Dark thoughts

When I moved into this place, the window treatments were original to the building’s construction in 2004, and many were showing their age.

Saggy!

The blinds in the south-facing living room windows get blasted with desert sun all day long, and were visibly warping and sagging even in the photos in the MLS listing, which are supposed to show your house in the best possible light. (Sorry.) In the thumbnail pictured at right, you might also be able to see how some of them also had thin metal bars bolted to the bottoms in an attempt to keep them as flat and even as possible, but the draw cords had seen better days too and weren’t effectively pulling their weight. (OK, I promise I’m done with the puns now.)

What’s for dinner: 30-Minute Skillet Chicken Pot Pie

I got excited at the idea of a homemade chicken pot pie but I didn’t read the directions all the way through before assembling this dish. If I had, I would’ve seen that this isn’t really a pot pie because there’s no bottom crust, only a top one, and it’s baked separately and just plopped on top before serving. Points awarded for flavor, points deducted for deception.

Little fires everywhere

There are 15 candles burning in my house right now.

This is not normally the case; for much of the year, it’s too hot to think lighting one open flame in your home sounds like a good idea, let alone multiple tiny fires. But one afternoon just before the holidays, my sister texted to say I needed to open the package that had arrived that day so I could make sure everything was OK. When I did, I was greeted by a pine-scented candle (in, I was happy to report back, an undamaged container). A few days later: a new package, from the same sister, with the same text message … and inside, a different Christmas-scented candle.  

“I need to start burning these right now if I want to use them up by the end of the year,” I thought. So I lit one and went to put it down in the living room … but every time I found a spot where a candle would make a nice touch, some other candle was already sitting there.

Back to Puerto Vallarta

Almost as soon as we got back from our March trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mr. Brooks started talking about when we could go back. He floated the idea of New Year’s, but prices jump precipitously over the winter holidays—up to three times as much as typical rates. But as I started researching possible dates, I found a welcome dip during the period after Thanksgiving but before Christmas. After discussing the idea of also inviting our friend Jennifer, we pulled the trigger and decided to book flights and a place.

Buy, buy, baby!

One of the benefits of being a single adult of a certain age and income bracket is once you see something you like, chances are you can pick it up without denting your savings too much.