Saturday, March 3, 2012

# 93 Rewire/replace 5 outlets in my house 3/3/12

I hate working with electricity.  I also hate it when you plug something in and the plug falls out of the wall.  That is what inspired this goal.  Off I go to Menards to get new outlets.  Who knew that you had to know what amps and volts you need.  I guessed right on the kind I needed.  I guessed wrong on the color that would match the rest of my outlets.  I started with the outlet in Jason's room.  Being paranoid about the electricity thing I turned off the power to the whole house.  The first one went really good.  The people who put them together really cranked the screws on tight.  After the first one I turned the power back on and plugged a nightlight in to make sure it worked and didn't blow anything up.  I did really good until the last outlet.  This outlet is connected to two other outlets and is controlled by a switch.  The replacing went great, but I somehow screwed up the light switch thing.  The outlets work, but the switch does nothing at all. 
I googled what may be wrong with the outlet and discovered that there is a metal tab that needs to be broken off of the new outlet to make the switch work.  I will have to wait until another day to fix this because it is now dark out and I would rather wait to do it in the daylight.  Problem solved and another item crossed off the list.

#5 Do yoga twice a week for four weeks 2/16/12

I have a yoga tape that I like to do.  I don't do it consistently, okay I rarely do it.  I did manage to spent 4 weeks doing the tape twice a week.  I quite doing the tape after the four weeks because I started to go to a fitness club.  I do miss it and wish I had time to do both.  When does it ever slow down? When the weather gets nicer and there is light in the evenings I would like to start walking in the evening.  That would be besides going to the fitness club.  I have two weddings this summer.  :) 

# 41 Make pie crust like my Mom's 2/12/12

I have been working on this for a month or more.  The first attempts tasted ok, but they were a little tough.  I talked to my mom about the recipe and found out that the measurements were a little off.  Once this was fixed the pie crust turned out fantastic. 




I made these pies for a meeting right before Valentines Day.  The people who ate them thought they were fantastic.  I can now say that they passed the test.  This is my last baking project and I am a little sad about that.  I have really enjoyed trying new recipes and perfecting foods that my Mom makes. The bright spot is that my oldest son has asked me to make 20 cheesecakes for his wedding in August.  I am going to try each recipe at least once so that I know the ins and outs of each one.  I will need more taste testers I guess.

#57 Go to an Art Museum 2/4/12

So, my good friend Janet and I planned a trip to the Walker Art Museum.  We managed to talk two of our guy friends (Steve and Glen) into going with us.  I haven't been to the Walker in years, I think the last time I was there was in college.  I met Janet and Glen at Ridgedale (they were coming from St. Cloud) and we drove together.  Janet drove since she grew up in the cities and she has the GPS.  Steve was going to meet us there, he is from Blaine.  We managed to get lost even with the GPS, we were only a couple of blocks off.  Thanks to a "Minnesota Nice" pedestrian we were soon at our destination.  Steve went in a different door than we did and we waited around for a while before we hooked up.
The Walker is larger than I remember it.  We walked around for about 3 hours and still didn't see all of the displays.  The Walker is filled with modern art unlike the Metropolitan Museum which has more traditional forms.  Some of the pieces were very different.  There was one of a box that was made of mirrors and had holes to look into.  That one was very interesting, depending on which wall was behind you and what pieces of art were on the wall, changed how the box looked inside. I was drawn more toward the black and white pieces for some reason.  Steve and Janet sat and watched a video of a McDonalds being flooded. 
After the Walker we went to a small coffee shop and talked for a while because our dinner reservations weren't for another hour.  Dinner was at a brewery and the food was really good.  We sat and discussed the art and other things in life.   It was a very successful outing and I hope that we can do it again sometime. What a great group of friends to go to a museum with. A variety of opinions and tastes.  Thanks Janet, Steve, and Glen for helping me cross this one off my list. 

# 24 Submit a photo to a photo contest 1/24/12

So I feel like I cheated a little on this item.  The photo contest that I submitted the photo to was one through Facebook.  My original idea was to submit one to National Geographic or something like that.  Those competitions cost money and money is in short supply lately.  The facebook contest was free.  The theme was winter.




I didn't win anything.  Which I wasn't surprised about.  It was one of those contests where you get your friends to vote for your picture.  I'm not one to bug my friends to do things like that.