Went to a concert last night...and it was amazing!

 A little back history:  when i was about 7, the song "Maneater" came out.  It was a HUGE song , HUGE. You couldn't turn on a radio without hearing it. ( Kind of like that recent song Somebody That I Used to Know by Gotye)
Well as a young girl this was my FAVORITE song.   However, in my little mind, it wasn't about a gold digger that went through men, using them left and right.  No, in my mind it was literally about a woman who went out after night and ate men.  Chewed them up. Kind of like a werewolf.   (So you can imagine my disappointment when i saw the video... Oh well).
But from that moment on my love of  HALL AND OATES was born. (yess Hall and Oates. 2014 rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees Hall and Oats...and the #1 selling duo in music history!!!!)

Well last night they were in Charlotte at the Uptown Ampitheater at the NC Music Factory.  A cozy venue with reasonable prices and good seats all around.   The weather was PERFECT! Absolutely perfect. Meant to be,  in my opinion.  Clear skies, very slight breeze, 75 degrees. I could not have ordered a more perfect night. For those of you who have never experienced a perfect Carolina spring evening , put that on your bucket list.  find a way.

Concert was scheduled to start at 730. We dropped kids off at my parents for the night  (Thanks mom and dad!) and headed uptown . Got to the Ampitheater a few minutes after 7 and found our seats. We had never been there before so weren't sure what to expect.  But we both really liked the smaller, cozier venue. all around the left side of the ampitheater were restaurants and a courtyard that could pack extra people in. So not only were there seats and VIP boxes and a large lawn, but there was also that extra room that people could sit out and listen while they ate and drank at the various restaurants.

So here we are pre concert. Taking a selfie (Or an us-sie).


Here are our seats.  Left side row 14.

Quickly the seats started filling up,  and  in front of us we had a couple of middle aged groupie "Woooooo" girls in front of us.  DRUNK middle aged groupie whoooooo girls.  They claim they were 42, but if they were 42 then I am 29. The entire concert kept screaming "darryl!! Over here darryl!  We love you!! wooooooooooooo!!". Dancing the entire time like Bohemian gypsies and running their hands through their hair, like Hall or Oates could actually see them making fools of themselves. once you hit a certain age, it's embarrassing.  But I guess the saying about drinking is true. It makes you think you can dance and makes you think you are the life of the party. but you cant tell them they didnt have a good time!

"Ohhh here she comes, watch out boy she'll chew you up.."

These other band members were awesome.

Hall and Oates came out swinging with MANEATER!  got the crowd revved up. One african american guy, probably in his 40s, was about 3 rows ahead of us.  He was REALLY getting into it. he had it choreographed and everything.  had moves to match the words of the various songs.  I really got a kick out of watching him through the concert. especially when they sang I Cant Go For That (No can do).

M-E-T-H-O-D  O-F   L-O-V-E

They played through all their great songs.: Maneater, Out of Touch, Say It Isnt So, Method of Modern Love, Adult education, She's Gone, Sara smile,  I Cant Go For That (which had a crazy long saxophone/guitar riff that got a little long). They then encored with Rich girl and You Make My Dreams Come True.  They then Double encored with Your Kiss is On My List and Private Eyes.

I cant Go For That! (no Can Do)

Sara Smile.

About an hour and a half of music and these guys werent phoning it in either. They were really playing and singing ...hard. John Oates has a little more petite height, but he is built and he can STILL play crazy awesome on his guitar. It was impressive.  Super impressive.
and darryl...wow, he still has a great voice.
They just really seemed to enjoy playing and singing together and their songs were amazing.  It was one of those concerts where you know every song, and you realize just how BIG their career was and all years they've been together and all those hits! They really do have an impressive resume .

On a completely unrelated note...I think we may have been some of the youngest people there. I dont care.
I loved it, and it was well worth the money. I would go back and see them again.

Loved it. Best part...we were home by 1030!!  Who says you have to stay out all night like teenagers to have fun?? (I just sounded like my mother).

Our very own ending to Charlottes Web...but kind of creepy.

About 2 weeks ago we had a spate of perfect weather. Friday night we built up the first firepit of the season, bought some jumbo marshmallows and sat around, listening to the cicadas, roasting our treats and enjoying the perfect spring climate.

We were all sitting around in camping chairs, my youngest son in the chair that was next to our swing. My dad had come over to join us and was sitting on the swing.  A little before 8 he asked the boys if they wanted to walk him back to his car (He had parked about a mile away and walked over to get some exercise), and that he would maybe take them out for a treat and then bring them home. Of course they heard the word "treat" and immediately said yes.  after all, what 11 and 14 year old kids want to hang out with their parents? (especially parents who told them to quit throwing stuff into the fire. awwww, we're no fun!)

So hubby and I stayed outside, enjoying each others company, when all of the sudden I see Charles look over at the chair and swing and exclaim "Oh...my...goodness!"

I looked over and what we saw was amazing. creepy, definitely, but amazing.

Within 10 minutes of my dad and kids leaving, an unknown spider sac had hatched and all these little spiderlings were making their way into the world.  The chair that my son had been sitting in was a chair we had left outside on the back porch, and when we opened it up and cleaned off the sitting area, we completely overlooked the back. Apparently, a spider had helped herself to the canvas surface and made a large sac for her babies.

The Spider sac. How we missed that is beyond me.

These spiders started creating webs to climb from the sac to the large swing, which was about 2 -3 feet away.

Then then headed up the chain to the top of the swing frame.

Can you imagine how my son and dad would have freaked out if those spiders had done that while they were still sitting in their seats?? I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about it.

You can see all the silks they produced to start climbing up to the swing.

The spiders go marching one by one, hurrah! hurrah!

I had hubby hold up a trash bag to see the spiders a little better. 

Making their way up the swing to the top

Again, you can kind of see the strings and where they are headed to

Headed up the chain

Headed to the top of the swing set to fly away

At the top of the swing set. It was like they all knew to head up to fly away.

It was really kind of amazing watching these new spiders immediately kick into instinct mode and head onward and upward..

Timeline: Within a few minutes of my kids leaving they started hatching, and about an hour later when my dad and kids had come back they were all climbing up the swing chain to the top, most of them were out of the sac, just the stragglers emerging.
 We had tons of them.

They sat atop our swing set and released themselves into the wind.  It was like the ending of Charlottes Web...(Thanks E.B. White.).

["Goodbye! Goodbye!!"
Wilbur was frantic, where are you going children?
..."we are leaving here on the warm updraft, this is our moment for setting forth... we are going out into the world to make webs for ourselves...
but where?
wherever the wind takes us. high. low. near. far. east. west. north. south. we take the breeze, we go as we please...
cries of Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye! came weakly to Wilburs ears...]



It was kind of amazing, yet a little gross at the same time.   Goodbye our little spiders.

Home remodel Project- Wood block prep area

So when our tower of terror came down, we ended up keeping the bottom half of that oven tower for the storage. Luckily the oven had a wood slab under it, so we could use that as a base for our project.

Cut out down to the slab above those drawers, so the wood slab was below our current countertops.

Endcap is holding the mixer and red basket.

Well I knew I wanted something on the end there. Originally I was thinking a huge butcher block prep area that we could use as a cutting board etc.  But in doing some research, we decided that was not the way we wanted to go.  We looked at the hardwood needed to cover that area and the amount of skill and time it would take to make something like that was beyond our limited capabilities.  So we decided to turn it into a wooden countertop type surface. To be used as a prep area, just not used as a direct cutting board surface.

Hubby found some hardwood maple plywood at Home Depot for 40$. It was a huge 4x8, THICK and heavy slab, waaaayyy bigger than what we actually needed, but realized quickly we could use the leftovers for other projects. 

So we had Home Depot do their "first two cuts free", into smaller, more manageable slabs that we could fit into the back of our Kia. (Yes, I go to Home Depot and buy ridiculously large items in a Kia).

After rifling through the entire pile of slabs to choose from, we came home with the prettiest patterned slab.(IMHO)

THE slab 

Cut down to the correct size.

Cut down to correct size.

So step one was complete. We ended up going back to Home Depot and Lowes and found some 2"  pine chair moulding to go around three of the outer edges and a thin piece of basic floor moulding to go on the counter side. The counter side we knew we wanted to cover a little bit of the actual countertop with some sort of lip or edging, because when we took the tower out and cut down, we realized the people who built this house had put in the countertops a little crooked and with gaps. So they used lots of basic moulding as decorative endging to get it to look even etc. There at one time had been a piece of backsplash on the tower to also camouflage these imperfections.  So we used this lip to cover the small crooked gap and now you would never know there was an issue.

Using a miter saw we cut those pieces to fit together. Using Tite Bond and a brad nailer, we put these edges on and clamped them while the adhesive dried. 

Once dried we used some wood putty to fill in any small corner gaps and the brad nail holes.  Did a light sand and used a wood stain to color. Following up with 4 coats of Poly coat and a 3 day waiting period, we were in business.

The great part is the chair railing hangs down just a little bit, so it fits snug and secure on the endcap and won't slide off. We reinforced it using sticky back velcro on the underside, so if we ever want to pull it up and redo, we can easily and don't have to mess with nails or glue or anything like that. This countertop is so secure, it is like we used Gorilla glue!

You can see the two types of moulding we used to create the edging.

You can see the funky grain in the edge moulding, gives it a cool zebra wood type look.

This color is exactly the color of my kitchen table, so it matched perfectly

taaa-daaaa.

How our next project...make a similar slab(with the leftovers) to cover the small cabinet next to the stove.

current cabinet top, we tried making from pine slabs, just to see how difficult it would be.  It was OK for an initial attempt, but now that we know what this plywood can do, we will be switching it out.

STILL TO DO:
Prying off the old brick veneer backsplash
Painting
Backsplash
Changing out Hardware
New hanging light fixtures
new ceiling (ugh the dreaded popcorn needs to come down!)

I feel like I am getting somewhere, but at the same time i feel it will be forever until it is all done.

Random Post- a fire pit

The other night was one of those absolutely perfect evenings. Sitting outside around the fire pit, roasting marshmallows, enjoying the mild climate with the boys. I decided to grab my camera and mess around with some of the settings. You know, the ones I dont know anything about or how to use. Aperture, ISO, F-stop. All that good stuff.  I have the amazing camera and no idea how it works.  So I decided to sit back and play while gazing into the embers and flame. The first two photos here are on Automatic. I just let the camera do what it thought it should do.  Not too bad. but  i wanted to see what I could do with a manual adjustment, where I picked what aperture and what F I put it on and what ISO I chose.

Looks like a horse

another horse

As it got darker I had to start doing a trial and error type thing, to see what each one did.Some of these photos look pretty cool (in my opinion). I snapped a BUNCH, but only a few made the cut.

i THINK i've got it...boy george I think ive got it.  (Sort of. A little more practice)  

Throwback Thursday...1980 and Farrells Ice Cream Parlour Birthday Party

So on Facebook I have been posting various TBT (Throwback Thursday) photos of myself when I was a child...you know, way back in the LAST CENTURY.  When everything was orange...and velour.

This morning as I was sifting through my photos, I came across these two gems:

1980. My birthday.  Im front and center in yellow.

This party was in Columbus Ohio,  at Farrells Ice Cream Parlour. The waiters wore barbershop quartet type outfits, and they would bring you a GIANT bowl with an ice cream sundae in it,  and everyone would get a spoon and dig in. The theory was that you were supposed to scoop it out and have it in your own bowl...but that never happened. Everyone would just take their utensils and go to town from the same communal ice cream sundae.  Oh criminy, can you even imagine doing that now??  I am getting a nervous tick just THINKING about eating after everyone. all those germs and backwash. (Dry heaves commencing in 3...2...1...)

My supremely talented neighbor Margaret Harris (I STILL remember her name) made that Winnie the Pooh cake for me and the girl next to me with the blonde hair and the blue jumper tied at the shoulders was my BFF at the time, and partner in crime, Amy.

At one point Amy and I had matching shag haircuts. yep, that kind of makes us like war buddies in my opinion.

Farrells was my favorite place to go as a kid. I dont think they are still around, except in California.

Such an easy time. I am waxing nostalgic.

Kids these days dont understand, and I dont think they ever will. My childhood was amazing, and my children wont ever have these simple experiences that I did. They dont know what ice cream parlors are, they dont know what it is like to sift through photos..or having to take photos to a lab and have them developed and WAIT for them. They wont know what it is like to have a shag haircut, or bellbottom pants. They wont ever have a chance to play on unsafe playground equipment, or eat communal ice cream with 10 of their friends.  

Sad really.

TBT.  I feel old.

So this happened...painted laminate countertops

The 1970s ugly laminate had to go. But we werent quite ready to invest in the granite just yet. So we decided to try a pinterest idea and paint over the countertops and seal them with a bartop epoxy resin.

So this past weekend we bit the bullet and did it. (Hubby wasnt 100% sold, but I said "Hey if it doesnt work we will be replacing them anyways. This is a trial"  He agreed)

BEFORE:

I decided on a black base. I used Behr Marquee base primer paint, tinted to Off Broadway Black.
I bought a quart of it and painted the entire countertop the base coat.  I waited an hour and recoated. so I had two nice coats.
Here:

After just the base coat hubbs was impressed with the difference.  he liked just the base!

I was tempted to just keep it the dark color.  But wanted to try my hand at the faux technique.

I then took craft paint in 3 various colors: Slate Grey, pearlized white and powder blue and dabbed in random patterns, using small pieces of a natural sea sponge. It looked like a bunch of kitty paw prints all over the countertops, so I then took a cleaning sponge and cut it in half and used the black base and did random squares over that.  Then I took a dry paint roller and rolled everything together, giving it the subtle streaking and flecking I was looking for.

I then did 3 coats of quick drying poly, sanding in between each coat with 220 grit and 400 grit with my random orbital sander, just to seal in the colors and seal the paint.

We then taped up a couple of tarps and used a bar epoxy resin to pour over the countertops.

 We mixed part A into part B for 4 minutes. Then Poured into a clean container and mixed again for another 4 minutes.  (phew)

Pour over surfaces and spread with a squeegee or paint stick or putty scraper. This stuff is self leveling (if the temperature in your house is warm enough). I don't recommend doing this in the winter or in colder temps.  We had the heater on and brought in space heaters just to make sure we had the proper atmosphere while doing this. You have 15 minutes to play, and that's it. Seriously. After 15 minutes this stuff will ripple if you try and mess with it too much. So two hands are better than one if you are doing a larger area.

Its so shiny....

Now walk away.

Walk away for 24 hours. 

Dont touch.  Dont breathe on it. Dont even look at it.

after 24 hours you will be able to tell if you want a second coat or not.

If you are happy with it, then in another day you can start putting stuff back on it, as it will be fully cured.

It will be water resistant, and hard as a rock!

and the Hubbs??  He loves it.

Now next is to get rid of that faux brick veneer!

Then paint.

Then Backsplash.

so much to do so much to do!