before and after

I can't believe it but the winter blues are already hitting me! The Christmas tree isn't even down and I am already having blues attacks. Yesterday I tried to do some work at school and I I felt like I was in one of those dreams where you are trying to run but everything is in slow motion. I gave up, went home, crawled in bed and slept for 2 hours. A sure sign of the winter blues.

I am going to be diligent about using my "winter blues emergency kit". My kit includes vitamins, sticking my face in the sun when it appears every 12th day and exercise. But this year I am going to add another tool....writing. I have been reading my cousin's daughters blog (jodimichelle.com) and she inspires me. She writes her way thru life, we all just have been invited to join her. I see what good therapy it provides her.

So today I am going to start right where I am at....my living room! The gifts are all sitting on the floor, wrapping paper supplies under the tree, and my lovely pine branch mantel decoration has fallen down and not one needle remains on the branch. I am going to pick up.

Now the way my mind works is something like this...I will pick up, order new shades for the windows, figure out what to do with the blank wall, get a new coffee table, I will take pictures and write about it, etc. etc. etc. No wonder I usually fail.

I will pick up the living room...period...and maybe dream about what I will do to complete this room, I think that's fair and take before and after pictures because that is just so darm motivating! Picking up this room will help with my winter blues because I will get exercise doing it and I will have accomplished something. So here goes, talk to you when I'm done...

a supporting role

The young lady pictured inspired me! Let me catch you up to speed. I teach my church's middle school Sunday School class. I had every intention of turning down that honor this year when my own middle school age son came to me and said, "Mom, please teach my class!". I thought to myself....how much longer will he actually want me to be anywhere around him and his friends? I've got 6 months or less I'm guessing so I said yes. Flash forward to our Christmas Play in which my class were the actors. I did a poor job of handing out parts. I thought I made it clear that when we first read the play thru they were not reading the parts that they would necessarily end up with. Some feelings were hurt. Then we had practice the week before and had to switch up some parts again because some of the kids weren't there, more confusion. Anyway, the young lady above was given the part of the "little sister". It was a bit part with maybe 3-4 lines in one scene. She took her itty bitty part and rocked it! She came dressed complete with little sister pig tales and a doll. She spoke with so much expression and had the audience eating out of her hand!

I started thinking about that. I want to take whatever bit part I have in life and rock it! Do it to the best of my ability, give it a little flare, do with gusto and who knows...maybe even steal the show once in a while!

I am on vacation for 2 weeks! I started a full time teaching job on November 1 (more about that later) and am on Christmas vacation now. Working full time has been wonderful for the bank account, wonderful for my self esteem and creativity BUT not so wonderful for my kids and my house! The house....is just a house and I will give it a little attention on vacation. The kids on the other hand are my kids. I have said, "I can't do that right now", "maybe later", "I am too tired to do that" and "hurry up" more times than I care to admit. Soooo, on this vacation my goal is to nix "hurry Up" from my vocabulary and say "yes, we can do that" as many times as I can!

Clutter Cottage

I am in a place that will just HAVE to be put into one of the books I am going to write. This place is a rental cottage but it feels more like we are crashing someone's cottage. It is filled with personal items. There is no space that is left open to allow a visitor to make their own space. The structure itself has many little add ons. When an addition was put on windows were just filled in with plywood. It is a bit hill billy which isn't actually the most unique thing about this place. This place is stuffed, over flowing with no room to breathe. Every wall has pictures, mirrors, crosses and things that light up. There is even a picture hung on the wall under the kitchen table. There are 43 small mirrors in one room. The kitchen cupboards are packed, items mismatched and spilling out when I try to get an item out. Finding a place on the counter to actually work meant boxing up items temporarily. Finding a place for dry goods meant stuffing items into already full cupboards to open up a shelf or two for our groceries.

Then there are the owls. The owner collects anything with an owl on it. One person who signed the guest book said they stopped counting at 146. I like collections as much as the next person but all these owls staring at me is annoying. Its not like the collector was being picky about the owls, it looks like any owl will do. The lamps, dishtowels, wind chimes, ironing board cover, and pictures all have owls on them. The windows and shelves are filled with figurines of owls. I find myself not liking owls anymore. I was in a store today and saw an owl on a coffee cup and I felt myself feeling repulsed.

By far the most disturbing thing is the shrine that this place has been made into to a child that has died. There are pictures of a child named Luke all over and in every room. There are even pictures in the shower of Luke in the tub. A picture of Luke by the outside shed is laminated and put on the shed. We discovered some writing that was done by a school mate and it told the story of Luke dying of lukemia. It is depressing and fells unhealthy the degree to which the owners have gone to honor this child. It is one thing if they want to do that in there own space but a space that you rent out? I want to make my own memories not be weighed down by someone else's.

I am using this space as an example of "how not to do a rental" and putting it in my memory for a somewhat creepy location in a book. I also am dying to go home and get rid of junk because I now see what it leads to and I don't want to live there!

Makin' Memories

We are off to make some memories! Once again I am taking my 3 musketeers on a trip. This is the 5th year of travel with niece Gwyn, son Will,and daughter Dana. I remember 5 years ago, newly divorced and in desperate need of a fun adventure. I packed up the car, picked up Gwyn in MA and we headed to a rental cottage in Maine that I had talked the owner into giving us for a very reasonable price. It was a week of making HAPPY memories, it had been awhile for those kind of memories. The next year was TN and hiking in the Smokies. The story of running into a bear on the trail the first day has been told many times and each time that bear gets a little closer and a little bigger. Then came 2 years in a row going to RI, we loved it so much we just had to do a repeat.

This year it is off to Lake Superior. We have rented a cottage in the woods on a river, just a short walk to Lake Superior. I am eager to see what memories will be made this time. I love hearing the kids talk about our trips later and know that they have fond memories stored up. Life gets hard some time and they will need to go into their memory storage bank and pull out some memories to get them thru. Gotta go now and make some memories!

Fun Yellow

I am working on finishing my upstairs. I picked out paint for the new bathroom. Yellow. Bright Yellow, actually called daffodil yellow. I bought a sample, put it on the wall, debated, bought a gallon, put it on the wall, tried to like it, hated it! I consulted my daughter Dana who is color gifted unlike me. She told me I needed "fun yellow". I called my friend Marion and she looked at the color on line and agreed with Dana. I bought Fun Yellow and I love it!

Don, Dana and I were going to spend a morning painting. Dana was working in the closet, washing it down. Don had layed out a new sponge for her to use but she used another which gave off red stuff on the wall. Don was patient, I was not. I told her something like, "Dana, on a job this would be disaster, you have to learn to follow instructions".

I was painting fun yellow. I was really in the cutting in groove (without the blue tape even). I was ready to move my ladder, reached up for the can and basically tipped it right down the front of me! There was paint down my shirt, splashed all over the room, ladder and floor.

Dana strolled over and said "mom if this were on the job, it would be disaster"! I ate those words!

My only regret is that we didn't take a picture, it was pretty funny...later!