How to Avoid Moving Day Battle Fatigue

This is a GREAT list of week by week steps to prepare for a major move without losing your sanity. How to Avoid Moving Day Battle Fatigue

How to Build Nomad Shelves

Nomad shelves are an easy way to add storage for just about any size area. They do not fasten to the wall so they can easily be moved from place to place...which of course is why they are named Nomads. Great for bookcases, food storage, filing boxes or any other storage need. They are easy to make, sturdy, inexpensive and very portable. Here is how to create them:


STEP ONE: Decide what you want your shelves for and where they will go. This sounds very simple, but don't overlook this step. It will determine what supplies you will use as well as which tools will be necessary.

Measure the wall where you will put your shelves to determine the height and length you want. Also measure what you will put on the shelves to decide how far apart they will be . This will tell you how many shelves you will need.

STEP TWO: Select materials

Support beams (2" x 2")
[Two if shelves are 60" or shorter, Three if Longer]
Shelf boards (Length and Width according to your needs)
L shaped Braces (Multiply number of shelves times number of supports = how many braces] Get the biggest ones that will fit on whatever size shelf board you selected.)
Phillips Head Screws (8 x 1 1/4 ) You will need 3 screws for each brace
Optional - Sand Paper, Paint or Varnish

STEP THREE: Gather tools
Power screw driver or drill Saw Horses
Tape Measure Hand Saw
Level Optional - Paint Brush, Electric sander

STEP FOUR: Prepare support beams.

Measure where the shelves will go and then cut 2x2 supports to fit in that space.
(Leave 4 to 6 inches clearance from ceiling).

Optional -If using your shelves as a book case or for storage in living areas you may want to sand support beams and paint or varnish them. THEN....

Measure whatever it is you want to put ON your shelves to determine how far apart the braces should be. (Make sure you leave room for the shelf board when you measure). The shelves should be 1/2 to 1 inch further apart than the tallest book, box or basket. Also, be aware of any electrical outlets, heater registers or other feature along the wall that you will want to make clearance for. Place the first support beam on saw horses and mark with a pencil where you want your braces to go.

STEP FIVE: Attach braces onto support beams
Position the braces on the beam with the short side of the braces against the wood. Drill pilot holes where the screws will go using a drill bit smaller than the screws. Then drill in the screws. (Flat head screws can be used, but phillips head go in much easier).

After all the braces are attached to the first brace, stand it up and check to make sure they are the distances where you want them. Once you have that right, use it as a guide to do the others, lining them up with each other on saw horses.

STEP SIX: Place shelves on your support beams - DO NOT ATTACH. (It really helps to have two people working together on this step. One person holds the vertical support beams in place while the other person slides the shelves onto braces.)

The shelf goes directly against the wall with the support beams on the outside.

If using two beams, place them so that 1/2 the length of the shelf boards will be between them and 1/4 will extend on either side. If using three support beams, place beams an equal distance apart with the length of shelf extending beyond the beams on either side being approximately 1/2 the distance between the supports. Doesn't have to be perfect, but keep them as even as you can.

Continue placing shelves on braces, adjusting the support beams as you go to keep them as straight as possible. When all the shelves are up use a level to check the support beams and make final adjustments. You did it!!! You are now ready to start using your shelves.

The trick to these things is that as MORE weight is put on them the sturdier they get. I've made several sets - some fancy ones I sanded and varnished for bookcases in my home, others I left plain wood for food storage cases in my garage. I've made short ones, tall ones, wide ones, narrow ones. I'm posting this while on the road but later on when I get back home I'll try to dig out some pictures to show what these things look like.

(Basically I'm cleaning out files from a stack of old zip drives I no longer plan to use and figured this is as good a place as any to put some of those resources so I can go back and find when I need them!)

No Glass Ceiling Movie

Cool images, awesome words - good reminders. If you have a few minutes, check out THIS LINK

Six Degrees of Separation

You are probably familiar with the silly social game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. It's based on the small world phenomena, the idea that everybody knows somebody who knows somebody else, and that in this way we are all connected.

Well, I've just learned of an online service that helps promote people's ability to build just those sorts of connections. It's called LinkedIn. You can use this service to make contacts for job searches, to find old classmates, or to simply build alliances with like minded others. According to the website, more people have joined LinkedIn than currently live in Sweden.

I admit to being a bit skeptical about whether or not this service will really pay off in my future job searches. But it is interesting to see how in just one or two layers of connection I can connect to many hundreds of people.

FIND YOUR SPOT!

I just got turned on to a new service that I really like.

It's called FindYourSpot.com You take a brief quiz about your preferences in things like weather, town/city size, access to museums, medical care, churches, sports, outdoor activities and the like. Then it searches the country and comes up with a list of places you would be likely to enjoy living.

Each town that is listed for you shows the population, average home price, precipitation, amount of snow, and has links to job listings in that area.

Is that cool or what??

So I ran through it just to see where it thinks I'd like to be. Interestingly enough, the top two choices it gave me are Wenatchee, WA (where I lived for 5 years and liked it very much) and Walla Walla, WA (a town I also have a very deep affinity for.)

However, I am also offered Palmer, Alaska; St. Helens, Oregon; Hickory, North Carolina; Maryville, Tennessee; Dillon, Montana and a few others.

I'm intrigued. If nothing else, I may have just come up with a list of cool places to visit. And who knows? When my grant-funded job ends a year from now, this may give me a good starting point of where to look for work next.

Large Hearted Boy

I just found a cool website I had been utterly unaware of. I was looking for links to list the last couple books I have finished to my list of Books I've read in 2007 Doing a Google search for Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England led me to Largehearted Boy. The description says: "Largehearted Boy is a music blog featuring daily free and legal music downloads as well as news from the worlds of music, literature, and pop culture." The piece on my book had the author describing the music he was listening to while writing the novel. Interesting .

I'll definitely explore this find some more.

Some of the book links on my list are simple - leading to purchase info at Powell's bookstore or Amazon.com. But usually I like to look for something that offers more, a review or notes about the author. It helps me remember more of the details about the book. I read a lot and then on top of that listen to a good many tales on CD in my car as I commute back and forth to work. After a while they all sort of run together in my head. By looking back at my list and bringing up the links I can bring them back as individual stories that had some impact on me.

Then of course, in addition to all the books I really did read to the end I COULD have a whole other list...the ones I started but never finished. Maybe next year.

STARFALL

On the upside of the sleep over with the boys at Grandma & Grandpa's fancy hotel, Jacob and I got to play with STARFALL going through the entire alphabet doing letter recognition games. It is amazing how hearing a six year old erupt in giggles at the sight of a cartoon hippo or a dancing dinosaur magically lightens my heart.

SHIFT HAPPENS

I simply love this little film.

The Shift Movie

On This Day in History

At the bottom of this blog I have a little widget that gives me a couple cool things I like: the word of the day and "On This Day in History". It's interesting to check out from time to time.

Today it just so happens is the anniversary of the indictment of Julius and Ethel Rosenburg who were later convicted of “conspiracy to commit espionage against the United States” for transmitting classified military secrets to the Soviets. They died in the electric chair.

Julius and Ethel had two young sons who were orphaned when their parents' executions were carried out. HBO aired a documentary about the Rosenburg family legacy called called "Heir to an Execution". I've not seen it, but would like to. I cannot help but wonder what those boys' lives were like.

COLOR

Many thanks to Lei for pointing me to the LINK for the Behr paint selection tool. As I responded to her, I've made WAY too many trips to Home Depot to use this same tool at the store, but had no idea it was available online. Now I can look at the color pallets in the very rooms where I want to change colors and get an idea of how they will appear in THAT lighting.

Am I any closer to making an actual decision of what color to paint? Well, no. Some days I throw my hands up and say I'm just going to leave it the way it is. But EVENTUALLY I'll pick something new.

EONS

I've discovered a new website that I think is a very cool resource. At eons.com you can make a LIFEMAP. This is a visual map of the important events of your life - whatever you define those to be. It could include academic, job, family, trips taken, or anything else that is of significance to you. You can upload photos, write little clips, etc to annotate. Today I spent most of the afernoon and evening on into the night working on this. I put WAY more photos and info on mine than I would ever choose to share publicly. But for my immediate family and friends it's a nifty little record of what I've been doing over the past 50 years. It's rather bizarre to play the slide show of photos and watch myself mature from a wee babe into the person I am today. I have all my elementary school photos from Kindergarten through 8th grade and then an ecclectic collection of snapshots and family portraits.

The cool thing is that the site correlates your personal events with things that were going on in the world at that time. So for every year of my life I can now see where I lived, where I was working, what trips I was taking, etc but also who was president, what music was popular, what scientific breakthroughs were happening, etc. It's facinating to me to see how my own personal history fits into the era that I lived....

Useful Resources

Ask.com
Cleaning Tips
Color Smart
Dictionary & Thesaurus
Employment - Bureau of Labor Statistics
Employment - Web Crawler Indeed.com
Employment - Blog: Occupational Adventure
Google Earth
MapQuest
Zip Code Lookup


RECIPES
DRUMMING
STAINED GLASS
Snopes.Com