Month: May 2025

New Couch Pillows

We’ve had this orange pillow and orange striped pillow for many years. How many? I just found a post from December 2008 (Sentinel’s welcome post) with the striped one. So at least 17 years old. I’ve been meaning to get (or make) new pillows for the last several (maybe 5? maybe 10?) years.

It’s entirely possible that my mother gave me those pillows. I’m not so good at prioritizing buying things like that. As evidenced by my meaning to replace them for a period longer than some presidential administrations.

But! Today, while shopping for a new coffee table (another task that has been put off for about a decade) Julie and I came across these fun pillows at ReRun, and I snapped them up.

The pillows are down pillows (an upgrade) and were made at J&J Herb Farm in Eagle Creek, Oregon.

No picture yet of the coffee table. It will arrive in June.

SKS: Nap Girl and Boating Party

Sara sent this painting of a girl taking a nap (the text on the back with information about the painting is too small for me to read, and I don’t want to go and find the magnifying glass). As a fan of naps, I’m all for this picture.

Then we have the well known Renoir (which I know both because it’s famous and because the explanatory information is in a readable font.)

Both postcards arrived on the same day (!). Sara reports that she found these postcards while updating her office, which made room for all the books she is going to read for Notables.

Completed: Grammar Success in 20 Minutes a Day

I’ve been brushing up my grammar skills using this skill builder book.

While they seem to think this will only take four weeks and that learning will occur quickly and easily, I took much longer than that, because I wasn’t working every day, and also because I also made a ton of flash cards to help me memorize all the grammar terms.

Unfortunately, you can see from pre- and posttest results that I improved by a little less than 3 percent. I can say though, that during the posttest I was much more familiar with the terms rather than taking a by-ear guess.

Onto my next learning journey: verb tenses.

República Anniversary Dinner

As we have before, we celebrated our May anniversary at República, home of the incredible tasting menu. Here are a few of our courses.

Albacore, sugar snap peas, and nasturtiums.

This was also amazing! And I have no idea what it was, even reading the menu. (A reason one should take pictures of all the courses.)

Here was our thank you note and take-home item. Granola!

And here is our menu. Notice that they have wished us a happy anniversary.