Total Zen in 2010

As perfect as it’s gonna get?

/ wvfurandroot / 12 Comments

Be still my heart.

OK. It’s way too soon to tell. I shouldn’t even be posting this. But. . .

I’ve been dithering for months now about what color to paint the family room and, also, dithering about whether to paint the family room or the study first.

I went on a full-on tear this past weekend and decided I couldn’t live another second without painting the family room. I didn’t count on two FULL days of moving, cleaning, spackling, and priming. [The family room and kitchen are major disaster areas and the puppies have had enough.]

At the last minute, I switched my decision from Stargazer to Wellspring (blue). Literally. I had the car keys in hand and went to grab the paint chip and changed my mind. If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ve heard all my tales of woe regarding color and paint. If not, click on the decorating tag and peruse the posts.

Lowe’s cheerfully mixed me up two cans in a nice satin finish – since the color is so dark, I wanted something with a sheen to catch the light.

I have never gotten one-coat-coverage paint to actually cover in one coat, but I’m cautiously optimistic that perhaps this time I have. I painted very slowly and carefully, touching up as I went, and in a room without enough lamps, it’s looking good for one coat. If so, I have a whole unopened can. If not, I know I have enough for a second coat.  [If I succeeded, guess what color the laundry room is going to be?]

My hopes have been raised and dashed all night (It’s midnight and I just finished). Now that this one corner should, presumably, be dry, I’m thinking the one coat thing might have worked, but more importantly, the color may be as perfect as I can get given the damn blue leather sofa that has this weird green cast to it.

Be still my heart.

Morning light will tell.

Perfect or not, this is it. This room is too big and too hard to paint. One way or another, it will be the perfect color. I can be very good at delusional behavior.

I’m going to bed happy.

[I may scream come morning.]

[I’m going to need a lot more white in this room than I’d thought.  No prob, Bob.  Minor adjustments.]

[Please, oh, please, oh please, let morning bring cackles of delight and not despair driven hysterical ones.]

The 1988 Toothbrush

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

The 1988 Toothbrush

1988 was an interesting year. If memory isn’t tricking me this morning, ’88 was the year we moved into the barn as our residence.

It was rough – both the barn and life in the barn.

We had electricity and one working toilet. That was it.

I cooked in electric fry pans, crock pots, and a silly little portable burner. We trooped down to my parents house, towels and toothbrushes in hand, to shower.

The 1988 Barn

Eventually, we had water, but still no bathtub. I washed dishes in a tub outside on the picnic table.

Eventually, we had a tub. Sheer luxury.

We had no phone. [That proved to be rather nice. In fact, well after we could afford it, we lived sans phone.] We had framing and insulation, but no walls. There was no kitchen to speak of, though I did have a stove – an ancient thing that we bought used somewhere. The ex’s work bench served as the dining room table and it was a plum pain in the ass to move the table saw every time it was time to eat.

The barn was slow going. We were trying to do it without incurring debt. The materials we needed at the beginning were expensive. Winter was coming, so we needed a furnace. The barn was in danger of slipping down the hill, so we needed a stone retaining wall.

We picked up some kitchen cabinets somewhere – they were beat up, ugly and not well-made. I danced in joy.

The 1997 Barn

In 1997 – 9 years later, we gave up and procured a construction loan. We hired a contractor. Then the fun really began. It was a nightmare; it was a dream come true; it was frustrating and, finally, the not-quite-finished barn was a not just a loved home, but a real house. It looked like a badly-built California Contemporary, but I adore every square inch of it – still do, worrisome warts and all.

Except for recent projects, nothing has been painted since 1997. The barn has been in desperate need of interior paint and exterior stain. The exterior is daunting, so I’m concentrating on the interior.

The most annoying part of paint prep - getting things out of the way.

The family room is now underway for a new paint job – Wellspring Blue. The color is dark, maybe too dark, but right now I love the color in the can. As part of paint prep, I removed the books from the top of the semi-built in bookcases and found a toothbrush still in its packaging up there.

Puzzled, I carried the oral instrument into the kitchen. While I don’t clean often, the top of the bookcase has been cleaned at least once a year since 1997 when it was installed. The most recent cleaning was about this time last year.

The flattened package was a major clue.

I peered and found a 1988 date on the packaging. Truly, a WTF moment. We didn’t have bookcases until ’97 and the top has been cleaned, while not frequently, at least often enough that missing the toothbrush was unlikely. The toothbrush package was flattened, but clean and dust free – an important clue.

Old Webster gets more of a workout than one would think.

 

[The barn is a retirement home for dirt and dust – truly, Jehovah could create an entire metropolis of people from blowing on the dust of just one room.]

I have deduced that the toothbrush fell out of a book. The ex used to use all manner of strange things as a bookmark. That’s the only reasonable explanation. I thank him for that habit – 1988 has come flooding back. To quote Dickens; it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . .

These times are also the best and worst – the yin/yang that life always seems to be. I’ll probably keep the toothbrush. De-junking is one thing; but little memory provokers here and there keep me grounded and cognizant of the yin/yang.

Hedonistic Winter Naps

/ wvfurandroot / 12 Comments

Nap Haven

The art of the nap is one I developed late in life. From the age of 3 to, oh, 40 or so, I could no more take a nap than I could sing lead at the Metropolitan Opera. (Trust me, folks, I cannot sing.)

Naps are a gift most wondrous.

The best ones are the ones that sneak up on you. Planning a nap sucks the essence out of it – like planning a laugh. The pleasure of the nap is inversely related to the intention to nap. Conducting one’s day in productivity mode and then suddenly finding oneself in bed drowsy with increasing lethargy is oh so good.

Even though I’ve discovered the joy of naps, I am still unable to sleep anywhere other than in a bed – preferably my bed.

Even sweet Babette needs a blanket these days.

Winter naps differ significantly from summer naps. Both are pleasant. The winter nap, however, also serves as a body warmer. Recently, and particularly, I’ve enjoyed the dichotomy of being snuggled in my bed while gazing at the frozen tundra which is my yard outside the French doors. Listening to the wind cause the barn to grown and creak has been a nice backdrop to puppy snores and the hum of the nonstop furnace.

Since I haven’t, for the most part, worn anything but pajamas for days, I’ve enjoyed the feel of thick silk against my sinfully high thread count sheets. We hedonists enjoy such pleasures. There have been incidents of crawling into bed in jeans and a sweatshirt. There’s something somewhat illicit about burrowing into the bed clothed in something other than nightwear. Napwear?

I’ve been running at full tilt for months. I knew I was exhausted, but I’d underestimated the extent of it. When downtime hit, I had a number of ambitious projects lined up. I knew I’d need a couple of days of R&R before launching said projects, so I did plan naps.

I’m not sure you could call them naps. I woke in the morning, drank a half a pot of coffee, went upstairs to change clothes and, instead, ended up crawling back in bed where, with some resemblance to a coma, I clocked another 3 or 4 hours of deep, drool on the pillow sleep. I’d get back up, drink the second half of the pot of coffee and end up back in bed for another 3 or 4 hours of sleep before giving up on it all and just going to bed for the night. I reckon that I slept 18 hours a day for a week or so.

I should be well and thoroughly caught up on sleep by now, but it appears maybe not. [The first order of business tomorrow is to make arrangements to have my thyroid re-tested – even if exhausted this is an insane amount of sleep.]

Eyes of Love

If not for the impending arrival of the houseguest and Chef Boy ‘R Mine’s arrival, I think there’s a good chance that absolutely nothing of those ambitious plans would have been accomplished. Mind you, I didn’t make a dent in any of them, but some order has been restored in my living environment which is a great comfort.

Today is my last day, for sure, of downtime. Last Sunday should have been, but snow storms, car problems, plumbing problems, and electrical problems kept me home much of this week. These problems allowed me good time with Chef Boy ‘R Mine and Girlfriend O’His, but the New Normal is knocking on the door and it’s time to get my stick shift out of neutral and rev the engine.

While I’m not planning a nap, I think one is likely.

Puppy Pile

The puppies are champion nappers and if I do succumb to one, I’ll put them in bed with me where Trudy will serve as a foot warmer, Willy as a stuffed animal to clutch as I snooze, and Babette slumbering on top of the covers while completing the tableau of the Still Life with Snoring.

A normal nap does involve street clothes unless it’s summer and I’ve been gardening. In such cases, I strip down and really wallow in the texture of the bed linens. But it is winter. Most likely, this afternoon will find me in jeans, sweatshirt and accompanied by puppies snoozing (and drooling on the pillow) away a couple of hours. (A pox on the power nap! Anything less than a couple hours can’t properly be called a nap.)

It’s all good. While the past ten days have been anything but Total Zen in 2010, I’m feeling pretty grounded and centered. Restored, if you will. The renewal of the New Normal schedule of my life seems doable. A couple of weeks ago, I was ready to wave the white flag of surrender. The opportunity to nap has made all the difference.