This ‘n That

— 1 —

Tonight the National Geographic Channel will be broadcasting LIVE from Mission Control and the International Space Station. Their huge crew has been here all week, and I got to help out a little with preparations on Tuesday afternoon. (My oh-so-exciting job involved escorting people from the lobby to the ISS viewing room, where they’re setting up a mini broadcast studio, and back.)

“Live From Space” should be a pretty awesome and rather unprecedented event and I can’t wait to watch. Hope you will too! It’s on at 7:00 Central time, so adjust as necessary for your time zone.

— 2 —

I ordered a new light fixture for the bonus room and it arrived on Wednesday — woo! I’m planning to install it either today or over the weekend. It takes 3 bulbs and I’m very excited that the room won’t be so darn dim anymore. (And also, it will have a nice light fixture instead of a boob light.)

— 3 —

I am also very excited that the new light will take nice, normal, standard size light bulbs. We’ve been in our house for almost 5 years now and it seems like each time a light burns out, I discover some new kind of mystery light bulb that I’ve never seen before and can’t find at Lowe’s. We have normal size bulbs with normal size bases, small size bulbs with normal bases, small size bulbs with candelabra bases, CFL bulbs with GU24 bases, CFL bulbs with G24q-1 bases that sit in GU24 adapters, CFL bulbs with GX24q-2 bases, and a couple long fluorescent tubes in the closet.

Why yes, that’s 7 types of light bulbs in a single house. And no, I did not know any of those terms. I was forced to learn far more about light bulb bases than any sane person should ever know when I started changing light bulbs in our house.

It’s utterly ridiculous and I suspect some dude in a van stopped by the house one day while it was under construction and sold the builders a bunch of random light fixtures for cheap, because I can come up with no other reasonable explanation. I have taken to ordering light bulbs on the internet to get the right ones, and am seriously debating embarking on a campaign to change every odd light fixture in the entire house.

— 4 —

This is probably a good time to mention that I’m also on a crusade to replace most of our bulbs with cool color bulbs instead of warm (“soft white”) because sometimes it bugs me that our rooms are all so yellow in the evenings. Clearly this is a sign that I am becoming obsessed with light bulbs and need to move on with my life.

 — 5 —

So I mentioned it yesterday already, but the cold has gone again, this week has been lovely, and spring is springing all over the place. I love March!

— 6 —

Thanks to the Girl Scouts and the peer pressure of Facebook, we have way too many dang cookies in our house. For those keeping track at home, we’ve already gone through 1 box of Thin Mints and have boxes of Lemonades and Tagalongs. As if that weren’t enough, Jose insisted on a package of cookie dough Oreos and if you haven’t had those? They are like crack. If you value your health, do not buy cookie dough Oreos! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

— 7 —

Speaking of Girl Scout Cookies, there’s even a March Madness-style bracket face-off going on. And oh man — Samoas! Why do I not have any Samoas yet? Because, you know, I need another box of cookies.

(Linking up: 7 Quick Takes, hosted by Conversation Diary)