Day 158 of 365

I can't make fun of my husband in his rocking chair anymore.

We have a finished basement. Down there is our daughter's old room, a bathroom, the washer/dryer, some built in shelves where we store our stockpile, and a TV room. My husband has a full wall of all his sports memorabilia there, too. He's not really a collector (he does have favorite teams and has some of their things), but when he was in college he did work with the football and basketball teams, so he has leftover college stuff and he coached high school athletics for many years and has all that stuff.

A few years back we decided to make the plain white room where the TV was into somewhat of a home theater. We painted the walls a darker color. We used a lighter color to make several rectangles on the wall that we framed with brown molding. Inside those frames, we hung posters of my husbands favorite movies. We have a couch and a couple rocking recliners down there. And we left all his sports stuff.

I rarely go down there to watch TV. The exercise bike is in my daughter's old room, so I go downstairs every day to ride. Most days, I might stop and watch TV for a half hour or so after I ride to cool down. (Having a nice cool basement is sure nice on hot summer days.)

My husband is always down there. When school is going on, after dinner he heads down there and doesn't come up until bedtime. Some days in the summer he'll stay there from breakfast to lunchtime, then lunchtime to dinnertime, then dinnertime to bedtime. He grew up watching television so it's a big part of his life.

I always make fun of him in his recliner, especially during the school year. Not because he is in it so much, but because during the school year, after a long day teaching and a filling dinner, he falls asleep in it. Immediately. Like 10 minutes after sitting down, he's snoring. Sometimes it's so loud I can hear him upstairs. For him, the chair = sleep.

I can't make fun of him anymore. For the last several weeks when I have watched TV with him - mostly the Saturday/Sunday NASCAR races - I have fallen asleep. I don't know if it's the monotony of the cars going round and round, or the humming of the engines, or because it's the weekend and I'm particularly tired, but I can't keep my eyes open. I'm not a napper - I don't ever take naps in the afternoon - but for some reason the recliner = sleep for me too. (I have to admit though, napping feels pretty darn good.) Maybe he's on to something.

Kinda like the kitty. The pillow on the edge of the living room couch = sleep for her. She's got the right idea!

Day 157 of 365

I'm ready.

More accurately, my office is ready. Today I spent another full day getting my office ready. My daughter and I already spent a full day there this week, moving furniture and books of boxes. Since I have a new position, it requires new boxes of books/binders/materials. So to make room for those new books/binders/materials, I had to get all the old boxes of books/binders/materials out. And since my previous position is going unfilled, those old things were distributed all over the building. (Again, thank goodness for my young, fit daughter!)

With all that distributing, all that book/binder/materials switcheroo, we ran out of time to actually put all the new things away. My office looked like it was ransacked, so I had to spend some time on my own getting things in order.

And it is. It took more moving and shuffling of boxes of books/binders/materials than I had planned. And again, I am pooped.

Not too pooped to get some sewing in. Since my turtles are done, I started a new kids' quilt for charity. A little while back I got some pre-cut squares. A little while back I also learned a new pattern/technique called Disappearing Nine Patch.

I still need to add a row at the bottom to give it some length. Also, the black seems to overwhelm the quilt, so I think I'll add a bright border to temper it. A true work in progress.