I really have trouble blogging here at the apartment...it seems so blah compared to life at the cabin...so I've decided I'd better try to get back in the groove.
I had hung a mirror last week in the apartment in a space that seemed to accommodate it nicely, but it reflected nothing. I decided that was probably bad feng shui...
Over the last couple of years I've been seeing, in magazines and on line, more and more layered mirrors, so decided I'd hang this small round mirror...
...for which I had paid $2.99 at Goodwill at some point...
...and for which I'd been unable to find a place at the cabin...over the larger rectangular mirror.
For that, I needed ribbon. And I could see the ribbon in a storage box that was about five layers down in this storage closet...
...so I had been procrastinating, but this morning I moved everything out, got down to the ribbon and got to work.
First I had to loosen the mirror back by removing two screws so I could thread the ribbon under the back and through the hanging hole...
After replacing the screws, I decided I'd hang the mirror from this vintage hook, one of two I'd scored at a thrift store some time over the past two years...
After gathering all my standby tools...tape measure, level, drill, hammer, screws and plastic anchors...
...and avoiding at all costs this recliner...
...that another resident asked me to take temporarily because she has no room for it, but about which I'm in a constant state of angst for fear it will get damaged or soiled...
...I decided how long the ribbon needed to be and where the hook needed to go so the small mirror would hang in the right spot over the large mirror, marked and drilled the holes, tapped in the anchors and screwed in the screws.
The screws that went with the anchors were so silver...
...so I daubed some black paint on them...
...yes, that's a votive candle holder. I find they are just right for holding small amounts of paint and if you wash them out promptly, the paint doesn't adhere and the holder can still be used for candles.
So then I had two mirrors reflecting nothing! I don't know if feng shui experts would consider this doubly bad, but I decided to insert some faux pheasant feathers under the small mirror and call it good. I like it (they could just be empty frames, which is another thing that's "in" these days), so I'll just have to wait and see if I feel a lack of energy in this corner!
Actually, I just feel a lack of energy. So I don't think everything is going to get put back in that storage closet this afternoon. And anyway, I'm finding all sorts of fall decor in the various boxes that I am really ready to play with...
Just spruced up this basket...by using the hot glue gun to reattach some of the leaves and berries that had fallen off of it since I bought it at the Lafayette Goodwill many months ago...loaded it with some fake pumpkins, gourds and squashes and set it outside my door in the hallway...
This may be one of the pluses to living here. No high winds in these hallways! I had been unable to decorate outside at the cabin because everything blew away in the notorious Eldora gales.
I had to mix up a bit of reddish orange paint to daub on any white spots where the finish on the berries had broken away (I just hate that. It really catches one's eye) and my paint was in that fourth box down on the right...
...so more boxes had to be removed from the storage area! My living room is a disaster.
But, in the process, I found this faux pumpkin vine, that I bought at the Jefferson County Beautiful Junk Sale in Golden, Colorado, last year...
...and draped it over the hanger that I made for these bruised but beautiful metal wine plaques I think I found at the Boulder Goodwill.
I just got my invitation to this fall's Beautiful Junk Sale...
...and I've marked my calendar and will be heading to Golden with my two cans of food the morning of October 19 in search of treasure.
More later...Teddee
I was so relieved that I wasn't facing perhaps thousands of dollars in car repairs (which would have meant parking the old gal and taking the bus) that I decided to take advantage of Goodwill's 50% off Saturday today.
I didn't get to the Boulder store until about noon, which is one way of curtailing how much I buy, and I went with the full and rational intention of purchasing a practical vacuum cleaner. However, as happened two weeks ago, I blew the budget on other things before I even got to the vacuums. Additionally, after plugging in at least six different machines, I convinced myself none of them had ample suction, they were absolutely grody, and, of course, had no instruction manuals (something I might need for the newer varieties with no bags and the Hepa filters) and I could wait another two weeks.
Actually it will be another five weeks before the next S.S. check comes so I'll have to hunker down and go into hibernation again, but I sure had fun for $16.
I had been wanting a waste basket for the computer desk area and found this....
Doesn't look very exciting does it? Well, just wait. I paid half of $4.99. I think you can almost see the price below...
OK. Here comes the amazing part...
...Can you believe this original price? Hey, retailers. Get real! This country needs a recession!
I also got the following...
No, I'm not replacing the other shower caddy I got when I first moved into the apartment. I'll hang this one in the shower area at the other end of the tub so I can get more of the lotions and potions up off the tub. I've done this in other places I've lived and it really helps store bath items you may not use every time you shower but often enough you want them readily available.
Oh, and the potato masher...well all of my kitchen stuff is in storage back in Missouri so I've been buying kitchen utensils at Goodwill along the way. I decided it was time for a potato masher because on Friday our free produce included huge amounts of potatoes....I mean bags and bags...
As a general rule I'm not a big potato eater, but I figure by the time September 12 rolls around, I'll be eating a lot of these babies in a variety of ways including mashed. Oh, those two things cost me a total of $1.50.
What else? This snappy tote. How much more "in" can you get? Orange and polka dots. It was $2.50 on sale.
And this loverly pillow....
...another $4.99 item on sale for $2.50...
I seem to have kind of an Indian vibe going on out on the balcony so thought this would be a nice addition. If I change my mind it could just as easily go in the bedroom or even at the cabin.
Here are the fabrics I've been accumulating to use out on the balcony if I get that project accomplished before it gets so cold that I can't enjoy it...
...the latest addition is the piece in the foreground, which I bought today for $2 on sale.
And, finally, after I checked out, I spotted this little lot of silk flowers flung into an otherwise empty cart at the end of the check-out stand....
These are not only "my colors," but fairly high quality and silk flowers are one thing I'm snobby about. The cheap ones are awful. The store manager let me have these for 49 cents. I'll make a little nosegay to use somewhere.
I promised a shot of Kooky the Pomeranian and here it is...
Boy is it out of focus. I was only able to get this one and was too close. Every time I got him situated and bent down with the camera he thought I had a dog biscuit and there went the shot.
A lot of residents carry around treats just for Kooky. Did I mention that one man even keeps some in his mail box so if Olive and Kooky are sitting in the lobby when he comes down for his mail he can produce? And Kooky knows who has the goods. I talked a man into holding the dog biscuit he had for Kooky up above him and quickly snapped this and didn't realize until I looked at the photo on the computer that I'd included my own knee and the man's feet, so really had to crop this. I'll get a better one next week after his appointment with the groomer.
I see I'm color coordinating again. Kooky matches my decor! More later....Teddee
I think I'm going to be forced to heed the admonitions I received from personnel at both the Wild Bear Mountain Ecology Center in Eldora and Colorado Division of Wildlife and take down the hummingbird feeder on the west side of the cabin.
I had another visit from the bear or a bear last night about 10:30. I had returned from signing the lease and a mound more paperwork for the apartment in Boulder and found I was really tired. I guess because so many things I'm trying to do with this right arm are painful, but since it's all new I don't know until I try which things those are, I'd experienced quite a bit of intermittent pain during the day. I'd fed the fox, made and eaten some supper and gone to bed to read, but had to take a pain pill. It had been a hot day in Boulder and was warm here and I'd originally fallen asleep with this bottom screened panel on the cabin door open...
...preserves my privacy if someone should happen to come to the door, but lets some air in. I had dozed off reading, but woke up and thought about leaving this panel open but, as it turned out, wisely decided against that, turned off Jazz Radio's Guitar Jazz, which I'd had streaming all evening, and turned out the light. Within a few minutes, I heard the bear moving on the deck, with a little less wandering about than I'd noticed the other night, and what sounded like a lot more determination toward the bird feeder, with the exception that it stopped and tried the door! Not making this up.
Ever since it stopped snowing, I've been rather nonchalant about the condition of the front door. The only thing between me and, in this case the bear, is this single barrel bolt...
...and ever since I took the door off to get the old hide-a-bed out of the cabin, unless I remember to pull up on the door knob when I close the door, it doesn't align. I'm pretty sure I had the bolt shot last night.
When my brother-in-law made this door with the screened panels to increase the air circulation in the cabin during the summer, he decided to reuse the old door knob and lock set that my Dad had installed on the original door in 1939...
...looks quaint but doesn't really work any longer. It really didn't work all last winter after I had the weather stripping installed and even after I removed that during the hide-a-bed episode, it barely latches. And part of the other barrel bolt the carpenter installed last fall had fallen off. I'm not sure why the carpenter didn't use the right half of the old barrel bolt by aligning the new left half when he installed it, but the right half he installed was mounted on a little block of wood that split. He probably had to shim it out in order to get it to align after installing all that weather stripping that never worked.
...I think, if I find I can actually use a screwdriver with this injured arm, I may try to fix this after last night.
The bear traveled north along the deck to the hummingbird feeder and I could hear it trying to knock the feeder down. I got up and opened the curtain a crack and yelled through the window for the bear to move on. I didn't want to draw a whole lot of attention to myself because I don't have my window screens on yet and although I don't think a little window screening would prevent a determined bear, it would be one more layer between me and those claws.
Again last night, even after I turned the porch light on, I couldn't see him or her out the west window so I don't know whether the bear was tall enough standing up to reach the feeder from the deck or had long enough arms that it was reaching the feeder from this table, covered with a drop cloth, that I'd pushed all the way to the north end of the deck waiting for my neighbors to take it to the new apartment...
Either way, the thought is a little intimidating. Even though the bear did not succeed in knocking the feeder down the way it had during its last visit, the feeder, which was almost full, is empty, there are smudge marks on the window...
...which has a nice coating of sugar syrup on the outside. Bear as glazier.
Today it's on to more mundane things. I had very excitedly toted along with me to the lease signing yesterday everything I need to take a hot shower...my way of celebrating access to hot running water...only to realize I had no shower curtain...and with this arm I didn't want to get into the tub and find out I couldn't get out! I recalled I had a credit at Marshall's that I'd had for almost a year so drove there and found a mildew-resistant shower curtain liner and some very classic shower curtain hooks...
...and still have about $6 left on the card.
I had to drop off a donation bag at Savers and checked out the furniture at Savers, Goodwill and the Salvation Army, but saw nothing particularly appropriate for my new apartment. It probably is going to remain sparsely furnished until I can access some of my furniture in storage and I have no idea how long it will be before I can afford to rent a truck and travel to either Arizona or Missouri.
I'm going to have to purchase a new twin bed mattress and box springs and it appears, after going on line, I can get one for about $200 although I want to go and try that one out before I make a decision. Other than that, I have the table that can be raised for dining height or lowered to coffee table height, an interesting faux bois straight-backed chair in storage in Boulder, a wicker side table and lamp, the steamer trunk and the chest of drawers my neighbors told me about that is coming out of a cabin here in Eldora. Have no idea what it looks like. I enjoy a decorating challenge so this should be fun.
It would be more fun if my right arm was in good working order. This is going to be the first-of-its kind "tote bag" move in...
...I took a few things down yesterday and, like my approach to so many projects, I will simply do this little by little until I have it accomplished. I want to get everything of mine out of the cabin that I can move by myself before I even get the neighbors involved moving the steamer trunk and other larger things.
So, I'm going to load up the car and make the drive to Boulder...and I am having that hot shower today! More later...Teddee
