Wordless definitions: Indomitable

They say a picture can say a thousand words; this one says twenty:

"Screw you, motor-obsessed culture! I will run my errands on my bike even if you don't provide bike racks!"

I'm not lazy, really...

... and I'm not ignoring the blog, either. I've just been so busy I've found it difficult to carve out the time to write something. Ideas have been sparse, too. I posted Word Nerd and quilting entries not too long ago, and my Remedial Lit Project has bogged down in the 800-plus pages of Anna Karenina. I've had to renew it three times (that's nine weeks, folks); not because I'm avoiding it—I'm actually enjoying it—but because I haven't had a lot of free time to read anything that's not a biography for a piece I'm writing. I've been spending lots of my time either working or chauffeuring, and those activities don't make good fodder for blogging. (Unless you want me to rant for two paragraphs about my nemesis the Tonda school traffic light, which invariably turns red on each of our six daily encounters.)

The only thing of any interest I've really done in the last couple of weeks is redo our front room. We're having a little (okay, not so little) litterbox issue, so I thought replacing the targeted sofas and carpet might help. I should have taken a "before" picture, but I didn't. You'll have to just extrapolate from this picture: blue carpet on the floor, and two light blue sofas (this one and a larger one) against the two walls. In addition to being a target for the cat, the sofas were over 10 years old and one had been broken by Boy when he was about six or seven, not being built to withstand a running jump onto its frame.

So we put the sofas out by the curb, at different times. One was scavenged, we think by the neighbor across the street despite our warning that it might have an odor issue (although we had removed the covers and washed the cushions with bleach); the other was consumed by the garbage truck (and wasn't that fun, watching it being broken in half in one big gollup). We moved all the furniture out, including my great-grandmother's antique (ie very HEAVY) piano, and ripped up the carpet and padding. Then TSU and I spent a day, plus any cartilege we might have left in our knees, putting in laminate flooring. It really was as easy to snap in as it looks in commercials, although getting the last row to click was a little tricky. The end result looked pretty good.

Next we headed out to Ikea, as it is close (ten minutes away) and their furniture is relatively inexpensive and in a style to our taste. They had a leather loveseat advertised for only $399, and on this visit it was actually in stock and looked like it might fit in my SUV if we left the lid ajar but tied down. (We took a tape measure and actually measured it, unlike the trio of coeds who spent five minutes in checkout before us trying to find the UPC on their mattress and then restack their cart, only to discover when they got out to their truck that it wasn't going to fit in the covered bed. I wonder if they finally figured out they could use the luggage rack on top; we didn't stick around to see.) We brought our prize home, followed the easiest Ikea assembly instructions ever (screw in four legs), and brought back in all the other furniture. And voila! We have a real room again, only now it looks light and open and organized. Now I just need to go remodel another room—the one where the evil cat will be confined until we figure out her problem. Sigh. It looks like it'll be a while before I find more free time for serious blogging.

Photo of the Week--9/8/09

Since I've caught up with the present day as far as vacation photos, I thought I'd go back to the beginning and find some of the better pictures with people in them. Expect many, many photos of Boy chasing pigeons; a turn that will not please him, but since he refuses to read this blog he won't know about it anyway. {Evil cackle.}

This photo is of the two of us climbing the Brimham Rocks in Yorkshire, England. It was our first vacation after moving across the pond, and the area was full of fun things to do (at least they were fun for a four-year-old), like visit the train museum and climb on rocks. And yes, that's me in the photo, too, bespectacled, in the middle of an unfortunate attempt to grow out my bangs, and wearing Mom jeans. Ah, the foolishness of youth! I've learned better in the ensuing eleven years, luckily.