Monday, September 10, 2012

Things I Learned This Weekend

Note: This post is too long given how non-eventful my weekend was. Photos include paper towels and an ironing board cover. Woah, I know, easy with the craziness.

A busted watch makes for an annoying start to the weekend.
Somehow I broke the crystal on my watch. I constantly bang it on doorjambs and tables but I'm not sure what finally busted it. I do know that it should make perfect sense as last week I also had to have high heels re-heeled, a zipper fixed in my purse, and a dress dry cleaned because it had barbecue sauce on it.


Thrift shopping is an ok Friday activity.
After working like a mad woman all week, I was ahead of schedule on Friday and decided to leave early. As I've said before, there are so few thrift stores in D.C. proper so I decided to try a Goodwill in Arlington. (That ended up being comically close to where I used to live.) It wasn't organized as nice as I like, but I did get 3 tops, 1 skirt, and 1 glass for $19. That includes a cashmere turtleneck for $5 and a Chapel Hill glass for 96 cents. I may have gasped when I saw this cute thing. There's a whole line of these sold at A Southern Season and I already have 1 trivet and 2 larger glasses that match.


My mother purchased me the "single spinster* lady" paper towel pack.
Every time my mom visits she brings me big packs of toilet paper and paper towels from Sam's. The last few rolls have been interesting. First, there were cats. Now, there are teapots and teacups. These lead me to the conclusion that she bought me the old maid* pack. If the next roll has shriveled ovaries on it I'm going to scream. (*Note: I HATE both of these terms. Men are still considered bachelors even when they're 90, why do women have to be spinsters or maids? I'm still deciding on what I want to be called. I've narrowed it down to Goddess of the Single Life or No, Really, I'm Happy This Way.)


You need an advanced degree to put on an ironing board cover.
A few weeks ago at Ikea, I bought a new ironing board cover for my non-standard Ikea ironing board. It's been sitting on my floor, intimidating me with its size and parts and string and instruction sheet. It turns out I was right to be intimidated because it was like wrestling an alligator** to get it on. But at least it's pretty! (**Note: I've never actually wrestled an alligator.)


Darts may change my life.
The skirt I bought at Goodwill was too big, but because it was such a beautiful shade of blue and it was Vineyard Vines, which meant good quality, I bought it anyway for $6 with the hope that I'd finally be brave enough to try darts. Which I did. They were much easier than I thought and took in the waistband the perfect amount. However, I didn't get them perfect enough so there's a bit of a weird pooch. 


Lemonade bought from little girls at a lemonade stand is the best kind of lemonade.
Out in my neighborhood on Saturday, I came across two girls selling cups of homemade lemonade for 50 cents. It was perfect, not too sweet or sour. And while I was tempted to ask them their political views given the frequent references to lemonade stands in this election cycle, I refrained.


I'm a slightly better person than I thought.
For more than a year, I’ve been looking for a ceramic or wooden whale to spray paint and use as a decoration. Even at the beach I couldn’t find one because all they had were dolphins. Well, on Saturday, on another thrift store run, this time to my favorite, there was a wooden whale that my eyes just completely missed. I became aware of it when I heard a mom exclaim, "It's a whale! Jonah, you have to get it!” Yes, the kid named Jonah got the whale. (Like he probably doesn’t already have a dozen whales.) Since it was a thrift store attached to a church and it was a child named after a Biblical character, I refrained from knocking him down, grabbing the whale, and running for it.

Watching a good movie at an old theatre is a good Sunday afternoon activity.
There are two small theatres on Connecticut Avenue close to my apartment. I'd never been to the two-screen one within walking distance of my place, and since they were showing "The Words," I finally was able to make it. Not only did I really enjoy the movie, despite all the bad reviews, I loved the theatre. It was built in 1923 and after abruptly closing in 2003, was saved and re-opened by the community in 2005. I'll be writing more about this later. 


Some crafts are better than others.
I had the strongest urge to use my sewing machine this weekend so I picked a few projects from my Pinterest board and got to work. Out of the four things I worked on, I only like two of them. But maybe with some tweaking the "nays" will become "yays."

Yay: Pin cushion thread catcher and a necklace


Nay: Pin and headband


Cheese can't save everything.
Since I was already on my Pinterest page, I decided to try a new quick and easy recipe. It was only alright. I don't know if it was the meat choice or if there was too much dressing. Or it could have been the Parmesan cheese I added, which is odd, because in my experience cheese makes everything better. 


I really miss the pool.
But at least I got some stuff done.

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