I gave up TV for Lent

I used to not watch much TV. Jeff and I don't have cable, so we only get local stuff and sometimes rabbit ears don't get great reception, so we didn't even hook them up to the TV. So for about a year after we bought the house, we didn't watch much TV. We'd watch stuff on DVD, like Gilmore Girls or Lost, but no live TV. I felt a little out of it when people would talk about, "You know that commercial where..." and I'd say, "No, I don't know, I don't watch TV." I felt a little self-righteous. Shocking, I know.

Last summer, as the summer Olympics were approaching, I knew we'd have to do something. You may not know this about me, but I sure do love the Olympics. When the Olympics are on, I basically do nothing else for two weeks except work, sleep, and watch the Olympics. So we found the rabbit ears down in the basement and made sure we got good reception on NBC so that when the time came, there would be nothing to stop my two-week TV binge.

It all worked flawlessly.

Except that after the Olympics were over, I kept watching TV. I feel okay with some of it, like Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune, but a few months ago I started in with the trash TV, like The Bachelor and True Beauty. I've also been watching The Biggest Loser, but don't try to make me feel bad for that one, cuz it won't work. (But you could make me feel bad for sitting on the couch eating cookies while watching it, but I would rather you didn't. Thanks.)

So for Lent, I decided to give up TV. So far, it has been interesting. No, "interesting" isn't the right word. It's more like "boring." What did I used to do with myself before I watched TV?

I'm pretty sure the fact that I am asking myself this question means that giving up TV for Lent was a good idea.

So from now until Easter, here is what I HOPE I do with all my extra time:
1. Read more.
2. Blog more.
3. Cook more.
4. Get ready for company (which involves about 12 small project, like finishing my chairs, which haven't been touched in two months.)

And even though I'm gonna miss the season finales of The Bachelor and The Biggest Loser, I'm pretty sure I'll like my life a little more for doing this.

At least once I get the hang of it.

A project I have started

And I hope I will finish.

I have a pretty bad track record at finishing things I start, especially if the thing takes longer than an hour to complete. Hopefully, if I chronicle my progress here, I will be inspired to actually finish.

Some background:

Much of the furniture in our house came from the trash. I mean, you know, not literally a trash can, but pretty often around here, people decide to get rid of things and they just put them out on the sidewalk for anyone to take. So we take. Because one person's trash is another's treasure.

Here are our most recent acquisitions:



We got four of these chairs and they all basically look like this. They are decent chairs, but they require some cosmetic work, which will take an undetermined amount of time to complete.

1. Remove old cushions.
2. Touch up the wood.
3. Re-cover and reattach cushions.

My sis-in-law re-covered some chairs a few months ago, and they look great. I helped a (very) little bit, and it didn't seem that complicated. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with the wood, but hopefully that'll come to me later.

So, tonight I started working on the chairs.

The first thing I did was remove the fabric from the upright part of the chair. This was actually pretty freaking hard. The back layer was attached to the chair with a lot of freaking staples. Then there was padding. Then there was the front layer, again with the crapload of staples. Then there was the ribbing around the entire edge. More staples. So I only did one chair. It was hard and I started getting complainy.

Then I (I mean, my husband, under my close supervision) unscrewed the seat cushions from all the chairs.

Here's what we have now:


Upon closer inspection of the nekkid chair, we see:


1. The wood on that decorative middle piece is actually very nice.
2. There are staple holes everywhere. (You may have to click the picture to enlarge it in order to see the staple holes.)

Also, one of the other chairs has wood that looks a little greenish or something.



Ooky!

So here's the plan. A few weeks ago, I bought this fabric at a thrift store. The seat cushions will be re-covered with this.

( Do you see the cute little Autumn butt and tail?)

Also, I will smooth out the wood where all the staples holes and various other imperfections (both previously existing and newly created during the staple removing process) are and will paint the chairs black.

That is the plan.

Ask me about it occasionally will ya? I'd like to get these finished by the end of 2009, and I think I may need some prodding.

If you think Autumn's eye is gross

You should smell her burps. I don't know how I ended up with a dog whose burps (burps!) smell like diarrhea. It's gross.

I am making a face right now. An I'm-smelling-something-gross face. In fact, Jeff just came downstairs and said, "Why the face?"

Then he decided to go back upstairs because it stinks in the living room.

Something I figured out

I am new to the world of short hair, and I am a little slow sometimes. Here is something I just figured out about my new, short hair.

The trick is not always to get your hair to do what you want. Sometimes that is impossible. In those instances, you just gotta make it LOOK like you got your hair to do what you want.

And then own it.

Another way to get people to come to your blog

Post pictures!!

Okay, so I read Staci's blog. She has basenjis, which are African hunting dogs. African tribal hunters used to carry these small dogs in what is called the native carry.

Here's what it looks like.

As a part of her 365 self portrait project, Staci took a picture of herself doing the native carry with one of her own dogs.



Looks easy, right?

I don't have an African hunting dog. I have a Welsh herding dog. But I decided to try the native carry anyway.


Yeah, not really the same effect. I mean, I look okay in this picture, but poor Dylan looks like a tubbo. I swear he's not fat. Corgis are just thick dogs. Really.

Why I don't post often enough

I'm not going to discuss all the reasons. I'm not sure that I even know all the reasons. (Some of them have to do with my mental/emotional condition at the moment.)

But, I have figured at least one of them out:

I think too much about who is reading this.

Thinking about your audience is usually a good thing. It helps you figure out topics and language and stuff. But this is a blog. And what are you supposed to write about on a blog? WHATEVER YOU WANT. This is about me. I get to write what I want.

But still, I get stuck on that.

Here is a sample thought process: "Do I really want that former co-worker who I know reads my blog to read this?"

Then suddenly, I can't think of anything that I want that person to know.

Of course, I could also be thinking of someone I work with NOW, or someone I go to church with, or a high school friend who found me on facebook or an old boyfriend.

It doesn't matter, the result is the same. I can't think of anything I want to say to any/all of those people.

I don't like that. I'm going to try to get over it. If a person is afraid of others knowing their thoughts or interests, they shouldn't write a blog.

Capisce?

What I want versus what I'm willing to work for

I like having people read my blog. That may not come as a surprise to you. A friend once told me that my favorite subject was me. He's not wrong, but I suspect that is the case with most people, so I feel okay with it.

I think I have figured out one of the tricks for having a blog with high readership. Are you ready for this?

Post often enough.

I don't think there is a magic number of how often is often enough. Depending on your content and your readers, you could even post too often. (If the content is cute/funny pictures of animals, or of evidence of people doing dumb things, this does not apply.)

I think maybe three times a week is good for the kind of content I'd like to have on my blog.

So why don't I do that?

Check back next post.

Introducing Autumn One-eye Winterspring

A few months ago, Jeff and I got a new dog. Like Merit, Autumn is technically just a foster for now, but we are hoping our home is her forever home.

A police officer found her roaming the streets in north Philly and took her to the shelter. For the most part, she was in good health, but she had a pretty gruesome eye injury.

Nasty, isn't it? (Click the image for a larger view.)

The shelter gave us some pills to give her and some ointment to put on her eye. Let me tell you, it's REALLY hard to put ointment into the eye of a squirmy dog without damaging her eye even more.

After a few weeks, her eye was looking a little better, but not a lot. It wasn't as red and had become more pug eye than boil.




Over the next few weeks, we tried to figure out if she could see out of her injured eye. When we threw the ball for her, we noticed that if we threw it towards her good side, she could follow it, but if we threw it towards her bad side, she would lose it. She also bonked her head on things a few times. All signs pointed to her being blind in one eye.

We still wanted her to keep the eye, even if merely for aesthetic reasons. Two-eyed dogs don't look as freaky as one-eyed dogs, and Jeff and I are pretty big on our dogs being cute. (Have you seen Dylan? OMG, he's a freaking cutie!)

When we took Autumn in to get spayed, the doctor told us her eye wasn't looking as well as he would like and he wanted to just take the eye out. It was a little sad, but we knew that Autumn wouldn't be able to tell the difference since she was already blind in her "dead eye."

After the surgery, Autumn looked terrible. She acted just as happy and squirmy as ever, but she looked pretty disgusting.



For starters, half of her head was shaved, but also, she still had iodine on her fur, her wound itself looked like a hack job*, and her eye was oozing blood. Pretty freaking gross.

It has now been two weeks since the surgery and she's looking MUCH better, even if she still is a freaky one-eyed dog.



Autumn is still a puppy, and therefore is still troublesome, but she's a good girl who is learning quickly. Now if we can just get Dylan to stop being afraid of her, we can all live happily ever after.

*I imagine that shelter dogs serve as practice for vet students.

Why I like Facebook

I can manage to come up with something interesting to say that is approximately one sentence in length.

Beyond that, I somehow just end up complaining.

Troublemaker

One of the reasons that moving to Philly was hard for me was that the church that Jeff and I attend is pretty different from my church back home. And it's not just the style of the church that's different. The people are different. When I came here, it was hard for me to really believe that the people were going to accept me.

Honestly, I still don't know.

But that fear has actually made it hard for me to make friends, because I have been reserved and quiet. But you know what? That ain't me. And I want to be done with that.

So this is where I start. Here is where I will say who I am, without being coy or evasive.

-I recycle. But really, only because it is convenient.
-I use Round Up in the back yard on the weeds (including poison ivy, so I'm not even sorry.)
-I am a registered Republican. (I might be the only one you know!)
-I voted for George W. Bush in 2004.
-I voted for Barak Obama in 2008. (I wanted to vote Republican, really I did. But they just made it too freaking hard. First of all, who was that angry, desperate person who claimed to be John McCain? He ran a terrible campaign, at least here in PA. And Sarah Palin... she just ain't ready for the big league.)
-I don't use biodegradable tampons. I use the ones with the plastic applicator.
-I use 7th generation laundry detergent and dish washing detergent.
-I use method floor cleaner and an omop.
-I don't want to buy my clothes from a thrift shop. I want to buy them new from the mall or Target or something.
-I like to buy lattes from Starbucks.
-I don't think Wal-Mart is the devil.
-I would probably get more of my furniture from garage sales if only I didn't have to get up early to find the good deals.
-I am not a pacifist.
-I like to wear makeup and get manis/pedis.
-I like country music.
-I am not a vegetarian.
-My favorite color is purple. (I know that doesn't really have anything to do with this, but I really do like purple.)
-I want to live in the suburbs, with a garage and a yard bigger than my living room.
-I take public transportation.
-I believe that just because someone isn't black, poor, about to have a baby, about to lose a baby, or dying of cancer doesn't mean that they don't still hurt or that they don't need someone to love them. Why am I on no one's radar?
-I like games, but I am not a gamer. (My husband married "outside the tribe.")
-I like exegesis.
-I haven't yet decided what I think about women leading churches. There is a part of me that is offended by the notion that women shouldn't lead churches, but in the search for truth I must at least be willing to accept it as a possibility.
-I believe the man is the head of the household, and women do a disservice to their husbands, their children, and themselves when they usurp that authority.
-I live in a two-car family.

What do you say, folks? Where is this community I hear so much about? I know, I know, I'm being antagonistic, and that hardly encourages new friends to flock my direction. But what do I have to lose? Keeping my mouth shut hasn't done me a lot of good.