random thoughts - Day 2,029 (Monday) - build and bake

New bedside shelf and lamp.

It was a day of GSD (getting sh*t done). The three-shelf tower with light, drawer, two outlets and two charging ports that arrived in a surprisingly small box on Saturday was finally assembled today. the instructions to this one had challenges. The three-cubby narrow storage chest, the litter cabinet with door, and the six-foot tall book shelf spoiled me with decipherable instructions and illustrations. 

The three-shelf tower was a different story. For one thing, none of the parts or bags of hardware were labeled. Some parts, like the drawer and the lighting fixture were obvious, but the three different screws required scrutiny of the teeny, tiny illustrations. Two types of screws had an extra, noted in the inventory as "(1 for spare)", but one step that required four screws not only didn't have an extra, it only had three in the package. (Cue a round of WTF.) 

The poorly translated text in the instructions was mostly okay until steps 10 and 11 of 13. These steps used undefined terms that resulted in head scratching and WTF-ing. "Fix the bracket with the buckle"? "Lamp cap"? What, what? It took longer than it should have and the lampshade became creased during that step of the installation, but at least it's done now. And when I'm done reading in bed, with cell charging on the little shelf, I no longer have to get out of bed and walk tot he wall switch to turn off the overhead light. I can pull the little chain and my sleek, modern light will be extinguished for the night.

After that, there was the fan searing of vegetables for supper, which were tossed with leftover basmati rice from Sunday's supper. A couple hours later, brownies were made. The former standard of baking only from scratch has relaxed with time, and these were made from a box. As convenient as they might seem, the only time savings was not having to measure dry ingredients. The mix required two eggs, three tablespoons of water, and a half cup of oil, so there was still the dirtying of measuring utensils which are now in the sink. 

Even more edges!

The brownie pan a friend gave me has the channels so every piece gets two edges. Yes, please. Unlike the days of my youth when I would disappear an entire pan of brownies and clean up all evidence, leaving the rest of the family to question whether they really saw a box of brownie mix in the cabinet, self restraint was exercised. Most of the pan is still intact, and, as noted on the box, "loosely wrapped." 

None of the completed tasks were the thing I was supposed to be doing, which is finalizing my costume for a troupe Halloween performance on Saturday. I started altering a key component last night and somehow lost the entire bunch of black (for contrast) small safety pins I was using to mark where I needed to take tucks or remove material. I had then in my hand. In my lap. Then, they were gone. Not under the couch or ottoman. Not in the cushions. Not anywhere. No bueno. Time for a new approach. Tomorrow.