Nova May Have Pitched Himself Off The Postseason Roster

From Wallace Matthews:

Last October, when the New York Yankees needed one more win to extend their season another round, they asked Ivan Nova to get it.

This October, they may not even invite him along for the ride.

Thursday night, facing yet another golden opportunity to create some separation between themselves and the Baltimore Orioles, the Yankees turned to Nova.

And as he had in the fifth game of the 2011 American League Division Series against the Detroit Tigers, Nova turned to stone.

His frustrating, mistake-riddled performance, in which he allowed four runs and failed to last five innings, not only sliced the Yankees' margin over the idle Orioles in the AL East back to a single game, it also raised doubts about the value, if any, of including Nova on their postseason roster, let alone in the starting rotation.

...

The manager may have bigger fish to fry but that doesn't stop us from questioning whether Nova finally succeeded in not only pitching himself out of the playoff rotation, but right off the postseason roster.

Despite his supportive words, Girardi clearly doesn't trust him anymore in a big game -- he pulled him with one out in the third five days ago against the Oakland Athletics, and yanked him Thursday with two out in the fourth -- and his facial expressions tell you something his statements try to cover up.

Nova's maddening inconsistency is driving him bananas.

"He was big for us at the beginning of the year," Girardi said. "He ended up going on the DL, and after he had that great start against Tampa, we were hoping he could get on a roll. He hasn't."

Now, he has one start left this season, Tuesday against the Boston Red Sox in a game that in a perfect world really should be meaningless to everyone but him. And yet, there is every indication that it will wind up being important, and no guarantee that Nova will get the ball again.

"We'll see. We'll see," a tight-lipped Girardi said. "That's five days away. I have to worry about tomorrow."

At this point there's really no reason to start him once October rolls around. He hasn't been the same pitcher he was last year and the only consistency we've seen from his is consistent disappointment. I'm pretty comfortable throwing out a 4-man playoff rotation of CC, Pettitte, Kuroda and Hughes, although Hughes does scare me. But with that said, I'd even put David Phelps higher up on the pecking order than Nova.

As far as his start in Boston goes, to me that all depends on how important that game becomes. If it's a make or break game for the division I don't see how you can hand Nova the ball.

Trip to Japan~Bite of Japanese Pop Culture "Purikura"

I shared about one of my sisters several times on my blog. I have another sister that is 20 years younger than I. Yup, you read it right, 20! I got married and moved away when she was 2, so I really wasn't there to see her grow up. Also it was hard to have a "sisterly bond" with her.

One of the things I wanted to do during the two week stay was to spend some time with her and get to know her more.

Many nights we stayed up late till 3, 4 in the morning and talked a lot. She cooked for me (she is an excellent cook!), we watched movies together, went shopping... and we did "purikura" together.

What's purikura? Basically, it is a very high tech photo booth. I found a link that explains it very well, so if you are interested you can read all about it. Purikura is VERY popular among teens, and there were lots of pictures in my sister’s room as well.

I watched a documentary about purikura once on TV, and they were saying that it is so advanced that it will automatically make your skin look prettier in the photo, allow you to play around with the photo before you print it out, and send the photo to your phone too.

So, I am a very curious being, I decided to investigate this very popular pop culture of Japan...

Well... there were lots of young girls taking pictures as they were talking and laughing in their high pitched voices... I was a little embarrassed to even be there but decided to have fun with my sister, and I did it!

These are the pictures...

There is a suggestion on the screen of what kind of pose you should do for each shot. I really didn't know what to do, I just followed the instructions.

After taking the photo, we can choose the background, add or write things on the photo.

We had so much fun doing this together, we were laughing throughout the whole thing.
I think this is actually our first photo together in so many years.

As I saw on TV, purikura took really good pictures of me with flawless skin. I think I look at least 5, 10 years younger. Though, I didn't miss my sister mumbling "fraud"! I showed the picture to several of my friends my age; they all wanted to go take pictures at the photo booth. :) Yup, I tested purikura and it was a lot of fun and a cheap way to buy "happy"(it was 400yen, which is about less than $5). I can put my seal of approval on it.

The Laundry Room

I have a mental block when it comes to showing any project that has to do with my own home.  Furniture, signs, impersonal things…those are great.  But when it comes to a whole ROOM??  Well, that’s another story.

But the time has come to bite the bullet and show one of my summer projects:  the laundry room.

When we moved into this house, I was THRILLED that it had a dedicated laundry room.  In our first house, the laundry facilities were in an unfinished room in the basement (which was also slated to be another bathroom someday—didn’t happen while we lived there). 

In our next house, a rental, we had a laundry “closet.”  You know, where the washer and dryer are hidden away behind louvered doors in a hallway.

So this seemed like a big improvement.

Well, after 9 years in this house…I wasn’t so enamored anymore.

This is my real-life laundry room, folks—and with 8 of us in the household, I spend a fair amount of time in there!  Sometimes it makes me want to weep.

The biggest problem, as I saw it, was really idiotic planning of the electrical/water hookups and the dryer exhaust.  As you can see from the next photo, they are on opposite walls.  That meant that, in order to make the connections, the dryer had to sit about 8 inches away from both walls.  Ugh!

The washer also sat on a drip pan, which further limited it’s placement.  When I took the washer out, this is what I saw:

OK, so how often do YOU clean under your washer??

The churning in my stomach helped me to decide that a drip pan was unnecessary (there is still a drain under the washer).

Our wonderful contractor friend (the same one responsible for the workshop project) created a new dryer exhaust for me, on the same wall as the electrical hookup. 

The exhaust actually goes into the garage, where it makes an elbow and then exits the house (see above left).  Honestly, I don’t care about that little piece of pipe in the corner of my garage.  It bothers me FAR less than the wasted space in the laundry room.  And now there are two holes on the outside of the house, but I don’t care about that either!

We replaced the shelf with stock cabinets from Lowe’s…

And then…I BUILT SOMETHING!!

I had an idea in my head after seeing various laundry “dressers” online.  I didn’t have room for a dresser, so I built a laundry “tower.”  It is made out of 1x2 pine, and I used the Kreg jig I bought for Christmas for the first time on this project (yes, it took me 6 months). 

Want to see how it all turned out?  Step into my laundry room…

I used a can of “oops” paint (which I doctored a bit) for the teal-y blue color.  I have very little blue in my house, so this was a fun place to step out of my comfort zone a little!

I painted the cabinets white, and got some fun knobs from Hobby Lobby.

Here’s my beautiful laundry tower!  It works!  With the extra few inches gained from moving the washer and dryer over, there was suddenly enough room for baskets in the corner.  The tower allows me to stack them, but still use them for sorting.

I used chalkboard paper to label each basket for “whites,” “light colors,” “dark colors,” and “jeans & towels.”  Every Monday morning, the kids sort their own laundry into the baskets.  Then when I’m ready to do a load, I just pull the basket off the tower and dump it in the washer!  It’s brilliant, if I do say so myself!

I love the fact that I have some floor space in front of the dryer now.  And I love that I finally found a place to hang my first ever “Sunshine” canvas that I made last year!  (You may have noticed that I painted the laundry tower yellow to “coordinate.”)

Opposite the dryer, I hung a piece of pegboard, which I trimmed with some simple corner molding.  Now there’s a place for mops, a duster, extension cords, and a few things like a spare tape measure and scissors. (All of which the children have been threatened NOT TO TOUCH!)

The last touch…a cute rug from Target.  And now my laundry room doesn’t bring me to tears each time I look at it!

This project has been featured at Better After, Elizabeth & Co., Someday Crafts, and

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Linking up here:

Domestically Speaking	Elizabeth & Co.
Primitive & Proper	Thrifty Décor Chick
Friday Remodelaholic	2805
My Simple Home Life’s Simple Creations Friday	Miss Mustard Seed’s Furniture Feature Friday
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off Stone Gable
Beyond the Picket Fence	Someday Crafts
Knick of Time Mod Vintage Life	My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Perfectly Imperfect	{Primp}
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	All Star Block Party A Little Knick Knack
Cowgirl Up! The Graphics Fairy	{aka} design Coastal Charm

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