I found a list of how the shows are affected by the strike. It lists how many new episodes are left of each show. Unfortunately, the answer for most shows is “zero”. I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of reruns! And more reality TV. :-(
Monthly Archives: January 2008
fixing up our abode
A few months ago, Joanna wrote an excellent post on the “Philosophy Behind Decor”. She talked about being very intentional about the placement of the furniture in your home.
Now that the Christmas stuff has been put away, I have been looking around our apartment and trying to decide where I want the furniture to be long-term so I can hang up pictures on the walls. My desire is to have the decor functional yet beautiful and relaxing. Visual appeal is very important to me, and my challenge is to do this while remaining under budget. (By the way, now I am inserting a plug for a great blog I’ve recently started reading – Like Merchant Ships. The things she finds and decorates her home with are beautiful, and she is able to achieve the look mostly through garage sales and thrift stores!)
I’ve decided that the key to having a visually pleasant home is to reduce the clutter, and that’s one of my goals as I head into this new year. As I have been busy cleaning, unpacking (yes! still!), and decluttering, I have been trying to sell or give away whatever I honestly don’t need anymore. I have sold a bunch of stuff on Craigslist, and was less successful on Ebay. Part of my problem is most of the stuff I have is small low-value knicknacks that just aren’t worth my time to sell.
I posted pictures of our new apartment almost two months ago. Paul and I spent a lot of time measuring all the walls (which do not meet at a 90 degree angle, we found out… Sometimes parallel walls were an inch or two different). I used a free online program called Jordan Furniture’s Room Planner to decide the best method to rearrange everything. It’s pretty nice; similar to what I’ve used in the past (which is no longer available). I tried a lot of different room planners and liked this one the best.
We also decided to paint our dining room green. I LOVE to paint the walls (I get it from my mom), and having all-white walls all over the apartment depresses me. I picked a darker green for the bottom half, and a lighter green for the top half, leaving the chair rail and the window frames white. I really, really like the result! Here is a picture of our dining room (click to make bigger):
BEFORE:
AFTER:
I don’t have a good picture of the living room, but here is what I have:
Some of the stuff I need to put on walls still. For example, in the dining room you can see a black bookcase with my wooden tea cup rack on it. I also have a whole pile of posters and framed pictures. It would be good to get that off the floor of our bedroom!! I also have two towel racks to hang in our bathroom – I am really bad about hanging towel racks. A third thing on the “to do” list is to get a smaller coffee table. The current one has three glass panels, and my darling cat decided we only needed two glass panels. So, since the table is a little big for the space anyways, we decided to keep our eyes open for a smaller, black one.
We do have a goal: some friends are coming to stay with us in February, and I’d love to get everything done before then. At the very least, we need to tackle the guest room, which is currently more of a “junk room”. So a lot of sorting and organizing in the next few weeks! It will be good to get everything done and settled; I still feel like I just moved in!
now for a really shallow post
Unlike a lot of anti-tv people in the blogosphere, I like sitting down with my family for a TV show. That’s something we did the whole time I was growing up, and I have a lot of memories watching TV together. Paul and I enjoy watching TV together, too. Here are the shows we particularly enjoy:
SUNDAY
The Simpsons (8pm, FOX) We started watching The Simpsons together in college, and it has stuck with us since then. We enjoy the laugh, though we only catch the show about half the time. I must admit Simpson’s quotes are the most likely to appear in our conversations (that, and Futurama and Gilmore Girls).
MONDAY
Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles (9pm, FOX) I am really hesitant to put this one here. For one, because Paul is the one who watches this. For two, Fox has a history of canceling good shows before they have a chance to develop. But the fact that River is in it makes it worth it (to Paul anyways) to turn it on each week.
TUESDAY
The Office (10pm, TBS) The Office is a show we just tuned into this season. We’re happy that TBS is airing old episodes, while the current season (Thursdays on NBC) is on hiatus due to the writer’s strike. Since we are playing catch-up, all the episodes are new to us. We love the characters, and the off-the-wall comedy…
WEDNESDAY
Criminal Minds (9pm, CBS) I really, really love this crime drama about the behavior analysis unit of the FBI. I actually considered majoring in psychology in college because I find the study of human behavior so interesting. As it was, I went into advertising – where you study human behavior to make the buy things. :-) Hmm…
FRIDAY
Bones (8pm, FOX) This is a new show to me this season. It’s another crime drama, dealing with the forensic evidence. Unlike CSI, they focus more on the characters and their interactions. I really enjoy the personalities of the two main characters, and how they play off each other to solve the crime.
Numb3rs (10pm, CBS) Another crime drama, this time using math to find the bad guys. I have no idea if the math is genuine, but it seems real and impressive, and I love the characters (the two brothers and their father).
When we aren’t watching these shows, we like to enjoy some of the TV on DVD that we own:
Gilmore Girls (seasons 1-6) I am saving my money to buy the 7th season and then my collection is complete! I love Gilmore Girls, and can watch (some of) the episodes over and over. My favorite season is the 4th season – though I enjoy select episodes from every season.
Futurama (seasons 1-4, plus “Bender’s Big Score” movie) Paul loves Futurama. We have seen every episode many times, and it always cracks us up. We usually make our out-of-town friends watch “The Deep South” when they come visit (be forewarned!). We recently acquired the feature-length movie and liked it too.
M*A*S*H (seasons 1-11) I really love this TV show, and a few months ago I jumped at the chance to purchase the entire series when I saw it on sale for 55% off. I have been watching them steadily, and am just starting season 10. My favorite seasons are the middle ones – we’ll see how it ends. M*A*S*H makes me laugh, though I could do without the drinking and womanizing of the first few seasons.
Perry Mason (season 1) I always enjoy this lawyer show from the late 50s and 60s. It’s a nice change from the graphics-heavy shows of today, and the cases are interesting and keep me guessing. I see that season 2 is on DVD and I’d like to get them, but I will probably have to be patient.
baby, it's cold inside
So with the price of oil going up, our gas bill has gone up, too. Around Christmas, we decided to turn off our heater and see how long we could last in our apartment without heat. We have been wearing two of everything on average, and sometimes even three sweaters. We have been huddled in front of the space heater, but I know that’s using electricity so I’ve been trying to conserve that as well.
Thanks for the indoor/outdoor thermometer we got from my sister for Christmas, I have been keeping an eye on the temperature. It’s hovered around 60 degrees inside, and I told myself that if it ever got too cold for us even with extra clothes and blankets, then we would turn on the heater again.
Yesterday morning, we woke up and it was 51 inside. I tried it for a short while, but soon gave in and turned on the heater. What a difference turning it up to 65 has been!! (Our thermostat is messed up, so we can’t put it lower than 65.) It’s really taken the edge off the cold we feel inside.
Anyways, all this is to say… A few days ago (before we turned the heater on), we had someone come over. He complained to Paul about how cold he was, and when we set him in front of the space heater with a blanket he complained that he felt like an old man. Later, Paul and I were talking about it. We don’t know if we should turn on the heater when people come over. I’m concerned that the heater will have to run for several hours just to get up to 65 and then we will waste a lot of money that way. But, how important is it for our guests to be warm? Obviously, we’ll turn on the heat for overnight guests. But for evening guests? Is it worth the money? Should the guests just adjust to our temperature? Should we just not invite anyone over? Does anyone else keep their heat low/off? How do you deal with this?
sunday ponderings: inclement weather
Yep you guessed it.
Due to all the “snow”, church has been cancelled. (I probably should not mention how dry the roads are right now, or that the snow is almost gone, or that at 1am it’s finally getting down to 32 degrees.)
But those of you in the north can still play along. :-) Leave your links below!
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What did you learn at church today? Leave a link to your own “Sunday Ponderings” blog post, or you can just mention your thoughts in the comments. Read more about this weekly carnival and get the code for the “Sunday Ponderings” graphic here.