Monday, November 07, 2005

breaking the silence

i do have those moments when i don't write anything
i say moments it's more like a month ... how long is a moment?

sometimes it is because i just get busy and sometimes i feel i have little to write about ... well writing down a paragraph like ... 'got up ... ate ... ambled about a bit ... put some stuff away ... pondered ... emptied the bins ... pondered some more ... slept' ... well it's hardly riveting stuff and then i guess i get out of the habit for awhile ... if blogging becomes a chore or something you have to do it does take the fun out of it

plus there is the old argument that i have no idea if anyone reads it or if i stop typing does anyone notice the silence

we are currently trying to do some decorating in our house ... we decided that we didn't need to get a  man in to do every last thing and that we could still tackle some things ourselves ... so we set to and re-painted the kitchen ... it had been built and painted about 3 years ago and with it being white walls and white cupboards it soon starts looking grubby ... i think most friends would agree that the lady wife does tend to use the kitchen a lot ... and as soon as you roll that first lick of new paint over the wall you can see just how off white it had become

after the first day we were exhausted and aching all over but we managed to finish and get it all back to normal

so pleased with ourselves and our efforts we are tackling our study this week ... well today is an empty and buy all the bits we need day and then we will start to strip ... the walls not us ... this one is a little harder as there is a lot more preparation ... the dreaded wood chip on two walls and some old hideous flowery wallpaper on the rest .... we want to strip all the woodwork as well which takes time ... we are going to us a heat gun and a product that we have found that claims to get into all the nooks and crannys so hopefully it will be a little easier

what i am aiming for is the walls to be that nigella crockery blue (i would call it duck egg blue but there is probably some fancy modern name for it) ... and all the woodwork to be stripped and varnished in a matt varnish ... all the furniture is wood so hopefully that will make it all look light and breezy

one question i am debating is that we have enough paint to do walls and ceiling in the same colour ... but does that look weird? ... do you always have to do ceilings in white? ... can't really recall having seen it done anywhere so maybe i shouldn't experiment too much

i had better drink some coffee and start moving the tons of books and the endless files ... ooo maybe we get to throw some stuff away ... sorry freecycle

if you don't know about freecycle check it out at www.freecycle.org ... the idea is to keep things out of the landfill ... we have used it loads in the past year ... one persons trash is anothers 'ooo just what i needed' ... we have given away old underlay, crockery, books, all kinds of stuff ... we even asked and got an old bread machine this summer because we wanted to try one out and see what they were like ... ... sure enough a lady had one she never used and gave it to us

just this week handed over a load of old computer bits to someone who rebuilds for computers for people ... he took an old 486 (trust me in the computer world that is chippendale) and was upgrading a pensioners 386 so we felt that was nice and worthwhile and left our loft a little less cluttered ... we figured that it was the kind of thing that people used for a bit and then put in a cupboard

our system goes if you can't compost it then ebay it - if you can't ebay it then freecycle it - if you can't freecycle it then and only then can you throw it away

i shall write more soon ... maybe    

4 comments:

Sally said...

Glad you're posting again - since I linked you! You might get some more traffic - thanks for the reminder to freecycle - been meaning to look at that....

1 i z said...

I missed you hon!

And hey Sally P got whole weeks of blogging out of decorating her lounge and choosing furniture ;-)

sally said...

Liz, you remembered! Wasn't it fun! Steve, welcome back, I really, really noticed the silence.

Kathryn said...

You're BACK!!!
I'd given up looking, even bloglines was weary of waiting, and then suddenly..
Decorating is a grim business, but possibly worth it in the end (specially when your household does not include 3 teenagers and 5 animals, who take the first shine off before the paint is even dry)