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2002-08-26 - 1:34 p.m.

Family weekend.

My mom and youngest brother, J.R., were in town this weekend. Staying with us. In fact, they just left about an hour ago. [Or rather, they left an hour ago when I started writing this. Since then I've had to deal with back-to-back conference calls, the repairman showing up to fix our oven, and an incredibly loud wood-chopper outside my office window.]

We had a good time. We walked around a lot, going to the Saturday market (where my mom bought me a rosemary plant and two small basil plants plus a loaf of spicy cheese bread...mmmm), the capitol, the main drag of downtown, campus, our neighborhood, and various other places around town.

We also shopped a lot, buying the aforementioned plants and bread at the farmer's market plus some honey, jam, and beeswax candles for my mom to give to various people as thank-you presents, a replacement salad plate for our everyday dishes (The Scientist chipped a plate while doing dishes one night and we wanted to replace it before our pattern was discontinued or something), lingerie (replacing a bra that was demolished by the washing machine--I'm handwashing all lingerie from now on), a dinner plate for the china I inherited from my grandmother, a skirt for me (bought for $19, originally $75), a shirt for my mom, a shirt and pants for J.R., miscellaneous stuff at Target, and some DVDs (Chasing Amy and Bull Durham) using a Best Buy gift card, napkins, a greeting card, and a Christmas tree ornament from the botanical gardens gift shop, a new chain for my favorite pendant, and my brother and my mom got some rocks and jewelry at Burnie's Rock Shop. Oh, and The Scientist bought a new 60 gig hard drive because our music collection has almost outgrown the 30 gig drive we have now. You thought he was left out of the shopping, didn't you?

By far the best (and biggest) purchase we made was an antique wardrobe (armoire?). We got it at an antique/thrift shop (one that seems like a pawn shop, but isn't). Evidently all prices are negotiable. As soon as the guy (owner?) saw us looking at something, he would knock the price down. The wardrobe was tagged at $195, but we paid $150. It is solid wood but has been painted black (spray painted, how criminal), but the paint seems to come off easily and in fact even rubs off on your fingers. The knob looks like it's brass.

wardrobe - closedwardrobe - open

The drawers need some patching and filling and the whole thing needs to be stripped, sanded, and refinished but the paint is so crappy I think it won't be difficult. The round detail at the bottom has been scrubbed almost clean already, without any paint stripper. We'll try to get to the local hardware store (and if that fails, Home Depot) today or tomorrow to pick up refinishing supplies. I'll keep you posted on our progress.

The antique store also had a lot of beautiful jewelry (and a lot of ugly jewelry as well). My favorite was the collection of gorgeous platinum engagement/wedding rings. I fell in love with one of them in particular and announced that if I received a windfall I was buying that ring.

stars

On Sunday we spent some time at the local botanical gardens. We had a great time. The indoor gardens were full of plants from the Thai rainforest and the Thai theme continued outside with a "Thai Palace" at the far end of the outdoor gardens.

the Thai Palace

The Scientist in reflectionrocks in zen pool

detail on Thai palace columnThai elephant statue

water lilieswater lilies

The botanical gardens outing was the only time all weekend I remembered my camera. It's too bad because the weather was gorgeous the whole time (hotter than predicted, but low humidity).

After the botanical gardens, we had icecream at Michael's Frozen Custard. I forgot my Lactaid, but surprisingly the hot fudge malt I had didn't bother my digestive system too badly. The rest of Sunday was spent shopping and resting. After all the walking we did, everyone seemed to need time to recover.

stars

It's back to work today, but I have been disrupted so far by a panicked trip outside to see if our car had been ticketed or towed (we have to park on a different side of the street depending on what day it is), the maintence guy (our oven is fixed, yay!), the tree chopping going on outside (occasionally interrupted by some chainsawing, then back to the shredding machine), and an unusually chatty husband on AIM. I can't believe it's 1:30 already. Gah.

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