Not "Trading Spaces" - 2
Let's see. The homework assignment we had been working on (second one):
* rearrange the living room: two desks side-by-side, then the filing cabinet, then the couch which was previously against the wall to go to the middle of the room, the entertainment center catty-corner;
* hang the curtains;
* re-place the shelves in the bathroom (Peterbird is tall, and hit his head on them where they had been); and
* hang the two large floral pictures.
We did to the living room until it cooperated. The curtains obeyed Virgil (one husband, many names). We bought a shelf from Home Depot for the bathroom, and Virgil re-hung them all in a lovely manner which I didn't expect. (I expected a different lovely manner.) We hung one large floral picture and decided to hang the other in a different spot.
In chapel this morning, we were both at the right chanter's stand, which was fun, and Mary Beth and Fr. Seraphim were at the left. I love singing with people who both know what they're doing and sound good doing it. Unless you added Nektarios, I don't know of any other favorite chanters of mine.
At home again we relaxed with some food and drink and watched tennis. It was the (actually quite exciting) French Open. Then it was back to work. We'd promised Jenny some banana bread, so we started that. Then we were having difficulties with the bathroom shelves, and invited Jenny over for a consult. I showed her some of the neat things I'd found at Bed, Bath & Beyond the other day. She said we should go ahead and get them. She hung a few things, then went to a Greek Festival somewhere with her family. Virgil had to stay home with the banana bread, since he had a funny idea that I knew what I was looking for. (I guess I did, and he's a better cook than I, anyhow.)
I found the two things at BB&B, and picked up a belated-birthday/early-nameday present for my Peterbird and his poor little feets (Soccer, basketball, me, Orthodoxy ...) as well as a hand-towel hook for the bathroom. Home Depot gave me a shelf for the bathroom, and I picked up some ant-killer (rah! stop coming into my house, gargantuan ants of doom!) at the generic grocery store.
The bathroom tower cabinet had to be assembled. I was almost done before 5 pm, but I had promised Peterbird I would go to chapel, and he said it was the service of Small Paraklisis, and that's my favorite, so I went. (Does he *always* have to be right? I felt so much better afterwards.)
***
Augh. We forgot that we/Virgil have/has to clean the Department of Religious Education office this weekend. Now that's done, and the second batch of banana bread is in the oven.
After Paraklisis, I finished assembling the tower cabinet, and Virgil worked on hanging the bathroom shelves. Jenny called to say she'd be over; we had dinner in the 15-minute grace period. I thought I would have to assemble the (matching!) medicine/wall cabinet, too, but it was already assembled! Yay! Jenny came over and helped rearrange the living room. We hung (liberal use of we; Jenny hung) the icons in the living room to make a reading corner which greets you as you open the front door, and a little icon set over the dining room table. [We had been eating on a tray on the ottoman, one large table covered with icons, the other with junk; now one is a dining table and the other is Virgil's desk; we will still probably use the tray on the ottoman.]
The bathroom shelves are now up on the wall with the toilet. On the facing wall, there's a hook for a hand towel. There's a decorative glass shelf (moved from the wall opposite) with two candles on it, and our wedding-gift ceramic cross which had been still in its protective box until this point -- that's all above the first towel dowel. The second, near the window IS UP!* Above it is the medicine cabinet, on it are the guest towels with pretty flowers embroidered in them (and under those are the dark purple and dark green hand towels which are not currently on the hand-towel hook!), and under it is the tower cabinet. The curtains are up, and on the wall facing the mirror is the pretty iris watercolor, so you can see it when you walk in, reflected at you. It's *wonderful*.
*Here's a long story. This is the thing which bothered me most about our apartment. We had one place to hang towels, a fixture for another ... with a matching hole and the requisite hardware. For nine months. Nevermind that the towel rod which is up isn't level (ha! nothing in our apartment is perpendicular or level except by chance!), I just hated looking at that hole in the wall, and the hardware in the windowsill gathering cobwebs (okay, spiderwebs, but they became cobwebs as soon as we noticed the spiders in succession). It's rickety, but it's there, affixed to the wall! The tall mirror is now screwed onto the outside of the bathroom door. We are bold under Jenny's magnificent tutelage!
The music corner in the bedroom now has Virgil's Glee Club print on the littler wall, and on the larger, the poster of Xerxes, which is the opera we were both in together. My mother had sent the poster along with framing materials and instructions, but I had kept it (all together now) in its original package until today. There's a lamp and a chair (with arms, but not an armchair) in front of the window, and we've parked the foot spa dealie there for now. Virgil said I should have a go, and that was one of the highlights of my feet's existence. Too bad I didn't have one when I did Irish step dancing when I was little. Anyway.
We sent Jenny home with banana bread (last time she carried off three of my (tiny tiny) grandmother's dresses (both the grandmother and the dresses were tiny, go fig) which would have fit me before I went into high school. If I had worn corsets, I might have had a chance. As it was, I was simply holding onto them because that's what I do with things which are given to me. My husband is helping me work on that, and I'm deciding whether or not I want to work on that. (Just don't tell him. I got rid of my precious cardboard boxes yesterday -- and they May Have Been Useful someday somehow to someone.
Our homework, due Thursday evening:
* all the piles of *stuff* must get put away, not just shoved somewhere new. This will be the hardest piece of homework for me yet;
* go to Big Lots and check out the slipcovers;
* look for frames for some photographs (my father took some pictures of my mother's butterfly irises in the backyard -- she can grow irises like nobody's business) so I can hang them over my desk;
* get some hand-me-down lace linen things (including an ancient baptismal baby dress) drycleaned and properly stored (no, not "get them," just "get them drycleaned and properly stored" -- I don't go *looking* for this stuff. um. most of the time.);
* buy something so there are more outlets in the bedroom (Jenny suggested that we get something so that by flipping the switch, we can have both lamps turn on at the same time; also, there is no room for one of the bedside lamps to go into an outlet).
Yes, Peterbird, I am still blogging. (As you read over my shoulder.)
Peter is exempt from most of the work this time, as there is a Vigil this week (St. Panagis, Monday night), Liturgy (Leave-taking of Pascha; Wednesday morning); Ascension (Thursday, another Liturgy), and he's the ecclesiarch for the chapel, so he has to be there early and late as well as be in charge of setting up and cleaning up. (We won't mention the part about preparing to be a chant leader or studying for his Greek class or his job at the DRE, because that would make him sound superfantas..) okay, he stopped reading over my shoulder. He really is superfantastic, and all this working with him makes me stop and wonder how on earth can I raise my children to follow his example. He never complains; he is always patient with me. He loves for me to be happy, and will strive to his utmost (which is quite a lot) to make sure that I am a good person first and a happy person second (in terms of ensuring long-run happiness over short-term gain - I am impatient and still (I think) a spoiled brat).
It is tired and my husband is in bed. I think he needs snuggling. Boy, is he cute.
[Pictures are being taken, but I am as yet too tired to post them. Management apologizes for the delay.]
My husband tells me I wrote "It is tired." I choose not to believe him. Eye? Mayke a mistake? Know way.
Errata: My mother, not my father, took the pictures of her butterfly iris (or fortnight lily), and the corner shelf was not my great-grandmother's (Edna or Ganga) but my step-greatgrandmother's (Leota).
* rearrange the living room: two desks side-by-side, then the filing cabinet, then the couch which was previously against the wall to go to the middle of the room, the entertainment center catty-corner;
* hang the curtains;
* re-place the shelves in the bathroom (Peterbird is tall, and hit his head on them where they had been); and
* hang the two large floral pictures.
We did to the living room until it cooperated. The curtains obeyed Virgil (one husband, many names). We bought a shelf from Home Depot for the bathroom, and Virgil re-hung them all in a lovely manner which I didn't expect. (I expected a different lovely manner.) We hung one large floral picture and decided to hang the other in a different spot.
In chapel this morning, we were both at the right chanter's stand, which was fun, and Mary Beth and Fr. Seraphim were at the left. I love singing with people who both know what they're doing and sound good doing it. Unless you added Nektarios, I don't know of any other favorite chanters of mine.
At home again we relaxed with some food and drink and watched tennis. It was the (actually quite exciting) French Open. Then it was back to work. We'd promised Jenny some banana bread, so we started that. Then we were having difficulties with the bathroom shelves, and invited Jenny over for a consult. I showed her some of the neat things I'd found at Bed, Bath & Beyond the other day. She said we should go ahead and get them. She hung a few things, then went to a Greek Festival somewhere with her family. Virgil had to stay home with the banana bread, since he had a funny idea that I knew what I was looking for. (I guess I did, and he's a better cook than I, anyhow.)
I found the two things at BB&B, and picked up a belated-birthday/early-nameday present for my Peterbird and his poor little feets (Soccer, basketball, me, Orthodoxy ...) as well as a hand-towel hook for the bathroom. Home Depot gave me a shelf for the bathroom, and I picked up some ant-killer (rah! stop coming into my house, gargantuan ants of doom!) at the generic grocery store.
The bathroom tower cabinet had to be assembled. I was almost done before 5 pm, but I had promised Peterbird I would go to chapel, and he said it was the service of Small Paraklisis, and that's my favorite, so I went. (Does he *always* have to be right? I felt so much better afterwards.)
Augh. We forgot that we/Virgil have/has to clean the Department of Religious Education office this weekend. Now that's done, and the second batch of banana bread is in the oven.
After Paraklisis, I finished assembling the tower cabinet, and Virgil worked on hanging the bathroom shelves. Jenny called to say she'd be over; we had dinner in the 15-minute grace period. I thought I would have to assemble the (matching!) medicine/wall cabinet, too, but it was already assembled! Yay! Jenny came over and helped rearrange the living room. We hung (liberal use of we; Jenny hung) the icons in the living room to make a reading corner which greets you as you open the front door, and a little icon set over the dining room table. [We had been eating on a tray on the ottoman, one large table covered with icons, the other with junk; now one is a dining table and the other is Virgil's desk; we will still probably use the tray on the ottoman.]
The bathroom shelves are now up on the wall with the toilet. On the facing wall, there's a hook for a hand towel. There's a decorative glass shelf (moved from the wall opposite) with two candles on it, and our wedding-gift ceramic cross which had been still in its protective box until this point -- that's all above the first towel dowel. The second, near the window IS UP!* Above it is the medicine cabinet, on it are the guest towels with pretty flowers embroidered in them (and under those are the dark purple and dark green hand towels which are not currently on the hand-towel hook!), and under it is the tower cabinet. The curtains are up, and on the wall facing the mirror is the pretty iris watercolor, so you can see it when you walk in, reflected at you. It's *wonderful*.
*Here's a long story. This is the thing which bothered me most about our apartment. We had one place to hang towels, a fixture for another ... with a matching hole and the requisite hardware. For nine months. Nevermind that the towel rod which is up isn't level (ha! nothing in our apartment is perpendicular or level except by chance!), I just hated looking at that hole in the wall, and the hardware in the windowsill gathering cobwebs (okay, spiderwebs, but they became cobwebs as soon as we noticed the spiders in succession). It's rickety, but it's there, affixed to the wall! The tall mirror is now screwed onto the outside of the bathroom door. We are bold under Jenny's magnificent tutelage!
The music corner in the bedroom now has Virgil's Glee Club print on the littler wall, and on the larger, the poster of Xerxes, which is the opera we were both in together. My mother had sent the poster along with framing materials and instructions, but I had kept it (all together now) in its original package until today. There's a lamp and a chair (with arms, but not an armchair) in front of the window, and we've parked the foot spa dealie there for now. Virgil said I should have a go, and that was one of the highlights of my feet's existence. Too bad I didn't have one when I did Irish step dancing when I was little. Anyway.
We sent Jenny home with banana bread (last time she carried off three of my (tiny tiny) grandmother's dresses (both the grandmother and the dresses were tiny, go fig) which would have fit me before I went into high school. If I had worn corsets, I might have had a chance. As it was, I was simply holding onto them because that's what I do with things which are given to me. My husband is helping me work on that, and I'm deciding whether or not I want to work on that. (Just don't tell him. I got rid of my precious cardboard boxes yesterday -- and they May Have Been Useful someday somehow to someone.
Our homework, due Thursday evening:
* all the piles of *stuff* must get put away, not just shoved somewhere new. This will be the hardest piece of homework for me yet;
* go to Big Lots and check out the slipcovers;
* look for frames for some photographs (my father took some pictures of my mother's butterfly irises in the backyard -- she can grow irises like nobody's business) so I can hang them over my desk;
* get some hand-me-down lace linen things (including an ancient baptismal baby dress) drycleaned and properly stored (no, not "get them," just "get them drycleaned and properly stored" -- I don't go *looking* for this stuff. um. most of the time.);
* buy something so there are more outlets in the bedroom (Jenny suggested that we get something so that by flipping the switch, we can have both lamps turn on at the same time; also, there is no room for one of the bedside lamps to go into an outlet).
Yes, Peterbird, I am still blogging. (As you read over my shoulder.)
Peter is exempt from most of the work this time, as there is a Vigil this week (St. Panagis, Monday night), Liturgy (Leave-taking of Pascha; Wednesday morning); Ascension (Thursday, another Liturgy), and he's the ecclesiarch for the chapel, so he has to be there early and late as well as be in charge of setting up and cleaning up. (We won't mention the part about preparing to be a chant leader or studying for his Greek class or his job at the DRE, because that would make him sound superfantas..) okay, he stopped reading over my shoulder. He really is superfantastic, and all this working with him makes me stop and wonder how on earth can I raise my children to follow his example. He never complains; he is always patient with me. He loves for me to be happy, and will strive to his utmost (which is quite a lot) to make sure that I am a good person first and a happy person second (in terms of ensuring long-run happiness over short-term gain - I am impatient and still (I think) a spoiled brat).
It is tired and my husband is in bed. I think he needs snuggling. Boy, is he cute.
[Pictures are being taken, but I am as yet too tired to post them. Management apologizes for the delay.]
My husband tells me I wrote "It is tired." I choose not to believe him. Eye? Mayke a mistake? Know way.
Errata: My mother, not my father, took the pictures of her butterfly iris (or fortnight lily), and the corner shelf was not my great-grandmother's (Edna or Ganga) but my step-greatgrandmother's (Leota).
posted by magda at 7:53 PM
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