{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}~ January 17, 2016

Jumping in at the last minute~ again!~ with Like Mother, Like Daughter for {phfr}. . .

{Pretty} and {Happy}

I bought some bulbs, paperwhite and amaryllis, on clearance after Christmas; the paperwhites are just now opening.  I prefer to have my bulbs blooming in January than in December.  I find that Christmas preparations keep things bright and cheery all on their own, but January needs a boost.  The amaryllis seems slow out of the gate this year, but if it wants to bloom in February, I won't complain.

The thermometer was registering at 15 to 17 degrees.  Brrrrr!

The pond is frozen over and the fairly substantial dusting of snow we had overnight makes it look like an untrampled field, but the ice is not yet thick enough to walk on!

One more {pretty} and {happy} to show you~

We are still rearranging furniture and hanging pictures after we had several rooms painted last October.  We moved the futon that was in the conservatory to Dave's office.  We decided having a double bed in there just made it too crowded, but we still wanted the room to double as a guest room.  I dithered and hemmed and hawed about what to put in the futon's place.  Another sofa?  Not that we really need yet another place to sit. . . Hardly anyone ever sat on the futon as it was.  A cabinet of some sort?  Maybe, but it would have to possess a lot of personality and presence to not be swallowed up by the size of the room.  A desk for me?  I've never, ever had a desk in all of the time we've been married, but I just wasn't sure I wanted one.

So we visited a local furniture store and looked at everything they had.  I had a sense that when we found the right thing, it would jump out at us and knock us down.  But . . . it wasn't happening.  We saw several things that would work, but nothing definitive was showing itself.  Until, that is, we walked past some of the clearance items at the back of the store.  There was this table there with a scratch, but it wasn't anything my magic marker wouldn't cover well enough.  It was marked at $199.  I saw the possibilities of this table.  There were two matching chairs nearby, so I asked if they were included in the price.  When the salesmen said yes, suddenly all three pieces jumped out at me and knocked me down.  I knew this was it!  It's amazing how much potential the right price brings out.  So we brought the set home today, and with a little more rearranging of furniture, it is happily installed.  See, see??

I must tidy up the cords underneath . . .

The original price was $749 for the table and six chairs.  Where the other four chairs are I know not, but I didn't want them anyway.  I still have some thinking and rearranging of the items on top to do, but this is a start, and I think this general set-up will prove functional and aesthetically pleasing.  Plus, it can serve as overflow seating for large gatherings.  *Plus* we still have enough money leftover to get the living room couch reupholstered. Win-win-win!

{Funny}

Yesterday, Dave and I went to the campus of Washington University in St. Louis to view an exhibit of the paintings of Winston Churchill.  We really enjoyed it!  Churchill taught himself to paint and eventually earned a diploma from the Royal Academy.  Once, a painting he entered in an amateur competition was mistaken by a judge to be done by a professional.  After we had seen everything in that exhibit, we visited the permanent collection, and amidst an Edvard Munch (so-so), a Sir Joshua Reynolds (really fine!), and a completely pointless Man Ray mobile was this:

The description on the wall says it's a 2012 lithograph by American artist Nicole Eisenman.  It's titled "Tea Party," but Dave and I thought it was funny because it looks like Martin Luther and Winston Churchill talking with Death!  We have no idea what the point of it is and there was no description beyond the artist, year, medium, and title.