Thursday's Things in a Row

This is Part Two of my visit to the Home Depot.

BUCKET LIST?

THE CONCRETE JUNGLE STARTS HERE.

SILICONE - IT'S NOT JUST FOR BREASTS

SO MANY FITTINGS, SO MANY LEAKS

REALLY SMALL AREA RUGS

A SUMMER'S SUPPLY OF BUG JUICE IN IL - WHERE THE STATE BIRD IS THE MOSQUITO

Hit me with your best shot - fire away!

Signs - Everyone who enters...

Sign hanging in the entrance of a restaurant we ate at the other day.

For more signs, visit Lesley here.

My bones are happy!

My living room furniture has arrived!

I finally found the furniture of my dreams, okay, truthfully, furniture I could live with, at J. C. Penney's. Because I didn't like the color/fabric that the couch came in, I chose one fabric for the couch, and a contrasting fabric for the chair.

The order was placed.

EIGHT days later I got a call from the salesman.

"Uh, Patricia, I am sorry, but your order has been cancelled."

"CANCELLED?! Why?"

"Because the fabric for the chair is discontinued," he answered meekly.

"SO THE WHOLE ORDER WAS CANCELLED?" I raised my voice.

"Yes, yes. You see, it's considered one order, so when there was a problem with part of the order, the whole order was cancelled."

Call me crazy (and people have, believe me), wouldn't a simple phone call to the customer BEFORE cancelling the order be a common courtesy?

Maybe I would just have ordered the couch.

Maybe I would have ordered the chair in the same fabric as the couch.

Maybe I would tell them to go f**k themselves. Wait. Did I really type that. Sorry. You see, I had problems with Penney's with an on-line order for a bed. I won't go into it, but it was a mess. One day the order went through, the next it was out of order, the next it was on back order.

But I digress.

And another thing. Why did it take EIGHT DAYS to find out that the fabric was discontinued?

Not having much choice, I trudged back to Penney's to pick another fabric for the chair.

Why not go to another furniture store you ask? Ha ha ha

At this point I had been to 5 different stores, and went back to 2 of them.

Stick a fork in me.....I was Done - with a capital "D".

I picked out a new fabric, the salesman said 6-8 weeks, but it could be a shorter time.

In the meantime we had our midget chair (sorry if that's not politically correct but there's no better name for it), a rocking chair and a desk chair in our living room.

This is a long story, I know, to finally get to the point that our furniture arrived on Friday.

And when I tell you that I was sitting in a midget chair, I am not lying. Either that or my new chair is humongous. Look at the two sitting side by side.

I was beginning to feel a little like Will Ferrell in the movie "Elf".

Sitting on the midget chair is just one step above from sitting on the floor. It raised me up a little, but I still struggled to get out of the chair. And the worse part was, sometimes I'd have to part my knees so I could see the TV.

Here's my couch and chair together. I need to add some color to pop things up. The chair has small traces of blue in it so I think I'll get some blue pillows to pull that color out and put them on the couch. Also get a blue patterned throw for the back of the couch.

You can see that I have a lot of brown going on. I've got to change that. But remember, we are currently renting this place so I'm limited. (We don't want to hang our pictures, yet). The end tables and coffee table were bought at a used furniture place nearby. A real steal at $39 for end tables, $99 for coffee table and they are in great shape. I also bought those lamps for $18 apiece.

I love giraffes (my favorite animal at the zoo), and fell in love with this statue.

Again, goes with the brown theme. *wink*

Lily, my granddaughter, has named her "Dottie".

Another addition to my menagerie is this little sleeping elephant. Bought him at an antique village, although I don't think he's an antique.

He fits on the edge of a shelf. Isn't he just adorable? Here is a top view of him.

Lily has named him "Peanut".

Here is Lily, of whom I speak.

On Saturday morning I stumbled into the living room and was surprised to see the furniture. I yelled to my husband, "Hey Hon! Santa Claus came early and brought us furniture!"

Hope you all are having a great holiday weekend.

I've had two parties because, alas, I have furniture!

Thursday's Things in a Row - Home Depot Part One

My sister and I made a stop at Home Depot the other day. She had a long list of items that she needed to pick up. Her three year-old granddaughter, Brooklyn, and I, followed her around dutifully with the cart up and down the aisles. Finally, as my sister asked a worker some questions, I said, "Don't mind me. I think I'll go take some pictures of things in a row for my blog."

The man said, a little sarcastically I thought, "What. Is this your first time at Home Depot?"

Ha ha, very funny.

So Brooklyn and I went off searching for things in a row.

Here we go:

SWEEP ME OFF MY FEET

OH NO! THAT'S GOING TO LEAVE A STAIN!

I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE THE MAKINGS OF KALEIDOSCOPES FOR GIANTS

COME RIDE THE HOME DEPOT ORANGE TRAIN

COLOR MY WORLD WITH COLOR TAPE

BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY

TA DA! BROOKLYN SHOWING OFF THE ORANGE CONES!

IS IT HOT IN HERE OR IS IT JUST ME? FAN-TASTIC FANS!

What did you hunt up this week?

Signs - I need GLASSES!

Oh no, I can't see this very well.

Wait, let me take a few sips of wine. Ah, that's better!

Here's to ya!

For more signs, visit Lesley here.

From the "You've gotta be kidding me file"

Yes folks, I thought it was time for another addition of "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!"


Would you believe lickable wall paper? Okay. One word? Yech!

The Mischief PR agency teamed up with McVities, maker of Jaffa Cakes, and created the world's FIRST lickable wallpaper made up of 1,325 Jaffa cakes. This is currently installed in an office building's elevator in London, but they are hoping to bring it to more locations in the future.

Here's the question. Would you or would you NOT lick the wallpaper?

Hot dog stuffed pizza crust now available in the UK

I am a pizza lover. I love thin crust, pan pizza, you name it. Stuffed crust with CHEESE. And although I'm not a big meat lover (as far as pizza goes), I've seen sausage stuffed into the crust. But hot dogs? Just makes me want to vomit.  I also read about chicken strips or mini cheeseburgers stuffed into the crust. Seriously? Can we just stick with one food idea?



Blood puddle pillow

Proof that we have too many CSI shows on TV - blood puddle pillow now available on line! Yipee! Be a hit at the next party and whip this bad boy out! Take pictures and post on Facebook! Scare all your friends AND your parents (if you happen to be friends with them!)


Penis leggings

Made of lycra, these penis print leggings are available for both women AND men. Makes you stop and think, doesn't it.

Tell me, where would one go, wearing penis pants?

Suggestions?

Thursday's Things in a Row

Two weeks ago Jim and I went out to dinner with my sister and her friend to a restaurant that makes its own wine. (This was the restaurant where we lost our car.) There was a cool gift shop which we browsed through after eating a delicious meal. Luckily I had my handy dandy point and shoot camera in my purse, for I saw lots of things in a row here! For instance....

Wine bottles....lots and lots of wine bottles!

Of course, where there's wine bottles, there's a good chance there's wine barrels. Yep. Saw them too!

Actually, if you look closely, it looks like I hit the mother lode in that photo! Not only are there rows of barrels, but also lights, wine bottles, and bricks!

How about "thongs" in a row? Oh, settle down all you dirty old men! I'm talking "flip-flops". (Growing up we called them thongs!) Now I'm not talking ordinary flip-flops.

These here are for your WINE glasses. Seriously! Here. Let me show you.

Yeah. Okay. It's a coaster for your wine glass. It's cute but seriously? As soon as you lift the glass up, that stupid thing is going to fall off. Then every single time you put your glass down, you are going to have to "slip" the two bands over the "foot" of the glass. I don't know about YOU, but after I've had a couple glasses of wine, I can barely slip a flip-flop between my TOES let alone my wine glass. I don't think this would be a big hit at a party.

Here is a nice display of wine glasses. You can see the different prices of each.

The second from the right is a "flight" glass. Not used when taking a flight (well, then again maybe it is), but used when having a "flight" of wine, meaning several wines to compliment each course of your meal. Jim and I did this once at a fancy restaurant. We each had 6 or 7 wine glasses fanned out above our plates. I thought, "Geez, we are going to get snockered!" But in fact, they only give you about a half a glass with each serving and the meal is spread out over a couple of hours.


Here's a row of fancy, painted wine glasses. I had one of these that I took to all those parties in Arizona. Mine was made of very thin glass and broke. It was a sad day in my life......but I digress!

How about these beautiful wine stoppers? They are quite nice, although leftover wine in THIS house is really a rarity! *wink*

These t-shirts in a row caught my eye:

And here's what they say:

These aren't in a row (are two considered a row?), but I had to throw them in this week because they were so cute AND funny. Cute and chic way to display wine.

Quit your "wining"! It's your turn next!

Signs - Love Me or Leave Me

Saw this sign at a local store and it just cracked me up.

For more fun signs, visit Lesley here.

Things that take getting used to....

since we've moved out of the trailer and into a home.

1. LIVING IN A MULTI-DWELLING UNIT.  It's pretty quiet in our building, which is divided into 4 units. There are two units on the second floor, two on the first. We are a unit on the first floor; therefore there is someone living above us. It is a man, late 50's?, living alone above us. He's pretty quiet. I never hear a TV, or music. But I DO hear the stray toilet flushing now and then. Or when he does laundry since his laundry room is right above mine and the water system must flow down through the same pipes. What IS odd is that Jim and I have been woken up by this "creaking" noise almost every morning. I'm not talking about bed-squeaking-people-having-sex-noise. Jim finally decided that this guy must have some kind of chin-up bar across the bathroom threshold, and the creaking noise is caused from every time he pulls himself up. This made perfect sense and I could picture him doing pull ups in the morning. 

I told Jim that the next time I saw this man I was going to ask him. Jim was mortified. "Why?" I said. "That's a private thing! You can't ask him that!" Jim was indignant. Oh. So, our alarm clock is a pull-up junkie. Great.

2. I CAN'T HEAR MY HUSBAND MOVING AROUND IN THE CONDO. Okay, so this may sound like a good thing, right? I complained a lot that he seemed to be breathing down my neck in the small space of the trailer. Now we have breathing ROOM in our place. But here is the problem. I could feel every movement Jim made in the trailer. He'd cross his leg? I knew it. Bent over to pick something up? Yep, I knew it. Maybe not EXACTLY what he was doing, but I knew he was moving, ya know? Why, you ask? Because the trailer moved! This movement became so second hand to me, ingrained in my every cell. Living like this for seven years! The absolute worst situation was when I was enclosed in our little potty room, about 2' x 3'. When I sat there and planned to spend some time, if you know what I mean, THAT was when Jim decided to get up and walk around in the trailer. I felt like I was on one of those enclosed Disney rides where the seat moves around. Do you know what I'm talking about? I HATED those things! I get sick so easily! Anyway, I'd sit on the toilet trying to, well, poop, and Jim would be, what felt like WALTZING around the trailer. That's all I'd have to do is raise my arms like I was on that freakin' Disney ride, and I'd be puking in no time. But. I digress. Now I can't hear Jim moving around AT ALL. He walks around in his stocking feet, our whole place is carpeted except for the kitchen, and he's like a gosh darn stealth bomber. I mean, he's a BIG GUY, and he just floats into the kitchen while I'm in there making my tea. The other day he came in there and all of a sudden I heard a deep voice say, "Good morning!" I let out the biggest scream! This has happened about three times already. He gets the biggest kick out of this. He suggested that maybe he should wear a bell. I found just the right one for him. Ad reads that it fits most dogs and cats. Hee hee. Jim says he doesn't want any pets and I do. Paybacks are hell, yes?

3. FINDING OUR CAR IN THE PARKING LOT. Yeah. We traded in Big Blue. It was a sad, sad day for Jim. One thing I have to admit about that truck......we NEVER lost it in the parking lot. We NEVER had to remember where we parked it because it stuck out like a sore thumb. Literally! It was bigger than ANY vehicle in the parking lot, unless there was a semi-truck or motorhome nearby! We became so used to not looking where we parked that it has become a detriment. We traded the truck in for a nondescript used Saturn. It is a silver, 4-door sedan. Looks like the bazillion other silver cars on the road. Therein lies the problem. I can't tell you how many times we've parked the car at a store, didn't give it a second thought, shopped, and then came out and tried to figure where the heck we parked. The worst incident happened last weekend. We went out to dinner with my sister and her friend. Jim had dropped me off at the door because we were running late. He parked the car then met us inside. After a great dinner, ONE GLASS OF WINE EACH, and a fun evening, we got up to leave. I mentioned to my sister that we had bought a new car. (figuratively speaking!) Jim said he had parked to the left, my sister said she parked to the right. We all walked to the left to see the car. Well, it wasn't there. Hmmm..... Jim walked a little farther up the aisle, and yep, you guessed it. Not there. My sister decided to get her car. In the meantime, Jim and I walked UP AND DOWN the aisles looking for our car. NOTHING. My sister pulled up with her car, and we hopped in. We drove around the parking lot looking for our car. Jim was adamant that someone stole our car. Ann's friend said, a little sarcastically I might add, "A 2008 Saturn?" It WAS kind of funny! Now let me say that this restaurant was situated in the middle of a HUGE parking lot. We FINALLY found the car on the completely OPPOSITE side that Jim thought the car was originally parked. How he got so turned around, I don't know. I'm happy we didn't end up calling the police - how embarrassing would THAT have been! Twenty minutes looking for our car and it's in the parking lot! I'd like to put something on the antenna so the car sticks out in the lot, but, uh, hello, no antenna? It's been so long since I've driven a regular car, since when did they stop making antennas? Our's has a little fish tail on the roof of the car. So short of constantly having a helium-filled balloon hanging out the window, I am SOL.

Thursday's Things in a Row

I took a couple of photos at Woodfield Mall when I was there a couple of weeks ago. When this mall was first built in 1971, it had 59 stores. By 1973 it grew to 189 stores with 1.9 million retail square feet. It was the LARGEST MALL in the US at that time. It has dropped down to the 9th largest mall in America. Woodfield has over 285 stores and restaurants and, believe it or not, is a major tourist destination in the state of Illinois!*

*Wikipedia

This mall is located about 10 minutes from me. That's great, but at Christmas time? I would avoid it like the plague!

This fountain caught my eye at one of the entrances to the mall. I liked the rows of water spilling out!

This is just a glimpse of one small corner of the mall. Here are escalators in a row (see two long ones and one short one?) This was a Sunday and the place was packed.

I was standing outside of the children's play area, waiting for Jim (who had gone to a store at another part of the mall). I noticed things in a row, but I was trying to be inconspicuous because I didn't want people to think I was stalking their kids and taking photos of THEM!

First I looked up and saw all the skylights in a row.

Then I looked down and saw all the posts from the fence that was keeping the kids "fenced in" the play area. I quick got off a shot before someone called security about the old lady taking pictures of the kids.

Did you have to sneak around for photos this week?

Signs - Decisions, Decisions

Saw this sign in a restaurant recently. Not that I agree with it; but I thought it was funny!

For more signs, visit Lesley here.

Got the Monday Blues? Here's Why!

According to an article written by Gracie Murano on Oddee.com, here are ten facts about MONDAYS.

1.  Most of us don't crack our first smile until 11:16 a.m.

How sad is that? You mean to tell me that people don't greet each other in the morning with a smile and say, "Good morning?" Or have I been out of the work force so long that I am just dreaming? A recent study done in England showed that the Southeast first smiled at 11:06, but the grumpier East Midlands community didn't crack a smile until 11:33 a.m.  And probably only because it was getting close to lunchtime.

2. The best preferred way to beat Monday blues is by watching television or having sex.

Well, who WOULDN'T want to do either of those instead of going into to work!

Duh!

People also would prefer to do: on-line shopping, buying chocolate or make-up, or plan for a holiday.

3. Over 50% of employees are late to work

That's just crazy! So if you were on time today, pat yourself on the back - you are part of the minority!

4. Most people will moan about it being Monday for a whole 12 minutes.

Well, misery enjoys company, so there will be people around to hear you complain!

5. People between the ages of 45 and 54 are likely to suffer the most Monday blues

I was really surprised to read this. I thought for sure the "younger" generation would suffer more from the Monday blues. Maybe the middle age people realize that they are stuck in dead-end positions with no place to go; the young ones have their "futures" ahead of them.

6.  Workers only manage three-and-a-half hours of productive work

Heck, they might as well just cut to the chase. Come in after lunch, say, 1:00 pm on Mondays. By then they'd have a smile on their face, they probably wouldn't be late for work, wouldn't have to complain about it being Monday because it's half over with already, and working 3 1/2 hours would seem like a full day's work! Problem solved! Everyone should work a 4 1/2 day work week!

7.  Monday is the most likely day to commit suicide.

Yikes! A permanent solution to "calling in sick".

8.  Or have a heart attack.

There was a 20 % increase in heart attacks on Mondays as opposed to any other day of the week as reported in the British Medical Journal. The heart attacks could have be caused by stress and high blood pressure from returning to work.

I have given you 8 negative things about Mondays; the following two are POSITIVE things. YEAH!

9.  Monday is the least rainy day of the week.

Which I think is kind of ironic since it is raining as I type this, but hey, what do I know?

AND FINALLY,

10. Monday is the best day to buy a car

Sure. Now I find out about this, after I just purchased a car on a SATURDAY. (Yes, we traded in BIG BLUE for a regular, everyday, 4-door sedan car.)

Anyway, Mondays are usually quieter days. The crowds from the weekend are gone, the salesmen are looking to make a deal. So YOU make YOUR move.

I hope I have enlightened you.

I hope you are having a good Monday.

If not, don't worry.

It's almost over.