Monthly Archives: June 2011

Music, makes the people, come together…*

*Lyrics by Madonna, from Music.

Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, I almost always use song lyrics as my blog post titles. I don’t really know when I began doing it on purpose, but I do know that music has been a central part of my experience of the home improvement process. Perhaps it was my attempt to make the renovation seem more like the best parts of my summer in Boston at art school, where our loooong work days were punctuated by a variety of different musical styles, contributed by a variety of different people. Perhaps it’s because Dave and his crew started out happily playing the radio (yes, the actual, commercial soaked, ten-song-per-day playing radio) during their workdays and I just couldn’t handle it. We were already squeezed into only one-third of our downstairs, and half of our upstairs (and by half I mean two of four rooms, but not half of the square footage – it was also probably more like a third) and sharing the airwaves with craptastic music was where I drew the line. Either way, we quickly remedied the situation by supplying loud computer speakers and a cord for a wi-fi equipped iPod.

read on…

Like a fool, I fell in love with you…*

So, in an effort to distract ourselves from the lingering sadness that comes when you lose a family member, and to distract my 8 year-old niece from missing her mother too much (who was away on a vacation/conference trip for 10 days) we took a little vacation to NYC to visit family. We (not in this order, and not all in one day, and I’m certain I’ve left something vital out): walked until our (my) feet were swollen; enjoyed the Botanic Garden in Brooklyn; walked across the Brooklyn Bridge (twice!); ate real New York pizza, bagels and doughnuts, and visited restaurants old and dear; saw Chinatown and, as my niece put it, a “Little Tiny Italy”; strolled through Central Park; (she) went to Coney Island and swam in the ocean; (she, ok and we) played at NY parks, including running through a sprinkler with her clothes on; took a trip to the New York Hall of Science (a kid-tastic highlight); visited with each and every auntie and (formerly) untle (now uncle – sigh) we could muster up, and just generally forgot about the world at home for a bit. Well, we mostly forgot about it. We did manage to do a little design reconnaissance at Room & Board.

read on…

I won’t forget, I swear…*

I am sad to report the passing of my beloved baby dog, Bec.

My beloveds.

May was a rough month. She was diagnosed with lung cancer on the first of May, and by May 30th she was gone (hence the blog absence). We are devastated by her loss, and are still adjusting to the new reality. We’re still coping, and trying to put our life into an order that has never existed. Until now I’d never known my husband without Bec – they were a package deal when we first started dating. It’s strange for both of us to have the whole house to ourselves… there’s no one to bark at the mailman, there’s no one to try to eat our dinner, or to get startled by the loudness of sound effects in movies, no one to get scared by the thunder and lightening, no one to greet us when we come home, and no one to curl up at the foot of the bed at night. We miss her dearly, and are doing our best to be grateful for our time with her, and to remember her in her healthiest days, rather than how sick she had become.

read on…