Other than snow

I thought I'd cheer myself up by doing a post on something other than snow.

We have been doing some things despite the snow. The new front door is fitted. I am very pleased with it and it's amazing how much warmer the hall is. I hadn't realised how drafty the old door made the hall. The nice thing is that the inside of the door is white so it makes our somewhat dark hall feel lighter.


We took our few Christmas decorations down last week and after we had done this I mentioned to Andy about swapping over two of the sofas. This led to a major re-shuffle in our sitting room and I am very pleased with the result. We really hadn't done much with the room since we moved here and some pieces of furniture were still where the removal guys had dumped them. Bad I know, but other priorities etc. We have three sofas in the sitting room but hadn't been able to fit in our armchair. That was sitting in the smaller sitting room and was a pain for Andy with his massage practise. Every time someone comes along for massage he had to put the chair outside. With the new layout we have easily fitted in the armchair. I put a display cabinet out into the hall with a view to selling it on eBay but now I'm keeping it because it's fits well out there and means we can have a lamp at the far end of the hall. Why didn't we do this ages ago!!

We felt incentivised to finally get round to hanging most of our many pictures. We had literally chucked a few up where there were already hooks. We like lots of pictures on the walls, not everyone's taste I know but it's what we are happy with. So, at last they came out of storage and it was so nice to see them. I had forgotten lots of them and it's like having old friends back with us. We have lots of dog pictures but other stuff too! I have quite a few border collie prints and now realise I need a sheltie picture!

The thing I like most about the new layout is that we have three distinct areas in the room rather than two. We have our sitting room area for watching t.v. and for when friends come round; the dining area and now a day time reading area. I know we have the snug to sit in but I can't use that all the time Andy has the massage table in there. Roll on the studio being finished.

Something that makes me smile to myself is that you hear people talking about five car families; well that's not us but we are now a five sofa family with just two of us because our dogs are not allowed on the sofas of course. OK so one of them is currently in the summer house and is technically a sofa-bed waiting to go in the studio but even so. It's ridiculous!

I need to find a new, more attractive and larger toy box for the dog toys. Any suggestions welcomed! Yes, that is a new dog quilt lying in front of the sofa. But before any comments are made, Andy bought that for Poppy - shock, horror!

The other thing I'm gradually working my way through is putting our CD's onto the computer ready for loading onto an iPod or whatever we end up buying. We are doing quite a bit of research and with help from Dennis, Michael and Karen think we have made a sensible decision. We want to be able to play our music through our existing sound system so we are going to start off with a Sony Walkman and a dumb docking station, ie. no speakers. We were going to buy a hand held MP3 player each but we've decided to start with just the Sony version and see how we like it. If we think it's good enough then we'll get a second one that Andy can use as he has an socket in his car (tranlated van) radio. If we think it's just ok then I will get an iPod for my use and Andy will stick with Sony. Funny that!

It's a bit tedious copying all the music but I'm trying to do some each day and then leave it for a bit. I'm loading into Windows Media Play as MP3 files and then pulling it into iTunes as well. That way we should have complete flexibility.

My next chore will be to tidy up my digital photographs. They are in such a mess because I am so lazy. I can't find anything and there is no logic to my filing system. I am not looking forward to this task but I am determined to do it!