Ear Candling.

I'm warning you, this is kinda gross.

Have any of you done this? It is so cool! I saw a girl ear candling on YouTube and decided I wanted to give it try, but hadn't done much about it. I was talking to a patient at work about it last week and wham-bam-thank you-ma'am, she brought some in for me.

I had to wait for Jake to get back from Reno to try this out and today was the big day. After we woke up from our 4 hour nap, I pulled these suckers out (literally) and we got started.

So you put the small tip very shallow in your ear and light the other end.

Then, little by little, as the big end burns, you cut off the black edge into a bowl of water. You might want to make sure that the partner you are doing this with is paying very close attention and not walking around the house/searching the web because you can't see it.

With about four inches left, extinguish the flame.

Totally looks like a cigar.

To be hones, I wasn't expecting this to work very well. I figured it may clean them out a bit but not like this.

Gross

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Are you sure?

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Seriously.

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Right

Left

Just in case you didn't catch it, that yellowish orangeish brownish stuff is my earwax... which is about 4 inches long! Sick right? And the gross sick, not the cool sick.

I can say that my ears feel clean, but I don't hear any better. Jake said that he did it a long time ago and he could hear a whole lot better after he did this. Which means I will be buying this by bulk and Ear Candling his ears frequently!

Look what I can do.

I started out with an idea to paint this dresser orange to put under the tv in the family room. The drawers are perfect for extra storage and is a good place to hide to wires, boxes, etc. that will eventually be strung through the wall.

Although it took many more layers of paint and time than I had anticipated, I'm happy with the way it turned out.

Before 

After

I also changed out the knobs and took some out. There were so many knobs!

Polar Dip 2013

My family has a really stupid tradition...

Around New Years we jump in the pool. It's cold and it sucks, but we continue to follow it through. This year Mark and Shellie put rolled coins on the bottom of the pool. When it was not all retrieved, Mark had to go back in to get the rest out.

56 degrees in the pool

Jake

Erica

Koa

Scott

Katie

Kellen

Christmas 2012

This was the first Christmas we were able to get a real Christmas tree! Although it was small, it fit perfectly in our house and it we enjoyed it.