I finally ordered new blinds for our living room and family room windows after living in this house for the last 24 years. I have refined procrastination to a very high level. Just by luck, the blinds were on sale - Buy One, Get One Half Price. That's a 25% discount for every pair of blinds. I bought 6 of them so felt like I got a good deals.
I dither so much when trying to make decisions about making major purchases for the house. Mistakes can be costly. But when Skip pulled one of the blinds and its bracket right out of where it was attached, I knew it was time to install the new ones. Today was the day as I'd picked up the blinds last week.
When I went to do the first ones, I thought I had measured wrong because the blind was way too big for the window. Well, crap. I then checked the other set of three and it turns out I had mixed the two sets. Phew!
In spite of measuring twice and screwing brackets in once, I made stupid arithmetic errors and had to reposition a couple of brackets. Once in place I realized I had to take them down to attach the valance clips. Then came the issue of attaching the stick that opens and closes the blinds. There were no instructions so I Googled "Blinds To Go attach opener" and clicked on the image that came up that looked like our opener wand. Amazon had the replacement pieces for sale so I clicked on that and there were several photos. I found one that showed how the piece came apart so I could attach it to the 'twirler' on the blind. Bingo! That was it for the family room blinds. 
On to the living room.
The brackets for the living room blinds were bigger and my drill bits were too short for the Phillips screws the bracket came with. Skip had a rusty, old, long bit for a Robertson (square head) screw so I rummaged through the container of random screws and found a bunch that would work perfectly. As luck would have it I had just reorganized the bunch of screws, nuts, and bolts on the shelves in the laundry room last week. As an aside, I discovered we have 4 or 5 different cans of lubricants - WD40, lithium grease, 3 in 1, etc - a couple of tubes of silicone caulk and peelable Draft Stop caulk, and several hammers, 3 tennis balls, all kinds of deck screws, many marrette wire connectors, a panoply of wall anchors, etc. But I digress.
Pleased that my organizing last week paid off so quickly, we, in much short order, were able to install the living room blinds with a minimum of bad language.
That was one big thing off our to do list. Skip spent an hour or so cutting up all the cardboard that the blinds came in. Recycling will be picked up tomorrow.
A bit of back-tracking. A parcel arrived yesterday. It's a mixed seed globe feeder for small birds. (photo is from their catalogue. We haven't had snow - yet)
I will let the little birds (chickadees, nuthatches, American goldfinches, etc.) feed without being pestered by grackles and cardinals. I sure hope they're not to scared to go through the lines of longitude and latitude.
This morning a parcel arrived with the new sweep for under our glass shower door. The 'sweeps' on the other one wore out quite a while ago and I figured out how to order them online. I had to use a saw to cut the plastic part down to size; then was able to install it easily.
This afternoon, I bought a frame for another of the watercolours painted by my friend, the very talented Jan Pettafor. She is a brilliant artist who captures the images of animals beautifully. Today's frame was to match the one I bought quite a while ago for the oriole she painted from a snapshot I took in the back yard last spring.
I also purchased a painting of a sunflower with a bee. I'll pop it into the frame I got today and find a appropriate place to hang it.
I love having original paintings by my gifted, artistic friends. Most of the artwork we display in our home falls in that category.
While enjoying a takeout coffee in a fast food parking lot this afternoon on the way home from Michaels, a young lady approached my car and asked if I had jumper cables to start her car. I did! So my good deed of the day was to help that damsel in distress. After we got her car started (my red to her red, her black to unpainted metal on my car), I told her "we don't need no raggedy old men to help us out". I'm sure she thought the senior citizen that helped her out was a bit loopy. It was also the first time I've jump started anyone with my 7 year-old car. Now I know where my battery is.
Which reminds me, I need to get an oil change. I tried 3 times last week and each time was told there would be a 90 minute wait to get in.
I'm pretty sure after all that activity, I'll conk out pretty quickly tonight - not that I ever have trouble sleeping.
PS Skip and I got our flu shots at our doctor's yesterday. She didn't have the high dose vaccine so I guess this will have to do. Word has it with all the isolating and mask wearing, our incidence of flu this season will be WAY down. At least something good can come from this annoying pandemic.
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