Redecorating.

Almost more than I love getting new (to me) pieces of furniture, I love to move existing furniture around. I find that simply by moving a piece from one location to another you can completely recreate the feel of a room. Case in point: when we went to Brimfield last Saturday, we got a bunch of chairs. Five were for the dining room table, but two were rocking chairs that we really had no idea where we'd put, and we knew that we'd have to move something in order to get them to go someplace. Here's what we've decided to do with them:

The one that Doug picked out, a very modern kind of chair that reminds me very much of IKEA (but more grown-up IKEA), is now in the sunroom/library, where the green cabinet used to be. This means that we have moved the green cabinet, and so far we have put it in the dining room, to act as a mini buffet kind of thing, to hold kitchen-y kind of things that we don't have room for in our tiny kitchen. So far it's holding nothing but our fake sunflower and the vase that we got from a cousin for our wedding, but I'll think of something to put there soon. Maybe it can be our wine cabinet. You know, for all the wine that we drink.

Anyway, but then that left us with the second rocking chair that we got, the one that we plan to refinish sometime this summer or fall but that so far looks just fine the way it is (though I do plan to have my mother reupholster the cushion, to put that reupholstering class that she took to good use). We decided to put it where the plaid armchair used to be before we moved it out into the sunroom to create our library. And now we don't have any more room for additional furniture. This is bad, bad news for people who are addicted to collecting cool stuff from Brimfield.

But, maybe we can content ourselves with taking drives to really fun places, like Storrs, Connecticut, to visit with the cows and take in the scenery. Look at this: Tell me what there is not to love about that scene. Certainly not the green grass, the rolling hill, or all the cows. Say what you want about Storrs being sleepy and a tad boring, but I loved being there for college. Any place that has animals with this much personality is a place for me.

Cows make my world a better place.

Let's continue the discussion of positivity, carrying it over from my last post. Many of you may think that my positivity levels look something like this (image from this site): However, lately my positivity levels have been charting something more like this (image from this site): Why's that, you ask? Well, this week it has something to do with these: And with this: This past Sunday, Doug and I visited UConn on our way back from visiting with his mother and father. Little did we know that it was commencement that day, but the line of traffic going up 195 didn't stop us. Or stop me. I was determined to get to the Dairy Bar. All the food that Doug's mother stuffed us with did not quell my desire for some ice cream. Some creamy, rich Dairy Bar ice cream (banana chocolate chip was Sunday's flavor of choice and it certainly did not disappoint). And then once we scarfed that down we walked over to the Co-Op, because if you have ice cream then you need books. And then once we spent some time in the co-op, we headed over to see the cows.

It's really my visit to see the cows that caused a bit of a hockey stick spike in my positivity levels this week. I was reminded how much I like cows, and how I am more than my daily routines. Does everyone know about my love affair with cows? How they are my favorite animal, so slow and lumbering, and how I obsess over their dairy products? Cheese, ice cream, milk, yogurt... I do believe that cows are sacred, and so are their by-products. Because as much as I love whole milk and yogurt, I love cheeseburgers. And a good steak. But I have many cow-themed things, and have a collection of cows, love the smell of a good cow pasture, and try, whenever it's possible, to visit cows. I've taught Doug to love cows, too, though I find that he is more timid than I am with large farm animals. Back in our UConn days, Horsebarn Hill and the animal barns were a favorite place for us to hang out. I feel alive surrounded by nature, surrounded by nature's creatures (often the non-human kind), and so we spent many a day and evening walking there, talking, and petting the animals. I'll never forget petting a horse's smooth, velvety nose and trying to get Doug to do the same. It's as if I had asked him to pet a snake. What a city boy he was! But he's getting better. Still not as comfortable as me around the animals, but then again, I can't really blame him for not wanting to kiss that snotty snout, with bits of hay and grass stuck randomly about. I find it to be pleasantly enticing, but he - and probably the rest of the world - may just want to stick to admiring from afar.