1998's Merry Christmas Poncho

Time to tell a little story.

The year: 1998
The characters: Me, Chris and Brandon
The setting: Opening presents around the tree-just opened a present from Mom for the Moloso Family

The dialogue.....(as close as I can remember-the words may have been different but the gist was the same):

Me: Oh wow, look at this! Mom made this herself!
Chris: Great (with little enthusiasm).
Me: It is great. Look at the wonderful work she did.
Chris: Yeah. It looks nice.
Me: Why are you being so blase' about it? She made this for us.
Chris: I know but she said it was for the Moloso Family.
Me: And? It is. What's the problem?
Chris: Well, it's not going to fit all of us.
Me: WHAT? What are you talking about?
Chris: Well, it would only fit Brandon.
Me: Wait-what do you think this is?
Chris: A Christmas Poncho?
Me: What?------

At this point all dialogue breaks down so that I can roll around crying with laughter. A Christmas Poncho? Who the heck makes a Christmas poncho??? Eventually I settled down enough to explain to Chris that it was a tree skirt, which-I might add-made about as much sense to him as a Christmas poncho did to me.

So, of course, we had to take a picture of Brandon wearing his Christmas poncho. And this year the Christmas poncho/tree skirt is around the boys' tree downstairs.

Merry Christmas!

My Melancholy Baby

Come to me my melancholy baby,
Cuddle up and don't be blue . . .
All your fears are foolish fancy, maybe
You know dear that I'm in love with you!

Every cloud must have a silver lining
Wait until the sun shines through
Smile my honey dear, while I kiss away each tear
Or else I shall be melancholy too!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sometimes a soundtrack plays in the back of my mind. I like to think this happens for everyone.

The picture above is of Cape Disappointment lighthouse on a terribly foggy day. I recognize it's a terrible picture but it haunts me. I might print it out and hang it somewhere, or even tuck it away, as a private reminder when I am feeling blue.

I've got a case of the doldrums right now and anxiety is creeping in. I've been trying to analyze the situation and I think it comes down to the fact that my baby is going into junior high. I'm not sure how my oldest child grew up to be this young adolescent.

I remember the day when he used to think Chris and I hung the moon. Every time we introduced him to something new he showed such complete and utter amazement and he was absolutely devoted to both of us. We could do no wrong. Where did that child go?

How do you let go of the joy that was when you are faced with a pre-teen who thinks you don't know much of anything? I know that little boy is still in there somewhere and I so want to enjoy this stage of his life but I am finding myself mourning for him.

Is this part of raising kids?

I heard some good advice today from an unlikely source. She told me, apropos of nothing, to let my boys be who they are. It may not be who we thought they would, or should, be but it is who they are and let them be just that.

I think-no, I know-she is right. Why, though, is it so hard?

Is this what my parents went through? I know I wasn't easy. I recognize a lot of the anger in B. that I had in myself at that age. I thought so much of mine was related to my parent's divorce but now I wonder if a lot of it isn't typical of the age?

So, if you see me and I seem a bit distracted, please note that I am feeling a little fragile at the moment.

Need to get my craft going!

So, August is arriving tomorrow and apparently is taking the hotter than Hades route to get here, bringing along scorching heat in his wake. What does that make a girl want to do? Why, clean out the garage, of course!

What's that you say? You DON'T want to clean out the garage? Whyever not? Remember back in June when you said, Oh, we don't have to do it NOW, August will be a much better time to work in the garage? Not remembering that? Yeah, well, I'm not remembering it either. However, it has been brought to my attention that I said something along those lines and now here I am.

I was thinking of jumping right in but then I thought, that seems a bit crazy and there are at least 15 yard sales going on tomorrow AND T. needs a new pair of goggles for the pool tomorrow afternoon AND there is Swim-O-Rama going on tomorrow so really, isn't Sunday a much better day?

Anyway, I solemnly promise to get around to cleaning out the garage.

But let's talk about fun stuff.

I get this magazine called DIY Ideas. Here's a link: http://www.diyideas.com/
It's got some great stuff in it and I am so worried that it's going to become defunct as all my other favorites have so recently (Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion, Creative Home :-O) but for now I am just gleaning ideas from it left and right.

The latest is an idea for my craft room downstairs. My craft room is going to be in the downstairs kitchen which is really just an unfinished kitchen with floor cabinets and no upper cabinets. So for the upper walls I saw where they took pegboard and painted it to match the walls and mounted stuff on that. It actually looks better than it sounds and I think I have found the answer to my dilemma of how to set that room up.

Also, I am jonesin' to paint a crappy laminate dresser so may start that sometime next week.

I really don't know if I am going to paint my living room this summer or not. I seem to be running out of time.

Thanks for listening to what has really just been a ramble on my part. I am just aching to do something creative and I feel like my creative well has run dry these past few months.

 

Roses.

I don't like them. They have thorns. They seem messy. They seem too delicate and yet, at the same time, cutthroat. They seem like a flower for people who have something to hide.

When we bought this house I told Chris we were going to rip them all out. It could happen immediately, as far as I was concerned. Well, in the normal way of things around here, they were not ripped out. And they started blooming. And they became beautiful.

I still have ambivelent feelings about these roses and they may still be ripped out but for this year, at least, they have earned a reprieve.

Summertime!

Wooo Hoooo! Summer is here. Finally.

Guess what I get to start off the new season with? A cold and body aches. WTH? I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Anyway, this too shall pass, right?

So here are the plans for summer:

Paint the living room
clean out the garage
set up my craft room

Those are the big ones. I have a million other little things to do but I want to really hit those hard. I'd love to have the garage done by the end of June.

Here's a quote I like.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.
-- Voltaire, 1694 - 1778

Totally random, eh?

I'm off to go out to dinner with girlfriends.

Kid's say the darndest things....

My youngest is 8 so you would think he would know better by now. Apparently not.

We were at a hockey game the other day and it was between periods. The teams were coming back out to their cage/area and the coaches were coming out first. Well, one of the coaches/friends/assistants was a little person.

I guess I never realized that my youngest had never seen a little person in real life. In the loudest voice he can muster he shouts out, "Hey Midget!"

OMG. I almost died. Fortunately the man didn't hear him but I am sure everyone around us did. I was trying to shush him and he was looking at me with complete innocence asking what was wrong??!

Rate My Space!!!

Disclaimer: We bought this house in January from a couple who lived here for 35 years. They took wonderful, loving care of this house and they did so many more things right than they did wrong. That said, our taste is so completely different from theirs it's as if we were born on different planets. So, thank you previous owners for your attention to detail and without further ado, on with the horror and sarcasm!

~~~~~~~~~

As you will see in a moment, we have a hot tub room. Lucky us, right? I'm not so sure. I remember when we first walked into the room. C. said, "Cool, a hot tub!". I said, "OMG, what in the world?" I never even saw the hot tub for the surprise that was the decor and dh never even saw the decor.

Here's your first peek....

....WHAT. IS. THAT. thingonthewall??? That's right. You got it. A little bit of tole painting. Even has the previous owners initials. Obviously a talented painter-no question about it-but WHAT?

Here's another.....and another.....

Ummmm....I'm confused about these curtains. Are they funeral home or whorehouse? Cream with purple. But wait, it gets better.

The fake flowers on the wall. Now I love plants. I really do. But I love live plants. And for some reason I have this crazy idea that real, live plants might grow well in a hot tub room, it being humid and all but this....this is hard for me to live with. Not to mention, spiders just LOVE these.

(Oh, I forgot to add, the little butterfly at the top that is hot glued to the wall, my 8 year-old asked if it was real which makes for such a nice touch, dontcha think?)

More painting and fake flowers glued to the wall. And what's with the school-style clock by the door? Hot tub time is like margarita time, isn't it? Or vacation time or who cares time.

And finally, the door. Because the room isn't really complete without a few more sheer curtains.


Now, in complete fairness, I think my darling children bent hell out of the rod themselves by yanking on the sheers but they WILL be coming down soon so I'm not too concerned.




End slideshow-aren't you glad that part's over?
~~~~~~~~~



So here's what I need from you...How do I fix this? What can I do with paint, a different type of shade/curtain/blind?, and different decor to make this a room I want to be in?


There is a ceiling mounted electrical outlet that I could plug some sort of light into if we want to. I don't know the technicalities of having lights in a room filled with water but there has to be a safe way, right? I was thinking some subtle lighting might be nicer than the two lovely 1980's candleliers we have in there now.

Any and all ideas welcome. Wait, that's not entirely true. If my friend who suggested mirrors on the ceiling (and you KNOW who you are) finds this site she will find that comments from her have been disabled. LOL.


Please help. I need it. I probably won't get to the work until this summer when I am home from school but eventually I will post with the updates if you want to click on Follow this Blog up at the top. Thanks for the help!