7 Quick Takes about How to Confuse a Bird (It's Not Hard), Missionaries in Training, and Feline Photography

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

I had an idea for a new living room layout, so I spent about 4 hours one morning measuring everything, making a mockup of the room on the computer, then testing it out by moving the real-life furniture around a bunch of times... and in the end it all went back to where it was to begin with, except we swapped locations of the birdcage and the bookshelf.

I was a little irritated, but not as much as Pringles (the bird). When she flies out of her cage now, she gets disoriented and can't find her way back. She keeps flying to the bookshelf, getting confused at why it's not a birdcage, and then just sitting there squawking for help until someone picks her up and carries her back to her cage.

It's been almost a week and she's still confused. I totally understand now why they call dumb people birdbrains.

To be fair, though, for the first days after the change, the kids were also walking to the birdcage to get a book before self-correcting and saying "Oops, I pulled a Pringles."

—2—

I also redid this corner of the living room. Here's the 'before' picture.

Jesus on the right, a church statement on the importance of the family on the left.

It's always been important to me to have a picture of Jesus on the wall, but I've never been crazy about His "I'm not mad, just disappointed" look in that particular picture. Over the years I've thought about buying this one painted by the same artist with a slightly different facial expression, but the cheapskate in me couldn't pay $25 plus shipping for a nearly-identical picture where the corner of the lips turn upward instead of downward. 

So I did some research, bought this digital art print from Etsy, and got it printed out at Walmart. They don't print 10x13s, so I printed it as a 11x14 poster and trimmed it down. Then I printed out "The Living Christ", a more recent church statement on what we believe about Jesus, and put that beside it. (That wasn't as easy as it sounds, since the PDFs I found weren't high enough resolution so I had to copy-paste they words and format it all myself.)

Then I realized that everything was beige and brown: the wall, the decor, the frames, the cabinet. The new corner could use some color, so I went to Lowe's and got a plant. It's an ivy, so assuming I don't kill it, it will eventually trail down the side of the cabinet and look really nice.

Tip: Take the 'before' picture at night and the 'after' picture in the daylight and it will look like you did more to spruce it up than you actually did!

—3—

Now I've turned my attention to our other "all beige problem" in the living room. The sofa is beige and the wall behind it is also a giant expanse of beige, with a poorly-placed wall clock that is too small for the area it covers. I need some color to break up all the beige, but as a minimalist I don't want to hang art (there are already focal points on the other walls) or use throw pillows (they will just end up on the floor). So maybe a lamp with a colored shade?

I uploaded a picture to ChatGPT and asked it to add a floor lamp and an end table. It put the end table in the middle of the room and the lamp in the doorway to the kitchen... I think I need an AI that is at least more familiar than me with the principles of home design, because even I know that's not where you put a lamp.

Anyway, the living room is in progress and I have some ideas. I'll keep you updated.

—4—

Our 19-year-old is now a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! This week she started online classes from the Missionary Training Center (MTC). Next week she'll go to a physical MTC campus for another two weeks, and then she'll head to Nevada where she'll be sharing the gospel with whoever will listen for the next 16 months.

She's always been a really good kid, but since she's been thinking about and preparing for a mission in earnest there's been a noticeable change in her. Quadrupling the amount of time you spend studying the scriptures each day and eliminating scrolling social media would probably change anyone for the better, but it's more than that.

She's focused and excited. The promises in the scriptures are becoming very real to her, because she's going to be trusting God to help her do very hard things, like talk to strangers from Nevada who might not care what she has to say and might not even be very nice about it. She just wants to become someone the Lord can work with; she's willingly handing over her K-dramas and hanging out with her friends for the next 18 months to focus on what He can accomplish through her, and I'm thrilled for her.

This week she's busy with Zoom classes and meetings for most of the day, but she does come out every once in a while to warn us that she may have to unmute and say something. (Now that she's a kind-hearted missionary, the "so stop acting and sounding like a zoo out here" part is implied rather than spoken out loud.) 

—5—

The 13-year-old just participated in a cross-country relay race. Because of the other kids' sports schedules I wasn't able to go, but I seriously wish I could have. 

It wasn't a normal relay. You could wear any uniform you wanted (and I mean any uniform, there were people in tutus and inflatable T-rex costumes running this thing) and use anything for a baton (my daughter's team used a Birkenstock.)

This was the first year our school participated in this particular relay, but I hope they do it again next year because it sounds like a sight to see. There's something for everyone here, even if you don't usually enjoy watching people run.

—6—

When we got home from a camping trip a few weeks ago, it was an extremely hectic time and there were about fifty Very Important Things happening over the next few days that required our full attention. At one point Phillip told me "I put all the camping stuff up in the loft" and I remember sincerely thanking him, because neither of us really had the time or bandwidth to put it all away. 

Well, this week I went up in the loft to get something, and saw the camping stuff lying all over the place as if he'd flung it all up there with a trebuchet and left it exactly as it fell. Nothing was where it was supposed to be.

THANK YOU REDACTED.

(Phillip swears he was planning on going up there to organize it at a later date, I just beat him to it. I'm 90% sure he's telling the truth, so thank you partially reinstated.)

—7—

My friend Anna is out of town visiting her sister, so I'm going over to her house every day to feed her cat. The cat is her baby, so I try to send pictures or videos every few days because she misses her.

Do you know how hard it is to get a non-blurry picture of a cat??

They're worse than kids. They never stop moving, ever!

Click to Share: