Parktacular 2010

Blogging from my new phone

Wow! I feel like I have entered a new phase of my life tonight! I sprang for the iPhone and... A texting plan. Perhaps I can stay one short step ahead of my kids. I have a couple of years to figure it out, I trust!

So Easy a 4-year Old Can Do It!

Get a Voki now!



At staff development today, I learned some fun things to do with digital storytelling! In fact, when I went to practice this evening, I got Abby in on it and we made this avatar for her.

Natural Avocado at Kuler

If you aren't familiar with this site, I highly recommend it for crafting and painting and probably other higher pursuits!

www.Kuler.Adobe.com

You can choose colors from photographs, upload color themes into graphics programs, search for color combo ideas. It's fun and useful!

My bedroom colors are evolving...so much for my IKEA pillow inspiration. Here's the next idea. It was inspired by my IKEA duvet cover PLUS an upholstered ottoman I saw at Target. Given the intensity of our green choice, I decided that we should go for a nature-inspired palette and keep everything else neutral!

4 Coats Later

Gracious. FOUR COATS OF PEA SOUP GREEN PAINT.

We're talking "Exorcist" here.

"Pickle Baby Food" is generous.

Four coats, though? C'mon.

I used primer.

Two should do it, right?

That's FIVE coats all together...

Are you counting? 'Cuz I was.

So, that is half of the paneling and I still have that much surface area again to cover in drywall. By the way, if you are reading this, do you have some scaffolding I can borrow?

(See my little flooring swatch up in the corner?)

Pickle Baby Food

Well, I took my fifty dollars' worth of "Dried Palm" back to Home Depot and the nice lady heard me out and started mixing in additional pigment to get my paint darker and "more green." It was not happening. It still looked like a dyed Easter egg. Nice color for a baby nursery, not my bedroom. So, we ditched it and started from scratch with the color matched to my duvet cover. "Retro Avocado." Or, as Katie dubbed it, "Pickle Baby Food."

My Chiropractor Loves Me

This painting is moving SO SLOWLY! The recommended approach to painting knotty pine is to:
1. Clean it thoroughly with TSP.
2. Patch the knots and nail-holes.
3. Caulk the joints in the paneling.
4. Prime with a shellac-based primer such as B.I.N.
5. Paint.

Good grief, this is labor-intensive. I started with the patching and screwed up. The patch I am using isn't sandable and I didn't realize until half the room had been done. Thankfully, it comes off with elbow grease and water. Sadly, this elbow grease comes at a high price when I'm in the early stages of treatment for whiplash. Grr.

Today, however, I've gotten the first half of the room ready and I will be starting to prime. (I can't do more than half at a time because there is furniture pushed up against everything!)

The other hiccup is that while I was settling in with my "Rhythmic Blue," I noticed that Mark was uneasy. Yep, you got it. He doesn't want the blue. O.K. No biggie. I was always o.k. with green. I sneak away from the family and mix up two gallons of "Dried Palm." Slap it on the wall at home and it looks yellow or white. In the perfect light, it looks like too-light green. Hmmm.

What to do, what to do?