Wishful Slacker

So here's where we stand

Why hello there!  It makes me sad that I've had to abandon my blog in the past few weeks.  If I could compose blog posts directly from the thoughts in my head, then I would be one happy blogger.  But alas... 

I've had several challenges recently that have kept me from chilling in front of the computer or writing in a notebook.  I am now 34 weeks pregnant!  Thirty-four!  What happened to those weeks of yore in my early pregnancy when I spent much of my time within running distance of the nearest toilet?  What happened to those days when I still attempted to squeeze into my regular work pants without splitting the seams?  Our due date seemed so far away.  So, so far.  And now look!


Now our days are becoming a mad scramble of baby preparation.  We never properly set up the second bedroom when we moved into this unit last November, so it's always been "THAT" room- the room of the boxes that have no place, the room of accumulating piles of tools and magazines that you don't want to clutter the living room yet don't wish to throw away.  You shut the door- the clutter goes away.  Simple! 

But with a baby on the way, there is no more ignoring this space.  And so I started to get that "if we don't fix this room now I AM GOING TO FREAK OUT!" feeling.  I think my husband started to feel that way too- a sign that we had indeed passed into a critical situation.  We found a professional organizer (through a coupon deal at www.twobuckduck.com- a daily coupon website for Chicago businesses) and had her walk through our whole place with us.  We learned a lot from her- where to store certain items, how to better utilize certain spaces in the apartment, and how to set up the baby's room.  It was first time we ever had someone over where I didn't feel like I should clean or tidy beforehand, which was pretty nice! 

We had been planning on going to Ikea to purchase some furniture for the baby's room, but the organizer gave us great tips on how to use the closet storage that we already had.  We just needed to get the crap out of that closet before we could proceed.  That took us to the next phase, which started a couple weekends ago.  Nothing could happen until we went through and thinned out what we already had.  We emptied the closet in that room completely.  The process sent after-shocks into the remainder of the unit.  The kitchen island overflowed with the crap that spilled out of that bedroom and the junk we brought home each day that normally would have gone back IN to that bedroom.  Dirty dishes piled up in the sink (one residual pregnancy sensitivity of mine- I cannot stand the smell of any kitchen sponge we use!  Blech!).  Our clean laundry lay strewn across the dining room table for days before being folded and put away.  The wave of chaos then crashed into the living room.  It was a full on entropic assault.

I don't know about you, but when my living space becomes un-liveable, I need it fixed right away.  But we couldn't attack it right away.  This is the first free weekend we have had since July!  Our time to work on this mess was relegated to the 2-3 hours of evening time that we had after work.  But even our evenings have been busy!  And, in the third trimester, it takes a bit of extra effort to be on your feet doing housework after working an 8-10 hour day.  My daydreams of lying on the couch each evening of the last month of pregnancy, feet up with a bowl of bon bons at my side, were quashed. 

This brings us to this weekend.  This is the weekend when we will take on the offensive front in this battle.  The pile for Salvation Army is growing.  Baby clothes are washed and waiting to be put away.  Our newly-purchased shelving system and storage containers are practically leaping off the wood floor in earnest, waiting to be used.

With all of this discussion, why am I still sitting on the couch typing?  There is work to be done!  Remind me that I need to blog more.  I have to post about our lovely baby shower thrown for us last weekend in Michigan, the deals I've found on baby stuff, and how the joints in my hands are now so swollen and painful every morning that I must avoid tasks involving utilization of fine motor skills (just when I was coming close to finishing knitting that pair of socks for myself- rats!).  And don't even get me started on our lack of food or meals to eat.  God bless leftover Thai food!

Creating Our Family Wall

My dad is from Doncaster, England, and my experiences with his family involve happy spurts of togetherness surrounded by years of separation.  I have not been there in 5 years, yet in my mind I can walk from room to room in my grandfather's house, passing through the yellow kitchen, glimpsing into the dining room and lounge, and walking up the red carpeted stairs to the bedrooms on the second floor.  I can even capture the comforting smells of the house- hints of floral and spring that linger on the wrapping paper used for our Christmas gifts and remain in our guest room for days after our relatives return home after a visit to the States.  As a child I would frequently sneak into this room after my grandparents' departure, allowing that scent to surround me as I mourned them gone.  Now as an adult I accept the distance between us and our family for what it is, and possess the confidence to know that, despite our infrequent meetings, I remain a part of them. 

My grandfather's house is the museum of the Walker family, and through this role it seems to have developed its own soul.  Strolling from one room to the next you are surrounded by a history captured in picture frames- from my grandparents in World War II to my blond-haired father as a school boy, standing behind a pram with his older sisters.  There are pictures of my cousins, squinting into the sun on the day of their college graduations, and the line of Walker dogs properly remembered- Skip and Rex and Basil and Dusty. Photographs of my grandmother hang prominently in the lounge, alongside her needlework.  Interspersed among the family pictures are watercolor paintings of Snowdonia, Caernarfon Castle, the city of York, and the Dales, along with slate wall hangings and Welsh love spoons.  To know and understand the elements of life that held meaning for my grandparents requires that you simply walk through their house.  There is such a beauty in that.

Many, many miles away, my grandparents' house influences my thoughts on the home that I would like to create.  And while Jim and I have yet to find ourselves in our permanent home, we at least can still pound some nails in the wall!  We had a family wall in our old apartment in Lincoln Park, and a couple weekends ago I started to recreate this space in our new home in Roscoe Village.  I decided to place the pictures along the wall that is at your back when sitting at our desk.  That way we can glance at the wall when entering the room and sitting down at the desk to work, but can go ahead and be productive without continuously staring at everyone's picture (I'm not sure if Jim would do this, but for me, I would find myself staring off into space if I had all those pictures within view!). 

We have a LOT of wall space in this new place, and I wanted to share the feline portraits that we now have framed in our kitchen.  The black and white cat was Oliver.  I actually drew that with magic markers 3 years ago and hung it near his litter box (I'm a total weirdo when it comes to our cats- I understand this).  I could never find it in my heart to get rid of this picture, and on a whim I framed it.  Then I thought, well, we now also need a picture of Major!  So I sat down with the markers and created Major's portrait.  It's okay if you think we're both bizarre for hanging these, but we love them.  Major is pleased too.

 

Website of the Week- Part 1

I've been busy and am late in posting my website of the week!  This is going to be a two part website of the week.  Part 1 features Etsy, an ebay-type site that features craft items for sale.   I have yet to buy something from Etsy, but have been tempted and honestly haven't perused its offerings in as much detail as I would like (probably not the worst thing!).  Part 2 will be posted next week :-)

Blog posts will be light next week, because my husband and I are actually LEAVING CHICAGOLAND.  AND THE INTERNET.  AND BASEBOARD HEATING.  For the first time in a year, we are taking more than 2 consecutive days off of work, and for the first time since MAY we are leaving this area.  We will be heading up to my parents' version of Golden Pond, their cottage outside of East Tawas, Michigan, which we haven't visited in 2 years!  So, as you can see, this adventure is very overdue for us, and it still seems strange to think that we're going...

Oh, and with regards to the heating comment, not to worry.  There is a big ole furnace and  a couple space heaters.  You think I'd go somewhere in this weather with no heat?!  It's not even November and I've already worn my heavy North Face coat twice (people have looked at me oddly because of it too).  I like my warmth.   

The creative force and my creative farce

When we got married 360 days ago, we received two incredible wedding gifts- a bed quilt put together by all the members of my father's side of the family and a wall hanging picture quilt filled with pictures from both my and Jim's families (ok, we received many incredible wedding gifts, but these are the two I'm talking about in this post!  Don't start getting offended on me!).  We have the picture quilt hanging above our couch, and the bed quilt remains safely folded away beneath our bed until we expand to a place with extra bedrooms that can be sans feline influence.  I mean, this quilt is gorgeous.  Each square is amazing, and they all have so many personal touches.  One square is made with a cross stitch that my grandmother started but wasn't able to finish, and my aunt Anne even used the ribbon from our wedding invitations in one of her squares.  They even put little descriptions of each square into a book for us. 

This past weekend my aunt Sarah got married, and the Walker family banded together once again to make her a quilt.  We all worked on our quilt squares in the spring and it was put together this past summer by the quilting savants of the family over in England.  This time, I was involved in the contribution of a quilt square, which made me very, very nervous.  Over the years any creative spark for crafts that I once had slowly leaked away.  Yes, I dabble a bit in knitting, but is that creative?  My answer- No. 

My sister seemed to inherit all the creative influence that could have come from our parents.  Of late she's become so involved with making things from scratch that it's almost frightening.  Her big thing now is making mosaic works of art out of broken glass and ceramics.  She goes into her basement and smashes up old tiles and plates and then glues all the pieces together to make some pretty dang amazing things.  Even the square she made for our quilt was awesome- she sewed (free hand) the Chicago city skyline along a dark blue background.  She has done other crazy stuff like sewing a tree (her symbol of survival) with different colored thread to the front of her purse (with the leaves shaded different colors for the different seasons).  She even attached beads to it to add more texture.  Seriously, I am not kidding you that her ability to create has left me awestruck. 

Above and Below: Two of Piper's mosaics

My mother has also developed a creative streak, however with a slightly later onset than my sister.  Growing up, my Girl Scout patches were glued and ironed to my sash.  I was the Girl Scout whose badges slowly peeled away and glided to the floor while standing in a circle singing "Kumbaya."  I think my mother was 2 months away from turning the stapler to my vest until finally, to her relief, I decided to close that chapter of my life.  Then, one day she woke up, and said, "Self.  Your children are growing up.  Why don't we learn how to sew quilts?"  And then off she went, from one day attaching fabrics together with Krazy Glue, to the next day hunched over a sewing machine.  This is a quilt she made me out of my old T-shirts in high school.  Ignore the fact that it desperately needs ironing.  The shirts were probably this wrinkled when I wore them back in high school too.  

So here I am, surrounded by these very creative people, when I am finally called upon to make a quilt square.  I hope you can sense the feeling of "EEK!!!" that washed over me.  So, I decided to stick with what I knew- how to draw pedigrees (don't make fun- that's the only drawing I do now!).  Was it void of creative influence?  Completely.  But could it work?  Yes.  So this is what I came up with, all on my own.    The Walker family pedigree, all of us together in cross stitch.  I have to say, I was pretty pleased with myself :-)  

ROY G BIV IT UP!

I've always loved beautifully organized bookshelves.  Bookshelves are such a focal point in a room, and as a renter, rearranging your bookcase is really the biggest decorating outlet you have (without risking losing your security deposit!).  Quite a while ago, the Red Eye Chicago featured a "how to spruce up a small space" article, and one of their suggestions was to color-coordinate the books in your bookshelf.  I've been strongly considering it ever since and this afternoon decided to take the plunge!  Come to find out through doing a Google search that this is a newer trend and a lot of people have done some really cool bookcase makeovers using this technique.  My friend Kim didn't think she could do it because her collection is so large and she likes organizing her books by topic.  I can definitely see where this technique wouldn't work for those die-hard book fans.  My husband and I don't hang on to every book that we read (it's rare now for us to buy books from the bookstore instead of getting them used or from the library) and recently in an effort to de-clutter, we rid ourselves of many of our books, which honestly felt great!  Some people have told us that they could never get rid of their books.  I think I felt that way once upon a time, but living in a teensy space for this long has prompted me to try to shed as many of our possessions as possible (don't get me started on my husband's magazines!).  Perhaps after we've moved into our mansion we'll work on building up our library again :-)

Here is the before:

Here's the after: