Stuff

Every once in a while, John gets a wild hair and declares, “We need stuff!” That’s when we get on amazon and start picking out things we have mentioned in passing that we need: more seasons of Futurama, Van Halen CDs, Terry Pratchett books. Since we’ll be in Texas starting at 9 pm on Sunday—woooooo!—we are having some of our stuff sent to family there. We always buy an obscene amount of junk food when we visit, and this year we plan to do some shopping for clothes*, so the books, CDs, and DVDs will have company in the spare suitcase we are going to bring along.

* My fear of German department stores is only exceeded by my fear of German hairdressers, hence my overall ragged appearance these days.

One recent acquisition was 2 seasons of the BBC sci-fi comedy Hyperdrive. We saw the last episode of season 2 while we were in Scotland, and at first we thought it was that Scottish fan-made version of Star Trek. It is very funny, but the characters are not quite as cut-and-dried as you might think at first.

While we were on a roll, we also took care of some stuff we had been putting off for no particularly good reason. I bought a new modem cable, since our old one was missing a clip and kept falling out of my laptop whenever I wanted to use it. Then I got rid of 3 of these:



and replaced them with 3 of these:



It took me forever to find the right-sized replacement blinds since the windows are quite old and slanted (attic apartment), but perseverance and the Internet stood me in good stead. I even got a discount as a first-time customer and free shipping.

Here is my next DIY project for when we get back from Texas:



The lack of shades meant that the cushion was sitting in direct sunlight for however long the old shade was broken before we moved in and the time it took us to realize the landlord wasn’t going to manage to bring a new one and rig something up ourselves. By that point the cushion cover was already starting to rip. So now that we can block the sunlight to that spot, I will try to find some sufficiently ugly fabric to replace the previous ugly fabric and make new covers.

Then after that I will try to find a replacement for the built-in, under-the-sink garbage can that is on its last legs. After 4+ years, this place is starting to look rather scarred, so a few minor repairs are in order. I’ve always thought of myself as rather handy, but a lack of power tools prevents me from taking on really big jobs/injuries. Which is just as well. But the idea that I could actually improve things on my own seems to be part of my American spirit of self-sufficiency. If I don’t manage to burn down the house in the process of these littler projects, John and I might do a little (very little!) wallpapering and painting. Oooh, the skillz!

Drive-By

Hannah dipped a french fry in ketchup the other day and declared that the end result looked like an Elvis hair-style. Then she started singing "You ain't nothing but a corndog." *sniff* I love her so much.

My brain does not know how to take our upcoming trip. When we bought the tickets, we knew we were cutting it relatively close. But yesterday, I realized that it was only a week away. aaaaack! How did that happen? I knew it, but it didn't seem to sink in before then. This is even with the travel dreams/nightmares that already started last week. Of course, I hardly know what day it is. On Friday, I went downstairs to wish John a happy anniversary, only to make the embarrassing discovery that I was 4 days early. So my brain is not exactly working at top capacity right now, dig?

I have a couple of other things to mention, but I need to upload some photos first, so maybe I will get around to it this afternoon. Or maybe not. You know me, LAZY.