new year, new stuff

So anyone who knows me for more than a few days knows that I collect dragons.  My husband gave me two lovely display cases for my 30th birthday, and they are both very full at this point with a few sculptures too large for them sitting on a small filing cabinet.  The other day, as I ordered a new Windstone dragon, it occurred to me that those sculptures are heavy and that I was starting to acquire a lot of them.  So I looked up the weight limitation on my cabinet - only 13lbs per shelf!  I was already over that for sure, let alone when my new one arrived, so off to IKEA I went on Saturday to pick up a new display case.  It is much sturdier than my original ones, has one more shelf (two if you count the wire shelf below the glass case), has a lock, and has a weight limit of 55lbs per shelf.  Excellent.

You can see the new case on the left and one of the original cases on the right in this picture, with my filing cabinet in the middle.  I'm very pleased with how nice it looks, and the bonus feature of having a lock is wonderful.  And it's definitely sturdier - nothing is moving when the dogs run in/out of the room, as opposed to the original case where I was about to start taping things down to avoid movement from vibrations.  The case that this one replaced will go downstairs to hold glassware for the bar, allowing my husband to put more booze in the built-in cabinets.

Close-up view of the top two shelves, showing my Windstone collection on the top shelf, and my smaller collections of Harmony Kingdom dragons and Pocket Dragons on the second shelf.  Also on the second shelf is a dragon bust made for me by a forum friend, a Welsh dragon sent to me as part of a sekrit santa exchange on that same forum a few years back, my Onyxia whelpling FigurePrint from WoW, and my Chinese chop dragon that my best friend brought back from China for me.

Also on the new front is a new shock for my motorcycle, which was installed Friday night and I was able to pick up the bike on Saturday afternoon.  Even better, the shop washed my bike for me while it was in for the service!  The bright purple coil just amuses me to no end, especially since I'll be getting a new seat for the bike (also in purple) next weekend.  And obviously the ride is much nicer, especially given that the old shock lost all of its oil when it was in for service in November, so I'm really looking forward to better rides now!

Another new thing is eggs!  My best friend and I have communal chickens, a tiny flock of three hens that live in a coop in her yard and that we got from a friend of hers who is leaving to join the Peace Corps.  We moved them back in December, and we weren't expecting eggs for at least another month or two...but yesterday when she opened the henhouse to clean it out, she found eggs!  Luckily it's been cool the last few days, and the sink/float test showed they were all good, so we are super excited.  And there was one more egg this morning, so it's not just a fluke!  I just got a dozen eggs at the farmer's market yesterday, but now I'm hopeful that we'll both have our "own" eggs from now on.

Finally, while I was at IKEA yesterday I found these duvet/pillowcase sets on clearance for less than $30.  I picked up this one in blue dots and set it up in my guest room - much more cheerful than the unrelieved plain black that was in there previously!  Perhaps I will get new curtains to match...we'll see!