Big Boy Bedroom

For most of my adult life, I have been very proud of my bed - an antique metal bed that belonged to my grandparents and on which my mother was born (yes, I bought a new mattress when I first started using it - just in case). After buying my own home almost four years ago, I began to want something more modern and more in style with the much larger bedroom that I had, so I had been wanting a queen sized bed. Finally, in November I bought a good queen mattress and used it on a simple frame, but it was too low and didn't really satisfy what I wanted in a bed.

I am fairly picky in what I wanted in the furniture: solid wood or metal; contemporary, but not dated -- oooohhhhh so 2010!; either high enough for underbed storage, or low enough I wasn't wasting space by not storing things under it.

So while R was out of town last weekend, I took the opportunity to switch things around and put the entire new bedroom together. He was quite pleased the first time he walked in to find it. He agreed that it fit the bedroom better and was a better height than the lower frame.

I didn't really need a new bed because the other was quite nice and sturdy. There is just something about finally having my own furniture with my own style that gives me a bit more of a grown up feeling - even though there are stuffed animals on the bed (a sock monkey and two turtles).

Almost Trashed

I only take the walk down to the mailbox a time or two a week because 95% of what comes is junk mail. It takes very little time to scan through the piles of envelopes and circulars to determine what I'm going to keep and what is instantly going into the trash.

The other day, as I picked through the junk, one envelope caught my eye with it's red stamps and bold print. With the overbearing print, it was clearly nothing I really wanted to see.

But being the speed reader that I am, I noticed the first line under the bold red stamp - then paused to read the rest.


Almost anyone who watches television will be able to figure out which insurance company sent the letter. Though the letter went quickly into the trash, I did take the time to pull out my camera and take a photo of the humorous lines on the front of the envelope.

I wonder how many others have completely missed the humor in the rush to dispense of an additional piece of clutter in their lives.

Clearly the marketers somewhere thought this would be an effective strategy to get people to slow down and at least think about the product (which I'm more sure they made a point to sell on the inside of the envelope - that I did not open). They did get me to slow down and chuckle a bit and I appreciate them for it, but I'm still not changing car insurance.

However, if I do....

Flamingos

It has taken forever to get through all the photos I took during the trip to Disney in January. In going through them, I found my favorite photos were from Animal Kingdom which is the semi-zoo, semi-safari part of the Disney parks.

Of all the photos taken there, the photos of the extremely colorful birds were among my favorites. Though not as colorful as some of the birds in the compound, the flamingos were particularly photogenic - perhaps because they just stood there with their heads tucked in.

Thanks to the magic of the zoom lens, I was able to take this incredibly close-up picture of the flamingo. When I print it, I think I'm going to order it in poster size because of the stunning details in the feathers when seen at full size. I just keep going back to the picture again and again. If your computer will allow, click on the picture to enlarge.

When I have a little more time to sit at the computer and play, I'll be posting more pictures of the different animals at Animal Kingdom.