I finally got up off my behind at about 5 pm and went to a craft store further from the house to get a new seam ripper. Oh, you may not have heard the griping over here at the blog, but yes, my new seam ripper went missing. The one I just bought the other day and hadn’t even used yet. I suspect cat involvement. Well, I went to a different craft store to see if they had anything better than that cheap piece of garbage one of the cat’s stole from off the couch when I wasn’t looking.
Had I thought about the fact it is Mardis Gras weekend, I wouldn’t have left my house at all, let alone drive on the expressway to a store in an area I have personally never driven in … as evening was coming on and the sun setting. I didn’t realize why the traffic was so horrendous until the news reminded me that everyone in Austin has a party to go to somewhere tonight. I was ever so thankful to get off the roads when I got home. It was as packed as rush hour everywhere, but everyone was driving even more insanely.
Anyway, this store had a selection of three seam rippers. They had the $2 one like I bought for twenty cents cheaper, the same blade on a slightly different (but still very cheap) handle for $3, and the most expensive one that still looked remarkably cheap and flimsy but had a soft gel handle for almost $4. I bought the most expensive one. It will likely be adequate. As I was about to leave, I noticed Simplicity patterns were on sale 5 for $5, so I checked to see if they had any of the ones I keep trying to find every time they go on sale. They had two of them, and in my size, so I went ahead and bought them. That was an awesome stroke of luck.
And since there is a Home Depot in the same shopping center, I went ahead and stopped there as well to look at paint chips. Glidden paint is on sale for $15 a gallon until the 17th, and that’s a good price. After spending entirely too long fussing around looking at paint chips, I selected a few which are now propped on the top edge of the wainscoting in the kitchen. If I decide I like any of them enough before the sale is over, I might be buying some paint.
The colors? Oddly, one set is Parchment White (almost ivory – wainscoting) and Sunbeam (yellow – walls). Why oddly? When I put them up in the kitchen, they are nearly the same colors as the walls and wainscoting are now. Great, I seem to like yellow and white with some twenty or so years of life ground into it. The other set is Tawny Birch (a beige/tan – wainscoting) and Cyprus Grass (green – walls). I do like those colors together too, but I really, really love the late afternoon sun in the kitchen, and I think the yellow and not-so-white in there now has something to do with it. I’m concerned that putting green on the walls will cool the light too much. I’d hate it if that happened and have to repaint immediately.
I’ll know a day or two whether any of these colors will work in the kitchen. I have to see how they look in my favorite late afternoon light tomorrow. I wasn’t home at sunset tonight, because I was wasting too much time looking at paint chips and then having a stressful drive home.
Other than that little adventure, Lin and I watched some Olympics†, I did some more scrubbing in the kitchen, we ate dinner, and now I think I am off to bed. Or at least off to the couch. I think I might do something other than working in the kitchen tomorrow. Why, I might even think about sewing something now that I have those patterns.
Though I am pretty beat, so it’s entirely possible I might just do a lot of lying around on the couch watching winter sports.
Footnotes- † OMG! Did you see the two Korean speed skaters take each other out when they were just about to get the silver and bronze medals? I’d say Apolo Ohno was a little lucky. [↩]