Out on the river again. One big nibble so far, no fish on yet.
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All posts for the month September, 2009
Hawthorne, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Lastly… this is the third photo I chose to donate to the Amani Center fund raising bash this coming Saturday. The Hawthorne Bridge, Portland. All three of these shots ended up looking great framed. Now, again… just hope I make the center some money on Saturday.
Scappoose Bay, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Photo two for the fund raising auction is this one I took last year. It was also selected to appear in a calendar. It was used as the June photo.
Westminster Abbey, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Well folks… today I submitted three prints as donations to a charity auction that will take place on Saturday. I’ll be there so I’ll see how my stuff actually does at auction. Sort of nerve racking. Maybe I’ll bid on it myself to up the ante. Thought I’d post them here so ya’all could see which ones I chose. This, taken of Westminster Abbey.
Door #2, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Went to VooDoo donut tonight to help Kate celebrate her recent educational victory. Hooray Kate! Lovely, as always, hanging out with a stellar group of ladies. Also fantastic… the sugary goodness found behind this door. I enjoyed, as did many of us, the Elvis. It’s a maple bar with a couple of slices of crisp bacon on top. Yum. I also had a maple glazed creme filled donut. Yes, I had two all together. Don’t judge. I was helping to celebrate. It definitely warranted two donuts and one small cup o’ good joe. Tasty.
Thought I’d point the way to all the talented musicians in my and Karen’s families.
My cousin, Dave, is a composer currently living in New York. He’s getting his music work for pay life moving forward doing scores for indie movies, theater productions, commercials, and the like. He’s also quite the visual artist, but his focus is music. If nothing else listen to the Menarquia, which he composed, and La Campanella, which he sort of composed (read his intro to it) and plays. Just beautiful.
Karen’s cousin, Mike, is quite the song writer/singer/musician. He’s a doctor by trade, but spends as much time as he can in Nashville writing, singing, and trying to get his stuff out there. Check out Mike’s page. He isn’t singing on all the tracks, as you will be able to tell, but he’s there on many of them. He wrote all of them. Check him out. My personal favorites here are My Endless Dream and XOXOX.
My cousin, Karl, has been making music most of his life. He’s had quite a bit of indie success, touring in the US and Europe with various bands and alone. You can check out Karl’s page and see if he’s soon to be playing in a town near you. I’m loving That’s How I Got to Memphis and Dark Sedan.
My Uncle, Tom, has also been playing music most of his life. When he was younger it’s what he did for a living, traveling from place to place, mostly alone, but sometimes with a band, playing gig after gig. I was lucky enough to see him play once when I was a teen. He gave that up for a time… not music, just music for a living, and got all legit doing the attorney thing, but he’s now getting back into playing. We’re all glad, though I think he’s probably ecstatic about it. Very fun to watch him… he’s a fantastic guitar player. Sweet Pretty Lady and I Will Always Be Your Boy bring back great memories of Tom playing live and recording. I still have your album Tom and sometimes actually spin it.
Cousin Kevin… he’s an inspiration to all who know and love him. Let the music live on.
We are in it now. Yesterday we had a little get together here… eight of us with cheat sheets in hand going through a fantasty football draft. I’ve only ever done this one other time and Karen has never done it. Though Karen is already in the spirit of the thing and has talked trash to her upcoming match up for the week. Too funny. She cracks me up.
For those of you who don’t know or haven’t ever done the fantasy football thing before this is sort of how it works…. we drew numbers to see what the order of our draft would be, we ate huge amounts of snacks, we drank beer, and we, in order, went through the process of picking 17 players (including the following positions… quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, kicker, coach, and a defense). Did I leave anything out? Anyway… you can spread your 17 picks out over those positions as you see fit. It’s always a good idea to have a couple of everything because there are bye weeks (weeks when the players don’t play) you have to account for. You don’t want to get stuck not earning any points for that week because you didn’t have a player playing. You get the idea. You end up with a roster of starters and some bench players. You can switch them around if you like, bring someone in off the bench and put someone on the bench… that sort of thing. You can also drop players and add different ones if you like. It’s quite the process. The thing is… we have a league. Eight of us… eight teams. There are two divisions in our league. Every week you play someone else in the league, though our teams also get bye weeks. This week I’m matched up against Team Top Hats (Terri… let the games begin!!!). Our players, who come from various teams around the actual NFL, will earn points based on their stats for that week in the games they play. Our players, as a whole, will earn our total scores for that week. Every week those scores will continue to accrue until we get down to the playoffs. Four of us will still be in, and four will be out and relegated to watching the rest of the action from the sidelines. At the end of the thing the winner will get the pot. Because, well… there’s always money involved. LOL We keep track of all of this online at ESPN dot com. We can message each other through that site and also keep track of our teams, their scores, our other league members scores, and such. I think it’s going to be fun. Mostly, I’m sure, because we know each other and it will be fun to talk smack and give each other a hard time about points, etc.
We had a great time last night ladies… thanks everyone for coming over and for bringing your great snacks, wonderful company, and fantastic souls into our abode. You are one stellar group of women. Cheers… and, a parting word…. YOU ARE ALL GOING DOWN!
Chiminea, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Last weekend, both nights after the work was done, we all (Mom, Don, Kev, Karen, and I) sat around the chiminea chatting. Really nice way to end a hard days work. Love having this outdoor mini fireplace-ish kinda thing. Pretty terrific.
So our project is coming along. After tiling will be finish plumbing and electrical. Once those are done we will have a working bathroom. There will still be finish work, which Kev is doing, to complete. Crown molding, baseboards, building the half wall/shelving unit that will go next to the toilet, installing the linen/water heater closet doors, installing the bathroom door and the walk in closet door, casing the windows, cutting the hole for the light tube in the walk in closet, venting the fan out the end of the house…. and well, I think that’s it. We are going to use metro shelving in our closet. Easy to put in and we both like the metal look of it. Sort of different, and portable so we can move it around in there or use it elsewhere should we decide later to put different shelving in the closet.
We’re getting close… nearing the finish line. It’s pretty exciting. Pretty exciting indeed.
A Dip In The Pool Anyone?, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Once the inspection is done the shower liner will be drained, the next layer of cement put in over the top of the liner, the wonderboard in the shower can go up, and they are ready to tile. We’re hoping tiling will actually be able to start on Wednesday this week. The tiling guys will finish the prep on Tuesday after the inspection, we hope. We really have no idea how long it will take them to tile since it’s a fairly decent sized shower. After the shower they grout it, which is going to be a huge process in and of itself. Then they’ll do the floor. And after the floor they will put in the sink backsplash.
Wonderboard, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
The tilers started last Wednesday. Brought all of their supplies out and put them into the bathroom so Thursday they could get started with the shower pan liner and other prep work. That also meant we could put the big window in since we no longer needed to have it out as a way to get the big supplies in. It was nice having our house all buttoned up again.
This is Karen checking out what the tilers had done so far… Thursday night. The wonderboard was all down, the shower pan liner was ready for inspection. The whole shower pan liner thing is quite the process. First a coat of cement… a nice little first layer. Then the liner, which has to be perfectly fit in and water proofed. The liner is filled with water enough to cover the drain and left to show the inspectors it’s sealed properly and not leaking. Unfortunately for us the county had it’s first furlough day on Friday (which should’ve occurred to me since I didn’t work either… duh!) so there were no inspectors. It’s a long weekend as well, with the holiday today, so there will be no inspection until tomorrow (morning we hope).
One Sided, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Mom and Don and Kev all helped us work on the place last weekend. Kev and Don did siding, Mom, Karen and I painted. This is some of Kev and Don’s handy work. Since this time Kev and I pretty much worked on siding every night after work last week. We got the naked wall in the photo sided up to the gable end. In the front it’s all sided except the gable and the face where the big window is (which is now installed). Not bad. I think this next week, if it doesn’t rain, the rest will get done. Whoo hoo!!
We Have Paint, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Imagine it with white crown molding, white baseboards, and dark brown (almost black) wood doors on the right where there water heater/linen closet will be. Imagine blue/gray tile in the shower. Imagine light colored tile on the floor. It’s going to be beautiful…. or, we paint again. Ha ha ha!!
Karen’s Saw, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
We have to give Karen’s saw the love and honor it deserves by devoting an entire post to it. So without further ado… her saw.
The Niche, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Kev designed our bathroom addition and while he was at it he asked if we might like to have a couple of recessed areas in our bedroom for the tv and other stuff. We said heck ya. Here they are. TV and such will go in the top area, a couple of shelves will be in the bottom area, and we’ll probably throw some photographs or other “stuff” in there. We aren’t really knick-knacky people, but we will find something. There will be dark wood shelves in these when they are done. At least, that’s how I’m envisioning them.
Primer, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Sheet rock got finished right before last weekend… meaning we could start slapping some paint on in the addition. Which meant we had to decide on color. The final choice…. gray. The tile in the shower will be gray/blue tile with white grout. Glass accent tiles are gray, white, and a gray/blue, stark white tub, stark white porcelain sink top, white crown and baseboard, dark brown, almost black, vanity cabinet, half wall shelving unit, and doors on the linen/water heater closet. We think it’s going to look great.
Siding, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Since I’ve been somewhat remiss in posting the last week or so I thought I’d throw out a few posts on the addition project to get everyone up to date. So here we go…
Kev hard at work starting the siding process. This was last weekend. Big window in the bay was still not in, most of the siding hadn’t happened yet. We’re still not done with siding, but it’s closer.
Very exciting… some of my pics have been used, with my permission of course, in the “Lancaster. Morecambe. Etc.” guide. I got credit, no pay. That works for me right now. Building that resume and all. Check out the website. Not much on there really, but if you click the blog link there’s a bit more. You won’t see my photos displayed anywhere with my name connected to them on the website, so don’t worry yourself with looking. Just kinda cool it’s there and I’m in it. Simon, the guy who was the brain behind it all, sent me a copy of the guide, which was cool of him. I’m excited.
I know many of you are waiting for recent addition pics. Fear not. They are coming. Soon. I have some on my camera I need to upload. When I do, I’ll post them. It’s coming right along. The tiler is starting tomorrow. Woo Hoo!!
The Spoils, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Connie and Stacia’s fish. Not bad.
Waiting, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Watching the line is part of fishing. Did it move? Was that a fish? Grab it!
At The Dock, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Girls have to take breaks while fishing to go in and take care of business. This is the dock for those purposes. Nice dock. Great photo op.
Fishin’, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Last week and then this last weekend has been filled with “stuff” for the addition. Shopping for the addition, painting and siding the addition (Thanks Kev, Mom and Don for the assist this last weekend. You guys rock as painters and siders!), more shopping for the addition, more siding, etc., etc., etc. I also snuck in a day of fishing with Stan, Stacia, and Connie. Nice to just get out on the river and hang. I caught nothing, but got to watch Connie and Stacia catch fish. It was worth it.
The Cake, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Pat and Steve were in charge of the cake. Maggie chose an ice cream cake and Pat chose the candles. Too funny.
Ollie… Celebrating, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
Ollie, Maggie’s little girl, and the girl we rescued, is settling in to her new home very well. She enjoyed the party too. Loved all the attention.
Stick To Your Ribs, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.
We got back from camping on August 23 which just happens to be our friend Maggie’s birthday. She had a party, or maybe I should say we had a party for her, at her house. We got back from camping, took showers, dropped off the pups, started laundry, and then headed to Maggie’s place to help her celebrate. Kate made ribs. They were awesome. Thanks Kate, and thanks Maggie for giving us all a great reason to celebrate.
