AngieK's Profile

Good all Doc Bronner's. All one--all one--all one!

We have used a push mower for our yards for the past 10 years. The last place we lived had a miniscule lawn (like maybe 400 sf, really!) and it took about 5 minutes to cut it. Clearly not worth the noise and effort of a gas or electric mower. Now we've got maybe 2000 sf of lawn and it takes on the order of 20 minutes. Yep, gotta watch out for those twigs.

This spring our mower clearly needed a little help--wasn't cutting so well anymore. I inquired locally about finding someone to adjust and sharpen it, with no luck. Someone steered me to some web pages with do-it-yourself instructions (google "sharpen push mower" and you'll find 'em too) and I did it myself, no problem, in about half an hour. Would have taken less if I'd known where all the screwdrivers were at the outset!

You don't have to buy a kit or any expensive "sharpening compound" from online suppliers. My local big-box hardware stores didn't carry this stuff, but I found it at my local auto parts store, sold as "valve grinding compound". $14 for two pots that will last me til the end of my lawnmowing days.

A little adjustment, a little sharpening, and my little lawn is looking great. Don't be afraid to DIY!

Sadly, it doesn't look like they're retractable, but from the looks of the innards they are adjustable. There's a little spindle where you can wind up the extra cord to make it shorter if needed, which is hidden by the end caps.

Better hope it's edible, then, because if it smells like food, kids are going to put it in their mouths.

There's a reason scented crayons smell like "leather jacket" or "talcum powder" instead of "grape" and "cherry"...

Have you ever seen those classic Chemex coffemakers? Definitely a little lab style for your kitchen in the morning.

As a chem prof, I love the aesthetics of glassware, too. But I also feel duty-bound to point out that, if you ever plan to put food or drinks into lab glassware, make sure that you get it new and unused. You never know what's been in used glassware, and you can never be 100% certain that all the nasties have been cleaned out. Better safe than sorry.

I just did a few calculations about this stuff. The screen size is the measurement of the diagonal, and so square screen size isn't directly comparable to rectangular (16:9) screen size.

A 25" square screen would be 18 inches on the horizontal and vertical. A rectangular screen that was 18 inches high (that is, the same height) would be 32 inches wide, and have a diagonal of 36". That's a big TV already!

Love those pictures!

I have to disagree with ehy2k's comment. My husband and I have done very well with buying properties that were neglected and quite ugly, but with great potential for being beautiful with some work.

Fortunately we work very well together and rather enjoy the DIY thing. We also have a great tolerance for delayed gratification, so we do projects as we're able to afford them.
I will also add that our bank account is far from bottomless! In fact, we focused on fixer-uppers because we don't have particularly deep pockets. Doing our own cleaning/painting/flooring/refinishing/repairing/etc etc etc has saved us a lot of money in labor costs. And there's great gratification in being able to say, "I did that".

This isn't in NYC, however, and the prices and physical scale of weren't even close to the order of magnitude of the projects in that slideshow!

My friend, this is why God created day cares.

Good grief. Talk about overkill.

For less than 0.5% of that price you could build yourself a cold frame with PVC pipe and 3 mil plastic to cover your strawberries, asparagus, spring bulbs, and hardy annuals. For even half of that price you could buy a bolt of Reemay or other "floating row cover" that does the same thing by acting like a water-permeable blanket over your plants. Or you could go really nuts and spend 0.75% of that price and get a fancier-looking manufactured cold frame, or go totally Martha and buy yourself some froofy-looking cloches. For more intense indeavors, sizeable hobby greenhouses (say 6 x 8 feet) start at a few hundred dollars and go from there. Nearly $10K is just ridiculous.

I'm deeply skeptical of the claim that the soil beneath a greenhouse becomes "poisonous"--though I do agree there are good reasons to rotate crops or move a row cover/cold frame/hot house through the season or from year to year. Row covers and cloches are portable, and there are even lightweight greenhouse models that pop up, or are supported sort of like camping tents, that can be moved from place to place through the season.

Google "cold frame", "floating row cover", "pop-up greenhouse", or any other similar terms to see much more affordable options that do all of the above for much less dough.

Joan, I'm sure you're right about neighborhoods that people already know well. (Although the listings in my neighborhood turned up a few places I didn't know about yet and will probably check out--even though we've been here 9 years.)

This seems like a great tool to use if you're considering moving, or if you're trying to figure out which hotel to stay at on vacation in an unfamiliar city.