Dose of Happiness: Home Projects

Nobody ever says that doing home projects are fun...well, almost nobody. But, this one made me happy.

Say what?

Yep, it's true! Erin and I have been planning to replace the fans in our bathrooms, paint, and hang our barn door for several months now, and this weekend was it. So, as soon as I got off work on Friday, Erin came and picked me and we headed to the hardware store.

One of the things we had to do was figure out how to connect a super-sucker, modern-day bathroom fan to our antiquated 1980's attic venting. Erin and I worked through the limited available pipe pieces until we came up with a Y-adapter that would connect two fans with 6 inch exhaust pipes to a 3 inch flexi-vent pipe.

Rube Goldberg, eat your heart out!

Our ridiculous contraption looked both like the funnel on a steam engine or, well...

Be jealous, my Portland peeps!

In the end the venting worked perfectly, though this one looks kinda like a scorpion.

And this one, well, I don't know, is just a mess.
Functional, but a mess nonetheless.

And the results... Drumroll please!

Before

During

After

Dose of Happiness

Okay, so how does all of this tie back in to a dose of happiness?

Easy!

Erin and I did this together

And, really, for me to be happy that's all it takes. She and I had fun picking out our color, piecing together the crazy vent pipe, planning, and ordering the parts. During the project, which took most of the weekend and FOUR total coats of primer and paint (yes, FOUR!), we talked, laughed, and jammed out to country tunes.

Saturday evening, we had to go up to the hardware store for the inevitable thing that we forgot, but instead of driving we took advantage of the beautiful weather and walked.

Gorgeous sunset from the hardware store parking lot

It just kept getting prettier as we walked home.

As seeing as how Saturday is also Fryday, we then went to Wendy's, got our small fry, and ate in the parking lot. Dude, tastes SO good after a day of sweating and painting and bending and stooping and wiring in the attic! AND after we finished for the evening, it was pizza night!

In my past life I would have done the whole project alone. But my best friend and partner was there every step of the way, and together we rocked it!

Deek and Erin, back again, party on party on!

This is Deek, giving you a little dose of home project happiness!

Adventure on, my friends!

Dose of Happiness: Fryday!

Erin and I spent months and months losing weight via Keto. It worked awesome and we shedded the pounds like melted butter.

But what do you do after you've lost the weight?

Unfortunately, a lot of people go back to their old habits and put the weight back on. Erin and I got rid of all our "fat" clothes, thus committed to keeping the weight off. So we incorporated the changes into our lifestyle.

We like fitting into our clothes. We like feeling energetic. We like taking pictures and not worrying if we look bloated/puffy/fat.

While we were dieting, we had our weekly cheat-meal day. Pizza, Starbucks, and we split a small Wendy's fry. I'm affectionately coining this day:

Fryday!

Mountains of delicious salty goodness in a convenient sleeve

You can taste their warm, salty, goodness can't you?

But who eats just half a small fry? Actually, we do. Once a week.

Fries are one of those things that there's diminishing returns for each delectable, salt-ladened stick. The first few blow your socks off. The next curl your toes. After that, it starts losing something and the enjoyment factor goes way down.

As a kid I was always told to clean my plate. Starving kids in Africa/China/California, yada yada yada. But SHOULD you do that with unhealthy foods?

Anyway, we decided to carry on the habit of our once-a-week cheat meal over, incorporating it into our lifestyle. We get our fry and sit in the parking lot, savoring it. And just when we are starting to get diminishing returns on our caloric investment, they're gone.

Food-wise, Fryday is easily my happiest day of the week! While we eat great stuff all the rest of the time, this tops the charts...plus, it's the weekend, so I'm hanging our full time with my bestie and sleeping in.

This is Deek, delivering a little dose of Fryday happiness.

Adventure on, my friends!