Mashing Potatoes

There have been a few quick changes made at Casa Penner, and I thought instead of doing three short posts about the individual changes, I'd just mash them together into one long post. Well, honestly, it won't even be that long. 

Okay, first things first: our living room doesn't have a ceiling light, so we have to use table or floor lamps in order to keep it bright and cheerful. On the plus side, things are wired so that the top plug of every outlet turns on when we flip the light switch (ah, the innovations of people back in the 60's; fantastic). But on the other hand, that also means that we need to plug all our lamps into the top plugs... which can often lead to awkward extension cords. See below for a close up on an awkward extension cord. But that particular view is fine, because unless you lie down on the ground with your head pressed against the wall, you'll never see this. What you will see, however, is the extension cord running along the baseboard a couple feet until it reaches the outlet.

It used to be all loose and obvious and in the way, but the key words are "used to be". Because I fixed it. It took a staple gun. And a bunch of wasted staples (hey! Staples! I work there now) because some of them ended up going through the extension cord.... Thankfully, I was smart and unplugged it before I started shoving little pieces of metal through it. Remember, kids, electricity is dangerous!

Now you can hardly even tell it's there. And I can breathe again. 

Update number two is purely for deliciousness' sake. It is simply two bowls put on top of our living room side table. The first bowl contains pistachios (yum!) and the second bowl is there for the shells, so that you don't have to constantly be getting up to throw them into the garbage... and the shells don't end up mixed with the not-eaten-yet pistachios.

Plus, the bowls (which were a gift for us at a wedding shower) are completely adorable.

And they seriously look great sitting there with the rest of the table's set up. Mmm. Eye candy.

Finally, I did something totally crazy: I put a brown fitted sheet on our bed... underneath the white fitted sheet that we use. What? That's bonkers! Why'd you do that? Well, let me answer your horrified questions and ease your fears. I haven't lost my mind. The thing is that our mattress is very uncomfortable, and we actually have an old quilt lying on top of the mattress acting as a topper. Yes, the thin quilt really makes a significant difference. So, we won't be getting rid of it anytime soon.

However, the weird old floral print always showed through our white sheet. Eek. Not really great for our style of making the bed. So, I was going through our sheets and realized that I could just put the brown sheet down, and instead of the floral showing through, now you can't even tell that there's anything other than white sheets. 

So that's what I've been up to. What about you folks? Doing crazy things like putting two fitted sheets on one bed? Or blogging about little things like pistachio bowls? Maybe you've just made some mashed potatoes?  You know I love to hear from you!