Burlap Soul

It's a little crazy in my head (and body) today. So you get a meme I borrowed from Caryn. Share at will and enjoy.

TEN things you wish you could say to TEN different people right now:

1. Your insecurities are not my cross to bear, nor should they have ever been.
2. It's a shame you'll never realize or see what you really threw away.
3. I miss you more than you know and love you more than I may ever tell you.
4. I know it sounds selfish, but you don't know what a gift it was to let me love you back, no matter how long it took.
5. Was it worth it, I mean really worth it, to hang yourself over a damned girl?
6. Don't you realize that you're turning into the exact person you hate and parenting the same way she parented you? Do you even care?
7. Are you proud of me and do you see the similarities in us, even though we never met?
8. I miss you, I miss you so much it hurts and I really missed you on my wedding day.
9. I wish you could be here to help us take care of her. She at least listened to you.
10. I know I kind of suck at being a good friend, but I really am thinking of you all the time. I'm just too guarded to tell you.

NINE things about yourself:
1. I've always had to crush my pills or take syrups, but I'm getting better at swallowing the tiny ones finally.
2. I could power a miniature village with the amount of static I get in my hair every winter. Seriously.
3. I am very, very hard on myself.
4. When I was a kid, I would only eat scrambled eggs if they were smothered in ketchup. Now it's salsa. Mmmm, salsa and eggs.
5. I get a little kick out of cooking for my husband and baking stuff. It totally contradicts my feminist nature.
6. I find that as I get older, I get more easily upset at sudden changes in my plans. This worries me.
7. I love to swim, but I absolutely hate to get my head underwater.
8. I like to sing and I think that I sing well, but I'm way too self-critical to sing in public.
9. I've always dreamed of completing a bike marathon for some sort of animal rights cause. I'm hoping that comes true someday.

EIGHT ways to win your heart:
1. Make me laugh - uncontrollably.
2. Use proper manners, open my door for me, show me respect.
3. Loan me your coat when I'm cold.
4. Stand up for me in front of my family.
5. Admire the way I stand up for myself.
6. Celebrate my blunt and honest approach.
7. Debate TV and movie plots with me.
8. Love my animals.

SEVEN things that cross your mind a lot:
1. What the hell is Bogey doing now?
2. Will it always be this way with my mother?
3. What is my real true calling? Will I find it or am I just throwing it away unwittingly?
4. If I run into the ex-best friend someday, what will my reaction be?
5. Will I be here in 20 years? What will I be like then?
6. Will he still love me like he does when we are old and contrary?
7. Could we really go to Italy in two years? Could I really hope for that?

SIX things you wish you never did:
1. Dated my Stalker Ex for as long as I did
2. Worked at that horrible vet clinic for a day
3. Changed my major from art to psychology
4. Decide that I needed to go to the library and then permanently injure my hip seconds later on the stairs
5. Lose touch with some of my older friends that were nicer to me
6. Listen to the career counselor and my parents when they said I wasn't good enough to be a vet

FIVE turn offs:
1. Disrespect
2. Narrow-mindedness
3. Selfishness
4. Martyrdom
5. Violence

FOUR turn ons:
1. Laughter
2. Sense of Humor
3. Unique Eyes
4. Strength

THREE smilies that describe your life:
1. ;-)
2. =^..^=
3. :-D

TWO things you want to do before you die:
1. Be Happy
2. Stay Married and in Love

ONE reason why there was no "ONE" question:
Because you must decide what your ONE question is, Daniel Son. Question different for everyone.

Some things, since I can only seem to think in bullets tonight....

~~ Apparently I have been sick this past week. I've been using my relief inhaler way more than I ever should, but I just assumed it was regular asthma/cold weather crap. However, the doctor confirmed today that I am in the beginning stages of bronchitis and that I must avoid cold air or my asthma flare-up will worsen. I'm also on antibiotics (for the swollen glands) and codeine if I should feel I want to be knocked out for a few days. I don't feel sick enough for that yet, but with an insanely tiring and hyper puppy underfoot, I might just choose to be knocked out for the hell of it. Let him eat plastic hangers and bark and destroy furniture and chase the cats all day! He'll be happy and Momma gets to rest! (Yes I'm kidding. ... Sort of ... Maybe.)

~~ My dad and aunt drove up for the day yesterday to help us work on a particularly tricky house project. I can't begin to tell you how thankful I am for that. I am incredibly happy and excited by all the progress we made! We now have the framework finished for our built-in bookshelves that will be inside the new archway of our living room!
Confused? Yeah, some backstory. The previous owners knocked out every. single. wall. on the entire main level in pursuit of an "open floor plan." While that may sound attractive to some, it's not so much when you're living in it. (The only room in our entire house with a door on it is the bathroom. No, really.) This open floor plan means that there is absolutely no separation between rooms and/or other people. (Example: when I am on the computer, J. is literally watching TV about 10 feet to my left while the dogs are going in and out the back door on my right. It's frustrating to say the least.) Not to mention the fact that every single room I paint must match every other single room on the main level. My bathroom has to match my dining room, my kitchen, my office and my living room. Seriously I almost ripped my hair out picking paint colors. (Yeah, again with the What the Hell Were They Thinking Syndrome. Oh wait, they didn't have to think because they just painted EVERYTHING hunter green and school-bus yellow! Now why didn't we try that? Ahem.)

~~ Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the arch. We realized a while ago that we still wanted the house to feel open, but that we also wanted more separation between the living room, hallway and office. So we decided that we would build a nice wide eyebrow arch, but we would also install some built-in bookshelves on both sides of the arch while we're at it. (Storage, storage, rah rah rah!) So my dad came up yesterday and we all worked on getting the framing done, plus he bought us all the supplies we'll need for building the bookshelves later. (Awesome, baby!) So now it's just a matter of finishing out the drywall and starting the actual curve of the arch. Honestly, this is the most progress we've seen yet in this house. We still have a lot of work to do in order to finish it out, but it already feels bigger in here because we essentially added a room and elongated the hallway. You can't see the bathroom from the front door anymore! Rock on!

~~ Like the new look? It was inspired by our outdoor lights this year. We decided to go old school (since we now have a house of our own) and get the old giant ceramic bulbs we remember from our youth. True to our memories, the paint's already chipping off of them and they get hot as hell. Ha ha, I love it!

~~ I didn't really participate in Art Everyday Month as much as I would've liked. But don't worry if you left me a word suggestion. I plan to continue making art and posting it as often as possible, so your words will not go wasted. I'll still use them, trust me. I have lots more work to do, even if it didn't all happen in November.

~~ My next entry will be my 1000th entry here at Burlap Soul. Can you believe that? I've been blogging here since 2003 (and before that I was over at Blogger for about a year). Reading back through my old entries, it's amazing how much I've changed, how much I've healed, how much I've grown. So I feel as though my 1000th entry should be something special or at least unique. Any ideas? What would you like to see to commemorate a thousand? Throw it in the suggestion box! We'll have a party!

You're going to see some changes around here. Just as you've seen some changes in me. It's time to be me, to be unafraid, to stop hiding behind excuses, to create the life I've imagined and dreamed about for so long. It's time to keep what's important and lose what isn't. More details to come later, but for now that will do.

(How's that for a 1,000th entry? ;-)

You might be wondering where I've been lately. I've actually been right here. My website however had other ideas and told me to piss off. It is still mostly riddled with technical problems (you know, like the horrible way you have to leave comments and how half my archived comments are missing as well, and did I mention I can't change the blog header without losing half my stylesheet? Yeah). There will major changes there in the future, but for now, let me tell you about the rest of my week.

Our entire house is covered (and I mean covered) with wood splinters, drywall dust, power tools and a wild assortment of scattered screws, nails and staples. (This makes that whole finally getting a tetanus shot thing kind of important after all, I guess. Thank god for Ativan.) There's been a purpose to all of this chaos of course. We bought this fixer-upper home back in February and we've pretty much been working on it ever since. It's become our mission to make this house something amazing and unique - and to mostly rid it of the ghastly hell cast upon it by the previous owners. We call this the Fugly House, but we're realizing that the more work we do to it, we may not be able to call it that anymore. Simply put, it's slowly becoming not-so-fugly, a little at a time.

Case in point: The Arch. We wanted more separation between the living room, office area and hallway. It was annoying to be able to see directly into the bathroom from anywhere in the house. It was annoying to be on the computer and not be able to escape the sounds of someone else watching tv. It was annoying to not know where one room ended and another began. Mostly it was just annoying to sit in a giant undefinable room that was ugly as hell.

But now, after a month of constant hard work, constant sawing, drilling, cutting, and cursing every single day and night, that is all gone. Sure, it needs lots of compounding yet and a couple coats of paint, but it's still one hell of a positive change. For the first time since we moved into this house in March, this place feels like more than a consolation prize. It (slowly, ever so slowly) feels like our home. I have blisters on my hands from heavy use of the drill and a massive staple gun and I'm damn sure J. will agree with me when I say we're never going to build one of these again. But you just wait until it's painted that pretty caramel brown. Just wait until you see those beautiful built-in bookshelves all done and painted white. With any luck, The Fugly House she will be no more. What I can't believe is that not only is it done, but that we did it with our own two hands. Yes, my dad helped us build the framework one day. But most of the work we've done ourselves. We took this tiny spark of inspiration from the arches in a restaurant at lunch to a little drawing of my vision to an actual honest-to-god architectural feature in our own house. Our ideas and hard work have forever changed the way people will live in this house. Do you have any idea how amazing that is? Not only amazing, but how absolutely unbelievable? It continues to floor me, yet still I can't wait to show it off to people that saw our house months ago and say, "Yeah. We did that." Home ownership can be the hardest trial ever sometimes and I know it has tested us to our absolute limit, but moments like this can be so, so cool.

I borrowed this from Janet and now wish I could give it back. Good god, this is a long-ass meme! Enjoy.

130. My middle name is: Staz

129. I was born in: eastern Kentucky to two teenage parents.

128. I am really: unbelievably tired.

127. My phone is: blue. I still like it, I just want a camera phone instead.

126. My eye color is: green, but J. says that my eyes are actually gray.

125. My shoe size is: 10. (All you perfect size 7s that get all the cute shoes? Bite me.)

124. My ring size is: 6 for my wedding ring finger.

123. My height is: 5' 8"

122. I am allergic to: nothing really, but having asthma makes it feel as though I am allergic to everything.

121. I was born on: 07.29.77

120. I am annoyed by: the fact that my old job keeps calling me with questions about how to do my old job (like I still care).

119. Last book you read: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

118. My bed is: crap. We're getting a nice new king size with our tax refund next year, plus an awesome new bed frame when the new IKEA opens. Can't wait.

117. One thing you hate about yourself: is that I can't control my temper sometimes.

116. My favorite Holiday is: undecided currently. I normally say Halloween, but lately I'm seeming to like Christmas more.

115. The perfect kiss is: his.

114. The last three cd's I bought were: Hmmm. I don't really buy cds much anymore, it's all songs on iTunes.

113. Are you living at home: Yes, mine.

112. Do you have any siblings: A half-sister back in my hometown (same dad, different moms) and my two cousins that are more like my brother and sister than anyone else.

111. Are your parents divorced: Yes, thank god.

110. What did you do yesterday? Walked in the mud with the dogs at the d-o-g-p-a-r-k (we must spell it! never say it out loud! they will hear you!), compounded the arch yet again and watched a Harry Potter movie on tv.

If you want an explanation of how our day went, go here.

Otherwise, I need help. My family does this yearly thing where we exchange a male gift and a female gift. We sit in a circle with our own respective sex and then everyone opens a random gift. Then we go around the circle and exchange that gift for what we really want (meaning we basically steal it from someone else in the circle). However, no gift can be more than $20. We've been doing this for years now and everyone is pretty much sick to death of the same old gifts. I need some serious suggestions as we are going insane trying to pick something out.

I need a good $20 male and female gift that other people will not only want but trade, barter and auction their lives for. (No, I am not kidding. Yes, my family is insane.)

The absolute no-thank-you-we-are-sick-of-this-gift suggestions would be:

Female - bath/shower gel/smelly stuff sets, scented candles, makeup, gloves, hats, scarves, purses, cookware, manicure sets, etc. You get the idea.

Male - multi-tools (swiss army knives, etc), flashlights, car wash/wax stuff, screwdriver sets, work gloves, toolboxes, etc. (You should also know that as long as my Southern Baptist grandmother is master of ceremonies, there will be no martini glass sets, shot glasses or beer steins either. No one is going to admit that they drink in that crowd. Even my wedding didn't kick into fun mode until the grandparents were gone.)

I need suggestions here people. PLEASE. We are going insane trying to find this damn male/female gift and every year it just becomes more of a pain in the butt. What's under twenty bucks that somebody will want but that everyone else hasn't already gotten? Garrrr!

Okay, female gift done. I went the easy route and just picked out a really nice purple chenille throw blanket. It's soft and people will trade for it, so there. Now we're just stumped on the man gift. This one always drives us nuts. Why must the same three gifts be at every checkout display? How many damn multi-tools and cordless screwdrivers can really be sold in a year people?

Thanks for the suggestions! I love all of them so far. Keep 'em coming.

Male gift down and done. We decided on an American flag display kit. In my family of firemen, policemen and veterans, that's a good gift and will hopefully get traded for. If not, then we'll just pull out the Shame Factor and say, "You mean you're not going to trade for the American Flag? Traitors!" No, I don't actually shame people into patriotism, but it will still be funny to watch.

With every year that goes by, I'm starting to realize how much of an absolute chore holiday shopping has become. I find that I remain in the spirit much more when I just order stuff online. It arrives on my doorstep, I wrap it and give it. No pushy shoppers, no screaming children being threatened by pushy shoppers, no being driven off the road by pushy shoppers, and basically no pushy shoppers. Did I mention that I really can't stand pushy shoppers? Because I can't stand them. You know, the pushy shoppers with all their pushy uh... shopping.

Yeah. I've been running errands all day. My brain is shot.

Pushy... shoppers.

A little reminder for you over at the photoblog. Enjoy.

I have strep throat for the third time in less than a year. Three days before Christmas. What is it about the marriage of major holidays and personal illness for me? Am I allergic to special occasions? What. the. hell. I had strep throat on Easter and so I couldn't pray the steps on Good Friday with J. like I wanted. Then, in an ironic twist even I couldn't have planned, I tested positive for strep the day we left for our honeymoon. Not to mention that J. caught it halfway into the honeymoon as well. (The first three days were a romantic escapade in tissue buying, laying in bed coughing, and sucking throat lozenges like candy in the middle of June - ooooh, the romance!) A doctor did once tell me that if I contract strep too often within a year, it could indicate or lead to heart problems. I don't remember exactly how that works, but that was kind of a scary thing to hear. Thanks random doc!

Anyway, I'm armed with antibiotics and cough syrup. Hopefully I'll be able to just stay home today and have everyone shopped and bought for already. No more excursions out into Germ Land for me, I'm afraid. Although I will be making desserts and other food gifts for family, so maybe I should invest in a gas mask and gloves anyway?

I keep meaning to post pictures of the arch, now that it's mostly finished. It truly amazes us how well it came out and it makes the house feel so much more like a home now rather than a random (and ugly) box. Hmmm, let me see if I can find those pics... hold on.

Okay. If you'll remember our living room started out like this:

View into the "office" area that was basically just attached to the living room because they had opened it up entirely too much.

View into the actual living room from the office. Notice the giant metal beam they left and just painted - that was really great with the low ceilings. NOT.

View of the hallway from the kitchen (you can see the complete lack of separation and how the bathroom - on the left - is so easily visible from everywhere in the house).

Now (although it's way more cluttered) it looks like this:

The cutouts on either side of the arch are for the built-in bookshelves we plan on making after the holidays. You can see how much we need them.

Once it's sanded and finished, the entire arch will be painted the same brown as that front living room wall. (We know that color looks weird with the door. That's because we plan to change that into a white door with a window in it to let in more light.)

We can't believe how much looooonger our hallway feels now. Even the dogs love to sneak up on each other around it.

Impressive, yes?

Since the orange wall is no longer just one large wall anymore (but we still like the color), we're going to leave the orange accent in the living room and just paint the other side of the orange wall (the part that's in the office) the same as the blue-gray color you see here. (Did that make any sense?)

Right now it's all still a little odd because it's not yet painted and looks like a rainbow room in here. Plus, we had to move the furniture to accommodate this year's tree location and that makes it kind of cramped as well. Still, you wouldn't believe how much more comfy and cozy it feels in here now. It's like we have a real living room and a place to get away and snuggle in front of the TV all at the same time. Woohoo, go us!

Okay, I have presents to wrap and antibiotics to take. Yay holidays!

My most heartfelt congratulations and best wishes go out to Laura and Kyle on the arrival of their bun! He's beautiful! :-)

We're off on our holiday travels starting tomorrow morning (well, actually today). Have a safe and happy holiday and may you all be warm, healthy and safe.

Happy Chrismahanakwanzakah to you and all of yours!

We're back from Eastern Kentucky and Christmas with my family. All in all, it was nice. We had fun, we ate good food, we got lots of good stuff, we had fun with family. Isn't that all you ever really want? I have to say though that I just wasn't all there this time around and don't really remember the details. I'm still suffering from the after effects of strep throat and bronchitis (thanks asthma flare-ups!) so I was quite sufficiently doped up for most of it. I'm pretty sure that my grandfather took photos of me knocked out on the couch on Christmas Day. (Those should be fun to look at.) To make matters worse, my neck and a muscle in my back seized up on the drive down and still hasn't loosened up three days later. Of course my chiropractor is closed this week. *le sigh*

It was a good time though. The holidays with my family are always loud and chaotic because there are so many of us and we all talk at once, but in the end it was nice. On Friday, we leave bright and early for Christmas with J.'s family in Northern Michigan. (Yes, we spend the holidays in our car. We should really just invest in an RV and be done with it.) This will be Bogey's first trip "up nort, eh" and I just hope that a 10 hour car ride with two beagles doesn't make us want to kill them or each other. Mostly though, I just want all of us to be safe. That's really the best Christmas present I could ask for.

As my little gift to you, I give you this shot taken with my new wide angle lens from Santa:

Hope yours was merry and happy. Say a safe travel prayer or two for us and we'll have a cup of cocoa for all of you. :-)

2007 was easily one of the most chaotic and difficult yet joyous and transforming years of my entire life. Read on and you'll see why.

January:
Spent New Year's Eve on Mackinac Island, but without snow and stuck in an arctic monsoon instead. Began leaning further toward a child-free life. Tried to begin understanding the coding madness that is MT 3.33. Finally found a house that we could agree on and afford and better yet, they accepted our offer. Weighed the pros and cons of a fixer-upper endlessly but finally decided we could do it.

I just want to wish a wonderful and happy birthday to the ever-so-wonderful Rasee! May 2008 be all you ever wanted and then some, beautiful girl! xoxo