You say you need a little of my ooh-la-la

I've been having Fridays off of work lately (I know you think I'm going to link to a song, but I'm not.  And I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.)  And lately on my Fridays off, I've been a big fat bag of slugs, as to my productivity.  Meaning, my couch is my best friend (and my most bitter enemy.)  I'm not even going to tell you how long its been since dishes got done around here.

But the point is that today was slightly better, in that I managed to wake, shower, and get dressed in something other than old jeans and an old t-shirt and even do my hair kind of, and get out of the house by noon.  Well, noonish.  I took the pup on a walk to the park down the street, the one with all the ducks and the river and the bags for your dog's poop.  And we plopped ourselves down on a shady bench and we read our book, oh yes we did.  I would like to point out that it's a matter of some significance to me that there was shade to be had AND needed.  Looks like the weather finally realized that it's May.  Yeah, it's about time.

Well, after that it was obviously time to go look for some rose bushes to plant.  Because last night we had dinner with some of my family, and I was telling them of my love for roses and how I greatly desire to have some in my very own yard.  And one of my aunts, who is gracious and beautiful and fair in all ways, handed me money with which to buy a rose bush.  For an early birthday present!  My birthday is forever away!  I am clearly the favorite child of the universe, yesterday.

So today I girded up my loins and went to a local nursery.  Because I am a girl who's name is on a mortgage contract, because I am a girl who knows she loves roses and knows she must have them, and I have joined the ranks of gardeners.  Only once I passed over the nursery threshold and beheld the many much flowers that exist in the world and the varying degrees of sunlight they all need and the particular conditions they prefer their soil to be and how thirsty or not they are and suddenly I'm feeling very full of humble pie.  I texted Tony: "Dude...I don't know jack about gardening."

So I guess I'm going to learn, slowly.

More importantly, look what I found.

Tell me that doesn't make you think of this:



Anyway, at the end of the day we have five rose bushes of our very own sitting in our backyard, waiting to be planted somewhere.  And I hope to get many more, eventually.  Robin McKinley will want to write a fairytale about me by the time I'm done.

the one about the thing

I tried being witty and using a Friends-like title for this post like all the cool kids do, but you can see how that went.  We painted the bathroom today,  I guess I'm a little fumey?  Anyway, you'll see more about that later, sometime.

Nowtime, I'm going to talk about things for my bathroom wall.  I was sitting in the bathroom one eve, contemplating what should be going on in there.  Decoratively, you know.  It was difficult to imagine anything but Decayed Exoskeleton Mud when that's the only color you can see, but I was trying to picture something lighter, airier -- maybe even, white!  Yes it's true!  Boring white walls are what I wanted!  Now that that was decided, I thought I would like something artsy for the walls.  Graphic, if you will?  Originally I thought something organic, with lots of calligraphic line and more or less monochromatic.  Like flowers.  Orange flowers, maybe.  And then I browsed Etsy for ideas, and remembered how much I like typography.

So I don't want to pay $35 for a typography print someone made on their computer, when actually I can make something on my computer.  So I borrowed a few ideas and changed them up some and came up with a few designs.

First there are these, and I can't decide which one I like better, or if any at all.  Can you?

The idea made me laugh at first, but I think I don't really love it enough.  So then I made this, which I do love and which we will probably print out somehow and hang on our bathroom wall:

Now before anyone freaks out, I stole the idea from a talented Etsy seller named Handz, but I like my version better, and I'm not going to be selling this or anything.  Seriously though, check out Handz because I want every other print in that shop.

And that is all.  When the paint is dry and our bathroom is put back together, I'll share some boring before/after pictures which with hope will portray the vast difference in lightness and airiness. 

Love to your mother.

This is ranunculous.

I'm feeling bored today.  But bored in the sense that I want to do something.  I think Maya is too, because wherever I went in the house she managed to be sitting directly in front of my feet, so close to me that when she looked up she had to lean backwards.  And she had that expectant look on her face, you know how dogs do.  So I let her outside and stood on the deck and watched as she ran for about 20 minutes without stopping.  The sun was shining.  And then it started to snow.  INSULTINGLY.

I'm not doctor (aren't I?) but I just diagnosed us with Spring Fever.  Or maybe Cabin Fever.  I'm not sure if there's a difference.  It's probably for the best that I'm not a doctor.

My brain wants to do things but my body doesn't.  I was thinking I might want to crochet, but my fingers are feeling rather more atrophied than not today, so then I thought I might want to put on some music and clean the house, but...well, the mountains are looking very mountainous today, aren't they?  Full of rock, and hillside.  So you can see how my thinking is going these days.

I'm interested in flowers lately.  I like how when you go outside you smell not only just air, but also other things, things that seem pleasant and warm and colorful, and it takes you a moment to remember that flowers have a smell and that yes, you like flowers.  So I put them in my house.

Today would seem like a good day to wander a place where there are flowers you can buy and then plant in your yard.  They have stores like that, right?  Flower stores?  Do they ship?  Actually it seems like some sort of crime to me to have to buy flowers, so if anyone knows of a place I can go to just get flowers, would you please let me know?  If anyone has a rosebush they don't want anymore, I'll come with a shovel.

House We Own Tour

As promised, albeit late, here's some true before pictures of our new house.  These were taken by I-don't-know-who, before we bought it.  We're still not even close to being fully moved in, but I was thinking of taking my own pictures with our own stuff in it anyway.  We got some paint swatches the other day to hang up everywhere to help us decide what colors we want, but I get the feeling painting is a ways off yet.

Anyhoodle, here's the front door.

Someone told me it looks like a gingerbread house, and I've learned I'm okay with that.  Most importantly, do you see the trees?  Trees are important things to have around. 

Here's the front from the other side, and our garage. (!)

Front/living room, and also the kitchen:

Our cabinets are green, and I'm pretty much in love with the kitchen.  The pictures don't show the windows that look on the backyard, but they're big and they're beautiful, and there's tons of light in there in the daytime.  Probably because we don't have curtains, anywhere.

I know pictures of empty rooms are boring and make no visual sense, but for the sake of documentation, here's our bedroom and the "extra" bedroom:

The paint color doesn't look too bad in these, but I promise it's dreadful in person.  It has this way of sucking up all the light and tricking your eyes into thinking they've gone colorblind, because there is no name for this color.  Mud Vomit?  Orc Skin?  The important thing is that everything is painted this color, and that includes the ceilings in the whole house.  Our desire to repaint is basically a living thing.

Last but not least, our very own backyard.  :)

It's funky in that it's long and narrow, and wonderful in that it exists.  It has grass and flowers and trees and a fence, and Maya is like a puppy reborn when she's running around in it.

So.  We have lots of plans, but since it's OUR house and we don't plan on going anywhere any time soon, we don't mind fleshing things out slowly.  And we love it. 

Toothaches and video games and such

I'm sorry for my lack of activity round these parts.  I've been more or less inhabiting this state of not wanting to flesh out any thoughts beyond Facebook status updates.  Sentences, people, not paragraphs.  This is the place I'm in at the moment. 

Speaking of the moment, I just tried out this oatmeal recipe found here for dinner, and I'm abouts ready to write a song in its praise even thought I don't know how to do that.  It's like if Christmas mated with a warm summer morning and also a hug. 

If you would like to know the reason I'm eating something mushy (so wonderfully, wonderfully mushy) for the dins, it's because one or more of the teeth in my mouth has turned into raw, exposed nerves.  At least that's what it feels like, and it's probably true to some degree.  It's been hurting for a while, but today I came home in tears because these things have a way of reaching a head.  I've got a dentist appointment for tomorrow with some dude I've never been to before cause my regular dentist is ON VACATION.  These things should not be allowed.  Neither should dental bills.  Anyway, seriously go and make that oatmeal, because it's frickin' tasty.

Tony's still hogging the tv, so I'm whiling away the time in the other room, listening to some Adele, some Cage the Elephant, some reggae and some Daft Punk, because what else are you gonna do?

Dude.

If you're like me, your husband bought Portal 2 on the day it came out (today) and has been hogging it and the tv and therefore the entire living room all day.  If you've never played Portal, you should know it's a puzzle game, and I ask you what is the joy of a puzzle game if it is not solving the puzzles on your own?  Exactly.  So I can't watch him play, I can't hang out with him, I can't even be within earshot.  Until he's done.
And however long that will be is just too long.

So.

To kill my own time I'm sitting here sipping on some tea, realizing that I've officially stayed up later than I would have had I been playing my own game and I don't even know why.

Arts I Like

I don't have much to say at the moment.  But as matter of inspiration, I just updated my desktop background with an image I've loved long time from an artist I've loved long time.

Click for full-size.  Click this to see the artist, James Jean.

Happy saturday, folks.  We got a kitty, so I've been spending the morning pushing him off the keyboard.