Sunday, February 8, 2015

Everything takes forever

     Back in January I made a list of some things that I intended to do this year, and of them was to finally put the blackout liner on the shade in the bedroom. For the last year or so I had 3 yards of fabric clipped onto it - I had enough for the 3 shades in the room. Finally I just got sick of looking at it, unclipped it, and unscrewed the shade from the sill.


     This is some kind of rattan roman shade that was here when we moved in. The sun really only is a problem on this one window, so it's the only one I'm doing. It's such a simple thing but it took, like, 4 hours. I had to cut the shade precisely with a rotary cutter, press and tack down the seams with tape, thread everything under the rings, staple it to the frame, and then take all the rings out and reposition them through both layers. Finally I had to put it back up by myself which was awkward. This is why when I look around this house I think "do I really want to get into this now"? But it's done and it looks great. The same thing happened a few days ago when I decided to finally reframe some watercolor paintings I've had for, I don't know, 10 years? This was another all-afternoon project.

Just some of the mess
I framed up a bunch of my son's artwork about 2 years ago which I was very happy to get done, but they've been sitting just like that on the floor of the dining room ever since. Just like in our old house, I'm sure we'll get it just the way we like it, then we'll move. 

     Yesterday was actually a great day for this project because it was one of those rare, wonderful, drizzly days in LA. Here's the view of my jungly front yard. 


     I absolutely love it. I probably wouldn't love it all the time, but more than we've been getting for sure.

     I decided to take a break from the DVR and watched Silver Linings Playbook on Netflix. I know, I'm 2 years behind. It was really a cute movie, but I'm a little perplexed why Jennifer Lawrence won the Oscar. I really like her but okay, no better than Bradley Cooper who was really quite good. I'm never one of those people who catches up on all the nominees before the ceremony and I'm even less likely to do that now that there's some insanely good stuff on TV. Beside the return of John Oliver and The Walking Dead, there's Better Call Saul and a new docuseries on HBO called The Jinx. It's a true crime story in the vein of Serial and The Staircase. The Staircase is about the trail of author Michael Peterson for his wife's murder. You can watch it online or download from iTunes. You are watching a trial as it unfolds and it's riveting and very binge-able.

     I finally finished Apple Tree Yard. I'll be putting up a review on Goodreads which I'll link to, because I'm dead-set against spoilers. I gave it 3 stars. While it was diverting it was also upsetting, but more than anything, it didn't bring the feels. This was the same problem I had with Life After Life and On Such a Full Sea and quite a few others lately. If I don't get an emotional wallop then it just doesn't make it into 4 star territory.

     I look my son to Unplug Meditation for a 3 week series for kids. It was a nice space and there was another knitting mom there so we got to share projects. It was hard to tell how he liked it because he's  12 and anything without electronics is boring, but I know that just the act of taking the time to clear your mind can have powerful effects. There was a lot of press on the walls, and it was being described as the Drybar of meditation, as in come in when you want, get it done and be on your way. I thought that was pretty funny, but it's very appealing for today's lifestyle. There were tons of kids there so the demand is definitely there.

     Finally I was going through my bookmarks today and came across a website that I'd joined a while back called Flight Memory. It lets you track all the flights you've ever taken and it calculates how many miles you've flown. It's one of those wonderful time-wasters for travel nerds, like Gogobot, which lets you track everyplace you've been and post pictures. You would think it would be impossible to track all your flights and you might be right, but for some reason I've kept a record of every one I've taken going back 20+ years, and I remember all the ones before that. Nerd me up.

No comments:

Post a Comment