09:25 pm
Current Mood: 
amused
amusedOMG Go look at Replace Face.
Here's what it is:
George Dawe was an English portrait artist who painted 329 portraits of Russian generals active during Napoleon's invasion of Russia for the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
I'm using digital copies of these paintings as a basis for my own work which involves incorporating my friends, family and even some celebrities into the paintings using photoshop.
So awesome.
amusedIt was a good day. Warm but not burninating, breezy but not gale-force winds, and I got a lot done at work.
Tonight I picked up all the sticks in the front yard and the west side yard. There were a LOT! Many of them had been previously mowed over and were in smaller pieces, but I grabbed them anyway. I filled up my little bucket three or four times before I felt like I had gotten enough of them. I proudly showed Pres Man my haul later. He pretended to be impressed. That's love.
After Stick Patrol, I mowed the front yard and it was much better without all the stupid sticks. There are still places where the ground feels bumpy because we have grassy spots and then spots where the grass did not take and the ground dips there. Definitely need to overseed this Fall.
That robin was there again. Did I write about him last time? There was this robin hopping around the yard, waiting for me to get right up on him with the mower before he would move. I never expected that a robin would be gutsier versus a lawnmower than my cat would be versus a vacuum cleaner.
Robin was back today. He did not follow me around quite as much (or lead me, I guess), but when I stopped mowing he was all over that yard.
After mowing I watered the grass AGAIN. Robin tried to avoid it at first, but then danced around in the spray. I don't know if he found anything to eat or not. I'm hoping he really like slugs and roly polies. I need my earthworms.
But back to the watering: Seriously, even though we did it this morning, tonight the yard looked like we had not watered it at all. Our maple tree (Dick is his name) must be sucking up all the water. The non-Dick side of the yard looks a lot happier. The yard guy who seeded our lawn warned that could happen.
Dick is probably also the reason our water main broke a couple of years ago. He probably got thirsty and broke into it.
The good news is that despite Dick's unslakable thirst, the lawn is still looking okay. It is not turning brown or crisping up that I can tell. It's just not filling in. But like I said, I'm not even sure this grass it the type that will. I think it's bluegrass, but for all I know it could be a thin-bladed fescue.
The hostas are still happy and none of the phlox have died yet. The geraniums are still green and one of them even looks like it might bloom again soon.
The grass out by the street is suffering. Our main sprinkler does not get that far, and I would feel bad about making our sidewalk completely impassable anyway. I think I may have a tiny sprinkler that I could do a little area at a time with, but that will mean setting a timer and going out to move it every 20 minutes or so, and that means you have to keep the timer with you and you can't really go anywhere and if you're me, you end up getting soggy and dirty because when it comes to sprinklers and hoses, you always zig when you should zag.
I wish I had one of those tractor sprinklers. I would set it up to run along the strip of grass by the curb and then have it come up the side of the yard behind Dick, where it is also pretty dry most of the time.
But those tractor thingies can be pricey and they break. All the ones at the yard sales are broken (this is what I heard at lunch today from my friends who shop a lot of sales).
Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. But at the end, we get to dine with Koganei and Kiwi, which will be fun. We have not seen them since last month.
I think we'll have to put off starting the gutters tomorrow night. I had planned that as The Next Outdoor Project, and it still can be, but maybe Thursday.
accomplishedI'm so pleased with the Paizo spreadsheet that I am using. It's called PRPG_CS_v_0_9_1, and I found it through Heroforge, I think.
It's a little tricky to get used to (you have to go to a lot of different tabs to put things in, and adding new magic items was kind of a pain for me - make sure you either add them withing the defined range, or that you redefine the range to include your new rows!), but once you get it all set up for your character, it works great.
We had to level our characters up twice and we had some loot with which to go shopping, and now my fighter is harder to hit. She really needed that extra AC. I also took the toughness feat, so yay for extra hit points. We fought some stone giants last night and there was also a red dragon doing fly-bys, so we'll be fighting a freaking dragon next week. I hope everyone will be there.
We played until after midnight, so it is a good thing I had coffee first. Pres Man made it and it was stronger than I do it, but I think that's the only reason I was able to hang in there after eleven (that's usually Pumpkin Time for me when we're gaming).
I'm getting more comfortable with the way the Paizo stuff works. Of course, it helps that I am playing a straight fighter. I think a spell caster or even a rogue might make things harder for me (they changed tumble pretty drastically and Concentration is fubar).
It was a fun session despite going late. I feel more and more comfortable with this group. I still kind of miss the game before, and maybe eventually we'll be able to get that one going again. It IS really nice to game with folks who want to be gaming. No one is playing video games, no one is chatting online, and no one is falling asleep (except for me, after 11, but I'm not really asleep).
It was a good time. I hope next week we do not all die from dragon fire.
cheerfulToday marks our 2nd anniversary in the house. I am still so happy we got it. I like the location, I like the size, I like the yard (which is small and THAT IS GOOD), and I like the color (now). It's a happy little house.
For House Day, Pres Man decreed that we were not going to replace the inner workings of the toilet. I am in complete agreement. The reason is because we finally read the instructions and found out that this will involve several steps that would work better if they were spaced out, and we don't want to start today and have to finish tomorrow. So since Pres Man is off tomorrow, he will shut off the water, drain the tank, and remove it. Then when I get home it will be dry and we can put in the new stuff and seal it up with the silicone they recommended.
Overall, the instructions do not seem that difficult. I think we have the tools we need, all the parts, and all the associated gunk. I'm looking forward to getting it done.
Instead of bathroom work, I think I will mow the lawn again (or at least do stick patrol, preparatory to mowing), since it's looking shaggy. I guess this means our lawn is doing well, since I feel as if I just mowed it.
So far the new tubing for the AC is working fine. I put the new water alarm down there so if we get a pump failure or a big leak, we should know pretty much right when it happens. I'm so pleased that project went so smoothly. Makes me feel all professional and stuff.
accomplishedI am making it my mission today to make sure the cat does not sleep. He would not let me sleep in this morning, even though I gave him his hairball remedy (our morning ritual). He kept bugging me to roll over so he could lay on my arm, but when I did, he could not get comfortable. Finally he resorted to meowing and head-butting me until I got out of bed.
For this, he gets no sleep. No sleep 'till Brooklyn, no sleep at all.
Do not mess with my sleep. It will not end well.
crankyWe did it! We replaced the tube that goes from the condensate pump (and wow, it still bothers me that it's not a "condensation" pump, but that's just me), and we did it right the first time!
We drilled a hole in the outside end of the tube we already had, tied our nylon rope through it, pulled it through, drilled another hole in the new tubing, tied the other end of the rope to that, and pulled the new tubing through easy as heck.
I really thought it was going to be awful, but it was pretty easy.
Having cell phones helped. When you have one person inside and one outside, communication is vital.
I watched it until the first cycle of the pump, and the connection did not leak. I think that means we're good. We'll see.
I'm very proud of us, and relieved that it is done.
I have not yet put the electrician's putty in the hole in the wall where all the pipes and tubes come out, but once we're really sure that this is okay, I'll do that.
Go us! We did something!
Tomorrow, the innards of the upstairs toilet, which has begun leaking water into the bowl. Still pretty slow, but it's really time to take care of that before it starts affecting our water bill.
accomplishedIn honor of Pres Man's just-ended semester, I present "the mind of a student."
amusedPictures of a Black Cat who needed a bath. Not Piewacket, but I love these pictures anyway. The cat is Spain, who lives with Cherie Priest (my favorite Steampunk writer).
http://twitpic.com/9kcjh4 - getting the bath
http://twitpic.com/9kcjzo - really tired of being bathed
http://twitpic.com/9kcmqs - post-bath toweling, note the claws
http://twitpic.com/9kcwxq - the after-anger
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