This Weekend's Plans

It's finally the weekend and that means I can stay in bed as long as I want! No alarm clock, no walking up sulking and wishing I was already retired, suiting up for work, rushing to get in time to punch the electronic card to signal that I've got to the office in time. Or not? Well, inspite of arriving nowadays early enough to my homecity to run my errands, I still had a nice pack of things-to-do to take care of today. So this is how my beloved boyfriend and I woke up around 7 am and dragged ourselves sleepy from bed to shower to dressing to breakfast until we left to do the errands at quarter past 8.

The list of activities was nicely detailed in my trusty, brand new paper agenda - eternal thanks to my former thesis partner, Mile, for giving me one. I would have never bought myself one, after I've made the transition to electronic agendas, but this one is giving me so much more, that this might be my coming back to the old school system! - with an aproximation of a schedule to get everything done in time, and the most efficient way. Well... maybe if I would have done it alone, I could have stuck to the original plan, but then things got changed a bit. The first stop was at the Post Office. I should have been posting some letters, which I have finished, but there were a couple of things I haven't been done with it, so for one thing, just one thing, I couldn't post the letters. This meant also that I had to get that one thing done as part of my errands. (I can't explain this exactly, but there's this add on to a letter I'm posting and there was one last detail to make it look real neat, which I wanted done at all cost. I can be just that... picky.)

Then we went to the bank - where I had to arrange those burocratic things all of us have to go through. To do this, we went to the office farther from us (though there's one much closer in our city), basically because I like this office better (not to mention there's usually less people in there, which now was also the case, with us being the second next in line went we got in). This bank is at the far East side of the city, while we live at the far West. The other office is exactly in the middle between the two points. This other one I basically don't like because they get a lot of people, queues are endless and the employees are mostly looking for a way to not do their job. The other one - being smaller - is far more attentive and receives less visitors, which make them almost try to make you stay as long as possible, so that they have something to do. All matters were dealt with swiftly and efficiently, which made me fall in love with my bank even more.

From there the next stop was to get the letter-thing done, which wasn't easy because (it was a printing), nobody seemed to be able or willing to do so. In the end we found a place where they were SUPPOSED to make it well, but ended up making a regular print. :-( Well, in the end it worked nicely.

Then we headed to a jeweler to get a small silver necklace and cross cleaned. I didn't realize until we've got back from Dominican Republic, that my silver cross and necklace had blackened up terribly (maybe because of the bathing in the pool of the hotel), but it had gone horrible. :-( We got to a jeweler, who at looking at it at once realized it was stained with sulfur. I was amazed. How could taht get in contact with sulfur? (Pulling out my Supernatural knowledge, I would say maybe I've got in contact with a demon.) The jeweler told me it might take a week to clean the necklace, however, to my utter delight, they called me back in less than 30 minutes to tell me it had been cleaned. Eagerly, they offered me a silver cleaning rag of some sort, so I can take care of my silver at home. I didn't purchase it, but probably I will, as I've an amber rose with a silver stam and leaves that could use some polishing. Have also been told of a way to clean. Here's how:

You'll need:

1. sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)

2. a drop of water, or

2. a bit of lemon

Mix about an 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda (like the tip of a tiny spoon) with a drop of water until you get a paste consistency. Rub the silver with it repeatedly until the black is gone. Rinse it with plenty of water and hand wash soap... liquid! If the stains are too big, too hard or too dark, prepare the solution with lemon instead of water. You can add more lemon and let the silver sit a little covered in the solution.

Baking soda for cleaning silver isn't a new, thing. I've found just now another recipe on the About.com site, which tell you how to do it. This one involves tin foil, baking soda, salt and hot water. Here's the link.

From there we went to the Farmer's Fair to pick up fresh veggies and fruits, and then headed to the hairdresser to get our hair's ends trimmed. Here I learned another trick, this time for persistent dandruff. (It happens that often that dandruff that appears and doesn't seem to want to leave your scalp no matter how good your shampoo is, is due to things like heat, stress or even a sense of general discomfort. Go figure!) My hairdresser told me that what we can do to make it go, is to rub mineral oil (the one used as a laxative) into the scalp where we see the damage (often it isn't on the whole head). We can also mix the oil with rose cream and apply that to the scalp. I'll be reporting on the results!

From there we headed home, not before making a small stop at a tiny Scrapbooking store. Me scrapbooking, I know, but it ain't as lame as many would think! Besides, from time to time I also knit, crochet, embroid and sew, so there. I do lady-like crafts as well. And thanks to my beloved friend and master, Dragonfly, I also can make jewelry, so scrapbooking was just a next step. (Though it does take a lot of time and monetary resources!)

As it happens, as any trendy craft or activity, scrapbooking is quite an expensive treat if you do it "professionally". Gorgeous but insanely expensive supplies deck the activity, and had this tiny, too-precious store packed from floor to roof and wall to wall. It's not like grandma's old album of pictures, it's a particular acid-free album, and acid-free plastic sleeves, and acid-free paper - some printed on both sides, some not, some thicker some thinner, some plain, some glittery - and acid-free, scrapbook designed decoration, which have a particular name an amateur like me didn't quite catch. I browsed for a moment, with my mental calculator on, as I added up the cost of the supplies I could need to make my Mom's scrapbook. (Mom wants me to make her a scrapbook, after she heard Lau and I made one. Ok, Lau made one and I helped, because I'm so freaking SLOW! I only contributed with a few sheets.) The amount was quite elevated, and I hadn't even considered the decorating things!

After this, sure, I'll make my Mom's scrapbook, and I might make one for Kari and I, but this isn't going to become a hobby of mine! Not sure I could or would afford it!

So this is my weekend so far, how about yours?