Lighten up!

"I'll have the kitchen done in a couple weeks..."  Yeah, right!!  I'm still plodding along on the cabinets!

One fantastic thing:  the original light fixture that I wanted in the dining area went to clearance at 1/2 price, so thanks to heaven and Cap'n's procrastination, I was ultimately able to get exactly what I hoped for!  (Things don't usually work out like that for me.)

I did spend a couple weeks with family in South Carolina, and I finally got a job!!  So I'll blame some of my slowness on that.  Although having a job has energized me so I'm actually working more on the kitchen now than I had in the last month.

I love this job!  After years of searching and applying, I was finally hired at a great company doing just the kind of work I enjoy.  Great people, happy and friendly atmosphere, no micromanaging and no politics!  I think I've died and gone to heaven.

But do you think I'll get my LIBRARY done before 2012???  Wasn't that my new year's resolution?....

Smack talk!

My kids are threatening to never talk to me again if I don’t put up some photos!  I’ve thought long and hard about that offer, but okay, I guess I’ll show a few anyway. 

A view down the side wall, looking out the dining area window to the back deck. 

Below is an overall view.

This is a view from above, so you can see the rugs.  The overall rug size is 4’x6’ and it’s a little small for what I’d want, but the next size was 5’x8’ and that was too much.  Oh well; in my price range I have to take what I can get!  

 These are my fortuitous finds!  I found them at Hobby Lobby when I was looking for a shelf unit, and got them at half price!  The green blanket on one of the figures looks almost like the countertops in the kitchen area!

And this is a quick and cheap shot of the unfinished kitchen, below.  The actual green color of the cabinets and top is a little closer to the statue's blanket color; this photo looks a lot more gray than it actually is.  Pardon the dirty counter! (And that incongruous John Deere toothpick dispenser!) The upper cabinets will be white, like the chair rail in the dining area.

I’m still working leisurely on!  Just now starting the upper cabinets.  I’ll be replacing the dining area lighting fixture, and hanging window treatments soon.  I also have a painting I’ll be mounting to the left of the shelf in the dining area.  More photos when it’s all complete!

Detour part 3: Are we there yet?

Stop whining!  Sit down!  Leave your sister alone!  You just ate!  Why didn’t you “go” at the last rest stop?  Don’t make me come back there!

Okay, I admit it – my 2^nd cabinet color choice turned into orange sherbet!  I’m assigning Cap’n 30% of the blame because he helped choose the color, but he wanted to just get the sample and I said it’d be fine, just get the whole gallon.  So it’s mostly my fault.

For color #3 (and 4) in the cabinet debacle, Cap’n caved and I got the dark color I originally wanted for the lower cabinets, and this time a “gaurnteed” off-white for the upper cabinets.  It’s taking a lot longer than I expected as I am juggling cooking, cleaning, and family events with emptying cabinets and drawers, two coats of paint, and reassembling doors and drawers in turn as they dry.

Nevertheless, I am LOVING the new look!  This weekend I’ll purchase materials for the window hangings and possibly the chair covers as well.  And I will continue painting, painting, painting!  It seems the journey is as pleasurable as anticipating the end result, and I love doing all the work myself.  It feels like such an accomplishment.

Now take your finger out of your brother’s nose and get back on your own side.

Head Games

Admit it, you have at least one imaginary friend!  That’s the one you’ll be talking to when nobody else is around.  When I was very young, my friend’s name was Jimmy.  We became ‘acquainted’ when I was about 5, and he stayed with me at least through 5^th grade.

As an adult, I find my best imaginary friend is Don Chew.  Don is good at encouraging me when I’m hesitant to pursue a goal, and talking me out of wild and crazy spontaneities when my brain thinks I’m younger than my body does.  I mostly try to pay attention when he speaks.

Don has been a very good advisor and cheerleader as I work on redecorating my kitchen.  Working in cahoots with daughters Mélange and Vagrant, he has supported my decisions on wall colors, rugs, accessories and accent pieces.  I’m really excited at how it’s all coming out!

With one exception.

I cannot get the cabinet color right.  Up to bat with two strikes, my confidence is fading fast.  The sample sizes you can now purchase aren’t always enough to give you a clear picture – that is, if you are wise enough to try them in the first place.  Searching through my library of decorating books, I keep reading that color is a cheap way to change your décor; if you don’t like your first color choice, just paint it again!  I try to take comfort in that, but…

At $25 a gallon, Don Chew believe it.

Detour: 4-wheel driving

I suppose you are all wondering if I have gotten lost during my detour!  You could say that.  First, I have discovered that I am no longer as young as I used to be!  What’s up with that?  Hours of taping, climbing stepstools, hunkering on the floor, balancing on countertops, and painting exhausted me.  My good household ladder is MIA, kidnapped by husband Cap’n and held hostage somewhere at the airport, so the upper reaches have proven challenging.

Secondly, the paint chosen for the trim and cabinets has turned out to be PINK!  If you recall my fashion entry, ‘pink’ falls into the soap-in-the-mouth category of my decorating vocabulary.  The sample looked good, but I guess I should have been warned by the color name of “strawberry malt.”  Sigh!  So hopefully we will be going out today to get a replacement gallon.

Never fear!  The work shall be done, and “After” photos will be posted!  Meanwhile, my library/den is still pending and I here provide you with a teaser of that disaster.  In case you thought it couldn’t get worse!

Detour!

Well, I’m taking the scenic route to deconstructing my office/library!  As my husband was planning a trip, I spontaneously quipped, “Give me $100 and I’ll paint the kitchen while you’re gone.”  Good heavens, I was not really expecting him to hand me cash the next day!

If I had considered the amount of work involved, I would have asked for $500 and four good-looking workmen!

Photostock via www.freedigitalphotos.net

   However, I am still excited, emptying and scrubbing down the kitchen, and planning how to stretch my funds as far as possible in redecorating.  Daughter Mélange is helping to settle my indecisions in the details, and everyone else is cheering me on.  I really want to do the work myself!

“Scenic route” or no, my bulldozer and dump truck are still headed for my workroom.  But for now, to the kitchen!  ("Before" below.  Yes, these are before-cleaning views!  I can embarrass myself, thank you!)

NAG, NAG, NAG!

My kids are beating me up (and well deserved it is) to get another blog posted.  In fact, they have chosen the subject for me.  I hate to admit they’re right, so I won’t.  However, I’m going to follow through with it and claim it as my own idea.

For the first time in my life since moving out of my parents’ home, I have a room to call my own!  It answers to various names – library, workroom, office, den, art & craft space – but so far its actual function has been a place to toss – nay, cram – stuff when trying to clean the rest of the house.

You don’t believe me?  It can’t be that bad, you say?  Oh ho, but it can!  Come back in about a week and I will have video of the room in its current state.  (I’m not starting this project until late next week, even though it was originally a new year’s resolution!)  Don’t worry; I’m not one of those people who clean just before the cleaning crew arrives.  (Because no cleaning crew will ever cross my threshold!)

Now, leave me alone while I gird my loins.

Fashion-abled!

Welcome to my newest grandson, S’irish!  The little pot o’ gold arrived May 15^th in fine fashion!

Speaking of fine fashion, I was naughty and treated myself to something I have not done in probably 25 years; something that usually has me coming away with a massive headache, but I actually sort of enjoyed this time.  I went clothes shopping!  I anticipated coming away with a bra and a dress I could wear to church… I must have mistaken the department store for a bookstore because I came home with 3 bras, a skirt, and 5 shirts!  Just trying to upgrade my closet from t-shirts with images to something a little more classy…  Next time Vagrant tricks me into taking her to a very expensive restaurant, at least I won’t be wearing a Smokey the Bear tee!

Penz 'n' Penzils 'n' Buckets, oh my

I am a pen freak, pencil freak, any old writing utensil freak.  I build up massive collections, weed them out, and build them up again!  But gradually over time I am amassing a permanent collection of higher quality items.  I love getting really close to the paper and watching the ink scroll along the paper.  I choose my pen of the moment based on the color of ink I feel like writing with, the type of paper I'm using, and simply my mood.  Fountain pens win most often.  I have pens I'll lend out never expecting to get them back, and pens I'll break your fingers if you touch!  So I take pleasure in small things!!

What makes a girly-girl?

Okay folks, I am NOT a girly-girl!  Pink is not even in the same family as my favorite colors.  The only place I can windowshop for hours is in a bookstore (okay, or an office supply store).  I love big trucks, big dogs, horses, and piloting planes.  I’m a 27-year member of a search and rescue organization.  My favorite clothes are still jeans and plaid shirts; and if I’m not barefoot I prefer boots or moccasins.  So what is with my recent fascination with makeup??

When I was 13, in my newly expanded (but parentally constrained) exposure to face-painting, I was all about thick eyeliner (who remembers stripes of black and white?), false eyelashes, and white lipstick (applied in the school bathrooms, of course; out of reach of disapproving mothers). 

As a young mother and then in the work force, I would not appear in public without my ‘face,’ but that was a quick swish of mascara and lip gloss (maybe some blush, if I had time).

In the early stage of grandmotherhood,  I traveled about naked-faced as often as not.  Yet now I am suddenly entranced by appearance.  I somehow ran into Samantha Schuerman’s makeup blog and got such a kick out of her personality that I subscribed, learned some interesting tricks I wanted to try, and became hooked on their pregnancy and now family vlogs.  …And then began watching other makeup tutorials, “what’s in my purse,” “room tours,” and other girl-stuff.   samanthaschuerman.blogspot.com, www.youtube.com/user/samanthaschuerman

So now I find myself with a $12 subscription to Allure magazine, checking out beauty books (“for mature women”) at the library, collecting and using coupons at Ulta, visiting the MAC counter at the department store… and making a fool of myself!  As soon as I walk into girl-country, I am overwhelmed with insecurity and feel so conspicuous!  Lacking that teen display of youthful, inherent confidence and the wardrobe of upper-class society matrons, I bumble about, snatch up an eyeliner, and apologize my way through the checkout line.

Well, I will just consider this part of my second childhood, try to act as mature as I thought I was at 16 (c’mon, I said try!), and enjoy the experience!  After all, Mom can’t tell me what to do anymore!  (Can she?)

Wedding Vows

Yesterday was a pretty special day!  My daughter, Mélange, married her partner Hunt.  The ceremony took place in a beautiful, forested state park and the day was sunny, cool, and breezy.  The majority of both families were able to attend, even the two brothers Q and Spinner from the other side of the country!  I loved the ties that the minister wove into the ritual.  Instead of the traditional “who gives this woman…” she included the parents in the covenant by asking them if they would continue to love, nurture, and support the newlyweds in their commitment, with an expected verbal “we will” response holding the same weight as the bride’s and groom’s “I do.”  Even the rest of the attendees were asked for this confirmation.   

That is the way an extended family should work.  Each “unit” functions autonomously, but all come together in times of need, as well as joy. 

I love my family!

Welcome to my ... purse?

I said I would and I did!  This was rather fun; I enjoy looking at other "what's in my purse/bag" videos on youtube so I did one too.  My kids encouraged me so I'm not taking all the blame.  Nyaah!

Greetings - and hola!

Hello!  Welcome to my (erg!) blog!  First, a brief explanation about Oh! La Vieja.  Spoken, it can sound like “hola, vieja,” or “hello, respected elder.”  However, in my case, it reflects “Oh!  Old woman!” as in “For goodness sakes, what the heck are you doing now?!”  You’ll see as my blogs progress!  I love the Spanish language and chose this title over “Creaky old mum,” which was a close second.

Since people don’t seem to write letters anymore, and my children are so busy with their own families (and blogs!), I decided to come aboard too and have an opportunity to share my life.  I seem to be going through a “girly” phase at the moment.  My daughter Cage and I had a discussion on this:  as she is studying psychology in school at the moment, she stated that it must be a developmental phase.  I responded that it may be an UNdevelopmental phase!  My theory is that as we get older and our brain cells die off, our neurons revert back to old, long-unused pathways.  I’ve already gone back through my 20-year-old horse phase, and now I seem to be in my 16-year-old girly phase.  (And in a few years I will return to my baby phase: babbling, drooling, and wearing a diaper!)

I’m married to Cap’n and have 4 children, 3 stepchildren, 3 stepgrandkids, 3 grandkids with two more arriving this year and hopefully a few more after that!  My children are Vagrant, Mélange, Dr. G, Cage, Q, Lovey, and Spinner.  Grandchildren are da3Bs, daBoss, daPrincess, and daMover (with Pending1 and Pending2 living up to their temporary names).  (All obviously nicknames!  You don’t really think I’d name my kids these?!?)

I’m hoping this blog will be a somewhat accurate representation of my life with all the nuttiness that belongs to someone who loves squirrels!  My first goal is to figure out, create, and post a “What’s in My Purse” video!  And who knows what direction life will take after that?