7 Quick Takes (Vol 225)

Well here we are again, same blather just emanating from a different location.

You know the time honored Friday tradition. When you are done harvesting and preserving the blather found herein you are to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of my rapidly decreasing pile of unopened boxes, over to Conversion Diary.

An unopened box of blather cannot be tolerated.

1.
My poor nails. My poor, poor nails. They were so lovely and painted for the wedding. A bright, fire engine red.

And then the week after the wedding I had to pack up my house. I chipped the polish and so it all had to come off.

Have I told you that I cannot stand to have chipped nail polish. I am phobic about it. I actually blame Amy Taylor and her freshman roomie for this phobia. They taught me that chipped nail polish was not to be tolerated. One chip and I have to take all the polish off and re-do it. That must be why I never have nail polish on my fingernails. I would be painting them every day. I just don’t have that kind of time!

So the nail polish came off and all was fine and my nails were still good……and then the move happened. And the 5 bazillion trips back and forth from old house to Chez Knit, toting boxes, lifting heavy objects, cleaning the old house, cleaning Chez Knit.

All of my lovely nails have been sacrificed to the moving gods. They are all raggedy and ugly.

Thank goodness I am not a hand model.

2.
When we were wandering around in Chez Knit Deux, kicking the tires as it were, and thinking about moving here I noticed a strange black knob located on the side of one of the kitchen sinks.

How odd?

Hmmmmm, Insinkerator?

It sounded like something to do with garbage disposal but that just didn’t make any sense. And then I read the words on top of the knob which told me that if I twisted it to the right or to the left I could get “nearly boiling hot water instantly”.

Instantly?

Nearly boiling hot?

Why the heck would I want that?

And then it occurred to me yesterday to look at the literature to see how hot that water actually can be. The factory setting is 200F but you can bump it up, which I did. Folks that is really hot water. And THEN it occurred to me that I didn’t need to boil water with my kettle in order to make my cups of tea and my vats of morning coffee. I can get it right out of the tap.

Works perfectly.

Genius!

3.
For all of our 28 years of married life HHBL and I have slept in the same places on the bed. If you are sitting in bed I am on the right and HHBL is on the left. Every apartment and every house that is where we have been. When we stay in a hotel or with family. That is what we do.

When we moved into Chez Knit Deux last week HHBL and I decided to shake things up and switch sides on the bed.

I know! We are so wild and crazy.

But now that experiment is done and we will be switching back to where we have been for the last 28 years. He hasn’t been sleeping very well and his right shoulder (his pitching arm) has been very sore. I have been sleeping OK but in the morning my left hip is extremely sore, it being on the side that I have not traditionally slept on. Plus I am wondering if the whole change in sides of the bed is also contributing in a strange way to my issues with my carpal tunnel/numb hand.

I generally like to sleep by the window because I need a bit of a cooler temp at night but I can also just have a fan that blows on me.

And to be honest, I am waking up at night totally disoriented because I am on the wrong side of the bed.

It is the little things.

4.
We are back to having cable AND our couch is positioned so that we can actually enjoy watching TV. I am not sure which I am more excited about. It might actually be the positioning of the couch.

You don’t understand what I mean?

Let me illustrate.

See how the leather couch is positioned in relation to the book shelves? The TV was housed behind the doors there just beyond the couch arm. That is how the room was positioned for almost the entire time we lived there. If you turned the couch the other way so that it was better for watching TV then you lost the open feel of the room and cut off all thoughts of communication with the people sitting in the wing back chairs by the fireplace. And if you had a party then you needed to move the couch. That couch is a BOOGGER to move. So most of us, when watching TV, would actually sit on the couch facing backwards, all scrunched up in the corner.

Not comfortable but that is what we did.

But now, in the family room, we have the couch positioned properly and we can sit on it and actually watch TV in a position that seems normal.

I almost don’t know what to do.

Of course, I don’t watch much TV these days anyways but it is nice to be able to sit in a normal fashion when I do.

AND I can now watch 20/20 in bed as we are back to having a TV in the bedroom that actually works. But our rule is that we don’t generally turn that TV on. Before we deep sixed cable last year I had the bad habit of getting in bed at night and routinely turning on the tube and mindlessly watching whatever.

But tonight!! 20/20 in bed!!

5.
TMI alert. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Remember when I told you about my bra buying experience before the wedding. Well one of the side effects of the whole expensive bra ownership is that the little(or not so little) darlings need more TLC than I have traditionally given to my Mammary Minders. In the past I threw them in with the regular wash and then, if I was lazy (all the time) I would toss them in the dryer.

Don’t yell at me!! I know that is bad.

But now, with the gold plated bras, I pamper them with a gentle wash in mild soap, in a lingerie bag, on delicate cycle. And then I lay them flat to dry gently.

Usually I like to lay them out on the drying rack outside so they smell all fresh and clean.

Which is what I did yesterday.

And then I realized that the landscaping company is still working on the revamp of the irrigation system in the development and all these young guys are still walking through all the back yards and side yards….

And there were the bras on display.

YIKES!

It is going to take me a bit to get used to the whole living with people all around me thing.

No more walking through the house with no clothing on I guess. Not unless I want to give Syliva next door an unpleasant shock.

6.
Wednesday HHBL wasn’t going to be home for dinner. And I didn’t want to cook for myself. So…..

I placed an online order for Chinese take out from Yummy Yummy Express.

I waited 15 minutes.

I walked out my front door, around to the main road, took a left, walked 5 minutes…..

And picked up my order.

Man I love living close to the center of a town.

AND yesterday I had to have some screws to put together a desk (the movers stripped the screws taking it apart). I was able to go to the local hardware store, also a 5 minute walk away, and have an actual PERSON help me.

7.
For those of you who have enquired, Max the Magnificent is adjusting fairly well to the new surroundings. He has quickly picked up on the whole “I get THREE walks a day” routine. He has also adjusted fairly well to sleeping on his memory foam mattress bed rather than going into “his house” at night.

However he still seems to need to be in fairly close proximity to me most of the time so I am thinking that there is still some uncertainty there.

And I do wish he would not feel the need to bark at the workmen in the back yard at all times of the day.

He has reverted to his normal bedtime though. Around 9pm, as he has done for most of his life, he puts himself to bed.

I think 9p is a perfectly acceptable bedtime.

That is when I went to bed last night.