how I made a kids' art wall with only $10 and some crap I found in the attic

Near our front door, we have these cubbies for the kids.  The open cubby is for school papers that we need to look at -- school work, report cards, permission slips, notes about peanut allergies, and the like.  The colored bins are for each kid's hats, gloves, and other outerwear accessories.  The only trouble with our cubbies, as far as I can tell, is the gigantic, blank beige wall above them.  So Kathy and I decided this would be the perfect place frame and hang some of the kids' artwork.  And this project was born.  The thing was, I didn't really want to spend more than $10 on it.  End of the month, and all.

Up in our attic, we had random old pictures in random old frames.  The only problem was, none of the frames matched each other, and they also weren't the right sizes for any of the art.  Apparently, the teachers planning the projects tend to think more about the sizes that construction paper comes in, and less about the sizes of standard frames and mats.

The first issue I tackled was the fact that none of the frames matched.  I chose my favorite, this funky metallic frame, and used it as the starting point.  I then grabbed a black plastic frame and a plain wooden frame that were the right sizes -- or at least, were big enough to hold the work I wanted to use. My plan was to use the metallic frame as inspiration, and paint the other frames to coordinate.

If you don't happen to have old picture frames in your attic, you can get cool and cheap picture frames at a thrift store, and paint them to match or compliment each other to make a grouping -- just make sure you write down the measurements of the frames you need, and bring something to the thrift store to measure with, since it's unlikely they will have a sticker telling you the size. Don't forget you can buy cheesy pictures of beach landscapes just for the frame! I personally think textured frames look best.

surprise party

Last night, Kathy and I went into the city for our birthday date.  First we had to stop by a bar and grab her briefcase, which she left there on Thursday. (Don't ask why her briefcase was at a bar.  It was a really long, convoluted story, which I completely believed.)  And then it was a surprise party!  For me!  I was even more surprised than I otherwise would have been, because I wasn't wearing my glasses, and therefore did not recognize my own sister or about 20 of my good friends until I was standing right in front of them and they were yelling "surprise" at me.  And even then I was a little confused until I saw my sister LITERALLY a foot in front of me and she said "Happy Birthday."

You may think, because of my introvert-ness, that I would not want a surprise party.  You would be wrong; it  was really fun and I loved it.  One of the best things about a surprise party is that I did not have a chance to do any worrying about whether anyone would actually show up -- Kathy got to do all that worrying for me.  Although there was a little moment of humiliation toward the beginning of the night when everyone was singing Happy Birthday to me, where I buried my face in Kathy's shoulder and could not come out.  Anyway, in case you are getting any ideas, how about a list of suggestions for throwing a surprise party for an introvert (or really anyone, I think).  AKA, why my party rocked, and ways that it could have gone seriously awry.

• DO make sure the person wants a party.  Kathy did this by asking if I wanted a party on the following night.  Since I did, there was a pretty good chance that I wasn't going to be super-irritated by the party last night.
• DO NOT forget your camera.  Otherwise, you might make it through the whole night with only one picture from someone's phone, in which I look like this:

(I have cropped out friends who might not want internet fame,

including the one who appears to be strangling me)

Raising the Bed

Yesterday was Earth Day.  Not that I need an excuse to work in my garden lately, but I take what I can get.  I am such a novice when it comes to all things garden-related, but can't believe how much I've been loving being out there and getting my hands dirty.

Since it rained yesterday, and I was in the city yesterday anyway, I tackled my Earth Day project today.  This year, I'm really committed to getting more than one lousy tomato out of my vegetable garden.  In my book, that starts with leveling the garden so that all my seeds don't wash downhill this year after the first good rain. 

For perspective, this is what our vegetable garden looked like today before I got started.  That is not garbage in it, for the record, it's cardboard and wet newsprint, which I was using to smother the weeds before planting time, a tip I learned on Margaret Roach's gardening blog, A Way to Garden. 

Incidentally, those are also my supplies all piled up around the vegetable patch.  I found the 2x10 (which is 10 feet long - exactly the length of the existing vegetable patch, as it turns out) under the deck, which is what inspired this project in the first place.  I went to the Home Depot and picked up another 10 foot 2x10 and and eight foot 2x10, which they nicely cut in half for me.  Those two pieces of wood plus a box of nails was around $20.  I spent about another $10 or so on dirt, but I would have had to buy that anyway, whether I raised the bed or not, so I don't have to count it, right?

using a budget to quit your job

This is the first in what hopefully becomes a series of "How To" posts.  These posts aren't intended to tell you how you should do something, though.  Rather, the intent is to show you how I did something, and explain what I would have done differently.  Because everyone's situation is different, all advice needs adjustment in order to work for you.  Especially unsolicited advice!

The most common reaction of other associates when they found out I was quitting was to say something like, "I wish I could quit too," so I thought I would write this.  My hope is that by showing how I did something, maybe the next person will realize it actually is possible.  I was able to quit my job not because Kathy made boatloads of money or because I have a trust fund or because I have no obligations.  I was able to quit my job because I thought, planned, made sacrifices, and had some good luck. 

One caveat -- this plan assumes a dual income or that you will still have money coming in from somewhere.  This budgeting plan will work if you are going to take severance, if you are going to take a lower paying job, or if you are going from being a two-income family to a one-income family.  If you're going to live off your savings for a lengthy period of time, obviously you will need to save for much longer.  But I think the basics remain the same -- you just need to stretch it out over a year, two years, or three years, and be willing to watch your hard-earned savings gradually dwindle.

Because I have actually learned something from my last two months of budgeting, this is part "what I did" and part "what I would have done in a perfect world."  That means it's on a 6-month timeline, which is how I would have done things in an ideal world, and if my firm had not offered severance when it did.  Because I had to quit when I did in order to get the severance, my timeline was actually much more condensed than this.**  But before we go to the step-by-step, can I just say this:  DON'T BE INTIMIDATED BY USING A BUDGET.  It is not hard or scary.  Even if you are not mathematically inclined.  You can use a calculator, this isn't high school algebra class.

**Since I am a lawyer, after all, please be aware I have absolutely no training in financial planning or anything like that. I am just a person who likes to be reasonably responsible with money, and recently found a way to save enough to quit my job.  So this is not intended to be financial advice.  K, thanks.