Fashion challenged

Last weekend was another blur for me.  We are wrapping up our validation project at work after 11 months of testing and re-writing reports and testing and more testing.  A real painful, slow project that is finally going live this weekend.  We took the system down on Friday and will install the upgrade and bring it back up (hopefully) on Tuesday.  I am not in the IT department, so my role is just to watch the process and assist when they reach a roadblock.  In the interim, everyone is supposed to stay off the system (under penalty of death) before the new system comes on line.  I have a small task on Monday to do a “smoke test” when it is partially up just to see if things look ok.  For us, we are glad to have this project come to the end of this phase.  Lots of work after it gets installed, but that is way easier than all of the testing and report writing we have been arguing over for the past few months.  I, for one, will be elated to see this turkey fly.   

I did a few home chores last weekend.  Was playing catch up from last week’s road trip to SoCal, I had a few things to clean up, put away.  I got shanghaied recruited to help my SIL in looking at a new couch and chair for her living room.  Since we had the bigger vehicle and I can brave freeway war zone, I was asked to chaperon her and my wife to a big store north of town.  Now, this is where issue #1 comes into play.  For those who have not read between the lines on my little blog, I am NOT very fashion unconscious.  I blame it on my genes, my brothers, the time I spent in the Corps, those 4+ years in the Army, or just being a guy.  Whatever excuse, I will freely admit that I have the fashion skills of a monk.  That is why my wife has the role of interior decorator for our house.  If left up to me, our home theme would fall somewhere between camouflage and duct tape.  If I had my druthers, we would still have the old beer can coffee table I built in collage.  Needless to say, momma has been the one who put taste and class in our humble abode.  That is why I normally look upon furniture shopping about like getting picked for jury duty.  I would rather give a cat a bath.  Somehow, I got recruited to help out on the furniture trip so I just had to man up and make the run.  Besides, we were hoping to find a chair to replace the ratty old 1970s Herculon chair that my parents bequeathed to us many years ago.  It has been a staple in our bedroom for a long while and eventually wound up becoming a dog bed.  First Shadow staked his claim to it, then Grayson and finally Claire.  

After all those mutt butts, the old chair has seen better days.  Threadbare, tears in the fabric, sagging cushions, creaky springs.  One arm had become so threadbare, I resorted to duct tape to correct the problem (Motto:  If it moves and it is not supposed to, use duct tape.  If it doesn't move and it is supposed to, use WD-40).
    
Now SIL has very eclectic styles and will buy whatever suits her fancy for that day.  She relies upon my wife to pick out stuff that actually looks good.  My wife found a nice couch and chair set that were very conservative, blended well with the house and, after some debate over fabrics, SIL made the call.  My wife lamented that she liked the set up and we still needed a couch/chair for the living room after our last couch left for college a few years ago.  The front room is a formal living room and doesn't see much action except for holidays, so it was lacking proper furniture.  I prefer the uncluttered look.  Heck, if it were up to me, I would have put in a pool table and dart board, but that idea got voted down rather quickly.  Now, momma was pining for a new set and I told her that getting me out to do furniture shopping was about as easy to do as herding cats, so I told her that we should go ahead and get them.  So, long story short, we have a new couch and chair to adorn our formal living room.  Of course, I was off at work when the new toys were delivered, so momma sent me pictures.  The movers even came and hauled off the old dog chair (we used the old sectional sofa for the dogs).     

Imagine my surprise when an hour later, she sent me a picture of our new couch with an addition included.  Apparently, someone has given his approval of the new arrangement.  
  

I guess somebody approves of the change.