Mantra Theatre

I just got back from one of my drama classes when my neighbor rang me asking if she could come over. I told her that of course she could come. Right after that I soon prepared little snack I just bought on my way home for our little gathering. I honestly wondered what she had to say. It is true that we are very close and often visit each other. However, it sounded that she wanted to discuss something with me.

She did come around 15 minutes after that. After we chatted for a while, the conversation came to school locker. She has two sons of seven and ten years old, both go to the same school with my children. The school just replaced its old wood lockers with the new ones about two weeks ago. From her I just knew that the school wanted to sell the lockers for a very convenient price. She just thought that she might want to buy it for her new business and asked me my opinion. She just started this new small business and now is dealing with the office set up. Coincidently, she was looking for lockers for sale when she heard about the news.

I said that it could be a good idea for saving some money. However, I thought that she should see first the condition of the lockers, or the dimension so that she could be really sure that the lockers would fit her small office. If I’m not mistaken, my son told me that they also replaced the gym lockers, so I suggested her to really check first which lockers are for sale. She said that she had already seen the lockers and even though they were not exactly what she wanted, but they were definitely what she needed. I said if that was the case, then she should go for it. That afternoon, she finally made her mind to buy the lockers.

The thought of having my own garden has filled up my mind lately. I keep on thinking how I would design and decorate my garden if I ever got one. Now when I am watching TV, I don’t only watch sport matches or movies and plays, but I also look for gardening TV shows just to learn one or two things about garden and gardening. It is quite far-fetched I guess, dreaming to have a garden in the middle of New York City, not that I exactly have plenty of time to take care of a garden, yet one never knows what will happen in the future and what seems like improbable right now can happen just like that.

Last time, there was this gardening program which talked about planter of all kinds. To someone who knew nothing about gardening before, this was some information for me. I did see different shapes of planters before put in different locations, but it never came to my mind the names of the planters. There areindoor planters and outdoor planters or garden planters according to the location of the planters. There are also decorative planters such as window box planters and hanging planters. Those two planters are the ones we often see in stores and restaurants.

This program made me realize that I don’t have to have big garden areas and can start my gardening with small plants inside my house. I surely can save up some spaces here and there to put one or two small planters or even one bighigh-end planter on our living room’s corner. Even though I may have to start with the little planters first before I can afford to manage some spaces for several high-end planters. This idea is very exciting and I can’t wait to start. Unfortunately, I think I have to wait until next week since this is a very busy week for me and my family.

Since I used all my weekend going on a trip out of town, I do not feel like leaving the house this week. I have already a lot of class activities and I don’t want to go out for even watching a musical play that I have been planning to watch since last week. There is one play that our class will perform in April and we are now having intensive practices until next two months. So, I just stay at home and try to make myself comfortable and entertained at the same time.

Then the thought came to me to get a DIRECTTV subscription yesterday while I was enjoying a TV show with a big cup of chocolate ice cream on my living room sofa. After pondering on the idea for a while, I decided that it was not a bad idea and deserved a try. So, I asked around for the rest of the day, to my friends and neighbors. Some of them gave a very good review. I also browsed the internet to find some company which offer direct TV services. One of my neighbors gave a very useful suggestion today. He has been subscribing to a Direct TV Satellite for about a year and very satisfied with it so far. Hearing that, I was interested and asked him the name of the company of the direct TV. He was happily gave me the information I need and told me not to hesitate to ask for more of his help.

Back home, I quickly went to check the DIRECT TV Company my neighbor gave me. I found the official website of the company easily and search for more detail information for subscribing the satellite TV. Now, I think I have made my mind to get a home entertainment by subscribing to a Direct TV.

This has been a busy week. After the mailbox and satellite TV thing, we need to take care of our kitchen flooring, this time for our own house. The flooring of our kitchen is an old one. We never change it since we moved to this house. Hence, it cries out to us wanting for a renovation. The wood is cracking every time we walk upon it and the carpets are so worn out after so many washes. Well, what else can we do? Now, it is time to start the flooring hunting.

My husband and I first thought of having hard nature floorings such as stone and bricks, considering that they will last longer. However, practicality came to our mind the minute we thought of the installment process. Those materials are taking great effort to install and definitely longer time, something that we object since we don’t think we want to give up few days without kitchen in our house. Later on, we decided to use vinyl instead. Vinyl is easy to install plus it is a warm and soft material underfoot. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so comfortable flooring does a big help for me.

The next thing to do is look for the flooring company and see further what options we have. We found several in the internet. We looked through every option we had. Some of those sites actually gave us more information which is useful for our consideration in choosing the appropriate flooring. Thanks to them, we were pretty confident with our vinyl choice. It did not take a long time for us to decide the vinyl flooring we wanted to buy. We called up the company and asked them to send us some free sample they promised. If all goes by plan, then next week we will already have new flooring for our kitchen.

Remember my short vacation with my friend last week? Remember the beautiful small shed and garden which captured my heart? I know I have told you about the rain barrels and all, but I believe I have not tell enough stories about it since it was such a beautiful garden and there were many things to write on and on.

The gazebo for example. It was white in hexagonal shape. The roof was three decked slightly giving you the impression of a pagoda temple. There were two iron chairs, carved in beautiful floral images, and one broad table inside it for people who want to spend their morning or afternoon viewing the surrounding fresh and natural scenery. We, that’s me and my friend, actually spent the second afternoon there reading the play script which we are preparing to be performed two months from now. It is an original script play written by one of our professors. The story is about two young roommates who have a big dispute over a trivial matter, yet this dispute has changed everything in their friendship.

To get inside the gazebo, you had to walk through a small bridge which crossed over a small pond. The pond was filled with various small fish. There were six bird baths hanging on the pointed roof edges. I saw no birds though; maybe it was not my lucky day. That afternoon, a breeze blew, still bringing the chill left by the winter. But two cups of hot coffee gave an adjustment to it. For that moment, it felt like paradise. Small paradise maybe. We had been talking about going back there in short time and taking our family with us. This time we plan to stay a little bit longer so we can enjoy fully the tranquility of the countryside nature.

My husband came back with a story from the office today. There had been a small incident in his office regarding about the distribution of mails. Up until now, the emails in my husband’s office are dropped in the front receptionist and distributed by the office boy to each person’s desk. Even though there were some missing mails once or twice before this, there were no damages done so that no further action was done. However, this time, it made quite a commotion since the missing mails were those of high importance and their presence cannot be located until now.

Since my husband’s office is not a big one, it had never come crossed to the manager’s mind that their office would need a clustered mail box as mail holders. However, due to today’s incident, the management had decided to use commercial mail boxes so that there will be no more missing and misplaced mails. The big news is, somehow my husband was chosen as the one to be in charge of the mailbox purchase. So, that’s pretty much the story why he was sitting in front of his laptop about one hour ago, looking for commercial mailboxes sold online.

As usual, internet has been the greatest helper for us. For only several minutes, he had found some promising links to some commercial mailbox vendors. After some time reading and comparing between those companies, my husband had finally found what he thought as the perfect mailbox for his office. It was a medium white elegant clustered mailboxes made from thick iron which met the budget his office gave to him. Luckily, there was a discount offer from the vendor so that he could pick better model for the same price. Now, he is sitting next to me, thinking I guess, should we have one too for our house?

Out of the blue, my classmate asked me to join her to a trip to his parents’ villa in the mountain last weekend. It’d been so long since I had a trip to countryside almost one year ago, enjoying the natural fresh air and the green scenery, so the invitation seemed to be too tempting to be passed. We stayed there for two nights and days during weekend. It was an exciting and peaceful experience that I would never forget for the rest of my life.

The villa was a small yet pretty one. I presumed it was no less than 100 years old. The building was old, giving the sense of medieval feeling. That was an exhilarating feeling. Beside the car and some electronic devices, it really felt like we were living in the times when people were eating the fruits and vegetables from their own garden.

Speaking of the garden, it was absolutely beautiful. The garden’s size was almost twice the house, with gnomes, garden lamps, and other garden ornaments spread here and there, all beautifully designed. I spotted several rain barrels surrounding the small shed in the middle of the garden. One rain barrel was pitch black, but the others were pale white with some dirts here and there. At first, I thought the rain water barrels were just other decorations, but after watching closely, I realized that they were actually working as rain harvesting tools. This was interesting for me. I’d heard about rain harvesting before, but never really saw it in my whole life.

I talked to the gardener who came in the next day about the rain barrels and had a little nice chat with him. He explained to me about the process and the tools required. He also informed me where I could find rain barrels for sale, seeing my interest in them. Honestly, the gardener made me real tempted to have my own rain harvesting tools. But in New York City, where am I going to put them?