the best bed....

The best bed is your own. We have been away for a couple of days, and I am once again reminded that the goodest part of any trip is getting back to familiarity. Never mind the dirty laundry, trying to get over the sense of 'jet lag', copious amounts of junk food that replaced decent, regular, healthy eating, multiple stops at various conveience stores for 'relief' (and another drink, which requires more stops!): good to be at home.

It was a quick trip to Pensacola to visit family. And good to see people we seldom do. Weather was beautiful, beaches as pretty as the travel advertising, so I bought, wrote and sent all the postcards I had stamps to mail. If we had been better organized we could have gotten into the NAS there in time to see the Blue Angels precision flight team practicing early in the day... but as we were on 'vacation' (or whatever you would call a trip away from home by people who have no reason to return other than dirty laundry and hungry cats), we were slow getting going.

I believe the oil will inevitably hit the white sands of the Florida panhandle. The motel where we stayed was a location for a contractor who provides 'haz-mat' training, and we saw lots of people with plastic bags out on cordoned off beaches. So Sad. It will take years for the Gulf coast to fully recover, if ever the wildlife, landscape, enviornment does completely rid itself of man-made destructive influences.

still getting organized...

You've seen the photos of the 'new'ness. After it got started, I belatedly wished for the forethought to take 'before' photos, but all I have is ones where the interior of the house is just background and the 'sleepyheads' are the center of attention from Christmas long past, so failed to really document the process.

There are still boxes, mostly due to the fact that I do not stay at home long enough to get everything sorted. There are not as many, and they are not stacked in precarious piles everywhere, but there are things I have not found and hope they did not get accidently donated. In the rush of trying to stay ahead of the painting, lots of things got pulled down off walls and shelving and jammed into containers in a sadly haphazard fashion, to mysteriously vanish. I've been hoping to get Nancy Drew in to solve the mystery, but can't even locate the detective, much less solve the 'case of the disappearing pictures'.

When asked what in particular I like best about the renovation, now that the dust has literally settled for the last time, I think it's really not anything: but everything. The freshness of feeling like a new house, while knowing it is the same nest I have been in for over 28 years... hard to explain how it can be 'new' and sameold-sameold at the same time... but if you come to visit, you can see for yourself! I am going to get new doormats, so you are welcome to come inspect and see for yourself anytime: the front door is still red and you are invited!

interrupted sleeping...

I would not be surprised to find that sleeping in my own bed was less than restful. You know how you can go away from home and that first couple of nights you don't sleep good because even your subconscious knows you are in a different place, the bed is different, the light coming through the cracks in the blinds is different, the subtle night sounds from outside are not what you usually have for background noise: being physically in a different place than your own little nest causes you to wake up alarmed all night long.

I've been on the go so much lately, it's frequently been different beds, and unlikely to get a good nights' sleep. A quick trip to South Carolina to visit my pen pal, a couple of nights in North Ga at a state park, a run to south GA to visit the auntie and check on friends and relations across the lower edge of the state. An overnight trip to east GA, visiting people rarely seen and spending the afternoon at a family reunion.

And you know it takes a couple of nights to become adjusted, get to the point that you do get situated and comfortable in that different environment: but I don't seem to stay anywhere long enough. After being in my own nest for several nights, we are going to FL on next week to visit in Pensacola - and stay just long enough for my own bed to feel foreign when we get back home...

the new house!

By: Paula

Well folks, here are some pictures of the new house. I sorta forgot to take them while the sun was still out and shining in the windows to make everything look bright and inviting but let-me-tell-you it is incredibly bright and inviting! When they replaced all the carpet with warm piney colored hard woods and all the walls are either white or a light, light caramel brown, they created a beautiful, inviting home (not that it wasn't before!!)

This is the fancy-pants master bathroom. It was just a shower/tub combo with a curtain and now it is a tiled beauty of a thing. Dad is especially proud of the not-one-but-two shower heads (I took a shower in there last night and he kept asking "did you use both of them? Did you use both of them?"). They chose some beautiful neutral colored tiles that will look good for years to come!
I used the flash for this one so you would get a better iea of the colors. They look great with the wall color choices - very natural and calm. Makes you want to stay in the shower forever!

This isn't a great picture of the wall color but you can see that in one bedroom and in the living room, dining room, and sun room area they have a chair rail and did the lighter white on the top and the caramel on the bottom. It looks great!

Do you remember the hall-o'-pictures? Well, mom took them all down and isn't going to put them back up!

Instead, she sent them home with my sister and I.

Not sure about that one - sorry, F and Chad. We will now have baby pictures galore on our walls...ha!

Anyway, this one is of the hall and you can see how bright the walls look against the beautiful multi-tone floor. Great choices mom!

The kitchen is ne of the biggest transformations. If you might recall, there were dark, dark wood cabinets, white appliances, white lineolium (?sp), and wall paper in there. Now all the cabinets are a crisp white, the counters are a beautiful faux granite shade and the floors are awesome ceramic tiles. Black appliances round out a just-perfect kitchen.

They chose, after painting the cabinets, to change all the hardware to a brushed nickel and it was an excellent choice!

Here is a close-up of the cabinets, counter-tops and floors.

Don't they look great!

In the hall bathroom, mom couldn't find a mirror that she liked so she just painted the one that was there! It was a ::ahem...ugly:: brass color but had a great floral pattern on it so she just painted it white and them antiqued it a bit with some watered down brown. It looks -a-maz-ing! Might be one of my favorite things in the house - and probably because I know it was a Mom-style DIY!

That concludes our very brief house tour. I wish you could see the whole thing (you should come visit them - they would like that!) because it looks great. So totally different and yet still like home.

Ok, please prepare yourself for this last one...it has nothing at all to do with a house tour and it is sorta gross but I had to share it. Please don't tell mom.

Even though I know she will see it.

I will take the punishment later...

We were in the garage loading up our Uhaul full of stuff yesterday and I saw what I jokingly referred to as a "dung beetle" beside a ball of cat hair. It was very dead but we didn't know how serious I was until today when we found another live one...

Yes, a beetle rolling a tight ball of cat hair in the garage.

Mom said she would pay them if they would stick around.

Seriously.

Weird and gross.

And crazy cool.

it's all done (mostly)

All the people who were coming and going and coming again to do the de-constructing and renovating are finished. When the people who are supposed to get here over the weekend to get her belongings I have been holding in 'free storage' for several years arrive to pack up all that and move into the New Home in TN, I will feel like I am getting it all under control.

It has been an interesting process. I recall reading stories of people doing home renovations, or advice columns for folks who were considering additions and discovering that they should: realize the work will take 'half again' as long as expected, and they should be prepared to pay 'half again' as much as they estimate it will cost. I thought: 'that's odd/funny'. It's neither odd or funny, but has been very Educational.

We had guys come yesterday to clean carpets and ductwork. So, hopefully, it's safe to actually start moving things back to the places I hope they will stay indefinitely. That means all the furniture I have moved from one room to another as the flooring has been replaced, and from one end of the house to the other as carpet as been cleaned can go back to where it was to start with, and begin to collect dust again.

There is a room with nearly no furniture (just a table and a chair) that looks so nice and clean, I am reluctant to put things back! But I know it won't be long before I start to hear: "When are you planning to do something in 'there'?" At that point, I will just open the closet door and let it all fall out into the floor!

I could still use a commercial dumpster parked in the driveway for a day or two, but it would have to be when I was home alone. (Read between the lines.) We are getting down to the nitty-gritty of things that are/aren't disposable, meaning it is getting harder and harder to be willing to part with things, unless you are in the right frame of mind for 'rid-ding', where you can say: It's All stuff!

Open invitation: come see me! It looks brand new (except for all the old stuff.... and people...)