The mantle project

The mantle project is effectively done! This was not without 2 extra trips to Gnome Despot. because no project can be completed without multiple trips...

I bought an unfinished mantle kit from the Gnome Despot a few weeks ago. It came with the wood pieces needed to mount it, but no hardware though it listed what hardware you'd need in the instructions (and not on the outside of the box). So Steve went out to buy the hardware. That was Extra Trip #1.

When he got home with the hardware, he glued and then screwed in the mounting board (for lack of a better term) to set while I worked on the mantle's finish. It even came out level. Woohoo!

I put on a coat of an all-in-one stain/varnish substance and let it dry. According to the directions on the all-in-one stain/varnish substance, it says to sand it down with very fine steel wool (#000 or finer) after the first application. Steve was supposed to buy me some of this very fine steel wool (#000) during Extra Trip #1 to Gnome Despot. He forgot. This was the cause for Extra Trip #2.

I pulled out the steel wool and I was surprised to find that it's practically soft. I start sanding and it creates this very fine (imagine that!) dark grey dust. It also makes the mantle surprisingly smooth. Ok, I know that sounds like a dumb statement, but you don't tend to figure that something that soft could have that much of an impact in terms of "sanding" something.

The spots where the wood grain runs through are a little rough, so I wonder if I should have sanded it before I stained/varnished it the first time or would that have made it worse? Oh well.

I was also surprised to find that the color wasn't affected at all by the sanding. I expected it to be lighter and thus the need for a second coat. It turns out that the only reason we really needed the second coat was to make sure it's well sealed since sanding it probably opened up tiny pockets.

When I was finished, I wiped the mantle down with a damp sponge, added a 2nd coat of stain/varnish, and let it dry overnight. It bubbled and looked like it was almost foaming. I expected to need to sand it down again because the stain/varnish didn't go on smoothly. Turns out I didn't! Shocker!

Steve mounted the mantle to the wall on Saturday morning. We need to move the Monet print we have to accommodate the mantle now, and then I get to decorate! I made all of our stockings with glitter glue (hot glue guns rule!), and now we can hang them! Yaay!

Other family blogs

So Nancy and Dave blog on occasion, Nancy more than Dave.

Here are their sites:
Nancy's Blog:
http://www.nancyiniraq.blogspot.com/
Dave's Blog:
http://www.daveocracy.blogspot.com/

Nancy chronicled a lot of her Iraq tours on her site. Being a communications major in the Naval Academy, she has a knack for writing. Her blogs are entertaining to say the very least!!

Dave also keeps a website where he posts a lot of his pictures and an older blog (can't you put it all in one place Dave?? sheesh!) which can be found off of his blog or here: http://www.diesel173.com/Home.html

I've also created a links section on the right side of the page where I put these links for future reference.

Enjoy!

A Christmas tree!

Christmas has officially arrived at this Salisbury household this year. This is far more significant this year than in years past....

When we lived in the townhouse, we used to decorate our 2 ft tall potted Norfolk Pine with extreme-miniature ornaments, pile up the presents on the kitchen table, and put the Norfolk Pine literally on top of them. I'd also hang a wreath outside the front storm door.

Last year was our first year in this house. I hung holly garlands from some of the door frames, decorated the mailbox with a mini-poinsettia garland, hung the wreath outside with two holly garlands, and I attempted to hang stockings over our fireplace (there's no mantle and packing tape doesn't work well...). I even attempted to hang lights from our front porch despite all the warnings about being pregnant and standing on ladders. And of course, we continued the Norfolk Pine tradition.

This year, though, Christmas is here in all its glory for 2 reasons.
1. We bought a tree. It's a 5 foot artificial tree with 300 lights already strung on it. All I have to do is unfold the stand, insert the bottom half of the tree into it (and secure it), insert the top half into the bottom, shape the branches, connect the light strings, and voila... a beautiful tree that I don't have to water, that the doggies will not think is indoor potty, and it will not shed. I don't have to fight with stringing up lights, and I don't have to worry about killing a tree (even though I know I'm not supporting local tree farms...). I even have the tree on a photo sensor timer. It's programmed to turn on/off based on the amount of light in the room. I haven't tested it yet, but I think it's flexible enough that it can be set to turn on at dusk and turn off 8 hours later instead of when dawn arrives. BGE doesn't need anymore of my money, TYVM.

2. I bought a mantle for our fireplace. It's unfinished, so I have to stain it, but that doesn't bother me. I will be able to hang another garland, Christmas malafetia (knick knacks in Greek) and the best part, stockings. The mantle project will start tonight after DJ goes to sleep. It'll require a couple coats of this all-in-one stain/varnish I have. I bought some really cheap brushes because you can't wash this stuff out of brushes. You just have to throw the brushes out. I learned that the hard way the last time I stained a small shelf I have. Anyway, after it's been stained a few times, Steve will get to mount it to the wall over the fireplace. I so can't wait!!

I also finally found a functional ground spotlight. Last year, the one I bought was totally busted, so I took it back and I couldn't find another one. Was really disappointed because you couldn't see the wreath and the garlands without turning on all of the front lights, and that just wasn't the effect I wanted. This year, I got an awesome spotlight, a photo sensor timer with a remote (so now I can turn it off from inside the house since the outside power outlet isn't switched by anything inside), and a 50 ft outside extension cord. The wreath is properly lit and the focus of the outside decorations is the way I want it.

I didn't put up any lights this year outside. I haven't decided what I want to do in terms of "look". I think that my creativity is partly being stifled by the fact that the outside beds require more work than have already been done to them, and I can't visualize an end product.

We interrupt this Christmas blog to report that DJ literally cruised down the length of the our coffee table by shuffling his arms and stepping sideways with this feet. WAY TO GO DJ!!!

Back to Christmas.

We have been meaning to get a tree for years, but never were motivated enough. This year, DJ motivated us to get the tree to give him something to look at, even though he doesn't understand what it's about. My search for a tree included comparison shopping. I went to Valley View Farms, Watsons, Home Depot, and Target. I couldn't believe the disparity between all the stores. Valley View Farms had the best selection of trees by far but since it's the first place I looked, I figured also the most expensive. Watsons had very expensive and what surprised me to be very ugly trees when they were smaller than 6.5 feet. Target had an ok selection with the best prices, but their 4.5 ft trees were kinda scrawny. It was a clear example of "you get what you pay for". Home Depot didn't have trees less than 6.5 feet tall. That means I went back to Valley View Farms to buy our tree.

I'm really excited about the tree. We knew we wanted a tree less than 6 feet tall because we want to put it on the bay window sill. Unfortunately, the sill is a little short in width, so we'll have to get creative on how to "extend" the sill. Maybe that will be next year's project. For this year, we put it on a small table next to the sill.

DJ has been fascinated with the tree. He immediately reached for it and squished the "needles" in his fingers (another benefit of an artificial tree... no needle injuries!). He stared at the lights and he wanted to touch all the ornaments, naturally. When we went to Valley View Farms on Monday, I think he was too overwhelmed by vast extensiveness of Christmas decor to really process what he was seeing was "stuff to touch"!! Towards the end, I think he started to get his bearings and started to talk to the ornaments he liked. It was really cute.

Ok, this blog has gone on long enough. Merry Christmas everyone!

Field Hockey Referee Update

I have been a field hockey referee for 7 full seasons now. The season starts in August and ends in early to mid November.

The board of officials for which I work, BBOWS - the Baltimore Board of Women's Sports, has an interesting field hockey jurisdiction:
1. All of the public schools in Baltimore County
2. All of the independent/private schools that are not in an area considered a suburb of DC. This means everything from McDonogh to Severn down near Annapolis
3. Some schools in Harford County (never had one of these).
4. Some schools in Cecil County (never had one of these either).
5. All of the youth league games on Sundays. Typically, you're the only ref for those games, so there's LOTS of running involved there!

Most of my varsity and jv games are at the private schools because of their later start times and proximity to my work. The later I can leave, the better. But I do get the occasional public school game, like if it's on a Saturday or something. I also get a ton (4-5 a day) every Sunday September and October, plus the season end tournament the first weekend in November. This year, I worked games 4 days a week which is more than I had ever worked in the past.

Why do I do this? Because:
1. It keeps me in touch with local field hockey at the high school and youth levels.
2. It gets me outside and running around (it's excellent exercise)!
3. It pays pretty well!
4. It lets me give back to a sport I love to play and watch and now, officiate.

In 2005, I got a call from my assignor that she was rewarding me for all of my hard work (read: travel to youth league games that were over an hour away more than half of the Sundays I worked) by assigning me to the Baltimore County Senior All-Star game to be played under the lights at Towson (State) University. Neat-o!!!! I was very excited to know that she had noticed my hard work but that the Board had noticed that my skills as a referee had grown to a level where I could take on an all-county all-star game. That game ended up being a lot of fun to officiate, despite the torrential downpour we had the entire game.

In 2006, I got a call from my assignor that again, she was rewarding me for all of my hard work with the private school B Conference Championship game (to be played on turf). There was a chance that McDonogh would get to the finals, so there could be a conflict of interest. But we agreed that if they did make it to the final, it's been long enough since I graduated that their presence wouldn't change anything. I don't know the coaches or the players so I don't really care. McDonogh didn't make the final, and I had one of THE most fun games ever that day. The atmosphere was electric and there was a big crowd and it was just outright fun. To date, it's one of my favorite officiating memories.

Also that year, I got a bunch of championship games during the youth league tournament. Despite being in my 2nd trimester with DJ and carrying around a fair amount of weight, I managed to keep up with the play on the field even after the 4th or 5th game that day. I felt like I called good games that tournament that were fair and clean.

Apparently, I've proven my worth as a ref over the last few years, both during the regular season and during the important games, like the B Conference championship game, because this year, I got some awesome games!! I got assigned to a public school regional semifinal, a private school B Conference quarter final, an A Conference semifinal, and then I got a public school State Championship semifinal! Here's why these are all big deals.

Clearly, tournament level games feature teams with higher skill levels and so the game is faster and more subtle in terms of the fouls. They are also highly emotional, so solid game control (and crowd control for that matter) is paramount! That said, you don't get assigned to games like these, especially ones like a private school A Conference tournament game that gets high press both at the local and college levels, if your skills are subpar. It makes both you and the Board look bad and frankly, it's enormously frustrating to all parties involved.

But wait, there's more. You have to be selected by a Board of public school coaches to be the referee for any of the games for the public school State Championships. So for me to have been assigned to the State Semifinal, that means the board of coaches saw enough of my officiating this year to decide that I could successfully handle a game of that caliber. My assignor had submitted my name last year, too, but clearly I wasn't selected. I suspect that's the reason why I got the private school B Conference championship game instead that year.

The private school B Conference quarterfinal I had this year was pretty uneventful.

The private school A Conference semifinal, on the other hand, not so uneventful. It's not like there were any incidents, but the flow of the game was just *weird*, and weird is hard to officiate. The pace was very fast, the intensity level was as electric as a championship game, and the skill level was above and beyond the vast majority of the games I'd officiated ever. The fouls were subtle, the slight pushing was rampant (and very hard to see without being at the exact right angle to see it) and I admit, I struggled with that game. I don't tend to leave games wondering if I'd done a good job anymore, but I left that game wondering. And it bothered me for a few days, even. I felt like this despite the parents/fans of the losing team saying "thank you" and "good game".

It's funny because at the public school regional semifinal a few days previously, I know I ran a good game, and the parents/fans of the losing team said I did a "horrible" job. And I didn't think twice about the game thereafter either. Confidence levels are weird that way, I guess. Or maybe it's just that the parents/fans of the private school losing team are just classier and more adult than the parents/fans of the public school losing team. Who knows.

The public school State Semifinal game was this past Monday night, under the lights. The game itself was weird to officiate but for some reason, it didn't seem nearly as bad as the private school A conference semifinal a few days earlier. The game went great overall even though the losing team fans would tell you I was officiating a wrestling match, and I received a patch to commemorate the fact that I was a Championship Official. I'm supposed to wear that patch to any future public school games I have. Neat-o!!

So I guess in the high school referee circles, I'm moving up in the world and making a name for myself. That's pretty cool, frankly. Queston is, am I ready or maybe more importantly, do I want to move up to the college level?

I think I'm ready, but I don't think I want to. I'm really enjoying the level of play at the high school level, and I'm enjoying being involved with it. Field Hockey in the Baltimore metro area is better than a fair number of Division III college play. There's something to be said for that.

P.S. Huge CONGRATS to the McDonogh Field Hockey team for winning the IAAM B Conference championship!! I'm sorry I couldn't be there to watch in person... was officiating a few tournament finals for the youth leagues.