TheBanyanTree: And one thing leads to another....

[Pam James]

I'm not sure where the starting line is....  There are a few points to make
before I even start to tell about what is happening now!!  Okay.  I'll just
dive into the middle, and hope to bring it together as I go!!  (for the
record - I own rescue Great Danes and I do volunteer work that causes me to
sit in court)

Several months ago, before March when we got Bella, Bo and I went and
house/dog sat for my friend - also a Pam! - who had FIVE dogs.  (I got
really good at counting to 6, who's in, who's out, who's eating,etc!!)
 (For the record, she finds strays on the side of the road that she brings
home, and she was 'fostering' a pup whose owner was displaced from
Florence!) In the evenings, I sat on what I thought was "her" chair, on the
other side of the end table from the recliner, which I assumed was her
husband's!  I was wrong, by the way, SHE claimed the recliner, but that has
nothing to do with the story.  The point is that we had a great time
sitting on that chair!  There was an ottoman, and I'd curl up with a
blanket and my tablet, and whichever dog got there first!  Bo tried - I was
*his* mom after all! - but he couldn't fit no matter how many different
ways he tried to contort himself!

I thought that chair was super comfy and I sort of bonded with it!  So when
Pam told me they were getting new chairs a few months later, I was thrilled
when she offered to deliver the old set to my house!!  I put it in the
'Happy Room', and convinced myself that someday I was going to learn how to
reupholster and I'd get that ugly-as-crap-to-me chair recovered!!  Did I
mention that I thought it was hugely ugly?!  - laugh out loud here!! -  I
loved the chair to lounge on, but me and Pam have totally different tastes
in fabric!!  It's kind of a perfectly fine red and goldish damask.  Blegh.

Meanwhile, I don't use the Happy Room like I used to.  When Axel was alive,
I'd sit in the chair by the window with my feet on the ottoman and my
laptop on my lap, and he'd lay on the bed and those were our spots.  Then
Axel died and Bo got here and that brat doesn't lay nicely anywhere - he
charges around and bedspreads go flying and nothing is safe from his teeth
and I stopped having so much time to sit around and play on my laptop and
then I needed the room to stash stuff that was for the non-profit I play
with, and etc ....  It all kind of happened at once, and the Happy Room
door was shut to keep Bo out!  It's still Happy, but any plant I put in
there seems to get forgotten and dies!!!

When Axel was alive, I put a gray fleece blanket on the end of the couch he
laid on, and he'd gracefully get up and down and the blanket barely moved.
And then my soul dog died and Bo came.  <sigh>  I love this mutt and he's
lucky, but it's not hard to guess how this particular 14 month old Dane
ended up in rescue!!!  I have a large sectional, and Axel used to get up on
one end.  Not Bo!!  Bo owns the COMPLETE sectional - every section!  He
runs zoomies around the living room, and on the sectional, sending it
slamming into the table behind it and off the rug and totally screws up the
pillows!  He has pulled out the stitches that are there for looks though
now they look unattractive and there's a puncture on one cushion...  He's
had a great time on this piece of furniture!  But I'm not stressed about
it.  Firstly - you can't own Danes and expect to have nice things!!
hahahahahahaha!!   (you can laugh some more here!!)

And, I don't spend a lot of money on living room furniture because I get
bored with it and want to change things up!!  In the 13 years I've lived in
this house, this particular beat up sectional is the 5th 'couch' I've
owned.  Every other piece I've been able to sell or give away, but this one
will go to the curb!  That's right - I'm looking for another couch!  I'm
going to attempt to keep the dogs off the new one but if that intention
fails, I won't cry - for all the reasons I've already mentioned!

My neighbors (who are like more kids than neighbors to me, especially since
they birthed me a grandbaby!) and I went to the furniture store a week or
so ago because they were looking for a piece of furniture themselves!  I
wandered around getting ideas and taking photos.... sectional again or
couch and chair??  And then I came upon a chair I just fell in LOVE with!!
A swivel-rocker in the most HAPPY, colorful print!  Maybe a little too
green-and-not-teal, but oh man!!!!  And I thought I could build a living
room around it!!

Because my walls are gray, and dark teal on the short opposing walls.  In
fact, I just repainted the wall with the sliding door last week!  (and here
we backtrack in this story) I'd  seen drapes hung from the ceiling
(somewhere!) and thought I'd love that!  I got super-long drapes and hung
them, and hated them ever since!  The door is 'square' and the drapes hang
'rectangularly', and it shows where the sun shines through!!  So I was
going to get the drapes hemmed and rehang them 'normal', right over the
frame.  And then I saw a set of drapes for sale on Facebook's marketplace,
and it was only 20 bucks for 4 panels - *and* they were a teal and gray
pattern!  EEEEkkk!!!!  LOVE!  So I repainted to cover all the holes I was
filling.  This is funny:  I went to Lowes in search of new paint.  I wanted
to stay with teal, but I needed new.  I picked up five or six 'swatches'
and compared, and then chose the one I liked best from them.  (Too many
choices just confuse me!!)  Would you believe that after four or five years
I came home with the EXACT SAME color?!?!  Crazy!

So far I'm building a new living room decor from a wall and drapes!
Brilliant!  Actually, I know that I can still reuse my original drapes,
just hemmed, and they're a paler silver pattern, so all is not lost!

Yesterday, on my way home from court, I had to pass the the Ashley store,
(I live 20 miles east or west of any kind of real stores!) and I stopped to
see THE chair again, and do another walk around.  I *really* liked the
small sectionals, with a handy chaise, and then I could still have a
chair!! But the chaise side was really just an unattached ottoman, so was
that really going to be a great idea if Bo did run zoomies?!  (Although now
that I look at my coffee table, that's not going to work because it's too
big!  I need a regular 'couch'!!

My same friend Pam has some kind of pads that I can put on the couch and
they will emit a high sound that only the dog can hear, and it might keep
Bo off!  I'm going to give them a try.  Of course, sweet Bella is deaf so
they probably won't work for her at all!!!

So the chair.  I loved the idea of a gray couch and brightly patterned
chair!  But I was wondering about the pattern on this chair and then
looking online for other chairs and ALL OF A SUDDEN it came to me!!!  I
could reupholster - well a professional could! - the Pam chair and ottoman
and it would be perfect!!  I already HAD a chair!!  Duh!!

So I asked on Facebook who anybody knew that upholstered, and I've come up
with a person to do it!!  She had me take photos and she told me that I'll
need a total of 14 yards of material.  She gave me a couple of websites to
use.  HOLE-ee cripes!!!  First of all, I only like about one in a hundred
'swatches'!  There's not a lot of teal patterns out there!!  (In my mind I
"see" a bright paisley-ish teal and gray pattern boldly going where no
other pattern has evidently gone before!!)  And the prices!  eE-gads!!
Almost four hundred dollars for enough yards!  Plus I gotta pay the
upholsterer!!  I could buy a new chair!!!!

But alas... I can't FIND one!  Nor can I find material!  I actually saw one
on a site that looked like a serious possibility and I put a sample in my
cart.  The sample was a buck.  One Dollar!!  Shipping was freaking
$6.95!!!  I'm an Amazon Prime chick....  I'm used to *free* shipping!
Seven bucks for a piece of material seems like they're trying to rip me
off, and those who know me know I'm always on alert for anybody trying to
get over on me!!  It's a flaw...

And while all this is going on in my head, I wondered about my teal and
gray patterned rug.  Would it match the new patterned drapes and a
potential new patterned chair!?  Mallory, from next door, my 'grandbaby's
mom', said no, I needed a solid color.  THAT was easy!!  I found one online
- FREE shipping *AND* free returns!! - and it's on its way!  A teal shag!!
Hahahahahah!!!  It's probably going to be horrid all together when I'm
done!!

And that's my whole one thing to another story....  and it's not even over
yet!!  I'm still sitting here at the dining room table looking into the
living room with both Bo and Bella hanging out on the couch; it's pushed
back off the rug and away from the coffee table, pillows and blankets on
the floor and on the coffee table - none on the couch, the floor in need of
a vacuum, and the sun streaming through the sliding doors that have no
drapes yet.....

This is my life and I seem to be okay with it!