Monday With Jasmine

Sunday Video Blog

Here's my first video blog all by my lonesome... Should I post Jasmine's to this blog also? I think I've set it up so that you'll see all the video blogs on you tube in my Facebook but I have some friends who aren't on Facebook who might be interested in having them posted here. By the way, for the Facebook people, I know you are getting double posts sometimes right now and that's annoying. I'll tun off the automatic thingum that picks up my blog and post the text blogging thing manually. I'll do that tomorrow and decrease the annoyingness.

We Can't Fix Health Care?

"...because Democrats are stupid and it would be socialism and it costs too much and they might take away coverage you don't really need but seriously think you need and you just know your employer won't pay you more to compensate for the amount that He won't be paying into the new cheaper plan..."

"But what if..."

"NO."

"...or we could.."

"NO."

"But that's just wrong!"

...Honestly, it seems like they would just prefer that all the waiters and waitresses and Wal Mart employees and broke small business owners just keep on like they have been. You know, if you don't have health care and you get so sick you can't work, then you absolutely can't pay your doctor's bills. The doctor will probably treat you but then he will have to charge everybody else more to make up for it. The system is so broken that any fix would be better than what we have and for every fix we propose Somebody just says...

"NO".

Random Things on Thursday

Here it is! The new video from the joint Vlog project by Jasmine and I, that we are calling Randomer than Average, because More Random Than Average has too many characters in it. This is a feature we're calling Random Things on Thursday. I'll try to improve the sound and lighting before next Thursday.

Ruby Tuesday: Ribbon

Happy Ruby Tuesday. The ribbon is red, so this qualifies as a ruby Tuesday post, but I also feel that it requires some explanation. This is Jasmine's corner of the living room. The posters were technically supposed to go in her bedroom, but I'm way too easy to get along with so our living room is now decorated in Twilight. Jasmine has a corner of the living room because her school computer has to be hooked up to the internet and as a family we have decided that all internet capable computers must be in public spaces. And the ribbon was a gift to Jasmine from my mom. It was sort of an accidental gift as it was supposed to go around the gift but actually got put in the gift and, while Jasmine loves the PJ's that were the official gift, she also very much likes the ribbon.

Okay, now that I've explained the picture, I have to thank the Head Of Ruby Tuesday and Grand Puba (I just know I spelled Puba wrong. How is it spelled?) Of Red Photos on Tuesday, Mary "The Teach". Here is her blog link. And here is the link the the interview where she says that this is one of her favorite blogs, an honor I am totally unworthy of but very grateful for.

A Randomer Rap

The Curve

I was listening to a recording by Earl Nightingale about the book Think and Grow Rich, that was written a long time ago by Napoleon Hill. This is an old recording that I had Andy convert into an MP3 file so that I wouldn't wear out the cassette tape. I love Earl. Anyway, in this recording Earl is talking about how you could take any one hundred men and follow them from early adulthood to retirement and by the time they reached sixty only five of them would be rich. He said this with great surprise, implying that they could all be rich if they only knew the secret.

But, as much as I love Earl, it isn't true. Our system isn't set up that way. If they all started from the same place and took those principles to heart and they all worked exactly the same way, they might end up with the same amount of money, but they couldn't all be rich. It doesn't work that way. In order for some to be winners others have to be losers. If everybody did what Earl told us too then some of us would do it better than others and those people would be the five who got to be rich.

It's all good. We don't all need to be rich, after all. My problem is with the curve. If you think about economics like the results of a classroom test and you think about the whole country as the students taking that test, then you can try and figure out how that test is graded. We've been led to believe that everybody has the same shot. We are told that socialism is an unfair curve but capitalism gives everybody the grade they deserve, but I don't think that's entirely true.

Take health care, for example. Getting a C plus shouldn't mean you can't afford cancer treatment. Someday we will all have an equal shot at being the socio-economic winners, no matter the color of our skin or the social class of our parents. Some day there will be no parent who has to choose between groceries and antibiotics. Until then, we still have to work at making the system more fair.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind this Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Ruby Tuesday

This seems like a big red book.

Straight Talk About Vinyl Removal

A friend of mine recently told me that his landlord won't let him paint and he sees vinyl as a way to enhance his space without violating his lease. A little bell went off in my head. While this is true, it's also true that you have to be a little careful and know what kinds of problems you might get into.

1. If the paint is already visibly peeling anywhere in the room, don't put up vinyl. All vinyl is removable but if the paint doesn't have good adhesion to the wall (maybe because it wasn't primed first or it hasn't had time to cure, or even if the surface was dirty when it was painted) and the vinyl sticks to the paint really well, then the paint will come up with the vinyl when you take it off.

2. Let the paint dry really well before putting vinyl on a painted surface. I make signs for a living, often signs I'm planning on changing the text of later, and this is the mistake I've made the most often with painted surfaces. If it's an oil based paint wait as long as a week before you put vinyl on it.

3. Test. Test your surface. This is why I send a test decal. Put it inside the closet or behind a door or someplace you don't think your landlord would notice, then heat it up with your hairdryer to make sure it's really good and stuck on. Wait a day or so (newly installed vinyl comes off a lot easier than vinyl that has been around) and then peel it off. If you have trouble peeling it off, heat it up with your hairdryer again to make it nice and pliable and get a fingernail or credit card-like device under the edge. If it takes up the paint then send your decal back to me and get your money back.

Finally, I want to say something about adhesive. All vinyl is removable but some shops are selling vinyl labeled removable. What does that mean? It means the adhesive is less obnoxious. It is absolutely true that "removable" vinyl is easier to take off but it is also more expensive and comes in a limited number of colors. This is why I still sell regular vinyl for wall application. This also means that six months down the road, when you take down your vinyl, you need a strategy for getting rid of adhesive that has decided it likes your wall a lot more than it likes the vinyl. Honestly, this doesn't always happen, but it does lots of times. There are two things you can do.

1. Buy an adhesive remover. I use Rapid Remover. I think it might only be marketed to sign shops, but Goo Gone or something like that will work just as well. Read the directions and test your surface. Bye Bye adhesive. You and your landlord will live happily ever after.

2. This is a little more involved but non-toxic. I've tried it on several kinds of surfaces and it seems to work fairly well without messing up the paint. Again, test your surface. I don't have photographs because the adhesive just wasn't showing up in them. If you try this, let me know how it works for you. I've learned nothing if not that every application is slightly different.

Take a paper towel or cloth and soak it with full strength vinegar (the kind you cook with). Wipe the sticky surface very thoroughly, saturating the adhesive. Wait about thirty seconds and do it again. Repeat the process until the adhesive seems to be softening (this might take four or five rounds) and then scrape the adhesive gently from the wall with your credit card-like device. If your wall is textured you can use a very mild abrasive, like a kitchen scrubby sponge, but don't apply a lot of pressure. You don't want to scratch the paint. Then wash with window cleaner or soap and water. The adhesive should be gone.

If this article helped you at all, please consider buying a decal from my shop. Thanks so much for reading all of that....

Marilyn

My Etsy Shop Is Now Open

Please click HERE... and tell me what you think. There will be new things often. If you would like to see something specific, let me know. (This is my official blog announcement. My apologies to my FB freinds who are already sick of the subject.)

Flylady Saved My Marriage

...but not the way you think. I've been flying (lets just pretend I mean levitation, because that's a lot more fun) since just before Christmas. This last week I finally got my routines completely in place and I've been cruising along with my five minute room rescues and zone work and decluttering. The house almost looks like actual people live here. Before, It looked more like the place was inhabited by adolescent Sasquatch.

Anyway, I am notorious for losing things. I lost my digital camera once for well over six months before I found it in the place I had put it to keep Jasmine from playing with it without permission. But the worst thing I ever lost was my watch, wedding ring, and the ring Andy bought me when I was baptized. I would take my rings off and put them on my watchband (the watch was also a gift from my adorable and hopefully forgiving husband(let me just point out, in my defense, that he once lost his wedding ring too. True it was only for a couple of months and not two years, but still...)) and hang it on a special nail (which I didn't put there but seemed handy for the purpose) on a kitchen cabinet. For almost two years now the whole thing (well, except the nail, which was still there) has been missing. I've torn apart my bed looking all around the waterbed mattress. I've gone through the garbage. I've looked in couch cushions and under furniture. I had no idea where it was but, as is typical for me, I pretended nothing was wrong and hoped it would turn up. Then, today, I found it.

Where? How? I found it while decluttering the small coffee can I keep my pens and pencils in. I was going through to see which pens worked and which ones should be tossed when, at the bottom of the coffee can I found my watch, which needs a new battery now for some reason. I've actually found a lot of missing things lately thanks to my new flying routines. Thank you Flylady!

How To Install a Vinyl Decal

If you follow me on Facebook you probably know that I'm putting together an Etsy shop to sell decorative vinyl decals for the home. I wanted to start by explaining how to install one of these in less than ideal circumstances.

I've noticed that most shops tell you the installation is easy, which is true most of the time, but don't go into details about how it is done or the problems that can arise in certain circumstances. Here I show you how to put an intricate and fairly large decal on a textured surface. Not all textured surfaces will accept vinyl but lots of them will if you are patient and know a few tricks. Smooth, semi-gloss surfaces accept vinyl much more easily than this.These are the tools of the professional vinyl installer. These are what I use most of the time, but don't panic. There are a couple of common household items you can replace them with.

Instead of a rivet brush you can use any firm bristled brush, like this old toothbrush I sometimes clean things with. Instead of a vinyl squeegee you can use a credit card or credit-card-like device, like this club card that I hardly ever use for anything else anyway.

These items might also come in handy. The hairdryer warms thing up. You might want scissors to cut potions of your decal away, if you want to install half of it in one place on your wall and the other half elsewhere, for instance. A needle can be used to pierce any air bubbles in the decal after installation. Not shown, but also useful are a pencil, ruler, and a weak solution of rubbing alcohol and water.

Of course, you'll need a high quality vinyl decal, like this one I made yesterday and will be selling in my Etsy shop.

A vinyl decal has three layers. 1. A smooth backing layer. 2. The colored, cut vinyl. 3. The application tape which is sticky on the inside and smooth on the top.

Before you get started, clean your surface. A solution of water and rubbing alcohol will take any surface oils off of there that might prevent the vinyl from sticking, but test it in a small spot in the corner of the room first to make sure it won't mess up your paint. Here's how I did this installation.

The bottom of my transfer tape and backing make a straight line at the bottom of my decal. I use my ruler to measure off and and mark where I want the bottom of the decal to go. I make about four small marks in a line so I can put the decal up straight. I also figure the center of my area, because I want my decal to be centered between the windows. (I tested a corner of the room to make sure I would be able to erase the pencil marks.)

Here I am finding the center of my decal by folding it in half and creasing the backing material in the middle. This is a quick and easy way to do it but you could also measure it off and mark the transfer tape which easily accepts pen or pencil.

I have folded back the smooth backing to expose the sticky vinyl and transfer tape.

Carefully, I line up the bottom of my decal with the markings I made on my wall and then smooth the transfer tape down firmly with my hand. You don't have to be headless to do this, it just makes it easier for the camera person to see what's going on.

Firmly rubbing down the transfer tape the whole time, I slowly and carefully peel away the backing material.

Here I am almost done with this step.

Now I go over the whole decal with the edge my club card, pressing down just as hard as I can. If the wall were a smooth surface I could probably skip the next two steps. The vinyl would be firmly adhered to the wall now.

Since my wall is textured and the vinyl hasn't stuck down as well as I want, I go over the whole decal thoroughly with my hair dryer on high, rubbing with the card some more as I go.

Then I use the toothbrush to get the vinyl stuck down in all those teeny little crevices.

Then I very slowly and carefully pull off the application tape. Honestly, my arms got tired so I took a break in the middle of this step and checked my e-mail. This is the step where things can go wrong if your adhesion isn't good and you aren't careful. On smooth walls though, it would be a quick and easy job.

Since I still didn't feel like the decal was good and stuck down, I went back over it with the toothbrush. You might just want to rub it down with your fingers one last time. If you have any air bubbles you can pierce them with a needle and smooth them down now.

And here's the finished installation.

Most of the time it will actually be easier than this. It's important to buy your decals from a seller that gives you a small test decal to practice with and has a sensible return policy (like I do).

Vinyl is easily removable when you want to remodel. If it has been there a few years, or your paint wasn't well cured when you put it on, you may have to retouch the paint a little. If the vinyl has been on there a long time, warming it with a hairdryer helps in the removal process.