How to Paint Laminate Furniture

note the rope handles that Matt made to add rustic-flair at a tiny cost
i love it!

After browsing extensively on Pinterest.com I was inspired to paint some really ugly, cheap furniture we had around the apartment, and I am SO glad I did!

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Step 1: Sand the entire surface with a very fine grain sand paper (I used 250 grit)
Sand until you see white flecks and the shine of laminate begins to fade.
** Note, oil based primers usually don't require pre-sanding, but they are messier to clean up.

Step 2: Wipe the surface clean with a tack cloth.

Step 3: Coat the surface with primer. You may have to do two coats. Here's the hard part: you have to wait one full week for water based primers to cure. As I said oil-based primers cure in 45 minutes, but as I live in an apartment with no extra sink or easy way to clean with mineral spirits, I chose water based paints.

Step 4: Paint!! I did two coats about 45 minutes apart. Voila!

Before...

during...

After

Before...

During

After

Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy

This is hilarious and reminds us to be amazed and to be grateful!

Opening Lines

I have been reading a book off-and-on called, Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose. She says that writing involves "putting every word on trial for its life." This has inspired me to analyze and consider why a writer's work survives. To sample their genius I have collected the opening lines of a few classic, tried and true authors. I like to consider their approaches. Do they open with suspense? Do they name their characters right away? What is the tone?

Enjoy and consider these opening lines:
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1. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." ~ Anna Karenina

2. "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:" ~ Ulysses

3. "One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin." ~ Metamorphosis

4. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." (this is a famous one, who knows it?)

5. "Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a land owner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place." ~ Brothers Karamazov

6. "Towards the end of November, during a thaw, at nine o'clock one morning, a train on the Warsaw and Petersburg railway was approaching the latter city at full speed. " ~ The Idiot

7. "In 1815, M. Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D—— He was an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see of D—— since 1806.

Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very moment when he arrived in the diocese. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. " ~ Les Miserables

8. "Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversation?' " from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

9. "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." ~ from Emma

10. "A throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garments and grey steeple-crowned hats, inter-mixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes." ~ The Scarlet Letter

11. "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question." ~ Jane Eyre

Winter Wonderland #2

Tip: If you count Winter Wonderlands rather than winter snowstorms, it makes everything more magical.

Denver skyline from our rooftop

up to my-lower-shins-deep in snow

The Bed-n-Breakfast we admire from our window

New Website for Inspirations

I am usually not too into new websites and technological gadgets, BUT I recently found out about www.pinterest.com, and I find it to be an exceptional resource for ideas/inspiration for just about any creative field. You can add and organize ideas for projects or inspiring images to your "board" for future reference. And most images have links to original websites, blogs, etc... Check it out!

New Job !!!

I was recently hired as an adult ESL teacher at ELS Language Center on the Front Range Community College campus, and I never knew you could love going to work so much! Seriously, I LOVE MY JOB. It's semi-temporary and dependent on student enrollment. So, I'm hoping for a high enrollment next month so I can still teach! I have 2 classes, each with 8 students. The students come from: Brazil, Haiti, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Gabon, Vietnam, South Korea and Venezuela. It's amazing getting to teach language, which I love, and to be able to interact with people from all over the world! I'm clearly in the "honeymoon" phase right now, or who knows, maybe I've found my long-term education-niche.

CREMA Coffee House

CREMA Coffee House has been a Denver hot-spot for a while on upper Larimer (between LoDo and Five Points), but our friend, Jon Power (formerly of Olivea and Root Down), has recently designed a menu and begun serving breakfast and lunch as well! We were delighted to patronize Crema this morning for breakfast. The coffee is prepared French Press style, and it was about as exquisite as I have ever had, EVER. The breakfast/lunch menu offers simple, creative, gourmet and affordable options. You must check it out!

Phases of Happiness

In Gretchen Rubin's book, The Happiness Project, she proposes four stages of happiness to eke out the most from any experience:

1. Anticipation - talking, planning, dreaming, preparing, searching for background info on the net, looking at pictures of the proposed destination, what's called "rosy prospection"

2. Savoring - the moment as it unfolds, being present, pausing, looking around

3. Expressing - You can relive the experience as you tell people about it. Say it aloud. Express gratitude.

4. Remembering - through photographs, videos, reminiscing, memory book
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This blog mostly involves phase 3 and some 4. It brings me joy to express my happy experiences. It helps me not forget and causes me to be more present, more cognizant of sweet and precious moments.

Denver Now Recycles More than EVER!

Denver used to just recycle Plastics #1 & #2 whose openings were smaller than the whole container (basically bottles). I secretly used to hate seeing people put other types of containers in the recycling bins because I knew Denver was so strict, but now you can recycle all Plastics #1 - #7! Hooray!! Visit website: Denver Recycling

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

So, punctuation really does matter, even if it is only occasionally a matter of life and death.

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This is the story on the back of the book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves: the Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss. I look forward to reading this when I get the chance. I was reminded of this book last night, when at church on the overhead screen, a line in a worship song stated, "its raining, its raining, its raining." And it admitedly distracted and disappointed me.

The New Book Club

So, I've dreamed of being part of a Book Club for ages, but I never really knew of any, and I didn't want to start my own without any other experience. And, well, I am so thankful to have met Tim and Abby who recently moved to the neighborhood and brought with them a well of creativity, thoughtfulness and authenticity. We're reading the Classics, which I am generally not as drawn to, but they have proven to be delightful indeed. Here is a list of books read so far, I joined in July:

March - Great Gatsby
April - Jane Eyre
May - Fahrenheit 451 ( I think)
July - Alice in Wonderland and Candide
August - Great Expectations
September - The Alchemist and The Awakening

And the marrow of the experience is: Responding to the novel in some creative, meaningful way (food, art, song, anything it inspires you to do), which you can share with the group when we meet. There's a blog for the Book Club on the right, but it is a bit outdated.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

::

John Donne wrote this while on what he thought was his death bed (it wasn't) as he had been struck by the plague. And he constantly heard the bells tolling for someone's funeral during those times. He was saying that it didn't matter whose funeral it was because we, mankind, are all the less with this man's passing.

::

I think of this passage because our downstairs neighbor passed away last week. We came home on Friday to a terrible, all-encompassing stench and policemen all around the building. Of course we commented that it smelled like death, but you never think that it actually would be ... It wasn't until today that I discovered that our downstairs neighbor had passed away five days prior to being found. I just saw the lady in 204 on the rooftop on my birthday and we small talked a bit. And to think that in the past few days I had made a loud step and felt self-conscious about disturbing her downstairs, and I didn't even know that she had passed away...

ORR family Vaca!

In August we got to spend a week at Matt's parents' new house in North Myrtle Beach!! It was everything you would hope for in a family beach vacation! I'm serious, my heart overflows with warm memories. We got to spend ample time at the beach and the water was the perfect temp - so I probably spent more time in the actual ocean than ever before. We ate lunch and dinner outside everyday and sometimes breakfast too. We rode cruiser bikes around the neighborhood, we went swimming and hot tubbing. We played tennis and bocce ball. We went for walks in the woods, along the beach, along the golf course. It was so relaxing and rejuvenating. I can't wait for the next Orr family vacation.

Umcompahgre! 14,314ft

During our road trip we also summited Umcompahgre Peak (the 6th highest mtn. in CO). It was so spectacular I thought it deserved its own slot for pictures.

SW Colorado Roadtrip

Matt and I both had a busy summer full of reading, writing and showing up to class. I admit that Matt's terms and books were much bigger than mine. But we finally got to have a break at the end of the summer and we wanted to head for Southwest Colorado and to be outside as much as possible. Within the first day we: floated down a river, had a picnic in a park, picked up a hitch hiker and summited the highest sand dune. It was perfect. Here are some photos:

backpacking Crater Lake Trail in San Juan Mountains

camp site near Lake City

same camp site

soaking in the last bit of sun at Crater Lake

driving along the Alpine Loop between Silverton and Lake City

fresh, organic strawberries!

along the Alpine Loop

reading Grapes of Wrath in the sunlight

reflection in Crater Lake

we backpacked 13 miles in two days.
it was so GREEN!

Language Learning

So, I'm almost thirty; I'm quite nearly tri-lingual (Spanish, German); I'm recently unemployed, and I'm studying French and studying for the Spanish CLEP test. And let me tell you two wonderful things about learning a language:

1. Yabla.com
This is one of my favorite pasttimes! It offers hundreds of videos in the target language for only $10/month. The videos have interactive subtitles, that allow you to click on words you don't know, which opens a side window dictionary. There is also a slow motion button. The website is user friendly with a 1-5 star difficulty rating system. The Spanish version sorts the videos according to difficulty, topic and country of origin. The website also generates interactive quizzes based upon past words that you did not understand in the subtitles. imagínete!

2. Pimsleur Language Programs
This program offers a conversationally contextualized approach to learning a language. The Spanish program really helped me and Matt prepare for Guatemala. There are three levels for each language, with 30 lessons per level. Each lesson is 30 minutes, so it is quite a time committment, but imagine the empowerment of learning a new language!! The best part is that your public library probably has the Pimsleur Language Program CDs, which you can check out for free!! (By the way, I own the complete Spanish Levels I-III in Rosetta Stone, and it is so elementary and slow compared to Pimsleur).

Birthday summitting

My dear friend Allison recently had a birthday, and wanted to hike Pike's Peak to celebrate. It's fun to summit mountains that you see on a regular basis, and to remember the awe you experienced on top. I can even see Pike's Peak from the park in our neighborhood in Denver; it's incredible!! The vistas were spectacular, the weather nice, and the colors stunning due to recent rainfall. When we entered the warming house/gift shop at the summit, it felt nice knowing we had walked to the top on our own two feet; where as most everyone else either took the train or drove their large SUV.

Complimenting Girls/Women

::: This article really made me think = What is the first thing I usually say to girls/women when I see them?? Isn't it usually something about their cute appearance?? It's not that it's bad to compliment girls/women on their appearance, I just don't want to be sending the message that that's all that matters. I want to be mindful of admiring deeper qualities first in girls/women.

==> Love and Empowerment for everyone! <==

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I went to a dinner party at a friend's home last weekend, and met her five-year-old daughter for the first time.

Little Maya was all curly brown hair, doe-like dark eyes, and adorable in her shiny pink nightgown. I wanted to squeal, "Maya, you're so cute! Look at you! Turn around and model that pretty ruffled gown, you gorgeous thing!"

But I didn't. I squelched myself. As I always bite my tongue when I meet little girls, restraining myself from my first impulse, which is to tell them how darn cute/ pretty/ beautiful/ well-dressed/ well-manicured/ well-coiffed they are.

What's wrong with that? It's our culture's standard talking-to-little-girls icebreaker, isn't it? And why not give them a sincere compliment to boost their self-esteem? Because they are so darling I just want to burst when I meet them, honestly.

Hold that thought for just a moment.

This week ABC News reported that nearly half of all three- to six-year-old girls worry about being fat. In my book, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World, I reveal that 15 to 18 percent of girls under 12 now wear mascara, eyeliner and lipstick regularly; eating disorders are up and self-esteem is down; and 25 percent of young American women would rather win America's Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize. Even bright, successful college women say they'd rather be hot than smart. A Miami mom just died from cosmetic surgery, leaving behind two teenagers. This keeps happening, and it breaks my heart.

Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything. It sets them up for dieting at age 5 and foundation at age 11 and boob jobs at 17 and Botox at 23. As our cultural imperative for girls to be hot 24/7 has become the new normal, American women have become increasingly unhappy. What's missing? A life of meaning, a life of ideas and reading books and being valued for our thoughts and accomplishments.

That's why I force myself to talk to little girls as follows.

"Maya," I said, crouching down at her level, looking into her eyes, "very nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," she said, in that trained, polite, talking-to-adults good girl voice.

"Hey, what are you reading?" I asked, a twinkle in my eyes. I love books. I'm nuts for them. I let that show.

Her eyes got bigger, and the practiced, polite facial expression gave way to genuine excitement over this topic. She paused, though, a little shy of me, a stranger.

"I LOVE books," I said. "Do you?"

Most kids do.

"YES," she said. "And I can read them all by myself now!"

"Wow, amazing!" I said. And it is, for a five-year-old. You go on with your bad self, Maya.

"What's your favorite book?" I asked.

"I'll go get it! Can I read it to you?"

Purplicious was Maya's pick and a new one to me, as Maya snuggled next to me on the sofa and proudly read aloud every word, about our heroine who loves pink but is tormented by a group of girls at school who only wear black. Alas, it was about girls and what they wore, and how their wardrobe choices defined their identities. But after Maya closed the final page, I steered the conversation to the deeper issues in the book: mean girls and peer pressure and not going along with the group. I told her my favorite color in the world is green, because I love nature, and she was down with that.

Not once did we discuss clothes or hair or bodies or who was pretty. It's surprising how hard it is to stay away from those topics with little girls, but I'm stubborn.

I told her that I'd just written a book, and that I hoped she'd write one too one day. She was fairly psyched about that idea. We were both sad when Maya had to go to bed, but I told her next time to choose another book and we'd read it and talk about it. Oops. That got her too amped up to sleep, and she came down from her bedroom a few times, all jazzed up.

So, one tiny bit of opposition to a culture that sends all the wrong messages to our girls. One tiny nudge towards valuing female brains. One brief moment of intentional role modeling. Will my few minutes with Maya change our multibillion dollar beauty industry, reality shows that demean women, our celebrity-manic culture? No. But I did change Maya's perspective for at least that evening.

Try this the next time you meet a little girl. She may be surprised and unsure at first, because few ask her about her mind, but be patient and stick with it. Ask her what she's reading. What does she like and dislike, and why? There are no wrong answers. You're just generating an intelligent conversation that respects her brain. For older girls, ask her about current events issues: pollution, wars, school budgets slashed. What bothers her out there in the world? How would she fix it if she had a magic wand? You may get some intriguing answers. Tell her about your ideas and accomplishments and your favorite books. Model for her what a thinking woman says and does.

And let me know the response you get at www.Twitter.com/lisabloom and Facebook.

Here's to changing the world, one little girl at a time.

For many more tips on how keep yourself and your daughter smart, check out my new book, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World, www.Think.tv.

Follow Lisa Bloom on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LisaBloom

A Retreat into Nature

To ensure that we did indeed make it outside into nature this summer (as it is quickly passing us by) Matt and I went to explore a new (as of 1993) wilderness area within a quick drive to Denver. We hiked a 12 mile loop in the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness. I am currently studying Assessments in Education, and I would say according to this most recent backpacking-assessment my endurance has certainly increased against all odds. My data: I did not even need to stop and rest much at all, and I could have kept on hiking the full loop, except that we wanted to camp out in the wilderness rather than back at the car. So, we did 8 miles the first day and 4 the next morning. It felt great on many levels and I'm thankful for the retreat.

this is, you know, one of those photos where you capture somebody jumping in the air, or at least you get the idea.

one of many river crossings

the lovely valley

These are a few of my favorite things: reading a book, sitting by a campfire, simple living.

and drinking coffee from a camping-pot, ahh.