My Space.

Last weekend, Doug went to California to dive with some friends, so that left me home to entertain myself. (That's always trouble.) Here are the pictures of my sleepless weekend, but be forewarned. We are about to enter an area overflowing with estrogen. Just giving you a heads up.

This was my craft room when we bought the house. I won't even go into detail about how awful that wallpaper was, or how it only came off in little tiny pieces in the diameter of a quarter, or about all of the black soot and dirt that ran down the walls as we were removing the wallpaper. Now do you understand why it took me seven months to go back in there to finish it?

After we stripped the walls, it became a storage room for many (not all) of the boxes that contained my crafty stuff. It was also a great place for a spare bed that was used for a guest bed a couple of times. Doug's parents stayed overnight once or twice, but now there is no room at the inn. Sorry, Grand's. I have to admit, I am sad about that. It was fun to have them over.

Doug helped me finish painting and installed a new light fixture. Then he went to bed. We were totally exhausted on Wednesday night, and woke the next day to touch up all of our mistakes. That was when we remembered that we said we would never paint at night again. Oooops. Somebody remind us next time, OK?

Doug left on Thursday morning after the touch-up session, and said, "Have fun putting your shelves together!" You know that it isn't a good idea to do things by yourself when you pull out the instructions and on the very first page is this:

Right about then, my thought was, "Great. This is gonna be fun." What occurred after reading the instructions can only be described as comical. Good thing I didn't take pictures of me pushing the shelves against the wall, and then bracing myself against the opposite wall and using my feet to push the shelves together, or all of the other ridiculous positions I had to get into in order to finish this.

I could hardly move the boxes with the parts to the shelves in them, never mind moving the finished product. I eventually got it finished, and was able to lift the top off of the floor and onto my knees where I then shifted my hands to lift it the rest of the way. This is what happened then:

One small dent in order to put up my shelves all by myself was definitely worth it. I actually expected much worse, like being trapped underneath them until someone found me days later, or at least until Miriam eventually walked home from school. Then it was time for the easy part: the desk. That was a total breeze. 2 screws, 2 legs, a brace, and 2 clamps to the shelving. Piece of cake, I could do that with one hand tied behind my back, and I did, just because I could. Ok, maybe not, but boy, was I relieved when I got to that part.

Then comes the yucky part: finding all of my stuff that now has to be put away somewhere in this space. It took me a couple of days to hunt down all of the boxes, sort through it all to eliminate excess "crap", and then organize it on the shelves. Take a good look, it will never be this neat again. This leopard knows her spots, and they don't change easily. I have to admit, I still haven't located my paints or some of my knitting stuff, but I guess that gives me something to do, right? What you can't see, is that all of my hair stuff is in the closet, where nobody can see it, and I can access it when I decide that I need to change my color on a whim. (That happens a couple of times a year, it will be nice to have it all in one place.)

My sewing machine cabinet is just inside the door, and I am seriously contemplating a new paint job on it. I think it will have to wait, though. I just got it in here, I am not ready to carry it back outside yet. Having my crafty stuff so accessible has been wonderful, and I have been busy enjoying my new space. I have realized that I need some more projects, because this is the first thing I did when everything was in it's place:

That's right, I named my space. My first thought was "The Chick's Coop", then there was "The Girl's Grotto", but then I hit the jackpot! If you think that "The Lady's Lair" is a joke, think again. Let's just see what happens the first time a man invades my space. Should be interesting, and good for a picture or two. Think 'black widow'.

Because I didn't want my family to feel neglected, I named their spaces, too:

Notice that Miriam is also a huge fan of Rock Band. We are a family of wannabe's. Birds of a feather, and all that. Not to be left out, I labeled Doug's space, as well.

His room in the basement, (not to imply that we have sent him to the dungeons) is always busy with something. He named it "The Man Cave", and we are to keep our hands off. There is usually a set of scuba regs being rebuilt, or some other project going on down there, and I try not to get involved. Too much testosterone for me. I nearly suffocate from it. At least I have my own space to recuperate now.

Does this look like March to you?

Seriously. Does this look like spring to you? Here I am, taking pictures of every plant and blooming crocus in my yard, and it has the nerve to snow. I mean, REALLY! Doesn't the world know how tired I am of winter? I admit, I know it always snows in March, but I think I have had enough.


Our poor swing isn't going to get used for a few days, at least. I can't wait to swing during the summer with my cute little family. We like to sit and chat about all the pretty things we see, or sometimes read a Harry Potter book together. Guess those times are not happenin' for quite awhile, yet.

I love this picture for two reasons:

• Last night we went shoe shopping for Miriam. On our way out to the Durango, I had to take a picture of the snow. I just love big snowflakes, but not as much when I am ready for spring. I love that the post to the porch railing looks almost like a bright snowflake. I guess snow doesn't usually come in pyramid shapes.
• The best part of this is that Miriam is actually sitting in the Durango. You can't see her, she didn't bother to clear any of the windows, but you can see the telltale footprints on the driveway and running board, and there is just a bit less snow on the handle than the front door. It took me a minute when I downloaded this picture to my computer to remember why I took it. The footprints gave it away.

Almost every day, Miriam is reminding us that the spring equinox is on the 21st. That means that the days and nights are equal in length. To me, it means that I can buy "Twilight" on DVD. What would we do without 6th graders? Here's to hoping that spring comes quickly.

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the flowers is?

One day last week, Doug and I took a walk around the yard to try to make some decisions about what to do with it. We want to plant a garden, and change some of the flower beds. Suddenly, we realized that there were flowers coming up everywhere.

I have had Spring fever so bad this year, so finding flowers already was a reason to get excited. As we are in a "new to us" house this year, it is fun to find out what is growing in our yard. Some things we want to remove, and in other places we want to leave it alone. I have a feeling it will take us a year to find everything in the yard so we know what to do with it all.

This is something that baffles me. We have a large piece of our yard that is grass. Randomly planted in the grass are different types of flowers. Here we have crocus blooms, with some sort of tulip (my best guess) growing in the grass. I am betting that the tulips are yellow, but I suppose they could also be daffodils. Guess we will have to wait and see. There are also some California poppies in the grass that bloom later on that are the same shade of yellow.

The thing that really perplexes me is this: How on earth do you mow around them? The previous owner told us how angry he was that the guy across the street that was helping him mow the lawn, just mowed over the flowers. Exactly how are you supposed to miss them? First of all, I am a big believer that if someone is doing you a favor because you can't do something yourself, don't get angry at the way they do it. Second, If you are going to complain about something like that, don't plant them randomly in the middle of the lawn! Speaking for myself, I am NOT going out there with a pair of scissors to cut the grass in between the flowers, and I don't think they make mowers that small......

This picture is another puzzling thing. We finally got an answer to why there are two types of grass here. The previous owner was proud to tell us that he was experimenting with "drought resistant grass". The yellow grass is the drought resistant, can you tell? Through much effort, we have discovered that it truly is drought resistant. No matter how much you water it, it always stays a yellowish-brown color. During the summer, it is slightly more green, but early in September, no matter how much water you give it, it will turn this color and stay that way, making any attempt to green it up completely futile. I am guessing it will be May before it shows any sign of green.

See this? I have been working on removing all the debris that I didn't clean up last fall. We made the foolish decision to wait until now to clean it up, owing to the fact that we were so busy remodeling. I pulled, and trimmed, and raked up all the dead leaves, twigs, and flower stems. I was hoping that Doug would want to use his leaf catcher on his yard tractor to help me clean them up. No such luck, it still has a snowplow blade on it. I had this brilliant idea to use Miriam's yellow saucer sled to help me carry it all to the compost pile. See all that stuff? I have figured out how to carry it all in one trip. Place as much of it on the sled as you can. Don't worry, I promise I can get it all in one trip.

Next, run around on it pretending to be a trash compactor. Making the appropriate noises here is helpful. Be sure to stomp to your heart's content. Feel free to add music to make the process seem more like dancing, as your neighbors peek out the window to see what you are doing. (It makes you seem a bit less cukoo, but only slightly.) Add more debris to the pile, and continue your best impression of Lucy stomping grapes as you run around in really small circles. Try not to fall over because you are now dizzy. Dang. Should have taken some Dramamine. Eventually, you will know you are successful when the neighbor now comes out to laugh at you. You can then attempt to save your dignity by showing them that you have successfully smashed it all down to a controllable size so you only have to make one trip.

I call it the "carrying in the groceries" concept. No matter how ridiculous you look, carry as many overfilled bags as you can, all at once. Never mind that your finger feels like it is going to fall off any second, or that one of the bags is tearing down the side. Hold it a bit closer to you and kick the door shut. Then hobble to the front door and try to open it with one finger. Try again. Finally give up, and put down the gallon of milk that is stretching your finger to the point that you wonder if you could pole vault with it someday, and open the door. Pick up the groceries, walk through the door and kick it shut. Good thing you learned how to kick at a young age, right? Drop all of the groceries on the counter, (or floor because the counter is just too high for this load) and sigh. Remind yourself about how clever you are for getting all of the groceries into the house in one trip, and pat yourself on the back. Don't forget to make an appointment with the doctor to check on that finger that wouldn't let go of the bag. This is the modern woman's way of doing things. Forget how crazy you might look, you should never make more than one trip. EVER.