If you’ve logged on tonight you might have noticed the site looking all sorts of different. I’m trying out new templates and trying to customize them to my liking. Still working . . .

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You are beautiful, originally uploaded by advice to sink in slowly.

The spare bedroom has been a slow work in progress. I use it as an office, a craft room, a dressing area, and storage. With a little extra spare time this week I made some strides in personalizing and organizing it.

I got these sweet black boxes when my office bring emptied. Now there are neatly labeled boxes for pens, scissors, embroidery, ribbons, etc. Next to the desk I set up a charging station for all our electronics. Above the ironing board (that I use more for clutter than ironing) is the painting Andy made me for Christmas.

My vanity (how did I live without it?) with my Black Apple print. On the right is the cabinet I rescued from our dumpsters. Behind the dress form is an improvised scarf rack made of foam board, fabric, and thumbtacks.

My little sewing desk, now with bulletin board so I can quickly glance at my patterns. Now I just need to get my sewing machine fixed 😉

By the way, a certain someone has a birthday coming up. She has a list here if anyone is looking for ideas. Ben and I still want to make a better wish list site, but for now this ugly one will have to do.

It’s time to get busy in the kitchen!

Buffalo Chicken Pizza was absolutely delectable! My fresh ham sandwich was also tasty.

This winter meal was made with alternative cooking vessels. I steamed the sprouts, carrots, and parsnips with herbs and butter in a clay pot. I cooked the lentils in my pressure cooker (which I’m LOVING) and stirred in some kielbasa.

Desserts! This lemon pound cake got a little too brown because my oven was too hot. I covered it up with lemon glaze. I couldn’t wait to eat the cinnamon rolls before taking a picture. They have cream cheese frosting but I store it separately so the rolls don’t break down from the gooey-ness.

I dismantled the “defective” part to further investigate the dripping. After tightening it up I think I might have fixed the problem. Ben’s uvula is shrinking back to normal. Jem’s eyes have been clear since we replaced her kennel bedding. I spent a good part of this morning cleaning out my craft room/office and I’m quite pleased with the results.

It’s week three of my online Ethics course, five weeks to go. At times the class is thought provoking and interesting. Most of the time I’m bogged down by the online course format. I hate the forced thread posting for credit. It makes me glad I’ve gone so long without having to do an online class. Tey r teh suxor.

I’m taking a Monday night ballet class this term. It’s great to stretch and leap about. I’m trying to do aerobics everyday so I can improve my stamina. (Denise Austin in hilarious.) I think I’ll do better in dance class if I don’t wear out so easily.

Bugger. The toilet piece is hissing at me now. It’s not defective, it’s just bad design. Irg. I still don’t want to pay for another piece after I bought the whole kit!

Two hours spent fixing the toilet not counting buying a part, checking the tank, and returning it for another part. One hour was spent on this step:The old plastic parts were so old and corroded I couldn’t get the large nut off. After wrenches, knives, and a blowtorch I found success by pounding nails between the nut and bolt and then prying off chunks of the bolt.

And when it was all done and I turned the water back on, it appears that one of the parts in the kit was defective.

I think it will work fine. Probably not worth the hassle of explaining to the Lowes returns cashier that they need to take back just part of this kit and give me a standalone part – for free.

And now I will enjoy the cinnamon rolls I baked today.

Do you ever feel like everything is broken? Here’s our current list:

• upstairs toilet
• Ever since the water came back on it won’t stop running.
• Ben’s watchband
• He tripped and busted a piece off.
• my engagement ring prongs
• They’ve needed replacing for almost a year now. Just had my 6 month inspection/cleaning and they reminded me.
• my macbook keyboard
• stops working for a few minutes periodically. Probably a loose connection. Just don’t want to give it up to get it fixed.
• sewing machine
• has needed repairs for who knows how long. It’s extremely clunky now
• Ben’s uvula
• He woke up with it stretched down, touching his tongue. Icky.
• my ipod
• tells me I need to reformat it. Strange, it worked fine when I had it tuned to windows. Now it doesn’t like the mac 😉
• Jem’s eyes
• Red and oozy since New Years. We have eye drops that help, but it comes back after we stop using them.

grrrrr. And no money to fix any of it. Life is great, eh? I console myself by trying to list the things that aren’t broken. That list is much longer. The others still irk me though.

I finally relented and set up a flickr account. SIGH. I’ve always been annoyed when people link to their photo set instead of actually posting their pictures. But Blogger hasn’t improved their photo upload capabilities and I’m too lazy to go through each Christmas photo individually. So here. I will try my best to continue posting pictures directly on the blog. Like this one of the cake I made for Ben’s birthday:

Do you recognize it?

How about now?He had a portal-licious birthday 🙂

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Neighborhood Flix, originally uploaded by Ben Mason.

Last weekend we saw “I’m Not There” at Neighborhood Flix in Denver. It’s a new theater that combines dinner and a movie in a swank atmosphere. It’s located in the same complex as the new Tattered Cover and Twist and Shout. The crowd was hip and polite. The food was delicious, healthy, and well priced, and the theater had the nicest employees I have met in a long time. What a great experience! We can’t wait to go back for lunch and a matinee, where tickets are only $5. Sadly, they only run a few movies at a time and there’s nothing coming up that I want to see. But you better believe we’ll be back soon.