Archive for thrift
Candle Repair
I went to Ikea last week to get some candles.
I really wanted the tall ones they have, but I’m cheap and I won’t pay $16 for a candle, no matter how big it is.
I did find some pretty dark red and orange ones though (and those are the accent colors in my living room).
In their ‘As Is’ section though, I found two of the really tall ones for $3 each-they were broken though. One about six inches from the bottom, the other about ten inches from the top.
I turned them into this:
I had a fairly good weekend (except for a few things that started Sunday night…).
Friday night I spent the night at Mom and Dad’s house. I reformatted their new HP computer to put XP on it. I was advised not to (by HP), but I did it anyway and it works just fine. Even as they advised against it, they told me where to get all the XP drivers for the hardware.
Saturday I spent a lot of the day at their house transferring files and installing programs. That evening Dad went to a hospital to visit someone while Mom and I went to the thrift store, the Mexican restaurant and Wal-Mart. I have pictures of what I bought, but my card reader is at their house and the cord isn’t wanting to work, I’ll get that worked out tomorrow.
Yesterday I went to church, then the three of us went to Columbus. We went to the hospital (the James Cancer Center, one of their friends is pretty bad off) and visited awhile. We went to North Market, which isn’t nearly as good as Findlay Marke
t, but still a market. I got six gerbera daisies which are a satisfactory replacement for zinnias til they begin blooming. I have pictures of the flowers too, but as I said above.. After the market we went to Utrecht (really I was the only one that had a real interest in that store). I do love Utrecht. I could have spent a lot of money, but I was good. I bought a palette for watercolors. It has four mixing wells, but then on the sides it has little removable-sealable jars. I also bought six individual Prismacolor colored pencils to keep with my sketchbook. Oh, and a stick of Kiss-Off. If you’ve never tried this stuff you need to. It is a stain remover stick, but better than anything you buy at a normal store (since it is made for people who tend to get pigment in their clothes).
Today I finished transferring some files to my parents’ computer, then I ran to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. Otherwise I’ve been cleaning all day, the down on your knees scrubbing sort of cleaning.
My clumsiness has worked against me in the cleaning aspect though… Last night I decided to dye some yarn while I was cleaning the kitchen. Whatever off brand drink mix (think Kool-Aid) I was using, grape, exploded in the microwave about nine minutes in. I had fun cleaning dripping purple water out of the microwave, really. Today I made sun tea and when I was bringing it back in I was holding it by the handle. The handle did not break, I’m not really sure what happened, but the jar came undone from the lid and shattered spectacularly all over the patio. A gallon of tea and a million shards of glass. Gurney couldn’t go out until the tea dried and I swept up the glass, though when I was out there when the sun was setting you could see it glinting everywhere. After that I was cleaning the bathroom. I picked up a full package of those little latex hair rubber bands-it was open-and I flung them everywhere, including in the toilet. Tonight I took a pitcher full of chicken broth over to Mom. It made it fine down my driveway on a hill, a stop at the highway crossing, and for whatever reason, when I stopped at their house the pitcher tipped, the lid popped off and about five cups of chicken broth ended up on my front passenger floor board. I really, really hope that the shampooer sucked it all out.
So now I am going to sit here and relax til I go to bed and try not to break anything else.
Life Is Hectic…
I’ve been really busy the past couple of weeks between work and everything not-work.
One of the big things: Paul had surgery today to remove three large bladder stones and whatever small ones the x-ray didn’t pick up. Now, if you would have asked me two weeks ago, I would have said, “No, I would not spend that much money on a cat to have surgery.” Right. I did. $51 for the first vet trip, $35 for the second, $70 for the third and $250-300 for today. He is staying overnight at the veterinarian for observation, but they said he used the litter box after he woke up, which is a good thing (no blockage). He also has to stay on a special food now to prevent recurrence. Apparently some cats get them and some cats don’t.
Earlier I started to yell at Gurney and Paul to stop rough-housing, then I realized it was Gurney rough-housing by himself.
Another big thing: Our office switched over to Quark 7 two weeks ago. This week they are using 6.52 again. There was one day that I just dropped everything I needed to do and spent half the day with the open question, “So what is your problem?” x 20 people. That program (in my opinion) is a piece of crap. They are just begging people to switch to InDesign. In order for us to switch to InDesign though, we need to get the programmers from American Color in to see how well the database program works with what we do compared to what it will do with InDesign.
Lately, getting ready for work in the morning has been a trial because I have nothing to wear. Most of my clothes are winter clothes with the exception of about three work appropriate shirts. I’ve been wearing a lot of tank tops and sweater cardigans. Ryan told me to go buy clothes then as I was ranting about this last Monday on the phone while trying to find something to wear to a church dinner. Most girls would say, “Sure!” I for one, Hate Shopping For Clothes. It isn’t that things don’t fit (sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t), it is that with the current style trends I can a.) look pregnant b.) wear tie dye c.) buy pre-worn out clothing d.) any number of things I’m not paying money for.
Saturday I went with my aunt Teresa to the Dayton Mall (she had to return eyeglasses). Between a variety of stores I bought a t-shirt (not for work), a button up oxford shirt and a white tank top out of a nice fabric. I tried on lots and lots of shirts, but that is what worked.
Today I went to the outlet mall at 9am only to realize they didn’t open til 10. I wasn’t going to wait around until they did open, so I headed to Beavercreek to go to Goodwill which is where I actually wanted to go on Saturday. Normally at that particular Goodwill I can find tons of clothing in almost new condition. Even there though, there wasn’t a lot of good work clothes. I ended up getting two button up shirts. On my way home I went through Xenia and stopped at that Goodwill and found another.
I also went to Kohl’s. My mom could tell you how desperate I must be if I ventured in there. I found a pair of Lee jeans ($20) and a pair of Croft & Barrow dress pants ($8!).
So I guess I have a few more things to be wearing now. I am quite aware I wouldn’t have this problem if I would make it a point to let’s say, buy one shirt a month, but as previously stated, I don’t like clothes shopping.
In addition to buying clothes, I of course bought some other fun stuff:
I was being lazy and made the collage all one picture, instead of a bunch of little ones… 1. New Moleskins. I keep my ‘ideas of things to make’ magazine clippings in a set of small kraft cover, grid paged moleskins. Lately though I have found the need for a sketchbook again, so I bought the medium sized ones with blank pages. 2. Reader’s Digest Complete Guide To Needlework. Slowly I am finding the books that were staples of my childhood once I could check out ‘adult’ library books-mind you, they were mostly craft related. 3. Hamburger & Fry Baskets. These are from the Target Dollar section. There have been times I have wanted them in the past, now I have six. 4. Iron On Vinyl. I did not know such a thing existed, now I do. 5. Shish Kabob! So cute, this is from PetsMart’s new summer collection. The ‘meat’ pieces squeak and the red and yellow things crinkle. 6. Produce ball. I’m sure that has another name, but I don’t know it. Technically I also bought that last weekend, but I needed another picture. 7. Ice Cube Drink Stirrers. This is in Target’s summer section. Normally they are expensive, but this one was $2.99. 8. Wind Chime. This was in Target’s Dollar section too. 9. Bath & Body Works Shampoo & Conditioner. I did not know they started making hair care products again. I’ve used it once so far and am pretty pleased with it.
One last thing before I go to bed. Last weekend I needed to fit something new into one of the drawers in my kitchen, but it just wasn’t going to happen (see first picture). I took a three drawer storage container from my sewing room and repurposed it for the kitchen. Now the top drawer has cake/cookie decorating supplies. The middle drawer has sandwich/drink supplies. The bottom drawer has cupcake liners and treat bags. Cleaning that drawer out also enabled me to realize I could get rid of some of the stuff. Yay for organizing.
Tomorrow night I am going to try and upload all of the pictures and movies I haven’t messed with in the last month…
Lots of stuff…
So I realized I never posted a picture of the new new guinea pig (or maybe I never even said for sure I got one?). Either way. I’ve had him two weeks, which makes him nine weeks old. He came from the show in Springfield. I wanted to name him Bradshaw, but it just doesn’t fit. Ryan says he should be called Mortimer, which I really don’t like (sorry if you read this). Mom says I should name him ‘Inches’. To go with Miles… Ha ha, right? It has been two weeks now though, and I just need to pick a name. Miles doesn’t particularly care for the young energetic nature of his new cage-mate, but they are getting on better than they did the first week. Mom noticed today that the little one has a bite mark on his ear though. I’m not sure if Miles did that or one of his siblings before I got him.
I had the oil changed in my car today, and of course, since I was in
Washington C.H. I went to the thrift store too. I picked up a little bud vase, a vintage stitchery kit and a plastic box filled with reference cards for houseplants. I don’t particularly care for the butterfly on the stitchery, but I wanted to know how they did the fuzzy dandelion and I liked the wool and fabric colors. The box that the houseplant reference cards came in is tacky, dirty and discolored. In Mom’s words when she came in my house tonight, “What is that?” The box will be going, but I hope the cards will have some useful value. The whole thing was only $1.91 though. So for that much, it is worth the amusement of the 70′s style photography.
Sunday Mom and I went fabric shopping. Lately when I have gone fabric shopping I can’t find anything I like. Sunday I spent $50 and could have easily spent double that. I went to get two pieces of a fabric – a blue and a purple for a baby quilt I’ve been working on. I ended up getting two blues and enough purple for the quilt and to back the thing too. It has embroidery blocks in it. I copied patterns out of the Stampin’ Up catalog. There are two frogs, a snail, a dragonfly, a single flower, a long patch of grass and little flowers and a long patch of water and water lilies. I thought it would come together easier than it is. I’m just not feeling it.
The second thing I bought though… Mom says, “Come look at this, I just think it is so you.” Evilness. Look at those bugs in all of their cuteness. It isn’t designed by Eric Carle, but it could be. I bought a yard of the bugs, half a yard of that funky stripe and a fat quarter of the dots. A few of the others I bought fat quarters of, the rest came from Mom’s stash. I have designed a nursery in my head around this fabric. Just picture it, bright vivid colors for the crib sheets, crib skirt, bumper, etc. A patchwork quilt of all of that. For a mobile there could be little felt bugs mimicked from the fabric. Meh. Normally I get a baby quilt pieced pretty quick, but I am oh so tempted to hoard this for that day in the future when I’ll actually need to design a baby room…
Weekend Stuff…
Saturday morning I decided to clean out my secretary desk. The last time I organized it was before we moved here, so that makes it over a year ago. It was well overdue.
Here are before and after pictures:
When we were done there we had lunch at CiCi’s pizza then went shopping at: Craft 2000 (a warehouse craft type place), Hobby Lobby, Goodwill and JoAnn Fabric. At the craft stores I ended up buying a couple Valentine’s decorations, paper for my Valentine’s, tulle for a tutu costume for a cousin, heart shaped paper brads and a new card magazine. At the thrift store I bought two red mugs with different colored stripes, a broken lamp that just needs rewired (it’s from target and I priced it online at $79.99, I got it for $4.99), a bowl that is red on the inside then white with red polka dots on the outside and a little glass terrarium that was originally from Bath & Body Works (it came with a candle originally, according to the label on the bottom).
I have pictures of the thrift store finds and some other stuff (Gurney, Paul, some other projects…) at my Kodak Gallery site.
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