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Our TV is connected to the internet now

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Earlier this week we hooked our new Plasma HDTV up to our router using a LAN connector. My laptop computer that was on at the time automatically picked up on the new device.

Cool … now I can do things like watch YouTube videos on the TV instead of my laptop or when I take new pictures and upload them to my computer I can set them up so that I can see them in a slide show on my TV.

I’m loving this!

I still have to explore all of the things I can do now that our TV has an internet connection but it’s kind of neat. It would probably be even cooler if I had Windows 7 on my computer, but it seems to work well enough with Windows XP.

Do you have your HDTV connected to the internet either wirelessly or via a LAN cable like we do? If you do … do you use it to view things on the internet?

I don’t think I could live through a huge home renovation

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I’m watching a show on TV about a contractors point of view on big home renovations. The show goes over a renovation from start to finish.


The episode I’m watching is about a couple that wants to add an addition to their house, expand the house out over their garage and put a pool in their backyard. Big job. Naturally they’re having problems with their neighbors over the trees of all things.

I think if I was going through a reno that big I’d be dipping my face in the best wrinkle cream I could find each night … so stressful! So expensive. Plus whatever estimate a contractor give you at the start of a job always goes up. I’ve heard you should plan for at least a 25% increase … so if you’re getting a renovation done and a contractor estimates that it will cost $100,000 to complete the job be prepared to end up paying out $125,000 or more.

I’m so glad we were able to do most of our own renovations ourselves. Of course when it comes to renovating our kitchen we might have a professional come in and do half the work. We’ll see.

Have you ever gone through a huge renovation .. like tearing half your house down and adding an addition? How long did it take? How much did you age as you worried over things?

Pulling out my hair!

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Ah! I think I’m about to start pulling my hair out!

I was talking about one of my friends on my other blog. She’s dieting and she’s been doing pretty well but she keeps asking me questions wanting all kinds of quick weight loss tips. I’ve helped her out, but it’s getting to be too much.

I’m a nurse so I guess she considers me a good source for health information. I think I am … certainly if I don’t know something I’ll looking it up or ask others for info and then pass it on.

I guess I’m just a little frustrated because I’ve helped as much as I can. She’s frustrated because he weight loss has slowed and she wants to lose at least another 10 lb. I keep giving her advise (that she keeps asking for) but she does the opposite. Grrr.

Sigh ..

Birds on a wire

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I saw something the other day that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before …

I was standing in my kitchen after having just fed our dog. I was waiting for her to finish eating and then I was going to take her outside to do her business. As I waited for her I stood looking out my kitchen window into the backyard.

As I gazed out I noticed two birds on the electrical wires leading to our house. One bird was on the top wire and the other was below it on the second wire. The second bird flew up and looked like it was trying to land on the first birds back. He only did it for a few seconds and then he’d fly down to the second wire for a few more seconds before repeating his move.

It only took me a few seconds of seeing this odd repetitive behavior to realize that the birds were mating. LOL

It certainly didn’t look like a very safe place to mate! I kept thinking that both birds were going to fall off the wire each time the male landed on the females back for a few seconds. Hmm I wonder if they have life insurance quotes for birds? It looked dangerous … but, hey, maybe these birds were thrill seekers.

I guess the male visited the female about 10 times before he flew off into another yard. The female waited around on the electrical wire for a few minutes before she flew off in the opposite direction.

No cuddles for them!

I felt a little bit like a voyeur watching their intimate moments, but hey … they were right out in the open. Have you ever seen birds on a “wire”?

New neighbors coming soon

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It looks like we’re going to have new neighbors soon. Yeah … I hate having an empty house beside us … of course I hated our bad renter neighbors even more.

The couple who bought the house came by earlier this evening. I think it was their first visit since the house officially became theirs. I have no idea when they might move in though – maybe this weekend.

If they’re like us, they’d be smart to keep their current house, apartment or condo for another month and start some renovations before they move in. That’s what we did and it’s amazing how much we got done in one month! We knocked down three walls, tore out all the carpeting and sanded and then put polyurethane down on the wood floors, painted every room of the house, got electrical work done to replace all of the old knob and tube wiring and had some new duct work done.

Wow … I think that’s everything we did .. I might be missing some stuff but that’s the main things we did to our house in a month before we moved in. mostly on our own!

I was rail thin by the time that month was over … oh and we each only took two weeks off so we also worked for the last two weeks of that month.

I had to drag my husband kicking and screaming into our big home renovation. I think he would have rather sat back and taken a enzyte, but in the end he really liked getting his hands dirty and had a feeling of accomplishment at how different our house looked once we were done .. oh and it looked good. It’s all open now instead of having tiny little rooms on the main floor.

Anyway, I have no idea if the new neighbors will renovate or not – but knowing the house they bought as well as I do, I think it would be in their best interest to renovate as the house needs work.

I just hope they’re nice. We have to share a driveway and considering the driveway is only about 10 feet wide our houses are very close together .. so the better we get along the better for all.

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