Posted by ClearSkies on December 3, 2005, at 10:11:53
In reply to Ramble - can't sleep, posted by ClearSkies on December 2, 2005, at 22:52:44
Wow - didn't expect any responses to my post! I cried when I read them. So grateful for all your thoughts.
The home improvement projects are all happening at once. I don't know why we have to make all of our money go away at once, but we started one project and it morphed into a whole bunch of other ones.
The hardwood floor has been a wish of mine since we moved into our condo almost 3 years ago. The wall to wall carpeting was very tired and stretched out in places. Each time we'd get it cleaned, the remark from the technician would be, "you know, you should REALLY think about replacing this." A few years of cat puke embellishments and family parties - who knew my husband's family were collectively such a messy bunch of people? - and our beige carpet looks like it has to be rolled up and heaved out the door.
So out it goes. Now, I have installed a tongue-and-groove hardwood floor, many years ago, and my back and knees still aches to think of it. Since our plans include getting a flight of stairs done; and my husband has absolutely no inclination to do any of the work himself (such a smart man!), we found a local contractor with a good reputation who'll be starting on Monday. The floor beneath the carpet is concrete, so everything on the entire area has to be removed, so the underlying surface can be levelled and prepared for the floor. It sounds like an enormous mess, dust and noise. I'm wondering if my cat should be kennelled for the week since she gets freaked out just by the vacuum cleaner.
You'd think that moving all your stuff to the garage would be a breeze, much easier than moving house, say. Well it's actually just as big a pain in the butt as moving is. Why did I buy such *heavy* books? Why do I still have books about beekeeping, Barbie dolls, and gnomes? Why did I ask for that gigantic dictionary last year? Oy. 4 days of packing and there is much left to do.The stereo adventure has been my husband's folly, with my tacit approval and judgement imposed about various components. The main purchase is, you guessed it, a big kick *ss television. We now know much more about the differences between LCD, Plasma, and rear projection TV's. We went from thinking of a tasteful, wall-hung flat screen unit to this 50" monster that should have its own zip code. He watches a lot of sports; we both watch a lot of DVD's... and he found a "good" price. Good in a ridiculous sort of way.
Then the stereo components came into question. We have a hodge podge of old and older pieces, including a disc player that doesn't support most audio formats (duh!!) and a turntable that we have never been able to listen to. A nice collection of a broad range of music, that, as much as we have tried, never seems to get thinned out, no matter which way we look at it. We ended up going to a local mom and pop high end audio/video store, and started at the bottom. We listened to so many different speakers, receivers, amplifiers, looked at a phono stage (which I didn't even realize that you need in order to hook up a turn table to a stereo nowadays), a little bitty box that costs in the range that I imagine a black box for an airliner would be.
The house was covered in magazines, product reviews, the computer had so many bookmarks for different sites that I really didn't know what we were even looking at anymore.
And we let the mom and pop couple make some reccommendations. The biggest selling point is that they will come down and install the whole system. PLUG IT ALL IN! Bestow the remote controls upon us, and voila! We be wired for sound and visual.It's an outrageous amount of time, money, and stuff all happening at the same time. I am thrilled that at the end we'll have a place that we will love to spend more time in. I am agog at being in this priviledged position. Just a few years ago I was living in an apartment so small and crammed with my stuff, you had to navigate throughout the whole place sideways. Try to go forwards and your hips (or my hips, rather) would get stuck between the birdcage and the microwave cart. So much has changed. So much.
My therapist - this is my fourth, and I hope, the last T for a long time - has suggested to me that I take a writing class. I have been journalling off and on since I was 11 or so. She had me do some writing for homework and just stared at me after I finished reading it to her.
So OK. When 5 people who don't yet know me very well make a suggestion about something that I love to do and take great joy in doing, I might just consider doing it. I'm very frightened at the prospect of my obvious love for cliches and barely recognizable metaphors being uncovered and rooted out. It's also perhaps the dream of my lifetime. Maybe I could get a degree or something? In my own time, at my own pace. I figure I could get a bachelor's degree in 12 years or so.End of ramble for today. Thank you for reading.
CS
poster:ClearSkies
thread:584812
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20051203/msgs/584922.html