Jun. 2: Regrettable sofa

We can all agree that Etsy is one of the best things about the Internet, right? And that means that Regretsy (“Where DIY meets WTF”) is right up there with it, because who can’t love a site that shows us the weirdest stuff that can be found on Etsy? We so need that, right?

While I was browsing Regretsy this evening, I saw something familiar:

No, it’s not the creepy stuffed cat thing, thank Buddha. It’s the sofa! We had that sofa! It was as hideous and scratchy and horrific as you can imagine.

What? You don’t believe me? Then here’s some proof.

 

The colors look different, sure, but that’s the same sofa. And that’s one of the cutest little puppies EVER laying there on my 11-year-old shoulder. The upper left corner says “June 80,” but this picture was taken the previous Christmas; we were very slow developing rolls of film back then.

Here’s another memorable sofa/puppy picture:

Peg Bundy was not my mom back then, but I’m pretty sure my real mom would kill me if I published that picture of her on the ‘net. Let’s just say it was not a good hair era for her then. (Sorry, Mom, but you know it’s true. I tried to re-dress you, too, but my Photoshop skills aren’t good enough. Plus all that plaid made my eyes cross.)

Cute puppy, though, right?

And awesomely ugly sofa. I’m sure I’m not the only one who regrets owning that thing.

Apr. 23: IDCEAYWTPFriday

Time again for I Don’t Care Enough About You to Write in Transitioning Paragraphs Friday.

• ‘Twas a busy week. I spent the entire day at school Monday. I worked for a while yesterday. I can’t remember what I did in between. Oh wait, I do remember! I met Kim F’n for lunch… went to a PTO meeting… cleaned off my desk… re-did the color scheme on my blog… napped… celebrated—or more specifically, remembered—Scout’s 13th birthday… got the school’s volunteers database up-to-date… watched Dreamgirls 17 times… there wasn’t time for much else.
• Sunday is the fourth annual Olivia Medici Memorial Run. We won’t be participating this year, but I’m going to stop by to see Annalee for a quick minute. It’s always a very special gathering at the run, and a good fundraiser for a worthy cause.
• Next Tuesday is my eighth chemotherapy treatment. I’ve gone back and forth over whether I should celebrate as though it’s my last one, but we won’t know if I’m done for sure until at least a week after it’s over. So here’s what I’ve decided to do: we’re going to call it my last chemotherapy treatment of this regimen. That means if O.J. still shows up on my scan on May 4, and I have to start a new chemo regimen, I won’t be totally bummed out for celebrating for no reason. Besides, with my sister coming from Colorado for the day, how can’t I make it a party??? So here’s the deal: if you want to come by and join the Jen’s Last Chemo celebration, please do! I won’t force you to do an IV pole dance for me, but it sure would be nice if you offered… You can email me for the location, or look for the info once I post it on my Facebook page.
• I missed the entire Law & Order: SVU marathon on Tuesday. And I’m still alive! I know, I can almost not even believe it either. If there’s another one on this weekend, I’ll have my giant arse parked in front of the TV fer sure.
• I got a new desk chair at IKEA and I think it’s the cause of my recent back pain. Doesn’t that suck? It has good lumbar support, so I’m not sure what’s bad about it, but I can’t sit in it for very long at a time without being really uncomfortable. It’s still better than my other chair though—that one made all my hair fall out.
• (Sometimes I draw unfair conclusions.)
• I received some delightful surprises this week. Sherilee sent me homemade kettle corn (packed in styrofoam peanuts—like half tasty Cracker Jacks!). A department I contract with at the hospital sent me one of those delicious, fruity Edible Arrangements. Dan sent me a way-cool Yankees cap. It fights cancer, just like Pop Rocks. What a lucky girl I am, with such thoughtful friends!
• On Monday, when Sunshine and I left the school for two seconds to do a Starbucks run, I ran into Lisa & Kevin Krueger! They were headed back to Walla² after visiting Kevin’s parents for the weekend. It was great to see them, though our visit was very brief. I like coincidences like that—they’re so much better than running into people you hate.
• So, last week I wrote that I thought Dreamgirls on stage was kinda ho-hum. I have since watched the movie—over and over and over—and I absolutely LOVE it. Love the music, love the cast, love the story. LOVE. Love.
• There’s another big occasion coming up on May 2. A bunch of us are getting together at Bridgeport for an afternoon of Mike-bashing food and fun. Larry’s coming all the way from Spokane, Mike (“Mr. Devitt” if you’re nasty) is flying in from Boise for the day, Kim is hurrying back from a girlie weekend in Bend, and I’m driving from… the other side of town. We’re hope-hope-hoping that Loveliest Lori will also be along. If you know any of those people and want to meet up with us, let me know—you won’t be sorry. For reals. We’re awesome.
• Lastly, this picture made me smile today (thanks, Mom!):

Jul. 20: Such sophistication

The kids’ bedroom re-do project has, in a way, moved downstairs. I was really hoping to confine it to the upstairs region of our house, but it turns out that was pure silliness of thought.

Right now there are lots of boxes and small furniture items set in the hallway upstairs, waiting for a closet or wall somewhere for permanent placement, and also making the hallway quite treacherous. Shuffling three bedrooms involves a lot of temporary storage. Much of this storage has been found in the master bedroom, another room I was hoping could remain clutter-free during this project. Ha.

Jack’s loft bed was disassembled without incident, but its reassembly (?) in the new room has taken some time. One side of the bed had a slide, and Jack had begun to think that made it babyish so he asked Vic to take it off. No problem. The other side has a ladder, which is now quite necessary if we want injury-free dismounts from the bed. Vic made the mistake of offering to put the ladder on the slide end, and Jack loved that idea because he likes whatever is more difficult for his parents. I think Loveliest Lori’s boys must have taught him that, as I’ve heard her use that same description for them.

The bed was almost completely together again when Victor realized one entire side had to be changed if the ladder was going at the opposite end, and that meant the whole thing needed to be taken apart again. It was past 10:00 the night he discovered this, so we told Jack he’d sleep on his mattress on the floor that night and Vic would finish the bed the next day. But the next day was busy with other parts of the project, and so was the day after that. Finally, yesterday Vic went in to dis- and re-assemble and couldn’t find the Allen wrenches. We have a nice set—it looks like a Swiss army knife—that’s much easier to use than the single wrenches that come with some-assembly-required furniture, so we rarely hang on to those little ones and use our fancy-schmancy ones instead. Without them, Vic was screwed. Not literally. In fact, literally, the bed was NOT screwed—no Allen wrenches meant no dis- and re-assemble.

The minute we go out and buy another set, the other one will turn up. That’s how it works, isn’t it? But it looks like we gotta. If you need an assortment of Allen wrenches, we’ll gladly loan you one of ours.

With Jack’s bed only partly together, we can’t get the armoire out of his room to move to the playroom, nor can we move his dresser or desk out of the playroom into his room. Katie’s dresser and hanging clothes are still in her old closet (in Jack’s new room) so there is much screaming when she goes in and starts rooting around in his room for her things. I am so so so ready for this whole thing to be over.

On the “done” side, the playroom table/desk is set up in the playroom now, and the kids’ computer is connected and working. The closet in that room has been cleaned out and I have a HUGE amount of stuff from there to take to Goodwill today. Although Katie’s room is far from finished, it’s painted and really quite pretty—she keeps saying, “I love it so much I just want to squeeze someone!” (Please don’t be like Lennie please don’t be like Lennie please don’t be like Lennie…)

So how did any of this end up moving downstairs? Some of the most fragile items were put in the living room to keep them out of the way during the transition. The other day I noticed that they were all mostly musical—Katie’s electronic keyboard, recorder and ukulele, and Jack’s snare drum and bongos have all been placed near the piano. Add my flute and Katie’s microphone to the mix, and we’re the freakin’ Partridge Family!

In the interest of all things sophisticated, we’ve decided to call that corner of the living room the conservatory, or my preferred term, “conservatoire.” I know, I know—we’re way classy. Because as owners of a fancy set of Allen wrenches (that cannot be found) AND a conservatoire, well, we must be the envy of just about everyone. You’re jealous, aren’t you?

Apr. 18: Much new-ness

Yippee! I got an iPhone yesterday. Spending a weekend with my seester and her Blackberry was just too much for me. I admit, it’s been difficult all this time, suffering the taunts of Ed (who has been known to throw cruel accusations at me in the past, such as, “you’re so technically savvy, AOL is your Internet service provider?”), Lori (“what’s wrong with you?”) and, well, almost everyone else I know. Now I can join in with them all as a text messager and email checker and web surfer and twitterer while on the go.

I don’t deal with peer pressure in an inexpensive way, no sir.

The iPhone certainly has some nice features. I’ve downloaded applications for twitter and Facebook. I’ve found some fun games. I synced my contacts and calendar with Outlook. I’m using—and liking—iTunes for the first time. So far, so good.

What I don’t like:

• The touch keyboard is a challenge, to say the least. I had no idea I had such stubby fingertips.
• iPhone ringtones suck, and you can’t use custom-made ones. Steve Jobs needs to kiss my big fat butt for that one because I ♥ my custom ringtones. What good is a phone that won’t play “Hollaback Girl” when Ed calls, anyway?
• I haven’t found a way to easily sync my Outlook notes with iPhone notes, although I’m sure I will eventually. I didn’t realize I rely on those notes so much.
• There’s no graphics organizer included and that makes no sense to me at all.
• The fingerprints! My god, the fingerprints!

Kathy has assured me that I’m now as cool as three out of four Vosses. Whew. Isn’t that what we all want? However, I’m sure I remember being told that random people would be wanting to have sex with me now that I’m an iPhone user, and there haven’t been any yet—no random ones, anyway. Just the usuals.

Two Facebook things cracked me up today. First, Shawn’s response to my status update/complaint:

I also thought Vic’s status was pretty good:

Which brings me to another new thing from this week… Yes, Victor got new glasses. Bifocals. He thinks this makes him old and I admit to helping that a teeny bit. Of course, I had bifocals in grade school, so I don’t think it has much to do with age at all. Besides, Vic will always be a superhero, or at least Indiana Indonesia Jones, to me.

In other Facebook news, I friend-ed Marilee this past week! She was a classmate in high school and one of my college roommates. We lost touch over the years and are now getting reacquainted. See why I love Facebook? Just when I think I’ve stopped being so addicted to it, another dear friend shows up on my “people you may know” list and I LOVE it!

Perhaps the most exciting new thing from this week is that our fancy new bed was finally, FINALLY delivered this morning! We already have one family member who hates it—Scout, who can’t jump on it without a good running start and then bites at Casey and Millie because they can. I’m attaching a lot of high hopes to this mattress to relieve my now-constant lower back pain; I’m hoping it won’t disappoint. I’ll be testing it out when naptime comes in another couple hours. Or maybe I won’t wait; I’ve got a new book waiting on my nightstand and a TiVo full of shows I missed while in Medford. I had all kinds of plans to get through my to-do list today, but that was before the bed arrived. Heh heh… extra-long to-do lists are what Sundays are for, right?

May 8: Office space

I loved that movie. But I’m talking about something else.

Last fall we converted our fourth bedroom, which had been my office, into a playroom again. The idea of confining Katie and Jack’s toys and gear in one room was the biggest factor in this decision. With their things having a place, at least we can yell at them about stuff not being where it belongs, right? I hated to give up my office but figured I could use the bookshelves in the family room to store my work and scrapbook supplies. I figured wrong. I rearranged the family room over and over and just couldn’t get it to be anything but a mishmash of Rubbermaid storage boxes and file folders. Yuck.

Part of the problem was that the family room bookshelves weren’t big enough for a lot of my 12x12 scrapbook supplies. Another issue was that my desk did not have any drawers. I loved the workspace on the desktop but storage was a problem.

This is what I had:


And this is what I replaced it with this week:


The new shelving unit is about five feet square with 16 sections, each about 13” square and 15” deep (the pic only shows part of the fourth column). The desktop is as spacious as what I had with my other desk, perfect for all my work projects and scrapbooking adventures. The whole thing fits a lot nicer in the family room too. I love, love, love it.

IKEA makes a bunch of different types of storage that perfectly fit in the 13” sections. I haven’t bought any yet because I can’t tell which and how many I’ll need. The problem, really, is how to arrange my things in these 16 squares. Where do I begin? Because do you understand that I’m talking about SIXTEEN squares??? I don’t know if I even have 16 squares’ worth of things that belong there. I think I’ll shove stuff in most the sections and continue to rearrange until it all feels right. Then I can head back to IKEA for doors or boxes or drawers or baskets or whatever I decide to use to disguise all my crap. Because, you see, my ultimate goal is for the office area of the family room to look better than a mishmash of Rubbermaid storage and file folders.

That shouldn’t be difficult, right?