I envision myself traveling by ocean liner to buy a huge collection of these pieces and then return home. On the way back “across the pond”, my traveling companions and I will sit in a small grouping of the furniture on the covered deck of the ship which was made by Dumond’s designs. We will smoke, drink, discuss literature, argue about politics, and remarkably discover the meaning of life.
The beginning of the school year does not bring on the deep desire to sniff crayons or markers. It does not make me yearn for sweaters and boots. I don’t even want the cooler weather to drop down too soon. Around our house, it simply means Mama’s got the bug to move furniture.
Last year it was the excitement and sadness of converting the young man’s room from a bunk bed setup into a double-twin-bed lounging paradise. We got him some new furniture on this site. It was a day fraught with tears for what seemed like the true end to the “kid” room and therefore childhood. At least that’s what I manifested it into.
This year – two days before the first day of school – the golden child’s desk moved from the kitchen to the room we labeled years ago “the playroom” due to its housing all the games, the toys and the air hockey table. His desk had been in the kitchen since the second grade when he and I started sharing a computer. The computer and he faced the wall so I could easily see the screen from any vantage point in the kitchen. Not on my watch was he going to accidentally dance with porn! No way!
The boy and his new desk.
The domino effect of house re-arranging is that it gave me the opportunity to tweak a few more things that needed change. It just stands to reason that, if he and I are no longer sharing a computer and a desk, we should both get new digs. So this boy’s mama moved a desk into her dressing room, and all has been bliss. I am safely nestled into the second floor of the house with a window for taking in Hyde Park vistas and with seashells on the sill for moral support. Right now I’m loving the sleekness of the desk surface, but I know that will change.
My new digs.
My move from the epicenter – our kitchen – is providing me with much-needed clarity for the writing I’ve been yearning to do. I am able to leave the hubbub after dinner and enter a little silence – which I still love to have pierced by my baby boy as he attacks his mountain of homework.
I am an organizational freak. I could spend days just organizing stuff. No joke. Ask anyone I know. I actually put my toothbrush back in the same exact spot everyday. This blessed gift (I am choosing to be positive about this quirk since it doesn’t warrant medication) comes with a love of hardware stores, art stores, office supply stores and paper warehouses. So last week, when these little wooden trays arrived at the store, I was short of breath all afternoon.
I even worked the staff into a dither last week with my uncontained joy.
Aren’t they cool? Don’t you just want a giant stack of them? Won’t they solve all your organizational needs? Won’t your neighbors and friends be amazed at your new sleek and tidy shelves, drawers, desktop and cabinets?
oohhhhhhh. ahhhhhhhh.
Okay, okay I am calming down…
Just one more for the road! It’s like organizational porn.
I am craving fish tacos. And, for the life of me I have never found a good recipe to make them at home. I need your help. If you have a great recipe or tips for homemade fish tacos I need it.
Because, the dishware we are putting out at the store is making my tummy growl.
Two weeks before Christmas, the TV refused to turn on. And, yes, I consulted our in-house computer and electronics guru and, after testing all the connections – the plug, the wall outlet, the remote, the batteries, the video connections and the power strip – his official pronouncement was, “It’s dead.”
Why do appliances break at the holidays? Why does the dishwasher flood and then cease to work the day before the Thanksgiving meal you are serving for 20? Why does the guest bathroom faucet seize up just days before a house full of overnight guests? Is is karma? Is it Murphy’s law? Or is it secretly-implanted switches that the plumbers and dishwasher repairmen install? Switches only they can see. High quality ones from the CIA.
We have one TV in our house. It is exactly the way we like it: safely ensconced in its Arts & Crafts cabinet holding down the west side of the living room. When it’s not turned on, nice and solid cherry doors cover the hideousness that all TVs inherently carry in their gene pool. And the spaciousness that is provided in front of the cabinet makes for the Wii bowling alley and the Super Mario Cart race track.
So, when the TV died we had to replace it – although I spent a few days truly pondering life without and was happy for those few moments. But then I remembered that Mad Men on Netflix had made us very happy recently, much as Blues Clues on Nickelodeon had made the youngest amoung us wide-eyed 10 years ago.
I guess I really can’t complain. The old TV had been with us for 23 or 24 years. We purchased it either right after our wedding with what probably seemed like a huge pile of cash or as a gift to each other on our first anniversary. Whenever it was, the old mother had gotten larger and heavier since we moved into this house after she took up residence in said cabinet. It was a trip to carry her out of the house, with my husband and me bitching and groaning. After a long day in retail in December, the last thing you want to see in the living room is a huge hunk of petrified plastic and glass waiting to find its place in electronics heaven. (To be honest with you, I don’t know how my husband got it from the cabinet to the end table by himself. Maybe he didn’t, because we haven’t rushed to the emergency room for a hernia flare up.)
Either the “breakdown timing switch” in this old sucker – the CIA worked with Sony, RCA and Zenith on this technology in the 60s – was never flipped on, or we were lucky and Murphy was on our side this time. I go with the lucky scenario. I was even luckier because, in the last 24 years, TVs have gotten considerably lighter, and my husband was able to hunt, gather and install the flat screen replacement all by himself while I was at work. Just in time for Santa to bring us Beatle’s Rock Band.
PS…You can’t hide the ugliness of Rock Band behind beautifully designed cabinetry. But you gotta love Santa for the almost well designed, faux leather, Rock Band branded storage ottoman. But I digress.
It came to me last Tuesday night – a full week into January – that I was finally on Christmas Break. I was sitting on my sofa reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas with my niece before bedtime, and it hit me: I was on vacation.
Here’s how it came to be that I had an unplanned five-day winter vacation last week with my son and my niece: It snowed. A lot.
Our almost-one-story icicle and its friends.
It all started back on Christmas Eve when we had a joyous white Christmas. The snow stopped after dumping a nice amount. New Year’s rolled around after a week of “holiday decorations on sale” at stuff and loads of paperwork to finalize for year end. It was very cold, and snow was still on the ground. New Year’s Day found Casey and me working at the store while it was closed and quiet.
Then Casey left on a vacation to the tropics and I got my best belated gift – my niece for a week. Casey had it all planned out on paper – where I was to have her and when, who I was to call for emergencies, what I still needed to set in place with her teachers and the school so that her school life fit my work schedule, and when to give her her medicine. I was going to miss a few work hours while she was with us, but I had it all planned out on my own pieces of paper and in my head. Perfectly planned and flawless on paper, I was going to be a mother of two for a week.
Monday, my first full day of mommy-for-two duty, was the last day of the children’s winter break, and I had taken the day off from work. We played, ate French toast late in the morning, baked cookies, and colored with crayons. The kitchen table was our playground.
On Tuesday, they both went to school as pre-ordained on the aforementioned papers while I went to work. We had dinner as a family. My son did a “first day back at school” load of homework, we had baths and accomplished all the other various bedtime routines, and we were all put to bed at a decent time.
When the phone rang in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, the message informed us that snow was coming; school was canceled for the day and they would see us on Thursday. And then it started to snow and didn’t stop for over 24 hours. A gorgeous snow that caused another snow day, so the children and I were at home again on Thursday. Then phone rang again on Thursday night, and the recorded voice of our dear head-of-school told us to stay home on Friday as well and that, after a nice extended weekend, she would have the school ready for us all on Monday.
My niece, shoveling to the North.
My son, shoveling to the South.
We live in a hundred-year-old historic home. All homes can be drafty, but older homes can be gusty. When the temperature drops into the single digits, as it has this past week in Kansas City, you find yourself hunkering down into several rooms. We chose the kitchen, and all magic was made from this room and transported to others. The dining room was our art gallery after we had completed our masterworks in the kitchen studio. The living room, where the TV is, was our movie theater, and we dressed warmly to “go the the movies,” covering ourselves with blankets when we got there. The kitchen table held all the daily detritus from killer games of Go Fish and lengthy village building sessions with Lego. The great outdoors is where we ventured when cabin fever hit record highs or when the dog needed walking. We ate grilled cheese sandwiches, baked cookies, shoveled snow occasionally, sang songs, and laughed, and we were always a little sad when the sun started to go down. Several days were so cold that I boiled water in a big stock pot for moist heat, and, on the one day my husband joined us in the kitchen, he turned on the ovens and opened their doors.
The house was cold in places, the snow deeply covered everything outside, our beds were piled high and warm, our hearts were happy, our tummies were full, and Christmas was still with us in the form of new toys and the remaining decorations. I left the Christmas tree up way past New Year’s Day and turned its lights on daily.
Dr. Seuss was right. My Christmas wasn’t about the actual day and all its trappings at all. Christmas means a little bit more – in my case a very late Christmas break in my own kitchen with two children I love.
How extravagantly Bohemian eclectic.
I guess I really can’t complain. The old TV had been with us for 23 or 24 years. We purchased it either right after our wedding with what probably seemed like a huge pile of cash or as a gift to each other on our first anniversary. Whenever it was, the old mother had gotten larger and heavier since we moved into this house after she took up residence in said cabinet. It was a trip to carry her out of the house, with my husband and me bitching and groaning. After a long day in retail in December, the last thing you want to see in the living room is a huge hunk of petrified plastic and glass waiting to find its place in electronics heaven. (To be honest with you, I don’t know how my husband got it from the cabinet to the end table by himself. Maybe he didn’t, because we haven’t rushed to the emergency room for a hernia flare up.)
