Bad kitty

Kent and I were abruptly awakened last night by the sound of glass shattering, and we knew immediately it was a lot of glass. We keep a dehumidifier in our smelly closet which has really helped control the moisture and smell in that closet. But it's an irresistible place for Wally to contemplate jumping onto higher shelves in that closet.

That's exactly what he did last night, only he jumped onto an unstable perch--the box he landed on stuck out from the shelf by close to half its length. And on the box were nine glass votives, a wall clock with a glass cover and a round glass tea light holder that was about six or seven inches in diameter. Our closet floor is tiled, so nothing that fell survived except the cat.

Here's what's left of all those items.

Busy week

This week I:

Applied for a job with the civil service. Their application process is both lengthy and tiring. Coming from an industrial/organizational psychology background, I can say they do a great job isolating the skills, knowledge and abilities needed for the open positions. But the process was still tiring to me as the applicant.

Conquered invisible zippers. This is a big deal to me since I've always been frustrated by zippers and would rather make 15 buttonholes than put in one zipper. The picture shows the invisible zipper in my new skirt (it's on the ironing board). What's more, I made it with my quilting foot on my Bernina because I don't have the correct foot. I'm on the hunt for one now and then zippers will be mine forever.

Along with the zipper, I made a jacket and skirt. Well the jacket is 99% done. I need to sew on a button. I do love Vogue patterns, the attention to detail is remarkable.

Watched Kent turn into a Craig's List seller extraordinaire. In the last week or so, he's sold two rugs, a book case, our red chair and the matching ottoman. He's getting ready to list another book case on there too. We've sold these items as we've found mostly very inexpensive replacements that work better in our space.

Watched and helped Kent install new lights in our kitchen. Previous owners had installed a few can lights throughout the space but they are odd--the bulbs are set deep in the can so the light doesn't really make it out into the space the way you'd think it would. We had two cans in our kitchen, two in each of the halls and two in our living room. So in addition to being inferior can lights, there aren't very many of them. We tackled the kitchen first and found two halogen fixtures for $10 each. We are going to need to put in a dimmer switch now! I think in the winter I'll be really glad to have halogen, although they are a bit warm. We may try lower wattage halogen bulbs too.

Replaced our tall darker book case with new shorter book cases from Ikea. Here's what it looked like before:



And here's the after picture:

Our adventures

Kent pointed out to me that I'd omitted the (embarrassing) details about how we got utterly lost driving from Ikea in Stoughton, MA to Fabric Corner in Arlington, MA on Saturday.

We started at Point A and needed to get to Point B:


View Larger Map

Google maps promised us a 42 minute trip. Since Tropical Storm Danny was moving through the area, we figured an hour drive might be more realistic. What we didn't realize was that Google called a Y intersection a traffic round-about. Those are two very different intersections and that's where things went horribly, horribly wrong. Add to that the maddening habit Cambridge, Winchester and Arlington have of only labeling the cross streets, but never the street you are actually on and you have a nice two hour drive that postponed our lunch until 3 PM as we drove through Arlington, Winchester, Arlington, Winchester, Arlington, Cambridge and finally Arlington while the rains came pouring down.

I think it speaks well of our marriage that we really didn't get cranky with each other, just sort of near each other. And once we were fed, even that disappeared--faster than the tropical storm did anyway.

Busy, busy

Today we hauled our carpet sample to Ikea. I'd found a chair I loved at Crate & Barrel but I didn't like the $800 price tag. Plus we hoped to find some accent pillows that would better go with this amazing rug we want to get. You may recall me writing about the incredible chair my stepmother has in her guest room. I'm pretty sure hers is an actual Eames, which is a fantastic chair. But honestly we could never pay that much for a chair no matter how cool it is. Today at Ikea, we found a chair that's close in look and feel, and not only was it much cheaper than the Crate & Barrel chair I liked so much, it was also exceptionally comfortable.

Here's the new chair (plus a cat, of course):


This picture shows one of the pillows I re-covered today. We also went to Fabric Corner in Arlington and found this amazing fabric plus it was 35% off. I'm so very glad I can sew and make pillow covers and stuff.



Finally here's one of the pillows on our couch. We may end up replacing the couch at some point since it's pretty short and hard for Kent to get comfortable on when watching TV. But for now, he's making do with the new chair and the recovered pillows make the couch less blah.

Soft and cushy

We are looking at a new area rug for our living room. The one we have is very traditional, but more to the point, it's pretty thin. That means it's not as insulating as it could be in the winter. With our floors being essentially the basement floors, we have no insulation below us. So rugs matter.

Here's what we are looking at getting. This is a 12"x12" sample the store lets you pay to take home (you get the money back when you return the sample). All three cats loved it, they all took turns kneading the long nubs and then planting their front paws in the dents they created. In fact when Kent was taking this picture, Eddie had to come check it out again.

Thrift stores

Boston has a couple of really nice thrift stores. I guess technically they are consignment stores but you get the idea. Both are on Newbury Street and tend to carry nicer brands of clothing that are in good shape. Saturday we headed out and each got some items. I found a J Crew silk/cotton blouse in magenta for $15 plus a Ferragamo wool sweater for $36. I care more about fit and color than I do about name brands, and both items work well for me.

I don't mind buying second hand clothing but I can't bring myself to get used shoes. There's something repulsive about that to me, and I'm not sure I can clearly articulate why that's so. But it's as nasty to me as buying used underwear.

I thought you might enjoy seeing Eddie's new perch. He's lying on my sewing storage cabinet under the light (and heat) of my new sewing lamp. It uses a 100 watt incandescent bulb, which I really need for the light. I'm pretty sure he thinks the lamp is his sun lamp.

How a cat trains a human

Generally we don't buy lots of toys for our kitties. Well I say that and then I hunted down their toys for this picture--and we have more than I realized. At least the kitties play with all of them, including the small gray cloth which is not a toy. It's the cleaning cloth that came with my HP laptop. Wally hunted that thing down no matter where I hid it, so I gave up, it's his now.


The boys especially love to bat around the small mice you see in that picture. Since they are small toys, it's very easy for them to get batted under the couch, the armoire or my desk. Wally has a solution for that situation. He comes to my desk and meows at me. If I don't respond as quickly as he'd like, he'll pull out the ruler you see in this picture and look up at me as if to say, "Hey! Get down here on the floor and fish out my mouse!"


We also find these toys in unusual places. Last night Kent came to bed after I did and he told me this morning it was all he could do not to burst out laughing because he found the pink mouse under his sheets right about where his shoulders would be. I think Wally thought Kent might be bored. This morning we also found the possum on the counter.