Why I Oughta...

I've posted a couple of things in my annual [Christmas Haul] series already - both of which were faux bois.  A small faux bois plant stand .  And a faux bois cache pot.    But, I also upgraded my garden tools via a Christmas gift of these small hand pruning snips.  They are light-weight, have a safety lock and finger grip.  And come with a small, leather holster.  These snips fit in my tool set below my secateurs/pruners and are something that I've been looking to use when it comes to arranging flowers.  The pruners that I use are too much to remove thorns from roses or snipping off flower stems from delicate perennials.   I like the sheath/holster as it helps me keep from LOSING them. If I set them down, there's more visually - to see with the holster.  I've kept my Niwaki pruners in their holster and that's been helpful in me keeping tabs on them.

Yesterday,  I posted a photo of my first faux bois piece; a plant stand . Today, I'm showing my second;  a Faux Bois cache pot: This one is decorative, too, as it doesn't have a drainage hole.  The pot that I have stuck inside this isn't the right fit as it is a bit too tall and shows far too much interior container.   Seems like I have two choices:  keep it as a cache pot, or take the plunge and try to drill a hole in the bottom.  I've watched a bunch of videos on YouTube about 'how to drill a hole in bottom of a pot' and I still lack the confidence to actually give it a try.  A tile/glass drill bit seems to do the trick along with some moxie and... a little help via the Rehbinder effect .  

I'd say that the first time that I read the phrase "faux bois" was probably twenty years ago in and it was in a Martha Stewart magazine or on her blog.  I've thought about the idea of faux bois planters and what-have-you ever since.  But, thanks to Nat's Mom, I now have a pair of handsome faux bois pieces.  The first of which - this plant stand/pedestal - is pictured below. It is small, but works perfectly to elevate a pot when situated amongst a series of containers.

It took close to ten years, but I finally am the owner of a pair of gloves that I've been wanting to use in the garden.  All the way back in September of 2013, Neil Steinberg posted a love-letter to a pair of Chicago-manufactured gloves and I have wanted them ever-since.  At that time, the gloves were made by a a company called J. Edwards who sold the gloves only to distributors.  But, at some point, they were either acquired or merged with the Kunz Glove Company who (as of 2022) ran an ecommerce storefront or sold them to folks who sell one pair at a time like here .  You're probably thinking:  dude...just go buy some gloves from the orange Big Box store.  I'm sure they'd be fine, but if you go back and read the post from Neil Steinberg , you might come to the same conclusion that I have:  these are special.   So, these gloves are now mine- my Christmas gift from Nat.  And, I can't wait to use them in the garden.  See below for th...

This isn't part of *my* Christmas Haul (like the padded espalier training wire from last week), but I still wanted to post a photo of this gift that was received in our house by the Bird.  One of the things that we've done over the past year-plus is to watch ALL of the Marvel MCU movies as a family.  As part of that experience, some of the characters in the MCU have become family favorites. One of those is Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy.  The Bird (now) has some Groot shirts and even a little magnet shoulder-sitting Groot that she'll wear around .   But, when I think about all of the kids, the one that has the MOST interest in nature and plants and gardening (with me) is the Bird.  So, I'm thinking that is part of the draw to Groot:  he's organic and is plant-based.    For Christmas, we came across this set of Groot planters on Etsy and knew that she'd love them.  There are four in the total set, but you can buy just one. Note: the...

I've done these ' Christmas Haul ' posts over the years where I show off some of the gifts that I have received from family and friends at the holidays.  In 2011, I posted a couple of Beatles magnets that I received .  In 2018, I posted a photo of a bird seed bell .  For 2019, Nat's folks gave me a heated bird bath for the backyard .  Last year, I received a gift that sat RIGHT at the intersection of two of my loves:  Disney pins and jigsaw puzzles .  And, I also put a new pair of chainsaw protection gloves to work in the Spring.   This year, I received some fun gifts from Nat and the kids and as part of a family gift exchange, Nat's brother gifted me a few things for the yard.  I mean...what else would I want, right? The first thing they gave me is here, below.  A double pack of Rapiclip Soft Wire Tie (Light Duty) espalier training (padded) wire.  Each of the spools is 16 feet long.   I've posted about this padded traini...

Back at Christmas, I received a new, battery-powered chainsaw.  My first chainsaw.  (Is that a thing?) I'm a total newb with a chainsaw and, frankly, pretty hesitant with it that I haven't even taken it out to use it just yet.  I need to, but I'm playing it safe.  To that end, one of the things that I've added to my program are these gloves.   Will they keep my fingers from being lop'd off?  I'm not sure.  Can they hurt?  Not a chance. 

 What happens when you do a couple of puzzles and your family notices?  And it is right before Christmas?  Well...that means you get MORE PUZZLES.  MOARPUZZLES.  This one, though, (as the kids say...) slaps .  <insert how do you do fellow kids meme> But...seriously....I am going to REALLY insert it here below. Why? Because, I read somewhere that if you start saying things that your kids have started to say, they'll start to think it is very UNCOOL.  So, I'm getting ahead of things with my kids and the phrase 'this one slaps'.   Well...back to the puzzle.  This scratches me right where I itch:  it is a Disney Parks pins puzzle.  Imagine laying down hundreds of Disney Parks pins and taking a photo of them.  That's EXACTLY what this 750 piece puzzle is.  See below for my photo of the box: You can find it on Amazon (non-affiliate link here, people), but go to your local toy store and ask them.  It is 18" tall....

In November of 2017 - as we approached our first Winter in our new house - I posted a photo of our heated bird bath being placed in the yard near our feeders .  At that time, I kept the feeders a little bit closer to the house.  That bird bath was originally from our old house in Elmhurst and it was a 'deck-mounted' heated bird bath.  So that meant that when I used it in Downers, I had to place it on a little table.  It didn't have a pedestal.    For Christmas that year, I was gifted a Water Wiggler to keep the water moving .   The bird bath was one of the key pieces that we needed in order to meet the criteria of being a Certified Wildlife Habitat from the National Wildlife Federation (the other criteria include three kinds of food, two types of cover/shelter and places to raise young).   The first year, I didn't see much action in the bath.   But, during the Winter of 2018/2019, we placed the heated bird bath ou...

I've chronicled my experience with LIFX bulbs before here on the blog.  Here's my post from February of last year showing the bulb and how we were using it .  The LIFX bulbs are great.  They have tons of different colors, plenty of scheduling, integration with Nest and Google Home.  But they're pricey.  Still.  After being on the market for a number of years, they're still about $49.00 per bulb . These GE C-Life bulbs are cheaper.  Much cheaper.  If you can find them on sale, you can get a pair of them for $15.  $7.50 per bulb is very affordable.  But with that lower cost comes some trade-offs.   First, there's no color.  They're just normal light bulbs.  Second, it appears that they're running off bluetooth, so they have to be *close* to a Google Home.  Welp, for us, that's not a problem, because we have these Google Homes, Google Home Minis and Google Home what-have-yous in various places around our hous...

As I do every January (at least lately), I've been documenting the good/bad/cool/useful things that were gifted me via a series of "Christmas Haul" posts.  These are in the spirit of "Haul Videos" that are still all the rage on YouTube.  Unfortunately, I'm neither a YouTube Star nor do I get paid to promote things.  So, these are genuinely all things that people gave me. But, this one, technically, isn't.  Meaning...no one gave me this. Rather, it came as part of a family grab-bag thing.  You know the type of grab-bag.  You all put in wrapped gifts.  Pick numbers.  Go around and 'steal' things you like.  There's a certain number of 'steals' that any one item can receive before it is out of play.  We do this a few different times and it is both fun and a cost-effective way to gift a large family. So...this is part of my 'haul' but it was something that was pulled from the pile in a grab bag.  A draft guard that you can s...

Three years ago, I bragged on this very blog about how O'Keeffe's Working Hands Hand Cream had changed my life and cured my dry, cracked hands and kept them from bleeding each Winter season.  Ever since, I've been using the jar version (or 'pucks' as I call them) of this hand cream almost every day from Labor Day until about my birthday.  I keep a puck at the office on my desk and a puck on my desk at home. If I stay on top of things, my hands don't get too terribly chapped and they've mostly stopped from cracking at the tips. This year, my Mother-in-Law gifted me some O'Keeffe's Working Hands, but this time it wasn't in the puck or jar. It was in this tube that you see above.  And despite the ingredients being slightly different between the two (it appears that the tube version has one or two more ingredients??), it is working just as well. Consider this the next post in my Christmas Haul that continues here on the blog.  Christmas H...

This was a gift from a friend at work. And, as Nat pointed out:  "she knows me". Why is the carpet all wet, Todd?

One of my teammates gifted me this bar of pizza soap.  Two things I like about this: 1.  It is soap that smells like pizza. 2.  It is bar soap. That is all.

I was gifted two of these seven-packs of clicker pens for Christmas and they immediately went into my work bag to head to the Aon Center.  Erasable - yes.  Refillable? I guess so.  But who's refilling pens? 

Thanks to my brother-in-law, I've now stuck my toe into the Sortimo universe with my first T-boxx for storage of fasteners and other small parts.  My interest in them came about due to a confluence of events:  the whole [contractors of instagram] thing that is happening with all those guys in love with their Festool systems and says along with this video showing Adam Savage's shop and the glory of his Sortimo setup. I started with a sorting container, but they make entire systems both for mobile uses (in vans) but also shops and include sorting containers but also tool containers.  I think the next step in my plans for Sortimo is likely the  WorkMo 24-500 T-BOXX Ready rack that holds up to 4 T-BOXXes. Here's the handle on the T-BOXXes with the Sortimo branding: This leads me down a path towards carrying an inventory of fasteners in my shop - now that I have a good place to keep them.  I'll likely start with a screw and bolt/washer/nut inventory ...

My father-in-law gifted me this Sears Craftsman 8-function Multimeter for Christmas and I've just gotten around to unboxing it and finding it's permanent home in my shop.  I wasn't quite sure what to do with a multimeter (or multi-meter as it is sometimes spelled), but Nat's Dad also sent along with CNET piece that explains all that this tool can do .   Here's the list: 1.  Test batteries 2.  Check extension cords 3.  Determine the life of lightbulbs 4.  Identify the 'hot' wire 5.  Find bad switches So...turns out, it wasn't all bird stuff at Christmas this year, right?!?

I've had one of these Rockwell Sonicrafters for a number of years and I've found it pretty useful from time-to-time.  It isn't something that I pull out every time I tackle a project, but have been a specific set of applications that required *just* this tool.  This year at Christmas, I was upgraded to the new version of the F80 that has 4.2 Amps and comes with this nifty hard-sided case.  My original one came in a cloth carrying bag and I pushed it to it's max, so this upgraded version is a welcome addition to my shop lineup. You might be wondering...what do you do with an oscillating tool?  Welp, the fine folks at Rockwell have created this handy list of 10 things you can do with a Sonicrafter . The F80 comes with a nice light to shine on your project and has two 'degrees' - meaning one setting is a narrow oscillation and the other is a wider oscillation.  Also, note... this is a corded tool.  But, it is a 10 foot cord, so you get some pretty goo...

One of my nephews gave this to me for Christmas and it has been sitting on my desk ever since.  It is a 'pen rest', but that's not the cool part.  First, he made it!  Yeah...like he made it in shop class in school.  I'm thinking it was some sort of computer-driven machining tool?  He programmed in my name and (most importantly) the Illini shield - which I'm over the moon for - and then stained it all by himself. Kinda awesome, right?  Especially because he's just a 12 year old.

One of the gifts that one of my sisters gave me were these Lord Nut White Cheddar and Jalapeno peanuts.  You can find out more about them here on the "Who is Lord Nut?" site (which is cute, right?) I cracked open this can one day over break in the car and it never left the van.  We scarfed them down quick. If you come across some Lord Nuts at a party, plant yourself near that bowl .  Don't mingle.  Just stay there and horde them to yourself.  Get a tall frosty beverage to wash them down, but trust me....don't mingle.   Just plant yourself .