Best. Pencil Sharpener. Ever.

That is all.

Our Grand Adventure in NOT Getting a New Couch...

Our couch.... Oh, our couch... It’s done its job for quite some time, but it’s getting progressively more and more horrible... I was never crazy about the light sagey-green color, but it was comfy enough... Until it started to sag. And the cushions lost their comfy smooshiness (it’s a word... I swear.). And the cats decided that the fabric made great scratchy-post-i-ness (also a word) and clawed it down to the wood in places.

I’ve been trying to talk J into getting a new couch, getting this one restuffed and reupholstered, or even just buying those stupid As Seen On TV furniture things to put under the cushions and a slipcover... But none of it has swayed him. He says that he doesn’t want to buy a new couch just to have the cats scratch that one apart too. I tell him that 1. I don’t think they will if we don’t buy one made of a fabric that is just so satisfying to dig their claws into and 2. I CANNOT KEEP SITTING ON THIS STUPID UNCOMFORTABLE COUCH!

I think it was the weekend before last that finally convinced him that it was time... It was a lazy day and we both ended up taking pretty long naps on the couch. And woke up in blinding agony... And then a commercial came on for Living Spaces (if you have one near you and have heard the commercials a million times, you know you just sang it...) all about their “Warehouse Consolidation Sale” with the guy talking with the creepily calm voice... It was all too perfect and J gave in to “if we can find one cheap enough, then we can get a new couch that hopefully the cats won’t claw.” So we made our plan of going and wandering Living Spaces (SING IT!) last Saturday morning after dropping off J’s truck for service.

Saying we were overwhelmed would be a drastic understatement. There are just SO MANY COUCHES! You’d think it would be simple to find a standard sectional without a triangle corner piece that makes it extra huge... But no....... Apparently the trend right now is to have the biggest sofa you can possibly find... Extra large cushions, giant triangle corner piece, a minimum of two recliners, arm rests, cup holders, a chaise, and an ottoman bigger than my dining room table! And as much as I would love a room FULL of sofa... It's just not logical. We looked at and sat on way too many couches... We felt fabric samples and J told me that I absolutely could not get the long-haired faux fur fabric... (Dream killer...)

We narrowed it down to two couches - his pick and mine: 

  Not exactly his couch, but similar enough...

 

My couch... In all its glory...

His was a dark brown leather two seat by two seat sectional with a recliner on each end. I pointed out quickly that if it went in the room the way the couch is now, we would both be sitting on one side of the couch squished together and I would be the only one that would get a recliner because that’s MY seat!

He proceeded to try to create various scenarios to make the couch fit and have both recliners be useful... We even went home for a while so that he could bust out his stuff from architecture classes and make a scale drawing of the room complete with cutouts of the current furniture in the room that he could move around... Because that’s what you do. Obviously.

He then took the drawing back to the store, measured the couch, and created a to-scale cutout of the couch he wanted. Believe me when I tell you that there is NO WAY that this couch was going to fit in our house, have both recliners usable comfortably for tv watching purposes, and not be totally annoyingly in the way somewhere... But he was determined. I am still catching him playing with his little faux room - trying to figure out a way to make it work.

Unfortunately our living is set up in the crappiest way possible with hallway access, an angled wall where the fireplace is (which we NEVER use... Seriously - we blocked it off. That’s how much we don’t use it), kitchen access, and where the front door is... It doesn’t leave many options...

 Vague representation of the room - using nothing but Word..... Pretty much guaranteed not to be to scale...

MY couch? It was so simple. Three seat by two seat dark brown leather sectional in the configuration it would need to be to fit where the current one is... AND it was $6 cheaper than his couch... Just sayin’... The only things? The arm is a bit high, so no more lounging with my arm propped on the arm of the couch... (Who cares?) and the “two” side is technically a chaise, so there is only a cushion on the back for one of the seats and no arm on that end. Now, I didn’t see this as such a big problem because that side would be up against a wall and we could just buy a really pretty comfy pillow to put there and BAM done. But no. J thought it was just too stupid for words that they would want it to be a chaise so badly that they couldn’t just put a back and a cushion for every seat on the couch.

So he immediately wrote mine off... And I did the same to his. So no new couch. After HOURS of looking and sitting and measuring and walking and sitting and lounging and measuring and..... SIGH. Same. Stupid. Green. Torn Up. Uncomfortable. Couch. Ugh.

Now we have to try other places...

All I want is a dark brown sectional!! Preferably made from soft leather!

I’m goin’ on Amazon....... They have everything........

Randomness...

- J has been working nights... Oh - and days too. It sucks. I get to see him for about an hour or two every night between when I get home and when he leaves again... And most of the time he gets back home before I leave for work in the morning... He doesn’t work full days at work - just enough time to get things prepped for the night jobs... It seriously sucks. The two worst things are: 1. He is pretty much incapable of sleeping during the day so he doesn’t get much sleep all week and 2. I stay up too late and sleep like crap when he’s not there and then I don’t get much sleep all week either.

Needless to say (which apparently means NOTHING because people always follow that up with what they were going to say anyway.... Yes, I just irritated myself...) that by the time the weekend rolls around we are both grumpy. At least it’s only going on until SEPTEMBER! I don’t know if we can take another month and a half of this... SIGH

And it's been making me slack off on all of my "social networking" because the last thing I want to do with my small amount of time with him is stare at my computer.... But I miss being up to date on everyone and updating my little blog here, so I'm trying to get back on top of it all...

- We went out on our friend’s boat and had a lovely time. I even jumped in open ocean... With sharks and creatures and not being able to see or touch the bottom or anything... It was super cold and I pretty much only did it for the picture and to say that I did...

 I may or may not vaguely be drowning J... It's hard to tread water while posing for a picture...

We found a Michael Jackson impersonator while we were in Long Beach for lunch... Dude had on so much makeup that everyone who saw the pictures thought it was a statue...

- My body hurts more from the first three days of my new workout than they did from the entire 9 weeks of my previous workout... I had been wanting to try P90X for a while, but didn’t want to shell out the money for it... J has been trying to get himself motivated to work out again and decided that he wanted to try it, so we got it. Unfortunately with him working weird hours, we can’t work out together like we had originally planned, but I didn’t want to keep putting it off. Now I will work out while he is taking his “before work nap” after I get home... And he can work out whenever he feels like it... haha

I don’t know how “ripped” I’m gonna get, but I am most definitely feeling it after three workouts... I like that it’s really your own pace... “Chest and Back” was basically a ton of pull-ups (I do a modified version using bands since we don’t have a pull-up bar in our living room...) and push-ups. Next was “Plyometrics” or “Jump Training” and then “Arms and Shoulders...” Today is going to be Yoga. And for each part of the exercises, you just do as many as you can... And then try to do more next time...

But I seriously can’t lift my arms right now.... And the stretching in yoga is either gonna feel really good or it’s going to really hurt. Or both.....

- Oh - and BTW - I had already lost 24 pounds from the previous 30-Day Shredding and EA Active-ing... I have found that there is not much that can instantly brighten my day as quickly as fitting into a smaller size of pants...

- But I felt REALLY lame when a guy in one of the workouts with a prosthetic half leg was doing WAY better than me on some of the exercises... Oh well... I’ll get there.

- Finally tried a frozen yogurt place by my bff’s house that may very well be a rival for Yogurtland and Cherry on Top for me... They have this amazingly delicious Black Cherry Tart... And their toppings are awesome... My favorites are the cut up Rice Krispie Treats and cut up Ho-hos... SO yummy. I can’t believe we didn’t go try it out sooner!

- True Blood is back and “lost little Eric” is cracking me up... I am definitely not upset to see an “Eric-heavy” season... Just sayin’... I love me some Eric Northman. Plus, Alexander Skarsgard might someday be my best friend...

- J and I bought Vibram FiveFingers... I got the women’s Bikila LS. I can’t remember what J’s are called. We have a lot of friends that swear by these shoes for running, walking, jogging, hiking... So we decided to give them a try. I was a lot more wary of them because I am generally disgusted by toe socks and feet... They are actually surprisingly comfortable.

I bought them at REI specifically because REI has such a good return policy. If I end up absolutely hating them, I can take them back... They seemed to be good during my workouts...

- I bought a cowboy hat... A second thing that I never thought I would purchase... But I am really pale and burn really easily, so I decided that I needed a nice hat with a wide brim to help protect my fragile skin... I like it; I think I picked a pretty good one...

- I finally met my new boss... He was in one day that I had taken a vacation day and then wasn’t in again for two weeks... Seems like a nice guy - although, I have only spoken to him for 10 seconds so far...

- I bought “Alice, The Madness Returns” for my PS3... It’s a creepy, twisted, and entertaining take on the old Alice in Wonderland story line... It’s a very pretty game and fun to play. And her costumes are AWESOME. I so want to go as her for Halloween, but I don’t think anyone would get it...

 Image from here.

- I’ve been entertaining myself by playing with the Zombiebooth app for my phone... You take a picture of yourself (or someone else) and it turns them into a zombie. I didn't even have to make an angry face - it did it for me... And it moves around and growls and screams... SUPER creepy. My bff has told me that I cannot send any more because they really scare her... Maybe I’ll do my makeup like one of the zombie pictures for Halloween instead...

 If I ever actually look like this, I fully expect J to put two bullets right between my eyes... I would do the same for him...

- I love my new Harvey’sSeatbelt Bag... They had a sale and a bag that I had been wanting (but not wanting to spend that much money on) was 50% off! I was legally REQUIRED to purchase it... Plus, I needed a new briefcase for work, and it is the perfect size... And look how pretty it looks with Lola...

 

- I found jellies at my grocery store! I feel like a little kid again when I put them on... They make me smile. I’m going to go get more colors! For $2, how can you not??

 

- I saw a little girl - couldn’t have been more than 8 years old - at the store the other day with her parents... She was wearing short shorts, an off-both-shoulders top with chain straps on her shoulders, and knee-high Converse... It was totally the uniform of the “Prostitot”. And TOTALLY not right... Why do parents let their young children dress like that? They are the ones that purchase the clothing and have the final say, right?

- I got a new water bottle that I think is really cool and I like it a lot... Kinda lame to get excited about a water bottle, but what can you do? Ha

 LifeFactory 22 Ounce Glass Water Bottle - I got mine on Amazon.

- I am both extremely excited and extremely sad about the last Harry Potter movie... It looks SO good, but it’s the last one!!!!!!! I get chills when I see certain parts of the previews for the last one. I’m not planning on going to the midnight premiere or even going this weekend... I like to wait until it calms down a little bit so that I don’t have to be crammed into a too-full movie theater with noisy, rude people... I want to be able to enjoy the movie...

- It’s rainy and cool today and it makes me wish I could have spent the whole day cuddling on my couch...

- I bring Lean Cuisines for lunch most days and they have this points rewards program thing right now... I ordered really cute salt and pepper shakers...

 Photo from here.

- I saw the pilot episode of a new show called “Alphas” on SyFy. As much as the way they chose to shorten their network name irritates me, the show looks like it’s going to be really good... It’s about a group of people that have special powers and how they deal with them and the repercussions while also solving crimes... 

So there I am... All of my current randomness rolled into one neat package... :-)