Getting married nowadays means you are required to register at retail locations and pick out stuff you wish you had. Not that you necessarily need, or even want. But everyone says it is a faux pas to ask for cash. So, as any new couple did we registered for a set of pots and pans.
Only problem is, we didn’t have a place to put those pots in our already limited cupboard space. The dining room had a bit of wall space, enough for a slim shelf, so I suggested we build our own. Before you wonder if I went out measured and cut wood to size, no. Ikea came to my rescue with IVAR.
The natural grain of the wood wasn’t quite what we wanted in our forest-green carpeted dining room.
The original color of the IVAR unit next to our drawer unit already residing in the dining room.
We liked the shelf, but not the color. A few trips to the hardware store and a bit of reaserach online and we spent the weekend staining each piece of the shelving unit.
We managed to stain the shelves without getting the wall dirty, or the cement patio stained. Small successes add up in the end.
And recently, when I made cupcakes, I looked at the shelves and thought they looked pretty classy. Long story short: Here’s our wedding present-laden shelf.
Stained and on display in our dining room. Just don't forget to dust.

There’s a small container of cupcakes on the table. I made them last night. They aren’t frosted and are hermetically sealed in a cake-carrying plastic container which I inherited through marriage. Part of the large dowry consisting of furniture and baking items that never quite made it on my various moves around the country.
Among the ingredients was a recipe that listed cooking times for Bundt pans, and a little registered trademark after the word Bundt. To the vast knowledge of the internet I discover that it was trademarked in the 50’s by a man in Minnesota, but used long before that as the German word bund or, to gather together like a group of people. \
Etymology is cool.
I also find myself missing my indoor houseplants. It has been nearly two years since I last spoke to them. It’s ok plants. I still think of you. I know you are well because occasionally you make it in to Brandon and Alison’s blog (scroll half-way down to the table full of plants).
Anyhow. Take a gander at a larger image of yonder cupcakes .
Leftovers ended up looking like pac man and I snapped a photo. This was more an experiment in using flickr’s interface for blogging and how many steps i would have to go through to get a cell phone picture blogged.