Random Songs of the Day

"Big Broom", by Races:

"Black Winged Bird", by The Cake Sale, featuring Nina Persson:

Pet Peeves of "Window Treatment" Photos

I'd like to sort out the "window treatment" situation in a few rooms of our house.  We've been making do for years; it would be nice to gradually upgrade to something nicer. 

(And I guess we've already started, in at least the breakfast room.  I like the thicker, faux wood blinds we put in however-long-ago so much that we may not even need any curtains/shades/whatever else in there-- but I'd like to find a way to fix it so that the cornices (?) that came with them sit straight.  They tend to slide down too far on one side, which is painfully obvious from the bright light that sneaks through the gap.  This bothers me more than it ought to.  Anyway, as I was saying... )

So I'm trying to figure out what might look nice in different rooms (and what curtain rods we need to make those looks possible).  Of course this eventually leads to looking online for inspiration photos-- which in turn leads to the titular pet peeves.


Pet Peeve #1:  Where are the blinds?


It seems very rare that these photos include blinds.  Maybe this is just another way in which I am weird, but I must have blinds on (almost all) our windows.  (Exceptions: the window over the kitchen sink and the windows in the doors.) 

Partly this is due to a wish for privacy without completely blocking out the light and the view with curtains.  (Yes, those airy, billowing sheers next to the bathtub are lovely, but-- privacy?  Or maybe this is an upstairs bathroom-- and they live on their own personal island in the Caribbean.) 

Partly it is because I live in a place where it gets insufferably hot in the summer, and to cut down on the heat in the house-- and the electric bill for the A/C-- we use blinds to block the direct sunlight.  (Maybe these people live above the arctic circle and don't have to bother about grueling summertime heat.  Lucky.) 

So there are all these gorgeous curtain arrangements-- but none of the photos give me a good, realistic idea of how a similar curtain might look in our house, because we are weirdos who use blinds.  No matter how hard I try, my curtains will never look as nice as theirs, because I use blinds.  (Boo hoo.)

(Related:  These windows never seem to have screens.  Ours do, of course.  Screens are ugly, but necessary, if the window is ever to be opened.  I hate flies, mosquitoes, wasps, etc. more than I dislike the ugliness of screens.)  


Pet Peeve #2:  Why are all the windows so FANCY?

This isn't as much of an issue-- because there are fairly regular, plain-jane windows in some photos-- but very often, these photos of curtains and "window treatments" (which phrase I cannot use without the quotation marks, sorry) are set in such fancy, perfect rooms!  And ok, that's just the way it's usually going to be in any home decorating photo, but still, the windows!  The very windows are all so FANCY that I think to myself, "Why are you even bothering with curtains at all?  You're hiding your fancy (and obviously expensive) windows!" 
 
Well, possibly that's an exaggeration, but you get my point, right?  Once again it's a case of  "no matter how nice my new curtains are, they cannot make my plain window into something that extravagant, and by the way, thank you for making me a little bit dissatisfied with my plain windows". 




...You know what?  I don't really enjoy figuring out "window treatments", at all.   Another tick against me as a perfect homemaker.  Shoot, and I was going to be so close to perfect, other than that one little thing! ;o)

(More and More Often)

Sometimes I wish we had decided to settle down in Sweden...

Well, too late for that, now, I guess.

Looking at History...

Looking at history through Obama-tinted lenses!

"Obama Drops His Name Into the Other Presidential Biographies".

"...it turns out Obama has added bullet points bragging about his own accomplishments to the biographical sketches of every single U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge (except, for some reason, Gerald Ford)."

That is just hilarious.  And pathetic.  And the sort of thing that ought to be somewhat shocking/embarrassing, but at this point, is simply what we've come to expect from this administration.

Well, thanks for the laugh, WH.org!

Song du Jour

Peter Bradley Adams, "Darkening Sky"

Apparently it was on The Mentalist, which I don't watch (so I wouldn't know).  I found it a while ago among Amazon's freebies.  (There are more than are listed on that page, too, but at the moment I can't find an easy way to see them all listed... Just click on a freebie and more are usually recommended somewhere on the new page.)  If you're looking for new (free) music, it's a good place to start, and the offerings change regularly.  Never know what you'll find! 

Beautiful Planet

Thanks to Grandpa L. for sending along this video-- "Time-lapse footage of Earth as seen from the International Space Station" (complete with electrically lit cities, thunderstorms, and the aurora).

Warning: May cause you to tear up at the sheer beauty of it, so possibly NSFW, unless you're fine with public displays of emotion. ;o)

(Or see it bigger on YouTube. The largest size won't fit in my current blog format.)