 100]

dsc_0570-lamp

[F/22, 1/2 sec, ISO 200]

In the end, I think some of the pictures are pretty cool. But I’m not sure any of them really capture how cool the lamp is. I’ll have to keep practicing. Plus, once I start taking pictures in RAW (right now I’m mainly sticking to JPEG), I should have some post production options that might help bring these to life. For now, I’m just trying to get my head around the basics!

Painting the Basement – Part 1

Painting the Basement – Part 2

A few years ago rainwater got into our basement and damaged a finished bedroom there. To address the source of the problem, I spent a summer fiddling with the grading on the side of the house. This year, with the help of a friend who showed me how easy it was to do, I repaired the the mortar of the cement block walls before applying Drylok. Then, we replaced the old fiberglass batting with a rigid Styrofoam product, bringing the insulation up to code. We had considered using a two-part spray foam because we were under the impression that it is the best product available. However, after reading about some negative experiences people had with chemical sensitivities that caused headaches and, in extreme cases, made homes uninhabitable, we decided it wasn’t for us. The decision saved us the hassle of boarding our cat at a friend’s house while the work was in progress. The contractors assured us that it wouldn’t be necessary to do this. However, our veterinarian disagreed.

We also took the opportunity to insulate the rim joists with foam boards that are held in place with a one-part spray foam. This had been on the to-do list ever since our first energy audit in ’08. The work required taking some panels out of the drop ceiling and moving everything out from the walls. Result? Boxes of books all over the house. I’m anxious to unpack! However, with the basement largely dismantled, I thought it would be a good time to paint.

The Internet is full of tips for choosing a color for a basement. The short answer for our situation (not a ton of natural light, adequate recessed lighting) was to stay away from pastels. They can look drab without enough light to reflect. Also recommended was a saturated color that doesn’t have too much black in it. After a few false starts, we settled on Behr’s Pure Turquoise.

Here are some pictures so far.

Looking from bedroom to media room.

Looking from bedroom to media room.

Before

Before

A bookshelf will go here. We're going with

A bookshelf will go here. We’re going with “college style” bricks.

I have a fun color picked out for that post.

I have a fun color picked out for that post.

Before

Before

After

After

It's shaping up

It’s shaping up

The left is the trim. The right is the

The left is the trim. The right is the “fun color”.

I want to paint a mural on this door.

I want to paint a mural on this door.

This old laundry cart was inspiring...

This old laundry cart was inspiring…

Update: August 18, 2015

I’m still enjoying working on this project and try to make progress every day – even if it’s just to tidy up or re-position the drop cloths to get ready for the next thing. Here is some evidence of progress.

Painting this post was a treat.

Painting this post was a treat.

I like how this turned out.

I like how this turned out. The ceiling tiles have also been freshened up with paint. It made a big difference in how the room feels.

I used the same blue for the cement blocks that will support shelves for books.

I used the same blue for the cement blocks that will support shelves for books.

I spent the morning getting the shelves ready.

I spent the morning getting the shelves ready.

Update: August 25, 2015

I just got back from Al’s workshop where he made me some pine boxes I wanted to try as supports for my bookshelf project. I love them! I’m excited to see the whole thing come together! My plan is to use a clear shellac on the boxes in contrast to the shelves where I used amber. I’m so glad that I asked for Al’s help as he steered me away from some design flaws and added some really nice finishing touches. For example, notice the edges on the face of the boxes are rounded. I learned a lot and that was fun!

10.5

10.5″ x 7/5″ pine boxes will be used for shelf supports.

Last week my friend Lucie who was escaping the Arizona heat came by for a look at the project. I took her suggestion and went with the dark blue accent color for the wedge that is revealed on the side of the staircase.  I love how it turned out.

No one would ever see the room from this view, but I still like the effect.

No one would ever see the room from this view, but I still like the effect.

I met this little guy when I first got started on the project and didn’t have the heart to dislodge him. I figured he’d eventually move on. But there he is in the same spot by the window.

Spare the spider!

Spare the spider!

Update: November 8, 2015

I’m not sure I would have ever finished painting the “pink room”, had it not been for my mom’s encouragement. Starting with the discovery that paint was coming off of the wall in sheets, that project turned out to be much bigger than I had expected and to some extent out of reach of my particular skills. We hired someone to repair the plaster. Margo Breivik did great work. Then there was the issue of the trim that had several coats of paint and visible drip marks. Too much paint gives a room the “old baggage” feeling, something that Brian and I noticed when we were house hunting. So I scraped. I used chemicals. With the intention of putting a fresh coat of paint on a clean surface, I took the baseboards down to the maple underneath. Then Brian sees the it. He likes it. Now I’m reading about how to finish the trim with a stain and this adds several more steps to the process.

There were external factors too. There always are. At one point I’m staring into the room and telling my mom that I don’t see how it will be possible to finish. She boils it down. Do something every day, big or small, and eventually it will get done. It might be a week from now or years. But, plug away and you will finish. As for the “years” she says, “It’s your house. What’s the hurry? Do what you want.”

The room turned out great. I felt proud when my dad marveled over it. He has high standards. He always does good work.

So, I’ve been plugging away at the painting the basement. There’s much left to do, but I don’t (and never did) have the feeling that will never get done, despite the delays. Here are some highlights.

Stuck on More Color Decisions

For the longest time I was stuck on the idea of making the stairwell two-toned, turquoise on the bottom like the rest of the basement and something brighter on the top near the kitchen. Answer (courtesy of Brian): Use the turquoise on the top and the bottom. It turned out great, but what color for the ledge? You see it there on the left?

Stairwell: Two colors or one?

Keeping it simple was the answer. Using the turquoise on the top and bottom of the stairwell was perfect.

To what level do you want to take it?

“To what level do you want to take it?” is a question I kept hearing from the same handyman who told me that I do not live in the Taj Mahal. When I’m doing the work, asking the question is more about what I’m capable of doing; it’s about my curiosity. “How would that look?” It’s not usually about who’s on the clock. In this case, I was second-guessing the color I picked for the ledge in the stairway. What was underneath the 80 layers of paint? As I was getting ready to go out for lunch with my friend Santwana, I literally dropped what I was doing (applying mascara) to grab a scraper to find out. Sold.

I’m not going to lie. Prepping for this job has been a bitch. To what level do I want to take this? Way beyond whatever a flipper might do.

Other Pressing Things

Then there are just the other things that need to be done by a specific time. This is the beauty (and I really mean it – beauty) of living in a place that has four seasons. There are real deadlines. In this case, there was a deck that was in sore need of staining and food to be harvested.

Behr DeckOver

Day four of deck staining. I still have time to play with recording some things.

Staining the deck

Almost done with the first coat. We painted the cracks with a brush and then rolled the rest.

Staining the deck

Almost done.

acorn squash

I gave away a lot of acorn squash and still have plenty.

Fun Times

Then there is just taking a break.

Fish Fry

We made it to South Dakota for my mom’s birthday, which was celebrated with my brother-in-law’s famous fish fry. I’m still thinking about that food.

And some actual progress…

Finishing the 12-foot pine boards for the bookshelf I’m making was definitely progress. I applied four coats of shellac and by the end it got a little tedious. It was worth it. In addition to moving a step closer to completing the project, I opened up a parking stall in the garage. And that puts me back in compliance with my rule to always keep the garage clutter-free enough to keep our cars in it. I’m not sure such a rule is necessary. We live in Minnesota! Yet I can see that the threat of winter isn’t motivation enough for some people. So, I made a rule in case I was the sort who needed it.

Painting the Basement – Part 2