Lazy weekends have their place...

...but this isn't one of them.

The last several days have been tremendously productive. M'love and I have been working on getting the house in better shape. So far, the renovations of the office are nearly complete (shelving needs to go in and the ledge needs to be attacked with TSP, primer and a coat of white paint.

The downstairs bathroom is now entirely repainted. I'd very much like to paint the mirror frame, but m'love disagrees (despite the fact that there's no way to patch the abused spots and have it blend with the wood). We still need to put up wall fixtures, but that will come.

Next up is the spare bedroom. I'll be cleaning and patching the walls over the next couple days. A coat of primer on the patches, and I'll be ready to paint by mid-week. It will be the same colour as the office by virtue of buying a dramatic excess.

Yesterday was filled with purging, in preparation for painting the bedroom. We cleaned out a bunch of stuff we'd been meaning to for years and took it down to Value Village. Felt good. Among it was the last of the pots the previous owner declined to pack when she moved out, at long last.

Ultimately, I'd like to repaint the upstairs as well before the summer is out, but we'll see how well that actually pans out.

Things that make me happy.

I've been feeling particularly contented this week. It feels like things are coming together in several ways. Some contributing factors have been:

• The WiiFit. It has proven a worth addition to the household. I've already put in a couple sweaty hours, and m'love has used it a few times to good effect as well. It definitely gets one's temperature up, that's for quite sure. I'm quite curious what the lasting power will be, though, past mastering the four groups of exercises (yoga, strength, aerobics and balance). Will I/we still be using it regularly come the fall or winter, or will the novelty have palled, rendering it unsatisfying?

• Cheese. I've rediscovered my love of cheese, particularly with good bread and fruit as a light meal on a hot day. Recently, I discovered that the grocery store across the street from my work carries a small but delightfully diverse selection of cheeses. To my delight, this included a horseradish monterey jack, maple-veined cheddar, a strong gouda with tomato and olive, and an apricot wensleydale. The monterey jack and the gouda stood out particularly. I look forward to exploring the rest of their selection!

• Stitch 'n bitch. It's back! WOOHOO! Spent a pleasant afternoon yesterday in C&C's backyard in good company. The baby fell asleep on my chest after successfully being soothed out of fussiness, which was admittedly gratifying.

• Allrecipes.com has proven to be both highly useful and inspirational. Over the last year, I've sunk FAR too much time into reading and browsing this site. It's been good for my gastronomic creativity. I'm prone to pulling up six versions of the same dish to cross-reference and fit to my tastes. Highly recommended! I finally got off my duff and signed up for a membership a few weeks ago, and have found the member features (for example, the ability to add to a personalized recipe box) to be useful. I'm still exploring that aspect of it, though, and have not formed a final opinion yet.

Bleaurgh.

Staying up until 11:30 to play with a new toy is not the brightest thing I've ever done...

Wheee!

He totally faked me out, the jerk!

M'love made me think for three days that he'd neglected and/or forgotten my birthday. In retrospect, I'm alarmed that he's such a good liar.

He got me a Wii Fit! It didn't ship in time, is all, and he decided that faking forgetting was the best way to play it.

It gets points for utterly awesome. He set up a follow-the-hints hunt around the house when I got home today (apparently I figured out the clues waaaaay quicker than he thought I would). I'm miffed that he made me think that he forgot, but there's no disputing the style.

In case you can't tell, I've been grinning for six hours straight. (Also, it may be in some way telling that it's 11:30 pm on a weeknight and I'm not asleep yet.)

The Wii Fit is pretty neat, too. I've already sunk a good two hours in, and he's put in about 45 minutes. We've mostly stuck to the balance games so far - so far, he kicks butt at the ski racing, I at the ski jumping, soccer and tilt-ball games. We'll see how that works itself out in the long term.

In the mean time, I can sit smug that my "age" in-game is a mere 32.

I never feel any older

I suppose that's a good thing. Birthdays lost their glamour (in the fairy tale sense) for me sometime during university, and now they're more a marker of time.

Make no mistake - I'm still pleased when someone remembers. I've simply lost my taste for having a fuss made over it. My idea of a birthday well spent now is a quiet day at home and a dinner out, and this one certainly delivered.

I've officially entered the mobile age.

This is the very first post I've made with my shiny, shiny iPhone. I'm using Blogwriter Lite, as it's the only blogging app I could find with free stripped-down version (I have an aversion to paying for something only to find out it's crap) - if it proves useful, it will become my first app purchase.

Whatever the case, my aim is to become a more consistent poster, and not being restricted to evenings and weekends should help.