Another dose of Talks with Tom.

With deployment, one misses out on a lot of TV programming. Seasons come and go. And in the past you would just miss out on them forever, or until the next year when the DVD was released. Then you had to spend a nice chunk of change on that. Oh, or Hulu may or may not have your show, but you can only watch the last 5 episodes and hope they don’t go to HuluPlus.

That is until recently.

My friend Susan introduced me to a site that allows you to watch ANY episode, from ANY season, at ANY time. As a TV junkie, this is a life changer. And when I say any, I will admit that I have not looked for every show out there, but it has yet to fail me.

I introduced Tom to “Project Free TV” so he could catch up on the Walking Dead and Gold Rush.

The trouble with the site though is that it can be finicky and not load as lickity-split as Hulu or a network site, or the unrealistic expectations we may have as millennials.

Tom was near the end of the season for Walking Dead when we had this conversation.

Tom:  This shouldn’t be this difficult. (talking about uploading a video)(groaning and impatient foot-tapping commenced)

Me:  Well, if it is that easy, why don’t you figure out how to post episode videos online on your own?

Tom: That’s this guy’s job. This is his only job in life, and he can’t do that? How hard is it to be awesome at your job? My job is freedom, and I am pretty awesome at that. I have that down pat. I’m just saying.

Happy Independence Day everyone! I hope that we can all celebrate our freedoms this week, and that videos will upload at your command.

And what can be more than American than a weekend was full of home improvements?

We inherited a pair of dressers from my grandparent’s over Father’s Day weekend.

This weekend we did a makeover on these bad boys.

Before…

They were this old plastic wood, so I first primed them with this stuff.

Then I painted on a light orangey brown satin finish paint. I did two coats of this. Tom had to help with some parts because I am not the “smoothest” or most patient painter. You can tell the edges that I worked on–>globs of dried paint are left in my wake. But I did paint 95% of them fairly successfully! It was just a lesson in my on-going curriculum of patience.

And after…

We ended up keeping the same knobs (just taking off the fancy plate things that were on there). It would have cost too much to replace around 25 knobs, but that is an option if you are trying to redo dressers to make a different look.

I wish I had taken a before and after of our bedroom/closet to show how dramatic of a change it was going from living into laundry basket chaos to a much more organized and structured closet. We can actually see everything now in it’s place.

They aren’t perfectly brand new. You can still see nicks and wear and tear from the years they spent in my grandparents’ home. But we gave the pieces a facelift and hopefully a new life with just an afternoon of time and a little bit of paint. And as Tom says, “They are just showing some character.” (He also said that about my globs. He’s a keeper.)

I am excited this week to see what is happening on base for the 4th of July. Red, white, and blue baby!

What are you doing for the 4th?