Year: 2002

Here’s a picture of the board I painted. The roses are “wallies” – wallpaper cutouts from the craft store. (They’re stuck on with little white dots so that I take them off and use them on the walls eventually.) They look like they’ll be much easier than stencils. And then if I decide I hate the color I won’t feel bad painting over it. Now I just need to collect about 5 of those 40% off a single item Michael’s coupons. :D The little bit of white underneath the board is the top of the wainscoting. I’m planning on painting that a more creamy color – “coffee cream”. I think my favorite part of painting is picking out the neatest named colors – red zinger, coffee cream, and possibly applegold (a yellow-green, or green-yellow, depending on how you look at it) for the boxes in the wainscoting… Sounds like a good snack, not dining room walls!

I have been on a total redecorating kick lately. I think it’s because I finally decided how I want everything done. I’ve been doing it room by room over the past year, and now I have such a good picture in my head about everything that I want to do it now. I’m all about instant gratification. :) So I found this fantastic burgandy paint for my dining room (which is not the next room on my list) but it’s really dark. Since it’s a fairly small room (10 x 13) with only one (east-facing) window, I’m a little nervous about using such a dark color. I bought some foam board and a quart of the paint, and spent the afternoon painting it with several coats. At one point, I found myself sitting on the dining room floor, waiting for the previous coat to dry so I could decide if it needed another coat. All I could think of was that commercial about the house paint where everyone brought lawn chairs over to watch the paint dry. *giggle* But it looks really nice! I’ve had to practically sit on my hands to prevent myself from stripping the wallpaper and starting right now. As soon as my major work project is done, I’m taking a couple days off to paint!!!

Today I feel like a lump on a log. I think I’m coming down with a head cold, which makes it really hard to concentrate on either the work I should be doing or my master’s project. Instead, I spent the day cleaning, picking out paint chips for my dining room (as if I don’t have enough home-improvement projects lined up), and just being pokey. Now it’s 5:30, I’ve barely done any work, and the weekend’s half over! Blah.

On the positive side, we did finally pick someone to do the siding. We signed the contract today. I’m a little nervous, because we went with the low bid – which was low by a lot! – but it was within the original range we had assumed we would be spending on siding, and the company had excellent references. We’ll see what happens… I hate vinyl siding to begin with – it looks fake, and the seams are so obvious – but at least the front of our house is brick, so we won’t have to look at it all that often. They’re probably going to start late next week – I didn’t know you could side your house in winter, but it’s been so mild I’m not sure this qualifies as winter anyway!

Today I talked about engineering to a bunch of 8th graders. Sounds easy, right? Right. For the past 4 (5?) years I’ve volunteered for National Engineer’s Week, where a number of us go to a middle school and do nifty engineering-type demonstrations for the kids so they’ll be interested in taking math and science in high school. Don’t know if it works or not, but most of the kids like it. I must be getting old, though, because these kids look younger and younger every year. :) And, after standing for the whole day and talking for 8 hours straight, I’m hobbling around the house like an old woman. Hopefully I’ll get my voice back before rehearsal tomorrow morning…

Well, I had this really great picture of Molly wearing Mardi Gras beads, which I accidentally deleted from my camera card. (Of course it was an accident – who would do that on purpose?!?) So, I guess I’ll have to go home and take more pictures tonight. It was cute. Really! In the meantime, enjoy “Fat Tuesday”!

Aha! There’s white rum, lime juice and cola in it. Since I used to like rum & coke’s but now find them too sweet, this might be more to my taste, with the lime juice and all…

OK, I finally got around to taking the “what drink are you?” test…

Which drink are you?

…or at least, that’s what Denis says! Last night I bought a couple of new books of piano music, and while we were waiting for our pizza at the restaurant next to the music store I was browsing through the books. I can hear the music in my head when I look at it – and I found a piece that had an amusing melody, so I was giggling over it…and Denis promptly declared that I was weird. I guess I’ve been reading music that way for so long I didn’t realize it was an unusual ability – I mean, I know not everybody reads music in the first place, but I just assumed that part of reading music was hearing it too. Besides, it really was an amusing piece – the Irish Washerwoman song – you know, dah dah dah…oh nevermind.

I am so busy at work, I can hardly see straight. If I survive the next three weeks, it will be a miracle. And to top matters off, my wrist picked today to start acting up again – I haven’t had problems with it in months! – and I don’t have any brace or bandage with me. It aches all the way up my shoulder. Yes, I’m whining. But, to paraphrase a stupid song, “it’s my blog and I can whine if I want to!”