The Empty Cabinets of my Mind

I Love Office Furniture

Some visitors complain because I have more office furniture in my home than your normal residential furniture. Let's face it, I am just not the stuffed sofa type. When I went past an estate sale and saw one of those lawyer bookcases with the glass doors that come up and slide in, I came to a screeching halt and haggled over the price until it came down to the cash I had on hand. Hey, no dusting needed for the precious stuff inside that gem.  My home does not contain a lot of fancy little stuff that you have to dust, though, as it is more or less filled with books and ring binders full of information.

I love to have a lot of filing cabinets around the house too, and I want nice easy sliding ones in attractive colors (for me, attractive is bright!), wood tones, and white. Lots of white makes space look bigger. I keep my fireproof filing cabinets inside the closet and they are white. This makes it harder for spiders to hide on them. I loathe and detest spiders.

Office furniture is one kind of merchandise that I have not yet ordered online, probably because of the shipping rates. Lately, however, some online furniture sellers have begun to offer free shipping.

This is good, because now that a lot of the filing and paperwork clutter can now be stored online, it will be fun to get rid of some of my old file cabinets and start looking for other kinds of office furniture, like office chairs, for example.

Nonstop Shopping Fun

I think maybe we gave the term "Shop 'til you drop" new meaning this holiday season.  So many stores were so empty that we wanted to spend money just to support them.  We were also encouraged by the existence of some real bargains.

Speaking of which, I just learned that the folks over at Crystal Singing Bowls have recently slashed prices on some of their merchandise.  For instance, their 14" frosted A 3rd eye crystal singing bowl which normally sells for $450 is marked down to $179.98.

In perusing their website, I also learned that the Himalayan solid salt glass 4-pack is marked down to $29.98.  If this sounds like an ad, by the way, it is.  Silver Sky Imports was kind enough to pay for this post because, I think, they know I love this stuff.   To be honest, I am pretty clueless about how to actually use a solid salt glass, but they are SO pretty, and at this price I can afford to find out.  It does seem to me that they would be great for serving ice cream. 

The next sale items that caught my eye were the lamps.  Because of the dimmers, these are possibly the most beautiful items offered by Silver Sky Imports.  They are made of Pure Natural Himalayan Grade "A" Crystal Salt and sit on a rosewood base. 

 

Cheap Full Coverage Insurance for your Car?

The nice advertiser who invited me to blog about cheap full coverage insurance for your car would have liked for me to try out the service in order to be able to write a more informative post. However, I drive a clunker and so I pretty much only buy liability any more.  Also, seriously, I do intend to keep this car forever and run it into the ground.

But if you would like some quotes for cheap full coverage insurance yourself, I can tell you that they have an easy to access web page with an attractive cartoon that caught my eye with the catchy phrase "Don't you have something else you'd rather spend your money on?  That sentiment appeals to me a lot.

In fact, one of the reasons I plan to keep my clunker is that not only insurance goes up with a new vehicle, but also the annual registration. Whenever I see a new car that appeals to me, another thing that always stops me from salivating over it very long is knowing that in addition to the cost of purchasing the car there would be mandatory "factory" maintenance (much more expensive than my nice neighbor who charges me the exact cost of the parts plus a footlong sandwich and a soft drink...sometimes he gets lucky and I buy him a cookie.) 

If I did break down and buy a higher tech vehicle, however, I would want full coverage.  Of course I would shop for cheap full coverage insurance online.   So I did put my zipcode in on the page that came up from the above link and I was happy to see that the company that now insures my clunker was one of the CheapAutoInsurance.com providers.  I have gotten quotes in the past and they have always come in with the lowest price. 

 

Furnature or FUNature?

The place I am staying right now is too small for me to even consider any bedroom sets, but there is room in my bedroom for a drafting table. Now you know my priorities.  I've talked before about how I'm not much into furniture.  But what I have has to be fun. 

I prefer modern furniture with lots of storage space and no rough edges.  I like light colors, too, mostly white, and if it is wood, then pine or white oak.  It has to be easy to keep clean and smooth to the touch.  I like lots of light bouncing around in my space and miminal everything. 

It is safe to say that I have more furniture out in my gardening area than indoors.  Whenever anyone wants to get rid of a tab le or set of drawers, out there it goes.  In fact, I now have more used shower doors than I can actually use for raised planter projects, but the neighbor who donated one of them suggested that I use it for a hothouse instead.  We do not have much winter, here, but I am thinking that in the rainy season I should be able to put one of those big panels of tempered glass over my herb garden to keep the little green things from getting pounded. 

Free Stuff

The saying "You get what you pay for" does not apply to free stuff!  Maybe there is some trade off between the goods and your time and energy, but for those who are interested in finding it, there really is a lot of free stuff out there.   For example, cosmetics counters are always handing out free samples of new things, like the stretch-on nail polish strips.  Those didn't work for me, but I'd sure rather try the sample pack for free and find that out instead of buying a whole box of them.  Of course, most stores will accept returns on that sort of thing, but there is time and money involved in having to go back to the store and get a refund.  Also the tendancy is that while back in the store we will see something else we think we need.

They know what they are doing.

So do the companies that give away free cell phones, but that doesn't keep me from going that route. My first smart phone, the Helio Ocean (yes, me and smart phones go way back), was a freebie with a two year contract. When they were bought out, Ocean support evaporated, but the new owners knew just how to keep me as their customer.  They gave me an Android.   They probably think I'll pay actual money to upgrade it and maybe I will.  On the other hand, I might just stick with the free stuff.

There is a lot of free stuff available online, too, and the above links will take you to FreeCatcher.com which is sort of the motherlode of free online stuff.  For example, they announced that on March 1, IHOP will be giving away a short stack of pancakes to customers who donate to the Childen's Miracle Network.   Another offer that interested me was the free Magic Grip Jar Opener offer which includes free shipping.    I think you will all have fun with this one.

 

 

 

But it's Dry Heat!

When the ambient air temperature goes above 117 F out in the Mohave Desert and your skin starts feeling like maybe it is sunburned when you have only been in the shade, we laugh and say, "But it's Dry Heat!" 

This time of year, however, the Tri-State Area is a bit cooler than Palm Springs and instead of being a blessing, the dry air indoors changes "dry heat" from being a good term to a bad one.

Some people, in fact, find the indoor air so dry that they have to start thinking about Steam Inhalers.

So imagine my delight when this morning's inbox contained an ad offer to post something about the topic "Warm Mist Humidifier"  That served as a reminder to study up on the difference between the benefits of warm mist and cool mist. Personally, I don't have any breathing problems, but I do know that if my home gets too dry, the furniture could crack.  It is also a fact that while all humidifiers need to be kept clean, a warm mist humidifier should be cleaned a bit mor scrupulously, so when making a purchase I recommend one that is easy to clean in order to encourage compliance.   My unit has a choice between hot or cool, but if one has to choose one or the other, then the climate would be a major consideration since a cool vapor is more appropriate in a hot environment whereas a warm mist should be more comfortable in a colder room.  However, it is a matter of personal choice.

The other question is whether you want to humidify the whole house or just have one or more of those Personal Steam Inhalers available.

I Love Office Furniture

Some visitors to my home look around and exclaim, "Where is the sofa?"  Well, I don't have one, nor do I have any recling chairs or coffee tables or any of that stuff.  It takes up space and doesn't fit my life style.

But I love office furniture.

Go figure.

I also love the folks who pay me something to put paid links in my posts from time to time, even when they don't quite get the links right. 

We all know what they meant here and I would just go ahead and fix it, except that  the last time something like this came up, PPP said not to.  But I will gladly change the post whenever they send corrected anchors for the middle link.  In the meantime, it isn't pretty, but t is clickable:

http://www.eofficedirect.com/Departments/Office-Furniture/File-Cabinets-and-Storage/Lateral-Files.aspx

Lateral files are attractive and space saving and possibly safer than the vertical kind, but if you have to do a lot of filing, maybe the vertical ones are a better fit.  You can get either kind from hon office furniture vendors. 

Also, since furniture is so heavy as a rule, the shipping charges can be formidable, so it is nice when the vendors have free shipping offers going on.

Pretty Postcards

I do most of my own printing at home, but sometimes it is fun to have a few favorite photos professionally printed onto kitchen tiles, blank books, or even postcards.  I am not the world's greatest photographer, but with a nice 12 meg camera sometimes I get lucky.  Then, too, I use a color postcard printing service when I want UV protection for my images.  This is necessary for archive copies of my drawings and paintings.  Some of the things that grow in my garden are also works of art. 

Before eating them I try to take pictures.  The best photos serve as reminders that even I can grow attractive edible stuff, even in a postage stamp sized yard. 

This year the edible stars in my garden were lipstick peppers.  They were fairly nondescript when they were green, but when ripe they turned the prettiest red and gathered a bit of heat.  I run them through the wheatgrass juicer with a few leaves of Swiss Chard and chicory or whatever tasty green is ready to harvest.  Then I freeze the spicy juice into cubes in an ice tray.  After they are frozen, they are great for dropping into nice cold glass of V-8. 

 

 

Are You Insured?

After a pretty hot summer, today we finally had weather that was pleasant for gardinging out in the sun by day and even became a bit chilly in the evening.  It is time to start carrying light jackets around.

The other thing I noticed today was that the bottles of water that I freeze overnight and then drink off as the ice melts did not melt as fast as they needed to.  It is time to start thinking about the changes in the seasons, and with that, the coming holidays.

A lot of Canadians come to winter in the southwestern US.  They usually enjoy getting to take advantage of a beneficial currency exchange rate. However, they have to buy all sorts of temporary insurance when they visit here.

That reminds me that when we were driving through Arizona and stopped at a tourist attraction along the way we met a European tourist who had locked himself out of his rental car about 5 miles from the ranger station.  We were going to give him a lift, but my quick-thinking travel companion figured out how to get his vehicle back in service.  We were very far from any major city, so although his car rental agency would have come with help eventually, he could have been stuck out in the boonies for quite some time while waiting for their assistance.  That is something to think about when on a trip. 

 

Compost Smells Good

My composting in a small space experiment is going great.  Not only have I saved money by not having to buy potting soil, but the quality of the compost my garden waste is producing is stellar.  It smells so sweet and fresh.

What does not smell sweet and fresh is my car.  I thought all the "country air" that got circulated into my A/C system

when I drove past a farm that produces famous beef cattle had gotten flushed out between now and June, but when I flipped the rear A/C on the other day, it was PHEW! Just like being back on the farm.

I like natural  Odor Eliminators whether they are for the home or the car.  Although I do not have any pets, it is good to know that they are now making odor eliminators for specific kinds of animals, including dead animals.   I keep hoping the gophers who have returned to the burroughs under my shed will soon fall into the latter category.

I was raised on a dairy farm and there are also many dairy farms near where I live, which I pass many times and have never noticed unpleasant odors in the air.  But that certain farm up on I5 is stinky every time we pass it.  But that is a really big commercial enterprise, so maybe it is just a matter of scale.