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August 26, 2009

Seen and Heard: It’s Not Lupus

I walk past a bus kiosk every day on my way to work (several actually, but I’m talking about one in particular here) that currently has an ad picturing a woman’s face that says something along the lines of “Swelling. Stiffness. Could it be lupus? I want answers.” Yesterday, someone had stuck a picture of Hugh Laurie, a.k.a. Gregory House, M.D., with the caption “It’s not lupus” to the kiosk.

I think anyone that has seen House more than once would find this amusing because there are a few things that happen on pretty much every single episode, without fail:

Someone with a mystery illness gets foisted on House and his team (Can’t really complain here. The main premise of the show is House is an expert in difficult diagnoses).
The sick person vomits blood, has a seizure, or both, depending on what season of the show it is.
One or more doctors on the team break into the patient’s home to check for possible toxins. If it’s Cameron and Chase, they have sex in the patient’s home.
House wants to do some crazy dangerous treatment, but the hospital administrator says no. He gives her a hard time about it, usually alluding to a personal problem, and she gives in. The treatment makes the patient worse.
Someone suggests the patient might have lupus and House says, “It’s not lupus.”

I had every intention of snapping a photo today, but unfortunately, it has been removed.

July 28, 2009August 10, 2009

The Blind Leading the Blinds

When we moved in, there were no blinds installed in the dining room or living room. There were decorative draperies, but nothing that you could really shut to keep the sun out or prevent the neighbors from looking in and seeing you running around naked. The seller did, however, leave several sets of blinds behind in a closet, which she said were for the living room, dining room, and garage. She urged us not to install them, though, so that all that beautiful sunlight could shine in. That sun isn’t so beautiful when it’s 103 degrees outside and the sun is beating in.

blindinstallbefore

I think in response to several extremely hot days, Steve decided he was going to hang the blinds. Obstacle #1: There are two large windows in the dining room, two large windows and two small windows in the living room, and two large windows in the garage. There are only four sets of blinds. Easily overcome. We don’t really need the blinds in the garage right now, so we’ll just use them on the large windows in the dining room and living room (as they are clearly too large for the small windows).

Obstacle #2: The blinds were not all the same size, as were the windows in the living room and dining room where the blinds were to be installed. Although all the blinds were the same width, two of them were about a foot too short for the windows. Steve scavenged the house to see if maybe some other rooms with a same width windows had blinds that were way too long. He did find one. That’s right, just one. So after he switched the too long blinds for the shorter ones in the closet, we were left with three sets of right sized blinds and one too short, with no window anywhere in the house that would accommodate it.

So we installed blinds in three of the four windows and put the last set back in the closet, for the moment. The installation was incredibly easy. Steve measured and marked for bracket placement. Each bracket had four screws, for which Steve pre-drilled the holes. He used a dremel to fit better into those tight spaces than a big power drill. Once the brackets are installed, all you have to do is slide in the blinds and clip the bracket shut.

blindinstallafter

We’ve been very happy with the blinds so far. They help a great deal to control the temperature inside the house on hot days. We’ll be shopping for that last large set and too small sets of blinds soon.

June 15, 2009

Painting? There’s an App for That

The San Jose Mercury News published a tidbit explaining yet another of the iPhone myriad capabilities (can you blame them since the headquarters of Apple, Inc. is located in the heart of its service area?).

Think those peonies in your neighbor’s yard are the perfect color for your bedroom walls? As the iPhone commercials would say, there’s an app for that. At least two, in fact. Benjamin Moore and Sherwin-Williams have both introduced free iPhone applications that let you shoot a photo and then match a color in the picture to a paint hue. Both also suggest coordinating colors and can even guide the user to the nearest retailer.

Pretty cool. I don’t have an iPhone, though, so I guess I’ll have to pick paint the old-fashioned way — old-fashioned meaning with online tools paint companies have on their websites to help you find coordinating colors and visualize your space.

June 9, 2009June 10, 2009

Pet Peeves

You know what I hate? Following a link and getting trapped because the writer has added HTML that won’t let you leave the site via the back button. I mean, do you think your content is so bad that the only way people will stay is if you won’t let them navigate away? Isn’t the way to fix that really better content? Rest assured, if you don’t like what you see here, or if you just happen to finish whatever browsing you planned to do, you are free to back out.

That is all.

June 9, 2009June 10, 2009

How Flexible is a FSA?

I purchased a bottle of mineral oil at Walgreens to condition the beautiful end grain cutting board we received as a wedding present (thanks Jen & Emory!). I noticed the tell-tale “F” next to the item on my receipt — the item is eligible for reimbursement under my Flexible Spending Account (“FSA”).

I never estimate correctly, and I am always buying tons of FSA-eligible products at the end of the year to spend down my account. If I could buy products I need for around that house, that would be hugely helpful! So I googled mineral oil to see what else I could use it for. Turns out baby oil is just mineral oil with fragrance added, so anything you do with baby oil you can do with mineral oil. It can be used to remove make-up, to treat soapstone countertops, to age clay pots, to remove sticky residue left from price tags or other adhesives, as a solvent for oil painting, and one writer I found even used it to clean and condition his kitchen cabinets.

Then I got to wondering, what other FSA-eligible products might have other household uses? I think I heard hydrogen peroxide can be used to brighten tile grout, so I looked this one up too. Turns out good old H2O2 can whiten your white laundry, sanitize kitchen surfaces, kill bathroom germs, remove pesticides from fruits and veggies, or be used as plant spray. And it seemed like there were many more options.

Any other amazing alternative uses for FSA-eligible products?

**Note that I haven’t tested any of the above ideas for safety or efficacy. This post is just meant as “food for thought.”

April 24, 2009June 10, 2009

Dry Cleaners: Godsend or Good for Nothing?

My job frequently requires that I wear a suit, and even when I get to go “business casual,” the tags in my clothes often say “dry clean only.” I have struggled to find a good dry cleaner, without success. I’ve primarily waffled between two dry cleaners, one near my former home and one located on the street level of my office building in the city. The former occassionally shrunk my clothes, but the people are friendly and always remembered me, and the latter is ridiculously expensive, no doubt due to its prime location.

Now that I’ve relocated, I’ve yet to find a close-to-home option, so when I had a few items to dry clean this morning, I went to the city cleaner. I don’t usually scrutinize the bill, but today I noticed that they charged me over a dollar more for a sweater than the posted price. Of course, being the frugal person that I am, I inquired. “It has silk in it, there’s an extra charge,” she replied. Of course it has silk in it! The reason my dry clean only sweaters can’t be washed at home is because they contain some delicate material, like silk or cashmere. So the takeaway is, the listed prices are only for pieces you could wash at home; if it’s dry clean only, it’s going to cost extra.

Then, of course, there’s the infamous extra charge for a woman’s shirt. It drives me crazy that cleaners advertise $2 to wash a shirt, but charge me $6 because it’s a ladies shirt. Something about it being harder to press because of the darts. For that kind of premium, I’ll wash and press my shirts myself.

April 15, 2009June 10, 2009

Pretty Blue Vases . . . That I Can’t Buy

I was at Crate & Barrel yesterday evening picking up some flatware from our wedding registry that was back ordered, and these vases caught my eye:

They are translucent colored glass, and the good people at C&B were smart enough to position them next to some lights that showed through and made the glass sparkle. I think they would look great in a room with lots of light, maybe a sun porch, or on a window sill.

We are officially moving in to the House this weekend, so it is not the best time to buy new things. No need to buy it now and then have to pack it and risk breakage! Plus, since we are not settled in yet, we have not made any real decisions as to how we are going to decorate, so I’m not sure where these would fit in. But they are pretty, and seem to be fairly reasonably priced, for Crate & Barrel. I will keep and eye on them and see if they go on sale, and maybe will splurge if it turns out they are the perfect accessory for one of our rooms.

April 14, 2009June 10, 2009

You Catch More Flies

Moving presents a number of logistical issues, whether you own or rent. For example, you have to set up accounts with utilities and other service providers. Steve and I split this up. I handled PG&E, water, and trash collection; he handled phone, cable, and internet.

Steve called me this afternoon furious about the cable situation. Apparently, Comcast informed him that he would not be able to initiate service for a little over two weeks because the prior customer’s cut-off date was a little over two weeks out, and they cannot serve two customers simultaneously at the same address. My first reaction? “Woohoo! Two weeks of free cable, courtesy of Seller!” He was not so positive about the situation. Seller was, shall we say, frugal, and had only the least expensive basic cable package. In other words, no Speed Channel.

Steve proceeded to explain how he had argued with the customer service rep, gotten nowhere, and eventually hung up on her. I reminded him that two weeks without the Speed Channel was not the end of the world, and called Comcast as soon as I got off the phone with him. I calmly explained the dilema to the customer service agent, and emphasized that I would be very grateful for anything she could do to speed up the process. Thirty seconds later, we had an appointment for cable installation on the exact date Steve originally wanted.

The moral of the story is: be nice to customer service people, if not just for the sake of being nice, then because it will go a lot farther toward getting your problem fixed. Also, learn to accept your husband’s need for Speed.