Furniture sWAPpIng

I found a somewhat shorter hike for tomorrow. It's a bit further away, sort of north and west of American Falls. It's over the Wapi Lava Flow. Oh, I have a hat this time. Very important, to have your own hat. I really would have liked to have had a hat on Tuesday. Oh, you mean you don't know why a hat is so important? Wellllllll... it's a desert, see, full of sunlight, see, and it gets ruddy hot, see... Anyway. Part of the appeal of this hike is the driving directions just to get there. It's towards the bottom of the link above. But basically, it goes: "Turn left at A, after x1 miles, turn right, after x2 miles turn left, after x3 miles turn left, after x4 miles turn right..." So I have a printout of the directions this time. There's no way I'm going to remember all those tomorrow morning. :^D

I might have gone today, except today was Trading Couches Day (tm). See, my mom has never liked my grandma's purplish couch (which she calls burgundy). Actually, Grandma bought it before having her eyes lasered back to health, and once she could see, she didn't like it either. *grins* However, I have no problem with it, and MY couch (which was a present from Grandma) had been irritating my back lately. So I proposed a swap. Mom accepted. Oh, my old couch was a light blue. One problem: No one to help us move them. My mom is not...so gifted in the strength department. And we don't ask my dad to help unless there's NO other option any more. However, an opportunity developed.

I had an old twin bed that was, well, no longer useful to me. We offered it to my cousin Cait (she has three kids now, and, yes, that's how she spells it). She accepted. So Aunt Sandra, cousin Damian, cousin Cait, and cousin-in-law Chris, as well as my semi-niece Samantha (all of five years old) all got together for a major furniture rendezvous. Moving my old couch was the worst. It's got recliners at both ends. After that, everything else was easy. Mom gave them a recliner/rocker that she'd just replaced, and gave me a table that I'd picked out for grandma only last summer. It's the right height for my laptop while I'm on my "new" couch. Plus, it's pretty, and Mom would have just gotten rid of it. Oh, I also gave Cait and Chris most of my old twin size bedding. I thought I had more; I must have given a bunch to DI already. But they got two comforters, some mattress covers and a fitted sheet. Probably a blanket, too. So it all worked out.

Then Mom took me out to Chang's as a sort of reward. Nice reward, since I got that meal, plus enough leftovers for two more. (Amusing sidenote: I have to ask for food without soy sauce, as it contains wheat. Mom has discovered she likes a lot of dishes better without the soy sauce, so she's started copying me. Also, she doesn't really like the leftovers, so this means I can take them. :^D)

Oh, and I got dragged along to church choir practice tonight, as Mom needed someone to turn pages. However, as their best soprano went AWOL on them ("Oh! I must go to Europe for three weeks, one of which is Music Sunday! Oh! Whatever shall I wear?!?"), I may be demoted to Soprano, and Mom will find someone else to turn pages. My voice is extremely out of practice, yet still better than most of their sopranos. And, amazingly, I haven't lost my ability to sight-read. We shall see how THAT turns out on Sunday. The songs are all decent. Some are even fun. There's one that I can't stand. I despise any religious song where you could change "God" to "Steve" or "Charlie" and sell it as a pop-lovesong. Eck.