Maybe not lazy…

I always (always) feel like I am pretty lazy. Disorganized and lazy. But after this week I think I should lose that thought. I have been all alone since 4AM monday morning. I could have been eating bon-bons and watching tv and reading. Here is what I have done:

• Read 2 books
  
• Gone visiting teaching
  
• Babysat Kate 2 afternoons
  
• Fixed dinner for Mahon & CL one night
  
• Run 9 errands one evening (seriously--I thought I would die when I had to walk across Lowes which was my last stop)
  
• Taken 1/2 of fabric out of the sewing room and sorted it, cleaned off 1/2 of counters 
  
• Cleaned out girls closet 
  
• folded all folding clothes
  
• taken down 3 shelves and put up closet rod instead (hence trip to Lowes)
  
• put many many clothes from floor and laundry baskets on hangers 
  
• organized clothes in rainbow colors 
  
• took apart desk and removed from room 
  
• slightly rearranged room 
  
• vacuumed as I went 
  
• cleaned out under beds 
  
• put Jenna's beds on risers 
  
• changed sheets on both beds & made them 
  
• Put together new shelves for my shower 
  
• cleaned entire bathroom including mopping floor & washing rug
  
• got angel hats from girl’s camp ready to mail
  
• cleaned & swept Harry Potter room
  
• cleaned, swept, and mopped laundry room
  

I need to train my brain to think about myself differently. Because I don't think that is a lazy person. I think I am a person who has a hard time getting started on projects sometimes, and a person who transitions badly. But not lazy!

It’s Ba-ack!

Remember our fight against the invasive bamboo last year?  Well it appears to be almost that time again.  Here is a picture I just took from the driveway.

1=little shoots of bamboo that have been around for some time now.

2=a stalk of bamboo that showed up a few days ago.

3=a stalk of bamboo that just showed up yesterday morning.

This year my strategy is going to be slightly different.  I’m going to go back to the bamboo place and buy some bamboo barrier.  You have to dig a hole that is 2 feet deep, line it with this barrier, then refill it with dirt.  Then I’m going to try to dig up the rhizomes that have produced these new shoots and transplant them to the spot in my backyard where I want a big bamboo screen.  Will it work?  Who knows, but it’s definitely worth a try.  And maybe I need a little bamboo barrier by my driveway too!

Painting: ya win some, ya lose some…

At the beginning of the summer when I surveyed the weeks ahead they divided logically into 4 parts:

• 1.5 weeks in Utah
• 5.5 weeks at home
• 2 weeks in Utah
• 2.5 weeks with Jason

From the beginning I targeted the time at home in the middle for some hard, hard work.  Essentially the rest of the moving that we could never manage when we moved into our house during the school year.  My fantasy all along was that if I accomplished enough (unpacking boxes, organizing the sewing room, etc) during the first 4 weeks then while the girls were at camp during the 5th week I would paint their room.  Happily I was able to pretty much stick to my planned schedule and this was the week to paint.  In addition to the girl’s room I needed to paint the entry where the walls had to be repaired and retextured after the mirrors came down and the half bath which also had newly textured walls, and I wanted to paint the laundry room which was a dark reddish/terra cotta color. 

Here are my projects, from least to most successful.

 

First up: the half bathroom (or as the realtor called it, the powder room)

In North Carolina I had the most beautiful bathroom ever.  My super talented sister Laila had painted it to look like the view from our favorite NC beachhouse on the most beautiful day ever.  And then she added a lighthouse behind the door just for fun.  We LOVED it.  Everyone did.  Needing to use the bathroom was never such a good experience as in our beach bathroom.  I think it broke our painter friend’s heart just a little bit to paint over it when we were getting ready to sell the house.  (It’s really hard to take a picture in such a tiny space so please bear with my patchwork effort.)

Laila has promised that one day when she don’t have twin toddlers anymore she will come to Oregon and paint a new bathroom for me.  But in the meantime I’m on my own.  I had dreamed the idea of a gradual color change on my bathroom walls and I searched and found an idea that looked good on the internet. 

I am very sad to say…after spending hours painting primer on to the highly textured walls, when I tried the technique from the internet the results were less than pleasing.  In fact it made me claustrophobic when I walked into the bathroom.

And of course this was the room with the most edges—it’s shaped like half of an H and has a dropped ceiling in one section.  It was a total pain.  In the end I was so distressed by what I had created that I primed and then painted white over the middle part.

Later I will change the bottom paint color just a little and I think I might put a narrow chair rail between the blue & white.  But for now…it will just have to stay strange. 

(When I listen to something while working on a project I have very strong associations afterwards.  In fact once I made these cute outfits for Cindy Lynn and Jason when they were little and every time I ever put them in those clothes I remembered the scary book on tape I had listened to!  This bathroom will forever more be the Steve Jobs bathroom because I listened to a documentary about him while painting.  Fascinating guy.)

 

Next up: the laundry room

Originally the laundry room was a color I didn’t care for…quite a bit darker than this picture shows and very blah.

It is small enough that I thought I could paint it fairly easily.  First I painted on 2 layers of primer—figuring if I covered up that dark color better my paint would go on better.

Once again I decided to try a ombre painting technique I saw on the internet.  At first I was distressed that it wasn’t going to work, but after tweaking the technique a little I ended up with something I can live with.  In retrospect I wish I’d gone with a palette that was more blue than green…and I reserve the right to change it one day if I want. 

(the laundry room’s audio memory will be the recent church leadership broadcast about missionary work…not a bad memory to have every time I go in the laundry room!)

 

First project & definitely the best

When I decided that I wanted to paint the girl’s room I realized that their comforters were really old and had been washed a few times too often.  We searched frantically for a few days and finally found some on overstocks.com that were cute, affordable, and had good reviews.  I ordered them a few weeks ago so that we could talk paint colors. 

The girls decided that they wanted their previously tan walls to be lime green, raspberry, and aqua.  Not kidding.  So we moved everything into the center of the room and as soon as they were out the door to girl’s camp I went to work.  When I was done painting I decided that we were going to unbunk the beds just to see if they really wanted it that way.  I put all of their stuff in a laundry basket and then made the beds with the new bedding & arranged everything nice & neat(ish).

When the girls got home and went upstairs I heard shrieks of surprise and delight. 

We’re still not sure about some of the furniture in there, but for the time being this is how we’re going to leave it.  It makes me happy to have such a fun room for my almost teenage girls!

On Things

I come from a long history of scarcity mentality.  Both of my parents came from humble downright poor beginnings and they brought those mindsets into their married life together.  At times when scarcity didn’t actually exist in my home my mom brought it in anyway in her attempts to save more, pay down business debt super fast, and even to pay off the mortgage in much less time.  All these were admirable goals, but they left me with a feeling of scarcity that has been a part of my whole life.

Russ came from a similar background; his parents were both children of the depression, raised to save anything because you never knew when you might need it.  When Russ was 7 his father was laid off and unemployed for several years—I’m sure this added to the feeling of needing to save and salvage and store things.

I have spent much of the last week working on the boxes in my garage.  Because we moved during the school year when most of my time was taken up with homeschooling, we unpacked what we couldn’t live without and did without the rest.  My (lofty) goal when we got back from Utah was to have the boxes all unpacked and dealt with by the end of next week, so that the following week while the girls are at camp I can paint their bedroom.  This unpacking has taken all of my physical energy and most of my mental energy as well.

One of the difficult things about dealing with all of these boxes is that we have moved from a 3500 square foot house that we lived in for 10 years into a 2400 square foot house where at least 250 of those feet are in the entry/foyer.  It’s felt a lot like Cinderella’s stepsister trying to shoehorn her huge foot into Cinderella’s petite little glass slipper.  And let’s just say that this slipper is bulging at the seams…

One of the benefits of this job with Intel was that they gave us a very generous moving package.  Lovely people came into our house and carefully packed up our every possession, loaded it into a truck, someone else drove it to Oregon, where it was all unpacked for us.  This was good because I was so busy working on the house in NC until the last possible minute.  This was bad because it meant that very little got “thinned” out in NC and instead it must (MUST) be done here.  Now.

I’ve realized as I’ve unpacked box after box of books and craft supplies and sewing supplies this week that it’s really hard for me to part with my things.  I’ve spent money on them, they might come in handy sometime, and it follows that I should keep them.  Ironically I’ve been dealing with the kinds of things that I like the best—books and sewing stuff—the things that are the hardest for me to get rid of.  But as I’ve had to face the reality of how much space is (and isn’t) available, it’s given me the incentive to be a little more ruthless.

I wondered tonight as I sorted and organized and threw things into trash bags and goodwill boxes where our kids will end up on this continuum.  We have deliberately not given our kids many of the “things” that their friends have had, preferring instead to use our extra money for beach trips and other experiences.  Will they come out of their childhoods with the same feelings of scarcity that Russ & I have lived with?  Will they be able to part with things more easily?  I guess only time will tell…

----

Here are a few pictures from my exhausting week.  First the bookshelves on the upstairs landing.  Almost all of the books are on the shelves, now they just need to be organized.  I bought these shelves at Ikea—in retrospect I’m not sure I’d buy these exact ones again but oh well, we’ll survive.

And then the sewing room.  This may not look so great, but it has been a herculean effort.  Before I started the whole countertop was piled high with stuff and there were boxes & boxes of sewing & craft stuff that had to be integrated into the room somehow.  I’m actually a little surprised that I got everything in.  It will need more organizing later, but for now it’s good enough because I am wiped out.

Last month at Lowes

I walked in to buy a few flowers for my planter and my front yard and saw several HUGE racks of half price flowers.  YAY me!  Our yard is really nice structurally but without a lot of color so I want to add some flowers.  Half price was a great place to start.  And there went my home budget for the entire month…

Do you see those awesome tomato cages?  I’ve leaned away from cages and used more of a lattice in the last few years, but how on earth could I pass these awesome cages up?  Especially since our garden beds are right outside of our dining room windows and we see them all day every day.  (We do a lot of school in our dining room so we spend a lot of time in there.) 

And do you see that last picture?  Do you know what it is?  It’s a MANDEVILLA!  Here in Oregon, a MANDEVILLA!!  Here’s hoping it will thrive here in what is occasionally a sunny corner of my house.

Now if I could just get it all planted…

Work, work, work

We didn’t have any plans for Memorial Day weekend (hooray!!) and we were able to get so much stuff done.  Russ started the day on Saturday by installing some outlets into our outlet-less island. 

I spent my day planting 8 new tomato plants – different heirloom varieties; a black one, a green one, a purple striped one, along with a few that are less exotic.

I can see how why it was a good idea to buy those other tomato plants at Costco—check this out.

My pea plants are loving our cool & rainy spring weather.  Too bad the lettuce & spinach all bolted when we had those warm two weeks… Don’t you love my tomato cages?  They make me happy every time I look at them.

I also unpacked 6 boxes.  That may not sound like much but it took my whole day.

 

Russ (and various other family members at different times) spent almost all of Memorial day bonding with our friend’s pressure washer.  Our friend was thoughtful enough to bring pressure-washing clothes with his pressure washer.

 

Awesome, yes?

He started by pressure washing the moss off of all of the rocks, then moved on to washing all of the sidewalks, patio areas, and the driveway, and then finished up with the big kahuna—the pond.  It’s been looking pretty scummy for months and months, so this was his big chance to Clean It Up.  It was a multi-person affair and took a LONG time.

But when they were done it was so beautiful and clean!

Me: 1 Japanese Maples: 0

Remember this picture from yesterday??

Well, I just spent a couple of hours out in the hot Oregon sun (apparently it does happen occasionally!) trying to tame the Japanese Maple beast. 

Let me back up though.  First I googled “how to prune your Japanese Maple” and spent 15 seconds reading about how in Japan apprentices are required to watch the master prune the trees for 15 years before they ever get to do the pruning.  And about how you can prune them in the winter or the summer.

Whatever.

I went back outside and had my way with those trees.

I hope they don’t die from me pruning them so drastically in the spring.  But I really could NOT help myself.  And if they die I’ll plant something a little less inclined to looking like a massive blob plant.

Yay me!

PS—yes, I know the tree on the right is cut higher than the one on the left.  That’s because I cut off a whole big section that was protruding out in the front…which left it higher, but made me happier.

I’m a Japanese Maple Hypocrite

The other day I had my camera in the car and stopped to take a picture of what I consider the unpardonable sin—Japanese maples that look like Cousin It. 

The next day Russ and I were driving home together and I looked at the same house, and noticed that in the intervening time those japanese maples had been trimmed and no longer touched the ground.  I pointed it out to Russ and told him that I’d taken the picture to remind myself of what I didn’t want our japanese maples to look like.

As we drove in the driveway Russ pointed something out to me—

I don’t know how that happened—it must have been when they finished leafing out while I was out of town.  (Except for their bald heads—what’s with that?)  What I do know is that there is most certainly a youtube video on pruning japanese maples in my very near future…

 

PS—Even more than lollipop trees, japanese maples are very popular here in Oregon.  There’s practically one in every yard.  Why???

A Year Ago

I just found this to-do list from a year ago on my computer.

No wonder I felt overwhelmed all the time!!

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

Here’s a random sampling of some of the things that I’ve been up to lately.

1.  Decorating

I saw somewhere (probably pinterest, source of most of the cool ideas in the universe) a tutorial for making a lamp out of a big clear vase.  I was intrigued.  Then I remembered the navy vase I’d recently seen at Goodwill.  Then I went back and bought it so that one day I, too, could make a lamp.

You know, one day in the future when I have a house again.  But then one day I just had the random idea that in the meantime I could set my tiny touch lamp on top of the navy vase.  So I did.

And as I was standing and looking, I started wondering if I could put a big lampshade on top of the tiny touch lamp.  So I did.

How’s that for a new lamp?  And it’s still a touch lamp.  I love it—it makes much more of a statement than the tiny touch lamp did.

 

2.  Gardening

First of all, lots of balconies around the apartment are sporting hanging baskets.  Lush beautiful hanging baskets of petunias or fuchsias.  (Fuchsias are big here.)  I couldn’t bring myself to buy a ready-made hanging basket because they were all $30+.  So I made my own.  Here it is, 6 weeks later.

  Ummm….not exactly lush.  And if I add together the cost of the hanging basket and the flowers, it might have cost me $30.  I’ll probably try again next year to see if my theory (that my flowers just haven’t had long enough to grow) is right.  But after that I might have to just buy one.

I’m having to learn new things about gardening here.  For instance, mold.  In all of the dirt, all the time.  It’s better if I water them from the bottom, but they can still get mold when there’s not a lot of sun.  Now I have a spray of some (I’m sure nasty) stuff that I spray the dirt with from time to time.  (The white stuff on the dirt is the mold.  A light case of mold.)

Learning how to judge watering here has been tough too.  In North Carolina it was so hot all of the time that if it hadn’t rained I knew things needed to be watered.  Here it’s a different matter.  Originally I thought since it was so cool things didn’t need to be watered.  As it turns out I was wrong.

 

It also turns out that while the completely wilted leaves will revive, for some reason the flower stems do not revive and the poor flower is permanently damaged.  I lost quite a few gerbers figuring out that they do actually need to be watered, even when it’s cool out. 

In other gardening news, I planted one tomato plant in a big pot on my balcony.  I am pleased to report that it has several (5?) tiny baby grape tomatoes on it, and one that is turning red.  Pretty exciting stuff.  I also decided that this year I wanted to try to grow a tomato upside down, but I am too cheap to buy the ugly $10 upside down tomato holders.  I did some reading online and decided to plant in an empty 2 liter soda bottle.  I finally got around to assembling it on the 4th of July.

For a while there I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get my arm out of there.  The yellow tape is to protect the roots from the sun so that they don’t burn, but I’m also hypothesizing that the warmer roots might help the plant grow more quickly.  Boy this plant needs to be watered a lot.  Here’s how it looks now—it’s grown quite a bit, and it’s interesting to see it growing upwards.

 

3.  Remodeling.

Last year sometime I bought a few pair of pants at Goodwill for the express purpose of making them into skirts.  Here’s the first pair—a very bright pair of capris—fabric that I loved, but that I didn’t want to wear as a pair of capris. 

And here is my almost finished product—I’m still going to take some of the fabric cut from the legs and use it to make a vent in the back instead of a plan slit.  Much nicer that way.

Excuse the stuff all around me in the picture, please—we don’t have much space here for standing around taking pictures.  Don’t you like how tan my legs look?  Me too.  Too bad it’s just a trick of the lighting…  But I do love how the skirt turned out—I think it will be lots of fun to wear.   Now if I could figure out if I could wear this cool scarf I just found at Goodwill with it…what do you think?

 

4.  Constructing

When our house in North Carolina went on the market my nifty earring storage board went into storage and my earrings got piled into a too-small jewelry box.  Once we were here and kind of settled in I decided that I had to do something—I couldn’t stand having to search for and untangle every earring I wanted to wear.  This time I didn’t have an old bulletin board sitting around to use, but I did have an abundance of cardboard.  I picked up some fabric at Walmart to use for a base and a little ribbon just to spiff things up, and while the kids were on trek I finally put it all together.  So nice to have them all neat and tidy again.