Furniture

I've been adding furniture to my new house.  Keep in mind, my old house was small (about 1,000 sq. ft.) with a huge yard (about 1/3 acre).  My new house has a MUCH SMALLER yard and is about 2,200 sq. ft.

When I moved from the old house, I donated a lot of my older furniture and had some other pieces go to the landfill.  Which means I've essentially been starting from scratch with furniture at the new place.

Recently I added a couple new pieces.  Four months and 4 days after I ordered it in early February, my bed frame finally arrived.  The mattress/box spring arrived a month earlier and the furniture store allowed me to use a 'rug roller' - which is a metal frame that got things up off the floor.  Here's what the new bed looks like.

The quilt is one I made years ago.  I'm not sure if I'm going to continue to use it or make a new one.  If I make a new one, the old one will be in place for the foreseeable future.

On Wednesday, I was at lunch with some coworkers.  One mentioned that a nephew (I think) was coming to stay with them (while in college, I think).  The room he'll be staying in had an armoire in it.  He decided he didn't need it so my coworker talked about selling it.

My ears perked up because I've been looking for an armoire or other cabinet with door/drawers.  My master bedroom does not have a linen closet so I've been making do with my bed sheets and towels.  There's a nice large niche in the wall by the door and that's where I planned on putting the armoire.

I asked my coworker if she could send me dimensions/price/pictures.  She did and mentioned she and her husband could deliver for a small fee.  SOLD!

Here's the armoire.

Here's the armoire being officially inspected.

The difference in color is because I used a flash in the cat photo and not in the other.

It's good to be getting more furniture.  That said, I've still got lots more furniture to buy. 

Papillon

Ups and downs this weekend

There have been some ups and downs this weekend.  Starting on Friday, we've had some rain showers move through each afternoon.  As I was leaving work on Friday, it had been raining, but stopped long enough for me to get to my car and get about halfway home.  At that point, it starts to rain.  No big deal, until it starts to hail.  Fortunately, it was only pin-sized, but it was fast and furious and VERY noisy and slightly scary.  I drove through it and finished the drive home.  No damage to the car.  Yeah!

Saturday morning started out with me running errands and then heading to the State Fairgrounds for a quilt/craft market.  Part of the way there, my 'low tire pressure' light came on.  WTH?  A few minutes later, it went off.  Again, wth?  I found a gas station and put in a few pounds in the front tires.  (The rear tire pressure was fine.)  In the process I got dirt all over my right fingers from the tires.  Sigh.

I had a good time at the quilt/craft marketplace.  I found several fun panels.  A couple I may leave as is, just sandwich, quilt and bind.  One, I may cut up and rework since I want a longer than wide panel and as is, it's wider than long.  It's kitchen/bistro themed and should look cute on the wall in the kitchen.  I managed to get all my shopping done while there was a shower going on outside.

I headed homeward.  On the way, I thought I'd do my weekly stop by the old house to check things are OK.  I got there, stuck my key in the deadbolt and started turning it.  Only to have the cylinder come part way out of the lock.  It then got stuck in position, which meant I couldn't get the key out of the lock.  Sigh.  Then, when trying to get things to a position that'd allow me to get the key free, it snapped off.  Sigh.  All items are about 20 years old so can't entirely say I was surprised.

I went to the new house and called a locksmith I'd used to rekey the new house.  He could be at the old house in about 45 minutes.  Hooray!!  I stopped on the way back to the new house and bought a new deadbolt.  I got back to the old house and read part of a Perry Mason mystery until the locksmith showed up.  He was able to replace the old lock with the new one and rekeyed the new one to match the old deadbolt key (I had another non-snapped one on hand.)  Problem solved!  Woohoo!

This morning (Sunday) was sunny with a few clouds.  Around 7:30 AM I woke up to hear balloons overhead.

And another - in the distance.

And two more.

I make it a point to sleep in on weekends so after taking these photos I went back to bed.  About an hour later, I was again awakened by balloons somewhere close.  I rolled out of bed and what do I see but a couple of different balloons landing in the park in back of my house.

I would have taken more pictures, but the batteries in my camera picked this point to start flashing 'low battery' warnings.  At this point, I got up and headed out to get groceries.

In early afternoon, more clouds started rolling in.  I know there are probably folks who'd planned lots of outdoor activities this weekend.  I, on the other hand, am glad to see the rain.  It sure made it easier to pull weeds in the backyard.  Not to mention giving me an excellent reason to stay inside and read a good book.

Here's hoping tomorrow goes well.  I've been feeling a bit paranoid when I've been driving (since Saturday morning), keeping a wary eye on where the 'low tire pressure' light is.  So far, no recurrences.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

Papillon

TREES! and other thoughts

A coworker made me laugh and laugh recently.  Her daughter is planning on going to law school and has been making some trips to various schools that she is interested in.  Two of the schools were William & Mary (Virginia) and UNC (North Carolina, of course).  Coworker and daughter scheduled a several day trip to check out the campuses.

Note:  both coworker and daughter (plus rest of their family) were born and raised in the Albuquerque metro area.  There's a reason there aren't a whole lot of tall native trees in this area, we are classified high desert.  (High because we're a mile above sea level and desert due to the fairly low levels of yearly precipitation.)

Coworker freely admits that in the past, when someone mentioned there aren't a whole lot of trees in the area, she would disagree with them gesturing at all visible trees.  (Most of which are imported species that have to be manually watered regularly.)

So imagine the looks on coworker's and daughter's faces when they land in Virginia.  Where there are more trees growing right up to the roadsides than there are in all of New Mexico.  They were stunned.  Coworker did have to laugh when her daughter commented that all those trees are 'unnatural'. 

Things have generally been quiet in my sphere of influence.  I did find yet another piece of cut glass today.  A lovely pitcher that only cost me $17.99 at one of the local Goodwill stores.  It's much lovelier in person.  I don't know why it looks so flat in this photo.

 

Tomorrow is the first of the twice-a-year book sales at the Albuquerque Main Library.  You show up between noon and 4 PM and grab a grocery bag.  Put as many books as you can in the bag.  You can fill up as many bags as you want (I average 4 bags).  Then you pay $5 per bag.  I love this sale.  I know I don't need more books.  But I sure do want them.

 

Papillon

 

Cars and more

My new house backs up to a local park.  I knew when I bought the house that there would be times when there would be noisy activities in the park.  A couple of weekends ago, several animal rescues got together and put on an adopt-a-thon. 

Today (Saturday April 26, 2014) there was an event called 'Park in the Park'.  As you might have guessed, it involved cars.  LOTS of them.  Not just on exhibit, but parked ALL along the road.

There were also some colorful cars.  Literally.

There were also some classic cars.

This is a 'woody' as sung about by folks like the Beach Boys.  It even has a surfboard on top.

This event was noisier than the pet adopt-a-thon.  They had a DJ so there was lots of music.  (The DJ is the appliance repair guy who fixed my refrigerator two weeks ago.  The drain hole for the auto-defrost of the freezer was plugged and water was leaking into the fridge.)  There were also several older cars (1940's?) that had been fitted with fire engine-style sirens.  Periodically they'd drive up and down the streets, sirens going.  (Sigh)  Fortunately they didn't do it TOO often.  Everything wound down around 3PM so it's all quiet now.

Sadly, they got 2 to 3 times as many attendees as the adopt-a-thon.

Also sad was what I found at my old house today.  It's now on the market (if you know somebody in the Albuquerque metro area who'd like a 2 bed/1 bath fixer upper with a LARGE backyard).  I've been going by there once a week to make sure everything's OK.  Today I walked up to the front door and there were 2 dead teenage rabbits.  No, I don't think it was a 'Fatal Attraction' or 'horse's head in the bed' sort of thing.  I suspect they were chased by some predator (coyote?) and ended up on my porch.  I think they may have died of fright at being cornered.  There was no blood and no apparent injuries.  The predator may have cornered them and then been scared off itself before it could eat them. 

I was startled and then saddened.  They were very cute little bunnies.  I think all this had happened just in the past day or two.  There was no obvious decomposition and only a couple of flies.  Fortunately, I had a garbage bag in the car and some paper towels in the house, so got the bodies taken care of.  I just hope nobody came by to show the house before I got things cleaned up.

On  a different topic, I've been notified that I'm now part of the latest jury pools for Sandoval county.  Sigh.  On a positive note, it's only the second time I've been selected in the 20+ years I've been living here.  Still, I thoroughly dislike jury duty.  It's committees at their worst.  The last time I was on a jury everyone was in agreement except for one idiot woman who'd seen WAY to much CSI.   I spent our time together mentally cataloging the ways I wanted to kill her.  I'm not on a jury as yet, I'm just part of the pool of potentials.  On Monday, May 5th I get to go in and see if I'll be picked.  (sigh)

Papillon

I Love to Treasure Hunt

It sure has been a while since I've posted.

I've been trying to get my new house pulled together.  It has been slow and has all the prospects of being a long haul.  This is due to getting to buy more/new furniture.  At the old house, I had a bunch of old furniture (not old in a good way).  So I got rid of it.  The Salvation Army took the best of the stuff and the rest got hauled to the landfill.

I did keep some stuff, but need more.  The ordering process is relatively quick.  The delivery time seems to take forever.  So, I'm in hurry-up-and-wait mode.  I can't put books on shelves if the shelves haven't arrived yet.

On the other hand, I'm doing some searching while waiting.  Occasionally at Goodwill, you can find some nice things.  Granted, a great deal of the furniture at the stores is either dated or has been rode hard and put up wet.  However, it doesn't hurt to look.

I went to one store this afternoon and didn't see any furniture that came close to coming home with me. Then for some odd reason, my digestive tract had weird episode.  I'll spare you the details.  I immediately headed home to take some OTC stuff.  I waited around for a bit and the weirdness didn't recur.  So, I decided to go fill up the car to prepare the start of the week's commute tomorrow.  In the same strip center as the gas station is a different Goodwill store.

What the heck, I headed on over.  I didn't see any furniture that even remotely appealed.  However, when I walked into the store I saw a display of glassware.  I walked over and, be still my heart, there was a gorgeous cut glass bowl.  I immediately snatched it up.  It's mine, all MINE.  And for just $25.
Here's an overhead view.  The bowl is about 8 inches across.

Here's a side view.  The bowl stands about 6 inches high.

Interestingly, they had the cut glass bowl sitting out in an open display for anyone to handle.  Inside a locked glass case, they had another bowl.  I asked to see it as well.  It turned out to be just pressed glass.  Guess they didn't know the good stuff versus the OK stuff. 

If I stayed longer at the first store, I probably wouldn't have gone to the second store.  Leaving the bowl to go home with someone else. 

Score one for me!  Although some usable furniture would have been nice, too.

Papillon

P.S.  If any politicians are reading this, please end Daylight Savings Time.  NOW!

The New House

After coming back from New Orleans for Christmas, I moved into my new house on January 10th.  That was the day I was getting the phone and cable/computer transferred so I figured that was as good a day as any to move both me and the cat.

I was worried about the cat.  I adopted him about in 1999 and he's only ever lived with me in the old house.  He was majorly freaked out for about the first half hour.  He got steadily better after that and is now pretty much an old hand at the place.

At the old house I had furniture I wanted to bring with me.  Then there's the furniture I no longer want and, in some cases, rather loathe.  The furniture I wanted was moved over on December 30th.  The remainder is still at the old place waiting to go to either The Salvation Army or the landfill.

I'm still bringing over small stuff.  I've gotten to the point over bringing over the awkward to haul stuff like pots and pans and things that don't fit well into boxes.  But I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel is a light and not a train.  I'm also hoping the I soon forget the annoyance of moving.

I did find one more fun thing about the new house.  Thanks to the park out back, there's the possibility of balloon landings.  I don't think this one actually landed, I think they just thought about it and decided to continue flying.

Papillon

More New Orleans

One of the places we went to eat at was Arnaud's.  According to a book I've got on being in New Orleans, it says Arnaud's was opened in 1918 and has expanded over the years into 11 buildings.  I can well believe that since we walked and walked to get to our table (we had a nice view of passersby on the street).  We all agreed the food was YUMMY!  But be prepared with either a fresh credit card or lots of cash.  It is not the $1 menu at McDonald's after all.

For dessert I had some delicious praline glace.  My older sister and BIL decided to have Bananas Foster.  Here's Ashley doing the honors.

The couple at the next table got something that also required a flambe process.  I don't recall the name, but it appeared to be a dessert-style coffee.  All in all, we had a good 10 minutes of food/drink being set on fire, deliberately.

Seguing (awkwardly) to the topic of streetcars, here's a photo taken from the inside.  I do love the color of the wood of the seats.

Another place that we saw a lot of, but I didn't go to was the Civil War Museum.  From descriptions from my sister and BIL, they have a lot of personal items from Southern combatants.  I will admit, the style of architecture is not my favorite.  Much too red.  Much, much too heavy feeling.

There were a lot of street performers in New Orleans.  My younger sister and I laughed at some unintentional irony when we were in Jackson Square.  There were some musicians putting on an impromptu performance near the cathedral and very near to a sign reading 'Quiet, church zone'.  (Or something similar.)

On Thursday the 26th, I was wandering through the French Quarter.  I heard something that sounded like 'patter'.  It turned out to be a street juggler.  He had a fun sense of humor and was enjoyable to watch.  Here he is on what used to be called a 'Bongo Board' when I was a kid.  He's also juggling with knives.  (In front of a store that sells swords)

Needless to say, I left a nice tip in his tip jar.

Papillon