Hoosier Daddy?

Say that title slowly.  I was doing that on the drive to the store today.  Got Wendy pretty annoyed too.

My Hoosier Mom and Hoosier Dad send me a card for my birthday.  Although it was one day early, I opened the envelope, just in case it was Ding-dongs.  Inside the card was some money!

"That's the same amount of money they gave me for my birthday, and I'm related to them," cried Elspeth.

Guess we know the pecking order for kids in the McDowell family now.  I'm right up there with blood.

Thanks mom and dad.  We used the money to get lunch at Garden Island Barbecue.  That's a restaurant I've been asking to go to for the last month, but always get vetoed.  With the remaining money, we're going to try and pick up a nightstand we saw on craigslist.

Swagging Swag

The old dining room had a ceiling fan.  Problems with the ceiling fan include:

• it was a cheapo piece of doodoo
• we never used the fan while dining
• it wasn't centered properly
• the lighting was harsh

We decided to get rid of it.  At first, we were planning on moving the dining room fan over to the living room.  The living room fan is a bit ugly.  However, it turns out the living room fan is a higher quality fan.

One day we were in the middle of our weekly Home Depot tour when we passed a clearance shelf.  On the shelf there were 2 chandelier priced at $39.  One was a large pendant-style light in black.  The other was a 3 light set up in brushed nickel.  Wendy wanted a pendant light.  I wanted something with multiple bulbs.  I won and we got the brushed nickel chandelier because I'm bigger and more menacing than Wendy.  (Actually, the pendant light, though a good size, lacked girth.  It looked too scrawny, and the black was too dark.)

It took us about 3 hours to take down the fan and install the light.  The fan took 10 minutes.  The chandelier took forever.  The directions were sparse.  There was just one sheet of paper.  The directions would mention parts by their names, but no reference sheet or diagram was given.  We had to guess which part was which.  There were 4 diagrams on the paper.  One showed how the light bulbs should be spaced.  Another showed how the chandelier mounted to the ceiling (this was helpful).  A third showed wiring... black wire goes to black, white goes to white.  The last diagram was just a side view of the light.  What would have been helpful would be a diagram showing how the top, middle, and bottom sections of the chandelier go together.

The best part of the instructions was something Wendy couldn't stop talking about.  The instructions kept mentioning balls and nipples.  Twist the balls on the ends of the nipples.  Wendy amused herself for 15 minutes straight giggling and saying, "balls and nipples."



We think it's a big improvement over the fan.

We got the swag hook in the garden area of Home Depot.  It's the exact same hook that is found in the lighting area, but in a different package.  It was also $2 cheaper.  Also, the original list price of the chandelier was $170.

Other improvements since last time:

• guest bathroom is now ice dance (light blue)
• we have a fridge.  an LG top freezer
• master bathroom painted violetta
• roses dug up out of the yard and potted
• my-side garage door opener died :(  new one on order
• Elspeth has a drafting table and is now painting flowers
• vestibule in the garage painted vintage orange (the women thought it was ugly, but all our visitors love it when they enter.  Ryan knows his colors)
• removed a dead rat, dead chick, and a nest from the attic
• installed soffit vent covers to keep rats and bird from building nests in the attic and dying
• motorcycle now parked in the garage

 Next step:

• landscape area in front of bedrooms with native Hawaiian plants
• get fake rocks to cover cesspool access covers
• landscape area between garage and front door.  We're planning on a rock garden/potted plant garden
• build a walkway from the driveway to the front door.  Either pavers or concrete.