The Big Reveal

It's raining quite steadily as I sit in the pre-dawn darkness. What a wonderful sound! I feel rain-deprived after our drier-than-normal summer. Our rainfall is still lagging -- I'd like to say by how much, but I'm having trouble parsing the charts on this page, which monitors our local weather. In an abundance of journalistic caution I'm just going to say we're behind and leave it at that.

I hope yesterday's blog post didn't seem too slap-dash. I woke up at 7:07 a.m. and I have to leave for work at 8 a.m., so I sat down and cranked it out in about half an hour -- and during that time our new couch was delivered and I was trying to eat breakfast! There was a lot going on and I didn't have time to "finesse" it. Today I can sit and write a leisurely post.

Yes! The new couch is here, as is the new rug:

Dave stayed home yesterday to intercept the deliveries, as well as deal with the drain engineers, who had to come back because the first guy didn't fully reopen the drain. As my mother used to say, everything has to be done at least twice.

I really like the couch's appearance, but I confess I'm still getting used to it. By the standards of our conversation the other day, this is really more of a sofa than a couch. It's structured more for sitting than for lounging. I knew it would be smaller than the Big Brown Behemoth, but it seems very small when I'm sitting on it, and it also seems to have a very slight forward rake, maybe to help older people like me get in and out of it. My mom's couch was like that too.

I love the rug. The design is called Robin's Wood, and it goes well with all our plants and our general garden theme in the living room. Dave seems a little unsure about it -- "it's very colorful," he said -- but again, I think it's just a matter of getting used to it.

Overall I'm very pleased with our updates.

There's a lot of other stuff going on related to my job and potential retirement. The school has agreed to my application and presented me with a proposal, which I have informally accepted, so it looks like it's going to happen. I have to have the whole thing legally vetted now, before signing a final contract, and then next spring I'll be done. It's a weird and frankly scary feeling, but I think it's time.

(Top photo: An autumnal hydrangea in our garden. Oddly, this hydrangea is pure white when it first blooms, so it's interesting that it picks up some color as the season progresses.)