Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Yesterday I finished assembling the table and chairs that will go on our deck.  These were sold through Amazon by a company called Oakland Living (a furniture wholesaler), but were manufactured in China by some company I can't identify.

You may remember that I nominated the table's assembly instructions as “worst assembly instructions evah!”  Well, the assembly instructions for the chairs were possibly even worse.  In particular, the chair's instructions don't tell you the proper placement of some very important parts – and if you got them wrong, you could easily damage the chair.  I've seen how these “spring rocker” chairs are assembled before, so I figured it out pretty easily.  I can imagine, though, that quite a few people get it wrong and end up either damaging the chair, or even hurting themselves.

I'm guessing that Oakland Living buys from many different manufacturers, so probably the instructions for all their stuff aren't quite so bad.  But if they are ... watch out!

Earlier this morning, while it was still relatively cool out, I geared up to work with my steel-bladed weed whacker.  I then wandered about the west side of our property, taking out teasels wherever I found them.  The timing on these matter – if I were to wait too long, they'd go to seed and I'd have a bazillion more next year.  If I do it too quickly, then the late-sprouting teasels escape my marauding.  Today was just about right: the smallest teasels I found were about 2' high, and easy to spot.  None of them were in seed yet.  They're all on the ground now...

Yesterday I started going through my mom's belongings, doing a first pass on sorting it for trash, stuff to give away, stuff to send to relatives, and stuff to scan or save.  It's a bigger job than I had imagined, mainly because there are so many questions to get answered.  The questions range from “What the heck is this?” to “Did any of our relatives want this?”  I'm leaning on my sister a lot for help with these things. 

Yesterday I came across the jewelry at right.  My sister tells me that these are some of my mom's favorite pieces.  I'm about as far from a connoisseur of jewelry as it's possible to get (remember, I like my women naked, unpainted, and unadorned :), so I have no useful opinion about them.  The women in my life are uninterested in them; they are not the style that appeals to them.  And yet ... they are my mom's favorites.  I'm really torn about what to do with them.  I may just give them away to some of the residents at Williamsburg, where mom stayed happily, but briefly.  Or maybe I'll find a way to display them, as a memento.  My only plan right now is to ponder...