You All Should Start A Betting Pool On How Long I Stick With This

In an attempt to get back into the blogging habit, I am shamelessly copying Joyce by participating in the 31 Day Challenge using the writing prompts from Five Minute Friday.  It is important to note:

1. I have not read through the 31 Day challenge AT ALL so if I’m doing it wrong, that’s why.
2. I may or may not use the writing prompts every day.  I’m going to start with them, and then we’ll see how it goes.
3. I’ve already missed the first day, so I’m going to use BOTH prompts today.  You may interpret that as genius or laziness.  

The prompt for yesterday was Calling and the prompt for today is Family.  Setting my timer for 5 minutes and …

If I were feeling terribly spiritual I’d go with that kind of calling and apply it to my family, but I’m not so I’m going to talk about actually calling.  Like on the phone.  I like to talk on the phone.  I especially like it when I’m tackling an unpleasant chore because talking distracts me from scrubbing or folding laundry and makes it fun.  Some of my family members are good about talking on the phone.  My mom is always up for a chat and if I can catch my sister when she isn’t shuttling kids to activities, she will talk with me for a while.

My kids?

Not so much.  Reagan does a pretty good job, but she’s so busy between work and school and coaching high school Slam Poetry teams that it’s hard to get her for more than a few minutes.  I try though because I just love to hear her voice.  Texting is fine, but doesn’t fulfill my mama need to hear my kid.

Hayden, on the other hand, is phone phobic.  It’s killing me.  He will answer the phone if I call, but then I just get monosyllabic answers to my questions and I can just tell that he’s dying to get off.  I’m sure that’s typical of boys as his dad and my dad are the same but I’m just dying for a meaty conversation with that kid.  Makes me anxious to see him in person!

Five minutes are up and I’m not done, but I’m going to stick to the rules today because I actually do have things to do.

Until tomorrow … or not. ;)

No Reasons To Whine - And Yet I Shall

Right after I bragged the other day about the cleanliness and organization of my kitchen, I had to empty the contents of my china cabinet.  I don’t want to pack the contents, because I am sure the movers will do a much better job than I could, so I had to put all those delicate items somewhere where they would be out of the way of the people coming to lay carpet.

The only room not being recarpeted?

My kitchen.  Where the counters now look like this:

Which is to say that my kitchen is no longer clean or organized.

So it fits right in with the rest of my house which is in varying states of dishevelement and disarray as we shift furniture around so we can rip out the old carpet and get staples pulled.  This, by the way, is not a fun job because 8 year old carpet in a house filled with 5 messy people and all of their pets is not the cleanest stuff in the world.  However, the company installing the new carpet wanted $900 for removal and I am way too cheap to pay for that when I can do it myself.

Doing it ourselves though requires that we do it ahead of time, so most of my floors now look like this:

Hayden is limping today because he has a splinter in his foot and all of us are feeling discombobulated due to not knowing where anything is.

So I’m whiny.  And yelling.  And generally unpleasant to live with.

My parents moved out of their home of 30+ years last fall so I called them last night to complain and commiserate.  My dad answered the phone.  He listened to my tale of woe involving workmen who don’t show up when they say they will and the carpet story and the painting stories.

He wasn’t impressed.

“Well, you have a bed don’t you? And your refrigerator is running? Then you’re fine.  It’s not a big deal.”

And he’s right.  It’s not.  I even have flushing toilets.  So really? I can just shut up.

Which I shall do.

As soon as the new carpet is in.

Probably.

Little Touches

Guess what I’ve been doing?

Sigh.

I wish that were a hard question, but it isn’t.  I’ve been painting.

Again.

At this point I’ve gone through almost 10 gallons of paint but the end is in sight and everything looks clean and bright and new - even the living room which I painted in the exact same colors.  New paint is the very best spring cleaning.

Each evening when I finish painting, I settle in to our family room, look at the bookshelves a sigh a happy sigh.  Putting those together has been one of my favorite parts of this project.  I finally finished the fireplace mantel.  I incorporated several of your suggestions.

Putting up pictures of the kids was a good idea, but seemed like it might overwhelm the space, so we went with a mirror.  My cousin suggested wiring the space for sconces but that was way more work than I wanted to do so I found these large pillar candles instead.

The finished product is simple and symmetrically which suits my taste.  I love the layered look but can’t pull it off on my own without it just looking like clutter.  Since the bookshelves have a lot of different things on them, I thought the mantle would do better with a more spare look.

The bookshelves make me really happy though because of all the little mementos on them.  Some of them are new, like this blue bowl that I adore.

I bought it for it’s color because I was using blue as the “pop of color” for the room.  Most of the blue though, comes from much loved objects that I collected from around the house.  These blue books are classics by Louisa May Alcott that my mom read as a child and then I read them and then Reagan read them.  

Faith is not so much of a reader.

The picture in front of it is one of my mom’s baby pictures.  When I look at it, I remember the story she tells about those blonde curls.  When she was a toddler, my grandfather took them all to Occupied Japan to live with him while he was stationed there.  My grandmother could not take my mom out in the streets without covering her head or the locals would gather round to touch her head.  They hadn’t ever seen hair like that before and wanted to know what it felt like.

Totally freaked my grandma out.

This teacup was hers.  It’s part of a collection she gathered from all the trips she and my grandpa took.

I suppose it’s probably an antique by now, as is the rest of the collection.  This cup has always been one of my favorites and the blue is perfect here.

My grandma also got me this Lladro when I was little.

Truthfully, I didn’t much like it when I was growing up.  I didn’t see it as a portrayal of a little girl trying on her mom’s shoes.  To me, it just looked like a girl with big feet - which I also had and was pretty touchy about.

I’ve gotten over that.

Mostly.

Now it’s just a beloved family momento.  My girls each have a Lladro that my mom got for them, but they’re still in the china cabinet waiting for when they move out and decorate their own homes.

These little silver plated cups are what we used for the kids when they were little and we were setting the table for a “fancy” dinner.

Now they could drain a cup that size in one swallow, but once upon a time they would sip on them throughout the meal and feel so grown up holding them.

Of course there are also books on the shelves.  I picked out books for their colors and also tried to pick titles that we have actually read and enjoyed.

And then across from the shelves are our well worn, very comfy old couches.  Truth be told, they could stand to be replaced but that would have put the project way over budget so I’ve just disguised them dressed them up with new pillows.

They’ll do for a while longer.

I just love incorporating the old in with the new.  It makes the room fresh but also familiar.

Hopefully this weekend I’ll finish up painting the entry/stairs/upstairs hallway that all runs together and then I can take a break for a bit and just enjoy everything for a week or two!

Recycle, Reuse, Repurpose

I am not a hoarder, I swear.

I regularly throw things out.  All of my cupboard doors close.  I don’t have random piles anywhere other than my kitchen counter.  I can find all of my pets at all times.

But yes, there are some things I have held on to through the years. For instance:

• I have all of my jr. high and high school year books.  And I always will.  You never know - one of those people could become famous.  Or infamous.
• I have the outfit that we brought all three kids home from the hospital in.
• I still have the baby crib because I’m afraid if I throw it out I’ll get pregnant.
• I have my grandmother’s mink stole though I’ve never worn it, nor can I think of anywhere I would wear it.

And, I have kept the bridesmaid dress I wore in my cousin Deonna’s wedding in 1986.

(My apologies to my cousin, Gus, for throwing him under the bus by posting this picture of him.)

I can’t tell you why I saved the dress.  I knew I’d never wear it to a prom or anything but I really have used it through the years.  A couple of times I’ve had an event or shower where you’re supposed to wear an old prom or bridesmaid dress and this one always got great attention.  The fabric and color are very time and place specific.  You take one look at it and know it was Albuquerque circa 1986.  The older it gets, the more awesome it is.

Reagan also wore it once in 5th grade when she had to dress as Mary Todd Lincoln for a report AND she wore it with the mink stole.  BAM! Hoarding justified.

This year for Faith’s winter dance Showcase recital, she needed a costume to be Cinderella’s fairy godmother.  Her director told her to go to a thrift store and look for an old ball gown.  I procrastinated that project right up to the day she needed it and then went through my closets in a panic trying to find something.  I pulled a couple of Reagan’s dresses and this relic.

Faith was horrified.

“Mom!  There is no way I am wearing that thing.”

I dragged it to the dance studio anyway where Faith flat out refused to carry it into the building, so I gathered it up and plopped it down in front of the director.

Who loved it.

“That is fabulous!  Look at the shine, and the way it flows.  Ack! It even has a train!  It’s perfect.”

Faith was not thrilled.  But she put it on and all the teachers oohed and ahhed and she finally came around to appreciate the vintage appeal.  With some wings and a glitter sash, the costume was complete.

Sadly, the matching hat was lost long ago, but I don’t really think that fairy godmothers wear hats anyway.

The director really wanted the dress to be a darker color, but 80s fabric will not dye.  Not one bit.  So peacock blue it remains.

Faith totally rocked the part and I think that with this, I can finally retire the dress.  It shall be donated to the studio’s costume collection.

But I’ll miss that shiny glint of aqua in the back of my closet.

My Sister Is Mean

I was casually flipping through my Instagram account yesterday when I came across a picture that stopped my thumb dead in its tracks.

This picture was posted by my sister and captioned, “Cause this will drive my sister crazy ;)”  and then my very own first born “liked” it.  

Understand that Nicki and I run our households in completely different ways.  Examples:

• Her kitchen floors are always immaculate.  I think of mine as a secondary food bowl for the pets.
• Her entire family takes off their shoes at the door and lines them up neatly.  My entire family takes off their shoes wherever and leaves them there.
• You can walk into Nicki’s house on any day and open any cupboard and it will be neat as a pin.  You can walk into my house with advance warning and open the one cupboard I allow you to and it will still be messy.

And apparently there is one other glaring difference:  I understand that a balanced egg carton brings peace and untiy to the world, and Nicki is trying to upset the entire cosmos with her egg carton.  How can she be so neat and yet have an egg carton where the eggs are just scattered willy-nilly?  It’s incomprehensible.

The following text conversation ensued:

Then my darling, precious, adorable and KIND niece Ryan sent me this:

She was so sweet to do this for me that I didn’t have the heart to tell her she did it wrong. Obviously the egg on the bottom right needs to be taken out and placed next to the egg on the top left.  

It’s ok,  she did her best.  Poor little thing - she has no role model to follow.