Friday Randomness

Happy Friday! My SIL sent me the joke above, and I found it good for a snort. Specifically, the ‘idiot’ part. I don’t have a lot to tell you this week, so we’ll just dive in to a bunch of randomness.

These memes made me laugh. I don’t want to talk about President Shit for Brains, so I will leave it at that.

Regarding the meme on the right, The Pitt. What are we going to do now that season 2 has ended? WHY? I want more. (And wow on the season finale!) Other shows we’re currently watching: Rooster (HBO Max), The Testaments (Hulu) (so disturbing – it’s the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, in case you didn’t know), Your Friends and Neighbors (Apple TV+), and Hacks (HBO Max). Maya tried to watch the new season of Euphoria, but it was too dumb and she gave up. Oh, there’s a new season of Beef on Netflix! That’s exciting. Yes, we watch a lot of TV around here.

What else…hmmm. Looks like our gas prices came down 20 cents per gallon since last week, which is a relief. I finished our taxes on Tuesday (1 day early!) and we didn’t owe anything, which was great. We got a refund from Federal, owed California, and owed TurboTax. It all came out just about even.

The siding installation has been stalled on our unit, because they are waiting for some of the siding to come in. They are about 85% finished with our unit, but due to that final 15%, we are still in limbo with putting things back where they belong. My back yard is full of plants from the front yard, everything all smashed together, and I can’t get in there and trim back the bush/tree on the right that is getting unwieldy and it’s bugging me. Maybe I should move a bunch of stuff over the weekend, do my trimming, then move it back. Also, why do I have so many spider plants? I don’t really like spider plants that much. How did I end up with three spider plants? Did I buy them? Did past J like spider plants? I have no idea. I’m going to see how things look when we’re finished, and maybe give two of them away on Buy Nothing.

We had some lovely rain last weekend. It rained Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It was glorious. It even snowed up in the Sierras, though I’m sure that will melt pretty quickly. My plants were very happy, and so were we. As of now, they’re saying sunny nice weather today, tomorrow, and Sunday, and maybe more rain early next week. Fingers crossed.

I don’t have any satisfying ‘before / after’ pictures for you, but I cleaned up my skin care shelf in the bathroom closet, which is big. I also cleaned up Maya’s and Ted’s areas while I was at it. I have a few items that I’m giving away on Buy Nothing, and I got rid of a bunch of clutter. I also cleaned up my makeup drawer. Again, no photos, but it looks better. Not as good as Melissa’s, but that was never going to happen anyway. I have way too much stuff.

I don’t have a before photo, but here’s the ‘after’ from cleaning out the storage closet in our back yard. We’ve been dreaming of having shelving in there for decades, but never did it because a. we are fundamentally lazy, and b. I kind of thought we needed to have custom shelving built, which is spendy and also see a. So, we finally went to Lowe’s last weekend and bought this shelving unit, and now look! Everything is tidy and in its place! Also, some things from the closet under our stairs has migrated out here, so THAT closet is much cleaner as well. The bottom left is a bunch of old paint and an expired fire extinguisher that Ted is going to take to the hazardous waste dropoff, and on the right is recycling. I thought about getting something nicer looking than these big blue bins for recycling, but see a. So that might not happen. What’s next? Who knows. I’m thinking of organizing my books. I used to have them alphabetized by author, but that fell apart years ago and now I just shove books wherever they will fit.They won’t be completely alphabetized, because some books live in the back behind others, due to a lack of shelving and an unwillingness to part with books, but I could get in there and work on it for sure.

Here’s my ‘before’ photo, so I don’t just post an ‘after’. We have more books upstairs, but most of my fiction is here, plus some of Ted’s non fiction. I wish we had more room around here. But our place is 1188 square feet, and there are three of us, and I work from home, and there is neither a basement nor an attic. So this is what we have. We used to have a big custom made bookshelf* that took up this entire wall, but we got rid of it (and a LOT of books) when we tried to sell our place at the beginning of the financial crash in 2007. The area looks lighter and less cramped now (though definitely more cluttered than it was in that second link), but SIGH. We did like having all the books. Should we have another shelf made? See point a. above, also b (meaning spendy). I’ve been trying to be more of a ‘love a book, then pass it on’ type of person, but it goes against my upbringing and my nature in general. I’ve gotten a LOT better about it though.

*It was custom made for the space, but it wasn’t fancy. It was particle board, made by Maya’s preschool teacher’s father, and it was looking pretty run down by the time we got rid of it. But it went to some neighbors and they had it for several years, so it had a second life.

I saw an ad for this t-shirt on Facebook, and it has real 2020 vibes, right? Or maybe 2021 variant vibes?

OK, last bit of randomness for you. Look at the stickers on this tomato. One says Mexico, the other says Canada. I assume if I’m buying imported tomatoes in April, they are from Mexico, right? What’s going on here?