From Rustang to Mustang: Part Two

This is a picture of the car all ready to be primed! (Primered?) The body work is done at this point, which was a week ago, actually. Gosh. It does and doesn't feel like it has been more than a week since that point in the process.

Above is a picture of Rick and I starting to mask off the car before it gets painted. We had to mask all the wires, the door latches, the shifter, the gaps where the quarter windows are supposed to go and the dash, including the pedals. Masking the pedals with a garbage bag ended up being a not great idea, as the top of the  floor panel is still red. 

A picture of our primed and block sanded car. Block sanding is a method that reveals where your highs and lows are in the body work so they can be filled before you paint, or taken down. Our car had so many highs and lows, I don't think we got them all! 

The inside of the car is going to be painted as well, since Rick wants a somewhat stock feel to the car, though he is customizing it. 

Notice on this picture how one half of the car, on the right side, seems darker than the other. The darker side is where Rick got to primer the car! The paint guy showed him the ropes a little. :)

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There was a very  brief period where the car was black! This is the mustang with a sealant coat on it, before the final coat. It does look nice in black! <3

Another view of the black sealant.

We almost changed our minds on the color when we saw it with the sealant on it, but Rick was very resilient. He stood firm on his original color decision, seeing as black shows all sorts of dirt and gets very hot. 

More pictures to come! We want to show the car, mostly finished, to my mom in person before posting pictures. That would just spoil the surprise!

From Rustang to Mustang: Part One

This is a big, huge project that Rick and I seriously underestimated how much work would be needed to complete it.  Wow, did we. People normally allow like 6 months to a year for a project like this. So for our car project, we've been having lots of all-nighters in order to make deadlines. You can see the bags under our eyes, haha. :)

We're very fortunate to have the use of a friend's shop, where we are set up with a mini fridge, a microwave and a cot. I really hate that cot. It is definitely not intended for two people, haha.

However, we are unable to cook food with our sweet set up, so our diets have been suffering badly. Wyoming has become quite idyllic for us, as we keep saying that once we get to Wyoming we will focus more on taking care of ourselves. Oh, and living in Wyoming will be the first time we will have a place of our own. That's wonderful to think about just by itself. ^_^

We don't currently have a camera, but we were able to borrow Rick's dad's camera for a couple days. So some of our project is documented, but not all of it. :(

Our original goal: Get the mustang repainted and prettied up, pack up and get to Wyoming by June 15th.

This is essentially what we have to fix up, The Rustang:

• What needed to happen: sand down the car with 80 grit to get all of the paint chips out of the car, then go over it with 150 grit sand paper to smooth it out before priming. 
• Fill in any damaged spots with bondo, which is a body filler that you mix up and then smooth on with a putty knife, before it sets and starts to harden. Rick got upset a few times because he'd be in the groove smoothing things on and it would harden on him and he'd have to mix up another batch. Grr. >_<
• Basically we wanted to destroy any rust spots, smooth out any bad spots, and grind down anything that stuck out in unsightly ways.
• Paint the interior and exterior in the following steps, primer, block sand with 220 grit and then 320 grit using cross-hatching, spray on the sealant and paint, then wait 48 hours before putting things back together.
• Replace everything and go!

• The trunk lid is removed so that Rick can grind away the rust inside of the the trunk, which is a very nerve-wracking job as those grinders can spark, and the gas tank is in the trunk!

• There are no seats, as they were recently reupholstered, and now look beautiful in their sweet black leather material!

• The carpet is also gone, so we have bare metal floors, which is covered in factory body tar, which has started to rust. When body tar starts to rust it turns into this disgusting white, incredibly-difficult-to-damage material. I wish I had a picture of it. >_< You can see some of the not-rusted tar right under that wire by the shifter.
• The steering wheel and most of the dash has been disassembled, so we can paint those black with spray. 
• The panels on the interior are removed for painting as well. 

• The bumpers are gone, front and back, and all of the little metal decals. At this point in time, Rick and I were getting ready to spray the white headliner black with fabric paint. We decided not to do that because we would have had to mask off the headliner when we got the car painted.
• Eventually we had to remove the hood, the fenders and the doors, in order to get everything sanded properly. 
• We also took out the windshield and back windows, so we could remove the headliner and have the ceiling painted to prevent more rust. We slightly cracked the windshield as we were pressing on it to try to pop it out of the frame. So now we have to get a new windshield made. We also will have to have someone come and help us pop the windows back into place after we replace the headliner.

The backseat, notice the large amounts of rust. >:(

Amount of goal achieved:

• Well, as you can see, it's after the 15th and we haven't even put the mustang back together yet. Grr. So our fall back date is leaving by the 1st, though that is definitely later than we would like. >_<
• We are challenging ourselves to get the Mustang all put together by Wednesday, so that the guy who painted our car can see it completed before he leaves on vacation.
• We'll be working from like 10am to 11pm most days, starting Saturday, which is the 48 hour mark after having the car painted. 

A Three Month Food Challenge!

Ok. Time to take control of my food situation.

I am issuing myself a challenge. A very painful, but necessary challenge. A three month long, hopefully will change my life challenge!

Beginning Winter term, January

•  The Challenge!
• I will not:
• eat out
• get coffee from the oh-so-convenient-located-in-the-center-of-campus coffee shop
• I will:
  
•  brown bag my lunches and daily snacks
• Eat healthy!
• Explore ways to streamline my meals and still have time to do everything else that needs done!

• Documenting!
• I will record my results on a weekly/daily basis depending on my homework situation. 
• I will include
• my menu 
• my shopping list
• the cost of shopping
• the actual carrying out of this challenge. 
• what went well, when I messed up, what I ate that day

• In preparation for this challenge:
• I need to prepare a monthly menu
• Basically, a four week rotation of breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks that is different enough to keep me sane
• I need to determine what I consider healthy food, i.e., nutritious, but affordable.
• I will research other blogs and see what they are doing as well and post useful things I find to here.

• Reasons for this challenge:
• I feel awful most of the time! 
• I am so sleepy all of the time!
• I spend way too much money on food.
• I eat a whole bunch of processed crap that I know is responsible for the above two points.
• I want to prepare for the future in a way that makes sense and is beneficial for me!
• I don't eat on a consistent basis when I am stressed out and I don't think that is healthy.
• I need a simple diet that is good for me and good for my budget!
• Things to know:
• I currently have a $100/month budget for food.
• My average day consists of school from 9am to 10:30pm
• I probably will do bi-monthly shopping
• I love natural foods and am open to a lot of things...except sardines. 
• Feel free to comment! 
• If you know a student who is struggling with their diet, maybe they can do this challenge with me! 
• If you have any tips, let me hear them!