Rearranging our Stories ~ literally

In January, we worked hard to reclaim and rearrange one of our library corners in the house. Books should be dusted well at least once a year, anyway, but we took this opportunity to de-texture the ceiling and re-do it to match the rest of the family room/dining room. We also made the area more inviting as a delightful reading corner.



pre-reclamation - there were boxes on the floor of things to donate. This had become a storage area, since it is so close to the back door of the house. We scraped the ugly popcorn ceiling to refinish in a pattern that matches the rest of the family room and dining area.

Tigg wondering what in the world are we doing

Half empty library nook, J helping out

nice protective window cover there. Haha.

Painting and putting up wainscotting. We already had all the supplies for the re-do from several years back.

library nook at night.

Ninety-eight per cent finished. Just need nice trim above the wainscotting and on the shelves on the right. After the wedding, we may well put the fifth shelf back in, just behind the chair.

Until then, we may put up some art above the chair. We have a painting done by my late grandmother, or I may put up a Norman Rockwell print of old Colonial Philadelphia.

Till the next project,

Javamom

Milestones

We had a fantastic and eventful Christmas Holiday, both away up into the Oklahoma Blizzard and here at home with the kids. Dd and her fiance spent a lot of time both before and after Christmas with us to celebrate the holidays, fiance's 21st birthday, and making wedding plans and shopping together. I find it hard to write it all out, because this is more a journal of memories than it is a "how-to" post. I could make it an advice post about wedding planning, but I am not as inspired to write that all out at this moment.

I could share my spreadsheets that I made, one for our daughter and one for the Dread-Pirate Sparsebeard (Hubby) and myself for getting on with all the details and doing them in a timely manner. Those are constantly being updated, though, and one got tomato bisque over half of it when daughter's catty-whampus, wobbly planning table (aka cheap card-table ;-) collapsed beneath her and sent everything but her mac to the floor!

Perhaps I can take a picture of one of the charts, and post a few photos of ideas we are working up for the BIG DAY.

The engaged, young-adult kids are back to work and so headed back to the city to their respective rental homes, and I am missing them. However, we got so much accomplished while they were spending days upon days with us post-Christmas. Daughter helped me to clean around the end of my bed where things tend to collect on the antique trunk. It took a couple of hours to make sure we had sorted things appropriately without losing any family photos or important papers, but it is such a motivator to see that area clutter free now! It had grown and grown after I had hand surgerys years ago. I could not lift or do anything for six months after the first surgery, and only a couple of months after my second surgery in the second half of that year. I also had to deal with the physical and mental/spiritual issues of my new reality. I know...shoulda, coulda, woulda dealt with Mt. Doom before now, but...for some reason it was difficult to make time for dealing with it in our busy, busy day. Often, it is just the "Tyranny of the Urgent that stands in my way, but I have tried to tackle this mount before.

Every time I tried to face Mt. Doom in the past year or two, it brought back some sad, faded memories of a season-gone-by. With new inspiration from daughter, who may be moving very far away soon, we faced this mount together. I am grateful to her and was surprised to find some happy things in that mountain, along with the other things. How like God and such is life for that to happen.

I am inspired to get the make-shift row of books and notebooks along the wall beside my bed all cleaned out and given away or thrown away now. Atop that row is piled a plethora of other things, home-made dolls, pillows, bag of wedding flowers, bookbags, you name it. It is another hot-spot, catch-all that is easy to ignore.

I mentioned this on the phone to a friend recently and she shared a similar story of facing her bedroom corner which became a catch-all during her time of fighting breast cancer and being stuck in bed and in recovery for months and months. Two January posts in particular really fit what I was also facing, but I did not know it until she pointed me toward her blog, which I had not read since before the Thanksgiving and Christmas hustle and bustle. Waltzing in the Closet of Redemption and Clod-busting with Hosea are worth your read. The Titles alone are inspiration themselves.

While I should be climbing the mountain of Spanish grading to be excavated, I am more inspired to excavate (deep clean) other hot-spots and repairs in the house...and to come up with better titles for my posts in the new year, haha!


Till later,

Javamom, sneezing through the dust as I bust up the mountain boulders

Deep cleaning, anyone?

I once heard deep cleaning, laundry, and scrubbing referred to as being in the land of "Mount Never-rest." I like the term and the humor.

Whilst Hubster and Ansel Adams (oldest son) are off, the rest of us are de-junking and organizing our spaces. It has been years since I've really been able to focus like this on the recesses and corners of home, as life with teens is so very busy. The clean spaces are looking great, and the rooms are coming along slowly, but surely. There are plenty more spaces to attack. Ask me how I'm doing in about five days. Maybe I'll post some more pictures of our progress.

I did extensive research then shopped at my favorite resale shop and IKEA. I found a metal locking cabinet for my tools and bookbinding supplies, sewing frame and presses at the thrift shop for one third of the normal price. What a blessing! My main motivation has been, now that summer school is over, to get to the nine bookbinding/restoration jobs that I have lined up, now. These will keep me busy till just before school starts again.

Next, I added cubbies and baskets not only to the tool cabinet, but all over the house in nearly every shelf. They are wonderful things. Audubon put together the above storage cubbies yesterday and the cats found it a delightful spot for napping and leisure.