Parfait!, Psychic Palm tree, Feng shui, tropical vacation revisted, Off the rails.

Parfait! Yep, that's the color Jimmy chose for the computer room.  With a rich hunter green trim and bamboo roll up blinds.  I can honestly say I rose an eyebrow when we were at the paint store and he chose the lightest  pink he could find. It wasn't until he revealed his other choices that I figured it out.  Jimmy is longing for a tropical vacation. It has been a long, dreary, dark winter.  He has  unconsciously re-created the  hotel room  in Mazatlan where we went on our first romantic trip (back in the days when we couldn't really  'afford' a vacation and the money would have been more practically spent on ...say....rent).  When I say computer room .... its what we call it. But its also the guest room  (with a very comfortable  hide-a-bed) and  just a general  hang-out spot. Very multi-purpose, so, it gets a lot of  use including being the collection point of   "just put it in the computer room for now".  This particular room is also the wealth/prosperity feng shui corner of the whole house.  All my research on Feng Shui last year  made it obvious that we  really needed to clean, declutter  and decorate this room accordingly. It has taken me  6 months to get around to it.But the results are worth the wait.  We have an added bonus as well...... I bought a beautiful but terrified palm tree for it yesterday (and a few other  houseplants to keep it fresh in here and help with the tropical ambiance)    Yes I said terrified.  Laugh at me if you want, but never before have I ever had,  for lack of a better term, a plant so psychically loud.  This poor thing was  throwing out the weirdest, frightened energy I have ever encountered in a plant.  I had to talk it down from the ledge through the whole transportation and  re potting process which included having to trim a sickly stem.  The cut stem even got  some reiki.  I also fed it some  'super thrive',  a high-powered plant vitamin that is supposed to help with plant  'stress'.   Jimmy rolled his eyes  and mocked me when I told him he needed to introduce himself to the new palm tree and reassure it that everything will be ok.  When he finally stopped laughing.... I asked him to go do it anyway. I don't know if he did it  or not but this morning I have a beautiful, calm, healing  palm tree sitting next me  as I write this.  And I think it wants to be named  Brenda.  No, I'm not a crazy plant lady.  I only have a handful of houseplants and I only have them for home decor.  But this one talks...... I swear!  Now go ahead and think to yourself  that I have finally gone off the rails.  Cuz I'm thinking it too!

Spring cleaning, cold frames, Sears Sucks, "Joe sent me" Neo American secret underground shopping

Yesterdays spotty sunshine and almost warm weather came with the usual dose of frenzied  labor.  Jimmy got the yard completely cleaned up and edged. I don't know about the rest of the urban farmers in the area but over the winter our little back yard utopia gets pretty  scruffy. Lots of extraneous items laying around: buckets, sticks, neighbors coffee cups (really people... take your crap home) small mason jars ( we hang them around the trees to put tea lights in in the summer), stems of long ago tomatoes and other and sundry  leavings. And every spring it all gets raked up, swept and  polished.  It looks really pretty back there this morning.  Jimmy also put up the skeleton frames for his cold frames. I stayed in the house, opened all the windows and doors and cleaned in preparation for some painting. The back of my car is filled with stuff for goodwill. (anyone who wants a box of video tapes I found at the bottom of a closet should come get them today) (note to beloved daughter: I found your levis with the holes in the knees  wadded up in the  fold out sofa bed).  Many things were dusted and vacuumed. Some things were repaired, some were not. The 'not' being the freezer which I completely emptied and  scrubbed out. (who knew how many  ice cream containers with  a half a scoop of ice cream a  freezer could handle before there is no more room  for  anything else).
One of the shelf clips  broke at some time since the last cleaning and I thought i would just go to sears and get a replacement clip ..... or a package of clips but surely no more than $5  dollars would be spent on  this itty bitty item.  I decided to call first since Sears has a history of  not wanting to sell me anything.  Good thing I did cuz if I had driven there with expectations  someone would have gotten hurt. As it was, I was transferred many times to the  'right' person, wound up with a parts 'specialist' who was the most unhelpful ass I have dealt with in a while. I'm not even going to go into the details because they are tedious. 6 phone calls later which included everyone within driving distance that sells whirlpool I found myself talking to a local used appliance   guy who said , "yes ma'am I have those but they are only sold in a repair kit  for $26". He apologized very nicely for the shortcomings of Sears and their ilk and validated my frustration at  the  corporate  arrogance of pushing an overpriced 'kit'  to replace a  five cent part.   When I got off the phone with him I chose to finish my little chore  and that particular shelf is now being held up by frozen orange juice.   And Sears? Well they are woefully inadequate at meeting my consumer needs.  They have, in the last few years, become nothing more than an overpriced walmart. As our economy sinks deeper into the abyss of  outsourced manufacturing and imported low quality goods and ever increasing poor customer service from corporations, there seems to be a barely visible  light  in darkness...... local small business owners.  Folks who are working out of their garages and might not even have a  business license.   Locally owned B&M's who are seeing  the  exodus away from  warehousey corporate stores and who are listening to what people need and attempting to meet those needs.  And of course the internet which gives  us easy access to companies in other states  like  Wigwam ( high quality made in USA ) socks. But it is still a sad commentary of corporate and bureaucratic  fascism when shopping for a durable quality product with good cusomer service occurs in a back alley with a knock on door and a 'Joe sent me' conspiratorial whisper. And so goes the Neo American super secret underground shopping experience. How long before it becomes mainstream?