Picture a Day-Day 32

I have a confession to make, not only do I do most of the cleaning in our place but I actually enjoy it.

My arsenal for the bathroom.

I'm not so insane that I'd rather be say knee deep in the tub with a brillo pad in hand than go to the movies, or vacuuming the stairs instead of hanging out with friends. But about once a week I just get so tired of the clutter I pull out my trusted bottles and cloths, turn on my iPod and set to work cleaning it all.

In fact I was rather disappointed that no one got us the dust mop I put on our registry. While it isn't super important now it is the best thing I have ever found to clean up fur from little shedding monsters we call our pets. (It just sucks the stuff up even if the floor is a little bit wet, working at a vet clinic you learn these little tricks).

It's the adrenaline rush of getting up dashing about the apartment mixed with the feeling of easy accomplishment one gets after organizing an overflowing closet. There's probably a mix of bleach and vinegar fumes thrown in too for good measure.

Does anyone else get a kick out of cleaning? Do you actually hope for say a fancy vacuum or a cool new polishing kit for a birthday/anniversary? Or am I just a sad person with no hope of human contact? (It's probably the last one)

I Love Survey E-mails

Cate at Project Subrosa with her amazing thoughts and reminiscing has reminded me of the joy I had at filling out those old survey e-mails.

You know the ones. You always dreaded getting them as you could re-learn your best friends favorite ice cream, height, or eye color (in case you had to suddenly assume their identity and take out the government of course).

So I've been digging through my old e-mails seeing what ones I may still have kicking around. This may all surprise you to learn but I did not just become a smart ass overnight. Oh no, I've been perfecting it for years. Here are just a few of my answers from January 5, 2005:

Name: That is classified. I have no idea why, but let me tell ya it made kindergarten hard. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to spell classified?

Eyes: The ones on my face or the one in the back of my hea . . . ha ha ha uh yeah forget you just read that.

Height: Half the size of a Yeti with basketball shoes on. Slightly taller if he has cleats on.

Birthday: The day I emerged from the mother pod was the eve of the ides of July.

Sign: Beware falling cheese. Yeah I got there kind of late and they were running low.

Animals: Yes animals do in fact exist. Otherwise we would all have to be vegetarians and that would be a very sad world indeed.

Broken the law? Nah I only sprained it and had to wear a brace for a few weeks.

Gone skinny-dipping?: It's a lot of fun when you're in Antarctica in the dead of winter!

Do you hate any one?: Depends. Who am I allowed to hate?

Who's the quietest person you know? My editor because he lives on my escape key and is too small for his voice to be perceived by human ears. It’s a nice working agreement, he can talk all he wants and I just ignore him anyway.

One least likely to respond: Why is one least likely to respond? Is it so much better than the other numbers. Huh.

If you want to read all of it, here's a link to the rest (let me warn you, it gets weirder). Did anyone else have a ton of fun filling these things out when we were all so much more naive about where this world wide web would take us?

Wouldn't it be fun to start one around the blog o land again for history sake? We must preserve the e-mail survey for all of posterity! Don't tell me I'm the only other person who enjoyed these things.

Picture a Day-Day 31

It's amazing what you find when you really start to clean up a place.

A few years back for our dating anniversary I thought I'd try to make a mock up of Death in a Snow globe which is a visual representation of our favorite book Reaperman by Terry Pratchett (you can get an idea of what I was going for by looking at the cover).

I remember this involving a long search and pleading spree to find a small Grim Reaper (who knew that miniature games would have a little Death ready on the wings to sweep all the fallen pewter heroes off to Valhalla) and figure out how to make a snow globe.

Well folks, don't use a baby food jar and attempt to seal it shut. It just doesn't work. I thought I was being so clever, I even used a bottle cap and some fancy paints to recreate the fields and hand painted DEATH surprisingly well. After hours of yelling and screaming what I ended up with instead was a leaky, cloudy mess that fell apart in the water (I still gave it to him though, it wasn't like I had a backup plan).

Yesterday, after rescuing poor Death from his watery grave I decided he needed his own exalted mantel in a more permanent snow globe. A trip to Michaels and I gathered up all the supplies I'd need: Votive holder for the globe, glitter for the snow, and acrylic water for well I'm sure you figured it out.

It was going pretty well, I managed to melt the acrylic and got Death in all straight but then something really bad happened. I ran out of acrylic. Little Death just looked so dumb with his head almost hitting the top.

Then I got a cute idea, I'd just pour some extra water in there to buoy it up. That was an interesting mess, as the water and acrylic didn't mix it made these huge bubbles and as the acrylic hardened it looked as though the bubbles may be permanent.

So I quickly popped the thing in the microwave for 30 seconds and all of a sudden got the coolest looking snowfall I could have never faked. Here is my little Death (considering the euphemism for little death I giggle every time I call him that) snow globe:It's turning a bit cloudy so if I ever wanted to do it again I'd probably use bottled water instead of tap but otherwise it looks pretty awesome for being a major accident. The acrylic water could be another cool way to preserve some wedding mementos as well like a cake topper or any other little things that are collecting dust.

Oh yeah, yesterday I also made a beer chicken rubbed with Indian spices. Super tasty, I think it needs to become a New Years family tradition:
P.S. Holy Cow I've been at this picture a day thing for a month now. It's a bit surprising actually, I would have figured by now my life would be way to boring to want to document in image form.

What do you all think of my little blog feature? Is it a bit too much picture? Or do you demand more and more?

Picture a Day-Day 30

It's a bright, shiny and Technicolor day in Lego land. Everyone is hustling and bustling to get in some of those after Christmas sales.When suddenly the ground tosses and turns as though it had a really bad New Years eve.
It's a bird! It's a Plane! No, even worse. It's Godzilla!

Run, flee in terror. Godzilla is here to smash the town!
Wait, it looks like he just wanted to get some of those 75% off Christmas garland and a nose hair trimmer set. Even a radioactive lizard can't stay away from these amazing deals.
Too bad he landed on Earl. Oh well, I never really liked that guy anyway.

Happy 2009!

Happy New Year everyone!

Hurray it's 2009, so now we can put up our own cool honeymoon calendar to charter the year:
I hope you all had a fun and wild New Years eve. Or at least more wild than us. We were embroiled in a new Spider-Man video game and by the time we were done killing a bunch of thugs with bats looked up and realized it was long past midnight.

Today shall be full of cleaning, craft projects, beer chicken, and Twilight Zone marathons.

How are you spending your New Years day?