If you've just dropped by or random'ed into me, please leave a comment and say hello.

Let me know how you found me, where you're from, why you're here, a little about yourself, recommend a book, recommend a movie, tell me a secret, tell me something, ask me a question, etc. =)

Ad Astra,

The Bride of the First House.
bride (at) livejournal (dot) com

---

weather	:		rainy
outside	:		17.6°C
mood	:		...

《下雨天留客天留我不留》

Is it 《下雨天留客﹐天留我不留。》? Rainy days are for company. The heavens charge me with a guest, but I must decline.

Or is it 《下雨天﹐留客天。 留我不﹖ 留。》? Rainy day, a day for company. Will you have me over? Yes.

I just really like my teapot =)

I have this teapot that can be dismantled for easy cleaning. But I love to just remove the spherical pyrex container part and use it without the handle. My Mother-In-Law thinks I'm bananas XD

Anyway, I wanted to post a picture and needed an excuse. =)

weather	:		light rain
outside	:		14.6°C
mood	:		calm

I asked shashin to take a set of keepsake photos of our house for us. I've always loved his photography. His site is one of the few sites that I allow images by default in my browsers. I block most known sites that host photos and I only unblock specifc images from friends that I want to see.

Anyway, here are the photos up in my gallery. #34 - 45 was my bedroom. It's an 800sqft suite, it's roughly half of a 1600sqft upper floor, there are two distinct rooms in it plus the master bath.

The house is on the market now, so it won't be ours for very much longer.

Speaking of house and home, I did some more online oggling. Here's a collection of things that I would love to have in my own home.

• From Dedon
  • Leaf lounge chairs
  • Obelisk
  • Yin Yang [sic]. This symbol is properly called a Tai Chi.
• From Wrapables.com
  • Pendulum Clock on some wall in the house
  • Soap Leaves in the powder room
  • Tear Drop Tea Set. I'd still rather have Picard's tea set any day, but this one is interesting and beautiful enough.
  • Pyramid shaped tea bags
  • Tea Infusers
  • Leaf Shaped Bowls
  • Wine Arcs

weather	:		mostly cloudy
outside	:		17.2°C
mood	:		...

Because of the Pavarotti concert cancellation, I was feeling pretty terrible that I wound up, essentially, doing nothing for Father's Day this year. Yeah, I wasn't going to admit to contributing to the stupid commercialistic highway robbery of a fake holiday.

But I love my parents. What can I say?

I've been looking and looking and looking for a computer desk for my Dad that matched his specifications. As people age, they'll have different needs. And it's up to us to have the compassion to try to help them meet those needs.

Dad wears bifocals which makes it very difficult for him to use a computer.

The part of the glasses that he needs to see with, at close range when he's reading, is near the bottom. Computer monitors, on the other hand, are meant to be viewed straight ahead. He ends up tilting his head way back to be able to see and that gets really hard on his neck and shoulders. Which, in turn, wreaks havoc on his back.

He said that he loved the desks at the public library close to home that had the monitors lying flat underneath the desk with a glass window on the surface. I set about looking for one.

And looking for one.

And looking for one.

And looking for one.

I saw sartorias (through kaseido) in my FriendsFriends view sometime last year. He was showing pictures of his lovely home, writing space and TO-DIE-FOR library... seriously, I'm betting a lot of libraries would be jealous of his collection. He had a beautiful wood writing desk with a glass top in one small area with his monitor underneath and tilted up. That was EXACTLY what I wanted. I asked him what it was called and where he got it. It was an antique desk that he got at an antique show or a yard sale and he had no idea what it was actually called; he just loved the sliding door.

I cried.

Not upset at him for not knowing, but for being SO CLOSE and still not getting anywhere.

I was beginning to think very seriously of calling up B'nice to commission a custom made desk with a glass tabletop for Dad. B'nice made all the silk flower arrangements for my wedding and she hand made her own computer armoire. Very crafty lady.

Today, I was looking for computer furniture at random again. I love to just randomly browse for cool, interesting and crazy ideas for home furniture. I will have my Elegant Trek home, one day.

I was looking at this desk which wasn't that interesting or special, but I'm so glad I looked at it anyway... this picture caught my eye.

!!!

That's what I want!! So, the caption says they're called "Down-View Desks". Plug that into Google and ...

TA-DA!!!!!!

OMG, are those ever beautiful. I'll be going over to my parents place this afternoon to show him and order one. I'm head over heels for the blue one, but I'm thinking Dad would prefer this one in Cherry Oak or Teak. But I'm just elated — damned near EUPHORIC — that A) I FOUND ONE and B) they actually cost less than what I was anticipating I'd have to pay B'nice for a custom made one.

So there you have it. They're called either "down view desks" or "recessed monitor desks" and they range in price from a little under USD$200 to anywhere in the $1000+.

weather	:		sunnysunnysunny
outside	:		22.6°C
mood	:		TGIF!!

Warning: The images under the cuts in this post are ENORMOUS.

We're moving into the Husband Guy's Grandparents' bedroom... sometime... soon... ish. There's no real timeframe, it'll happen once things are done/fixed/settled and furniture bought/sold/moved, etc. Part of me wants to and part of me doesn't want to move in, for various reasons, so I'll just let things happen as they will and go with it.

But the task at hand is to pick out new bathroom sink faucets. We'll be picking out something sensible, reasonably priced and matching... "in case the house needs to be sold" type of deal. And it has to be entirely polished brass. Grandma and Grandpa preferred the gold colour so it would be odd to have anything that's chrome in there at this point.

The faucet in our bathroom now is the same style as the ones in my parents house that I grew up with. It looks similar to ( this. +1 )

We'll be getting something that sort of matches the faucet set on the jacuzzi tub. Something like ( this. +1 )

In the meantime, I'm having fun ogling at faucets that I would love to have.

I love sheet flow and flume spouts. They look so beautiful when the water is actually on. Water flowing in odd and uncommon shapes is so mesmerizing to look at. And they would fit my "Elegant Trek" motif really well. =) But I wonder if there isn't something about sheet flows that make them annoying or impractical to actually use, day in and day out.

Anyone have any experience with those?

The sheet flow spouts look okay on their own, without the water on. But the flume spouts don't look as nice without the water though...

( Here are some sheet flow spouts. +3 )

The first one is just an approximation of the one I liked. It was also an Alterna, but it was about three or four times wider and it didn't have the little plug pull knob thing. The third one reminds me of the U.S.S. Hathaway =D

( Here's a flume spout with water and a flume spout without water. +2 )

See what I mean? I think it's gorgeous with. But without the water, it just looks like a silly little spade thing sitting there. I probably don't want it if it's the water that's making all the difference.

And I'm probably just in love with the photos. I like the black background photos the best. But I'd never choose an all black motif for any room in my own house. So, those faucets would probably look icky in the yellow-ish incandescent lighting in the bathrooms... *sigh*

As much as I like the look, I don't want round or square knobs that you have to twist to turn on. When you have gunk on your hands, you can at least turn on the tap with your elbows if you have lever knobs. With round/square knobs, you're stuck with having to touch the knob, get it dirty and clean it up afterwards. Moreover, one or both of us could develop carpal tunnel, chronic tendonitis, rheumatoid arthritis or something in our old age and the wrist twisting motion could be painful. There are touchless faucets, but they A) are overkill for us and B) have their own pain-in-the-ass-ness issues.

Oh, and while I was flipping through the Delta faucets catalogue, there was this ( scary Sasquatch Lady in the shower. +2 ) That was pretty funny... XD

[Update]

I found the spout that I reallyreallyreally liked. It's not an Alterna, it's a Cirrus. I also discovered that it's a bath mount, so it's not for sinks... if it were chrome, for sink use while maintaining those height/width proportions, it would be so perfect. ( Clickie here to see. +1 )

weather	:		mostly cloudy
outside	:		18°C
mood	:		okay

I said to nightshift a long time ago that if I ever had a decoration scheme in my home, it would be "Elegant Trek". I've already decided that I want Picard's tea set. I want that big white 6-cup teapot and the matching cups. Or something similar. It's the one he always uses for the perpetually interrupted breakfast chats with Beverly where they get no more than two sips in before Riker pages them from the bridge. XD

But other than that, I fantasize that, one day, when money isn't so tight, I will also have one of these custom made for myself:

Archaeological artifacts of small ceramic figures about 30 centimeters high, naiskos statues were produced in ancient times by the people of planet Kurl. These statues were designed to be opened, revealing a multitude of similar but smaller figurines inside, representing the Kurlan belief that each individual is made up of a community of individuals with different voices and desires; "the many voices inside the one". Communities, in turn, are made up of individuals with different voices and desires.

Although many ancient naiskos have been found by archaelogists, relatively few are intact, and fewer still have all the smaller figurines.

Professor Richard Galen gave an intact Kurlan naiskos to his former student, Jean-Luc Picard (The Chase). That particular artifact was even more prized because it was of the third Kurlan dynasty, made some 12,000 years ago by the Kurlan artisan known only as the Master of Tarquin Hill.

In later episodes, Picard's Kurlan Naiskos could be seen adorning a corner table of his ready room. Distressingly, Picard apparently did not take the naiskos with him after the crash of the Enterprise-D in "Generations".

But until then, I'll just have to be satisfied to make this my Random Nerdy-Neat Thing post in my online journal because I have nothing better to write and can't be motivated to clean up, finish off all the disjoint journal fragments to post.