Archive for "Projects"
My First Time
Posted on August 3, 2013 by Ching under Projects.
I did a presentation to a bunch of strangers (by strangers I mean people who are outside of our organization) for the first time via webinar. I hadn’t done that before. Thankfully my topic was something I was very familiar with — our quality assurance program at work (my area of responsibility).
Apparently I did a good job because I got this message from one of the First Quartile folks later that day. My work stresses me out sometimes, but it also makes me feel good. Compliments are always nice.
Last week was pretty much “presentation week” for me because the day before the First Quartile Community Insights Conference webinar I had to present at our Customer Care Quarterly Management Meeting also. Presentations are not my strength so I was pretty stressed about it, as you can imagine. So stressed that Brian and I found ourselves at the Nifty Nut House over our lunch break later that week.
While there I decided to get some treats for my team.
They all got little bags of chocolate rocks because they’re rock stars. Yeah, I’m nerdy like that. Have you ever had the chocolate rocks at Nifty Nut House? They’re yummy!
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Our Moonshine Oil Lamp
Posted on July 5, 2013 by Ching under Projects.
I saw this video on YouTube and Brian saw some how-tos on Pinterest for how to turn wine bottles into oil lamps so we decided to start collecting all of our used wine bottles. We have at least a dozen of them now.
One of the cooler used bottles in our collection was our bottle of Midnight Moon moonshine. Thanks to Jay for bringing it over to one of our parties.
We couldn’t find the exact materials that we need but we improvised. We purchase two copper reducers and inserted the smaller into the larger one to create a neck for the wick. Brian used teflon tape to ensure that there is a snug fit between our bottle and the neck that holds the wick. We bought a big jug of citronella tiki torch fuel for our oil. And, voila! We have our moonshine oil lamp.
Brian is going to get some more materials today so that we can convert our empty Grand Marnier bottle into another oil lamp. I think it will look really cool.
What do you think?
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Christmas Tree Envy
Posted on November 17, 2012 by Ching under Projects, Things to Do, Travel.
The Christmas tree at the Manhattan Hilton Garden Inn gave a serious case of tree envy. It looked like it was easily over twenty feet and there wasn’t an unadorned inch.
The tree that I’d been working on at home looked completely naked by comparison. I was tempted to go to Michael’s this morning to pick up some more ornaments. LOL.
Speaking of Christmas decorations, Brian and I were inspired by this wine-themed Christmas tree that we saw at Von Maur today. We’re totally doing one next year!
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Productive Saturday
Posted on September 30, 2012 by Ching under Home Ownership, Projects.
We had a productive day yesterday. Then again, days are likely to go better when you start out with mimosas. Too bad we can’t do this everyday. LOL.
We like to use Korbel Sweet Rosé in our mimosas for three reasons: it’s sweet, it gives the mimosas a pretty pinkish tint, and, best of all, it’s cheap.
For breakfast we had rice, sausage patties, eggs, mimosas, and Saturday morning cartoons — a winning combination. And, by the way, it was the season premiere of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
I went to teach my Zumba class that morning, which only consisted of two other people besides me yesterday because there was so much going on. There were several fund raising events like Race for the Cure and Dancing for Sonya, just to name a couple. Lucky for me, Jenni was one of the two people who came so she drove me home. Since Brian didn’t have to come back and pick me up, he managed to get a head start on the garage clean up.
Although, I can never leave this guy unsupervised. He managed to break the high-pressure washer that dad loaned us. When he told me what happened, I urged him to call dad immediately and tell him what happened. My thought was that surely, this has happened to dad and he knows how to make it work again. But, in the back of my mind, I’m also thinking, “They’re never going to loan us anything ever again.” LOL.
I was like, “Great. Now we’re going to have to buy him a new high-pressure washer for Christmas.” So much for getting off cheaply this holiday season.
Anyway, Brian told me that dad said he had a feeling it might have been broken when he loaned it to us because it was leaking some oil. I was like, “Nice. And he didn’t bother to warn us about it maybe going tits up on us? What a jerk!” Bwa ha ha ha ha! Just kidding, dad! You know I love you.
The garage looks so much better now that almost everything has been sorted and organized. I say “almost” because Brian still has a couple of large plastic storage containers of stuff that he needs to go through. We had one plastic tub full when we moved from the old house to the townhouse and it never got sorted or looked at. We had to move the same plastic tub, in the same condition, from the townhouse to the new house and now we have another full plastic container in the same situation. I told him, I’m going to nag him every few months until we go through the stuff and sort what we need to keep from what we need to toss. I’ll be darned if I’m moving those storage containers again the next time we move. Blech.
On a brighter note, I’m really glad that we finally got around to organizing the garage because now we can park the truck inside too. We should have done this a long time ago because, as you can see, the Flip and Ching mobile suffered extensive hail damage due to our negligence and laziness. Okay, we’re not really negligent or lazy, we are just really busy people. Either way, sorry Crichton!
The garage is looking pretty good, though. I’m happy with how it turned out. Even though, Brian is yet to get some Versatrack to hang the bikes and the tools and free up some more garage floor space for us (for my future Zumba studio – he he).
We did so well yesterday that Brian even had time for a brief nap before we went to Old Town Square for Zumba. Of course, he was rewarded with yummy Caffe Moderne after. He is such a fantastic husband! Oh, and a really good looking one (according to Nick, who didn’t realize that Brian is almost 40 — he really thought Brian’s only in his late twenties). I am one lucky woman!
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T-Shirt Destruction Party
Posted on April 22, 2012 by Ching under Events, Projects.
Only a handful of people attended our first-ever t-shirt destruction party last weekend. (I blame the weather.) Those of us who came had a lot of fun, though. And even though, we only had three hours to unleash our creativity, most of us were quite productive. Gina Ann brought her vast collection of destroyed shirts and tanks for inspiration. She also went around and helped everyone get started or helped them when they were stuck.
I helped Lori create with her shirt, and made a workout tank for Justin and a halter for Karla. I think I also ended up making a couple of shirts for myself. Except, I was using some old volunteer shirts we had that no longer fit and they’re not quite as stretchy as the $4 shirts that you get at Michael’s. My advice would be to pick some stretchy shirts (jersey material works) from Goodwill or the DAV. You can probably get half a dozen shirts for $5. This way, you won’t feel so bad if you mess up. I wasn’t worried about the shirts I was cutting up because they were all freebies that either no longer fit or we weren’t wearing anyway. I’m not quite confident enough in my t-shirt destruction skills to cut up one of my Zumba stuff. LOL. I’ll get there eventually, though.
We’d been talking about having a t-shirt destruction party for quite some time now. I’m glad we finally had it because it was so much fun. I just wish Mother Nature would have cooperated a little bit. She’s kind of temperamental of late. Maybe we’ll do this again toward the end of summer or early fall. What do you guys think?
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