Two posts

I did get two posts in this weekend. Surprise, surprise. Of course it's a three-day weekend, so that helps.

I've been fairly productive actually. My house and garage are both organized and neat. And I actually sealed all the grout on my new tile yesterday. That was something of a chore, but I've been waiting to do it. The grout sealer stuff says to do it in a well ventilated area, with the house opened up or whatever. It hasn't really been warm enough since I had the tile installed to have the house wide open until yesterday. It reached about 66 yesterday afternoon, which is a lot warmer than it's been. So I opened all the doors and windows and sealed grout. The cats where immensely helpful, meaning that they were in my way and determined not to stay out of the stuff that says to keep pets away for about 2 hours. They just tracked through it like it was no big deal and had no clue why I was so excitable. To me the smell was strong ... not really unpleasant like some chemicals, just strong. They didn't seem to mind the smell at all and made no effort to avoid the stuff. Weird. Plus Addy has a strong drive to get into whatever I don't want her in. She probably would have ignored the stuff if I hadn't been trying to keep her out of it.

Here's a picture of the two of them sitting looking out the open door. They're still somewhat wary about going outside. The black demon terror shows up just often enough to keep us all on our toes. And yes, that huge, fuzzy, calico-colored creature is a cat. A massively overweight, Zoe cat. I've been struggling with that because Addy has been dropping weight lately. You can't really see in this picture but her shoulder blades and hips are beginning to be a little too noticeable. She's 14 years old, so it's probably just her age, but in keeping her well-fed, I'm over-feeding Zoe. It's a balance I'm not doing well with.

I checked on-line and the City garbage service will pick up furniture from your curb if you warn them it will be there before the day of pickup. So I'll probably call them Tuesday and drag that chair out there for the Thursday regular pickup. I also discovered that there's a waste center for hazardous chemicals that takes batteries and is open on Saturday. Whatever did we do before the internet? Rhetoric question, because I know the answer. We used the yellow pages and called around and asked our friends, etc, etc. Word of mouth was probably one of the most important ways people found things. Now the internet is. I still tend to do things the old way first before I realize I can find the answer on the internet. That also dates me. Most of my friends go to the internet first without even consciously thinking about it.

My new chair is red. Burgundy, the store calls it, but it looks red to me. I hope it doesn't clash with my red wall. I actually bought a denim blue one ('paige blue' ... where do they find these names?) so there would be no possibility of a wall clash, but when I got home I realized that I really wanted the red chair. So I called the store and switched them out. Hopefully it really will be the red one that arrives next Saturday. It's a very comfortable rocker/recliner. I took my shoes off in the store and sat in it the way I usually sit at home, with my feet up under me. I wanted it to be comfortable the way I normally sit, and also even though it's not a big chair I wanted to make sure there was enough room for me to curl up with my feet up in it. And if it clashes somewhat with the wall I'll probably be the only one who notices. It won't be up against that wall anyway.

My Mom's 80th birthday is next month and my sisters and I are working on getting a sizable percentage of the family clan there. It should be a blast. I'm working on a birthday gift. It's surprisingly difficult because the styles are soooooo bad right now. My 80 year old Mom in peasant blouses or low-cut smock tops is not an attractive thought. At least I have about a month to work on it.