happy halloween

November 1, 2009 | No comments

Two weeks ago, I accompanied my sisters to the pumpkin patch at Remlinger Farms. We tromped through mud, rode around the patch in a rickety truck with hay bale seats, let my nephew guide us through a corn maze, and picked out lovely pumpkins.

Unfortunately, I returned from Disneyland with a virus that gave me bronchitis, so the pumpkins are uncarved. No matter, now they are part of our general autumn decor. Well, except for the one that appears to be rotting away on the back patio. That one is now just part of the compost pile.

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we’re all equal in the face of what we’re most afraid of

October 28, 2009 | No comments

Tonight I learned that the infant daughter of our close family friends successfully underwent surgery to correct the breathing problems she faced. I also read a letter from a grieving mother to her 13-year-old son who was lost to cancer just last week.

I don’t–and never will–understand why some of us are granted reprieves and miracles and others receive only heartbreak (and I imagine that most will say that life is a mix of both but there are times, especially involving children, where the contrast is so stark and overwhelming that one can’t help but wonder and thrash about) but what I do know was reinforced tonight by both the answering of my fervent prayers and the wisdom of the eloquent and impassioned love letter that has me weeping so intensely that I can barely type.

Life is the greatest bargain; we get it for nothing.

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this is halloween at the happiest place on earth

October 28, 2009 | No comments

Why, hello there. I haven’t forgotten about you. It’s just that I spent the last several days here:

And of course I was too preoccupied to post! Who wouldn’t be? We went to Mickey’s Trick-or-Treat Party where I dressed up like Coraline. Everything in the park was decorated and the temperature was in the mid-80s…quite a treat when it has been pouring and cold here in Seattle! For now, our photos are on my flickr account if you want to see them all but I’m thinking about creating a custom gallery here on our family site.

I have to say, though, I’m excited to be back in Autumn weather. We came down with a case of the flu or similar that is disrupting life quite a bit right now, but I’m hoping to at least get up enough energy for some pumpkin carving before Halloween! I know, I’m late, I’m late! But my baby spins a mean teacup!

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future me

October 20, 2009 | No comments

Do you ever use FutureMe? I love this site.

Sometimes, when I’m having a particularly stressful and difficult time or am thinking about making major life changes (especially when trying to motivate myself to take a leap) I send myself an encouraging note (which doubles as a ‘you had better have done this by now!’ note). Or I send messages to arrive after milestones; I’m sure I have one coming to me after the wedding reminding/convincing me of how lovely it was and how happy/lucky/proud I am to be walking hand-in-hand with my husband toward the future.

Mostly, I use it to say ‘I love you’ to future me because sometimes it’s hard to say that (or maybe harder to hear it) from my current me.

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build me up, buttercup

October 15, 2009 | No comments

The painters told me that when they saw the shade of yellow I had picked out, they thought ‘Lady’s got guts!’ and I admit, I was nervous since I ended up with paint that was significantly brighter than what I had tested on the walls. The lighter yellow just barely showed up because that bedroom just doesn’t get much light at all. I mean, if you’re going to go for yellow walls, you should go for yellow walls. It is really not as intense as in the photograph, though.

And it’s dreary outside and will be for the next six months. If I’m going to panic over it being too bright, it won’t be until the sun returns to Seattle and by then I’ll be panicking about the wedding.

Besides, I’m the girl with who adores the lime green walls in the second bedroom.

And the living room is not dreary (yet) but is neutral and clean.

I had selected a lighter gray for the hallway, but the painters accidentally used the darker shade that matched the living room and were about to fix it when I arrived home. It turned out to be much better than the lighter gray, which was basically white, so we decided to keep it. It isn’t too dark in that hallway at all and it flows nicely. Yay for mistakes!

It’s difficult to photograph, but it looks nice and clean and the walls are all repaired and nice and the ceilings were repainted so it is bright in here and Im happy with it. It’s very hard to capture in our light, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

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spaces between spaces, moments between moments

October 13, 2009 | No comments

A friend shared this yesterday and it resonated with me:

Summer was like your house: you knew
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.
The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be Earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

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decisions, decisions

October 12, 2009 | No comments

Sometimes, you just have to make a trial run of it and paint a big swath of the wall. It may not turn out to be the right hue but the original wasn’t right either, which is why you’re painting in the first place. Of course.

I’ve long held (after many traumatic experiences both self-inflicted and stupidly paid for) that I live my life in no small part by the words ‘hair grows back.’ Well, paint can be painted over.

That said, it is pretty darn near impossible to photograph in this lighting.

And yes, I am planning to paint our living room gray. But don’t worry, I’ll maintain my sunny disposition by painting the master bedroom yellow.

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autumn nesting

October 11, 2009 | No comments

I’m a person who is very sensitive to my surroundings. I can’t concentrate in chaos. I should probably qualify that I’m generally immune to clutter, it’s the underlying cleanliness and design that really gets to me.
And my residence…it is not meeting my needs. But it will. Oh, it will.
It has boring white walls (with the exception of ‘my’ bedroom, which I painted lime green in a fit of manic desperation a few years ago and still adore against all odds), carpet that is beige in the few places where it is not stained, single paned windows that have not fared well as the structure has settled over the past 30 years, a front door that is not properly sealed, plastic-y interior doors that were installed by previous tenants in a sloppy manner, bizarre electrical wiring in places also courtesy of same previous tenants who then left us with a parting gift of the most hideous bathroom decor that I can imagine. Fake brass, peeling floral wallpaper (they were not very fastidious with their home improvement projects)…and carpet.
It is also nestled between freeways to Seattle, in a downtown Bellevue core area that remains insulated from the frenzy of development a mere mile away. We have wetlands, streams, a pond, trees, wildlife, and are within walking (biking, for Shake and Bake) distance from our offices and the rest of downtown. And I love it.
I’ve spent the time we’ve lived here too busy to do much (though we did get a lovely black-and-white checkered kitchen floor and my bathroom was de-papered and received new floors as well as a new sink stand and cabinet) but all of that is about to change.
I have goals. GOALS! And more than that, my employment circumstances are changing in such a way that will allow me to indulge my neglected domestic side.
The first step is painting and new flooring: wood floors except in the master  bedroom, where we will get new carpet. After many false starts, I think we’ve found a good option for a reasonable price and they can be installed as soon as we’re ready. All we have to do to get ready is…pick out paint colours and then paint. We have a few samples that we’ve slathered on the walls in various lighting conditions to test out. I’m usually quite impulsive about this sort of thing, so this new approach of attempting to pull together a design should prove amusing.

I’m a person who is very sensitive to my surroundings. I can’t concentrate in chaos. I should probably qualify that I’m generally immune to clutter, it’s the underlying cleanliness and design that really gets to me.

And my residence…it is not meeting my needs. But it will. Oh, it will.

It has boring white walls (with the exception of ‘my’ bedroom, which I painted lime green in a fit of manic desperation a few years ago and still adore against all odds), carpet that is beige in the few places where it is not stained, single paned windows that have not fared well as the structure has settled over the past 30 years, a front door that is not properly sealed, plastic-y interior doors that were installed by previous tenants in a sloppy manner, bizarre electrical wiring in places also courtesy of same previous tenants who then left us with a parting gift of the most hideous bathroom decor that I can imagine. Fake brass, peeling floral wallpaper (they were not very fastidious with their home improvement projects)…and carpet.

It is also nestled between freeways to Seattle, in a downtown Bellevue core area that remains insulated from the frenzy of development a mere mile away. We have wetlands, streams, a pond, trees, wildlife, and are within walking (biking, for Shake and Bake) distance from our offices and the rest of downtown. And I love it.

I’ve spent the time we’ve lived here too busy to do much (though we did get a lovely black-and-white checkered kitchen floor and my bathroom was de-papered and received new floors as well as a new sink stand and cabinet) but all of that is about to change.

I have goals. GOALS! And more than that, my employment circumstances are changing in such a way that will allow me to indulge my neglected domestic side.

The first step is painting and new flooring: wood floors except in the master  bedroom, where we will get new carpet. After many false starts, I think we’ve found a good option for a reasonable price and they can be installed as soon as we’re ready. All we have to do to get ready is…pick out paint colours and then paint. We have a few samples that we’ve slathered on the walls in various lighting conditions to test out. I’m usually quite impulsive about this sort of thing, so this new approach of attempting to pull together a design should prove amusing.

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once more with feeling

October 11, 2009 | No comments

I’ve gone back and made private my posts from early last year; many life changes are afoot and I felt the need to start fresh here. There is a new season landing on my doorstep. Think of it as a bit of October cleaning, if you will.

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