Happy 4th of July!

It's rather funny that I'm always the LAST one to wish everybody a Happy anything.


The children in our neighborhood are having a great time firing off fire crackers.

We celebrated the 4th by taking advantage of the mattress sales. We have finally made our nine months long decision on which bed to buy. No, we didn't buy it on Craigslist. We went to Slumber World and checked out their Ironman latex blend mattress but ended up buying an ALL organic natural talalay latex Vera Wang mattress at America's Mattress. The owner, Chris helped us make the decision. He was lying down on the mattresses along with us. It was rather hilarious. I told Chris I was worried about the mattress being able to make the turn up the stairs to the master bedroom, but he said the latex mattress is really pliable because it's rubber so we shouldn't have a problem. He also said he'd give us a month to make sure we liked it and if we didn't we could return it. Then he threw in a mattress cover. What a nice guy!

Whoa! The firecrackers are going off full force across the street. Happy 4th everybody!

How to Remove Pen Ink from Leather

You are not going to believe this. There were an awful lot of pen marks on the Stressless chairs we bought today. We tried rubbing alcohol to remove the pen ink but it took off the leather color and left the ink untouched. I checked the web and tried another recommendation... pink pearl eraser. Nope. Didn't work. The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser took off dirt beautifully but nothing else. Meguiar's Leather cleaner? Nope, but it's a conditioner also. Nail Polish remover? Nope, bad idea...takes off the leather color. Amway's LOC cleaner...Nope, did nothing. I was thinking of trying hair spray or ethanol next but didn't have them around the house. That's when I saw a recommendation for Hand Sanitizer. No kidding. It said to put a bit on the pen mark and rub gently. You do need to be gentle but with a bit of gentle patience.... Hot Dang! It worked! No kidding! The chairs now look almost brand new. Woo hoo! Happy Days!

Craigslist Buy in Aiea: Stressless Chairs

We have this open space in my office in front of the TV. We couldn't decide what furniture piece we should put there. Anybody who reads my blog knows we have a very hard time making up our minds. We didn't want the room to be busy looking so our first choice was to put a futon bed with no arms.

We looked everywhere for different kinds of futon beds but most of them seemed of poor quality. They were also too big for the area.

Then we thought a loveseat might work. We hunted everywhere for the perfect loveseat.On one of our hunts, Art fell in love with recliners. We researched recliners. We saw one microfiber recliner at Room Stores for $699. Then we looked at Homeworld and saw a La-z-boy leather recliner for $2,100.
Hmmmm... Which to get?.... Which to get?... Art was really liking that La-z-boy because he thought it would be better made. Then I looked online and saw a lot of complaints about the warranty and quality so we were twiddling our thumbs again about what to do.

My daughter said, "Life is short. Get exactly what Dad wants."

My son said, "Do you need such an expensive recliner? We have a recliner at work that's not that expensive and everybody sits on it comfortably."

This is the space where we needed something to sit on to watch TV.


Then last night I happened to see two Ekores (Norwegian) Stressless chairs selling for $400 a piece. Art told me to bid $500 for both which I did with some misgivings. It's a lot for used furniture.

We went to see it in Aiea today and met Cheryl who was selling the chairs for an elderly friend. When I saw the pen stains and grime on the chairs, I was even more hesitant. She offered to sell them both for $400 so she could get them out of her livingroom. We thought about it and decided... what the heck! Now we don't have to worry about KC walking around it with her marker a couple of weeks from now.

We've brought them home, cleaned it with Mr. Clean Magic Eraser which took off the grime but not the pen marks and have set them up. They are pretty low profile so we're pleased with our purchase. Art says we should go rent a movie and celebrate.

Does anybody know how to get pen marks off of leather?

Thursday This and Thats

Art said he noticed the pineapple in our "herb" garden was all yellow and we should pick it. However, my gardener mom came over and said, "Noooo... not today... tomorrow." So I guess we'll wait. She's got the final word.


We were on our way to Home Depot when I noticed all the Rainbow Shower trees in bloom. We had to stop by and take some photos. This is actually the parking lot of the Recreation Center where I used to take line dancing. I'm going to start going again next week. The doctor says to just put my foot back in the cast for the dancing.



I think this one is called the Golden Shower tree. I've also seen some other trees with lavender flowers and another with white flowers which my mother calls Moonlight Shower. (She says a reporter friend of hers made that name up.)


And then it was back home for more work. I'm painting the door molding here and I said, "No, you don't have to take my photo. No... don't take my photo."

Back to Where We Were: Doors!

OK... The front stoop is done so we're back to working on the doors. There's a dozen of them. Art has hung most of the doors so we're working on putting up the molding.


My job is to patch and caulk the holes and spaces and then later... paint. You can understand then why I've got at least 5 changes of clothes with paint stains all over them. We decided to install the rosettes at the corners of the door molding to make it easier to cut and match. I think I like it.



Art says the problem with home renovation is he finally understands how to do something when he's almost finished with it and then he has to move on to another task that he has to learn how to do.

Piggybacking for Attention

We've had a rather busy day returning that defective folding table to Targets, dropping off some lettuce at my brother and sister-in-law's place, dropping off fruits for my nephew and his wife who are both ill (no, it's not swine flu), grocery shopping for food and visiting my aunt in Honolulu.

On the ride home, my mother chuckled and told us she was amazed at my aunt's memory. I asked her what it was Auntie remembered and she explained.


"My sister was thanking me again for carrying her to lunch."

"What?" I was surprised because my aunt is only a year younger than my mom. "Why were you carrying Auntie and how could you?"

"I carried her on my back," she explained. "We liked walking to my parents' friend's house for lunch. They had no children, you see, whereas your grandmother was having a child almost every year. My mother had the many duties of the wife of a Zen priest and teaching Ikebana (flower arranging) classes as well. Being the eldest children, your auntie and I often did not get much attention. Therefore, we enjoyed going to this friends' house. Whenever, we went there they would fuss over us saying how adorable and cute we were. They would then sit us on their knees and we would all eat together. We loved basking in all that attention."

"So why did you have to carry Auntie on your back?" I was really wanting to get to the bottom of this story.

"Oh...," recalled mom. "One day, it was blistering hot and we desperately wanted to go for our special lunch. Unfortunately, my sister could not find her shoes anywhere. I loaned her mine and I went barefeet. However, I quickly discovered that my feet were painfully suffering from the heat, too. What could I do? I took back the shoes and carried my sister on my back to have our lunch. You do understand that Auntie used to be chubbier than me in those days so it wasn't exactly easy." She chuckled again at the memory. "I guess we enjoyed that attention and praise so much that we were willing to struggle a bit to have it."

It's funny but I've never thought of my mother as needing attention because I've always pictured her as the eldest child... responsible, stoic, independent and energetic. I enjoyed this nostalgic glimpse of my mother as a little girl and understand a bit more why she and her sisters are so close.

Grouting Through the Day

The alarm startled me awake at 5:30 this morning. It was the day to apply the epoxy grout to our front stoop. We've worked with epoxy grout before and knew how quickly it hardens in the Hawaiian heat. Art has been checking the weather reports and said this morning would have the coolest temperatures for what we were attempting. We chose to use the epoxy grout because it's supposed to be tough; stain, dirt and mold resistant.

We hurriedly dressed and Art very carefully measured part A and part B. We didn't have an electric paddle mixer so Art created a paddle with a paint stick that he attached to his drill. Then he added part C (the color) and the race was on.


I applied the grout and Art forced the soft texture into the spaces between the tiles. Seeing the sun slowly rise made our task urgent because we remembered how the grout hardened too quickly for us when we did the kitchen. The instructions said we'd have 45 minutes. You'd THINK that was a lot of time but it really isn't! We barely had enough grout towards the end.


Then came the cleaning part. We were supposed to remove the residue immediately, before the grout hardened on the tile and left streaks. This was a different brand of epoxy from the last time and we were surprised that it did NOT harden as quickly. Maybe it was the temperature but the grout was still soft... too soft.

We were actually able to go in, have breakfast and come out to do the initial cleaning on the somewhat hardened grout.


Before we did the final cleaning with a bit of soapy water, we had time to go to Target to buy a folding table which we discovered when we got home had a manufacturer's defect preventing it from unfolding! Doggone it! Now we'll have to go back to Target to return it tomorrow which will probably eat up in gas what we saved on the sale price.

I'm reposting this photo from the other day because my Anonymous Commenter asked for a Before Photo.

Ah well.....it's done! We finished just before dinner. Yae!!! Art says people probably won't even notice that we did all this work.

That's OK. We do.

Will This Stop Tropical Bugs from Killing My Plants?

I've been trying to figure out how to get rid of the black fungus on my Ixora. The flowers keep falling off because of all the ants, aphids and fungus that's sucking the life out of it. I planted this bush because I thought it was supposed to be indestructible.

A couple of days ago, the Honolulu Advertiser had an article about Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap. The advice was to mix the soap (1 part soap to 5 parts water) with water and spray your plants with it, both top and bottom of the leaves. UPDATE WARNING! (7-04-09) The 1 to 5 ratio was wrong. It killed my ginger flower and has nearly killed my Ixora.


You know....
It did kill the ants on our ginger plant. Sorry about the blurry photo.

We'll see how the suffering Ixora does in the coming days.

I've been reading up some more on the web about Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap and the Southern Nevada Water Authority says 2 Tbsp. Dr. Bronner's (Peppermint!) soap to 1 gallon of water. Wow! I've probably made my solution too strong. I hope it doesn't kill the plant. Well, if this is correct, it's certainly more economical.

Discovery Center, Kakaako Keiki (Children) Swap Meet

I happened to be looking on line and saw that there was going to be another Keiki Swap Meet in Kakaako. Since KC will be here in less than a month, I wanted to make sure we had enough things to keep her busy. Grandpa Art who can never say no to anything for his granddaughter... or his daughter, was happy to take me. Tif said KC was into push toys so we found a shopping basket right away. It scans the groceries and teaches counting skills.

I wasn't really planning to buy a WHOLE lot but for $18.00 we had quite a haul.

I think my favorite buy was the Bristle Blocks which my kids loved when they were little. They also go by the name Krinkles. The father who was helping his son sell his toys said he used to play with them and spent $40.00 to buy this set on line because he couldn't find it at the local stores. However, once his son got them he said he preferred Legos. I do know that the kids in my classroom used to love them so we said we'd buy it for the $10.00 asking price. Funny thing was, he changed his mind as we were chatting and said he'd sell it to us for $8.00. I wonder what his son was thinking. I love the idea of the Keiki Swap Meet because the kids are actually supposed to be doing the selling.

The only thing is.... I could never haggle with a child. Besides, the toys are so inexpensive, I'm more than happy to pay the price.

The first thing I did was to wash everything thoroughly and they cleaned up beautifully. They look brand new. The scanner (after we changed the batteries) works perfectly.

OK! We're ready for KC now. Actually, I'm looking forward to seeing my son, Jon play with the Bristle Blocks. I wonder if he remembers them.

It Started With Little Termites

It started with the termite inspector finding termites in our front screen door. He advised us to get rid of the door which we quickly did and decided to get a steel door so the termites would think twice before trying to take another bite out of the same place. However, when Art installed the door we found that the stoop did not go out far enough so there was a gaping hole at the bottom. Hmmmm... another invitation for termites to enter the house?

Off to Home Depot to buy some concrete blocks to extend the stoop and align it to the bottom of the door. That's when I got a great idea. How about we put tile down to make the entrance prettier?


OK, I admit Art wasn't too keen to start another project but he's so creative and brilliant and amazing with these home projects that I knew he would come around to seeing the rightness of this idea.


We had to go hunting for the right tile which we found at Lowes this time. There was a ton of measuring, choosing the grout and buying more thin set to glue down the tile.


Ummm... OK maybe it wasn't a quick and easy project like I thought it would be. I would have helped more if my foot wasn't in a cast at the time.


And now there's only the grouting left to do and I will help...

Garden Shots

Remember this papaya tree that I threatened to chop down because it refused to bear any fruits?

Well, by golly! We might actually be getting a fruit to eat sometime this year. See that other papaya tree cowering in the back? I'm watching! If that one doesn't do something soon, I may have to swing my hatchet a few times around it to send it a little message.


Here's our "herb" garden that my brother designed and planted. We've got sage, mint, basil and even a couple of pineapple plants.
Art's cousin gave us some pineapples to eat so we ate the fruit and stuck the crown into the ground. I wonder how this will taste.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

The Stop Sign Tree and My New Shoes

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago near my aunt's house of a Koa tree growing right up the Stop Sign. The City and County of Honolulu could pull the tree out at the base but instead they've let the tree grow and come back to trim it every so often. It's rather surprising to see a tree growing up the sign support and over the sign itself whenever we get to this stop. It's even funnier when the branches get bigger.


I wanted to share my new shoes and sandals that Art bought me. The Easy Spirit is nice to wear in the house and provides a good amount of support. I bought a pair like this for my mom before our trip to Japan and Canada and she loved it.

I'd seen several of my friends wearing the Clarks sandals when they had foot problems so I knew just what style to buy. As I was holding the sandals at the shoe department someone came over to me and said, "They're really comfortable and great for traveling. See mine? I wear it all the time. My husband tells me I should buy another one. Buy it!"

So I did and she was right.


P.S. Neither one of the loveseats we saw turned out to be what we wanted. One was actually too big and the other was too worn out. I guess I'm really hooked on Craigslist because it's like a gambling addiction. Sometimes you win and many times, you can lose.

Foot Update

I went to the orthopedic doctor yesterday and he says the X-rays are showing my bones starting to knit. It's not healed completely yet but I can carefully start walking without the bootcast. For the next two weeks especially, he wants me to be careful to put the bootcast back on if there's any pain. I asked about line dancing and he was not for it. However, I asked if I could do it with the cast on and he said the foot would be protected in that case. So we'll see...

Art bought me a pair of shoes to wear indoors and a new pair of supportive sandals for when I go out.

Meanwhile... I'm on another Craigslist hunt for a loveseat. We'll have to go to opposite ends of the island to see the two I've found.

My Granddaughter

My granddaughter is 2 and a half years old. She's the one in pink next to her very good friend. I was in the hospital room when she was born. I'm looking at these photos that my daughter posts on Flickr for us and I can hardly believe how much she's grown in just the 5 months since we've seen her last. We'll be seeing her next month in person and I can hardly wait. My problem is I want to buy up tons of toys for her. Don't worry, I'm not. However, I will make sure there is a water bucket and lots of cups for her. She loves playing with water. I wonder if she'll still be afraid of sand like she was last year. She wouldn't leave the blanket when we took her to the beach last summer. I have a feeling she won't be so easy to contain this year.

Charity Freebees?

I'm cleaning up a lot of the unopened mail that Art has been accumulating now that I'm organizing his office/desk for him. He's busy right now with a tiling project for our home renovation and the pile of papers he's set aside has become a bit daunting for him.
In his mountain of mail were quite a number of charity requests. One was from the Easter Seals. Ummmm... this is what was in the envelope: stationary pad, stickers, Easter Seal stamp stickers, letters, some kind of certificate... Puhleeease. This is even more reason why I wouldn't donate to them. There's obviously too much operating and advertising costs. I'm going to assume just from this envelope that a whole lot of my contribution may not be going where you'd want it to. You know that a LOT of people will just throw this away. The waste. I'm keeping the stickers and stamps for KC to play with next month. I don't think I've ever received mail from anybody with an Easter Seal sticker stamp on it. Why do they do this?

Supporting our Iranian Brothers and Sisters

We've been watching the news on TV about the Iranian revolt against the recent election. I'm so frightened for the Iranian people. I think they're incredibly brave to go against the Ayatollah, the establishment and President Ahmadinejad when they could be hurt and killed at anytime.

Some critics are complaining that President Obama has not come out strongly enough against the Iranian government about the crackdown of the revolt. They forget that our president has to be very careful here. He really can't threaten a whole lot because I can't see us going in as election judges with our armed forces. We don't have enough resources for that right now. We're strained as it is in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There are many middle east leaders who hate America and are looking to blame us for what is happening. If President Obama were to come out too strongly, the U.S. would be accused of meddling into their affairs. They could try to deflect their hatred onto us instead of dealing with the crisis in their own country which is due to their own making.

I think President Obama's careful and measured approach to this is smart. He's letting the world know that the U.S. is against the government's brutality but he's not threatening anything. I just hope Iran's leaders will redo the election and not turn into a dictatorship because that's what it's looking like now.

We really must be grateful that we were able to have a change of government without violence and bloodshed. It's not perfect but at least we're working toward it.

Craigslist Buy in Hawaii Kai: Happy Father's Day

I've been staring at Art's office and I wince every time I see his hoosier (antique kitchen cabinet) that he uses for a desk. He has papers filed on every horizontal surface. So for Father's Day I decided to get him an oak file cabinet on Craigslist that could maybe help him organize his Very Important Papers.

This time we didn't have to go out to Kailua. Instead, we headed toward Hawaii Kai where you can see lots of big estates. Karen was selling her file cabinet because she's moving to Arizona. She says her home sold in 3 days! That's incredible!


I'm so busy chatting that I didn't look close enough to see the big stain on one side. I knew there were the 4 holes but I figured we could deal with it. The stain is problematic. Still... for $30.00, I'm OK with it.


We were going to put the file cabinet on the right side but decided to stick it on the left to hide the imperfections. The cabinet can hold legal or letter size folders. I'm thinking it's pretty darn wonderful.


Happy Father's Day, Art!

And a fantastic and fun Father's Day to all the fabulous fathers out there!

Going with a "Green" Car

We've known for a year that we needed a smaller car because we always feel like we're guzzling gas with our van when it's just the two of us going places. We do need to still keep our van for our house construction but for everyday... what to buy? We tossed it back and forth like we usually do and decided to go with a Honda Fit. It's such a cute little car. I thought it was great!

Then our son reminded us that we needed to be conscious of our environment and think about getting a hybrid. We test drove a 2010 Toyota Prius today.

Our salesperson, Rocky who coincidentally lives rather close to us took us to a hill to see how the engine would charge the batteries when we were going down and in effect be getting a 100 miles a gallon... or was it a thousand? I don't remember.


There was a white Prius in the showroom which for some reason costs more than the silver. We decided against getting white because everybody in Hawaii seems to get white to reflect the strong sunlight. However, I'd never be able to find it in a parking lot with all the small white cars around. That's why I loved my lavender Camry. I could always spot it and nobody...NOBODY wanted to steal it. :-) We gave that car to our macho firefighter son who is NOT enamored of the color.



So there you have it! We've done our part for the environment and the economy although it's cost us a lot of green by going green.

Hawaiian Pot Luck

Sunday was a delightful epicurean day for us. We went from the very elegant table with beautifully prepared dishes for lunch at Gigi's to a Hawaiian pot luck for dinner. Our friends Dave and Diane invited us to a family pot luck. It was so much fun seeing all of their relatives who now feel like family to us. Everybody brought their favorite dishes and we gorged ourselves on one delicious morsel after another.


On the mainland, we often used to set a table and worked our tails off to have an appetizer, main course, salad, cooked veggie and dessert. I was always a bit stressed except with close friends who didn't care what I did. Here in Hawaii you can have a bunch of people over and not stress. You just have to make sure there's a LOT of food. It doesn't matter what, just a LOT of it.



Hmmmm... I guess that's why a lot of people here in Hawaii have two refrigerators.