We spent much of this weekend on home improvements. Friends came over on Friday night to help us install the new fixture in the hallway (see below) and the dining room, but the dining room fixture turned out to be "inventively installed," so they came back on Sunday to finish the job. On Saturday we hung the light in the living room all by ourselves!

Yesterday we had our first real taste of how homeowners spend weekends...Get up early to garden (after two hours I still wasn't finished weeding, but at 10 a.m. it was already too hot), bribe your friends with lunch to come help on your projects, then spend the afternoon installing light fixtures or spray-painting old shelves. By 10 p.m., we were exhausted. The shelf-painting was actually really fun and for only $15, we have "brand-new" shelves that look like they came from Pottery Barn. I did learn that a can of spray paint doesn't go as far as I thought. It took almost 6 cans to paint 4 shelves.

Today will be much less active, primarily because holding down the nozzle on so many cans of paint has worn out every muscle in my hands and arms. I do have to go to Home Depot AGAIN to get the right screws for the shelf brackets. Then maybe a nap this afternoon :)...