Strange and unnatural carpet wall begone

Mirthful 3 Comments

Since I finally got around to buying goggles and mask, I thought I might as well get to it and tackle that horrible unnaturalness on the wall in the soon-to-be hobby room.

Midway. I forgot to do a before.
Midway. I forgot to do a before.

The goggles and mask were necessary, because the glue holding the monstrosity to the wall was very dry and brittle. Thus tearing the carpet down was a cinch, getting the glue off was somewhat trickier. That is, it turned out to be easier than expected, using this tool:

A scrape
A scrape

And some elbow grease, it took less than an hour in all, I think. It resulted in a lot of this, though:

Debris. Very, very dusty debris.
Debris. Very, very dusty debris.

Which is why I thought the goggles and mask were required accessories for the job. Because, frankly, this would not normally be how I dress up of a Sunday afternoon:

Boo!
Boo!

However, it’s gone. The strange and unnatural and mind-boggling wall covering carpet is gone.

I dare you to try to explain to me how this is not "carpet" but perfectly normal wallpaper.
I dare you to try to explain to me how this is not "carpet" but perfectly normal wallpaper.

I realise I might now offend someone out there who just looooves their wooly walls, and, well, to each his own and ours is not to judge. But first stones aside: Are you mad? I mean, fine, you’re mad, I don’t really care. Whatever makes you happy. As long as the shit’s down off our wall.

On the subject of mad: What’s with mothers? Mine thinks we should have been all moved in by now (including having emptied the storage facility). I commented that as long as we were still refurbishing it would take a while, and that the magic carpet wall was next in turn (this was before I attacked it this weekend, obviously). She then let me know that she’d thought about it and had decided we should leave it as it was (and I mean “should” not “ought to”). Apparently she thinks it might help noice reduction between the rooms. Well, I granted her the point but wondered why she thought we would be in dire need of noise reduction between the hobby room and our bedroom. Well, it might be handy whenever it was used as a guest room, she argued. Which might happen, oh, I don’t know, at least once every blue moon, I guess, but I didn’t argue, just pointed out that I’d already started pulling it down to see if I could. In which case it was ok, apparently, to continue.

Why does she care, anyway? She lives in town, she’s hardly likely to ever need to sleep over. Besides: I HATE THAT WALL. Seriously, isn’t that reason enough to tear it down? Knowing us we’ll more or less cover the wall in shelving anyway, there’s noise reduction for you.

And what’s with everyone’s haste on our behalf? I don’t care if it takes us years to be done “moving in”, it’s not as if I’m planning on moving out again. I just said hello to our downstairs neighbour for the first time yesterday and she said they’ve lived here for 39 years. THAT’s what I’m planning on. Fine, I know, I know, life doesn’t actually always work out according to plan, but does that mean we should treat this place like we’re on a short term lease? Fuck that.

Følge og følge, Fru Blom

Mirthful 1 Comment

Jeg leser i hovedsak blogger i Google Reader. Det passer meg best, det er nemlig den enkleste måten for meg å sørge for at jeg får lest de viktigste (for meg) bloggene hver dag, samtidig som jeg har et lass med inspirasjon i form av forskjellige kategorier som jeg leser litt mer av og på. Men så var det dette med følgere, da. Det er jo for eksempel sånn at de fleste som har giborter og som bruker Blogger/Blogspot har som krav at man er “fast følger” for å få ekstralodd. Og, joda, jeg kan jo gjerne være det, men Bloggerprofilen min er jo ikke akkurat så givende. Men jeg skjønner jo at det er litt morsomt for folk å følge med på hvem som leser bloggen deres, så de siste dagene har jeg tatt et lite raid og forsøkt å få lagt meg til som følger på de bloggene jeg har i Google Reader. Det blir nok fler etterhvert også. Og sånn helt forsøksvis har jeg lagt en sånn Google Kontaktnettverk-widget på egen blogg også, nede i høyre marg, så hvis noen har lyst til å følge meg, så har de nå mulighet. Ikke helt sikker på hvordan det egentlig vil funke siden bloggen min ikke er en Blogger/Blogspot-blogg, men det vil jo vise seg. Og jeg kan jo alltids ta den bort etterhvert dersom det ikke later til å ha noe for seg.

Men så vet dere nå det. Hva det nå var.

More hooks

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We followed up the Oslo Whiskyfestival with a short cruise to Fredrikshavn, and with 12 hours ashore, we decided to take the bus down to Ålborg instead of hanging around Fredrikshavn. In Ålborg I had noted down a couple of shops I wanted to visit, and one of them was Tiger. They had a lot of almost interesting things, but very few interesting enough to tempt me, but I did find some more wall hooks, or coat hangers or whatever you’d call them. Blatant rip-offs, obviously, and normally I don’t hold with buying designer rip-offs, but what with the problems I’ve been having finding any hooks I like and that actually work, in that it’s possible to hang something on them and expect that it stays there, I thought I’d go for them. Also, they were only 30 DKR each. Later the same day I saw some others, also quite blatantly rip-offs, more or less identical, at 6 times that. I mean, if you’re buying rip-offs, why pay more than you have to?

Anyway, they are up now. One has replaced the very cute but completely useless (in that it would only hold two garments, and not very bulky ones) coat hanger from IKEA that we put up in the hall for the lass’ clothes:

See: More than two garments, and bulky ones at that. And still there's room for more!
See: More than two garments, and bulky ones at that. And still there’s room for more!

The other one has been added to the bedroom wall, where some odds and ends have also come up:

20101114_knagg2The crooked (my fault, I haste to add) picture is a present from T, the angel from L and the messy artwork is the lass’ “creation”, with rather a lot of help from the daycare staff.

Selvsagt

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Jeg og snuppa var på kafé på lørdag, og mens vi satt der kom en far med to gutter – mest sannsynlig tvillinger. De satt seg på et bord i nærheten, og den ene gutten hadde veldig fin strikkelue. Snuppa var midt i en “Hvor kommer … fra?” spørsmålsrunde, noe hun driver med en del for tiden, så hun spurte selvsagt:

Og hvor kommer luan demmers fra?

Jeg: Tja, de kan komme fra fabrikk, eller kanskje de har en farmor som har strikket til dem?

Snuppa: Ikke min farmor!

Jeg: Nei, ikke din, farmor, men de guttene har kanskje en farmor de også, som har strikket til dem. Eller en mormor.

Snuppa: Eller beste.

Jeg: Ja, eller beste.

Snuppa: Eller farfar.

Det er bra å få en påminnelse når jeg glemmer meg og forfekter et gammeldags kjønnsrollemønster.

Score!

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Saturday afternoon we visited IKEA. Since there were a few specific things on our list, we started in Rotekroken – the section with all the stuff that’s been displayed or returned and is being sold at reduced prices.

And what do you think we found? A limited edition Billy bookcase, that’s what.

20101104_billy1

Billy is 30 years old, and to celebrate, a special edition was designed by IKEA designer Annika Bryngelson. They were supposed to be available from 1 October, but we haven’t been able to find them. And though we are sticking with boring old oak in the living room, we thought one of these would be perfect in the craft room to hold comics.

20101104_billy2Though it would work for Shakespeare, too, I guess. And we sure have a few volumes to host with his name on them, too.

20101104_billy3I love it. It came with shelves, by the way, but we had to remove them to get it home, and haven’t put them back yet. All in all we were pretty happy just to find the darn thing, but the best thing? The price:

20101104_billy4I don’t know what’s up with that. I’m pretty sure the “was” should be the same as standard Billy, which starts at 365 kr for the plain white. You won’t see me complain, though.

Oh, and three steps down we found another Billy, this one in oak, which was one of the things on our to-buy-today-list. Nice.

The delights of Trondheim #1

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I might make this a series, hence the #1.

First up, anyway, is Strindens promenadeorkester, eh, excuse me, Strindens Promenade Orchester. We tend to head for the town centre most Saturdays, to take a walk up or down Nordre and have coffee at a suitable café, most frequently Somma. This Saturday we walked out of Somma to find Strindens just getting started on a little street concert to celebrate their 47th and a half birthday.

Most of the orchestra
Most of the orchestra

We stopped to listen, the lass had a wee dance or ten and we had some laughs. Because with Strindens you get antics. You also get music, swinging music, but mostly you get antics.

Music
Music
Antics. A fast head-shoulders-knees-and-toes to warm up.
Antics. A fast head-shoulders-knees-and-toes to warm up.
Antics. A little nap. And as you can tell, I wasn't the only one with my camera out.
Antics. A little nap. And as you can tell, I wasn't the only one with my camera out.
Antics. And music.
Antics. And music.

NaBloPoMo

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Ok, so, I know it’s the 2nd. But I did post yesterday, it’s just that I posted on the bookblog and on the ingestibles blog rather than here. I’m going to say it counts, though.

So, I’m not going quite as crazy as tonbel and doing the NaNoWriMo, though every year when it comes up I think “well, maybe next year”. So, maybe next year. But I think I can do NaBloPoMo, as I’m in a bit of a blogging groove or something (I mean, when’s the last time I wrote as many blogposts in a month as I’ve done this October?). One thing, though: By now, shouldn’t it be IntBloPoMo? It’s hardly a “national” phenomenon anymore, is it?

Wait, ok, just to be completely crazy – or possibly bite over more than I can chew, I’m going to post the ingestibles blog to the blogroll, too. That’ll be fun. Yeah.

Bloggers I read regularly who are also doing it (will add to this list as I discover more…):

Parker on a Friday

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Like I just said on the bookblog, I found out via Mammadamen (thanks!) that The Paris Review have put some of their interviews with significant authors online, amongst them Dorothy Parker, and who doesn’t love Dorothy?

So I thought it fitting to post a little poem of hers, despite it being almost impossible to choose which one. Here’s to you, on a Friday:

Neither Bloody Nor Bowed

They say of me, and so they should,
It’s doubtful if I come to good.
I see acquaintances and friends
Accumulating dividends,
And making enviable names
In science, art, and parlor games.
But I, despite expert advice,
Keep doing things I think are nice,
And though to good I never come-
Inseparable my nose and thumb!

— Dorothy Parker