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19435. arkymalarky - 5/21/2006 4:57:23 PM Mags is right, Uz. I hate being done before I begin. I've got another week and a half of school and then I have a few days before I have to start working on a big regional conference the second week of June. Then I start a seminar June 19 and won't be around from then until Mid-July.
So pencil me in already! ;-) 19436. PelleNilsson - 5/21/2006 8:52:46 PM Why does there have to be a date? You post one day, I or arky reply one or two days later. Isn't that the whole point and, indeed, the virtue of a forum like this? It is not geared at real-time stuff. It is not a chat site. What is your problem with that, Uzmakk? 19437. judithathome - 5/21/2006 9:31:50 PM Arks...we are SOOOO looking forward to the end of July! 19438. arkymalarky - 5/21/2006 11:18:14 PM Oh, so am I Judith!
I'm looking to survive June, and then July is ALL MINE! Topped off with a great final weekend. Bob and I are both really looking forward to it.
And you've got to come see my classroom! My kids have painted murals on the walls, I found my old-school chalkboard, I've redone most everything, and it's going to be a super environment for the kids and me next year. 19439. judithathome - 5/22/2006 12:41:44 AM Can't wait...and I'm surprised you found that board...seems to be a trend in new oversized kitchens these days. People nail them to walls and scribble lists on them or messages for the kids, etc. Once a hot trend like that starts, original uses of items like that tend to become endangered! 19440. Jenerator - 5/22/2006 12:45:06 AM Arky,
You're so lucky to be able to paint and decorate your room as you want. 19441. arkymalarky - 5/22/2006 1:05:42 AM This one would pull the fridge door off. It stands over 6 ft and has a large, solid oak frame and stand, and it flips, so there's a board on both sides. It is just too cool. People at work are already coveting it, but too bad! It sat in that basement for no telling how long before I sent some kids to look for an old board and they found it. 19442. arkymalarky - 5/22/2006 1:11:27 AM You're right, Jen. I like that old line "better to ask forgiveness than permission." ;-) I tell people stuff like that makes up for the low pay.
But seriously, I had the leeway but I didn't take advantage of it until now. My classroom is my second home, but when I went to work where Bob did for a year and then came back, I found I'd been demoted, room-wise, and I'd never really made it mine until this spring.
It was the other teacher's room, he retired, and I was left with all his stuff--I think he just walked out the door--then of course a few years later he's back teaching part time in another room and asking me where stuff is that I'd finally thrown away after staring at it for two or three years. I've dumped tons more stuff and today I just bought a plain metal desk from Wal-Mart and I'm about to get rid of a bunch more.
Oh, and the retired teacher had built himself a huge bookshelf that I had stripped and stained, not knowing he built it. So it's mine now too. Heh. 19443. arkymalarky - 5/22/2006 1:14:27 AM Don't know how I got "fridge" out of "walls," but same thing. It would need a lot of space at home. I'm planning to use it for a room divider when I retire. It's just too cool. 19444. arkymalarky - 5/22/2006 1:18:26 AM They had the bbq cookoff this weekend and I didn't even get to go. I hate that. Lots of great food, cheap or free. 19445. judithathome - 5/22/2006 6:34:49 PM Arky, have you seen some of the new homes being built? Kitchens are the largest rooms in those houses and they all have bathrooms the size of my den. And every new monstrosity of a home, with no recognizable "style", has to have a home theatre...complete with lush movie-palace style seats bolted to the floor and one entire wall made up of a gigantic screen plasma TV. 19446. PelleNilsson - 5/22/2006 7:50:18 PM Bathroom in the kitchen? The bulemic's dream. 19447. Adam Selene - 5/22/2006 8:42:27 PM I want that tv in my bathroom, along with a fridge. That way I don't need the movie-palace style seat, and I only have to leave when the fridge is empty. (I think that was a Tool Time episode...) 19448. arkymalarky - 5/23/2006 12:12:38 AM All the poor bulemic needs is a sink, and almost every kitchen has one of those.
Sounds like you need a one-room house, Adam. 19449. arkymalarky - 5/23/2006 12:27:43 AM I've seen a few recently, and maybe it's subconscious sour grapes, but I cannot see the appeal at all.
When I was building my house some other friends were building as well, and others just went along to look and help with ideas. We went to see a few houses like that being built and they were a huge turnoff to me. It's not just the size, it's the whole look. We went into my opthamologist's 7000sq ft house and it was just unattractive--large and sprawling and unattractive. And people are building them twice that and more. It's ridiculous.
And it's also evidently the mark of "white trash with money," as Rosanne Barr's ex-husband what's-his-drip put it, to have all kinds of expensive stuff installed and then strip it out and start over because of some little thing they see that they don't like (forget that they picked it themselves).
Bob's mother lives outside a tiny town with a GORGEOUS view (Judith, you may remember the view there?), and a very wealthy chemist who's had some very successful inventions (and is a SUPER great guy) built a lodge-style second home out there for his family--probably around 8-10,000sq ft--and his wife, who told my MIL that she was "high maintenance" was so bad in micromanaging the project and changing things every five minutes (including tearing out a HUGE fireplace right after it was finished) that a friend who did their wiring said "never again." The house is built and she's gone, so I guess she was too high-maintenance. The watering system just for the lawn cost over $40,000 and he had 12 fishing ponds--several very large ones--installed on the property. It's gorgeous, but I'd just as soon live in Bob's mom's house with seven fish ponds (part of their huge family estate) and much less crap to keep up with or pay others to keep up with.
We also found out when one burned up and lit the whole sky a few years ago that we have two log "mansions," as someone called them, around 10,000+sq ft each, behind gates right up the road. The owners only visit there seasonally. No one lives there. Bob's never seen them and we probably never will, even though they're a mile or so away. I don't get it. I get wanting to live in beautiful places you love, but why so much house and stuff? Especially in a vacation home. 19450. judithathome - 5/23/2006 12:34:24 AM I love the view from Bob's mom's house, which I certainly do recall quite well. And no huge mansion type house could improve that view one whit. 19451. arkymalarky - 5/23/2006 12:37:09 AM I like Thoreau's line, "we are slaves to our possessions." I get to feeling like that so much sometimes I want to just throw everything out. I'm not as bad as Bob, though--or Mose, for that matter. When they get in that mood, you'd better go through the garbage carefully. No telling what they'll throw out. 19452. Magoseph - 5/23/2006 8:46:39 AM Good morning, Mac. How are you? 19453. Macnas - 5/23/2006 8:55:47 AM I'm good Mago, hope you and Flexi are as well.
Traditionally, Irish people are slow to throw anything away. In my mothers house there still stands the dresser made early last century. It’s tall and wide, 3 shelves and two drawers, with a cupboard underneath. It was made in a nearby town, and if current values are anything to go by, its worth a nice bit of money.
However, it's too heavy and full of time to move, it bulges with letters, pictures, old cracked delft, ribbons, purses and pocket books, holy mementos from various pilgrimages made by 3 or 4 generations to one shrine or another, st.Brigids crosses, woven from rushes, dry and brittle.
You could be rummaging for a biscuit tin, only to find it contains all the old sports medals won by every family member since they were able to jump and run.
Badges from communions and confirmations, fading photographs of children, "is it me? no that’s you, remember, we were given a ride on Jack Desmonds plough horse that day?" Brass buttons and one hundred recipes for christmas cake, cut from ancient magazines. A drawer full of rosary beads, some palm hanging on the side, and on top, behind the mitred facade, bits of old rods and reels, a box of Eley Grand Prix cartridges from the 1960's, and the good pliers, kept up out of the way.
You couldn’t move it if you tried, and how could you? There's more of us buried in it than in any graveyard.
19454. wonkers2 - 5/23/2006 3:55:25 PM Great description of the dresser and its contents! Reminds me of Thomas Pynchon's description of an old car and its contents in "The Crying of Lot 49."
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