For the Books

What I miss about apartment living, is finding discarded items from residents moving out. (Sidenote: this sounds like an opportunity for a list here. Perhaps that will be a future post.)

One of the items was a shabby chic-country-whitewash folding bookcase. Not exactly my style but my belief on storage is that you can never have enough, so of course I snatched it.


Here it is after a coat of primer:


And after 2 coats of paint and a coat of oil-based polyurethane:


I've had this for a couple years but wasn't inspired to paint it until I found a quart of "oops" paint at Home Depot for $1 in a sea foam green that I couldn't pass up. Lucky for the guest bath that I didn't have a gallon of it...

Have you transformed a free, discarded item? Any other suggestions on what to do with the rest of the paint, I still have most of the quart left. Do you have a sea foam green bathroom? Is sea foam green tacky or awesome? Does it work on a bookcase? Curious if the bookcase still folds (the answer is, not really)? Where should I put this bookcase? Bueller?

Call the Shot?

My lime tree has a surprise growth that sprang up alongside it:


I reuse my soil year after year (thanks to many failed attempts), which include tomato, basil, pepper, avocado, cilantro, lavender, and green onion. Could it be one of those? Or is it an evil weed that I've been allowing to grow all this time?

All I know is that it is not the 1 plant I can identify in my sleep. Any ideas what this mystery sprout could be?

Popping the Corks

Here's another centerpiece that's popular around here because we like wine. Make that love wine:


Actually, it's less of a centerpiece and more of a convenient place to put corks. Because as you can see, we go through a lot of them. Frequently (we average about 5 bottles a week and about 2 trips to wine country annually). We buy wine by the case.

Speaking of which, check this one out:

Note: we consume mostly red wine. And I only used this box to transport my variety of wines.

How much wine do you consume in your household? Any good wines to recommend? Where do I put all these corks?

Heavy Metal

Earlier this year, we discovered a surprise relic on top of our (rather new) water heater:

(shown above on our garage work bench)

The timing was perfect - right during our kitchen remodel. I have no clue how old these are, or which previous owner they belonged to, but these snippers have definitely come in handy.

Did they belong to the previous owner (who lived here only 5 years yet perhaps gave these constant use), the owners before them? Or those before them? Or maybe they were left by the water heater installer?

And the saying definitely rings true here, they don't make things like they used to! These bad boys cut through a tin can like its butter. They're indestructible.

Have you found any useful or interesting relics, memorabilia, or treasures in your home? And yes, tools count!

Suzi, Kawi, Saki

Just over a week ago, we said goodbye to Jesse's motorcycle, '03 Suzuki SV650 (also known as Suzi*):


We made sure she went to a good home though - to a young boy transitioning from dirt to street bikes. He was enrolled in riding courses and surrounded by professional riders and had his mom's blessing (she actually bought it for him, cool mom!).

This was a somewhat sad moment as Suzi had become such a member of our garage pack for almost the last 2 years. I can't even begin to count the hours that Jesse has spent on her.

Being without Suzi meant he had to ride my motorcycle, Kawasaki '03 Ninja 250 EX (also known as Saki) in the interim. Which meant she needed tags. $300, 4 DMV trips and hours of aggravation later, she now has papers.

Before we knew it, this motorcycle joined our rice rocket posse ('08 Kawasaki Ninja ZX6R):


Her name is Kawi (apparently Kawk didn't appeal to Jesse). To go with Saki (the little big sister). So now we are a Kawasaki household. As well as a little big sister/big little sister household (in reference to our dogs). 3 trips to the DMV, 1 trip to a sketchy junk yard downtown, a $50 inspection and $600 later, this had papers and plates (yep, we spent a grand just to get these two bikes legit for the road).

Do you have brand loyalty to cars or motorcycles or other big ticket items?

*Completely coincidental and with no relation to this Suzi Suzuki

Go Sour

I love limes. I buy a lot when they are on sale. And then I put them in a big dish in the center of the table and call it a centerpiece.

And when I don't have limes, I use other foods.

Do you have a favorite produce that you are sure to stock up on when given the chance? Any lime recipes to share?

Zero in

This week was a milestone for Misti (if you don't know what Misti is, read post below). Her odometer went from a 5 to a 6-digit figure (sadly, this is probably the only kind of 6 digit figure I will ever know):

Some interesting stuff:

• In scientific notation, this is written as 10⁵.
• In the Irish Language, Ceád Mile Fáilte (pronounced: KAY-ed MEE-luh FOIL-cha) is a popular greeting meaning "A Hundred Thousand Welcomes".
• In Vietnamese, Thai, and Lao, there is a separate word for this number
• A 100 year old person is known as a centenarian, so what is it called for a car that has reached 100,000?
• This is my 100th blog post! Is there a word for that? Centenlog?
  

Is it unusual that I wanted to see this moment? Or is it more unusual that I photographed this? Or is it more unusual that I personify my car? Do you wonder where I was when this happened? Did you notice that I was at 0 mph in the photo? Have you noticed that Miles is going 0 mph as well, in the movie Sideways, when he is doing his crossword puzzle on his way to Jack's? Are you still reading this?

Polished Off

We are a motorcycle household, but we also have 1 car. Not a fancy car, not a new car, not even a nice car. But a car that gets us, the dogs, groceries, and building supplies - from one place to another. So therefore she deserves some love and attention as well:




Doesn't Misti look years younger? (Yes, we gave our car a name. Everything in our household has a name) And now you can see all her dents and dings really well.

What do you do to make your car feel special? And does your car have a name?

Low-hanging Fruit

My dirty little secret is that as much as I hate creeping fig, I actually did retain some of it. On an area which seems manageable, contained to a wall. But a little part of me still wishes I had it removed with the rest of the evil stuff.


Recently I noticed something different:


Do you see it? Here's a close up:


It's fruit. A fig to be exact. Creeping figs bear fruit? I thought they were just planted for their climbing vine ability. Or to make future owners of the property angry.

Does anyone know if this is edible?

Good Eats

My dad has been on a traveling kick ever since work has slowed down. He recently went on a trip to China, where he got all kinds of goodies. So after he got back, where to go next? Why, here of course!

These pics pretty much sum up how life has been here the past week:






It's a good thing we don't own a scale because I don't want to know the damage that we've incurred on ourselves this week.

So all in all, this is my kind of vacation!

ps. Don't forget to wipe up the drool on your computer before you exit this blog.