Red October

A few weeks ago, we bought lighting fixtures for the new home office, and among those were a few sconces and a chandelier. The coordinating lampshades for those came in black, white, or red.

Well, red is my default color, of course, but black would have been okay, too. We found a dealer in Atlanta who had the fixtures in their showroom with the white shades, but we knew we didn't want white. DH decided to order them online, in red. "Is it a nice red, sweetie? I mean, it's not lipstick red or anything, is it?" "Well," he replied, "it's kind of hard to tell online, but I think it's a darker red, like a crimson. It should be fine."

Did we mention that the shades are covered in velvet?

A few days later, the lighting fixtures arrived. "Oh, my!" I exclaimed as we pulled them out of the box. When friends dropped by later, they had a similar response, except that their eyes got really big, too. I'm not sure why.

Of course, shades are pretty easy to replace, but we think they'll be okay. Really, we do.

Wrecking Crew

DH: That was Grumpy on the phone.
TS: Oh, yeah? When does he think they can start working on the computer room?
DH: They're parking a dumpster in the driveway today, and they're going to start tearing up the room tomorrow.
TS: Oh, my--that's big news!
DH: Yeah, they had called early last week.
TS: Surprising.
DH: So, we've got to take everything out of the room today--desks, computers, bookshelves . . . oh, and I think I'll go ahead and let them demolish that bathroom, too.
TS: Mmm-hmm. What about all the stuff in the closet and the window seat?
DH: That's going, too. We'll move all the furniture and computer equipment to the dining room for now.
TS: Oh, that reminds me--are we having company for dinner?
DH: Uh, maybe we should just go out . . .