Thursday, June 23, 2011

Why I could not decorate without calculus

First off, let me say, I am SO CLOSE to being finished with my ceilings!  All I have left to do today is paint one room, and patch and sand the other (it'll be painted tomorrow).  Yesterday I managed to reorganize the crap junk things sitting in my living room so that they take up less space.  And I bagged and stored both of our twin mattresses and box springs from the guest bedroom.  Did you know that U-haul sells mattress storage bags for $2.95?  Home Depot and Lowe's each wanted over $10 apiece.  Keep this in mind the next time you want to store something! 

I also succeeded in selling our old nasty chair on Craigslist.  It was something my husband had had since he was in college (anyone else's husband attached to yucky college furniture??), and he insisted we keep it because it was "sooooooo  comfortable."  Except, he never sat on it, and it became the dropping place for his briefcase and bike helmet (he rides his bike to his professional desk job b/c we're awesome and green like that).  So, he finally agreed to let me sell it on Craigslist.  I listed four things two days ago: a desk, a dining table and chairs, a couch with  slipcover, and the ugly nostalgic chair.  Only thing that sold immediately?  You guessed it... the ugly chair. 

**Quick Craigslist question to all of you pros out there.  When I was searching for my couch, I swear I saw the exact same postings pop up over and over, sometimes posted only hours apart.  But when I went to re-post my couch a day or so after the original posting, it told me I had to delete the first post because they don't want identical postings cropping up over and over again.  How can others get away with this?  Am I really going to have to delete and re-post my ad everyday?  Any and all advice on the topic is needed/appreciated!!**

I also succeeded in finishing my make over of the little ceramic elephant!  It was a bit of a struggle because as you know, my house is a horrible mess, and I couldn't find any newspaper to cover my project table outdoors to protect it from the spray paint.  I went fishing for something else I could use in a pinch and came across a pile of my old exams from college.  I leafed through them, and decided that I would never need them again, so here's what I did with them:



I call it "calculus collage plus plastic bag."  Can you say "ghetto?!" And have I ever once used any of the material from the 12 courses I had to take beyond calculus since graduating?  No.  But the exams are great for scratch paper!  And yes, that is blue painters tape holding it all together.  I told you my house was dirty and disorganized!  Here's a close up of one of the pages:
In case you can't read the problem... "Two ships start at the same point at noon.  One goes south at 15km/hr, and the other goes northeast at 20km/hr.  How fast is the rate of distance between them changing at 4PM?"  Answer: 32.392347 km/hr.  BOOM!  I wish I was still this smart.  (If you really are THAT big of a nerd, click on the picture to view it in its larger form and see all of my picture perfect work, if-I-do-say-so-myself.  I have to be good at something, right?)  Oh well, back to spray painting an elephant...

He looked like this when I bought him  for $1 at a thrift store:


Love that hand-painted, artisan look, no? ;)

After three coats(because I messed up coat #2) of glossy white Krylon, my little Goodwill score looks like this:



Isn't he adorable??  I just love my white little pachyderm.  He will someday live in a charming little vignette that I have yet to assemble - I blame it on my ceilings (what am I going to blame everything on when I'm done?!). 

So, there you have it.  If your child ever questions why higher math is necessary (and it IS! I will always defend this: it teaches you how to THINK, people!), you can tell them that it is valuable for almost every career, including interior design.  Happy Thursday, friends!

3 comments:

  1. i love your elephant! what a great idea!!
    www.moddybee.blogspot.com

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  2. Love the elephant!!

    Good luck with getting your house back together!

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  3. Cute pachyderm. Sometimes you need to get away from the horrendously awful projects and do something fun, no?
    Don't get me started on calculus. I was a math teacher before my twins came along...

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