Excited For New Things: Is it Upside Down? Right Side Up? It’s all Perspective. – Dr. Plastic Picker
 

Excited For New Things: Is it Upside Down? Right Side Up? It’s all Perspective.

| Posted in Weird Things I've Found Litter Picking

Chair I’m working on! I rotated the picture several times and this is the least disorienting.
Six chairs “rescued” from the alley. No police yet at our house. I promise officer, it was in the alley for 3 days! I saved it from the landfill. It was going to become methane!
The going rate for new chairs. Mine are going to be nicer!!!! Equivalent to $1600!!!! Ca ching! Ca ching!

June 4, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I really just wanted to show you the pictures of the new-to-me rescued chair project I’m working on. I saw them in our alleyway as the neighbor two doors down is moving away. I think it’s actually their renter that is leaving as there is an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) in the back. I think that is what it is called? They have been leaving things in the alley for people to pick up. This set of chairs has been there for 3 days and I’ve always wanted to try to refurbish furniture and I decided, why not???!!! In the dark of night (actually it was about 8pm) I walked over to their part of the alleyway (which is safe folks) and transported three of the six chairs over to our house. I left 3 thinking I only wanted to try three. Next afternoon when I got home, my father-in-law had grabbed the other three! LOL LOL LOL. I honestly know that it would have been discarded. The paint was pretty worn. But the wood underneath – these are solid furniture pieces. Nothing loose. Made of solid wood. I’m really excited! I started sanding them yesterday just to try, and it’s working out great. But without the proper equipment respiratory and proper safety googles, I stopped.

I have a family member who does wood-work, so I texted him some pictures and he gave me some advice. There is also a nurse manager at work and her hobby is refinishing furniture. I am very excited because I now have two experts who will be happy to give me advice about how to proceed with things. I like figuring things out though and already read a pretty good basic article on how to refinish furniture. I need to find the proper safety googles in the garage. The project is actually going to probably take me at least a month because I want to do it myself, and then getting the primer and deciding on the paint color. I am thinking a really nice green.

The only reason I’m able to do this project is because we sold our extra car and opened up that entire area. Remember the Honda Odyssey and the extra Giant Olaf? We sold those about November 2020 during the pandemic to a friend who had a better use for it. https://drplasticpicker.com/the-road-to-fise-let-it-go-the-2006-honda-minivan/ Rereading that post I’m still amazed. I had written “It takes about 1 ton of CO2 to do one cross country flight, so moving on from having a 4th car for a 3-car house hold was the equivalent of our family of four taking about 9 trips to visit our extended family on the east coast.” I gained over $4000 to put into our financial warchest as well, and that is a portion of our down payment on our Oregon farm (which we are still in escrow waiting for the home inspection). Having all that extra space that we used to just store a care we didn’t need, is now an extra seating area that everyone gravitates to. The famous Aerobin 400 composter is there making magic compost daily. And this is where I’m working on my furniture project.

Excited for new projects and for finishing up those almost done ones.

  1. Climate Change and Health Rotation: This was fast-tracked by Dr. DN who knocked out the curriculum so quick, and all I did was add my suggestions. I had blogged about it several times so my thoughts were already there. Everything has been run by the two residency program directors in our HMO and I’ve sent it around to the Rady’s Pediatric Residency as well. We will mention it during several of the lectures we are giving. Let me check, I think I’m on for June 25th to give the pediatric introduction to the HMO Family Practice residents? I’ll plug the rotation at that talk. After this gets started, Dr. JC who is phenomenal has said she would be interested in coordinating everything. She is so great and involved in curriculum, so I will hand it over to her. She is very organized as well. Already Dr. DN talked to Dr. MS, who is the HMO ED Residency Direcctor, and they are going to incorporate climate change hopefully into the new HMO Medical School Curriculum. So that project will be done and others will finish it up, and I can move on to other things. (LIKE MY FURNITURE PROJECT!)
  2. Brownie Troop “Trash Reflections and Trash Art Day with ME!” I’m really excited about this. I’ve been dialouging with a Brownie Troop up in Carmel Valley. They heard our first inaugural talk on climate change and health, and since no other inquiries! That is ok! They got a San Diego Pediatricians for Clean Air Patch. So I’m going to meet up with them for a park litter pick, and we are going to do trash reflections and do a trash art project. I’m really excited. Mr. Plastic Picker changed his call schedule so that we could do it together. I think it’s going to be super cute and fun. I posted this on my personal facebook group and no one wanted to come. That is okay. I’m used to kind of doing things on my own, if you haven’t noticed before! LOL. My husband I’m not sure why he comes along? I think because he loves me and cares about the earth, but he also really wants to make sure I find my way back home literally and figuratively. I love Mr. Plastic Picker, my lawfully wed husband.
May be an image of outdoors and text that says 'NEW HUMAN RULE: PICK UP 3 PIECES OF PLASTIC WHEN VISITING THE BEACH'
From Plastic Picker’s Facebook page, yes Plastic Picker is different than Dr. Plastic Picker and we are facebook friends!

3. Asthma Inhaler Recycling Project: Seems simple but you can recycled those asthma inhalers and no one knows that. I just asked a patient for the first time. So I will look into this and try to do this as a first easy project through our Green/Sustainability team. That I happen to be the Peds Quality person in charge of all quality metrics, and over a decade long member of the pediatric asthma team – doesn’t hurt. I need to catch up with my students from the Sustainable Pharmacy Project soon!

And that is it. Excited for new things. There are a bunch of other project whirling around my head. Excited about them all but these are the new ones that bring me joy. Especially my new-to-me rescued wooden patio chair project!!!! So excited!!!

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