A Thousand Words

Good Morning people of the internets.

It’s been a while since I’ve adressed you. So, everyone (two people) stop saying “Enough of SHELLS THE BUILDER!!” I’ve been keeping busy with the new house, roommates, work, deciding I’m going to back to Maui in February, exercising, and then not exercising, crafting projects, meeting mens from the internet, etc.

Last week Michele, Heidi and I hosted Thanksgiving at our new place. This was an adjustment for me because the past 5 years I had eaten chicken nuggets, ice cream and generally hung out by myself on Thanksgiving. As we began our preparations I soon realized it was best to keep my mouth shut regarding all suggestions for the dinner. Cheesy mashed potatoes? NO!!! Ham? ARE YOU KIDDING ME – YOU DID NOT JUST SAY THAT!!! OH NO YOU DIDDDDN’T!! Chicken Nuggets? YOU ARE NOT WELCOME AT OUR TABLE IF YOU BRING CHICKEN NUGGETS.

We had a lot of fun cooking/baking/cleaning/decorating. I made my very first pie, which from now on will be called: “Shells’ semi world famous chocolate fudge brownie pie.” Heids made 5 different pies and we spent about 20 minutes trying to get the meringue to peak on the lemon pie. We eventually just peaked it ourselves and it turned out beautifully. Buck spent a lot of time on the table, making it look perfect. We even had to make an early morning day of Thanksgiving Fred Meyer run to get some actual nice plates. We also had our very own electrical fire as I was trying to make mashed potatoes. I am thankful the house didn’t burn down. In the end, everyone had a great time. See?

more photos on flickr.

So, anyway. That was that. Monday night brought a whole new level of entertainment. Round abouts 5:30 it started snowing. This is semi-exciting in Seattle because it never snows. For those of you who watched Monday Night Football, when the Seahawks crushed the flippin’ Packers (yessssssss), you probably saw Qwest Field all littered with snow. Being the midwestern girl that I am, two or three inches of snow doesn’t even phase me. That is certainly not true for Seattle-ites. Essentially the whole city shut down because the hills were too dangerous to be driving on, it was getting icy, and there were only a handful of snowplows to take care of the mess. It took some people 8 (EIGHT) hours to get home Monday night after they left work. Many people just abandoned their cars and walked home because it was faster. Yep. Crazy.

All of the schools were closed yesterday and my boss told me to stay home so as to avoid “the elements.” Haha, right. A random Tuesday off was a wonderful thing. After Thanksgiving I had worked on my Christmas cards. These had turned into the biggest pain in the ass craft project I had ever done. They can be considered the most high maintenance, tedious, annoying card that I will ever do. Anyway, I had finished them up over the weekend and wanted to make some miscellaneous cards for my mom as a Christmas gift. The craft table/room was already a mess, so I figured I may as well. I finally finished them yesterday afternoon and am very pleased with each card. I’ll post some pictures of them later. The schools were closed once again today but I came to work anyway. I was a little late because my doors were frozen shut and I had to crawl through my hatchback and kick open the doors. But you know, it’s how I roll.

Anyway, so then yesterday after our respective crafting projects, Buck and I moved on to the next project. I can’t go into great detail with it, because I don’t want Homedog to find out what exactly I’ve been up to. She ruins all Christmas gift ideas! Love you sis!! So, I will only leave you with this:

So, this is kind of weird. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about wood working. Not so much in the fashion of widdling small figurines, but more of the building bookcases, end tables, shelves etc. genre. With the recent move and being a so-called interior designer, I’ve thought more and more about having nice things. Not necessarily things that are expensive, because I do not have money for such luxuries, but nice things that don’t wobble when I set a book on them. Nice things that will last more than one year. Nice things that are not made of particle board. You get the drift.

I always have these ideas of what I would like to do with my dwelling space and as I flip through various magazines I see the most simple things that cost way too much money for what they actually are. Case in point: these modular wall shelves. Sixty-two dollars for those piddly things. Now, when I see a price like that, my cheapness automatically kicks in and I immediately think, “I could make something like that.” I’ve actually inherited that phrase from my mom, who everytime I would say “oh, I want that Nike sweatshirt (or whatever).” She would say, “I can make something like that.” And, she did. Granted, the “swoosh” logo was a bit off kilter, but she definitely made something like that.

I really do believe I could become a master craftsman in this area. It’s the crafty in me. I’m seriously considering investing in a skill saw. I mean, I’ve got a garage and everything now. I’m really getting kind of excited about this.

In other news, thank goodness the move is over. Our house is a mess and totally chaotic, but we hope to have it fully unpacked by this weekend. Some pictures of the move can be found here. And, remember that couch we couldn’t get out of the apartment? Well, whaddya know.

I’d also like to take this time to thank the person who put my cell number in some random Office website so I could get a hilarious call from none other than Dwight K. Schrute, Assistant (to the) Regional Manager. It seriously made my night.

UPDATE: I was doing a little research on woodworking basics. I came across this site. A gem of an excerpt: “My father made it for me, he built it around an old Briggs and Straton engine, took the head off, drilled a hole in the piston and put a stubby shaft with a slot on it to hold the blade. The table was a disk from a grain seed drill, the top spring to tension the blade was from an old mattress. I got hours of pleasure from this tool, it was what got me started in woodworking.”

I’m sorry, but the man is nearly having an orgasm talking about his scroll saw. Creeeeepy.