it will be impossible to downsize; it's all about the walls.

SUMMARY:  I have too many things.

source : November 16, 2025, Facebook discussion about how much horizontal wall space one needs to accommodate books and or art.

I have five bookcases that are 4' x 7'h. I also have 12 others of various heights (3 feet to 6 feet) and widths (mostly 3 feet or 4 feet wide). so, without measuring everything in detail, and allowing 3.5 feet average width for the other bookcases, that's 62 linear feet.

because I like places to display my dragons where they are less likely to be broken, I also have 3 cabinets that are at least half glass fronted and are 6 1/2 feet high and a total of 16 more linear feet wide. That's not counting my bedroom dressers or my China/linen cabinet or various other display unit units. 

 Then I can start counting how much art I have to hang. Fortunately, most of it is not very large. So I can get several pieces per wall segment.

The original Facebook post of someone else's page by someone else

I also have to run sturdy extension cords from behind the furniture because they're blocking an outlet. Fortunately in this newer house of mine, there are usually plenty of other outlets in the room.

Life is complicated when you like your Things.

Blue bedrooms... and purple sometimes...

SUMMARY: History of my bedroom colors

Source: Comment on a friend's FB page about repainting their deep red bedroom (a color someone else picked) to light blue.

I said: 

My bedroom in my parents' house I painted a fairly saturated somewhat lighter blue. I loved it. In the intervening decades, I painted one bedroom white, a later one I actually wallpapered (loved it!), a later one I left the wallpaper that was already there and it wouldn't have been my choice but mostly peaceful and matched my other things. This is the first time i've painted my bedroom blue again--this time just the wall behind the headboard is a rich almost navy blue and I feel peaceful just walking in and seeing it! I think your light blue sounds like it will be perfect.

But: I know you want details and photos! (Photos might take longer)

My bedrooms:

• Basement room in my parents' house. Until then, I had almost always shared one of the upstairs bedrooms with one or more of my sisters. My recollection is that we painted it pale blue. Mom made me a bedspread of some sort of blue and purple fabric. This lasted only a few months--I was in 6th grade--and then we moved away.  No pictures exist that I can recall.

• Bedroom in my parents' new house. Five bedrooms, seven people. The three oldest of us kids got our own rooms and dad had the builders paint each room in our favorite colors. Mine was a somewhat sickly pale greenish blue. When I could, I and my friends painted it that fairly saturated somewhat lighter blue, and I painted my furniture blue and purple! [photos exist]

  

  Oh, I forgot about the very inexpensive blue shag carpet! (Not wall to wall, just a large rug.)
  The color of the drawers behind me was the color of the walls.  PS I made the big cushion.

  
  

• Dorms at college. Some students did paint their rooms; I wasn't so ambitious, although I did paint a mural on the wall outside the room! [pictures exist]
  
  

  

  I copied this from about a 2-square-inch image cut from a magazine ad somewhere.
  
  

  
  

  

  First dorm. My side has the blue (?) cover--I don't even remember it!
  But I still have most of the wall art

  
  

  

  Second dorm, my side.

  
  

  

  Third dorm. Same blue cover, same blue cushion,
   lots of the same wall art mostly not visible in this crappy scanned photo.

• Bedrooms in two successive rented apartments covering about a year and a half. I didn't even put up pictures nor  nuthin'. [might be a photo of 2nd one but not sure]

• My own private townhouse! Didn't paint the room (it was white) but I bought a gorgeous matching set of bedspread and drapes: Fuzzy and huge stripes of various shades  of blue. Something I had been coveting from the Sears catalogs, which were things that I pored over for years for home supplies and decor. [not sure whether photos exist]

• First shared  house with husband: I wallpapered it! All by myself! I did a great job and I loved it, although I don't exactly recall the pattern. Probably small delicate blue & white? [not sure whether photos exist]

• Second shared house: It was white. It stayed that way. It was airy and open and had trees outside the second story windows and it just seemed right. [photos exist]

• My own private next house: Came with wallpaper. Not what I would have chosen, but three of the walls matched my general decor (flowers of various colors) and so I left it. [photos exist]

  

  Notice 2 types of wallpaper. The one on the left covered 3 walls; the one on the right was only that wall. I had a lot of flower decor and sheets and so it worked--kinda--

  
  

• My now current house: The aforementioned navy blue! [photos exist]

And there you have it!

Things To Get For Whatever New House

 SUMMARY: Things I need or want no matter what house I end up buying

Note: No posts for the past 3 days because I've done nothing house related and a lot of things unrelated. 

When I left San Jose, I made conscious decisions--consciously considered for, in some cases, quite a few years--to not take a variety of furnishings with me. Because: New House! Retirement! Get things I like better! Here are the bigger ones.

• 

  Welllll crud, I don't find ANY photos of the
  guest room and its furniture... after all these
  decades! You can kinda see the white & gold
  on the mirror over the dresser.

  
  Guest bedroom furniture. 
  White & gold bureau, side tables, double bed with headboard, box springs, and mattress-- inherited from my Grandparents. Good, solid pieces and in excellent condition. BUT (a) I've had them for 44 years, (b) they were never really my style anyway, and (c) I've not often had sleepover guests, so it all took up a lot of space that didn't get used often.
  Replacement: I'll definitely have some nice comfy bed for visitors, but I'm thinkin'--Murphy bed! James Bond! I've been reading up on them. With some kind of bedside table (that also folds down!) and a separate bureau...TBD
  
  
  
• Sofa.
  The large ivory fabric sectional served me perfectly for a long time. BUT (a) I bought it used in the first place back in 1991, and it is showing its age, (b) it is simply too low for me these days, (c) it is most useful with several guests (which doesn't happen much any more because EVERYONE MOVED OUT OF STATE, and (d) keeping a couch of that color clean and nice looking for guests when I had ... ta da... dogs! remained an ongoing challenge.
  Replacement: Friends with dogs and leather couches let the dogs on the furniture with impunity and it still looks great. So: Darker color, leather, higher seating profile, long enough to lie down full length.
• Entertainment center
  I got a lovely oak one that matched the rest of my furniture--free! From FreeCycle! in excellent condition. It had shelves for all of my audio/video gear (CD player etc) and plenty of storage for other things. BUT (a) the space for a TV can't be rearranged or changed in size and is useless otherwise, (b) it's so big that one needs a whole wall for it, not flexible, and (c) although I almost never watch TV anyway, the configuration of this one made it difficult anyway.
  Replacement: Not sure yet. Some kind of modular units for the audio/visual gear. So, TBD.
  
  

  

  Big white sectional sofa in the back; entertainment center on the right.

  
  
• Television
  Yeah, I seldom watch TV, but the newer ones are amaaazing. I think I want a larger TV than the one I have (which is at least 20 years old and that I got free from a friend), and I want it wall mounted. Maybe ceiling?!  Maybe silly because I don't watch often--but if I get the right seating and right TV location--probably would watch more
  Replacement:  TBD
• Sewing machine table, sewing machine
  So handy when I did sew stuff. BUT Sewing machine died and newer ones probably don't fit this table. I hardly ever sewed any more. The table took up a lot of space, even though when closed it could be used as a generic large, heavy (i.e., inconvenient) tabletop.  
  Replacement: New sewing machine, but no table for it, thenk yew.

Do not think for even a minute that I have an unlimited budget. Soooooo we shall see how this wish list goes.

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One Fun Mexican Restaurant

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday with my best bud since junior high.

[oh el cruddo--this was LAST week's Wordless Wednesday and somehow was never posted! So you get two today]

Salmagundi

SUMMARY: View and invasives, shoes, chairs, ribbons, peeps, oh my.

I forgot to mention yesterday (really?! with all that text I didn't mention something?!) that, although USDAA is now too cheap to supply team or grand prix Qualifying and placement ribbons, medals, or pins any more, Haute Dawgs did provide some. May I present our extra-long, extra-large ribbons for: Performance Team 2nd Place, Performance Grand Prix 4th Place, and Perf. Tournament Master Platinum:

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I hate shopping for shoes; it's hard to find something that looks like I want to wear them, and when I do, they usually don't fit. I was happy, as I reported two weeks ago, when I was able to quickly find a new pair of agility shoes very quickly in the third store I went into.

However, my normal everyday shoes were also a disaster--actually the uppers were fine, but the manufacturer I've been wearing for several years has greatly cheapened the shoes and both, although fairly new, had holes in the soles already. I dropped in to REI with my agility/movies friend (Sparkle's Human Mom) after seeing Hunger Games last week, and while I browsed for everyday shoes, she scoured the discount rack and found a pair of agility shoes that looked pretty good. She tried them on, thought they were OK, but thought they'd fit me better (she wears a  slightly larger size). So, while waiting for the Shoe Person to bring me my shoes, I tried them on. Wow! They were instantly comfortable, and so LIGHT! I felt barefoot yet more stable and secure! How could I resist half price on a perfect pair of shoes? And so they came home with me.

I switched between the pairs this weekend, and all went well with both. Happy agility camper--er, runner.

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I also hate shopping for office chairs. My first real office chair I happened on by accident after shopping and shopping--it was on clearance at some random store, but 7 or 8 years ago its hydraulic lift stopped lifting, so I was left sitting about 10 inches above the floor and raising my hands over my head to get to the keyboard. I looked and looked for one I liked, finally found a decent one at one of those resellers of used office furniture. But its arms started wiggling fairly quickly and required constant tightening, then one of the bolts broke, then another one stripped out about a year ago, then the last one's hole stripped out, and I was left with an armless chair as reported earlier. In agility, as Jim Basic says, "armless is harmless," but in office chairs, especially with my back and knees, I need those arms.

I lucked out--in March, Office Depot was having a mongo chair sale, all of them at great discounts. I went on over and looked at about 3 dozen chairs. Exactly one was even close to what I wanted, and it actually felt pretty good. Would've liked it upholstered rather than just mesh, but comfortable, supportive,  fully adjustable, and available without spending weeks at dozens of stores were high on my list of key features, so I ordered one and it arrived last week. Some assembly was required, and although I bruised my hand, torqued my thumb, and got a blood blister on my palm trying to "press the casters into the holes at the end of each leg," for the most part it went smoothly.

Anyone need a perfectly good office chair with no arms? Or think they can figure out how to attach the arms? It's yours. (See link to previous post for photo.)
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About a week ago: A stunning crystal-clear day after wind and a little rain, looking west at Mount Hamilton (if you click this photo to see a larger version, you can just make out the observatory); the field is still mostly green:

This morning, looking south across the same field--guess the mustard and oxalis have decided that it's finally really spring. They make even the neighbor's beautiful purple lilacs fizzle. The yellow fields are something else to see, but they are highly invasive nonnatives that crowd out native plants. Oh, and it's been warmish with no rain for several days, so although these hills are much closer than Mount Ham, you can tell the difference in the air quality.

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Wait--how long have these peeps been on this shelf anyway?

Random Things Around Town

SUMMARY: A lazy blogging day.

If you're like me and love--I mean really LOOOOVVVVVE sprinkles on your ice cream, would you be happy paying $1.37 an ounce in 1.25-ounce bottles as found in pretty much any grocery store around? Sometimes even more than that? How can stores justify charging that much for those tiny bottles? I think you're mostly paying for the plastic, because there are about 2 servings of sprinkles in those little guys.

Or would you go to Smart and Final, buy a mongo 17-ounce jar that'll last you a month or two, and pay a mere 35 cents an ounce? Can you say ice-cream ecstasy?!

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You've seen those ubiquitous, low-paid workers waving signs around streetside to draw your attention to a store or business, right? As I pulled up to the stoplight the other day, I thought there was something odd about this particular person holding up the sign--not a lot of waving going on. REALLY cheap labor.

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Ever since a big wind storm a few weeks back, coming home from agility class in the hills, this dragon's head has been lying in my headlights on the far side of the T intersection. I wonder what happened to the rest of his body?

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I'm thinking that I need a new office chair. It's just my disarming personality, I guess.

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There's a street in Palo Alto that's blocked in the middle from through traffic, and they planted trees in the barrier. Apparently someone decorates them differently every month. Update March 27: "Anonymous" reader found this link that explains it. On the weekly 5-mile walk with the Sierra Club Wednesday night, we were a bit awed by the vibrant spring decor.

A little bird is ready for spring.

Fellow Sierra Clubber camouflaged by the lights. It really brightened up our night, so to speak.