All posts by ihatehardware.

#3of365 – iPad Artwork

Norah LOVES to color, draw, and write.  And she’s extremely productive.  She creates page after page of drawings which she then presents to me as gifts.  I am forbidden to recycle any of them, so they turn into gigantic piles that add to the mess.  One of the unforeseen benefits of the iPad is that Norah can create drawings with really cool apps where she can draw with glitter, neon, change the background color, and she can save them electronically.  She doesn’t like this photo because of her “crazy hair” and “tired eyes,” but she was proud of her drawing of the two of us.

#2of365 – Bye Bye Magnum

I got a surprise this week when my boss called me to say that there was a car available and since I had the oldest company car in our office, I could trade it in for the new(er) one.  WOOHOO!  The Magnum has served me well but 3 kids can really trash a car in 5 years.  Plus I hit a couple of things with it – our vice president’s car and a pole in our parking lot.  Oops.

I took it to the car wash for a cleaning on the way, and the cleaners put the driver’s seat so far forward that I couldn’t make it go back.  I thought it would have to be towed, but finally they got it back far enough for me to drive it.

I can drive around incognito now…maybe I’ll just keep the new car make, model, and color a secret for a while.

Project 365 – #1of365 – Icy Branch

I can’t believe I used to find the time and inclination to post most weekdays on this blog. I guess I’m a little overwhelmed at the moment. My work blog is getting really popular so I’ve been devoting quite a bit of time to it.  The company’s still not sure what to do with it, or whether blogging is a worthwhile activity for a corporation, but they’ll see the light eventually.  I’m getting 4,000-5,000 visits per month, with an average of 4 minutes spent per visit.  People in the hardware industry are using it as a resource, and I’ve also gotten emails from architects and code officials who like it.

Today I posted my 365th post on my work blog, which seemed like a milestone.  You know, 365 days in a year and all that.  So, call me crazy, but I decided to start a Project 365 to celebrate.  Project 365 is where you post a photo each day for a year, which signifies what you were doing, thinking, seeing, or feeling that day.  I thought that I could use the project to help the readers get to know me better, get them coming back more often, and give me something fun to do besides write about doors.

Since it’s been tough for me to find time to focus on this blog, I’m going to do a Project 365 here too.  Sometimes it will be the same photo from my work blog, and sometimes it will be different.  You probably won’t want to see photos of door closers, and I don’t really want the readers of my other blog to see photos of Scorpion Bowls.  I’m also hoping to practice and improve my photography skills in the process.  I work better with a goal and a deadline.

So here’s today’s photo:

We got 20 inches of snow this week, and I’m smack-dab in the middle of an unplanned 6-day school vacation, created by 2 snow days followed by a teachers’ professional development day, the weekend, and MLK day.  I feel a little guilty saying this, but I’ve noticed that the kids have suddenly become less dependent upon me for their entertainment.  It shouldn’t make me happy that they’ve turned to electronic devices to keep them busy, but I can’t help but feel a little relieved.  I do have to work, and it’s much easier to do that when the kids aren’t expecting me to rock their world every moment.

3,652 Days

That’s 315,532,800 seconds, or 5,258,880 minutes, or 87,648 hours, or 521 weeks.  Or 10 years and 3 kids.

Today is our 10th anniversary.  For anyone who’s doing the math, Aliya’s due date was exactly 40 weeks to the day from our wedding date, so it was not a shotgun wedding.  We eloped to Turks and Caicos, which is a GORGEOUS island in the British West Indies.  The flight is only a few hours and it’s a tropical paradise.  We spent a wonderful week there, including our brief wedding ceremony on the pier, which was observed by various tourists and the divers who unloaded from a dive boat during the vows.  The minister, who obviously spent each day going from resort to resort marrying random couples, got our names wrong twice, but I think we’re legal.

It’s a little sad that our 10th anniversary gift was a Wii, and instead of going out for a romantic dinner I went to Zumba class, but that’s our life at the moment.  My teacher Ali tried to help me get in a romantic mood by making us do the “Loosen Up My Buttons” routine, but it mostly put me in the mood for ice cream.  In case you haven’t seen 20 sweaty women gyrating to the Pussycat Dolls, here’s a video that doesn’t include me or my class, but you get the idea.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgyIvPdUbKI&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Return From Oz

Last weekend I escaped to Foxwoods with 4 foxy friends (Betsy is missing from the photo but if Pam sends me some of her pics I’ll add them).  When Lana asked me about it back in December, I didn’t care if we were going to the Holiday Inn in Worcester or if it cost $2000, I was IN!!

Luckily we didn’t go to Worcester and I didn’t have to spend the kids’ entire college savings.  We left on Friday afternoon and made the quick (1 1/2-hour drive) down to CT.  It was a gorgeous day and the snow everyone kept talking about hadn’t started yet.  I had never been to Foxwoods before and I swear it was just like being in Oz when the Emerald City loomed up out of the poppies, except this time it loomed up out of Uncasville.

I was surprised by how GIGANTIC the place was, and it’s actually really nice.  Lots of bars and restaurants, live music and comedy, a decent spa and a beautiful pool which unfortunately was inhabited by loud and splashy kids.  We had a nice dinner on Friday night at the Shrine, after drinks at various hot spots along the way (including FABULOUS espresso martinis and 2 scorpion bowls), then spent Saturday laying around relaxing and being pampered.  I got a haircut, which I needed badly, and then we went out to see the comedian Jo Koy, who was hilarious.  We had dinner at David Burke Prime which was really good.  I’m not a gambler but we watched Betsy play Let It Ride, and I think I could play that without embarrassing myself.  Maybe on my trip to Vegas next month.

Sunday morning we got up, cried, threw our crap in a bag, cried some more, and came home.  You would think that having a couple of days away would make me more tolerant of what was waiting for me at home, but it’s the exact opposite.  After two days of peace and quiet with nobody needing anything from me, each scream, whine, and screech doubled in volume.  I had to take a nap in the afternoon because I was so tired out from being home for 3 hours.  I’m back in the swing of things again, and all I have to show for my relaxing weekend is my haircut and my credit card bill.

Time to schedule another getaway!  Who’s in???