Marvelous Monday Update 10/22/12

HOMESTEAD CRONICLES
There's been a whirlwind of activity at The Homestead. The past week involved pulling all the plants out of the garden and raking the leaves to the garden area. I then used the mower and mulched up the leaves. In the next few weeks, the leaves will be tilled into the garden.

A new dryer vent was intalled out one of the basement windows. New window well covers were installed. I talked to my "good" neighbor about not blowing snow into the window where the dryer vent was intalled. Guess what I found out? She hires the "backyard breeder" neighbor to clean her driveway! Great... Any bets on whether snow will be blown on that window?

I bought a roll of insulation to put into the perimeter of the rafters in the basement. Two hours later, the roll was used and only one wall was done! A job not finished... *sigh*

Menards (cue music... "Save Big Money at Menards") had a Price Pfister dual shower head on clearance. Since I had been debating getting a new shower head for over a year, I decided to go for it. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be. Despite wrapping the joints with plumbers tape and following all the instructions, all 4 joints leaked! And leaked terribly. It was returned to the store, and I picked up a Waterpik head that didn't require tape or putty... just install and go. So far so good.

TREASURE HUNTING
While out killing time, I found a couple of "treasures" at a thrift store. First up is a vintage sewing box... only 89cents!

There was some kind of adhesive around the panels which leads me to believe someone stuck something over those areas. Why, I'm not sure since I like how they look. A bit of Goo Gone and I have an awesome sewing box.

The other thing I picked up was a complete Daydreams kit featuring a Cardinal. I couldn't believe it was only 54cents when these kits sell for over $10.

STITCHY STUFF
I've been a busy little beaver working on three different projects in the past week.  First up is the BTB Mystery Autumn SAL.  Here's Parts 1-2½:

I had planned on getting Part 3 finished, but I got sidetracked by an ornament I started... and finished. Can't show a pic since it's for the SNS2 Ornament Exchange.

Japanese Garden now has complete bamboo trees!

NEW PHOTO STORAGE SITE
For the past 5+ years, I've been using Multiply to host my photos. When I found out they will be doing away with the social media (i.e. photos and blogs) portion of their business, I scrambled to find a site host my photos. I've tried a LOT of different free sites: jalbum, flickr, photobucket, picassa, myalbum, photoape, flashmint, shutterfly, picturetrail, and on and on.

When I couldn't find a site that I liked, I started to use Webshots since I've had an account there since 2001 but never used it. After uploading about 12 albums worth of photos over the course of a month, I was notified that Webshots was becoming Smile and would be a paid service. Argh!! So, the search was on again.

There were either limits on the number of photos, the total size of all photos, no space for additional information (important to me because that's where I keep the details of my projects), no ability for actual photo albums, or the ability to change the names of photos, ability to rearrange, etc. I wasted spent a lot time signing up for accounts, uploading photos, and trying the sites out.

Enter Ipernity! They allow up to 200MB of photo/video uploads each month for free. I can upload photos into albums and rearrange them. I can also add notes to them. It's very similar to Multiply in that a user can have a network of friends, and people can leave comments to the photos. A user can also set up permissions for the photos limiting who can see what, who can "tag" or add notes. There is also a blog feature like in Multiply. I don't plan on using it so I can't comment on how well it works. The user's "homepage" can be customized and a "web ID" can be entered in order for people to find the albums easier. It's got a light background (unlike webshots). There are no ads like a lot of other photo hosting sites (ahem... Webshots, Shutterfly, etc). You can also upload music files to be connected to slide shows. I haven't used it too much yet, but so far I like what I've seen. My new albums are located HERE: www.meari.ipernity.com

Until next time,