house 1 Comment

IKEA

And I wasn’t the only slave to my nesting instinct. The people I know who used to sit in the bathroom with pornography, now they sit in the bathroom with their IKEA furniture catalogue.

—Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 5

Is it so wrong to want nice things? Stylish things?

It’s tough to justify spending over $150 on what is basically a large bookshelf, though. It’s tough to move from the mismatched, second-hand furniture you acquired in your young adult years to actually paying for something stylish. And heaven forbid you don’t actually have a defined style yet.

When I was in high school, my dream decor was black and white. Now, it’s more black and earth tones. Dark woods, light tans, black and rust accents. Our current decor is definitely nothing like that. It’s more of post-collegiate, free-is-good mix-n-match. Someday, I’d like to work on establishing a real interior decorating style/sense. And actually spending the money to do it.

Today’s distraction at work was an all-day e-mail volley with Sheryl, in which we moved from talking fitness to talking about her new house to talking about home improvement and interior decorating in general. Much was said about the IKEA website and the store that is really quite close to where Sheryl will be living.

Now, I’d already looked at the website and found some picture frames I want to stock up on; unfortunately, they’re only available at the IKEA store, about an hour north of here — not online. There are also some large bookshelves which would serve as some keen DVD storage; however, since they’re not marketed as such, and don’t have a specific DVD capacity listed, Aaron isn’t entirely keen on them. I am, though. I’m willing to put out the money for them, and Aaron is willing to put his DVDs in them as long as he isn’t paying for them. And I’m OK with that.

The shelf I want is six feet on a side by 15″ deep, with square compartments. It costs $180, but I bet it’ll hold a shitload of DVDs and anime figurines and plants and other stylish accoutrements. I thought about buying it online, but then thought that maybe I should try something smaller and less expensive first, to see how the shipping and customer service goes.

So, I looked at a smaller shelf of the same design, about five feet tall by 2½ feet wide. I measured the spot in our living room I had in mind for it, and it would be an absolutely *perfect* fit. Well, except for having to drill an access hole for the electrical outlet in the right side of the shelf. I wouldn’t have a problem with that, though, even on an $80 shelf. Hell, we can keep the piece we drill out of it and patch it back in if we ever move the damn thing. It would so be worth it, because it’s so *us* (OK, maybe it’s so *me*) and it fits that spot so *perfectly*.

But I digress. I looked at this smaller shelf online, and saw that it’s also not available for online ordering. You have to go to the IKEA store to buy it. *sigh* So, I looked at the big shelf again, and decided to put it in my shopping cart and see how much shipping would be.

Are you ready?

Shipping literally costs as much as the shelf. Yep, $180 for the shelf and another $180 or so for shipping.

Not worth it.

I’ll have to wait until we can a.) go up to the IKEA store, and b.) convince someone with a truck to take us up there. I’ll want to buy both shelving units, plus my picture frames, plus whatever else I see that strikes my fancy.

Whenever this happens, it’s going to be a very dangerous trip. For one of my credit cards.

gardening 4 Comments

Gardening: Year Four

Year One (2004): Moved into the new house in March. Planted $100 worth of nursery plants in April. Killed every blessed one.

Year Two (2005): Received free plants from work and bought seedlings online. Planted miniature daffodils that Sheryl gave me for my birthday. Only the daffodils lived to see another Spring.

Year Three (2006): Planted daylilies from Scott at work in Fall 2005. Bought plants in a white elephant sale in the Spring. Started seeds indoors. Daylilies came up grandly; plants died before I planted them; only catnip and lemon basil seedlings survived the furry aminal seige once planted outside. The previous year’s mini daffodil bulbs came up, albeit a touch weakly.

Year Four (2007): Impending. Daylilies currently showing leafy growth. One lone mini daffodil has already peeked out its little head, only to get snowed on. Catnip is still MIA, although I have high hopes. Scott got me greenhouse tulips that have already bloomed and done their piece; I plan to plant the bulbs outside after the leafy growth dies back.

Today, I spent some quality time with my lone surviving Rose of Sharon cutting. The ones I brought from the old apartment died off over time, but one of the cuttings from Scott is still alive and kicking. I’ve had it in perlite (a rooting medium) for nigh on two or three years now. I forget. At any rate, I repotted it this evening into a large plastic pot, leftover from my unfortunate garden center trip of 2004. I’m not sure what its root system is *supposed* to look like, but what it’s got is a long, stringy root system with feathery branchings-off here and there. The root system, stretched out, is probably one and a half times as long as the stick-with-leaves is tall.

So, I’m planning to set the Rose of Sharon outside once the danger of frost is past, in hopes of getting it growing upward more, branching out a little, and getting used to the outside. I don’t know if I’ll try to plant it this fall yet, but hopefully it’ll at least like its new home. Hopefully I didn’t just sign its death warrant, as I so often do with my garden plants.

The key for me? Finding low-maintenance plants that can stand being forgotten about for up to two weeks. Plants that don’t require daily watering. Plants that won’t kick it over the winter if I don’t get the mulch down in time. Yes, I am a neglectful gardener. But I still like plants. And gardening.

ruminations

Still Too Close To The Surface

Read a blog entry about abortion today, written by a pro-choice advocate. Chose to write a comment in response.

Received an e-mail from the one friend I hadn’t told about my miscarriage yet. Chose to write a friggin’ novel in response.

I hadn’t realized this shit was still so fresh in my mind. I’ve been emotionally KO’d all evening. Didn’t get much accomplished besides playing some Civ IV.

Now it’s time to start getting ready for bed, and I have no idea what I’m making for lunch tomorrow, which is bad. I don’t really want to put my lunch together before I go to bed, which is worse. God knows what I’ll end up throwing into my lunch koozie tomorrow morning…

I know that these things smooth themselves over as time passes. I just wonder how long I’ll have these random days of sadness in the middle of being perfectly OK.

weight loss 2 Comments

We Are The Champions

Looks like James owes me ten bucks.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have much success following the SparkDiet this month. Well, I had success in *following* it, but not in losing weight because of it. My weight on March 1st was 202.5 lbs; my weight today, on April 1st, is 202 lbs. After the losses and the gains over the past month, I’m only half a pound below where I started.

Time for a new strategy.

Starting this week, I’m going to be monitoring my carbohydrate intake more closely, and to hell with calories. Well, calories are a good judge of portion size in general, so not entirely to hell with them. They just won’t be my be-all end-all, man-I-fucked-up gauge.

If this doesn’t do something for me, maybe I ought to go back on a “real” diet. One that’s published in a book, and that I follow properly, instead of this grow-your-own bullshit I’ve been trying to do lately. It’s obviously not as successful, and I’m obviously not a medical professional or nutritionist or personal trainer. I don’t know.

I’m not going to beat myself up over it, though. I’m going to give my grow-your-own SparkDiet another, oh, two weeks or so. If I haven’t lost at least three pounds by the end of two weeks — I think that’s a reasonable expectation — I’m going to go back on a structured low-carb diet. Probably not Atkins, but maybe Sugar Busters or another related diet. I certainly have enough books that I’ve never read and reviewed for my now abandoned podcast. We’ll see.