LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

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IKEA hack

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Deanne once asked if our kitchen was always clean, and the answer is ‘no’. Our house is always in a state of quasi-messy, and I guess it’s a good thing that we take lots of photos for this site in the kitchen – it shames me into cleaning the counters. Speaking of cleaning, I’ve been thinking that it would make a lot more sense for me to keep my sugar by the coffee maker, since that’s when I use it the most. Having it mounted on a shelf or something would make it easier to clean the countertop….. and then it hit me. Brad gave me a bunch of cool stuff from IKEA a while back, and there were some magnetic canisters I couldn’t find a use for. A drill, a little modification, and here we go!

Make sure the hole is up.
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UPDATE: For use, take it off the fridge:

It would be awkward to tip the whole fridge.

Crayon Boy’s asleep.

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Lloyd was going to post about today’s dress-up day at school (Crayon Day), but he fell asleep around 7 and there’s no guarantee that he’ll post in the morning. So, here’s a place holder.

I need this. I need this like I need air. It speaks to my soul on every level – gadgety-ness, tree-hugger-ness, and weirdness. Please Santa.
Woo-hoo!
It’s a TOILET LID (sold seperately) that puts the water in the sink before it goes in the tank! You flush, you wash.  (It’s clean water, people, so calm down.) I think we should install these in the Center. Those little boys would flush every single time and have super-clean hands.

Revenge of the Nerds

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Homecoming week means dress-up days, and every few years we do nerd day. This, of course, begs the question whether I should wear anything different, but I usually do. four years or so ago Tom Guilford bought a tie for me that has a can holder, pen holder, ID badge holder and some other holder that I have yet to identify, but that works reasonably well for glasses. To that I added about a half dozen devices clipped to my belt and the obligatory pocket protector complete with slide rule. Lauren also supplied some attitude glasses that hadn’t been worn since college.

I'm the one in the center

Naturally, there were some who were confused about the social outcast hierarchy and who dressed as dorks, dweebs, nerds and Klingons.

I swear, I did not stage this.

Take that, Orville.

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I ran out of microwave popcorn bags a while ago. Rats. I really love popcorn. Seriously, I think I have a problem. No day is so bad that a beer and a bag of popcorn can’t erase it from your memory. Anyway, I discovered that I had a jar of actual popcorn that we used this summer in school. Did you know that you can throw a palmful or two in a lunch sack, fold it up tight, and microwave it as-is? Just take it out when the pops start slowing down, just like the other kind. The beauty of this is that I can slather it with butter (a reasonable slather – I’m not crazy), and feel good about putting actual butter in my gut, not some unpronounceable crazy fat. Yum!

Hee hee hee. So cheap.

I’ve used this bag eight times. I’m going for a record.

Get that butter melted!

Beautiful Mess

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Visit your local library!  I had to get some stuff for school, and as I was walking through the library lobby I saw the boxes by the door just chock-full of magazines they had weeded out.  I got a bunch of Martha Stewart ones, an Oprah one, and a Rachel Ray one.  I’m set for my Wealthy Life Coaches collection.  I got them for free!  (If it’s free – it’s me!) The only drawback to these are that somebody has gone through them before and cut out a bunch of stuff, so I can’t get too invested in an article.  It might not end. 

Well, it just so happens that the other night I had a strange hankering for something chocolatey.  In the Rachel Ray magazine there was a recipe for a cup-of-chocolate-death kind of thing.  I decided to try to make it. 

It required two tablespoons of double-strength coffee (done),  one teaspoon of brandy (which I don’t have, so I used wine), three ounces of melted chocolate (but I have the squeezy tubes, so that’s easier), and then knocking the bowl over with your hand while you squeeze out the last tube. 

I think it turned out pretty well, don’t you?

So swirly

Hogwarts for Lutherans

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The signs at McDonalds are not trimmed in oak.

Dang my poor picture-taking skills. Really, dang it. Lloyd mentioned that we visited the seminary, where my brother is the director of development and my father went to school. It’s truly beautiful, and thanks to the generous donations of good people like yourselves (you’re welcome for the plug, Mark), they have made some awesome improvements. The one that made my heart go pitter-pat was the dining hall. No joke – it looked like Hogwarts. It used to have a dropped ceiling but they got rid of that and exposed the vaulted ceiling with the big iron chandeliers and have all kinds of cool seating – big tables, little tables, comfy chairs, a lounge, an internet cafe’ kind of thing – and it looks so dang cool! The joke I used way too much was, “Wanna watch me get punched? (in a louder voice) Boy! This makes me want to be a pastor!” Not funny to anyone else, as are most of my jokes.

Here are my fuzzy pictures that do it no justice.

Can you see the computers in the back?

I showed great restraint and did not check the website from here.