Gallery Wall

I have a lot of artwork to hang in the new house. I'd like to paint a few rooms first, so most of the paintings and pictures and mirrors will lean against a wall in the basement until I get around to it, say next summer? I love the paint color in our family room, however, so it was time to get some things on the walls! I started with twice as many pieces as made it onto this wall, so they'll find homes elsewhere in the house.

My first step was looking at what I thought would go well together. This included a painting by my mother in law of the "house that made me," some high school artwork by my mom, inspiring paintings by friends, and an amazing portrait of Jack by one of his classmates. Yeah, an 8th grader did that. Wow.

I had signs, too, one purchased from TJ Maxx and another hand painted by Kristi from Barn Owl Primitives with the words my sister said about Jack at his funeral, This is what she learned from him:

I wanted art from Margaret and Jack on there as well, so you'll find her fish painting plus his watercolor Tiffany window. The wooden piece is  a slat/spindle (?) from the porch railing of my great grandparents' house that is no longer standing in WV, and it hangs below a tender painting of Jack and his cousin.

I tried Martha Stewart's technique first, of cutting brown kraft paper the size of each piece and then taping them to the walls. But the paper got curly and kept falling down, so I moved to the floor. I taped off an area the same size as the space on the wall and just arranged and rearranged until I liked it.

Then I had Tim start the nailing, so I could step back and see if it was coming together the way I wanted.

It's so nice to have these sweet paintings on the wall. Makes me want to get going and personalize more of the house.

So, what do you think of the piece of furniture beneath the gallery wall? We call it "The Dumpster Dive" because I got it out off someone's trash pile about 8 years ago. I have never loved Tim more than when he helped me remove it from the curb and get it inside the back of the minivan without making any snarky comments.

It lived in the carport at the old house and I knew that when the movers came last month it would be my one and only opportunity to get it inside after 8 yrs of waiting. Even at the last minute, the (male) movers and my (male) husband were debating the wisdom of bringing it inside a house and saying things like, "well, maybe if you fix it up." Puh-lease. Ain't no changing the Dumpster Dive.

There is a teeny weeny issue in that I think it is infested with carpenter bees. And that the latent larvae inside the bee tunnels may hatch sometime next spring and start feeding on the wood of our house, thereby reducing it to a pile of rubble.

Small issue, I'm sure. I mean, look at how great it is!

10 Minute Project, OR, Longest Post for Shortest Project Ever

So, I'm still in  love with the house!

And my diabolical plan in posting crappy, blurry pictures has paid off because my friend Dorie, a professional photographer, saw how bad they were and offered to come over for a cup of tea sometime soon so we can chat and she can take MUCH better photos for you.

But I can't invite her over yet, because that would be a reward for me. And I don't believe in rewarding bad behavior. Just go back in time and ask 4 yr old Jack if he ever got that Dora the Explorer movie he had a fit about in CVS? Ok. I know, Dora, embarrassing....

I am working from home right now, trying my hand at writing full time. In theory, breaking up with my day job in the church bookstore, though a bit sad, should provide me with ample time to write. And it does, but this time starts far too early, as we are now on the hellish Middle School sleep deprivation schedule, and ends far too soon, as in "How can school be over by 2:45? I was just getting my groove!"

And I'm in my cool new house. You know, the one that's almost exactly like the old one so there's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that MUST be done to it? The furniture fits, the dog knows her way around, and everything was set up in a matter of days because it was all so familiar. Except there's a lot of yellow and green. And I'm a little more of a tan and gray person. Or blue. And look at those brass switch plates!  What an easy fix that would be to just swap those out on a quick trip to Home Depot....

Working from home has been wonderful, but I'm oh so easily distracted. If you have surmised that my blog productivity has plummeted in the 2 weeks in which this work at home experiment has been  in place, you would be correct oh keen observer.

So, I'm trying to bribe myself and up my productivity with little rewards related to the house. Not big,  "Let me paint the yellow master bedroom my beloved Palladian Blue" rewards or "Let me buy a new beer fridge to replace the one Margaret and her friend destroyed by accidentally puncturing the Freon with an ice pick."

No, changes of that caliber are not sanctioned until I get more writing done.

But I've been trying to build in a 20 minute reward during lunch each day. No, it's not called Facebook, although that's another distraction (addiction) I must contend with. These small rewards have something to do with the house, like sifting through artwork to decide what to hang on the walls, or organizing a shelf in the garage.

Today I took gorgeous wrapping paper and lined the back of my antique secretary. It adds a small touch of gray amidst the yellow and green, enough to tide me over until the whole house coordinates with this gray beauty:

Thank you, Kristi of Barn Owl Primitives for this incredible painting you made! Did you notice how Kristi painted "Jack" behind his favorite Bible verse? LOVE IT.

The  secretary, however, has seen better days. When my brother, sister, and I were dividing up our family furniture more than 15 years ago, it was not my first, second, or even third favorite piece from the dining room. It was the booby prize, even though it is pretty cool looking and is from the 1830's.

First of all, it has a bum leg. It has had a bum leg since my grandparents bought it in the late 60's or early 70's. This was something that was drilled into us as we were growing up that kind of took the fun out of it. Whenever we'd get close to it: "Don't lean against that thing! The leg is just propped there." I think the three of us had kind of a Pavlovian response to avoid it after all of those years.

No one ever seemed to consider getting the leg fixed. Tim and I just anchored the secretary securely  to the wall and pretty much stayed away from it..

And we've had to baby it a bit each time we moved from house to house. Not that it seemed to appreciate it one bit, delicate and persnickety as it is.  For instance, when I was sizing it up today before my quick project, a tiny piece of mahogany veneer fell off while I was looking at it.  Not touching, looking. It just kind of leapt right off and landed on the floor at my feet. This does not happen with my other furniture.

Also, those little windows make it hard to display anything inside. Currently, there's this oh-so-cute photo of my young parents on their wedding day:

There's an old family Bible from the 1830's with brittle pages bearing the birth and death dates of our relatives from Ireland. There are a few books by Dickens and Austen, a nod to the furniture's British roots, and some pretty birdies people have given me.

There's also a yellowed newspaper clipping from the 1970's from my Grandpa Harris. The clipping talks about an antique mahogany secretary that was valued at $6,000. Grandpa's note to my mother in the margin says: "Check this. We paid $200. It came from England. It was in Dr. Carter Bishop's home."

I'm pretty sure my mother never had the time, pre-Internet and mid-childrearing to check on the value of our three legged secretary, but she did tuck the note away a little hidden drawer for safekeeping.

You may be wondering if I think antiques such are too dear to be tampered with. Nah! In fact, there is still sticky residue on the shelves and the back from when my mom covered them with harvest gold contact paper circa 1977.

So much so that when I cut the gray wrapping paper to size, I barely had to use any tape (yep, scotch tape) to hold it up. The 40 year old stickiness pretty much did the trick.

So, there you have it. A long-winded post about a short little project.

Measure. Cut. Stick. Admire. Go back to writing.

And if any of you find there's a seller's market for sticky 3-legged 1830's mahogany secretaries let me know. I have a few house-related projects to fund.

New Digs

So we made it through Sunday, Sept 8 which was the 2nd Crapiversary of losing Jack.

Thank you for your prayers and support. We had a quiet day at home. The past week meant moving, having Margaret start a new school and "age past" her older brother, and of course, the big crapiversary. The dread was palpable in the days leading up to it, but the only way out is through.

We received kind email and Facebook messages, as well as cards in the mail and other gestures of remembrance. THANK YOU.

Last week also meant my cell phone dying, and my getting shingles for the 3rd time! My head and back are sore and really itch. I'm recovering and trying to rest, so I may be scarce around here for a little while.

To tide us all over I thought I'd post some dark, blurry, cell phone pics of our new house.  Because that's what we are all looking for this Tuesday afternoon, right?

Good.

Dining room:

 Office:

Kids' Pictures and jar of cicada exoskeletons:

 Office floor before:

 Office floor after. Will those piles of papers become a book?

 Living Room:

Family room. Not really crooked in person, I hope.

 Kitchen:

 Kitchen:

 

 Tufted titmouse out kitchen window. Hi little guy!

 

 

I'd love a do-over with the pics when I'm feeling better, okay? In person, the house is bright and cheery and much less blurry, I hope.

 



 

Moving on Up

So, we're moving.

I've been waiting to tell you until the sale on our current house was final, but it's been so hard not to share what these past months have been like. You, my dears, are such a huge support to this family, and I want you to be in the know.

On surface it would be pretty easy to say, "Oh, good. Their old house probably has a lot of painful memories and it's great for them to get a fresh start." But the thing is, this house doesn't hold a lot of painful memories. It holds memories of a lot of laughter and love, which thankfully continue today. This house helps me feel close to the family that we once were, back before we knew the things we know now.

There's the thread still hanging on the back of my bedroom door where we attempted to pull out Margaret's first loose tooth, with Jack jumping up and down in excitement, Shadow getting her nose all up in the video camera, and Margaret shrieking with delight and terror as we slammed the door shut and...nothing happened. It would be at least a week before the tooth finally gave up the ghost.

There's the basement where Tim and the kids would set up games of "Rat Race," making tunnels out of sheets and chairs, and chase each other on their bellies through the maze, pelting each other with wadded up socks. There's the family room with the leather couch where we always sat lined up in a row: Margaret, Tim, Anna, Jack to watch America's Got Talent. There's this office, that used to be a laundry room, where for some reason in January 2008 I thought it might be fun to write down some thoughts about parenting and share a few house projects on something weird called a Blog. And of course there's the kitchen counter where the kids sat on stools and did their homework, or stood on their stools and told me about their days. And don't even get me started about the yard and the climbing trees.

Tim, Margaret, and I are "bloom where you are planted" people. So was Jack. I guess the fact that I live in my hometown even though I have no relatives left here, go to the church where I grew up, and even work there part-time, could be an indication of this. Jack loved this house and neighborhood so much that he didn't even like to leave it and his friends to spend a day at our pool across town. Whenever we traveled as a family, our first words in the door were, "It's good to be home." And this is our home. And it makes me smile.

So the decision to move was hard. I don't want to leave Jack's bedroom! I don't want to leave what we had here! I don't want to put our lives in boxes because it will become clear in the next house that some of the boxes don't need to be opened again, and I hate that. But the decision was mine, and I didn't come to it quickly or easily. There were just certain aspects of staying here that kept me from blooming and I don't think that was good for any of us.

Back in January we found a house that we loved that would enable us to be on a street with many of the friends who have walked beside us in our pain. Who knew Jack and know our story. There would be cool house projects to help get my decorating mojo back. It felt like we were running TO something positive rather than AWAY from something, and that felt good. Until the deal fell through.

Then we lost another one.

For a while the only house available in our price range was our current one, which sort of defeated the purpose. Tensions ran high.

We jumped on the next one that became available. Jumped! Which is unlike slowpokes like us, but we were anxious to be settled before school starts for Margaret, and it was getting too close for comfort. It's a lovely, well cared for house. The master bathroom will make you drool.

It's farther out than we were looking for, which takes us out of our immediate circle of friends. That makes me nervous, because we've grown very close to our friends since the accident. It will mean introducing ourselves and answering the question, "How many kids do you have?"

The funny thing is, the new house is almost the exact floor plan of our current house! I think that's what helped us jump on it and make a quick deal in a very competitive housing market, like within MINUTES. Margaret got on board because she could picture it,  you know? We could already figure out where the Christmas tree would go. My office is right here, just over there. So it's kind of like our house was plopped down somewhere else. Interesting.

If I'd been able to share this BIG news with you earlier, you would have had to go through the stress of getting our house ready to sell, seen where Tim and I drew the battle lines with each other as we spackled far into the night, and rooted for Margaret as she had to adapt to a reality she didn't want to face. That we really are moving and she's coming with us.

I don't know what the next weeks hold, but I have some specific things I would LOVE for you to pray about.

1) That moving does not end up being THE THING. I keep wondering what the thing will be that will ultimately push me over the edge. That will extinguish the flicker of hope that has been present since day one, even in tragedy. Maybe there won't be a THING. But I am a bit worried.

2) In the space of one week we will move from the only home Margaret remembers, she will start middle school at a new school (!), and on the 2nd day of 7th grade she will outlive her OLDER brother.

I know. It's a lot.

It's easy to second guess. It's easy to sit here at my desk and say of course we should stay. We are comfortable here. This house is what we know. That it's been almost two years and we really can handle anything at this point, so why not stay?

And what if we feel even more disconnected from Jack there? To live in a house where he's never been is kind of like starting a new year that he's never been in. Suckish. But do-able.

So there's a lot to pray about.

I guess the biggest prayer is that we will BLOOM.