Probably the most boring thing I've ever written about.

 

I have a lot of pet peeves. A sermon once told me that I should work on having a lot fewer. . . that I should let fewer things bother me. I am a work in progress.

One thing that I cannot stand are cords. It is the 21st century, I don't understand why we even need them. Cords, especially knoted cords give me anxiety. . . I can literally feel my chest starting to explode sometimes.

 

I grew up with apple products. My first computer had one cord. The cord that charged it. My second had 3, the power cord, keyboard cord and mouse cord. All very managable. 

When I got married I inherited a lot of cords. I did not know that this was coming to me. I can't tell you how many times I have said to Kyle, "I don't understand why your computer has so many cords. Can't we just get rid of some." Then I would invision just cutting them away like thread on blouse. Apparently you can't do that.

 

I was always told that the computer didn't have that many cords. How could that be? I wondered. And if what I am seeing is a few, what does a lot look like?

I looked under the desk the other day, where the baby was playing at the moment, and saw that his neck was wrapped in cords. Keyboard and mouse. He was screaming. It took more than a few seconds to untangle him.

A friend recently wrote me an email asking how I gotten settled into our home so quickly with two little ones. I don't think I've written her back. The answer is that we are still getting settled. I've just thrown things into places and am slowly organizing. Today I took on the most daunting task in the whole home. Organizing  the cords. . .

Warning: The following contains graphic images of a extreme nature. Proceed at your own risk.



Before



Before

I shudder.

Whoever invented zipties is a genius. They are fantastic. I used about 297 of them today. I actually didn't have zipties long enough to do what I needed, but, you can zip tie them together and they still work perfectly.

I started by unplugging everything. I knew with almost 100% certaintly that I would never be able to put them all back in the right place, but there was no way to detangle without unplugging. Long story (4 hours of strapping down and pinning and placing and running to BestBuy), short. It turns out that Kyle's computer does have that many cords after all. The modem, router and internet phone took up a good portion of the corded mass. They are now all organized on a single plug hub and can be reset by unplugging just one cord. Speakers, moniter, tower and printer are on another hub. Keyboard, mouse and iphone charger (I laugh that the fella has one) are on their own hub that I stuck to the back of the keyboard tray/drawer, so now there is only 1 usb cord going to the computer and those cords can no longer hang down and strangle the baby. Which is just fantastic. 



Modem, phone and router

After

USB hub at back of keyboard drawer

Everything is working but the phone. I also reset the internet security and address, so were at default right now. . . no hacking please!

 

Project 33 of many. . .

I finally decided to get on the chalkboard wagon that everyone has been on for the last, oh I don't know, two years perhaps? I've always loved the look of the laser cut peel and stick ones, but, wanted something a little more authentic feeling. 

This project was pretty simple. I designed a shape I liked in Illustrator, created 8 1/2 x 11" sized pattern pieces, taped them together, transfered to a 4' x 2', cut out with a jigsaw, sanded the edges, painted, sanded with 220, painted sanded again and then applied one last coat.  To hang, I  drilled two holes in the back with the largest drill bit I had. 

The only thing that would have made this project easier would have been having CS. . . whatever version has artboards, because then I would not have had to make 5 clipping masks and copy and paste that many times. If someone has that version of Illustrator and wants to break my original 4' x 2' template down into printable size pages, I'd be glad to share my template with everyone.