Author: Joules

9 Stages of Driving with your Fuel Light on “E”

9 Stages of Driving with your Fuel Light on "E" - Pocketful of Joules
Stage 1. Staring at the “E” indicator, trying to decide if it is moving. Wait, did it raise up a smidge?! Crap, I think it actually got lower…

Stage 2. Turning off the AC and turning down the radio so that you can worry better.

Stage 3. Praying.

Stage 4. Mentally calculating the distance to the gas station and how long it would take to walk with your current shoe choice.

Stage 5. Promising never, never, EVER to let your tank go below ½ full if you can just make it to the gas station this time!

Stage 6. Sweet talking your car and calling it baby.

Stage 7. Coasting down hills.

Stage 8. Finally pulling into the gas station only to notice the “out of order” hood over the nearest pump.

Stage 9. Filling the car with gas and then going on upon your merry way…until you hit “E” again.

And yes, this totally happened to me this morning as I was dropping off Jack.

What do you think… did I miss any? Am I the only one who keeps promising myself that I will never let the gas tank get low again, only to do it like 75% of the time that I use my truck?!

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Exploring Sasa Designs by the Deaf

Psssst. Guess what? I’m actually on vacation right now. Yup, I’m most likely sitting on the beach with various members of my family, listening to the ocean waves crash, getting a teensy bit of sun and handing Jack his 19th snack of the day. I didn’t want to leave you bored with my lack o’ blog posts though, so I wrote this one up for you quick as a bunny AND even decided to throw in a little giveaway.

A couple weeks ago I met a really sweet lady who works with Sasa Designs by the Deaf. I actually won a bracelet from her and she totally sparked my interest when she told me a bit about the organization:

Sasa Designs by the Deaf launched in Fall 2011 with the goal of providing employment and fair wages to Deaf artisans in Kenya. With an estimated unemployment rate of 85% among the Deaf in Kenya, few will have an opportunity to discover their potential, work in dignity and earn a fair wage. Employers are simply not willing to deal with the communication issues that arise working with the Deaf.

When, I went home and checked out their website, I was BLOWN AWAY by the beautiful designs. Not only can you empower women and help them build a better life for themselves, their children and their extended family, you can enjoy an absolutely gorgeous piece of jewelry.

You KNOW how I feel about gorgeous jewelry.
Especially gorgeous jewelry with a STORY!

While I love the bracelet I won, I’m not really a huge bracelet-wearer and I’d rather one of you enjoy it. I’d also love it if a bunch of you all checked out their website, because there are so many affordable designs available. In addition to their website, you can also find them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Pinterest!

Would you like to win this bracelet?

Sasa Designs - bracelet

How to enter to win:
All you need to do to enter is leave a comment on this post. That’s it!

I’ve already stalked their entire website and have fallen in love with a pair of malachite hoop earrings that are coming out in the fall. Good thing my birthday is coming up, because I totally added myself to the pre-order list!

Aren’t they gorgeous?!

Sasa Designs - hoop earrings

If you see something on the Sasa Designs website that you fall in love with, they have been so generous to give my readers 15% off their purchase! All you need to do is use the code POCKETFULOFJOULES when checking out. The code is valid now through September 15th.

I hope you all are having a fantastic week and I’ll be back in a few days with lots of pictures!

 

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. I won the bracelet in an Instagram contest and wanted to pass it along to one of you to enjoy. I let Sasa Designs know that I’d be writing about them and they were so kind as to give us a special code for 15% off. I do not benefit in any way if you make a purchase.

 8/15/14 Update: Ollie did the honors of picking the winner of the bracelet…

 

 

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Dog Proofing with a Staple Gun & Chicken Wire

For the last few weeks, Ollie has been driving me crazy. Every time I would let him out into the fenced-in area of our backyard to do his business, he would run under our sun room instead.

I think there might have been some bunny rabbits living under there, because one day a HUGE Ollie-sized rabbit came running out.

Hmmm… maybe they were making some sweet cross-species love?

DIY - Dog proofing porch - 1

Anyways, it got to the point where he didn’t want to do any business at all – other than hanging out in his hidden love shack. The tipping point was when we had a few days of rain… Ollie HATES baths and I hate having a muddy dog running around my house.

And it was quite muddy, because there wasn’t any grass under the porch. Or around the porch…

DIY - Dog proofing porch - 2

Instead of buying and installing some porch lattice, which is certainly one way of fixing the issue, we decided to work with what we had:

DIY - Dog proofing porch - 3

  • 1 inch Poultry Netting left over from another project
  • A staple gun and staples that I have used for pretty much EVERYTHING over the past 10 years
  • A measuring tape
  • A hammer (in case I needed to pry any staples out)
  • Wire snips (not shown)

Step 1: While Ollie kept a close eye on him, Travis pulled out the random slabs of concrete that were stuffed under the deck. We have no idea why the last owners put them there, but we re-purposed them to block the skinny area by the back stairs (shown a few pictures down).

Dog proofing porch - 4

Step 2: We measured each space between wood columns and snipped the chicken wire to size.

Dog proofing porch - 5

Step 3: While holding the wire tight, I used the staple gun to secure each piece to wood.

Dog proofing porch - 6

Step 4: Travis added a few extra staples to keep the wire from pulling away from the house.

Dog proofing porch - 7

That’s it! It took us less than an hour and totally solved the issue of Ollie playing under the deck. We even left the shallow area open, in case there were little critters that needed to get in and out of the area.

Dog proofing porch - 8

Dog proofing porch - 9

Unless you look closely, you can hardly tell that the chicken wire is there at all. Ollie knows though, and totally stares through the holes with longing at his bunny wife. Or husband. I’m not really sure of Ollie’s sexual orientation.

Dog proofing porch - 10

I guess now we need to deal with the whole lack o’ grass thing going on…

Have you needed to do some random animal proofing around your house? Do you have a dog in love with a bunny rabbit?

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