Monthly Archives: April 2012

Is this what I deserve, a mouthful of dirt?…*

*Lyrics from Say Something by Sucré off the album A Minor Bird. Horns, floaty voices, modern and nostalgic. You should always have a soundtrack to your own life. Or you can borrow mine. Either way, sing and dance your way through your life. You’ll be happier. I promise.

The vista from behind the tree looking toward the yard - we used to stand on this area of the yard to throw the ball, and just generally be with our girl.

Letting go of an idea is probably one of the hardest things to do. I learned that the hard way – the hard, embarrassing, crying in public for hours uncontrollably way – while I was in school taking an intensive 10-week Interior Design program at Suffolk University in Boston. I was living here, in Western Massachusetts, when I enrolled in the program. I was a married (still am, happily!), older student trying to embark on a (yet another) career change. Of course, mere days before I was to leave for mini-college-camp (I actually roomed with an undergrad, who, thankfully was mature, sweet and totally easy to share space with) my mom moved in with us due to some major health issues she was facing (she’s doing fine now, again, thankfully). So, in addition to the normal stress of the actual program, I had to live apart from my husband for 10 weeks (I came home on weekends), and live with (and care for) my mom who was (at that time) ailing, and recovering from some life-threatening health stuff. Needless to say, my emotions were running high, and I didn’t exactly come out of the experience unscathed.

read on…

Had you never been my friend, I wouldn’t be quite what you see…*

*Lyrics from The ShinsFall of ’82 from their album Port of Morrow. I’ve been hearing these guys in my Pandora mixes of late, and this song reminded me of a long lost friend who I recently tried to reconnect with. So, I guess I’m feeling a little introspective and sentimental, which is good, especially when you try to do art. Helps to let it all out.

Here she is, small and elegant. The frame around the mirror was custom made from scraps of trim to solve the issue of the sides of the medicine cabinet showing. The newly framed art helps to make the mirror look more at home here.

A few days ago I hinted on facebook that with the addition of a few DIY art pieces that one room in the house was mostly, very nearly, certainly almost, done. Well, I hope it’s not disappointing that the room I was referring to was the master bathroom. I mean, it’s the second smallest room in the house, and it has all of it’s infrastructure installed already. All I had to do was hang up some fresh towels, clean the sink, and hang a few pieces of art. Well, I’m calling them art… they might be considered craft projects to someone artier. But to me, to us, they’re arty enough.

read on…

Pretty in pink, isn’t she?…*

*Lyrics from Pretty In Pink by the Psychedelic Furs, used in the final scene of, you guessed it, Pretty In Pink. This song was a gimme, a total cop-out as far as finding interesting songs to quote. Easy, breezy, and retro for a post that makes me feel like I still wished I looked like Molly Ringwald, like River Phoenix is my dream boyfriend, and like all I ever wanted was a pair of Guess? Jeans with zippers at the ankles.

I'm not a red person, I'm a hot pink, magenta person, complete with inappropriate attraction to pinks of all shades just because they remind me of their mother color: quinacridone violet.

Recently, on facebook, I’ve been admitting an over abundance of pink purchases of late. I mean, the occasional lipstick or nail polish seems reasonable, but when every single thing you gravitated toward in a given week was some shade of pink, well, maybe you’re developing a problem. And when I say you, I mean me. Naturally.

read on…

This. right here. is my. pretty boy swag…*

*Lyrics from Pretty Boy Swag as sampled in the Girl Talk All Day album. I finally saw Girl Walk All Day, which if you haven’t seen it you must (it’s streaming online, in 12 chapters, and it’s amazing), and have been obsessed with the soundtrack ever since. It even inspired me to get back outside for my first real exercise in so many moons I daren’t count. And, ok, I might have danced a little while walk/running.

Despite your ill-fitting nature, your presence has been integral in my personal growth.

It’s hard to believe that two years ago in April we were signing the contract for our kitchen remodel, and were already in the midst of planning, shopping and preparing for an experience that would quite literally change our life. In the past two years babies have been born, conceived and born, and some are about to be born – of course that’s always true of any two years, but we actually know some of those babies this time. Our life has transformed since that fateful meeting (perhaps not as significantly as those new parents’ world), transformed most definitely for the better.

read on…

I’ve learned my lesson, it left a scar, now I see how you really are…*

*Lyrics from You’re No Good, as sung by Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers. Their van sessions have been making their way around the interwebs, and for good reason. They’re good. I expect we’ll be seeing/hearing more from them in the not too distant future.

With this kind you really only need to trim off the dead heads. The plants are less mysterious. No growth = not gonna grow there. You just have to be patient and wait for them to begin to grow.

Every year, around this time, I start the process of waking up the yard from its long winter’s slumber. Now, this particular winter has been unusually mild, so the cleaning up post-winter, post-nothing has been mostly effortless (I should reveal that we have our lawn cared for by our local organic yard care guru, so we don’t have to seed, fertilize, aerate, de-thatch or de-grub). The only real task at hand was to cut back the dead bits of hydrangea to make way for the new blooms. I’ve read many a conflicting report about when to do this – some say fall pruning is best, after the summer blooms have faded, while others say never to prune them – but I’ve found that the two-fold benefits of pruning in early spring, just after the leaves begin to sprout, works best for me. The fact that I can remove dead stems, dead heads and give the plant fewer areas to focus its energy on (and therefore send all its energy to producing blooms and leaves) is a win-win in my book.

read on…