P is for Projects

We're big into letters around here, but that's not what this post is about. On rare occasions, I (Tyler) have time to be handy and make stuff. Here's a couple of the recent ones that I wanted to show off:


First we have the train set. Lillian came home from preschool one time with a train set she made out of toilet paper rolls (the cardboard on the inside) and milk carton lids for wheels, all held together with brads, string, and a little glue. Sadly, the train didn't last through the night. After many tears, I told Lillian I'd make her a new train, a BETTER train.







Second, we have the shelves. You many not know this about our brand new house, but we only have one (1) closet that is not in one of the bedrooms: the Harry Potter closet under the stairs. And although large, it was deep and impossible to get to anything in the back. In with the shelves and now we have an extended pantry/food storage/place for the games/camping stuff and we still have room to walk in and out.







Finally we have the spice rack. Amanda apparently had no problem finding spices when she had them scattered willy nilly about the cupboard. It drove me crazy trying to find anything so I built this double decker rack. It may not be perfectly flat, but I think if you check out the video you'll see that it gets the job done quite nicely.

spice rack from Amanda Ball on Vimeo.

High Chair Makeover

Yesterday, I was perusing the giveaway section of Goodreads, and they had a book about called EcoBaby or something. The blurb said that average parents spend upwards of $7,000 in preparation for the birth of their child. Is this true? Because that's ridiculous. This book purported to show you how to spend less than $1,000. I'm pretty sure that for Lillian, we spent about $50 before she was born, and not really very much until she started growing out of all the hand-me-down clothes we got from friends and relatives a year or so later.

I didn't really think that it was a secret that to save money, you don't buy new things: you borrow, take hand-me-downs, pillage thrift stores, breast feed (if you can), and make your own baby food, which is not that hard. I should have written that book.

Anyway, we were really fortunate to get a lot of our baby furniture from Tyler's sister, who was done having her kids. One of the things she gave us was this high chair:


It's sturdy and useful and, until recently when Tyler broke a prong off one of the buckles, in perfect working order. But, sorry Tonya, it's ugly. I've always thought it was ugly.

Then, the other day, I ran across a website selling (and extolling the virtues of) laminated cotton. At first I couldn't find any for less than $18/yard, and I thought that was a little steep. So I looked into just buying a new cover, but that was going to cost anywhere from $30 to $50, and I'm not paying that.


Finally, I found some non-ugly, gender-neutral fabric for only $13/yard. I felt like I had won the lottery. Later, when Tyler came home from work and I relayed this whole story in breathless detail, as he was trying very hard to sound interested and hide the bored look creeping onto his face, I stopped myself and realized that this is my life. And I was very depressed for a second.


But then I remembered that no, this is my life:
and I was happy again.

Ta-Da! It doesn't fit quite as snugly as the other one did (which is weird because I cut the pieces the same size), and it's only slightly mangled around the left side, but I think it looks pretty good.

Here comes a robot with electric brains

I'm a robot from Amanda Ball on Vimeo.

Here's another installment of our One Hour Till Bedtime series. The cleaning/organizing of the office/sewing room/spare bedroom yielded two boxes. Tyler turned one into a new cardboard house, much in the style of our old house. The other became a robot suit and Lillian wore it around saying "I'M A ROBOT, I'M A ROBOT" in her best robot voice for about 20 minutes. It was great. I wanted to color some dials and buttons on it, but Lillian vetoed that idea. Which is too bad because it would have been great.

Well, I don't really want you to die.

We didn't have TV until we moved to Tucson. In SLO, I think we got a fuzzy NBC; and in one apartment, we got PBS, but that's it. Then, we graduated and Tyler got a real job and we ordered cable. A luxury such as that I had not known in a long time. At first, I spent hours watching What Not To Wear and Trauma, Life in the ER. I watched a few episodes of various baby and birthing shows, but the ones where the babies/mothers had negative outcomes made me upset, so Tyler banned them from our house.

After a few months, we realized that cable TV is expensive. Very expensive. And our TV watching sort of petered out anyway. When we moved to Sahuarita, we got basic cable. I looked it up, and it was $21.95 a month for 20 channels.

Me: I'd like basic cable.
Cox guy: OK, that will be $50 a month for 80 channels.
Me: No, I'd like BASIC cable.
CG: (incredulous) Like... the one where you only get 20 channels....? (Like no one in their right mind would do something like that. Only 20 channels? A person will go crazy with so few options).

So, that's what we had. Then, that $21.95 a month started feeling like a lot. Especially after we added our car payment and extra insurance.

This is what Tyler is doing outside as I type. With the antenna, we get NBC, CBS, FOX, 5 different PBS stations (one of which is in Spanish and a kids PBS, which is brilliant), various Telemundo stations, and the Tucson channel. Which is almost as many as we were getting with basic cable.

Antenna: $100
Mount, grounding wire, and various odds and ends: $20
New drill bit to drill into our bedroom closet: $10
Ladder rental: $20

Sticking it to the man: Priceless.

Also, I asked Tyler if he felt handy, completing his first major home improvement project on his first house. He was up on the ladder when I asked and he answered, "Not right now. I actually kind of feel like I'm going to die."

Piano Sleuth

I mentioned a while ago that I was going to buy a piano. I had about $500 saved up thus far for the whole operation, but I was still unsure of what direction I wanted to go. Did I want a new piano (which would have cost a bit more than $500, which means a lot more time spent saving)? Did I want an electric piano? Did I want a used piano? How used are we talking here? One day two weeks ago, I was idly checking craigslist for used pianos, and I happened upon a listing for the Green Valley thrift store (which is right close to me... actually, it's the only thing close to me). They were listing a piano for $180. "Chances are," I thought to myself, "it's a piece of crap." But I loaded the kids in the car and drove down there to check it out.

We got there, and the piano was off in a dusty corner with a tag that indicated the price had been marked down at least 3 or 4 times. Probably because all the keys didn't work.


So I opened her up to see what was going on with those keys.


I noticed that the inside had a fancy design on it, just like the piano I grew up with.


(This is a dramatization, of course.) What I saw was that the offending keys were disconnected.


There, right as rain. And, the little old ladies were very impressed at my engineering know-how.


While reassembling the piano, this little screw came out. I put it back in and decided to buy the piano. I could have afforded a nicer piano, but I had no way to move a nicer piano from who-knows-where in Tucson down to my house aaaaand, these nice old ladies were going to get someone to deliver it in two days for a nominal fee.

I waited with baited breath.

The piano showed up two days later and it looked... off. The first thing I noticed was that it didn't have a music stand (see above picture). I asked the delivery men if it had come off, or if they had taken in off and forgotten it. They didn't know what I was talking about. Huh, maybe that screw came loose and some helpful sales person had set it aside somewhere. I'd call the store later. The second thing I noticed was that some of the keys were cracked. I didn't remember that at all. Those moving jerks cracked my keys. I did a run up the keyboard to make sure they still worked, and a number of them didn't so I opened it up again. No fancy design. In fact, the whole set up was different. By this point, the moving truck was pulling away. I ran out behind them, flailing my arms, screaming, "You brought the wrong piano!!!"

There was only one piano in the store, they tried to tell me. I carefully explained my case, went through all my exhibits, and finally found my receipt that confirmed that yes, they had brought the wrong piano.


A few days later, they showed up with the right one. A week later, the nice old piano tuner man came and gave it his once over.


And now I have a piano.

Get off my lawn

My husband's an engineer, right? As such, he makes a killer cardboard box house. This one has a door, window, secret trap door under the roof, and a chimney. Also, they cut up one of an issue of Real Simple and so the now, the house comes with a fridge, washer/dryer, bar-b-que, juice, and various other necessities.

On this particular day, all of my spare energy was used up, and this was all I could manage.

Blanket Fort

Unlike Tyler and Lillian's previous forts, I was allowed in this one.

The white blanket in the back was my suite.

Those guys are silly.