Art Thursday -- April 23rd

I thought that I had downloaded pictures off the husband's phone, but apparently not.  In lieu of a picture, here are some kids with boxes on their heads. :P

What-What?! Week of April 19th

Howdy, howdy, howdy. :P

I have basically nothing to post about this week.  The husband and I spent all of yesterday at the house, putting in flooring.  We were there until 9pm, and we're still not done (ARGH).  We are down to the tiniest section, but after we realized what time it was last night, we decided that everyone was too tired to stay there any later.  I have no pictures of any of this process; was too busy trying to get flooring down.  I'll post some finished pictures later, for sure.  Today, we'll finish that up, clean up all the copious amounts of carpet bits floating around, and work on baseboards.

Earlier this week, we battled water getting into the house through the backdoor.  That's fixed well enough for right now.  I can't seem to get our garbage pick up figured out.  We are required to pay for it, but dang if I can't get them to do what they say they will.  They told me we could keep the previous tenant's bins, but then they were picked up and taken away.  They told me that they'd schedule us to get new bins, but then they didn't drop them off.  I have called them at least once a week since we took possession of the house.  Good grief. D:

My kids did this Friday night.  Pretended to be knights and robots.  Won't be long before cereal boxes won't fit on their heads anymore.  Then what'll they do?

Saffron, walking like an Egyptian:

Okay, enough children.

Current plan is to move next weekend.  I hope it actually happens.  Even if we don't get quite everything moved, we'll still have ownership of the apartment for a bit, so it's not an emergency if stuff is left.

What-What?! Week of May 25th

My car is in the shop.  I was sick.  Children exploded at work.  Other things happened.  This week, if it could go wrong, it probably did (in the most stressful way possible).

This week's post is quite short.  I apologize.

TV:  'And the Sky's the Limit': The Writers of the 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' Series Finale Look Back, 20 Years Later via Yahoo! TV

This is a great interview article with Ronald Moore and Brannon Braga, the two Star Trek writers that worked on the show's final episode, as well as the film, Star Trek: Generations.  It is a bit long, but includes a lot of great memories for those of us who are just that geeky.

Art:  Stained Glass Watercolor

This was inspired by a project from the website, Mrs. Brown's Art Class, which I've been referring to often for ideas and activities to use at work.

I did this project both at work and home, and it went over well with both the 4th graders and my little ones.  We used crayons to create a wax resist for the lines, then painted with the watercolors.

What-What?! Week of June 23rd

This week was pretty good; we’ve had friends over a few times this week, and the weather has just been brilliant.  Oh, I’m also nearly out of things to sell on eBay, so this next week I need to scrounge up some more items to photograph and post.

News:  Lowe’s set to Buy Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH)

Funnily enough, now that I’ve talked about Sears still having valuable brands, they’ve just agreed to sell at least 60 of the 91 OSH stores to Lowe’s.  It seems that most analysts and investors view this as a great move for Lowe’s, as it will help them expand into the California market, where competition is fierce with Home Depot.  In order for this to happen, though, the company is being required to file for bankruptcy, on account of its $302 million in short-term debt; it is estimated that, of the $201 million that Lowe’s is offering, nearly $50 million will go to paying off accounts payable.  The stores are to remain a completely separate brand, and depending on the amount of debt wiped out through bankruptcy, the company could end up with more freedom to innovate and take risks.  I think the deal both validates the worth of the OSH brand, and gives the company the opportunity to grow and develop more in the future.

One thing that I want to point out, though, is that Sear’s isn’t losing here; by selling the company off to a larger rival, Sears is no longer responsible for a company that has debt equal to 46 percent of its revenue.  This is also probably a great deal for shareholders, as Lowe’s has been experiencing growth recently.  This deal makes me think of venture capitalist funding; one of the goals for venture capitalists is to have their start-up company bought by a larger one, thus instantly getting a return on their investment.

Cooking:  Homemade Peanut Butter Granola Bars

Making granola bars is actually a lot of fun; like the pirate code, there aren’t so much recipes as guidelines.  When I went to make these, I couldn’t actually find my book with the recipe, so I went by memory.  Either way, they came out tasty, if a bit crumbly, because I used leftover bits of Kashi’s version of Frosted Mini Wheats.  The mini wheats bits gave it a finer crumb than it would have if it were made with more oats, so I think this recipe would be okay otherwise.

Ingredients

• 2 to 2-1/4  cups dry mix (I recommend 1 cup rolled or instant oats, and another cup mix of chocolate chips, shredded coconut, nuts, or leftover bits of cereal)
• 1/4 cup wheat germ (can be left out)
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup maple syrup (could probably be subbed for brown sugar or other syrups, like agave)
• 1/2 stick butter

Line a cookie sheet with wax paper or parchment paper.  Mix dry goods together in a mixing bowl – if using chocolate, leave it out until after the mix has cooled some if you want chocolate bits, or mix the chocolate in now if you want a more uniform chocolate flavor (or if you’re lazy, like me).  In a separate saucepan or pot, mix peanut butter, maple syrup and butter on medium heat until well blended.  Either add syrup to the mixing bowl, or add the dry goods to the saucepan, whichever is large enough to fit everything in together.  Mix well, try hard not to eat it with a spoon, then spread on cookie sheet.  Allow to cool, then cut into bars.

News:  ThredUp Changes Clothing Policies

On Thursday, ThredUp, which acts as an online consignment store, announced that they will no longer accept clothes with an MSRP of less than $12.99; this includes clothes from Target, the Gap, Old Navy, and probably The Children’s Place and Gymboree as well.  They announced this change because they’d been receiving complaints about the “cheap” brands, and had also been losing money on those brands, because they can only be sold for around $4.  ThredUp expects to implement a new minimum price of $6.49, a full $2.50 increase – though the brands will all be boutique brands.  However, I personally have never bought an item costing more than $4-5 from ThredUp, and I’m not interested in spending more than that, even for boutique brands.  I’m very interested to see if this new strategy works for ThredUp, or if it backfires because they’re redlined too many of their core customers.

'Til next week!

(imgs from kcoy.com, foodsmarty.com, harbus.org)