Jon and Amber

I’m trying an experiment this year. I know you can grow determinate tomatoes like the BushSteak Hybrid pretty well in containers, and I know you can grow tomatoes upside-down, so I’m trying some upside-down BushSteak tomatoes on the deck this summer! You can’t see the plants very well in my picture due to all the background greenery, but that’s not the point of this post.

The point of this post is that Jon built me this beautiful cedar stand to hang my tomato buckets from, and I just love the heck out of it!

I’ll try to get some better pictures of the plants soon, maybe this evening. They’re nothing much to look at but I’m happy that they’re growing at all. Last year my grandma gave me a little tomato seedling which I put into a bucket, and it got kind of long and gangly and then died of neglect. This year I am actually trying to make an effort and I’m hoping it pays off at some point with at least a few tomatoes this summer. I just hope I didn’t plant them too late. I received the seedlings from Burpee a few weeks ago, but Jon didn’t get time to build the stand for about 2 weeks after that (it just took him 2 days), so they got a bit of a slow start. I guess that’s why I’m considering this whole project more of an experiment than anything… Wish me luck!

The project, in process:

The comparison – old tiles, new vinyl:

Edited to add:
Oh, and just for the sake of history, here’s what the carpet looked like before we pulled it up to reveal the ugly tile (this picture is a couple years old):

So I learned to weld, I can work with wood.  I swapped out the guts of one car to another.  And now my most grand adventure ever.  I have successfully grafted a human infant foot onto my cat!  Check out the photo:

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I drove home today and it is running great!  I have a few minor things to take care of, but it is over 95% done.  I can’t believe it is almost done.  I got rid of the old scrap parts, and I sold the old engine and misc parts.  Did I really just do all of that? Â

A little video fun!

So I am going to a car show later this summer.  They are having a “trike race”.  It is a group of adults racing kids trikes for a small cash amount.  It is not meant to be super serious or anything.  More so, it is meant to be quite silly.  The rules are that you have to leave the original frame, but you can change just about everything else if you want.  I decided to keep to the original as much as possible, but I did have to change out the wheels.  See for yourself:

The original when I bought it:

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The new and improved:

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Jon’s mom and grandma came over while we were at work on Friday and painted the baby’s room! (It’s ok, we knew they were going to do this – we even gave them a key to the house!) We had picked out a very light sky blue color and bought two gallons of the paint, which turned out to be enough for the whole room with a bit left over. It is beautiful!

They even brought the crib, dresser, rocking chair, and changing table up from the basement and got everything arranged nicely. PLUS, they dove into the mountain of clothes and gifts that was hiding our dining room table since the baby shower, and put everything away in the newly painted room!

I don’t know what Jon’s reaction was when he got home – he was here before me – but when I got home and saw the beautiful new room, I felt like I was on one of those TV shows where they kick you out of the house for the day and redecorate a room for you! I have been SO happy with how it turned out (a fresh coat of paint really can make a world of difference in a room), and I love going in there and just admiring it.

We still have to put blinds on the window and pick out some nice curtains or a valance, and the walls are still bare so we will need to decide whether we want to jump into painting a mural (we were thinking some big flowers and trees), or just stick with various wall hangings and decals for now. Either way is fine with me – I’m just so happy that the biggest part of getting the room ready is finally done.

Pictures when we get those last finishing touches up

Error: Success! Seriously though, it was a success. My very first engine swap is now done and it is running great. No leaks, no problems. It would have been done on Friday, except the connector for the gas line lost it’s O rings and so when I hooked it back up, gas went all over. I took care of that today and got it started on the first try. After a little fussing around filling fluids, it was ready to go. I drove it around a bit, down on the freeway and it is top notch. Well, for a 11 year old car anyway. I must say that I feel really great to have actually have done this entire thing myself (with the help of a book that didn’t give me all the instructions). When I got that done, I then moved on to the Scion and put the trailer hitch on it. Don’t worry, it is only for VERY light duty towing. When that was finished, I started in on finishing up the closet. What a day!

Almost done. I have almost everything in place. I did manage to loose a socket somewhere and that is really annoying because I need it and I can’t see it and it dropped to a place that is not reachable by anything. Oh well. I resolved a problem where there was a sensor that had a connector that didn’t match up with anything. It turns out it was the same sensor as on the original motor, just with a different connector. So I swapped them. Now I no longer have wires going nowhere. I have only a few minor things left and then the big test. Will it work or not.

So today Amber’s new engine showed up at my work.  I got it home and and just ripped into it.  It is already installed now and I only have a few more things to hook up.  Mostly the starter, alternator and wiring on the underside of the car.  I am still a little worried about the drive axles and the seals on them.  I did pick up new seals so it shouldn’t be a giant deal to replace them.  Just a matter of time.  It is going back together 5x faster than I was able to take it apart.  And on top of that, everything is fitting together.  If this all actually works, this will be a MAJOR ego boost and will really make me feel OK delving into my R32 swap.  I am hoping to get this done before Friday night because otherwise it will bother me all weekend to finish it up.  WOOHOO!