Numbers Count

> We recently had the stucco redone on our house. We were so excited about the results—the newness, no cracks or stains, and the new warmer color—we decided we just couldn't re-hang the house numbers that had once been there. They were cheap, plastic, and from my point of view, just plain ugly. My husband and I agreed that we needed better looking numbers to adorn our face-lifted house.

> In hindsight, I wish that I had taken a photo of the "before" numbers, but I hastily threw them out as soon as we decided we weren't going to use them.

> With expenses and the economy as they are right now, we needed to be frugal as well as finicky, which narrowed our selection quite a bit. 

> We found some in an art deco font that we LOVED, but they just didn't fit well on the plaque we needed to use. Our second choice was a condensed roman (serif) font, but it was SO condensed that we decided it wouldn't be as legible from the street as we felt like it should be. We purchased our third choice—it's a hybrid between a serif and sans serif, giving it a modern feel. Some of the numbers are shown above. We plan to get the numbers mounted and the plaque hung this evening. 

> For someone who's not a numbers person, I'm pretty excited about these!

Vegas from a Different View

> I was in Vegas last week for a family reunion. I've been there numerous times, but this time, we did some activities I haven't done before...like Hoover Dam, or hiking in Mt. Charleston, and the only money I put into machines was at the Pinball Museum.

> I spent one day with my husband, and my sis and her husband, and we checked out some of the places on the Strip we hadn't been to before—like the City Center with its cool modern architecture, lots of glass, and unexpected angles. When we were in places I've been before, I tried to notice things I hadn't seen before (A little tough to do since everything there is loudly fighting for your attention).

> Here are a few shots of some of the things that I narrowed my focus on...a patterned tile floor...a merchant's decorative front window glass...and the covering of the Paris hotel's valet area.

> I feel pretty good about successfully looking past all the lights and glam, and finding some great details that I had missed during previous visits.

Here Kitty Kitty...

> One of the blogs I get regular feeds to is called Freelance Switch. Great articles and great ideas, tailored to freelancers, like me. The article today is about the health benefits of having pets, especially for freelancers. Good news for me, I work alone and I've got 2 cats (Ninja and Dorian Gray). It's a great article with research to back up the theories. There's a study on a group of stockbrokers who all suffered from hypertension. They sent half home with medication, and the other half home with a dog or cat. Guess which group had a noticeably lower stress level? Yep—the animal people.
> I should get double the benefits from having 2 cats...but I'm not sure since cats are pretty finicky...they say who, and they say when! Still, I put up with the hair everywhere, and having to clean the littler boxes...they're part of the family. They get spoiled with kitty treats and toy mice...they must be doing their jobs right.