Clip Show

     My husband and I are Netflix "binge watching" all of the seasons of Malcolm in the Middle. We do this, during the school year; it's nice to have some time to snuggle up on the couch after a long day at work. Last fall we made it all the way through the Castle series, seasons 1-8! We may sound lazy, but we really only watch an episode at a time, and some evenings we won't end up watching due to other commitments. So really, I guess we don't "binge watch," we just become series monogamists? Maybe? Is that a thing? 

     Regardless, while watching Malcolm in the Middle, we rediscovered the lost TV art of the Clip Show. Aka, when you don't have material for a whole new episode but you have an episode spot in the season to fill, so you do a clip show of previously filmed stuff and make it a new episode that's sort of a flashback. 

     I have some new posts in my brain, but don't have the material juuuuust yet to write out those posts. So I'm doing a clip show of my own and sharing some old photos I took that are still entertaining to me. Here we go! 

These are my mother's crazy dogs. She actually has more dogs than this, but at the time, I was taking random pictures with my then-new DSLR camera and happened to catch this mirror shot of all of them looking at the same thing. The mold on the mirror (it is a relic from my great-grandmother's house, and I believe it has been cleaned since) gave the image an antique-y feel, and I just laughed when I zoomed in and saw all of the dogs looking at the same thing! They are VERY energetic and crazy entities, so this moment of stillness was a rare occurrence.  

This is another of my mom's pets- she is a camera ham, she loves attention, and she loves naps in front of open windows. She was being very cute one day years and years ago, and looked right at me when I took the picture. This photo was taken at my childhood home. It was an old farmhouse without central heating or air conditioning. In the summer, the windows were always open. While we endured the heat, humidity, and suffered on the breeze-less nights, the cats were in heaven. Except of course for when they tried to swat at bugs outside the screens and then knocked the screen out and fell out the window, or just hit their faces on the screens. Cats may always land on their feet but I'm not convinced they're a very intelligent species...

Senior year of college some friends and I went camping during spring break. Wild and crazy, I know, but we were the kind of students who had spent all of our previous spring breaks on volunteer and mission trips. Plus, we were flat broke. I worked at the gym on campus and got discounts renting camping equipment. The four of us decided to venture out into wild and wonderful West Virginia and camped around the Blackwater Falls area. We hiked the Seneca Rocks area. It was early March, so everything was cold and icy, but starting to have that fresh Spring glow.
















More pets...what can I say! I love capturing various animal expressions. This is a former roommate's dog, Bubba, who is unfortunately no longer with us. She left to explore Europe for a bit and I stayed home and hung out with Bubba. He was so depressed without her! He would lay around by the doors, sleep in her bed, and refuse to go outside unless I was going with him. I tried to spoil him with treats, trips to the dog park, and snuggles, but he was still downhearted. This picture captures his depression so well. I love it. I miss this guy!


This photo was from my grandparents' house one Christmas many years ago. I have not been back to visit them for many years, and I am deeply sad/sorry/regretful about that. Hopefully that changes soon, but for now I'll take the nostalgia of this photo. I had just gotten my DSLR that winter and I was trying out some of the editing and filtering.

There's nothing particularly exciting about this last picture, but it's really memorable for me. When I was in high school, I went on a field trip to Williamsburg, Virginia, where we were supposed to complete a photo scavenger hunt. It was one of the best field trips I've ever gone on, as a student or teacher. We had certain requirements for the scavenger hunt, and it was exciting to see what each group had put together when we returned to school. I later attended college in Williamsburg, and while taking a random walk down DoG street one day, I remembered the photo I took for the scavenger hunt, and recreated it.

Cheap Bookshelf Rustic Makeover

     Last week I completed, with the help of a friend, a project I'd been wanting to take on for quite a while now! We own several of those cheap Wal-Mart bookcases (such as this best seller) and I have started feeling like I can't stand them. Yes, they function just fine, but I have two issues with them:
                   1. They don't look great! A bookshelf should have a certain aesthetic to it, and these                                 shelves have zero character.
                   2. The backs are flimsy, tear easily, and are not sturdy.

     So I did some research. Which really means I browsed Pinterest for way longer than I should have, Googled terms such as "cheap bookcase upcycle," and spent days taking stock of available supplies in order to take on this project. My inspiration came mostly from these two photos:

Source

Source

    


The supplies I had on hand:
- paper and fabric, to mod-podge on the back or shelves to give it a colorful lift
- a friend who was looking to get rid of some wood
- both stain and white paint, both of which match other furniture in our apartment (blanket ladder, pantry shelf, dining table)
- tools to get the job done





With this list fairly narrow, I decided to go for giving just the backs of the bookcases a facelift. I can always go back and add paper or paint, stencil, or sticker the bookshelves or backs later on!

Here's the products, process, and final photos!

Photos (on left)

In the afternoon sunlight...

Products

- 3 "cheap-o" bookshelves (two white, and taller, one brown and shorter/more square)
- various sized 1-inch thick boards, leftover from other projects
- hammer and nails (you could use screws for a more secure finish)
- circular saw and power sander (and sandpaper)
- Stain (personally I am in love with "Early American" by Minwax)

Process

*I began with all the bookcases in disassembled and in pieces. Before step 4, I assembled the bookcases without the cheap cardboard back.

1. Measure and cut the leftover wood to the length needed for the back of each bookcase. Specifically, I laid out the boards until they fit the width of the cheap cardboard back, and then laid the cheap cardboard back on top of the boards to measure length. If I did this again, I'd add about 1/2 inch to the end, to ensure sufficient space to nail them to the back of the bookcases later on.

2. Sand the boards to desired softness. I did not sand them much at all, I simply softened the ends and nicks, and went over each of the faces once with the power sander.

3. Stain the boards. I stained them and let it dry; you could stain and wipe them for a different color, or paint them if you wanted! Options!

*assemble bookcases if they are not already assembled
4. When the boards have dried, place your bookcase front-side down on your work surface. Place the boards on the back of the bookcase and line them up where you want them to be secured.

5. I nailed my boards on the bookcase. I started on the top, lining the boards up for an even look, and nailed the tops of the boards. Then, my friend and I nailed the bottoms of the boards. Some of them were warped and didn't quite lay flat, and there were some small gaps between the boards, lengthwise, but we accepted it as "character." You could also drill holes and screw them in if you wanted a more secure fit!

I might add some paper or fabric to these shelves for a pop of color later on..

Finished products! I'll post some "glamour shots" later on, when I've got them set up and functional!

A Series of Lists

      I completely blame hockey playoffs!! The Caps made it to the end of the 2nd round and that meant every other day for a month I was watching a hockey game in my spare (ha) time. Making it to the 3rd round would have been history in the making and I wanted to be along for every minute of every game.

Things that suffered on account of time spent hockey during the playoffs: 

Hockey memes are okay [source]

- keeping up with baking challenges
- grading student papers
- social relationships
- level of house cleanliness
- any and all exercise
- maybe personal hygiene (but only on the weekends...)




     I also blame the end of the school year! We've got 2 weeks left until summer break. So much to do, so little time. Last week I was at school every day until 6 or 6:30, which means I'm fried when I get home. Any blog post I'd have written would have been utter gibberish last week. And the week before. Come to think of it, this might also be gibberish...

Teacher memes are great  [source]

Things that continue to suffer because it's the end of the school year:
- keeping up with baking challenges
- social relationships
- level of house cleanliness
- most exercise
- maybe personal hygiene (but only on the weekends...)



I'm keeping this short:
- in the hopes that I write another one soon
- to try and reclaim some sort of exercise regimen (I'm supposed to meet people to play soccer in 40 minutes)
- to build suspense...


Here are some posts I hope to write about in the upcoming weeks: 
- I'm competing in a local baking competition for a brewery! It's really nothing major, just for fun, but I'm fairly competitive so I'm obviously playing to win (the keg)
- My summer job is pretty cool, and I'm being trained in something new this year so I hope to describe that a bit
- I need to do some painting this summer and want to share those
- Summer adventures in general!!
- I WILL finish that d%&$ t-shirt quilt I've been working on for 2 years now (actually). I plan to share my process as a moderate sewer who tried to get way too fancy, and how it all turns out


      Stay tuned! I promise I won't be so delinquent now that hockey playoffs are over.