Of Course I Hear Voices: I Own Parrots

I think this pretty much says it all:

I will spare you the pictures from before they were cute. No. Really. Google baby cockatiel you and will thank me. Popcorn basically started molesting Weddnesday at 6 months. When she was a year and a half they laid eggs. She abandoned the nest initially, but once Popcorn started sitting on the eggs, she eventually returned. Despite being reassured that Popcorn (he was 21) was too old to fertilize eggs, One hatched on June 3,  2010. He was followed by Two and Three on June 4 and 5, and their sister hatched sometime that next week. I had every intention of finding them all new homes. However, the tornado sort of messed that up. their sister found a new home, but One, Two and Three are still with me.

Mark needed a desk. We didn't have one, but we did have a vanity I no longer needed.  The good news: it was the right size and matched an extra chair. The Bad News: It was in bad shape. It is also a reproduction that is made of laminate.  Painting laminate is a big undertaking. After some Google searches, I was ready to get started. 1) Clean said desk. This required Murphy's Oil Soap and a brush. 2) Tape off the areas I didn't want painted. I still wanted the desk to match the chair, and I thought the two tone look would be fun.  3) Sand until the finish on the laminate starts to come up. Now, laminate won't come completely clean, you need to get up a good portion of it. Wipe away dust. This took about 2 sanding blocks. 4) Prime it. Sadly, my can of primer was faulty, so I had to get dressed and buy another. I used the Krylon Spray primer (it dries in 10 minutes). 5) Now it is time to paint. I used Krylon's Oil Rubbed Bronze. I spr...

Today is the day I decided to tackle my dining room. What I thought would be a 1-2 job turned into an almost 6 hour job. We bought these chairs to go with my grandparents' dining room table. They are pretty stained, and way too light to have (with kids). The first item of business: recover the seat cushions. 1) First I removed the seats from the chairs. This was the easiest part of the recovering project. Locate the screws on the bottom side of the seat. Removing those frees up the seat, so you can remove the old fabric. 2) This is where I ran into an issue. I discovered that one of the chairs had the original hardware. However, 2 of the chairs had 2  screws that did not match the others at all and one chair only had 2 screws. I dug through my spare hardware container (I just need to buy a tool box), but my closest match wasn't even close.  As you can see in the picture below (right to left: The ones that came with the chair, the ones tha...

Ceremony in Millbury honors Lake Twp. tornado victims : The community is gathering in Millbury Tuesday night for the dedication of a gazebo to the seven victims of the June 5 tornado that ripped through the area two years ago.

Two years ago, my life changed forever. June 4, 2010 set the whole situation up. Dad had a stroke. Two ER doctors at  Fulton County Health Center misdiagnosed him ( He had a history of clotting strokes. We could prove negligence, but not that it led to Dad's condition). When they finally called our family doctor, he had Dad moved to Bay Park. Their negligence sealed our fate. Had they done their jobs, we never would have been on 795 that night. We never would have crossed paths with that tornado. We can't change any of that. It has been a long two years that started in a totaled Chevy Cobalt in the middle of 795. As time goes on, I remember more and more of that night. Most are memories I wish I never pieced back together. We lost our mother and became responsible for our now very disabled father in a terrifying moment I relive in my nightmares. In that two years, our lives fell apart, we lost our father, and Amy and I had to deal with our own trauma from the tornado....

Here is the last project for the girls room. My parents bought me a vanity bench at a garage sale. I never got around to recovering it, and since my vanity was becoming Mark's desk (my old bathroom was a shoe box. Our new bathroom actually has space for my stuff.), I didn't have a place for it. Then I decided to make the girls a desk. Now they needed a place to sit. The vanity bench seemed like the best answer. The vanity after I removed the seat. 1) Cleaned the bench (Murphy's Oil Soap and Liquid Gold) 2) Taped off the areas I didn't want to stain 3) Sand off the old finish 4) Wipe off the dust 5) Apply stain 6) Wipe off access stain (Note: I probably should have put wood conditioner on this before staining it. I know this now) 7) Let dry over night 8) Spray with gloss finish and let dry over night. 9) Pick out fabric for bench.  10) Use a staple gun to attach the fabric to the seat 11) Re-attach the seat to the bench....

Here is the recipe *with* the substitution for the cheesy stroganoff packet. 1 Season Packet from Hamburger Helper Stroganoff 1 Cheese packet from the cheap Mac and Cheese 1/2 cup Minced Onion 1 Tbsp Fat (yes...fat that is what she wrote down. butter also works) 1 lb ground beef 2 Tbsp All purpose flour 1 tsp salt 3 4 oz cans of mushroom pieces (I only used 2 because Mark isn't a mushroom fan) 1 10 1/2 oz can of cream of chicken soup 1 8 oz container of sour cream 1 cup milk 1 pkg egg noodles 1/8 tsp pepper Cook the onion and fat (or butter) in a large skillet until the onions are soft. Add ground beef and brown Add mushrooms, flour, salt and pepper. Mix well Cook uncovered for 5 minutes. Add cream of chicken soup. Stir into meat mixture thoroughly. Reduce heat to simmer. Cook covered for 10  minutes Mix in milk, sour cream, the cheese packet, and the seasoning packet.  Heat thoroughly Serve over cooked egg noodles Serves 6

I heard this on Pandora and I loved it.

The girls stayed at the apartment for the first time last night. it went pretty well. There will be some adjustments to the new rules. The birds may have a harder time adjusting to them than they did with the actual move. It will be fine, but the new faces that want to be their faces are making them a little anxious. The morning seemed to go well. I go up, got ready for work, got the birds settled, and then the girls woke up. I got them settled with drinks and the Disney channel just in time to dash out the door and make it work by 7:55 (plenty of time to get logged in and ready to open at 8:00). There is one small thing I forgot. My jacket. And it was 49 degrees this morning. Oh, and I already am having sinus issues. I was so focused on getting them settled (partly so they would let their Dad sleep a bit longer), that I totally forgot that you know it was cold outside and that a jacket would be a good idea. I never said this was going to be easy.  I'm grateful that the only ...

The girls really wanted a desk in their new bedroom. The problem: Between the 2 of us we have 2 desk, and it is an antique secretary (which is currently standing in as our medicine cabinet). We already had committed to making a vanity into a desk for Mark. Moving is expensive, and it just wasn't in our budget to buy them new furniture. That is where a little creativity came in. 1) Take Mom's sewing table (the sewing table I was only supposed to have temporarily...but lets be honest that woman had more furniture than she knew what to do with). 2) Clean it with Murphy's Oil Soap and Liquid Gold. 3) Sand off the old finish  4) Wipe away dust. 5) Apply stain 6) Let sit 15 minutes and wipe off the excess. 7) Let dry overnight 8) Spray top with a clear gloss 9) Let dry overnight Now for the Shelves and drawers: I went with fabric drawers from Closetmaid For the shelves I revisited the Closetmaid mini shelving units. T...

Today marks the 2 week point in our move. It is amazing how much things have changed in that two weeks. There is no more coming home from work and lounging on the couch or lazy Fridays off. At least for now there is still enough work to keep me busy until I pretty much drop from exhaustion. The good news is we are pretty much settled. Most everything has found a home. Aside from a seat cushion the girls' room is ready to go (which is good since they will be here this weekend). Pictures are not up quite yet, but overall things are really coming together. When you live alone there isn't that urgency. For me there was a drive to clean up the place daily. Now it is different. Every night I leave work with a to do list. I know some of that will lighten up when I finish my bigger DIY projects (I might as well make the most of the things we have). There still always a grocery run, laundry, dinner to make, bird cage to clean or some other chores. I also know some of it is jus...

Seven and a half years ago I acquired a dresser from my Mamaw. She had bought the house next door to her, and the dresser had been left in the house. Not even a week later, she was gone. The dresser was looking a bit shabby, but I couldn't bear to part with it. We decided to keep it for the girls room, but to update its look a bit. This is what we started with: 1) First I attacked it with Murphy's Oil Soap and Liquid Gold (a theme you will see in many of my projects). That cleaned up the sides and the drawers, but the top was in back shape.   2) Then it was time to sand. The finish (well what was left of it) was stubborn and I had to use a knife to remove the paint splatter...which meant more sanding. 3) I decided to just restain the top of the dresser, so I stopped sanding long enough to tape the top off. 4) One sanding block later, I was ready to stain. Made sure to wipe away any dust left from the sanding. I bought a can of...