Hello out there in blog land!

Hello fellow bloggers (or at least the ones not currently too addicted to facebook to keep up with blogging)! How is everything with you? I'm fine, but pretty tired these days. No specific reason I guess, just life catching up with me. My students have been fine, work is fine, blah, blah, blah. I'm closer to choosing my paint colours, but I was rather disappointed today when I stopped by Home Depot for some sample paints and discovered that it would cost me nearly $50 to get the 3 colour samples I wanted. FORGET IT! I picked up some more paint chips and plan on taping them up around the room in order to make my final decision.

Went to a re-gifting party last night hosted by my lovely sister. The basic idea was that people brought over stuff that they no longer wanted (either new or gently used stuff, not garbage) and had the opportunity to take other people's stuff. The stuff that was left over at the end of the evening was being donated to charity. It was a really cool idea and worked quite well, for the most part. There weren't a ton of people, and the stuff that people had brought was good stuff. I think in the future though, there should be a few "rules" or procedures set up so that choosing items is fair. There weren't any problems or anything last night, but I could see problems arising if more than one person really wanted one particular item. Anyway, I got rid of the stuff I really didn't want anymore, and came home with nothing. There were a couple of things that I would have taken if nobody else had wanted it, but the items were taken after all.

Last night before the party my purse strap broke. Has that ever happened to you? It happened to me about a year ago, which is what prompted me to buy the purse whose strap broke yesterday. Had the fabric not been so thick, I probably would have been able to sew the strap back on, but I didn't have the best needle for the job and there were about 4 layers of fabric to sew through, so I couldn't get it back together. The purse was starting to get a little worn (it wasn't overly expensive to begin with) so I decided to use the opportunity to get a new purse. I ended up splurging and getting two purses - one black and one brown. Both are Roots purses, and the black one is really similar to the one I was replacing, so I'm happy.

Back to work already again tomorrow - yuck! I love my job, I really do, but I'm looking forward to having a week off next month! Anyway, I'd better get back to those paint samples.

Paint, paint, paint

Have to decide on paint colours. I would do like Dianne did and post my options, but I'm not feeling so technical right now. I have taken the enormous step of taping up some paint chips to the wall to see what I like. I took the chips to work yesterday to get some advice from some of the lovely ladies I work with (well, those still in the building past 3:30 anyway). They had a multitude of opinions, particularly after I showed them some pictures I had on my e-mail of what my place looks like. They were so curious to see what my place looked like that they crowded all around me and my computer. Discovered that I'm still claustrophobic . . . I thought I was going to die at one point when all 5 of them were standing around me! Luckily the feeling passed quickly. Unfortunately their opinions were very diverse and didn't bring me any closer to a decision! Laurie did suggest taping up the samples I liked the best, which I was planning on doing anyway, and that was about as helpful as it got.

I thought I may get some more guidance last night when my mom came over. Yeah, not so much. I mean, she did have lots of ideas, but they didn't really involve paint colour. One thing she suggested which I liked was to paint the dining room area a darker shade than that living room area to define the two spaces. Still no closer to choosing actual colours though. All my life I've had trouble making decisions about what colour to paint things. It's happened every time I've had to choose colours for my bedroom when I was younger. Luckily I have a little bit over a month to decide. If I stare at these paint chips long enough, I may actually make a decision!