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I’m reluctant to write work-related posts but I just have to share some of the stuff I overhear out there.  In the few short weeks that I’ve been working I’ve been to court in more counties than I can count on one hand.  This is an amazing state.  You don’t have to travel far to find yourself in a completely different universe.  And because I’m a people person I have found, thus far, each of them to be equally charming in their own unique way.  I’ve overheard conversations about everything from this year’s haying to ones initiated with “mushi mushi,” it’s been just all over the place.  This is all to say that three weeks in I’m still really enjoying the new gig.  I like it so much that I always want to look sharp.  I still don’t think that I have an adequate supply of clothes to really get by but on the other hand am reasonably certain that I couldn’t identify an adequate supply either.  I probably need an expert to come and give me an opinion : )  I just know that I definitely don’t have enough shoes.  Plus, if you look like a lawyer you can bypass the metal detector line. 

I can’t believe I’m just getting to write about last weekend and it’s almost the weekend again already.  How was yours?  I actually worked!  I crossed a lot of projects off of my mental list.  I cleaned up a little in the basement and got it somewhat organized with the new workbench that we bough more than a month ago.  Of course it’s all in shambles again because my next order of business was to paint the dining room and that meant getting out all of the painting supplies but I did make the effort.  I’m really happy with the dining room.  I barely changed the color but i replaced the flat and dull contractor paint with an ever so slightly warmer color called “oatmeal” that ties in with the “peanut” that runs into the kitchen.  I painted the trim the same porcelain from Sherwin Williams that we used in the foyer and I feel really good about how it turned out.  Now I just have to get that curtain up on the back door.  Hopefully I’ll have enough energy to do it tomorrow night now that the whole neighborhood has had a chance to peep our fridge.  I replaced the blinds in the dining room with a rod I found on clearance over the weekend and a curtain that I pulled out of some drawer, unopened nonetheless.  Sometimes just poking around in the house is like being at a rummage sale.  You just never know what you’re going to find.  It already feels so much better.  Now, I just need to order the rug and pick up the shelves.  I really wanted an armoire but have neither the time nor the inclination to really invest in finding the right piece so shelves it is.  The whole first floor is painted now and mostly furnished and I feel pretty good about that.  Of course Ben had to go and remind me that there is still an entire room upstairs that could have completely blown off the house for all we know because no one EVER opens the door.  That room’s on the list now too.  In the picture, the top portion of the molding shows the original wall and molding color.  I think the new scheme is much better don’t you?  I had a whole fistful of paint chips and carpet samples to help make the decision but in the end it all came down to looking at the pile as a whole and just picking the set of colors that made me say that’s a room I want to sit in.  It was a little bit of a moment for me.  

That’s about it.  Did you have fun too?

That’s what I’ve got. I fought it off two weeks ago but it’s back. At least it’s kind of gray and dreary so nobody really thinks it’s weird that I’m wearing a scarf. A scarf is the first thing I want when my throat starts up. A scarf or a turtleneck but I don’t have any of those.

So I was in Babies R Us yesterday and I picked up a set of three t-shirts on clearance for six bucks. Not a bad deal. I also looked at shorts, picked them up and put them back because, as always, I convinced myself that I am prepared to make shorts for chase to wear this summer. Truth be told, supply-wise, I am well equipped but as for time. Well, I never have enough of that. So we’ll see how far I can get before I have to break down and shop. I know I already have two pairs of overall-shorts and one pair of irreparably damaged sweatpants that I can turn into shorts to wear with her big white sneakers, heee. She also has a handful of dresses which are presumably easier to wear in the summer without going through all the trouble of tights. Back in my bib making phase i bought a presser foot to apply bias tape so maybe I’ll start plain and add a little flair that way. In any event I figure that the daydreaming about what to do alone might just be satisfying enough a diversion from everything else going on.

I’ve been diligently crossing stuff off my list, life insurance, a 529 plan for Chase, I even took care of our taxes and found a CPA to prepare them. I sent out the packet last week and he called today with some questions one of which was it looks like you did a decent job preparing your taxes on your own last year so why did you come to me? At the time the only reason I could think of was just not wanting it on my plate anymore. That’s true but until he said that we had NO idea that we did a decent job and that’s the reason I went to him. I think I’ll mention that to him tomorrow, it’s too late now but maybe had I known I just would of hired him to do a review. Around this time of year I always find myself wondering when tax time started coming around every 6 months… because that’s absolutely what it feels like. I still have a couple of big projects coming up and of course exams but I’m trying to stay on top of it all. So far so good. Of course, any time you cross something off the list something else gets added and there’s always that list that’s been following you around, haunting your dreams for months with projects that should have been tackled a year ago. Hopefully I won’t really get sick. I’m more than happy to have a cold anytime after let’s say May 15.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a bunch of frames on clearance at JoAnns. The stairwell here is tall and narrow.. and plaster. It’s been painted but after 100 years is less than straight or smooth for that matter. That’s what the frames are for. They were a steal I got about 6 8×10’s and one big 16×20 or something along those lines. They stayed in my trunk for a while before they migrated into the house and are now stuffed inside the bench in the entryway waiting for me to make a decision on a picture for the 16×20. I was thinking of something kind of funky although a family portrait was tossed around too. I was thinking about this because it really does kind of capture her baby spirit.

You know what I’m talking about. It’s 8:45am and you’re at L’Enfant Plaza trying to make it to work on time. You hear the train pull into the station on the upper platform but you’re standing behind a gaggle of tourists who are, inevitably, lost. You’ll make your train though, cause the woman, in her pantyhose and sneakers… oh, she’s on top of the situation. She’s standing at the bottom of the escalator yelling ’stand on the right’ to make the morning just a little easier on all of us. She’s wearing sneakers because, as Chase has learned in the last week or so, they make you faster, smarter and stronger. It’s so simple really, even a baby gets it. Continue

These guys are a part of a set that I probably could/should have mailed out today. I reached a little bit of an impasse with their house but think I have managed to work around it.  The problem with making things like this for other people is that when you’re done and they look good you really don’t want to part with them.  I really don’t want to give these little buddies up and it’s not even like Chase wants them I just want to keep them for myself.

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The carpet came, I hardly believed my eyes when I saw the boxes today. Of course, we’re still one tile short but that was to be expected. It was a problem easily taken care of though. We placed the order through Home on the Harbor a local home furnishings store. Everyone is talking about buying local but there is so much to be said for it. Our experience with Home on the Harbor was wonderful. Before we even had a chance to figure out how to solve our missing tile conundrum, we got a call from the store to check on our order, Ben explained the problem and a new tile was at our door in a couple of days. How easy is that? Not to mention that the store has great stuff, the people are nice and they let me take home their carpet samples so I could see how they’d look in our space before I placed the order.

So far it looks fab and the pieces were as easy to cut as promised. It’s great because in the configuration that I picked we have a 4×10 area rug which is an off size but fits our space perfectly. The Flor is way better than the Legato we put down in the basement plus they have all these green initiatives and I supported a local business at the same time. So far so good, now we just have to see how easy it will be to clean. The picture and instructions in the catalog are ridiculously simple and I refuse to believe that it could be that easy. Sure, you just pick up the tile and wash it in the sink, but they don’t show a picture of the part where you lift the end in the sink up and the water run out the other end and onto your socks. You can see the new wall color in the picture too.
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