i started what's left of my day by making an omelette: 3 eggs, chopped onions, chopped red peppers, chives, slices of ham. 
i had some problems flipping the omelette to cook the other side, and midway through the smoke alarm started going off (even though there was no smoke, they're so sensitive!) and i had to climb a chair to deactivate the detector on top of the cabinets. topped off with some cheese and ground peppers, i had a delicious breakfast meal (or perhaps lunch) in front of the television watching some sunday football action.
with the weather so nice, it was a good opportunity to rake some leaves in the backyard (that's not a euphemism). i figured it'd be a good gesture for the faux tenant associate of myself and my upstairs neighbor steve if i cleaned up our common area. 
i saw some new neighbors relaxing outside on their backyard deck, a young couple. they seemed preoccupied, i didn't introduce myself. they were the same people i saw moving stuff from a moving van earlier in the week, didn't realize they were my next door neighbors. 
so i was out back raking the leaves, and when i had a big pile, i collected it in a large trash barrel with my bare hands, i'm hardcore like that. earlier i saw two squirrels resting on my fence, perhaps enjoying the weather as well. on some late season flowers, ants and solitary bees were collecting the last bits of nectar before the weather gets cold again.
i did some minor repair painting with a tiny brush, masking the small areas on the walls where i accidently ripped some paint off when i was stripping the house of blue tape. i had all the windows opened to air out the place, until it got a little bit dark and started to rain. i enjoyed the downpour from my bedroom, listening to music (call & response), reading in bed.
my parents dropped by for dinner, bringing over food they'd cooked at the cafe, along with some more cooking supplies. 
they tried some of the leftover pilaf i made last night, remarking that it was a little dry (yeah i know, i didn't have enough vegetable stock). i went over some furniture ideas with my mother, running around the living room with the tape measure to try to imagine how my dream sofa would fit within the room. earlier during the day i was trying to envision how the movers would get the sofa into the house. for me, it seemed very difficult, if not impossible. a smaller couch would mean less moving headaches and probably less nicks and scratches on the walls trying to move it in. my parents tried to talk me out of getting a red couch, bringing up my whole red kitchen failure as proof that a red couch in a green living room would not look good. truth be told, ever since the salsa red kitchen, i've lost confidence in my own ability to correctly pick the right colors. my intuitive feel for interior design only goes so far! i thought about maybe going with a futon solution, despite their reputation as being somewhat of a dorm furniture. some of the newer metal danish imported frames were really cool though, very ultramodern, but they cost just as much as a couch, sometimes even more, and i don't need another bed in the living room, not when i have a bedroom to spare. then it finally dawned on me - why not go with something ikea? it'd be a bitch to actually get my hands on some ikea furniture (drive down to NJ or pay for shipping if they have it), but you can't beat the price. so my new living room furniture plan is this: green (or orange) klippan couch, two green tullsta chairs, and a couple of green knoppe footstools. all that for around the same price as any one of these sofas i've been looking at recently.
 klippan |
 knoppe |
 tullsta |
these furnitures are small enough that they won't eat up my living room like a big couch would. it's better to having seating for more people (about 6 with this ikea configuration if you count the footstools, or maybe a little bit more if folks want to make friends fast) versus a single large couch which would seat 3, maybe 4 people, with no more room to add chairs. and the great thing with these furniture is they have changeable slipcovers, so if i ever get sick of a particular color, i can always switch it, something i can't easily do with a regular couch. i know the klippan is a departure from my steadfast image of what i want a couch to be, things like arms (wings?) that curve outwards or wooden tapered legs. heck, the one i'd be getting wouldn't even be red (they don't have that color this year)! but i can't beat that level of versatility, and the price is so cheap, i could probably get 3 ikea couches for the price of one regular couch. sometimes i forget that i am unemployed and i have no money and i can't go out and splurge on furniture like some of the people i see on the furniture buying circuit. but i feel good about my new decision, now i have to figure out how to actually get my hands on these items.