Enlightenment

These are the fixtures we bought at Ikea a couple weeks ago. Installing them was a bigger project than Sami expected, but we enjoyed it for the most part.

First we had to take down the ugly old fixture. It was a big frosted glass and gold colored hershey kiss shaped thing located where the left fixture now hangs.

Then we had to figure out where the projector should be mounted in order to be the desired size and cut another hole in the ceiling for the second fixture. Of course the joists were running the wrong direction so we had to get an extra long 1/2" spade bit to drill through them and fish the new wire through. This would have been easy if we could have crawled into the attic and worked on it, but this is the basement and the bedrooms are right above.

So, we got the wires all hooked up and realized the hole where the old light had been installed was bigger than the round part on the new fixture. I did a bit of taping and mudding and it looked a bit better. Sami went looking for the paint and discovered even though there are 15 cans of paint in our garage, none of them were the flat white for the ceiling. He went out for groceries and got some paint too. It's not a perfect match, but very close.

Sami hooked up the light fixtures and we moved the arms around and fixed them in place using drywall anchors. We'll still have to adjust the lamps later when we have everything set up in the room. The next step is to buy a dimmer and install it.

Weird Wet Week

It's been a really weird week. School (and the library) were closed again on Wednesday. I think some idiot hates their class and is really screwing it up for the rest of us. So, again I only got half a paycheck and I have no idea how we're going to learn everything we're supposed to for our estimating class. It's only 6 weeks and we missed two.

Then on Thursday, my Kitchen and Bath Planning class was supposed to meet at this house to see a kitchen that had been remodeled. There was an accident on the highway and I realized I'd be a few minutes late, so I called my instructor. She said don't worry - she'd just gotten a call from the homeowner saying the dog had to go in for emergency surgery and we wouldn't be able to do the tour.

Today I went first thing in the morning at 8:30 am to get my truck inspected so I could renew the plates and it failed the emissions test with three different errors. So I had to take it to the mechanic, the original quote was $1,4o0. I almost decided to junk the truck. Then I talked with them, "do you really really have to fix everything or is there just some way to pass the exam... " I know the truck has problems, but we don't drive it that much. Only when we need a truck. So in the end, I got it halfway fixed and passed the test for $500. I got to the DMV right at 5 pm and managed to sneak in the out door and pay for the registration, so it's finally done.

Oh, the wet part... the flowers are looking pretty good. I think most of the fruit flowers were killed off in the frosts a couple weeks ago, but i can see a few baby pears growing. We also got some volunteer chives. They're pretty, but I don't actually like to eat them. It's rained and hailed and sun-shined rained and hailed all week. Yesterday I stood just between the living room and dining room and watched it rain in the back yard and be sunny in the front yard. I couldn't believe it. Oregon is weird.

Bike Ride to Beaverton Library

I had a book on reserve, but I forgot to stop by the library on my way home from school today. I decided to dust off my bike and take it for a spin. Our local library (not the one I work at) is only 1.5 miles from our house, so it was a perfect little ride. The Beaverton Farmer's Market starts in a couple weeks and is held right beside the library, so I'm glad it's such a nice and easy trip.

Thank You Sopan & Keren!

Orchid - Phalaenopsis

Sopan and Keren gave us this beautiful orchid for Sami's birthday. It is by far the most elegant thing in our kitchen.

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Other News
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I have no class or work today because the Rock Creek Campus is closed. There has been a gun or bomb or some sort of threat. Unfortunately I didn't know about it until after I got up and drove there. At a gas price of $3.19/gal, thats rather annoying.

Road Trip to Ikea

Sami has been designing his home theater setup and he realized that the existing light fixture in the room would interfere with the picture from the projector. Plus, it was ugly. Last weekend we went to Home Depot and looked at all of their fixtures, but he didn't find one that suited his criteria. When we got home we looked at a ton of different websites looking for various types of low profile lighting. Finally we found one he liked at Ikea. Of course the one here in Portland isn't opening for a couple more months and this fixture is one that the store doesn't ship for some reason.

So... Road trip to Ikea Seattle. It's been a long time since we went geocaching and we were expecting more good weather so we decided to combine the two. The first geocache we tried was called "Quack Islands" It sounded great. Ducks, islands, a fountain and a garden. Unfortunately we found ourselves in the parking lot of a medical center. There was a fountain, and a small garden, and a lake, but no ducks! The "islands" were small bits of greenery scattered around the parking lot. We must have spent about 40 minutes following clues around and never found the cache. And it was only supposed to be 1.5 stars out of 5. Not a good start.

Then it started raining. We decided to keep driving towards Seattle and see if the rain would let up. Sami got hungry and I told him to stop whenever he saw something he liked. We drove about 20 miles without passing any food places. Finally, in the middle of nowhere we saw a house with a giant English flag on the roof. We were hungry so we decided to stop. It was kind of an interesting little place. Tons of postcards and teacups and English flags everywhere. The locals all came by to sit and eat and catch up on all the gossip with each other. Sami read the paper and educated himself on the going prices of various dogs, horses and pygmy goats. I tried to order the Cornish pastry but they were all gone already. We ended up getting chicken and fish and chips instead. It was pretty good, but it took a while and we had actually gone to a non-fast food restaurant intending to get non-fried food. I should have ordered some tea. It would have been nice on a chilly rainy day and fitting for a British restaurant. But I forgot until we were getting ready to leave and we had a thermos in the car full of coffee anyway.

We did a couple more geocaches, a quick one at a rest area where we saw these beautiful wildflowers (Western Trillium - Trillium ovatum and Pacific Bleeding Heart - Dicentra formosa) an another on a road running parallel to the highway. In that one Sami found a duck dressed like a soldier in the cache and a garden rake just laying in the ditch. We took them both.

Finally we got to Ikea. It was really crowded and we had a hard time staying focused on what we really came to buy - the light fixtures for the home theater. We ended up buying a bunch of other stuff too. I got a shadow box frame for my leaf fossil I found when we went to the town of Fossil, Oregon and John Day Fossil beds last spring. I've been meaning to make a box for my find, but I've just been so busy I haven't even put the photos from that trip online or gotten them printed.

When we got home we watched "Notes on a Scandal". It's a different type of movie than we usually watch (action or comedy) and a little disturbing; but wow, really great acting. We completely forgot that Cate Blanchett had been the elf queen and that Judi Dench had been queen of England.