Mockado Monday

mockado ~ inferior quality woollen fabric

So ... the blame for the return to the summer-like weather rests totally on the hubby’s shoulders. He declared summer over last weekend and closed up the pool. So naturally, in typical Canadian fashion, the days started getting warmer and soon the nights were getting warmer too.

The weekend was downright hot, and this week is supposed to be even hotter. The weather is nicer now than it was in June and July. Go figure.

The coyotes have moved on again. How do I know this? The abundance of squirrels at my bird feeder. It’s a big feeder, but the squirrels and starlings can empty it in less than a day. Which is why I’ve taken to leaving seeds out in a dish on the table on our deck, along with the peanuts for the jays. It gives the little birds a fighting chance.

Unfortunately, it looks like my sparrows and chickadees have been frightened off, but I have a pair of cardinals that visit at dusk and dawn. And one afternoon I was sitting on the desk reading and a little chipmunk climbed up on the table to check out the dish. I love chipmunks. So after that I started leaving peanuts on the deck for him when I put peanuts out for the jays.

In other news ... I have my desk.

It’s not exactly the desk I wanted, but it’s the desk I needed. Sometimes our dreams just aren’t practical and we have to let them go.

One of the reasons I want to move across the hall is for the view. My current office has a northern exposure and the other room has a southern one. I’ve often said I’m solar powered and the view from the southern exposure is more energizing than a northern one.

The dream desk is big. Too big for the room I want it for really. And there’s only one place I could put it where my back wouldn’t be to the window and at that I’d only have a partial view.

We drove up to Ajax on Wednesday night to pick up this desk and my first thought was that it wasn’t deep enough for my lap top. But the hubby was positive he could fix that, and he’s actually already done so. He took the very top off, which had some water damage to the finish, and cannibalized it to add to the depth. Now he just needs to fit a new top on it.

I don’t have as many little cubby holes as the dream desk had, but I have more drawers, which is even better. Not as many as it looks like in the picture, there’s actually only two down each side, but the ones on the bottom are deep enough to hold file folders and I’m hoping to talk my ever so handy hubby into making removable trays for the two upper ones.

It needs new drawer pulls, which means I get to go to Primitive Designs and indulge in some fancy ceramic ones. And the amazing part? It’s exactly the same height as the window sill. And the bookcase I have against the desk in my current office will fit exactly in front of the new one.

Now the search is on for a chair to go with it. ;-)

Meditabund Monday

meditabund ~ absorbed in meditation

What do you think? Do you think we’ve seen the last of the summer weather? Not that we saw a whole lot of it during the summer - it was rather wet and cool. But when I woke up yesterday morning and it was only 8 C (about 45 F) I think it’s safe to say we don’t have to worry about a heat wave any time soon.

Now that all the vacations are over - mine, the brother-in-law’s (which necessitated the hubby going in to work an hour earlier), and the hubby’s - I’m slowly easing back into a routine. At least as far as the morning goes.

So naturally my subconscious is trying to throw a wrench into the spanner. I fully intend to reclaim the workroom (across the hall from my office) as my new office. Actually, that room is more a return to my office. It started out as my office pretty much from the day we bought this house.

Back then I had a big old secretary’s desk in there, very similar to what I have in my current office. But I really don’t need all that space, and a smaller desk will allow for a new bookcase under the window (like the one I have in my current office).

Here’s where it gets a little complicated.

There is a grey lounge chair in the rec room that really doesn’t fit - there’s just no room for it. Rather than give it away or throw it out, we’d like to put it in the work room. Of course at the moment there’s no room for it there, either.

What there is is a futon covered in cat hair because one of the cats has claimed it for his own. Other than that it’s in great shape. Certainly it’s in better shape than the one that followed the daughter through her university years, and now resides in her basement. Do you see where this is going?

She’s going to get rid of her futon and take ours, which gives us enough room in the workroom for the grey lounge chair and a new desk. Now despite the fact The daughter has not gotten rid of her futon yet, putting events in motion, I’ve been looking for a desk. But not just any desk, my dream desk.

On a whim I checked out Kijiji, an online buy and sell classifieds site, and I almost wish I hadn’t. Kijiji had my desk. Actually, it had several versions of my desk and they were all affordable. And some of them were within doable driving distance. So I emailed several of the most promising ones and ... I still do not have a desk, just a large dose of frustration.

A couple of the desks were already gone, a couple of emails went unanswered, and the two emails that sent me replies did not reply again when I asked for a few more details about their desk, like measurements to make sure it would fit in the back of our SUV.

The nice thing about Kijiji is that new items are always being added and you can narrow your search by item and price. I have a folder on my desktop for the desks I’ve bookmarked and sent emails to show my interest. Now that the weekend is over I’m going to delete what’s in this folder and start fresh Thursday night.

The search continues.