Friday

tip-o-day

You don't need a tip today... go have some fun.
The year is almost over.

Go on.

JOY!

Friday

tip-o-day

Are you wrapping gifts this holiday season?
Will your significant other person be wrapping them with you?

Here are some tips for just such an occasion:

• set the mood,
  - put on some happy holiday music
  - start a fire*
  - pour a glass of something you love - wine, a cold lager, eggnog...
  
  
• create some space
  - clear off the kitchen or dining table
  - use the chairs to hold unwrapped gifts or supplies
  
  and most importantly
• duplicate your wrapping supplies,
  this will make for a truly harmonious wrapping experience.
  - 2 pairs of scissors
  - 2 rolls of tape
  

*for safety weese suggests only starting fires if you have a fireplace or wood burning stove.

The Classics

I was out running errands on lunch today and uncharacteristically flipped on the radio.
I happened upon Peter and the Wolf – an updated narration by David Bowie. While not the classic, I was very pleased. Motoring around town reminiscing of my childhood… cold winter afternoons in feety pj’s listing to scratchy recordings and conjuring up fantastical images in my head.

I started to imagine how my grand wife and I might snuggle up with our children’s children, perhaps in front of the fire and listening to and participating in this wonderful musical tale – learning about the instruments and how their sounds make us feel the action and the emotion of each scene.
Then …

“And if one would listen very carefully, he would hear the duck
quacking inside the wolf, because the wolf, in his hurry, had swallowed her alive.”

Ah yes.. I had forgotten what a dark little tale Prokofiev can weave.
Hmm, perhaps we should start with something by the Brothers Grimm? ;)

Gift? cards

I am probably about to piss off a bunch of people.
So… Merry Christmas.

I keep seeing these advertisements… there is one for Home Depot – where this pathetic fellow wanders around the store with one of the sales folks looking for the perfect gift for his wife - first, unless his wife is a lesbian, he’s probably in the wrong store – anyway, he finally picks up a gift card and they both concur that this IS the perfect gift.
Huh.

Macy’s has this online popup ad of a young, handsome couple hugging. She is holding up a Macy’s gift card. She looks extremely pleased.

Sorry people. I cannot fathom any reason to give any working* adult a gift card.
Even more RIDICULOUS is giving your spouse a gift card.

‘Here honey, please take some of OUR money and go shop at THIS store.’
Huh
‘I mean.. I love you so much… that I give you permission to spend this exact amount of money on yourself. Hope you can find something you like.’
Huh.
‘What I am trying to say is I really don’t know that much about you, and I don’t really want to invest any effort or time learning anything about you.. but I want you to be happy, because our lives are so much easier when you are happy and clearly I don’t know how to make you happy, but I saw an advertisement that said you would be happy to have this little card.’

If you must buy a gift card – buy one from Target or Stop and Shop and give it to someone who needs it – to someone who is hungry or cold. And if you absolutely insist on buying your spouse a gift for the holiday – get a puppy… I mean really, who doesn’t love puppies.


* by ‘working’ I refer to being employed at a position which provides enough money to live by. There are many ‘working’ adults who don’t make enough to feed and clothe their families, despite their earnest efforts.

winter projects

We are making great progress on our bedroom redecorating project, in fact we are ahead of schedule. The walls and ceilings are painted, leaving only the trim to finish up.
My hard-working wife put the final coat of poly on the newly stripped wood floor on Sunday.

We were sitting in the living room enjoying a cocktail after our days work on the project when Ferris yells down the stairs...
"Mom, why is this floor all sticky?"

Lets do lunch.

We had lunch this weekend with dear people.
So dear in fact that when we called at the last minute to change our dinner plans to lunch plans they happily adjusted.
We had requested the time change because Ferris was rolling in from his last final of the semester Saturday evening. A sophomore still needs to be coddled after his finals are over. So we needed to be home... to coddle.

On the ride home from our delicious lunch with delightful company - we realized just how nice it is to be heading home before dark on a cold winter day.
Summers are meant for long, lingering nights on the patio over cool cocktails. Winter seems well suited for lunch mimosa's and afternoon chatter.

I think we may be starting a new seasonal shift in our social schedule.

casualty

good as new by noon

Friday

tip-o-day





did you want a tip?
welp, I'm busy... come back later.

A load of laundry a day keeps... weese happy.

I used to do laundry everyday.
It was by choice.
I was never one of those people to wait and do several loads over the course of the weekend. I didn’t want my weekends filled with laundry.
One load each night(ok… maybe sometimes two and sometimes I would skip…).
Simple.
Wash/dry …then two minutes to fold and right upstairs to be put away and your done!

But I used to do laundry for more people.
These days we don’t have enough for a load every night. But old habits die hard.
So I had to chuckle last night as I was hanging my freshly laundered shirt… that I had just worn to work.

Friday

tip-o-day

We’ll be knee deep in our bedroom makeover project this weekend. Perhaps I will post some pictures as we go.

So here are some painting tips for you.
After opening the can of paint – take a hammer and nail and put some holes in the lid gutter. Then after pouring from the can to the paint tray excess paint will drain right back into the can.

Also – I am always sure to pour with the directions side up. That way when paint dribbles down the can I don’t worry about not being able to re-read important information such as drying or recoating times.

Perhaps my hardworking wife will offer some floor stripping tips in her sidebar ->
like...how to grow back cilia.

She picked me

It's important in a relationship to celebrate your differences... or at least learn to laugh about them.

Whenever I get particularly neurotic - I simply remind my fraught wife that she picked me.

And I of course ...picked her.

~~

We have decided to redecorate our bedroom.
Let me give you some background on the project.

A dozen years or so ago we enlarged our room by creating an opening into an adjoining bedroom. That room had been Ferris'. We moved him to the ever so slightly smaller back bedroom. He was not particularly pleased... but I image now that he lives in a dorm room he has probably gotten over it, or perhaps he can begin therapy early... anywhoo...
When we took up the rug in there the wood floors underneath were in a sorry state of shellac and paint and who knows what.
We decided it would be very 'Pottery Barn' to paint the floors black. We were such Pottery Barn lesbians. The floor came out good and it was a striking look with our dark sage walls with crisp cream trim. When the black paint started to chip and show the reddened shellac underneath we considered it rustic... cool.

It finally got to a point where 'cool' got old.
That point was sometime last week.
So we knew we needed to address the floor as part of this makeover. Refinishing the oak floors would be the right thing to do - but really it would mean refinishing the entire second floor and, while you've got the mess going, the stairs should be done too.
This would mean moving all the furniture off the second floor and sleeping else where for a week or so - not to mention the cost.
That option was nixed early on.
Our next idea was to simply repaint the floor, perhaps a happier color.

We thought before we bought any floor paint - just for giggles we would try a little bit of stripping solution we had left over on a small inconspicuous area. Just to see.
In steps my adorable wife.

I walk into the room Saturday afternoon and there is a smallish stripped area of the floor.
Where?
Inconspicuously in the middle of the room.

by the time I grabbed the camera she had already started removing baseboards and stripping more floor

She cracks me up.
She has about 1/4 of the floor done now.
The floor underneath has a ... lets call it a distressed look.
People pay big money for distressed these days.
It's very Pottery Barn.

Brrrrrrr

Did I complain... just last week...
about raking in 34 degree weather?