Checking In...To Give You Some Things to Check Out

So...I have good news and I have bad news...

The good news is that I have been totally crafting up a storm. The bad news? You don't get to see any of it yet. I've been working on a pile of projects in preparation for my wedding next month. Holy crap...seriously...NEXT month. I have so much to do!

I've been traveling the internets in search of good ideas and have come across more than I bargained for. In addition to finding great DIY ideas and other genius for my wedding, I've come across some good books, some great blogs, and learned that you can totally spend all of your time finding wedding ideas on Pinterest instead of actually getting your projects done. Beware.

I decided that the least I could do is to share some awesome things that I've come across over the last couple of months. Because we should all try new things and enjoy them.

Ready for randomness? Because my wedding will be on the 13th of September (and because 25 turned out to be far too much work), here are:

13 New Things

1. ReStore

Do you have one of these? Because seriously...awesome. ReStore is quite possibly a DIYer's heaven.

What is ReStore? Well...direct from their website:

"Habitat for Humanity ReStores are nonprofit home improvement stores and donation centers that sell new and gently used furniture, home accessories, building materials, and appliances to the public at a fraction of the retail price.  Habitat for Humanity ReStores are proudly owned and operated by local Habitat for Humanity affiliates, and proceeds are used to build homes, community, and hope locally and around the world."

What does it mean for you? Well...if you're like me, it means a cart full of random wood pieces, some tile and supplies for projects that will totally keep me in craft heaven for a while. And all for $25!

2. Ben & Jerry's Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream

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Okay...umm...yum. Collin brought this home for me the other night while I was in the midst of invitation creation. It is fantastic! I could totally go for a diet solely of this product. Mmm...

3. - 11. New Blogs!

I am a connoisseur of blogs. I love them. I love reading the brilliance that comes out of the minds of others. Sometimes it's a bad thing...as I frequently end up with hundreds of unread blog posts in my Feedly (which BTW is my blog reader of choice since Google Reader went adios). Most of the time though, it's just awesome. I find new ideas, new crafts to try, new recipes to make, and new books to read.

If you're on the lookout for some awesome blogs to read, I keep a blog roll of my favorites over there. -->

To make things even easier though, here are a few that I have come across in the last couple of months thanks to the Summer Lovin Read-a-Thon and the search feature on Pinterest.

There Were Books Involved

Tumbling Books

Vintage Revivals

Diary of a Crafty Lady

So You Think You're Crafty

Bibliophile Sisters

Disquietus

and most recently...thanks to her posting of a comment right here on my own blog...

Confessions of a Bibliophilic, Craft Novice, Nursing Student

All of these bloggers have great ideas and great are super fun to read. Creative minds. Ah, I love them.

12. A Hilarious Video

Last week I went to a conference for work. Yup...snooze... But the presenter for my pharmacology lecture was not too shabby and had a pretty good sense of humor. The best part of the day? He played this video for us...I felt the need to share...

13. New Job Opportunities

Are you looking for a new occupation possibility? I have recently discovered a career path I didn't think existed. It's only right that I share my enlightenment with you.

In case you're confused at what you're seeing...yup...it says "certified equine massage therapist"...as in horse. So, if you're looking to have a romantic evening with your pony, maybe you can go ahead and schedule up a nice couple's massage.

Hope you found a few good things in here. At very least go check out one of those fun blogs. As for me, I'm off to have a nice snack of AmeriCone Dream (which I found tucked in the freezer this morning -- Collin must have picked me up some more at some point). Ta ta!

A Little Nerd Math

A couple of weeks ago, I read a post over at Padded Cell Confessions. I've been reading Maggie's posts for a while and she's always quite entertaining. It seems that she and her husband had been having a discussion on how many guinea pigs it would take to haul a person in a cart. 

Well...I'm one of those oddballs that thinks about strange things when I really should be sleeping. So...of course I was contemplating Maggie's guinea pig situation. I decided that I needed to solve the problem using math and physics. 

Now...keep in mind that it's been double digit years since I've taken either physics or math...so bear with me. I had originally posted the following comment on Maggie's post:

"I am in agreement with the more than 100 comment. I think they're pretty wimpy. Most of the ones I've seen don't do much more than lay around and stare at things."

Well...it turns out that guinea pigs are a lot stronger and faster than I gave them credit for.  However, they also apparently have really crummy back structure. One website suggested that you can train your guinea pig, but that you shouldn't train it to "play dead" as the shift in weight can cause damage to the spine. So...the mathematical answer is probably just a bunch of hooey, as there are really a lot of other factors at play. As my brother stated, they would probably run in different directions. You'd have to hook them up reindeer style.

But...let's take a look at my math and go from there...

For the sake of this argument, the guinea pigs will be pulling three different shopping carts, on concrete. The first cart will contain a 70 lb. child, the second a 130 lb. woman, and the third a 185lb. man. An average shopping cart weighs 40 lb.

So...the basic physics formula at work here is: force = mass * acceleration. If you figure out how much force each guinea pig can generate as well as how much force would be needed to move the cart, then you should be able to figure out how many guinea pigs you need.

The average male guinea pig weighs 3 pounds, females weigh an average of 2 pounds. So I figured on a mix and put the average weight at 2.5 pounds. Of course, everything needs to be completed in metric, so this is equivalent to 1.14 kilograms. Tada! Mass solved.

The tricky part is the acceleration. And this, honestly, is where I may have gone wrong. If we have any guinea pig experts out there who know the average acceleration rate of a guinea pig, I'd be happy to redo the math...but this is how I figured out my estimated acceleration:

According to the interwebs, the average domesticated guinea pig can run at a rate of 19.5 mph for long distances. However, apparently they have clocked "wild" guinea pigs at a rate of 41.16 mph (for up to 8-15 sec). I took these two numbers to guesstimate that a guinea pig could reach a speed of 30 mph in 15 seconds. This gives an acceleration rate (using change in velocity over change in time) of 2 mph/sec. Convert this to metric again, and you get 0.894 meters/second/second (no...i don't know how to get superscript on here...let it go).

Using this rate of acceleration and the mass calculated earlier, this means that every guinea pig should be able to generate a force of 1.019 Newtons.

Now...obviously, pulling a shopping cart with smooth wheels on a smooth surface will be easier than pulling say a wooden wheeled cart on sand. So...we need to use a coefficient to accommodate for the different friction present in the situation. Since we're dealing with wheels, we're using a rolling resistance coefficient for hard rubber wheels on concrete...a value of 0.01.

Using this coefficient, as well as the force of gravity holding each object to the ground, I calculated the force required to move these objects from rest. Based on that answer, I then divided by the force calculated for a guinea pig. Obviously, partial guinea pigs will not be helpful here (unless we're dealing with zombie guinea pigs), so I rounded up from the devised answer.

So...according to this math, it will take 5 guinea pigs to pull a child, 8 guinea pigs to pull a woman, and 10 guinea pigs to pull the adult male.

Honestly, I'm still not sure I agree with this. But...the other answer I came up with doing it a different way required over 1500 guinea pigs...which seemed rather excessive. So, I'm waiting on that guinea pig expert. Does anyone know how fast a guinea pig can accelerate or much weight a single guinea pig can pull? I don't feel like performing this experiment in real life. (Though I'm sure there is probably some fraternity somewhere that has tried it.)

Summary Sunday: Relaxation Edition

Things have finally calmed down around here...at least until tomorrow. I've had a nice couple of days relaxing while Dar's been with his mom and Collin has been working and teaching. (Maybe one of these days I'll be able to have a relaxing day with Collin.)

Darian and I finished his science project on Thursday...thank goodness. I think it turned out pretty well.

He has his science fair on Tuesday night and then his Idaho History Program on Wednesday night. It's going to be a busy week.

Friday night I started prepping some things for the big project of the year. I'm still not telling you exactly what I'm doing, but I'll start dropping little hints as the year goes on.

I saw a commercial for ACE Hardware where they mentioned free paint on Saturday. I'm totally about the free stuff. So I decided to pick out my colors. I ran up to the crop room and sorted through my paint chip stash. (What? Doesn't everyone have one?) I ended up picking out Midnight Iris and Green Banana.

How cute are those?? I took off Saturday morning on a mission for paint. It got interesting when the store couldn't match my color due to a base issue, so I ended up picking out new colors based on what they had available. Still pretty close though. I'm now going with Iris Plum and Tropical Grass.

And now I have my 2 free quarts of paint. It should be close to enough. I may have to pick up a bit extra down the road...we'll see.

I've also been working on my Project Life. As predicted, the journaling is proving frustrating. However, it's the actual printing that's being the trouble, not the writing. After nearly 5 years, I apparently still don't know how to load paper into my printer when I'm printing on landscape. I screwed up two journaling cards last night before I gave up. Maybe I'll do some more today.

What else has been going on this week?

Posts I Posted : I gave you not one, but two Project Life posts. I talked to you about my failure to purchase the right product before starting the project and I gave you a little OCD present in the form of some printables for Project Life planning. I also shared my review of my Goodreads book, Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung. As part of my good karma for that I learned this week that I have won two more books from Goodreads. I'm telling you, I just love that site!

Books I Read : I'm a little slow on the reading these days, what with doing science projects for three full weeks and spending until 11pm doing math homework. (Geez, 4th grade is hard.) I did finish Forgotten Country but it doesn't really count since I technically finished it last week. I have started reading I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. It was recommended by Patti. It takes a lot of focus and energy to read since I want to glean every bit of information I can, but so far I'm learning some things that I think will make our lives easier when it comes to money. Time will tell. I'm going to have to break it up over the next few weeks so that I don't get overwhelmed, so I'll be starting a second book here soon. I haven't decided what to read just yet...

Recipes I Tried : The science project did attempt to strangle my cooking for the week, but I managed to bounce back with a few things. I again made the delicious Blueberry Buttermilk Breakfast Cake. I muffed up and only bought half of the blueberries I needed, so we wound up with a smaller batch this time.

Yesterday, I made some wonderful Tomato Basil Soup...

...and today I busted out these bad boys...

I'll be sharing both of those recipes tomorrow.

Projects I Finished : I made some serious headway on the big project. I drew up some plans and did some measurements and dismantling. I also got that wonderful paint. I'm really excited for how this could turn out. I don't think I'll be able to keep it secret for long. I'll probably start sharing bits and pieces that will more or less give it away here in the next couple of weeks.

Favorite Blog Post : I finally got caught up on all of my blog reading. And what do I have to share with you, you say? Well, Geek in Heels came through again with her hilarious White Guy Dance Moves Infographic. As always, you're welcome.

Now...if you'll excuse me, I'm off to do some really important work pinning things on Pinterest.

Summary...Wednesday??: Just Go With It Edition

Well, hello again.

I've been MIA for a bit, but I'm hoping that things will kind of get into a routine now. Last week was pretty hectic for us and we spent every spare moment together as a family in preparation for the next two weeks. Collin left today to go work as a medic up at a mine site about six hours away. We won't see him again until very late next Friday night. We have some contact via Skype, but the reception is iffy as they are constantly getting piled on by snow. This will be his third run at the mine. It's hard on us as a family to be apart, but it's worth it to keep our house running.

As promised, I have totally crapped out on projects. (If it helps I've also crapped out on blog reading and now have 312 posts to sort through.) But...I did purchase a gem of an item yesterday that will be a fantastic project to work on over the next few months. I may give you sneak peeks as I go, but I'm going to putting together Miss Marley's birthday present for November. Yes, it's a long time away...but it's going to take me a while. It's a doozy of a project. I'm super excited to do it though.

Even though there have been no projects, I've still been reading. So you'll get a few book reviews from me over the next few days. Darian has also finally managed to get himself ungrounded so I think he has a few to share as well. I also finally received my pocket pages for Project Life. This means I can put together the last few weeks and finally show you what I've been working on. 

In the meantime, here is another lovely gem from my girl crush, Jenny (AKA The Bloggess).

Because he's just that awesome.

Go read the post. It's SOOO worth it. Come on...look at that picture. You know you want more!

Summary Sunday - iEdition

Today I said goodbye to a trusty friend. He'd been getting up there in years and he was moving a little slower than he had in his earlier days. Tricks that he'd mastered in the past would suddenly cause him to freeze up and become unresponsive. In my mind, I knew it was the right thing to do, but in my heart...I just couldn't bring myself to betray him like that. But today...well today I turned that corner. So it is with fond memories that I say goodbye to my BlackBerry. I'll miss you old buddy and I'll remember all the good times we had.

And so...today I joined the Darkside. I am now the owner of an iPhone. I held out as long as I could, but Siri is just a tempting little minx. I couldn't say no to her...though apparently she can say no to me pretty easily. Rude. Just rude.

You may be thinking to yourself...so...that's why she's posting this Summary Sunday so late at night...she's been fiddling with her new phone. I'd like to tell you that yes, that was the case. But alas, no...I was actually tied up with spending many hours slaving away in my kitchen. Tonight I made my very first pasta by hand. I also busted out a batch of cookies from a new recipe. I'll be sharing both of those later this week, but it did turn out successfully. And now...since I'm dying to get this phone figured out...let's get on with the weekly wrap up...

Posts I Posted : I actually screwed up. I'll be honest. I had a post all ready to go for yesterday, but I forgot to publish it. Oops. So I guess you'll get it tomorrow. Because of that error, you ended up with only two posts this week...one from Darian, and a book review of The Night Circus from me. Good heavens I'm behind on the stuff I've been meaning to post...

Projects I Finished : When it comes to craft projects, I accomplished zero this week. But I actually got quite a bit accomplished. I cleaned the scrapbook room...a project that resulted in these Tweets...

Cleaning my scrapbook room and just found two cameras. This mess may be a problem...
— Elle (@ErraticElle) February 9, 2012

Update: So far on my desk I have found: the ruler I've been trying to find for 2 months, a bag of pumpkin seeds and a stack of random CDs.
— Elle (@ErraticElle) February 9, 2012

Items found (part II) : Another camera (that makes 3), CD of bday pictures that needs to be taken to Patti, my iPod, new earbuds for iPod.
— Elle (@ErraticElle) February 9, 2012

I also finally wrapped up a huge project at Collin's office that involved multiple hours to untangle the mess that was his QuickBooks inventory. I'm happy to say that things look very nice and pretty.

Books I Read : I finished up Once on a Moonless Night by Dai Sijie. I'll be letting you know what I thought tomorrow. I am now reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

Recipes I Tried : I have been a cooking FOOL this week! I'm totally impressed with myself. I will be sharing these recipes during the next week or two, but this week I made : Crockpot Orange Chicken, Chicken Almond Rice Salad, Buttermilk-Blueberry Breakfast Cake, Pumpkin Sage Ravioli and Italian Cookies with Blueberry Frosting. I also made Jambalaya on Monday...but I've already taught you that one.

Favorite Blog Post This Week : Oh there have been some gems this week people. And I even remembered to star them. Aren't you impressed!? So...since I went to all this work to remember, you need to go check out Geek in Heels. Jenny was on FIRE this week with two posts that left me giggling uncontrollably. She shared How Donuts Help Us Understand Social Media and her Facebook Social Experiment. No to be outdone, Kim over at Everything bugs me. shared her interpretative map of the Bay Area. If you live there or have lived there in the past, this will make total sense to you. If not, you may stare at it quizzically like Collin did at me while I was rolling around on the floor about it.

Favorite Thing on the Web : Okay...technically these are more blog posts, but let's not get snippy. Paige Kellerman at There's More Where That Came From shared a couple of videos that were just...well...epic. Credit for the second fine gem goes to Collin and Best.Roommate.Ever. Collin and I spent an hour dying laughing at the posts on Ghetto Hikes. Cody takes urban kids on nature hikes and writes down the dumb crap they say. As a little sample of his handiwork...

source

So...as usual...you're welcome. Now...back to this phone...

Semi-Wordless Wednesday

So I forgot all about it in yesterday's post, but I meant to talk about next year's book plan. I've really enjoyed this challenge so I'm going to renew it for next year, upping the number of books for the goal and building a true bracket (no more groups of five). I'll be posting each book individually with a synopsis and a review. Also, Darian has decided to join in on the challenge. He's going to set a book goal for himself (we're thinking we'll have him aim for about 32 books in the year) and then he'll review his own books as guest posts and do his own bracket. These posts will be paired with my book posts whenever possible. At 9 years old he's started to get really excited about reading so it will be a good challenge for him. Plus, I guarantee you there will be some entertaining reviews.

Now on with the show. I promised you a surprise and I'm definitely going to deliver. I mentioned a few days ago on my Twitter feed that I ate Poptarts for breakfast and "tipped my hat to Nyan Cat". My brother replied to this with the statement that I needed to dress one of the cats as Nyan Cat for Halloween. This was a demand, not a request. Well...I figured why not...here's the result.

I picked Jasper because frankly he's the only one that would tolerate this kind of crap. As I sit writing this post he's laying next to the chair with his costume on. He's totally unfazed. This cat is awesome.

And for those of you not familiar with Nyan Cat, a little video education:

He's BAAAACK! Crazy Neighbor vs. Auto

I'm feeling a little wiped out and drained tonight after a day of fighting of a cold with a ridiculous dry cough. So...I've decided to keep it light and bring you all another tale of Crazy Neighbor.

I've been thinking about Crazy Neighbor a little bit lately. He is currently missing. Not missing in the sense that there is a search party and the potential for imminent danger - though that would be exciting. He has been mysteriously absent for about two weeks now. It's been magically quiet in our neighborhood, with the exception of the short period last week when our other neighbors were out of town and their poor dog decided he missed them. (Sadie kept sitting by our back fence worried about his cries from the other side.)

We know that it's not an unexpected absence...his daughter has been over at least once each week pulling weeds and trimming trees. So I've began to contemplate the possibilities this morning. (Yes. I was that bored.) I think I may have figured it out, but if I'm right then there is the potential for some very frightening tales. I'll keep my eyes open for him coming back and I'll keep you posted.

So we've already spoken about CN's issues with an ATV and watercraft...today we're going to speak of the basic automobile. (I'm telling you...there is no end to this fun.)

Don't let her fool you. She's an evil minx.

I came home from work this past spring to see CN out in his driveway with his garage doors open. He was pacing around in a circle with his hands up akimbo to his head like a sprinter trying to walk off the exertion of a 50m dash. That's all it took. I was curious. I pulled into my garage and (after a quick trip to the bathroom) went to the other side of the house. As soon as I got into my bedroom I heard the cursing begin.

There were words uttered by that man that I'm not sure I had ever heard spoken before. It was epic. Strings of profanity exclaimed at volume levels that may very well have broken the sound barrier. Keep in mind that this was in the early evening of a weekday and there are small, impressionable children in our neighborhood who were out playing.

He may have memorized this.

He had stomped back inside the garage. I quickly gathered that he was angry at the car. He shouted and pointed his finger angrily at the poor sedan calling it a whore and other colorful euphemisms. Had I not had visual I would've assumed that he was having an argument with the girlfriend. He was brutal and ruthless. I could hardly contain my laughter. I texted Collin immediately and told him to hurry home from work - he was missing the show.

The anger escalated. He was underneath the car at the trunk one second and then standing next the the car kicking it violently the next. I was confused to say the least. I looked hard at the car to see if I could figure it out. From what I could see from my vantage point, it would appear that someone (although the girlfriend was a likely candidate I'm going to go with good ol' CN himself) had run over something and bent the exhaust system under the car as well as the passenger side fender.

At this point you might think to yourself, wouldn't it be best for him just to take it to a body shop. This was a new car (I would say less than a year old). Well of course it would, but don't be silly, this is CN we're talking about. He can fix anything. Don't believe me? Just ask him. Apparently though, this one had him flummoxed. No amount of revving would help mend the twisted mess of metal under that car.

I turned away for a moment to answer my phone. I giggled like a Japanese anime girl while I explained the situation to Collin. He was stuck at work and totally devastated to know what he was missing. After finishing the call I looked back out the window. Oh holy night, the scene I landed on. It was magical!

The perfect solution to a bent tailpipe. It is a PIPE wrench after all.

Perhaps you are familiar with a pipe wrench? Ya...I'm talking the tool the Mario Brothers use. You know, the one that's longer than half of their bodies?  CN had busted this out and jammed it into the exhaust pipe. Yup...apparently he was going to fix this bastard with a steel enema.  The cursing got intermingled with grunting as I watched him try and bend the metal with the handle of the pipe wrench, pulling with all his might and turning a rather impressive shade of red.

Minus moustache, plus obscenities.

Thank goodness I had just used the bathroom or I'm pretty sure my laughter would've caused a small leakage problem. It was like a monkey with a shoehorn. This went on for about five minutes - I'm not kidding you...five SOLID minutes - before he gave up. But...before he went inside he got in one more jab. He swung the pipe wrench and smacked the side of the exhaust pipe. Well...that'll teach it. He then threw the pipe wrench across the garage and kicked the car in the fender for good measure. Hysterical.

This is where he finally gave up. He walked into the house and slammed the door still loudly yelling obscenities as the garage door closed. It was like watching the curtain drop on a Broadway play. It truly deserved a standing ovation.

So...with gems like this you can now understand why I find myself itching to know where he has gone. I'm so excited to see if my guess is correct. If so...the potential for a GLORIOUS blog post awaits. Until next time everyone!!

A Rainy Sunday Summary

Another week has flown by. It seems like the weeks at our house keep moving faster and faster. Collin is super busy with work and Darian is having project after project at school. Yay for 4th grade...

I had a short work week which was a very good thing. Thursday was a rough day for me and it would've been worse if I would have had to work. Last night we were able to spend some time with Collin's mom while she was in town and we all got together to watch the BSU game. It was nice to see her and we all enjoyed watching the Broncos step all over CSU. We also got to have a date night with Owen & Patti and enjoyed some delicious pizza over at Flatbread Community Oven.

Today I'm spending my rainy Sunday running a grid for the EMT National Registry Exam at Collin's office. Nothing like having to get up at 6am on Sunday morning. Good times. We have a slew of people here...some who are patient and some who are pushing my buttons. Nature of the beast. I can count on at least one troublemaker every time. But we're almost done and then I get some lunch afterwards so I guess I can hold out a little longer.

Recipes I Tried: Though it's definitely not a new recipe, I figured I needed to share this one. On Monday, I made Sicilian Supper...a recipe I've eaten since I was a kid and a VERY easy dinner. I use it on nights when I pretty much don't feel like doing anything. So for those nights where you need a break or when you want to have your preteen help with dinner, this is a great option.

Okay...it's not the prettiest, but I  promise it tastes good.

Ingredients :

1 lb. ground beef
1 green bell pepper
1/2 c. onion, chopped (I substitute 1 tbsp. onion powder since my stomach doesn't tolerate onions well.)
1 box of cream cheese
1 8 oz. can of tomato paste
2-3 cups of uncooked egg noodles (I typically lean towards three.)
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. hot water
1 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. garlic salt
1/4 c. parmesan cheese

Cook the egg noodles according to the instructions on the package. Set aside. Place the ground beef, bell pepper and onion in a medium sized casserole dish. Microwave for 5-7 minutes, until the beef loses it's pink, stirring once to break up the meat. Add all remaining ingredients except for the parmesan. Microwave for 2 minutes. Sprinkle parmesan over the top. Microwave for 5-7 more minutes. Allow to sit for 5 minutes before serving.

I told you! Super easy! I love that I don't even have to turn on the stove. My family loves it and there are very rarely leftovers.

Books I Finished : I finished reading One Day by David Nicholls. I started reading Her Fearful Symmetry by...wait for it...Audrey Niffenegger!!! She's back people! And I'm super excited. Not only do I love using her name, I love this book already. I think it's going to do very well in competition.

Projects I Finished : Ouch. Ya...so I haven't accomplished squat with regards to projects. Maybe I'll do better next week.

Posts I Posted : I talked about my love for Pinterest, bragged about my Wal-Mart ban, divulged a deep, dark secret, and told you why holiday pies now make me nervous. Whew. That was a busy week.

Favorite Post of the Week : So I've been checking out the MS Paint stylings over at Reading (and chickens). She has a hysterical post on IKEA and another talking about beard identification. I laughed.

and...just for fun...

The Best Thing I Found on the Interwebs : I saw a commercial for this product on TV this week and nearly choked on my breakfast. So...I knew I needed to share it. Here...it all its glory...is...the FOREVER LAZY.