ah, the fifth day in a row of weather perfection slowly dwindles down to a close....

have i mentioned how much i love new york city, particularly in the rain, especially when it's summer and the temperature drops from 90+ and high humidity to a mere 59 and breezy...in case i forgot to say so before, consider it said outloud now.

i am so happy with myself this week. i've managed to lift myself out of my funk a bit and i've thrown myself into the long avoided, no dreaded, task of decorating my apartment and making it into a home instead of a place i'll be staying temporarily. it's amazing the difference a rug makes on a room and how much a mirror on the wall or a chair in the bedroom can change the entire feel of a place, not to mention your own perception of it. i guess i'd been avoiding this chore since i hate shopping and i'm generally so broke that i can often times barely even pay attention.

with that said, i'm an excellent bargain shopper, if i do say so myself. due to the consistency with my flea infestation (which i now seem to have subdued, thank goodness!), i had to get rid of the deep pile snow white 8x10 carpet that the landlord put in for showing the place. i think the fleas started in there and just kept on going. sorry mom, but tensor light, schmensor light. chemicals are the only way to go when the fleas have been eating your flesh!

having had so little for so long now, after having had so much for so briefly in the past (ok, who am i kidding, i have it all and i know it....at least i have all that i need and everything i have that is of any value is right here, dead center of my chest under the sternum, the heart, and that is the possession of importance that can't be taken by anyone but it is the possession i frequently give away freely). with that said, i know how to do without. i've been doing it for years. i live without good health. i forgo sanity at times and on occasion, i've figured out some mighty ok meals without the means to grocery shop for staples. now though, i'm very much getting my feet back under myself, and i'm really happy about it, no, more, i'm proud of myself. so this week, in honor of good things going on, i've allowed myself to spend my entire allowance for the month to make this pile of SpaHa bricks into a happening home.

i found a 5x8 rug that i fell in love with at pier1. it was on sale for $97. an odd amount, i know. but yee-gads! original price? $495. i couldn't commit to spending $105 on a rug right now (the 8+ % sales tax in this city KILLS me!) i hesitated, but i knew i wanted it. the rug is sage green wool with a beautiful pattern of cream roses carved into it. i could totally understand how they would have gotten so much for it originally. i thought about it. and i went home and dreamed about it. then i went to mom's and forgot about it. then the other night, i was walking past pier1 imports after they'd closed and i decided i just had to have it. no, i didn't smash and dash....good thing too....after all, the next day, when i went back to get it (they had 2 on sale when i was there, how many can they possibly sell?), all the rugs were gone. GONE i tell you! now if that doesn't beat all.

of course, being a bargain shopper, i'd previously decided to allow a purchase at t.j. maxx downtown to replace the infested pile of white synthetic (did i mention how badly that rug had reeked of plastic and rubber?) i had a problem lifting the rug i'd disposed of, so i knew i didn't want to carry one back to spaha from downtown and if i had to pay a lot for it, i certainly couldn't pay for delivery service too boot....then i priced the rugs down there...they were all around $200 for 5x9 or 8x10. unacceptable. yet, i hate to walk on the floor here barefoot, as they put down deceptive woodgrain flooring made out of 12" vinyl tiles. gross. an entire apartment, 20 feet wide by nearly 100 feet long, wall to wall of plastic woodgrain flooring....ick. feels nasty on the barefeet and gets grimy as hell given the city's pollution thanks to the buses going up the avenue and the bobs going up the fire escape! it had to be covered with rug, atleast in the living room. back to pier1 imports, i'm sure someone would buy a rug and return it....no one ever waits to make sure the purchase is the right one...that is, except me....

score! ok, so it wasn't the sage green with the carved roses, and it wasn't $97 down from almost $500, but it was the right price, the right size, about the right color combination and it was right there....smash and grab? nah....debit and get it. they even carried it out and put it into a cab for me. it's a nice rug, i'm glad i got it, even though the pattern is a bit much for my personal taste...i like old fashioned, classic and tastefully done decor, i tend to avoid modern art, modern furniture and modern fads in general....i guess it's just one of the pitfalls of being born with exceptional taste and an ability to discern the real from the bogus.

subsequently, there is a major paint job in my very near future. i think i should rush out immediately and find what i need, tonight will be ideal for any painting, given the temperature and the lack of humidity. tomorrow would be ideal for further painting for the same reason. i'll be at mom and jim's for the weekend, so can't paint then, and the humidity will be back to stifling, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have painted before i leave on saturday so it has a day or two to dry without me being in the fumes. only trouble with that is, i have no idea what i'm painting yet. oh dear.....

ok, so i know what i want to paint....i'm going to splash the square tin frame mirror that p.j. made me (photo left) as well as the two flanking squares of art tin that i found on clearance sale at marshalls....they were $88 each when they were originally on sale elsewhere...what a crock! i paid $15 total for the pair. luckily they're light since very hollow and cut out, but when i saw them tucked behind some other clearance junk, i just knew they were about the same size as that mirror and that i had to have them to make a wall accent in the new place....i didn't know that when i put up the one on the left it would be a snap to match it with the mirror, or that when i put up the one on the right, i would miss the nail and smash my thumb with the hammer, or worse, that when i did get the nail in finally, i would create a 3" hole in the plaster wall where i couldn't get the nail in (it bent in half in the end) and i had to disguise the hole with the surgical tape from the last time i was admitted to the hospital for a headwound. more on creative use of post-surgical supplies at another time though....

i'm thinking that i want to glaze the wall in the bedroom behind my bed. maybe red with a gold over glaze. that's what i did last time and it was the most beautiful thing i've ever done with art paints. but the wall was a lot smaller that time and the ceiling about 6 or 5 feet lower...i have no idea how i'll paint here to the ceiling...it's 14' tall!!!

i also am going to glaze the living room, but again, i think a single accent wall. since i have the brownish/green rug on the floor and the accent chair in chocolate brown and my throw pillows are brown and gold striped silk as well as french blue and gold striped silk with cream pencil stripes on them....i'm going to see if maybe i can find a matching base paint of that blue tone, it's so pretty and very calming. but i'm not a huge fan of blue, so i don't know if it's the best choice of color since i might be hating it in less than a year and it's very expensive to do the paint this way...i knowthey make a bronze that i can use in here instead of gold, which might be pretty, but what is the right undertone? i originall thought of using chocolate brown, but i have a feeling that's far too fattening, i mean dark, but it would certainly cut down on the evil glare caused by all the natural light in this place...i'll put up a picture once i get that far....first, i must decide what is safe to stand on for such a time consuming and attention demanding bit of effort....