Yeah, we’ve had it a loooong time, and it was my mother-in-laws before that. It’s one of those “they don’t make them like this anymore” in terms of sturdiness, but also hideousness. We’ve considered a couch cover, but they’re either so pricey as to be a significant part of the replacement / reupholster cost, or so ill-fitting that it’s just a different sort of fugly.
Still, it’s not well enough made or of sufficient value to justify a real major effort to save it, so it’ll probably be replaced with a moderately priced model in a year or so.
I have for many years been an admirer of native British orchids. Now: I say that orchids are like dogs - they know when someone is friendly. So they moved into our front yard. Here’s a picture of most of them, which I took a few minutes ago.
Around this time of year, if we’re working out front, passers by will often comment or ask about them. (I should explain that I took he photo with my back to the road - the wall is to give us some privacy when we’re in the back yard.)
They’re common spotted orchids, so not rare at all, but still an unusual and spectacular show for a couple of weeks of the year.
I did the couch cover thing a couple of times. Where you are talking to your spouse and say, that looks… ok. And neither one of you agree. Sometimes ya gotta try though.
My wife and I like our two Amish rocking chairs. We set them up next to a coffee table. One on either side. Chess board is on the table. In the chairs you can rock forward to get a good look at the game, make your move and then rock back and raise your eyebrow ominously. It’s great.
Yes, we are rather strange. But we earned it dammit.
Diana is evil but now that she’s older she almost never tips things off.
Now that winter has come we’ve started using the fireplace, and nobody loves it more than she does:
Truly, a roaring fire (wood or gas) is a cat magnet during cold weather. My cats love it, though I normally only bother when we have guests around new years since it’s darn inefficient at actual heating.
I have an electric artificial fire log thing in my fireplace - it just projects the image of a fire. No heat. My cat has never even seen a real fire. But she immediately goes and sits by the fireplace whenever I turn it on.
Cat magnet indeed. You’ve seen photos of the Gettysburg battlefield? In the middle of winter, our four cats would just splotch out in front of the fireplace. We called it “Kittysburg.”
Mental images like that make me wish for more than the two we have. Then again, shrieks for attention while trying to sleep make me love the snakes who largely make no noise or fuss 24/7.
