rug saga: Part II

It seems that our rug ideas for the living room are a tad controversial. LOVE the comments and emails guys! For the most part, those of you who disagree are all sneaking around trying not to offend, which is really sweet - but seriously, blast away if our opinions differ. They're just rugs, people.

I think I should have given a few reasons for the particular choices we picked from Flor. You may have noticed that our dog Arlo is a big dog. A big white dog. A big white dog with LOTS of fur that falls off of him in handfuls. So we need a light-coloured carpet to hide the layer of white fluff that is a constant reminder of his presence.

When we were staying with my parents before we bought this house, they had a VERY red rug in their living room. Arlo would walk casually across the room, and suddenly the carpet looked, well, unkempt. I may be relatively immune to animal mess at this point in my life, but my family is not. They own a neat little Valley Bulldog with a neat little short coat of fur, and the animal vs. cleanliness balance was well in check before we showed up. Suddenly my messy Shepherd/mutt comes to stay and is wrecking up the place practically just by standing there. Alas. I had to vacuum that red rug constantly but it reinforced a valuable lesson. That lesson is: our carpets must camouflage white fur.

The next consideration is price - the living room is a big room to cover, so we picked moderately priced ones.

Next consideration: soft on feet. Check.


Final consideration: Not busy. Living rooms tend to be busy rooms to begin with, so we wanted something to calm the room down instead of jarring it. I DO get a kick out of the crazy, busy "Souk" carpet (pictured), but... it wouldn't work. (The above picture and the next one were lifted from the Flor website.)


Mark is actually toying with the idea of getting the "Stitch in Time" rug (pictured) for his office. We got a sample of that too and it's SOOO SOFT. It's very busy, but there's not much furniture in his office and it's a small room with lots of natural light, so I think that rug will look cool in there.

Thus begins the saga of the carpets. Like I said, we probably won't order them until January - we already accidentally ordered the bed and it's more important to have that anyway. First the bed, then the carpets. Also, with travelling and holidays and snowstorms and stuff life is going to be just a wee bit hectic this month.

Oh, and I almost forgot. By request, here is a picture of our door-floor-thingy. These are found at every door, and I guess this is the way they made them in the "olden days" when this house was young. They're bigger than those new-fangled modern ones - this one is an inch higher than the surrounding floor - but the Roomba can still make it over them so no big deal.

bed adventures (wink wink)

So we've been investigating options for new beds lately. We are currently sleeping on a bed that Mark's mother kindly kept in storage for us, but it's not one of those awesome antique things she kept for us - it's just an old bed - so in the long term we'd like to get a nice new mattress and a purdy bed frame.

We had already gone to Sears a few weeks ago and found a mattress that was nice to lay on. We went today to Leon's (don't laugh; it's Canadian made) to look at some stuff we'd found online, and they didn't actually have any of the stuff we liked online in the store. We got some info on a great enviro-friendly mattress, looked at a few bed frames that might be passable, and went home.

Now Ikea. Oh, Ikea. Why are your shipping fees so confusing? They are so confusing, they absolutely defeated me. We'd already been online looking at the Ikea stuff earlier in the week, and shipping fees were weird. Mark didn't remember looking so this morning he made me pull up the website again just to show him how complicated it was. The website still had those weird slats (the things they use instead of box-springs, which we actually had in Victoria and loved) in my shopping cart from when I'd looked the other day, and I picked a bed at random and started the order process, making fun of it the whole way. You see, halfway through the order process last time, they calculated the shipping fees for me, and then I stopped and closed the window.

That didn't happen this time. Before we got to the shipping fees screen, we were suddenly at a very nice screen that thanked me for my order. WHAT??! OH NO!!! I accidentally ordered a bed from Ikea.

We got on the phone to them and they said not to worry - someone will call me in the next day or so to confirm, and I can just tell them I don't want it. I blamed Mark for making me try to show him the shipping costs, and that was when we went to Leon's. The thing about Leon's is, that, their bed frames are a tad expensive, and they try to force you to use a box-spring and we don't want to.

When we got back home we lazed around reading books and surfing the net. Mark was reading a neat book we got as a gift - it's an environmentally friendly shopping guide for Canadian products. He told me that they kept saying how good Ikea was, so we decided to see if there was actually anything we liked from Ikea. After all, even with the shipping charges, it would likely be cheaper than Leon's. We looked at EVERY SINGLE ONE, and ya know what? Our favourite is the one we already accidentally ordered that I picked at random.

I guess we'll... keep it?

???

we hate (most) lamps

I love this sign:


Anyway.

So Mark and I have decided that lamps and area rugs are, as a rule, ugly. This is unfortunate because we should probably get (betcha didn't see this coming) lamps and area rugs. They're also expensive.

I'm planning on solving the rug problem by ordering from Flor, where you can design your own rugs that are as large or as small as you need them to be, and in pretty much any colour and/or texture that you can think of. They even have shag rugs, mofo. They ARE expensive, but here are the reasons why it's worth it:

- high quality
- environmentally friendly
- you get EXACTLY what you want
- easy to wash
- gets delivered to my door
- when we move, we can take them with us and re-arrange them in a different room
- Dooce has them in her house and says they're good.

This is where I need your opinion, interwebs. Are you ready? Here are some shots of my living room:



We will not be covering the entire floor because that would be a crying shame. So you'd still see quite a bit of the current floor around the edges of the room. Now what you need to tell me is:


Just the blue kind, or a checker pattern of the blue one and the striped one? The squares would be about a foot and a half wide (the ones pictured are just little samples). Leave me a comment or email us with your humble opinions, kthx.

Now, lamps. This is a problem that can be solved by possibly finding old lamps in weird little antique and pseudo-antique stores. Also, we have gift certificates for a few hardware stores, so there is that. But seriously, lamps in general are U-G-L-Y, and not even ugly in a kind of cool "so ugly it's cute" way. Most of the lamps on the market look like they came straight from the eighties and that's not a good thing.

This is a problem. We have ONE lamp. One. It's an antique floor lamp and it doesn't work. You can see it in one of the living room pics up there, by the way. Oh, I lied, we have two lamps. We shipped our paper Ikea table lamp to Nova Scotia, and it still works. The paper is all ripped and kind of scotch-taped back together though, so one day soon it's going to lose it's structural integrity and collapse and possibly start a fire.

I guess we'll just get the least ugly lamps we can find. The good side of this is that a lot of our ceiling lights have really cool antique (I'm pretty sure) glass shades over them.

So it's almost the weekend and it looks like we are not going to Truro. It snowed here a little tiny bit today, and there is snow in the forecast for Sunday and we don't really want to get caught driving in it. I think I will make bread this weekend, and try to convince Mark to make cookies. If he makes them, I will help, and he knows that.

Mmm.... cookies...

Midnight Madness

On Friday Bridgetown had this little street party to celebrate the lighting of the Christmas tree at Town Hall, and all the stores stayed open for "Midnight Madness" and there was festivity everywhere. We walked down to Town Hall (takes four minutes from our house) and met a neighbour on the way.


There were a bunch of kids arranged on the steps of the Town Hall and the mayor gave a speech and it was just all so cute and quaint! Then they lit the tree and sang carols, and then Mark and I wandered around for a while. We bought Midnight Madness pumpkin pie (a whole one) for two dollars, and I got orange fuzzy socks for one dollar. Mark wanted to enter in the Midnight Madness raffle, and when we finally found the drop-box for the raffle, we found out it was being manned by the local animal rescue group! We had a long talk with those folks and it looks like we're very close to being back in the animal rescue business.

Awesome!


Our land line rang today. It's only rung like three times EVER, so that in itself was an event. A strange woman asked for Mark - what could this be all about? Let me tell you. Mark won the Midnight Madness raffle. BOO-YEAH! He won free pizza from one of the two pizza joints in town.

Life is sweet.

Anyway, I thought I'd try out a list of random questions (I call it a meme; Mark disagrees). Hope you like:


1. What's bothering you right now?

My basement, but only a little. It's the basement of a 106 year old house, so, yeah. It doesn't have proper drainage to the sump pump in some areas, but fortunately that's not too difficult to fix.

2. Do you close the door when you pee?

Almost always.


DESCRIBE YOUR:

3. Wallet?

Black, canvas-type fabric, falling apart. I keep my change in it. I hear that lots of people don't.

4. Wallpaper on your computer's desktop?

A picture of Oliver's mouth.


5. Background on your cell phone?

Umm... I just had to go look at it to make sure. It's a tree.

6. Jewelry worn daily?

Wedding ring, which was bought on the internet and smooshed onto my finger in Vegas! Hmm... a watch. I'm obsessed with cheap watches. This one is black plastic with white skulls on it. Five earrings (small gold hoops) and one navel ring.

7. Eyes:

Two.

8. Life:

Workin out pretty well, thanks.

9. House:

Oh, the house. It's a compromise from our original plan, but I really like this house. It's comfy.

10. Relationship:

I like him just fine, if that's what you're asking. We get along well. We do lots of things together, but we also have some different interests.


WHAT ARE YOU...

11. ... Doing this weekend?

Going to Truro to pick up the dregs of our belongings from my parents' house.

12. ... Wearing?

Jeans and a blue wool sweater with a blue shirt underneath. And BRIGHT ORANGE FUZZY SOCKS.

13.... Wanting?

To have an excuse to put off scrubbing the walls in my upstairs hallway.

14. Where are you?

Living room.

15. Listening to?

My washing machine and dryer. The dryer sings the AWESOMEST little song when it's finished - does anyone else own an LG dryer? It plays this really long song in a cute little sound that sounds like fairy bells or something.

16. Have you ever kissed anyone named John?

Not that I recall.

17. What do you smell like?

Next question.

18. Eating?

Not eating. Drinking tea.

19. Besides your bed, what is your favorite thing?

The bed is not my favourite thing - why would you imply that? We need to buy a new mattress. I do like this computer, but I share it with Mark.

20. Do you believe in a soul mate?

Not just one. I think there are a number of people that any given person can be incredibly compatible with. Not like all at once in the Mormon sense, but if you happen to come across one of them when the timing is right, it works out well.

21. Do you sleep naked?

No. I am usually COLD when I get into bed.

22. Do you remember your dreams?

Not very often.

23. Do you believe dreams come true?

Sure, why not.

24. Do you believe in miracles?

Nah.

25. Do you burn easily in the sun?

I'd say I'm about average in the burniness department, which is strange because I'm well above average in the paleness department.

26. Do you speak another language other than English?

Not fluently. I have a bit of Spanish and French, and a teensy smidgeon of Japanese. Neat story: we moved to the big city of Toronto after university and I got a job at the corporate headquarters of a big real estate company. I was an administrative person for a department of like six high-up mucky-mucks in the company. One of those people was a dear old Japanese man named Kenji. I met him when the other administrator was taking me on a tour on my first day of work. She introduced us and I bowed and told him that it was a pleasure to meet him for the first time - in Japanese!! He automatically bowed back and responded in kind, then looked at the other girl all taken-aback and twinkly-eyed. She looked at him and said "I didn't know she was going to do that!" and it was all very cute and I went on with my day. The next day, everyone knew that I'd spoken Japanese to Kenji, even though I hadn't mentioned it to anyone. It was the BEST first impression I ever made.

Also, Kenji couldn't pronounce my name correctly and called me "Jewie". He was the coolest person in that office.

27. What's something you wish you could understand better?

Human nature. I'm not good with people.

28. What did you do last weekend?

Went to "the city" to get massive amounts of new house stuff, groceries, and building supplies. Got overwhelmend by the day and totally didn't call my friend Kristie to see if she wanted to have a coffee or something (she lives in the city). Sorry Kristie.

29. Who do you miss?

I miss a few very sweet friends that we left in Victoria, BC. You know who you are, and I expect you to visit within the next two years.

I also miss Moses sometimes.

30. Have you ever been in a fashion show?

No, but I have been a jewelry model at a live auction. I got to wear a white lab coat and jewelry that was worth many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

31. Orange or apple juice?

Depends on my mood. I like them both.

32. Who were the last people you went somewhere with?

Does Mark count? I went on a walk with him just this morning. If he doesn't count, I went to city hall for the tree-lighting ceremony with two of our neighbours. We were just all walking in the same direction so we followed them and we introduced ourselves and talked while walking. I really hope they didn't find it creepy or weird. (See? I'm not good with people.)

33. What was the last text message you received?

Most likely from my cell phone company, telling me how many of my monthly minutes I've used up. For some reason, they'll say "you've used all of your minutes for this month" and then they add at the end of the message to "Keep talkin!" And I find that kind of mean.

34. Last text message you sent?

Hmm err jeez... Probably to Kristie? Weeks ago? I'm not really down with texting.

35. Last time you ate a home grown tomato?

I ate chow made from Mark's mother's tomatoes like two weeks ago. I had an actual tomato from that very same garden during the summer.

36. What is the closest thing to you that is blue?

My clothes. Or maybe my blood. I guess that's closer.

37. What was the last thing you ate?

Tabouli salad, Hummus, pitas, and samosas for lunch.

38. Last person you hugged?

Oh come on. You know the answer.

39. Who's house did you go to last night?

MY VERY OWN HOUSE, YEAH!

40. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital?

My awesome cousin, who is the same age as me. Like it wasn't enough that she's diabetic, blind, and needs hip surgery, she also happened to come down with skin cancer a couple of months back and needed surgery and a skin graft. This proves that life is NOT FAIR because she's a really great person and doesn't do anything to invite debilitating diseases.

41. Do you like someone right now?

Like as in the fourth grade tee hee kind of like? Or like as in yeah I like Ian just fine and he should come visit even if we aren't unpacked?

42. What do you wear more, slacks, jeans or sweatpants?

Jeans.

43. What is the last movie you watched?

Futurama: Bender's Game. The best Futurama movie to date.

44. Where did you get the shirt you're wearing?

I got my sweater from Value Village. I love that place.

45. Coach Purse or NFL game tickets?

What kind of crap question is that? Which of these items sells for more on Ebay? I'll take that one.

46. Why did you kiss the last person you did?

This is a stupid question and I refuse to answer it.

47. Do you believe that you can change someone?

If by "someone" you mean "me", yes. If by "someone" you mean "anyone other than me", no. Unless I chop off someone's hand or cripple them in a car accident. I guess that would change a person, technically speaking.

48. Do you want something you can't have?

We all want something we can't have. That's part of why life is so interesting. One of the big somethings that I can't have at the moment is an acceptable house on a large rural treed acreage in Nova Scotia. Another big something that I can't have is pizza for dinner every single day. But I still want it.

49. If you could be buried or have your ashes spread anywhere at all, where would it be?

I'd like the medical people to use my parts for whatever they need to use me for, and then I want to be wrapped in some burlap or something and carried into the nearest large forest and left there.

50. Are you a leader or a follower?

I'm that person who's off to the side doing their own thing while the leader is preaching and the followers are listening.


...

Okay, that's all the questions. You still there? Since I haven't done this before, I asked Mark if he thought it would be interesting for you guys to read or not. He said it was good, because there was stuff about him in there, and that's why everyone reads this blog. To find out about him.

He doesn't say much, but when he does, ...um... anyway. He was joking, I think.

Storytime: espionage

When I was little, I shared a room with my older sister on the upper level of an old two-story house for a few years. For whatever reason, my parents bought a set of indoor speaker devices - sort of like walkie-talkies, but you plug them into the wall and they're not portable. They had a speaker, a button to push for when you talk, and a little button that made a shrill beeping noise come out the other device. If you held down the speaking button and pushed it to the side, it stayed down.

Looking back, this seemed like an odd thing to find its way into our household. My parents have never been the type to embrace technology for technology's sake - they never even bought a computer until after I went to university.

Anyway one of these devices went in the kitchen/dining room downstairs, and one went up in our bedroom. When my mom wanted us to come downstairs for dinner, she would press the beepy button three times from the kitchen. That was our code.

Once in a while my parents would shoo my sister and I upstairs so they could have what we assumed were "adult" discussions; usually when there was company over. Sometimes, if circumstances were optimal, we'd be standing near the speaker device when we were told to skedaddle. We'd nod innocently with our back to the counter, arms behind us, bodies blocking our actions from view, and push the speaker button down and to the side, locking it in the "on" position. Then we'd run up to our room to listen to what the grown-ups were talking about without us.

I don't remember a single one of those adult conversations. I do remember the thrill of listening in - it was like being a secret agent, trying to gain information by outwitting the other side.

By the way, if my parents are reading this, you should know that it was all my sister's fault.

chimney tricks

When we did our pre-closing inspection on this house a bit more than a week ago, there was a single piece of paper on the kitchen counter. It was a bill from a chimney cleaning company, which was good because our contract stated that the former owner was supposed to clean it out.


The real estate agent took it, saying she would fax a copy to our lawyers. Being a n00b at wood stoves though, I wanted to actually speak to a professional person about our stove and chimney before lighting any fires. The cap on the outside of the chimney was obviously in bad shape, and on top of that I just wanted to hear that it was safe. So I emailed the real estate agent and asked her for a copy of the bill, thinking that it would be logical to talk to the same people that had already been here. With a bit of prodding she eventually sent it to me and I gave the chimney guy a call.

It turns out that there was a second page attached to the bill when he left it here - it even says on the first page "see attached sweep report". I told him we only had one page and he was a bit surprised. Since he remembered our house, he was able to immediately tell me that our chimney liner needed to be replaced, and that he had written that on the second page, which I had never seen because some scumbag of a person took it so that we wouldn't know there were any problems before the house deal officially closed.

Also: he hasn't been paid for his services. Ahem. I can think of a few choice words to use to describe the the previous owner. What a horrible person. (The chimney guy is not trying to hit me up for money owed, so don't worry about that - he knows he has to chase that other harpy.)

We are fortunate enough that we can afford a new chimney liner and it's not a hardship, so I'm going to try not to dwell on the unfairness of this situation.

And now for something completely different.

We went off to the hospital yesterday and the conclusion is that Mark has muscle strain. He was told to get hopped up on Tylenol 3 and go to physiotherapy, so hopefully his back woes will ease up in the near future.

Also, we've repaired the broken window in the bathroom!


With real glass and everything!


We also installed a toilet paper holder. I thought it was funny at the hardware store that all the packaging for those things say "paper holder", as though the manufacturers did not wish to acknowledge the holder's relationship to toilets and bums. "Paper holder". How delicate.


Anyway, finished product:


Next step: mirror for over the sink. But that will require a trip to "the city" and will have to wait until at least this weekend.

Afternoon project: scrubbing grubby handprints and mystery splatters off the walls, ceilings and baseboards.

For Taras, who is Picky

As per Taras' request about my last post, here are some pictures.

A) pic of snow

Here is the truck, which I have shoveled around, and poor Aunt Pinky, who is still a bit buried:


B) pic of me working in the snow

Talk to Mark about that. I don't usually take pictures of myself while shoveling snow. Here's a picture of SOMEONE working in the snow, though:


C) pic of the awesome china

As requested. As a bonus, this picture is taken OUTSIDE IN THE SNOW:


I hope you are satisfied, Mr. Picky.

shoveling

So the weekend hit and we were all ready to go to "the city" to get some much-needed house supplies, like a ladder so we could put up our storm windows.

SNOWSTORM.

It snowed Friday night. It snowed all day Saturday. It snowed on Sunday, and now it's Monday and this morning there were large cheerful flakes still falling out of the sky. We were unable to purchase any of our supplies.

The very best part is, Mark's back has been bothering him quite a bit for like a month now, so guess who bought a shovel and then shoveled off the deck and then the driveway. In snow up to my knees. Multiple times. One time, I shoveled off the deck and worked my way out to the road, and then once I got there it was still snowing so hard that I had to turn around and shovel my way back, and then shovel the deck again on my way into the house.

It's actually not that bad. It's nice to get exercise outdoors and accomplish something at the same time, and I'm only a bit stiff and not achy-all-over. Poor Mark, on the other hand, seems to feel tortured that I'm doing all the physical work around here. He shouldn't though, since his back is so sore that he can't even lay down for an entire night any more. There's a clinic in town that's open two days a week, but they don't have room for new patients.

Off we will go to to the hospital in the next town tomorrow. Mark is amazed that I would suggest going to the hospital - I think he thinks you're only allowed to go there if you get taken by ambulance for a medical emergency. Nuh-uh, this is how it works in rural communities! (Hey Dr. Justin, I have some career advice for you if you still haven't made up your mind, hint hint. Come fix Mark's back.)

Oliver is doing amazingly well in the snow. Saturday morning, when there was something close to two feet of snow on the ground and the plows hadn't yet been by, he had issues. I had to carry him to the school next door and walk him in the shelter of a wall where the wind had blown the snow away. Every time we passed a door, he scratched at it and cried.

Later that day though, after the roads had been plowed and after I'd shoveled the driveway for like the twentieth time, he was fine. We now know that he prefers snow to rain, and as long as we keep walking and the snow's not over his head, he's perfectly content. Good thing! Arlo of course was thrilled to be in the snow and bounced all over the place. I even kept him out with me while I was (surprise) shoveling, and he had fun.

One last thing: I was just now washing my dishes and noticed that on the bottom of our set of hand-me-down bowls it says "Tuscan Fine English Bone China". Ah crap, I thought, am I putting my Special K in something expensive? I looked it up on the internet, and shouldn't have. Firstly, yes, it can tend to be kinda expensive, and secondly? Bone China? It's made from BONES. COW BONES.

Ah crap.