Adventures in Hall Decking

There's no list / Week in Review for last week. I worked. I did laundry. My Christmas shopping is mostly done. The house is somewhat decorated. It was Pink Candle Sunday on the Advent wreath this past Sunday. I don't really know the significance of Pink Candle Sunday, but that's the Sunday I like to decorate.

I had all kinds of big plans for crafty Christmasy window boxes and lights on my porch. Didn't happen. I also had plans for a real tree this year. Also didn't happen. There's a new dresser in my bedroom so my old dresser has no home right now and instead is in the place in the living room where I was going to put the tree. So I'm using the dresser like its a mantle. My advent candles are on the top and the dogs' two stockings are hanging from the top set of drawer knobs.

Last year my house was in a shambles and I thought "Next year I'm going to have a nice house for Christmas." This year I have the good fortune of having new furniture from my grandmother. The problem is that with 900 square feet, every piece of furniture has a place and if something new comes in, then something has to go out. So, there's a holding pattern of sorts going on - an end table and a corner hutch are hanging out in the dining nook in the kitchen and a dresser is loitering in the middle of the living room. Eh, maybe next year I'll have this all figured out...

So for Pink Candle Sunday I did put up my tiny fake tree and it looks kind of cute. And I do have a wreath on my front door. After lunch on Saturday I went to visit the real trees at our local neighborhood garden shop and picked up a wreath there. It's almost too big for my door, but I like it and it smells yummy.

Anyway... I'm realizing how boring this post is so I'm just going to move along to the picture portion of the program:

Giant new yummy-smelling wreath.
(Non Christmasy window box to the left.)


Tree.

Santa's Helpers "helping" in the best possible way.
Apparently all of the excitement of their stockings
being hung on the dresser with care was exhausting.

Happy Holidays!

What I Learned This Summer - Part Two

2. Always, always - ALWAYS - use test paint:

Every single frickin' room in my house is, or was, in the process of being painted. In two of them I first applied test paint and have ended up with exactly the color that had been floating about in my head.

You know, in my head, the place where I am Martha Stewart and my best friends are Tom Filicia and Nate Berkus. It's all kinds of fun in there...

But, in two of the other rooms I arrogantly taped a couple of paint chips to a wall, declared a winner without much thought and then painted. Only to be horrified at the end result.

In the bedrooms I wanted a nice, coffee-with-a-bit-of-cream colored brown. Not too dark. Not too light. A Goldilocks of brown, if you will. How hard could that be, right? Well, the boys that helped me paint started on one of the bedrooms while I was busy doing something else in another room and were being suspiciously quiet while they worked. After a bit they called me in to look at the color, sounding a bit concerned. And rightly so.

It was pink.

Well, eventually a mauve-ish tan. But all wet and shiny and freshly painted, it was pink. We tried to convince ourselves that it would dry darker and be fine. In reality, I think they knew I was going to hate it, but they were very sweet (and very tall - Summer Lesson Learned Part 2.5 is always get tall boys to help you paint...) and humored me and kept painting anyway. Two days later I went back to the paint store, they added green to the paint, matched it perfectly to the color in my head and I went home and sheepishly re-painted by myself.

Then the bathroom. Oh the bathroom. It needed a muted, robin's egg blue - one of those nice Martha Stewart vintagey shades of aqua. But again... I recklessly painted and then stepped back to take a look, promptly declaring "Aaaaaand now I live in a beach house!" Turquoise. Bright, blinding turquoise. Seriously. Like hang a shrimp net in the corner, find a parrot statue for the back of the toilet and a seashell cover for the box of Kleenex. Lord. Finally though I got it right and now every morning I sigh at how much I love it and how it's finally exactly the right color. Finally.

I bemoaned to Katie about all of this one afternoon and she said that for women, picking paint colors is akin to men's inability to stop and ask for directions. It's something that we believe we should be able to just inherently do without assistance and sometimes we just can't. So true.

It's almost all done now. Well, as done as it's going to get for now. And I will share photos soon.

Until then, in my head, it's happy hour and Tom and Nate and I are enjoying martinis and discussing what fabric to recover my living room chair in, if you'd like to join us.

See you tomorrow.

What I Learned This Summer - Part One. Or....

The Official Moment Wherein:

• My boss goes on vacation
• I can see the light at the end of the home renovation tunnel
• It's only 7 more days until the start of college football
• I recently went to see Julie and Julia so I'm reminded that I should be posting something on my blog so that Nora Ephron will one day find me interesting enough to turn into a movie...

No? Ok, moving on...

So, I've been negligent. But with good reason. Kinda. I've spent most of the summer thinking about what I'd like to be when I grow up, should that moment ever happen. And, when I haven't been doing that, I've been painting and wandering through Lowe Depot and obsessively reading about college football. It's been, like, the least girlie summer in history. But I have learned a lot. So, if anyone out there still remembers me, I give you Part One of the Top Five Lessons from the Summer of 2009:


1. I Suck at Balance:


Mostly I suck at balancing the different areas of my life. I'm always letting one of them consume my time and energy and in doing so let the others sit over in the corner and collect dust. And dog hair. Lots and lots of dog hair. I've always known that I do this, but never before this summer have I realized so clearly how dysfunctional I am about it.

The aforementioned home renovation tunnel prevents me from seeking paid help for my condition so until Dr. Phil starts penning an advice column in This Old House magazine, I'm kind of on my own to figure out how to fix it.

I also physically suck at balance. Startled out of bed a couple of weeks ago - by the producers of the dog hair that's collecting on the areas of my life I can't keep balanced - I stumbled into the living room to assess the identity of the person that must've been trying to break into the house and murder us all to warrant all the frantic damn barking. Turned out it was only a stray dog running loose on our street and in the process of my stumbling I clumsily ran one of my toes directly into the dog gate, breaking it slightly.

Points for irony: knowing that it wasn't an important enough toe (second-to-last on the left foot - a.k.a. the Little Piggy Who Had None) or a severe enough break to warrant a visit to the doctor, I just taped it. But I didn't have any medical tape handy for myself, so I swiped some from the other first aid kit in the house. The dog first aid kit. If one of them sprains a paw running through the house because I've woken them up at 2am over something stupid, then maybe I'll feel badly about it.

More points for irony AND bonus humiliation points: the next day I actually had a doctor's appointment. HOWEVER, let's just say that feet were not her area of specialty but that she did have an opportunity get a good look at my feet and asked what I had done. I told her and she said not to bother seeing a doctor whose area of specialty included feet because "unless you broke it off altogether, all they're going to do is tape it." She offered to re-tape the toe for me but said it looked like I had done a good job. I neglected to mention it was thanks to the dogs' first aid kit.


So, there you go, one lesson down and four to go. Hope you've had a good summer too.

Hey, Look at Me -

I'm a farmer!

The offical count (in case you were wondering)

Eggplants: 1

Tomato plants: 7

Bell Peppers: 7

Lettuce: 4

Zucchini: 3

Yellow Squash: 3

Strawberries: 2

Green beans: 4

Okra: 4

Cucumber: 4

Onions: 4

Basil: 1

Sage: 1

Rosemary: 1

Thyme: 1

Oregano: 1

Bags of soil and compost: 12

Trips to Lowe's and local garden store to get enough bags of dirt: 3

Pulled shoulder muscles from slinging bags of dirt: 1

Displaced garter snakes: 1

Days of rain delay: 11

Days of delay because I was told it was going to rain and it didn't but I'd already made other plans: 3

Neighbor inquires: 3

Mosquito bites: 6

Total number of hours to complete: 8

Total number of vegetables grown: TBD

Little Pink Houses

I bought my house seven years ago - a tiny 1930's cottage painted three completely random, terribly unattractive, shades of green with mustard yellow trim. My neighborhood was undergoing a bit of revitalization when I moved in and many of the houses on my street were under the process of renovation and/or restoration and it usually involved painting the outside - or at least the shutters - a bright and cheerful color. The house across from me is red. One down the street is mint green, and one further down is terracotta. I think maybe the intention of the previous owner was to paint mine a bright and cheerful color when he was getting it ready to sell, but he missed the mark. In his defense, he was a heterosexual male (we all know they shouldn't be allowed to make decisions when it comes to paint or fabric) and, well, he was also a slumlord trying to unload some property and probably didn't give a rat's ass what colors he slapped on it just as long as it didn't look quite so much like a crack or meth house when he was done.

Needless to say, when I had gathered the funds I had it painted. Choosing a color was a bit challenging, but I eventually picked a dark indigo blue. As paint often does, it dried much lighter than that. It took a little getting used to, but now I love it. It is the little blueberry cottage and stands out nicely from behind the two big maple trees in the front yard.

What is my point with all of this, you ask. Well, when it was all painted, I stood admiring it from the street and thought to myself how cute and quaint it would be come 4th of July, Memorial Day, etc. with an American flag (and come September with an orange and white checkerboard flag) hanging from the porch or mounted by the door. But, as I mentioned, I've owned my house for seven years - as in - I've lived in my house for almost the entire time George Bush has been in office. And what with all the chicanery around his getting into office, his deciding which countries to label as "evil," which people to label as "patriotic," and his continuous assault on our constitution, I haven't really been too keen on hanging a flag on my house.

You may be thinking right now that I am shameful. And you would be right. I was never not proud to be an American during these years - I just wasn't particularly proud of my country for quite a bit of these years. But that's not why I feel any shame. I don't think it's shameful to be angry - or disgusted at times - with your government or approximately half of your fellow citizenry. What I feel shame for is that during that time I allowed others to co-opt what it meant to be patriotic or to be an American. Just as I feel shame and guilt for allowing the religious right to co-opt what it means to be a Christian. I don't do my cause or represent my beliefs very well when I allow others to affect my actions in that way. I needed to just get over myself, but I didn't.

But no more. Today when the sun came up the blueberry cottage was appropriately attired.

And not because the candidate I voted for won the election. And not because of the color of his skin. But because for the first time since I was in grade school, I feel inspired by my government and by my country to be a better person.

I just hope that if any of our founding fathers and mothers glance down in this direction today they can overlook the current lack of landscaping and that my porch and it's roof could seriously use a good power washer.

(P.S. if you think I'm bad, my mother isn't putting her flag on her house until 12:01).

(P.P.S. yes, I just realized that I didn't hang it correctly - the blue should be on the left. I Google everything but apparently it never occurred to me to look up "how to hang a flag." I'll change it this afternoon.)

Have I Mentioned...

1. That I'm in the process of tearing out my living room ceiling?

It's an older home with a plaster ceiling that, back when it was a rental house/crack den, the former owner/slum lord had - in lieu of just drywalling over it or (God forbid) repairing the plaster - nailed panelling over it and then glued ugly little paperboard ceiling tiles to the panelling ('Cause what? JUST panelling would have been tacky?). So last week my brother and I ripped down the tile and panelling and over the weekend I began ripping out the damaged plaster and lathe.

The plan was to rip all of it out - good plaster and bad plaster - and then take a gander at what the exposed ceiling looked like to see if we could leave it all cool and groovy and exposed and put in a ceiling fan and other things... But of course it turns out that we can't even put in a ceiling fan because the house that I was told had up-to-date wiring only has up-to-date wiring for one outlet so that it would pass codes. The rest is all knob-and-how-the-hell-hasn't-my-house-burned-to-the-ground-yet-tube-wiring. PLUS, the space above the ceiling is also woefully lacking in insulation and what is there is this ancient black, sooty crap that comes crashing down on your head during demolition and embeds into your pores. So now that I'm going to have to pay to have the whole room rewired AND have experienced the joy of what I would look like if I worked in a mine, the plan has been revised from cool and groovy to just patch it, drywall it and lets move along... Grrr....

I do, however, have a very odd crush on the guys from This Old House (Nahhm, Tahhm, Rahhgahh, Richahhd, and cutie host, Kevin O'Conner) and am wondering if they might consider venturing out from their beloved New England to come down South for a little house repair / cultural exchange. They could do something crafty with my living room and I could cook them grits and okra, teach them how to say y'all correctly, and sing a few bars of "Coal Miner's Daughter." It would be lovely. (Yes, I know, I wouldn't begin to know how to cook grits. Or okra. Or sing. Humor me!)

Who knew that one day my Shaun Cassidy poster
would have competition like this?

2. I'm going to be walking 60 miles in October.

Yeah. Seriously. The things I get myself into... If you're a long-time reader, or have lots of free time, you might have read/remember my inaugural post last year about going to see my Aunt Jean and our friend, Lynn, in the Atlanta 3-Day walk to fight breast cancer. Somehow, as I'm still not sure exactly how, I was coerced :) into walking this year. I'm actually very glad I'm doing it - it just all seems to be a little daunting at times. It does sound more enjoyable than home renovation at the moment though, so I guess everything is relative...

Anyway... we formed a team - Jean, Lynn, my mom and me - and have been training for several weeks now. And we've got our own website / blog. AND we have to raise money. So, if you're interested in visiting our site (or maybe even donating a little something) - go to FourWomenWalk.blogspot.com. If you're interested in learning more about the event, click here. And, most importantly, if you or someone close to you has been affected by breast cancer and you would like to add their name to the list of women we are walking in honor, and in memory of, I would love nothing more than to add their name to our site and probably to a T-shirt of some kind when we get closer to the event.

So, that's the news from this end of the world. Anything unexpected in yours??

Happy All Saints Day

"Look, don't you think we're saintly?
No? Really?
Surely you must be mistaken."

Last night was a typical Halloween. A few trick-or-treaters, lots of dog barking and too much left-over Halloween candy. My jack-o-lanterns ended up being fairly cute. (A happy-faced round orange pumpkin stacked on top of a sad-faced white pumpkin). If I had a functioning camera at the moment, I would have taken a picture of them. Early on in the evening I had to put the dogs outside so that they could join the chorus of other barking dogs on my block / annoy my neighbors instead of just me.

When I finally let them in they were all riled up, what with having to run laps around the back yard to protect our land from various very scary elementary school students. So riled up in fact that they managed to wage a fairly impressive campaign of shock and awe in only about 15 minutes before they collapsed in exhaustion on the floor. It included, but was not limited to,

• knocking over my Diet Coke


• stealing and shredding the wet paper towels I used to clean up the Diet Coke


• leaping onto the ottoman in the getaway process of stealing the wet paper towels


• knocking a stack of magazines off the ottoman


• stealing and shredding a couple of the subscription reply cards that fell out of the stack of magazines


• growling and snapping at each other over who got the better subscription reply card / larger portion of wet paper towels


• jumping onto the couch with Diet Coke Paws


• yanking the laptop power cord out of the wall


• pulling the compost pail off the counter


• digging out a chunk of pumpkin from the compost pail


• racing out the dog door with treasured chunk of pumpkin so that I wouldn't take it away from them


• eating part of the chunk of pumpkin


• dropping the pumpkin left-overs in the hole in the yard for safe keeping


• coming back inside only to yak chewed-up pumpkin on the kitchen floor (and perhaps rethink the logic of the last four activities).
  

Two seconds later they were asleep in the living room and every time I got up to do something or laugh aloud at something on the TV, they'd open an eye or stick up an ear like "Hey, pipe down! We're sleepin' here!"

Today though is All Saints Day which makes Sunday, well, All Saints Sunday. It’s one of my very favorite days of the year. Why? Well, I just happened to have a list:

1. I dig Holy Days with such blatant Pagan origins/aspects.


2. I really like the concept of saints and celebrating people who have died.


3. It has the pomp and circumstance of a Christmas or Easter service without having to fight anyone for a parking space at the mall or cooking any large animals.
   
4. I get to sing one of my favorite hymns (you have to love a hymn that talks about having tea). And, in looking for the “correct” version of the lyrics online (surprisingly challenging) I came across an Episcopal blog with the lyrics and other cool posts that I’m going to have to revisit.


5. Numbers 1 & 2 really make the fundamentalists twitch so really, it’s a win-win-win situation.

So next my plan was to go on and on about something terribly profound, I'm sure, but there's a basket of leftover Halloween candy calling my name...

Cast of Characters

I don't know that much more needs to be said about me - at least for the time being - than what's in the "About Me" section already. And Lord knows I don't feel compelled to post a picture of myself... so let's move on, shall we...

I share my home - a very small 1930's cottage - with two lunatic canines. And while I'm not the kind of dog owner that refers to herself as their "mommy," I'm sure I talk about my dogs, Elsie and Oliver, as though they're my children way more than my friends with actual children appreciate.

But I will have to say that living with my two dogs - as much as I do love them - IS a lot like living with two teenagers. Elsie spends a good bit of her day telling me all that I've done incorrectly, ratting out Oliver, bossing Oliver around, rolling her eyes (I swear she does this) and looking at you like you're stupid. Oliver, on the other hand, is a bit thick-headed, smells bad, just wants to sleep on the couch, is always hungry, makes a big mess when he eats and pretends he can't hear me when I call his name. Their differences in personality make for some good entertainment and I guess I'm just lucky they can't drive - although I'm convinced Elsie would try if given enough time in the car unsupervised. Here's a little more about them:

Name: Elsinore (Elsie)
Breed: Part Border Collie
Nicknames: Elsifur, Devil Dog, Frog Dog, Evil Genius, Town Crier, Wooly Dog
Hobbies: Herding (kids, cats, socks, whatever); Tricking Oliver out of his toy, treat, bed, chair, etc.
Life Goal: World Domination

Name: Oliver
Breed: Some sort of hound but with a long silky coat and big collar of white fur (and so the first of his nicknames).
Nicknames: Pimped-Out Hound, Pony Boy, Bubbles, Archie Bunker, Five-Second-Delay, Squirrel Whisperer
Hobbies: Napping in the old green armchair; Trying to get stuff back from Elsie
Life Goal: Overcome Fear of the Stopwatch on "60 Minutes"