Why I Oughta...

For Easter, I decided to take on a craft project from Martha Stewart that seemed kind of manly.  I chose to make these Faux Chocolate Easter Bunnies .  I ended up making four of them: three as gifts and one to keep for ourselves.  I believe Ms. Martha herself makes different chocolate bunnies each year, so perhaps this will become a tradition.  I suppose I'm only limited by the number of molds I can find. Martha Stewart's Faux-Chocolate Bunnies Tools Required: Easter bunny chocolate molds Binder clips Clothespins Scissors Bucket Bamboo skewer or other long, slender stick File, sandpaper, and/or Dremel tool with a sanding attachment Durham's water putty Drill with paint mixer attachment, or paint mixing stick White primer paint Brown paint (Martha used liquid acrylic -- a mix of burnt sienna, burnt umber, and white) Clear satin topcoat Paint in a variety of colors for details Ribbon and flowers for embellishing This year, I bought a mold at KHL Molds - p

Here's to the only guy I know who still has a Birthday Party at his parents house in the suburbs - my good friend Jason.  I've know Jason for the better than 25 years and he's a pretty a pretty amazing guy.  From his critter days to lots of laughs along the way, I'm proud to call him a friend.  Happy Birthday, Jason!  BTW...Look who got in there right next to the cake (on the right):  the Babe with her Noonie (My mom).  She looks mesmerized by the candles, doesn't she?  (it was past her bedtime, so that may be the reason.) Although the weather didn't cooperate and there wasn't any Jarts, Whiffle ball nor beanbags, there was a lot of fun.  Thanks for having us, Balone.  Can't wait until next year.

It took me at least five minutes to figure out what was going on with the print edition of the Chicago Tribune this morning.  I saw this kid with the pineapple head and read every one of the surrounding blurbs like 3X just to try to figure out why the image was there. Only then did I realize that it had NOTHING to do with the news, but was an advertisement for Lunchables that became clear when I turned the page.  Kind of a weird monetization strategy for a serious news organization, but - hey - who am I to judge, right?

I went out and picked up more perennials for the backyard at Menards.  They're already in the ground, so I'm hopeful they'll color up this summer.  And...getting a hummingbird or two (as the BES tag claims) would be a nice side benefit, too.

Last week, Nat and I rented 'Little Fockers' from Amazon Video on Demand.  The local video store in Coloma closed last year and we haven't found a close Redbox (Hello, somebody?  There's an opportunity for you!  Put a Redbox at the Hilltop/Harding's grocery store.) so we turned to Amazon Video on Demand. Sure, the movie was terrible (we should have know, right?), but to make matters worse, the connection we were on (we were up in Michigan slurping free/slow wifi from our neighbors) was terrible.  The film crapped out at this very moment.  Seriously.  No funny-business in hitting pause or whatever.  Just a smirking Bob De Niro and the Amazon logo.   One heckuva coincidence, eh? BTW.... Blogger is back online ?  Sort of?  I guess the post I wrote yesterday about the fence stain disappeared into the ether.

Yesterday I had everything set up: while Nat was out for the evening, I had the Babe being watched by my Mom.  Earlier this week, I picked up 5 cans of stain that were on sale (thanks for the rebate, Menards!) and was about to get my stain on.   I set up my Wagner Powersprayer with the can/hose attachment and fired away.  One can in, the skies opened and it started to pour out of nowhere.  The forecast said I was going to be fine for 3-4 hours.  Turned out to be 30 to 45 minutes.  I just got 5 panels done (3+ that you can see here to the left side of the photo). We're using a semi-transparent stain called Cedartone.  At first I didn't love the color, but it is growing on me.  And, looking at it half done/half not done, I actually am starting to love how it looks.   I have four more cans in the garage, but I'm thinking that - based on how far the last can went - I'm going to have to back and buy five more.  At least.

I planted an asparagus plant two summers ago and (as planned) this should be the first year of any sort of payoff.  The first two years it was mostly a lace-like plant without any stalks.  The first thin stalk /shoot appeared this morning. Guess what I'm going to go out and picking up this afternoon?  That's right.  More asparagus plants.  Hope Menards has them.  Two years from now we'll be having a (small) asparagus party.