More adventures with Linda and Ozzie

After my strange birthday, I needed to go back to Portland to exchange my sewing table for the desk I wanted at Ikea.  I decided to go yesterday, as it was supposed to be cloudy and cool, and that meant I could take Ozzie with me and he wouldn’t suffer from the heat in the parking lot.  So, we piled into the car with our exchange items at 9:21 in the morning and we got to Ikea in Portland by 11:15!  I do tend to drive a little fast (maybe 70 instead of 65), but I think the reason we got there so quickly this time was that there were no rolling roadblocks on the road!  Well, not on the way TO Portland anyway, coming home was a different matter.  We did stop on the way there at the Willamette Falls viewpoint, as Mt. Hood had the coolest lenticular cloud on it and I wanted to get a photo.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have the camera in the car, and I had to use the cell phone’s camera.  While I’m sure the Samsung Galaxy 3’s camera is more than adequate, I have a tremor, so I never take the best photos with a basic camera.  This one isn’t too bad though.

I noticed the cloud when we were near Donald, OR, but unfortunately couldn’t really stop until the viewpoint on highway 205, by which time the cloud was pretty much overtaken by some ordinary cumulonimbi.  You can, however, see it peeking out from under them – it looks like a feathery hat.

Of course, just below us was Willamette Falls – check Wikipedia for the history of this interesting site – it’s been used for a lot of things over the years.

We made it to Ikea, but it was starting to get hot and the sun was out (of all the nerve), so I had to drive around and park near the back side of the building so I could keep my little buddy in the shade.  I managed to get the items I didn’t want into the store and exchanged quickly, and picked out way too many things I wanted on the way out.  I did manage to get a flat-bed cart and get everything out of the store, but then came the struggle around to the back of the building and Ozzie.  I don’t know if you’ve ever been to an Ikea or, if you have, if all the Ikeas have the same sort of carts, but the ones in Portland are all pretty much gravity driven.  It’s not the regular shopping cart where the back wheels only move in one direction and the front ones allow you to steer.  All the wheels on these carts move, so you have very little control against gravity and, when the cart is heavily laden and you aren’t superbly bulked-up in the muscle department, you’re going to have a hard time.  By the time I got to the car, Ozzie was still calm and cool, but I was sweating as though I’d been in a sauna for an hour or so!  I got my desk to use for my sewing table:

A small matching set of drawers for storage and on top of which I will put an ironing surface:

A ‘last chance’ Antonius wire basket unit (I have several of these in which I store my fabric)

A hook to put in my hallway so I can hang up my coat, jacket, hat, gloves, etc., since this house has no closets or storage:

Some organizing separators for the chest of drawers:

And a way-ugly clock that will be way-gorgeous when I’m done with it!

Yes, I know, it looks just awful, doesn’t it?  But imagine the fact that all those little hexagons come apart so you can arrange it any way you like, and imagine modpodging some of your favorite fabrics onto the pieces, and now imagine you’ve made a grandmother’s flower garden-like quilty clock out of it.  Now it’s totally rad, right?  Check out this link for a little more info.

So, between quilting, I will be emptying the appallingly-messy spare room (which is so bad I’m not certain I’ll take a before photo), repainting it in this color called Timbermine (this is not my room, just showing the color)

Painting all the trim (and there’s a lot of it in this old house) white, and my clock will be covered in Moda’s French General reds and greys.  In my mind, it looks fab!  I hope it will be pretty when finished.  I need a nice sewing room.  Oh, and yea, it will still have a twin bed in it so if I have to have guests, so be it.  I will, in my other spare time, be whipping up a nice Moda French General quilt for the bed.  I’m tired already!  Think I’ll go take a nap!

Oh – by the way . . . if you haven’t painted a room in a while, I hope you won’t die of the sticker shock as I nearly did.  I got Dutch Boy Dirt Fighter paint, which was one of the less expensive paints at the store.  Needed a gallon for the walls, needed ceiling paint, trim paint, and a gallon of primer for the trim, because what is in there now is a ghastly teal color.  A paint tray, brush, drip cloths, roller and roller covers, and nearly $140 later, I’m leaving the store.  I think part of my budget vibe was transmitting when the clerk put my ceiling paint in the shaker to mix it up.  The top was apparently not tight and the entire paint mixing station was soon covered in my ceiling paint!  I felt bad for the very nice man who was assisting me, but the little chuckle it caused helped to ease the pain of the price tag!