Hello there green beans. Don’t you look like a tasty dinner? Yes you do.

The garden has done better this year than last so far. Certainly there are more bugs but the the plants are growing well and not being baked to death so it is an improvement. I think I will have more green beans this weekend. Also, there are little soybean pods, the eggplant bloomed, I have a Santa Fe pepper and several tomatoes on, the potatoes are doing well, the two-year onions are getting big, the yellow squash is blooming and the okra and cucumbers are starting to grow a little more.

I have, of course, continued to be bad about posting here. Mostly that’s laziness but some of it is that I have been working a lot. I spent a lot of time at the office in the last four months but my work was noticed and appreciated which is always nice. Today I finally managed to finish digging myself out from under the pile of data analysis work I’d been doing and started on one of my projects again. It felt good but it’s hard to switch gears to something creative when you’ve been doing analytical stuff for so long. I had done a better job of balancing the tasks in previous months but sometimes there’s just a lot of one thing or the other. The company is having a happy hour tomorrow after work which will be a nice change of pace.

Let’s see what else is going on? As I had promised myself, after taxes and bills were paid I bought myself some bedroom furniture. It’s the ‘Sierra’ bed, chest and night stands (on back order until July) from Crate and Barrel. Now I need to get a new mattress, paint for the bedroom, one or two queen-sized sheet sets, pillows, curtains, curtain rods, lamps and a partridge in a pear tree. Some of those are more urgent than others. I would like to get the paint done before the new furniture arrives which means I need to go by the Sherwin Williams this week to get samples and that I’ll probably spend a good chunk of Saturday removing all of the existing furniture and clutter from the room. It will be a good chance to clean at least. I got a decent quote on a new mattress but it was a sale price which expired so I’ll have to see if I can work something out with the guy or if there’s something else I like that is on sale or otherwise equivalently priced. I did find some lamps I like but they’re a bit spendy. I can’t find a link to it anyway. I’ll probably end up with curtain rods from Restoration Hardware again. I really like the ones I got for the living room. I don’t know if I want the fancy and very shiny Estate silver or if I want the less shiny and less expensive antique silver rods. I expect it depends on what I decide about other accessories.

Finally, some sad news that most of you who know me already know about. My grandmother died a little less than two weeks ago. I did not get to see her before she passed which I expect I will regret for the rest of my life but I did get to see her at the holidays and she came to see the house last year which was nice. She was a wonderful person and I will miss her more than I can say so I won’t bother trying. I did get to hear a few stories that I hadn’t heard before which was nice and it was good to see the whole family again even under the circumstances. It will also be nice to meet up with everyone again at my cousin’s wedding in June.

That’s about it. Not everything that’s happened in the last nine months but the things that come to mind as I sit here.

My chairs were delivered this morning. They look pretty good. They’re a bit deeper than I was expecting but that’s ok. They look pretty good. I’ll have to call Mary over at Loft and let her know later today. Here are pictures.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’ve been looking for curtains for what started as chairs and has turned into the living room makeover project. I’ve been to many stores and I’m starting to narrow down what I like and part of that is that today I went to Restoration Hardware and bought curtain rods and other curtainy things. Unfortunately I was not able to get all of the hardware that I need to hang curtains but I did the the rods, rings and finials I wanted. The double rod conversion kit was not in stock in the store so they ordered it for me and it should be here next weekend. That’s just the basics though. There are also tie backs, and “drapery wands” and those can get spendy as well.

I got hardware for the two windows in the living room. The windows are each 74″ wide and their tops are 82″ off the floor. This means I need four 50″ X 84″ panels when I actually buy the curtains and I will also want four of the same size sheer drapes to go behind them on the smaller rod. I need to figure out how high to mount the hardware. I don’t want the curtains to drag on the floor but if they hang free from the floor how far off it should they be? Should you be able to see the entire baseboard? Should they just barely brush the carpet? Who knows. There are probably interior design books dedicated to the topic of how to hang your draperies.

Here’s what I ended up getting:

Finials

Double rod conversion

Rings

Plus the actual rods and the base plate on the rod holders is rectangular rather than round. I’m going to see if Santa Claus will bring me the accessories for Christmas.

Also, Vienna Teng is coming through town in November and tickets went on sale today. I missed out on the seats but general admission will be fine. It’s at Stubb’s and I haven’t actually been to a show at Stubb’s before except during SXSW. That’ll be interesting. I missed her the last couple of times she was here so I’m glad I heard about this one. I like her new CD, Inland Territory. It’s a little different from her previous work but it’s good.