Cabinet Shuffle

And here it is:

The finished project!

As you can see, there's lots of storage in it!  And it has a nice country-cupboard look to it that sets it apart from the other white cupboards in our kitchen.

I still haven't figured out what to put on top of it - it needs a plant or something decorative.

This was a fair bit of work:  because I used alkyd paint the coats needed to dry a day before I could apply another coat, and the painting ended up stretching over a couple of weeks as a result.  Painting inside cupboards is a real pain, too, literally:  my back was killing me every night.

Expense-wise, it wasn't bad.  I probably spent between $175 and $200 all in.  To buy a new cabinet like this would be about $400 or so (and assembly required), so I feel pretty good about it.

It's nice to change up the kitchen a bit.  The grey paint on the walls is new as well - it was green, but I was tired of the colour.  We had it redone in 2001, so it has needed a little work.  It could use more, but that's all it's getting for now.

No more projects until the new year!

Retirement Sucks!

Just kidding, it's freakin' awesome!  My worst day retired is still way better than a good day at the office.

So here's the thing about retirement, though:  you have to set your own schedule.  This is something I am struggling with; I want to be a good girl and do my housework on a regular basis (like I had to do when I was working), but when the days stretch out before you seemingly endlessly with few hard commitments, it's easy to say you'll do it tomorrow, as you become distracted by things like blogs.  Hmmm.  You see the problem.

Anyway, the fact that there is a warm kitty curled up on my legs is what I am blaming my current laziness on.  Bad kitty, Jezebel!  But don't move.

The freedom of retirement means I can take on projects I never would have gotten to do while working.  For instance, when we had some windows replaced this fall, and the work messed up the walls a bit, I decided to repaint the kitchen!  I will post pictures soon, but the kitchen is still in upheaval because I started a project in August that is only now almost finished:  purchasing and painting an old china cabinet.

In its original home.

I bought it from a nice young woman on Facebook (yeah, I know, I said I wouldn't go there anymore).  It looks pretty good in this photo (the only pre-paint one I have), but it had been exposed to some weather and was a bit rough.  What I needed was more storage space, and this is going to help out a lot.

Once I'm finished I'll post a completed pic.  Soon!

So What If Blogging Is Unpopular?

The thing about blogging these days seems to be that people aren't doing it.  It has fallen out of favour - one is supposed to use Facebook, or Twitter, or TikTok (?), but no one wants to read anyone's blog anymore, it seems.

I used to follow a lot of blogs, and every last one of them is sitting unused, or has been shut down.  Every one.

I feel kind of bad that I haven't been following them (too busy with other useless pursuits, to be honest), and that's probably why they have fallen away.  One that I used to like was "SalliesART"; a nice lady who was a devout catholic and who had a lovely little black cat named Suki.  She used to like to do artwork based on icons and other catholic images.  Now, her blog is gone and I guess she probably is, too.  She wasn't very well, and I'm guessing her health took a downturn when I was not paying attention - not checking up on the old blogs.  I hate the fact that her blog is just *gone* - all those fun stories about her cat, her pretty artwork, her loving references to her family - all gone.

My friend Wendy, who I really got to know mostly through her blog, passed away suddenly in 2010, and a few years later her blog was closed down.  I was sorry to see it go, as it was a link with my past as well as hers.  But all things fade and disappear, and we are as ephemeral as these pages.

So, I have decided, that I will buck the trend and keep my blog going - for as long as I can.  My retired state gives me a bit more freedom to post.

And I'm staying away from Facebook - people there are friggin' crazy.

And, here I am again...

Well, it's about time for my yearly missive.  It just occurred to me that I haven't had anything to say here in a long time, but there are several reasons for that.

First off, I'm trying to be a bit more careful about what I say online.  I've pretty much sworn off Facebook (the premiere site for arguing with friends and relatives), and I've occasionally embarrassed myself on Twitter (the premiere site for arguing with strangers), so I now tend to read other people's opinions, write a snarky answer, and delete without posting.

Honestly, there is just too much garbage on Facebook - where people read memes and think they've read a news article.  And although Twitter is a good place to get breaking news, it becomes an echo chamber once you mute or block all the rude/racist/ignorant Twits.

If you ever need proof of the bell-curve of human intelligence, go on social media.  Try a thread from a CBC news post or tweet - it's all there.

Secondly, you can see by what I've written above that it's really hard for me to keep my opinions to myself.  I start typing and they come rushing out of my fingertips.  So simply not writing anything seems the safer way to go.

And lastly, the big reason:  I've been in a semi-funk for the last couple of years.  It's a low-level depression, as far as I can tell.  A couple of things happened in close succession that changed my world significantly, and I haven't recovered; or maybe I have just changed.

Anyway, I have another big change on the horizon, and this one I am looking forward to:  I'm retiring!  In four months - according to days.to, which I link to on my iPad - I have 119 days of full-time employment left, and as much as I like my job and love my co-workers, I'll be glad to be done.

So, I may start posting here more often.  Or not.  We'll see....