Decoration days

We have had a respite in the heat here in Rio. I can't believe we are enjoying such nice weather in January. We have a missions/evangelism project going on at church. The youth are out visiting all the neighbours (population 20,000) and are terribly grateful for the nicer weather - no rain, nice temps.
Because of the lower temps I actually ventured out to downtown to buy some new furniture for our apartment. Laugh if you will, but when it gets hot here, it is like downtown is boiling. Your feet get hot walking on the sidewalks and your head feels like it is going to melt your brains.
Anyway I enjoyed my excursion. I was able to finally get the bookshelf for my living room and also a dresser for my bedroom. It has been hard for me to find what I wanted, but I had previously visited this store and knew they had what I wanted. The furniture is built of real wood (which seems to be a difficult thing to find these days!), called "demolition" wood, since it is taken out of old farms and then rebuilt into furniture. It even smells like real wood. The style is old-fashioned, not modern and I like it. So now I have someplace to put books and CD's and "stuff" in my living room. I love the glass doors since it protects things from the heavy layer of dust I fight with on a daily basis. In addition, we finally had the tulip painting framed. We love the frame and feel like it adds a lot to the painting. It deserved more attention.
I was especially pleased to find a dresser I liked - with a marble top - for my bedroom. Most people use the built in drawers in their built in cabinents in the bedroom. But three little drawers just weren't enough for me. Guess I have too many clothes. But I hated the daily jumble of trying to find things for me and for João as well. I spent my afternoon yesterday adjusting 'drawers" in a very literally sense. I am already quite happy with being able to just grab things without having to take the drawer out of the closet into the light to try to find matching socks.
I know the walls are bare in the bedroom, (hopefully you can't tell), but perhaps now that I finally have the furniture I can concentrate on getting pictures framed. That is an expensive process. My philosophy is that you only buy what you can pay cash for, so that's why it's been slow going on getting the apartment fully furnished. I kind of have the impression that by the time I have everything the way I want it, we will be retiring and have to downsize to our small apartment in Vila Velha. That's life, isn't it? Take things one day at a time.