Tag Archives: new

Tool Library

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Portland is the most amazing place in the world.  Seriously.  Obviously I love the amount of weirdness (like the guy who rides a unicycle and plays bagpipes dressed as Santa and Darth Vader,) the fact that brunch is an art form (bacon Bloody Mary, anyone?) and the constant electricity of people actually *doing* things (after a couple bacon Bloody Mary’s, of course.)  But, the Tool Library is a very special breed of place that can only exist in a town that is dedicated to activism, volunteerism, community, and general cheapskatery.

I need a saw to make my daybed and I don’t want to buy one just to use on the rare occasion that I decide to make something that cannot be cut with sharp scissors.  So, I decide to check it out.

tool library

The Tool Library is a backroom with no windows in the side of a church that also hosts yoga classes and organ lessons in their respective backrooms.  It’s open for two hours on Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings.  You have to provide an ID and mail that proves that you live in the area.  This gives you rights to borrow anything you want for a week.  If you don’t bring it back within that 7 days, you pay a fine of $1-$2 depending on the tool you borrow. Uh, awesome!  They have tools for gardening, automotive, contracting, and general home maintenance.  I choose a miter saw and a long extension cord.

Mowing

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This might not seem like a huge milestone or something that should be new to anyone who is (cough) 30 years old.  But it’s new to me, so shut your mouth.

My mom was nice enough to gift me her old electric lawn mower which is perfect because filling a gas can and doing that whole thing seems really lame.  Mowing a lawn with an electric mower is kinda like vacuuming.  You gotta take care to not run over your cord and the you can never seem to get close enough to the wall.

I might’ve waited to long and the grass was crazy high.  So high, it wasn’t getting sucked into the bag.  Just laying damp in grass-stainy clumps on the ground which may or may not have ruined my Nike Cortez’s.

mowing

July – Backyarding

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Okay.  Okay.  I know I haven’t updated you folk for a while.  Here’s the rundown of my last few months.  I bought a house, moved into it, and, uh… well that’s pretty much it.  It’s pretty freaking time consuming, ya know.

So, this month is all about getting my backyard furnished and learning how to care for the slew of greenery that the previous owners were kind enough to cultivate for me.  I have mowed a lawn maybe once in my life and have killed more plants than I’ve saved.  So, I should probably learn how to, at the very least, keep these things from dying.

Goals this month:  Make a daybed for my patio.  Mow the lawn and keep it from dying.  Plant an herb garden.  Get my outdoor fireplace working.  Get table and chairs for the fire pit.  Buy a grill and use it.  Figure out outdoor speaker system and lighting.

April – Budgeting

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So, I’ve already said I’m trying to buy a house.  I’m pre-approved and seriously shopping.  It’s probably a good idea to figure out how much money I’m spending each month on what and how I can be better at saving.  It’s also starting to get nice outside so there are more options for cheap and free activities.  My goal is to save enough money this month to buy and iPad Mini and get some plans in place to monitor food costs.  I’m pretty sure I spend a ton of money on food.

In Retrospect of Guitar Month

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Okay, so the sideways looks I was getting from people when I said I was going to teach myself guitar in one month were well warranted.  I’m not a guitar god.  I didn’t learn a full song.  I can’t quite “rock out” the way I had envisioned.  So, I decided to break down guitar month into two months, the latter to be used at a future time.  This month was all about guitar fundamentals… procuring said guitar and figuring it out took a bit longer than anticipated.  The next guitar month will be about learning a song.  Maybe by then, I will pay for the ability to post videos on this site… but probably not.  I’m trying to save money.  Hey, wait a minute.  That’s a good idea…

Practice – Anchor Fingers

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So, I really haven’t been spending as much time as I should practicing chords and moving through the beginner program at http://www.justinguitar.com, but have I mentioned I’m trying to buy a house, and I worked 6 days this week, and I’m very busy and important??  Oh.  I’ve mentioned that already?  Well, it’s true. 🙂

Today, I took 15 minutes out of my aforementioned very busy schedule to learn anchor fingers.  If you keep your first finger on the string, it’s easier to move your other finger to their positions when you change chords.  I practice the 3 chords I know while keeping my first finger down instead of picking all my fingers up and trying to find the right strings again.  It does make it much easier.

Practice – The A Chord

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Alright, so Justin says you should be practicing 15 minutes a day, every day.  Well, I know I have 15 minutes a day and it should totally be easy… but I’m a busy girl… and I like the snooze button.

So, today ran in the Shamrock Run 5k in downtown Portland.  My girlfriends and I dressed up in tutus and knee high socks and ran on the Columbia Sportswear team.  There were so many people!  It way mayhem.  We finished in about 45 minutes and went to get our celebratory Saint Patrick’s Day free beer. We waited in line to get into the beer tent for about 10 minutes, only to realize that all the people in the beer tent were in line to get beer!  Another 1500 people stood in front of us and sweet victory.  Obviously free beer tastes better than beer you pay for.  Der.  But after calculating how much a free beer is actually worth… x > time/hungriness… carry the 1… fuck it.  Let’s go to Genie’s.  Bacon infused Bloody Mary’s, eggs benedict, and Stumptown coffee wins every time.  Sunday brunch > everything!

So, after a brief appointment with my real estate agent, a much needed couch nap, and a Girls marathon with Katie… I learned the A Chord.  Wahoo!  It looks like this:

Chord-O-A

 

Practice – The D Chord

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The first chord taught in the beginner course of http://www.justinguitar.com is the D Chord.  Pretty easy.  Looks like this.

Chord-O-D

 

Oh yeah, I know how to read that!  The line on the left represents the string on the top, going all the way down to the string on the right, which would be the one on the bottom.  The “X” at the top of the picture means you do not hit that string when strumming.  The “O” at the top means you strum it as an open string.  Then you place your fingers on the fret where the black dots are.  Now you know the D Chord, too!  You can strum it together, and then pic all the strings individually to make sure they are all clear.

Practicing is Easy!

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So, I started watching the beginner section of all these Justin Guitar videos (www.justinguitar.com.)  Took me a few to realize that these first videos don’t really need to have your guitar in front of you.  So, I took my iphone and headphones to get a pedicure and watched the rest while I ignored the girl next to me giggling annoyingly as if every touch of her foot was too ticklish to bare.