I'm such a dork, I swear. We've lived in our house how long now? Three and a half years. Yesterday, the little girls were messing around in my bedroom for a minute right after naptime - and they knocked down my curtain rod. My curtain rod, which is actually a SHOWER curtain rod, and my curtains, which used to be blue sheets. Yeah, we're ghetto, a little bit. Until the rod fell, I had completely forgotten that we never bought blinds for that window!!

I never open the "curtains" so I just sort of blocked it out. Every other room in the house has white faux wood blinds, which I love. Well, all but the finished attic, but we never go up there anyway!

I really hope we find it within our budget this year to get some decent window treatments for our master bedroom. It's sad, really, to think we've gone 3 1/2 years having a shower curtain covering our sliding glass door and an old blue sheet for curtains! Being broke is a big fat drag.

Remember I mentioned that we checked out the home and patio show over the weekend? Paul and I were both surprised to see SO many booths there all about finished basements! We must have seen half a dozen!

One of them was for Owens Corning Basement Finishing Systems. It's kind of neat. The whole premise behind their system is that basement environments are genuinely fairly damp places, which puts you at a risk of developing mold. They've come up with this whole method of basement finishing that doesn't use drywall and wooden studs. They build a sort of frame around the concrete walls out of these steel - uh, thingies - I have no idea what they're called - and then they attach these panel thingies that are cushy and insulated and covered in a weird sort of fabric. And where one panel joins the next, they have this piece of trim that goes all the way from the floor to the ceiling. Um...jeez - I know I'm not explaining this well! I linked to their site, just go there and look, and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.

We had a salesman come over tonight and talk to us all about it for, oh, about NINETY MINUTES. Really, it wasn't that bad. The guy was really nice, and genuinely into the product, but not at all pushy. So, here's what I think about this new basement finishing method: it's ugly! Sorry, cute salesman. Sorry, honeybunny who likes the noise reducing qualities. Sorry, bank who would be all too happy, I'm sure, to loan us THIRTY GRAND for this project.

I know Paul can finish the basement for, say...FIVE grand. And it'll look pretty! It won't look like the inside of a trailer! Because seriously, that's what it looks like. It looks EXACTLY like a mobile home. Or, actually - it looks exactly like a CUBICLE! Who wants to live in a cubicle? Not me. I like the idea. I hate the price tag. And I really hate how it looks!

I think we're going to stick with the old school method. The whole blood, sweat, and tears thing. We live for drywall dust! Hear us roar!

Labels: basement finishing

It's my birthday too, yeah!

I'm thirty-something today! ;-)

I want to say hello and thank you for all the sweet comments from everyone who has stopped by here from Houseblogs.net. I've been a blogger for a number of years now, but I've mostly been a user of WordPress, and I'm using Blogger for this blog right now, and sooooo...I haven't figured out how to reply to comments yet. Grrr! The email address it shows me is that "no-reply@blogger" thing. So, I'm not ignoring you! I'm just dumb!

I was just checking out The Thrifty Decorating Blog and found such a fun little project - she put the saying, "Prayers go up, blessings come down" across a wall. I thought it was stencilled, but no! She got a kit from this place called Quote the Walls. They make quotes out of semi-permanent vinyl letters. Neat, huh?

I love some of the ideas there! I think it would be so cute to put "Sweet Dreams" or something similar on the kids' wall - it looks precious in the picture. I wonder what my quote would say? I don't think I have a little catch phrase for my life or anything, other than, "Yes, we know we have our hands full." LOL!

We had such a fun little family day yesterday! Paul and I took all four of the little ones, along with his dad and stepmother, and we went to the Spring Home and Patio Show.

The kids were SO GOOD while we spent HOURS walking around and checking everything out. I've never seen so much ridiculously expensive stuff I'll never own! And it's always funny to me how many booths you see with genuinely ridiculous stuff that seems completely out of place at a home and garden type show. I guess it's all subjective, though - if you want it, and it's there, then COOL, right?

Here are a few things that were not at all ridiculous, and were actually SO nifty, I felt like I had no choice at all but to give them some free advertisement here!

The first is J. Dogg Phair and his amazing sauces!



The guy you see on the label is the guy who dished up samples for us. I didn't try all of them, but Paul did, and he made lots of approving sounds as he slurped each one off the tiny plastic spoon. I did try the works-for-everything marinade, Anything Goes! It was SO good. I can't even describe the unusual flavor it has, but I haven't tasted anything like it before. We bought the marinade! I bought chicken breasts today, so we can try it out on the grill tonight! You need to check this guy out - his stuff is the bomb!

Okay, the second thing is called The Grip Hook.



This guy, who by the way? Is pretty cute - was standing at his booth, bending steel rods into these funny little handled hooks, which he designed to carry grocery bags and milk jugs easily. He told us his little story, about being in a gigantic family, and how his dad became disabled after an accident and was having a hard time getting his groceries into the house. And, voila! The good son comes to the rescue, and whips up this crazy little hook thingy. And then people told him to patent it, so, voila again! He's in business.

I stupidly didn't buy one of these while we were at the show. I think we got distracted by a hot tub with a plasma screen TV in it or something. But, I did snag the guy's card, and I'm going to give him a call and order one of these. It was made for me, people! Do you know what a PITA it is getting four children and a bazillion bags of groceries into the house? I want one. Rich Passarelli, you'll be hearing from me soon!

Okay, and the last thing is this really cool thing called The Vertical Garden.



I just can't get over how ingenious so many of these products are! This thing is sold in a set of three little tiered containers. The bottom one has a drip pan that snaps onto it, and then the top two just offset on top of each bottom layer with little tabs. You can plant an entire herb garden in one of these, or a bunch of strawberries, or...I guess anything you really wanted to plant, right? It also comes with this cute little chain that you stick down through the middle, with a little thingy at the bottom to hold it on, and you can hang the whole thing up like a hanging basket. And you just water the top tier and the water runs through it and waters everything else. I MUST HAVE ONE. I really, really, really want to plant one all full of yummy herbs. YET AGAIN, I didn't buy one at the show, because Paul was talking to a guy about a hot tub (Why? Like we'll ever be able to afford a hot tub? And where would we put one?) over on the other side of the floor and he had my purse stuffed in the bottom of the stroller. But, yeah. I got this lady's card, too. So I'm going to order one of these spiffy little pots, and I totally think you should, too.

So there you have it. Unbiased reviews of some Denver folks and the stuff they're hawking. Check it out.

Labels: j.dogg phair, jdoggphair.com, the grip hook, the vertical garden, thegriphook.com, theverticalgarden.com

We have a fancypants front-loading washer and dryer set from Sears - Kenmore brand. And for the most part, we could not be happier with them! They get our clothes super clean and the washer uses very little water.

But we've found that it's a bit persnickety when it comes to eating the occasional sock or pair of panties. It took me a couple of months of wondering why I kept smelling mildew before I realized the rubber ring around the door catches a few goodies during nearly every load! By the time I figured out what was going on there, there were almost a dozen tiny little baby socks in there, black with mildew. It was sick.

No biggie, though. We used the washer and dryer with zero issues until one day when it just STOPPED during the rinse cycle, and displayed error code HF. According to the manual, this was a water inlet problem. We couldn't find any such thing, so naturally, I turned to Google! I found that this is a common problem, caused by a clogged filter.

And since so many people were having the same problem, I thought it called for a little tutorial!


How to Get Rid of the HF Error Code
and Get Your Washer to Drain

Step One: Unplug Washer

Safety First!



Step Two: Remove front Panel from Washer







Step Three: Locate Filter Assembly

(and be ready to soak up water with a towel)



Step Four: Remove Filter. It's Gross.



It comes out easily...



But it's really gross.



Ours contained a sock, a mini-Snickers wrapper, and a toothpick.



Step Five: Clean Filter

This is NOT the recommended cleaning method.



Step Six: Replace Clean Filter



Step Seven: Replace Front Panel. Run load of clothes. Marvel at how the washer not only drains, but doesn't smell like ass anymore!

The enginerd and wife hope this tutorial has been helpful to you!

Labels: error codes, front-loader, HF, kenmore elite H3, washer, yucky