In my post about the kitchen sink upgrade, I mentioned the bathtub fail that happened in January.  I realized that I had not posted any photos of the work Joey did to fix the master bathroom and closet. The pipe leading out of the bathtub, and the seal around the drain had rusted through, and water was leaking under the tub and into the wall between the bathroom and the closet.  Obviously the plumbing needed to be repaired.  However, there were a couple of related projects that arose because of the leak.  The closet carpet was soaked, and despite several days of running a fan, it became evident that ripping…

You may have heard that I like tea.  Love it.  Drink multiple pots of tea most days.  I buy my loose tea at the Tea Embassy here in Austin.  I actually travel with a small travel teapot and a selection of tea, so that I am never forced to drink bad tea. At home I use a white, six-cup, Chatsford teapot.  It is wonderful.  I have had it for many years, approaching a decade, I think.  I keep it inside a tea cozy that I knit for it.  Because of the cozy, you cannot see the actual pot most of the time.  It is not the only teapot I have,…

Cali came to stay with us this week, since Lee and Billy were out of town. She and Elanor actually shared the green dog bed for a bit, while they guarded the door to Joey’s office.

Elanor loves to chase lights and anything shiny, like the dot from a laser pointer or the light reflected off a mirror. She also likes things that dart around on the television. She will actually watch TV if there are dogs barking or if there is something moving quickly across the screen that catches her eye. Selecting movies on Netflix is one of the things she really likes to watch – she doesn’t much care once we pick the movie, but the actual selection is a blast as far as Elanor is concerned. Happily I had my iPhone handy, and managed to record her antics.

Joey fixed the drain basket of our kitchen sink a few days ago, as I mentioned in a previous post. A couple of days after that the faucet started leaking a little around its base when we turned the water on. Sunday that small leak turned into a spray, if the faucet was in just the wrong position. Since I am in North Carolina this week, Joey decided to take the opportunity to fix the faucet. I love my husband! He worked really hard,and got it all fixed and put back together. When he turned the water on, the new seal he had put on the main faucet worked perfectly.…

… and I cut it open. Across the axis of the orange. And it looked like this: A little strange. So I cut open another just to check. Cut across the same axis as before. Same kind of orange from the same box at HEB. The second orange looked like all of the other oranges I’ve eaten this week. Here is a picture of the two oranges next to each other. And some video of the oranges 🙂 Unexpected appearance, and both oranges were tasty.

This morning Joey got up early and cleaned the kitchen.  He also prepped for making breakfast.  We had planned to have scrambled eggs with spinach and sausage yesterday morning, but the universe intervened. Tuesday night while Joey was doing the dishes, we noticed a puddle of water near the sink.  Upon investigation, Joey discovered that the seal between the sink and the drain basket had failed.  It was fairly late, so Joey had to wait until the next morning to get the supplies he needed to finish the repair.  The fix was pretty inexpensive, thanks to the fact that Joey is extremely handy at home repairs!  Also, Joey got to…

Elanor has several toys made of natural rubber from West Paw Designs.  She loves them; she fetches them and chews on them.  Joey and I are fond of them because, despite the fact that Elanor is quite a strong chewer, it takes her a long time to even put a dent in them.  One of her toys is a oddly shaped ball called a ‘huck’.  We sometimes play outside, and the huck was left outside at some point.  It got quite gross.  Sunday after church Joey decided to clean up the huck.  He washed it, but it still had some nasty black stuff on it.  He decided to boil it,…

My personal computer is a mac.  I have had one since 2004.  Joey built me an iMac out of five dead iMacs.  Because my computer was revived from previous incarnations, I decided to name him Fawkes, after the phoenix from the Harry Potter universe. The original body was a bubble iMac G3.  Joey upgraded his computer, Mindy, to a new body in 2007, and Fawkes got upgraded to the 12-inch, G4 Powerbook body.  Only a few months later we realized that the USB 1 port was an untenable way to sync my iPhone, so we upgraded Fawkes body to a G4 mac mini, which had a USB 2 port. Fawkes…

Joey moved Etherlimits to a new host site today.  Some of the pictures for the older posts have not migrated yet, but Joey is working on fixing that situation. He also updated it to the latest version of WordPress.  You may not see much difference in the site, but the tools for posting are updated and much slicker than they were.  Also, there is a WordPress app for the iPhone, which I could not use while we were on the old version of WordPress, but it should work now.  I need to download it and set it up, but hopefully I will be able to post from my iPhone some…

Today is Katy’s fifteenth birthday.  Katy’s adoption papers say that she was born in October 1995.  We never knew the exact date, but when I adopted her, I decided we would mark her birthday on 12 October.  Mainly because 12 October was my Grandma Hope’s birthday, so it seemed like an auspicious date.  Grandma Hope would have been 95 years old today. We considered throwing a big party for Katy, but since her response to big parties is to run off to sleep in my office, we dropped that plan.  Two weeks ago we we bumped into Alexis, our friend who adopted Katy from the shelter, at Pho Saigon while…

[singlepic=2124,320,240,,left]Joey and I both got original iPhones back in the fall of 2007.  At some point mine died, and I replaced it with a 3G.  Joey’s contract came up on his original phone, and he got a 3GS about a year ago. With the most recent software update, my 3G phone began moving at a snails pace, and I was pretty frustrated with it.  Joey, thoughtful and insightful man that he is, got me a new iPhone 4 for my birthday.  I have been having a great time with my new toy, it performs so much better than the old one!  The photos of the Nicoise Salad were actually taken…

[singlepic=2126,320,240,,left]I have a lot of baggage when it comes to packing (pun totally intended – I am an Etheredge after all).  Now normally I am totally willing to shoulder the blame for my crazy behavior, and I am willing to concede that my need for everything to be a certain way has added to the packing issues, but some of this is on my folks. My parents worked amazingly hard to provide Laura and me opportunities to travel in a way that would be fun and educational.  They encouraged us to be curious about new places and experiences.  They demanded that we sample all food that was put in front…

Joey has been working on recovering some files from an old iMac for a client. He also has several other machines in the house that he is working on for other clients. All the usual places for setting up a computer were occupied, so he put the iMac in the living room on the stone bench next to the fireplace. The mouse and keyboard were on the floor. Elanor sticks pretty close to either Joey or me during the day, so naturally she followed Joey into the living room.  She was just chilling out on the floor next to Joey until she noticed the red light that flashed on the…

I haven’t been posting this spring and summer because Joey keeps threatening to upgrade Etherlimits, and I didn’t want to contribute to the amount of work he has to do.  However, he assures me that I can go ahead and post until he is actually ready to do the work, so Etherlimits is back for awhile…

I have strep throat.  It is annoying and painful.  I can still talk, but my voice is coming and going… getting worse as the week goes on. I had a dry cough on Friday evening, which turned into a scratchy throat late Friday night.  I drank some hot tea, used the neti pot, and took vitamin C.  All of which I have been doing for the last several weeks anyway. Saturday I felt like death.  Joey and I had agreed to look after Misty and Bryan’s kids all day Saturday.  They came over early in the morning.  They were fantastic, and entertained themselves, which was great because I was really…

I love to watch cop dramas on TV.  I tend to like shows with a monster-of-the-week format rather than serialized interpersonal relationship driven shows.  Many of you are familiar with my long running love of Law and Order. I have recently begun watching Bones in re-runs on TNT.  Usually I watch during my lunch break, or right after I finish with my work day. Elanor frequently sits next to me while I watch.  She has shown interest in the TV in the past, chasing small objects that bounce across the screen, or looking up when there are dogs barking. Today she saw Cesar Milan for the first time. My dad…

Many years ago, I estimate about 25 years, my Grandma Margaret made me a doll.  Actually she has made me several over the years, but the one I am talking about is a very large doll, about the size of a four year old.  When I got the doll, I was reading Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary.  I named my doll after the character in the book.  Ramona went everywhere with me for quite a long time, and she lived in my room for even longer. When I went off to college Ramona stayed with my mom and dad.  She moved from San Antonio, to Houston, to Austin,…

I have not posted during the past couple of weeks, but I am alive and well!  It took me quite some time to get my feet back under me when I got home from Singapore.  First was the exhaustion of the trip itself, and then I got hit with a stomach bug of some sort. And for the record, no, it was NOT the swine flu!  My co-worker, Albert, actually raises pigs, and he expressed to me his frustration that everyone keeps calling it swine flu, and that people think it is linked to eating pork!  Thank goodness that is not true, or Billy and I would be doomed to…

Last fall I had some free time and it looked like I was going to have access to a slide scanner. I mentioned this to Papa and sent me a few carousels of slides from his collection. And then access to the scanner went on hold. So I’ve had this closet full of slides for a few months and no real plan for dealing with them. I mention this b/c last week I had access to another scanner, picked a carousel at random and got to work digitizing slides. The scanner produced good results. I posted them to Facebook and Flickr earlier tonight. They are restricted to Friends and Family.…

… but not for me.  I realize that is a shocker! Joey does not like to buy things for himself.  It usually takes some convincing and then you have to wait.  After he has processed the idea of spending money on himself for long enough, he will either go buy the thing, or ask me to join him to shop for whatever it is. Joey’s shoes have been in a sad state for several months.  He has his favorite pairs that are all extremely worn out – on their last leg, if you will.  Also, we had been talking for years about getting him a pair of boots. This past…

Joey has been tearing through the household projects lately… He finished all the wiring for the ethernet in the house, and rearranged the access points – there are many small businesses that have less complicated networks that we have!  Cable modem, wireless router, several access points to ensure that the wireless network covers the entire house and back porch, several switches, and ethernet jacks in six rooms. Next he tackled the phone jacks.  When we moved in there was ONE phone jack in the entire house.  Now there are working phone jacks in my office, the guest room, our bedroom, and the kitchen.  Not that there are phones plugged into…

I am really feeling out of sorts.  I was sick at the end of last week, and that put me off my game.  I had not really recovered from the combination of the holidays, house guests, and surprise travel anyway.  I did manage to do my laundry, which is something, but I still feel like my house is a disaster area.  I know many of you think I am crazy, and I realize that the standard that I hold for ‘clean’ is really different than most people.  But that does not diminish the feeling that my house is an unorganized pit with a ton of dog fur on everything. I…

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