An Unproductive Day

Yesterday, I spent most of the day helping my mom with various projects, including a trip to Idaho Falls. She had gotten her fireboxes from Dad's house, and just carrying them to her car had made her chest hurt. So I got the job of carrying them into her basement. The original plan had been to pick up Mom's new lawnmower before 10:00 am, then head for IF, but Dad threw a snag into our plans. He'd picked today to get the snow tires off of the pickup. So we got the lawnmower closer to 10:30 am (it was NOT in a box as we'd been led to believe, which made it MUCH easier to get out of the pickup again). Then we had to clear some empty boxes out of Mom's garage for a place to put it, which meant that we stopped at K-Mart to recycle said boxes before actually getting underway.

Next stop: The Canton Restaurant in IF. I talked Mom into sharing some of their sesame chicken, with a side of stir-fried vegetables. They made it with cornstarch batter, per my request. It was MUCH better with the stir-fried vegetables to go with it.

We went to Best Buy (total bust, and lousy service), and Linens and Things next. Mom got another size of the bowls I'd gotten her for easter. Incidentally, we got much better service at Circuit City than we did at Best Buy, and Mom wound up buying a new DVD player. Grandma's will no longer play. I may take it and disassemble it. I doubt I can fix it, but it would be fun to see what all's inside.

Then we went over to furniture row. No queensize bookcase headboard (Mom would like one), but she did find some kitchen chairs she liked. They are nice. Solid oak construction. Wheeled base. Rather blah cushions, but they're the kind you can pull off and replace. So I took Mom/Grandma's old chairs (all but one; we haven't connected the base to the seat on the new ones yet), and I plan to spruce them up a bit. Or a lot. The old ones have a brass frame with a cushioned cloth seat and back. I may find some pewter metallic paint to cover up the brass. Then I figure I'll deconstruct the seats and backs. If the woodboard and cushioning is okay, I'll keep those. I would definitely like a different upholstery. One more thing: the back will be held on by more than a single screw. Those things broke on a regular basis, simply because one screw was not enough.

Last Stops: Target and Barnes and Noble. The only place I bought anything was Target. Two necessities, and a "painting". It's that new style, where it looks like you've got a genuine canvas, but it's really just printed onto a fancier material. It's a picture of red plum blossoms on a white background in a black frame. I've got one room painted entirely red, and I think the white background on this picture will look awesome in there.

Anyway, time to head for taiji.