A few months ago, my husband had the great idea for us to upgrade our patio by building a weather-proof cabinet so we could mount a TV outside.

We had a small smart TV that was sitting upstairs in one of our guest rooms that never got much use, and we figured it could have a new home on the patio. 

We took some measurements and determined we'd easily have room on our patio to build a cabinet big enough to accommodate the TV. Because our patio gets lots of sun, we wanted to ensure we hung the TV in a place where wouldn't get bad glare. 

Once we had all the math done, we headed to Home Depot for supplies. 

Our supplies were pretty straight forward:

• 3/4 inch plywood for the back of the box
• 1 1x8x8" board to be cut down to size for the top, bottom and sides
• 1/4 inch plywood for the doors
• Decorative trim for the front of the doors
• Brick anchors and screws
• Hinges
• Door Handles
• Deck stain
• Outdoor wood sealant

Step one was cutting all the wood down to size. We started with 3/4 inch plywood that would be mounted into the brick. We were working with a 27" TV, so we cut the back piece to about 33" wide. We wanted there to be some wiggle room without unnecessary extra space. 

Then we cut the 1x8 board into the four pieces that would make the top, bottom and side pieces of the cabinet. 

Before treating any of the wood, we installed a TV mount onto the plywood and made sure everything fit together the way we hoped. 

We also drilled some pilot holes to make it easier to mount the plywood to the brick when the time came. 

And then came the most tedious part of this project -- treating the wood to ensure that it was waterproof and could hold up against the elements. 

This required three coats of stain per side per piece of wood. Then an additional three coats of sealant per piece of wood per side. The stain dried pretty quickly, but the sealant took forever to dry, which meant there were some days we just couldn't make a lot of progress. Staining and sealing these pieces probably took a week to ten days.

But then we got to the fun part of assembly!

Drilling the pilot holes into the brick was a process. We planned for six anchors to make sure the cabinet wouldn't go anywhere, and it took a long time to get holes drilled even with our special brick drill bit. 

But getting the plywood and mount up on the brick felt like a big step forward!

From there we screwed in the sides, top and bottom. 

Our box was coming together, and we put the TV up on the mount to make sure everything fit well.

The last part of the project was to assemble and mount the doors. We kept the doors really simple with a piece of plywood that we framed with some mitered trim. 

We tested the measurements one more time, and then installed the hinges and the handles. 

And then we installed the TV for real. 

We are so excited with how this cabinet turned out and are loving being able to sit outside on nice days and watch TV.

July felt like a total blur, and when I sat down to write this blog post, and looked at my Goodreads account, I could barely remember reading some of these books in July. Some I thought I had read in June on vacation, others I thought I read this month. I don't know where my brain was in July, but apparently I read some decent books.

Five Stars

The Giver by Lois Lowry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I never read this as a kid, but it was a book club selection this month, and boy was it good. This was published originally in the early '90s, but the dystopian story still holds up today.

Four Stars

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was dark, and I thought it started a little slow, but boy did it pick up and have me wanting to know what happened at the end. Frida is a new mother who has a very bad day, and her neighbor reports her to child protective services. Frida is an inaugural member of a new program to train people how to be good mothers. This didn't hit quite as dark as the Handmaid's Tale for me, but it had very similar government-control vibes.

The Club by Ellery Lloyd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Murder mysteries make some of the most fun audio books, and this wasn't an exception. The book opens with a body count and then jumps back to a few days earlier as rich and famous guests arrive to an ultra-luxurious resort for a launch party. The book is told from multiple characters' perspectives and I thought that format worked well here. You get snippets of possible motives but never quite know who is trustworthy. I enjoyed this and overall found the ending pretty satisfying.

Meant to Be by Emily Giffin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was different than Emily Giffin's normal books, but I really enjoyed her reimagining of JFK Jr's life, marriage and death. I liked the way this book jumped back and forth between his and her perspectives and had enough differences that made this characters feel real on their own and not just shadows of the people they were based on.

Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thought this was such an interesting way to approach a thriller. The book opens with Ansel Packer on death rowing -- a mere 12 hours before his execution -- and then it jumps back in time and you get pieces of the story from many of the women he encountered in his life. Every so often, we jump back to present day as the clock is ticking down to Ansel's execution. In the historical parts, you get the suspense of a detective searching for a killer, and in present day, you get Ansel's deep thoughts and his wish to be understood.

Three Stars

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In this day and age, we're all basically trained to look at the reviews on anything before committing. In this series of essays, John Green reviews various elements of our current geological age. He considers the impact of things like air conditioning, the keyboard we're all used to typing with and many other things that may impact our lives without us really thinking about it. I enjoyed the essays, they were for the most part interesting and insightful. But I read this through as if it were a novel, and that probably wasn't the best approach for a book like this because I felt like I was a little over it about half way through.

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This definitely started slow, but it picked up a bit toward the end. I thought there was one major plot hole surrounding Aidan -- the brother of one of the main characters. His ending seemed too abrupt and a little out of nowhere for the limited knowledge we had about him through the eyes of his sister. I loved the storyline around Mukesh, trying to find his way after his wife's death and using books and his new friendships from the library to do that. This book was sweet, and I liked the look at the unlikely friendships that formed between characters.

 The last update I shared on my hip/hamstring saga was that I have scheduling an assessment with my orthopedic doctor and guessed I would be sent to PT. 

That's basically what happened. Both my doc and the PT don't seem to think there's major tissue or ligament damage or anything like that, so that's a positive. 

At my first PT appointment, I was prescribed 30 minutes of walking per day and one exercise with a resistance band.

After my week at the beach with my family earlier this summer, my hamstring seemed to be moving in the right direction, and I was feeling cautiously optimistic. 

So my PT let me add in short running intervals to my walks, and we started gradually introducing more strength and balance exercises. 

After watching me do a variety of movement patterns, my PT thinks my issues are stemming from stabilization challenges. Basically that means I've got really loose/flexible joints, and my muscles, ligaments and tendons needs to work a lot harder to keep me stable so I don't topple over. 

She suspects that over time my stabilizing muscles got weaker and that other muscles jumped in to overcompensate since my body didn't want to fall over regularly. 

It's an interesting diagnosis because I've always thought I had decent balance, and I do if I just need to stand on one leg in a stable position for a while. If I have to add in any sort of movement, I topple over quickly. 

Single leg deadlifts -- just with body weight -- require insane amounts of concentration to not fall over. I wobble a ton from side to side and can feel every little muscle in my legs gripping hard. 

So that's what we're working a lot on. My hip seems to be responding well. I really haven't noticed much pain in my hip other than tiny little flare ups here and here. 

My hamstring has been more sore since we've started going down this path. My PT says that's normal, but it's still frustrating because I just want to be able to run again without pain. She says the most important thing right now is managing any pain. So I'm allowed to continue with my 1-2 minute run intervals during my walks as long as the pain stays below a 5 out of 10, and it doesn't change my running form. 

The other key thing is that the pain isn't allowed to linger into the next day. If it does, I need to cut back. So I'm trying to monitor for those things.

I have PT appointments scheduled through the end of the month, and then we'll assess where I am. 

So that's the update. I guess we're making progress, but it just feels really slow.