The Ins and Outs of Cleaning

Over the past few days I've been trying to declutter and clean my sewing room, yet again. I took DGS to a lampwork beadmaking class last weekend, and now I'm trying to set up a glass and torch station for us in the sewing room. But there's so much stuff in there!

There are fabrics collected over years of travel and oh-isn't-that-pretty-I-could-use-that-someday. There are three sewing machines. There are materials for beading and cross-stitching and knitting and felting and dyeing and ...

You get the idea!

This morning, while devoting another hour to cleaning out that area, I found a card describing a handcrafted pottery bowl I bought in a Sedona gallery about nine years ago. The bowl is sitting on my antique breakfront in the front hall. Why is the descriptive card in my sewing room? Because I don't know what to do with it.

That, my friends, is one of my biggest problems. When I come across something that I don't know what to do with—where to put—I leave it where I found it. Each time I'm cleaning or organizing that room, I find the item again. I pick it up, look at it, wonder what to do with it, and put it down. Pretty soon I don't see it any more.

When the Jazzman first moved in with me, he laughed at the places I put things. A plastic storage box of picture-hanging equipment was on the shelf in the coat closet off the front hall. Why? Because the last time I hung a picture, it was in that hall. And because I know the box is there.

Light bulbs? They're in the upstairs hall, in the small storage space behind the door that leads to the attic. At least they were. The last time I went looking there for a lightbulb, the Jazzman told me they were now in the tool room in the basement. Along with the picture-hanging equipment and all the tools and the step stool. Along with everything an organized handyman would need to fix any problem in a big old early-20th Century house.

Of course. Because he's organized.

Me? I'm just befuddled!

When I try to clean house, I get waylaid by every little this or that which should be put away someplace, if I could only figure out where.

Can you understand why I love my Molly Maids so much? They come every other Friday, and nothing befuddles them. They move through my house like machines, and I'm left with order and fresh smells.

Now that's love!

(The card describing the fabulous handcrafted bowl? It's now in the top drawer of the breakfront on which the bowl rests. Isn't that a step in the right direction?)

An Open Letter

Dear Troubled Person/People Who Insist on Attacking My Home:

I used to be a champion sleeper. I would lie in my bed and read a few pages of the book on my nightstand, or solve a few words in a Washington Post crossword puzzle, or work on a Sudoku puzzle, or write a few sentences in my journal, or just listen to a little soothing music. Then I would drift, peacefully, off to sleep. I might wake once to use the bathroom, but then I would immediately fall back to sleep and awaken a minute before my alarm would go off in the morning.

Now all that has changed. I hear every little sound all night long. Every creak in my 84-year-old home makes me think you're trying to come in. Every car that slowly approaches my corner is surely driven by you or your getaway driver. Last night I got up to go to the bathroom at 2:15 and heard someone—surely you—outside my house, talking. It was twenty-some degrees outside. Who would be standing outside at 2:15, talking, in that weather unless he were a "bad guy"?

When my partner leaves in the early morning for work, I lie in my bed—alert to noises, afraid to move, unwilling to walk downstairs—until daylight. Gone are the days when I look forward to morning, to getting up and accomplishing things before the rest of the world rises.

I am so angry at you. I vacillate between wanting to sob and wanting to scream at you. Why have you done this to me? What on earth did I do to you to cause you to want to destroy my life like this?

Last week I was sick all week. On the nights I took NyQuil or cough medicine, I was able to sleep. I don't want to have to resort to taking medication to be able to sleep! I want my peaceful house back—my house where I wasn't afraid to sit in my basement and sew until all hours or to walk to the kitchen in the middle of the night.

Now I just feel like you're watching me all the time, waiting for the next time you're going to throw a rock. Or worse.

We've had to make previously unnecessary expenditures because of your actions. We have spent hundreds of dollars upgrading our security system. We have spent hundreds of dollars repairing broken windows. We cancelled three nights at a Florida resort because of you, and that opportunity is now gone.

But most of all, you have instilled an unnatural and unnecessary fear into me.

Maybe you're done. Maybe those three attacks were all you had intended for me and now you've moved on to some other recreational activity. But I don't know. You've never told me why you're doing it or when you're going to do it, and for all I know, tonight—and tonight, and tonight—is the night you're going to strike me again. So I stay awake, listening.

This entire episode of my life is beyond my realm of understanding. I don't know how to get my sleep patterns back. I don't know how to not feel so sad and so angry.

I can only hope that you're done terrorizing me, and that someday—years from now—you'll look back and say, "What on earth was I thinking? I'm so ashamed of my behavior."

(No, there have been no further attacks beyond the initial three, but the damage to my psyche is done and I'm having a hard time dealing with it.)

Is This How It's Going to Be?

Woke at midnight last night after a couple hours of sleep. Stared at the clock for a few minutes, then grabbed my phone and went to sit on Ridley's bed, peeking out the window at the location on the street where someone would come to throw rocks at my windows. Sat there for almost 10 minutes, then gave up and went back to bed, wide awake. Lay there working crossword puzzles and playing games on my phone until I fell back to sleep at 2:00.

Tonight I have a concert and will be driving home from Cleveland from 10:15 to 11:30. That's very late for me without a good night's sleep in front of it.

I told the Jazzman about my idea for a sign: "How would you feel if someone treated your grandma this way?" He suggested I was pretty silly to think these Very Sick People possess a heart.

I wonder—even if it never occurs again—how long it will take me to relax, to be able to fall asleep easily, to not wake up in the middle of the night. To feel safe in my own home?!

Didn't your mama teach you better than this?!

Under Attack

My house is under attack. Over the course of eighteen days, some person or persons have thrown rocks through a living room window on three separate occasions. The first time could have been some random incident. But when it happened again six days later with a large rock and a chunk of concrete instead of just a pretty, polished rock, it didn't feel so random. Then when those projectiles were followed twelve days later with a 30-pound landscaping boulder, it felt like an attack.

I feel like I'm being held prisoner in my home. I have a hard time going to sleep. I feel depressed all the time. I want to sit and cry.

We were planning a winter mini-vacation to a warm and sunny location. I needed that getaway after all my December concerts. Now there will be no getaway. We have to stay here and protect hearth and home.

When my son, daughter-in-law and I lived in Mt. Pleasant, DC, our cars were broken into twice and the house broken into once in a six-month period. Our beloved Rottweiler, Justice, scared the robber out of the house before he had a chance to grab too many of our possessions (to sell for drug money). After those occurrences, we sold the house in two days for $15,000 over the asking price and moved to the other side of Rock Creek.

Now I live on the north side of Youngstown in an economic depression and I don't have quite so many options. Sure, I could put my house on the market. In two or three years it might sell for half of its market value.

I'm angry. But everything in me says the way to combat it is not to fight back, not to aggravate whatever troubled person is attacking me.

I want to post a hand-lettered on the strip of lawn next to the now-boarded-up windows saying, "I'm just a poor old widowed lady. I'm somebody's grandma. How would you feel if somebody treated your grandma the way you're treating me?"

On other days, I want to post an even larger sign that says, "Hey, Asshole. Quit it. Leave me the fuck alone."

Unfortunately, I don't think either sign would do any good. Regarding the first sign, the person(s) probably has no conscience. And the second sign? They probably never got far enough in school to learn to read!

I have no conclusion to this post. I'm sad. I'm depressed.

And yet, I'm glad to be in Youngstown. I'm where I'm supposed to be and I have a very good life, living with the Great Love of My Life, spending lots of time with Beloved Grandchildren, and singing behind the Best Band in the Land.

Even if some Asshole Unknown is pelting rocks at my home on an irregular basis.

Follow-Up on Overdue Decluttering

As I mentioned in Overdue Decluttering, the Jazzman and I went to look at a house two miles away. There was a lot wrong with the house, but I love the street and the lot and the neighbors. We called the realtor last Friday to make an appointment to draw up an offer. He called back that evening to tell us the bank had accepted an offer on the house.

Five years ago the house sold for around $190,000. On Friday, a young couple (40s is still young, right?) paid $52,000 cash for the house and were seen in the yard on Friday evening, clearing away debris.

The most disturbing part of the visit to the house was seeing how it had been allowed to deteriorate. Look at that beautiful hardwood floor and all the water damage. Even if I lost a property in foreclosure, I cannot imagine that I would let it go to hell like this. I have too much respect for the history of the house and the residents who had lovingly cared for it before I got there.

The most sobering part of the entire week was looking around my house and realizing how much needed to be done before we could sell or rent it.

I have a new goal in life: To get my house to a condition that if I decided today to buy another house, I could put mine on the market and host potential buyers tomorrow!

I've got a long way to go!!

I'm a Good Girl, I Am!

Spring has finally arrived in Northeast Ohio, and I can only hope that we won't get any more miniblasts of winter! The winter just passed was long and hard, and I'm not sad to say "Farewell!"

As the flora is beginning to green up, I'm needing to clean out the beds around the house to make room for growth. Last Sunday afternoon, while the Jazzman was golfing, I got out and did some raking and pulling.

I was reminded of the yardwork I used to do at my daddy's lake cottage. Here's my description from a post written in 2008.

One of my most prominent memories is of the summer when my boys were, I believe, two-and-a-half and one. That would have been 1976. My daddy had a lake house out near the back entrance to Walt Disney World where he would go from Saturday noon to Sunday night to fish and relax. The house sat on two lakefront acres and had lots of grass that had to be mowed regularly. That summer he was having heart problems again and couldn’t go out there every weekend. TJ and Tyler’s dad was working at WDW as an entertainment supervisor. Every Saturday morning we would pack up all the accoutrements two toddlers require and head out to the lake, 45 miles away, for the weekend.

On Saturday afternoon I would crank up the riding mower and mow the grass, which would involve about 45 minutes of riding around in the sun, heat and humidity. The result for me, every week, would be a screaming headache. As I sat on that mower, riding, turning, riding, I imagined my daddy whispering in my ear, “You’re a good girl.” He was one of only two people in the first 46 years of my life who made me feel I had any worth. To this day, when things are hard and I take steps to ease them, I hear daddy telling me I’m a good girl and tears come to my eyes. He was one of a kind and died way too early.

It never fails. Whenever I'm doing something hard and/or painful, I can hear my daddy encouraging me. We should all be so lucky—to have such a cheerleader on our side.



I've been trying to get to the gym every morning, and the surest way to do that is to beg Tyler to let me drive the babes to school, which is sorta on the way. I called him this morning, and he said, "I think they've been missing me this week, so I'll take them."

First, let me say, "What a good dad!"

And then it reminded me of my sophomore year in high school, when I had to catch the bus ("first on, last off") at 6:00 a.m. Daddy—always up early to make rounds and clear up outstanding paperwork before the day's surgeries and patients—would drive me the mile-and-a-half to the Rexall Drug parking lot and sit with me while we waited for the bus to arrive. That was the year when I have the most memories of him, the year I spent more time with him than any other.

Again, how lucky I am to have such wonderful memories. And my grandchildren are following in those footsteps.

Today's photos? Before and after of the beds on the west side of the house.

I'm a good raker and weeder.

Overdue Decluttering

Or: Choosing the Right Perspective.

The Jazzman and I have been occasionally driving past a certain house for nine months while we waited for it to go through foreclosure. The next-door neighbors on one side are friends of mine. Two doors over on the other side, the homeowners are friends of the Jazzman. There are a number of features I like about the house, the two most important being a very green and secluded backyard and a dead-end street.

We have set up an appointment to go see the house tomorrow. It's available for a small amount of money (as are most houses in the area), but would need quite a bit of work (as do most of the houses in the area!).

I've been in my house two-and-a-quarter years, and really love this house. But there are a helluva lot of steps to traverse in this house, and it's not air conditioned. The older I get, the more I miss the cool, conditioned air in the summer and the more I despise all those steps. And we ain't gettin' any younger!

But my point in telling this story is what the thought of packing did to me, as I sat and pondered a potential move yesterday. Omigod! I have probably 15 storage containers filled with fabrics of all types. I have silks and linens and fine apparel-making fabrics that I have picked up on many trips abroad. I have high-quality cottons for quilting. I have interesting fabrics perfect for making purses. I have quilt batting and soft animal stuffing. I have buttons to die for and enough thread to stretch from here to California. I have three sewing machines and a serger.

But sewing isn't my only passion. I have a small cabinet plus four or five boxes full of beading and jewelry-making supplies. I have a basket of cross-stitch supplies and two boxes full of knitting supplies. I have fabric dyes and fabric paints and all the buckets and measuring devices and stretchers I need to use them.

And books. Do I have books?! Tyler and I subscribe to the theory that a person is known by the books he keeps. And so I have kept books. My library bookshelves were so full I couldn't unpack my cookbooks. Yesterday I spent 2.5 hours culling the books that—although I love them—I will never read again. I organized the shelves by topic or area of interest: law; cooking; glass; pottery; fiber; jewelry-making; adoption; art; fiction; …. The box that the cookbooks were in now is full of books to go to the Mahoning County "Friends of the Library" store. And I have another 100 or so arts & crafts books in the basement.

I have a basket full of logo'd mugs that I've collected over the years. I used to throw parties where there were 30-50 guests; I needed those mugs. The most people I've had in my house at once since I moved in was 10. I don't need those mugs any more.

Whenever the Jazzman and I talk about this potential new home, I'm mentally calculating how long it would take to plan and execute the renovation and how much crap many treasured belongings I could dump release into the universe in that period of time.

But even if we look at the house tomorrow and say, "There is no way in hell we are taking on that project, ravine in the backyard or not," I have a new mission in life. And I'm going to stay on it until I feel much less overwhelmed by stuff.

You are never going to see me on A&E's "Hoarders".

Luck or Fluke?

I have my thermostat programmed to let the house settle down to 55° at night, and then bring the house back up to 63° in the morning, about half an hour before the Jazzman's alarm goes off. (Lest you tell me 63° is not warm enough for humans in houses, I will say that the thermostat for this house is funky. I'm comfortable at 63° It feels like 68 or 70 in other houses.)

Yesterday morning he hit the snooze bar, then turned to me and said, "It's cold in here." Uh-oh. We looked at our Weather.com apps on our iPhones and saw that it was about 14° outside. While he started getting ready to go to work, I ran to the basement to touch the furnace. (That's all I'm qualified to do—touch it. Know how to turn it on? Nah. Know how to do anything other than call the plumber? Not so much.)

I went back upstairs and reported that the unit was cold and silent. When he was ready for work, we went together to the basement. He surveyed the furnace from all sides, then started jiggling the panel on one side. Voila! Heat!!

Now, any intelligent person would have gone ahead and called the plumber. It was, after all, Friday. Not Saturday. Not weekend rates. But, no! I have so much faith in his jiggling capabilities, his ability to fix anything and everything in the house, that I just let it ride, basking in my warm house.

When he came home last night after midnight after his regular Friday night drinking-with-my-buds outing, he thought the house was too cold. He went downstairs (I learned this morning) and jiggled the panel. Nothing.

This morning we woke again to no heat. No amount of jiggling and hitting did anything.

It's 24° outside, with a wind chill of 17°. The thermostat says it's 55° inside, but I seriously doubt it. My feet are blocks of ice, and the cats are hunkered down inside their fur coats.

And I'm waiting for the plumber to come. At weekend rates.

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Update: The installer didn't tighten one screw far enough when the furnace was installed almost three years ago. Installer error. No charge.

Heat!!

'Tis More Blessed . . .

When you reach the first Christmas of a relationship, and your primary goal is reducing debt and guarding spending, choosing a gift for your loved one is a challenge.

I had been keeping my eyes and ears open, watching and listening to the Jazzman's spoken and unspoken wishes. From the night I put a lamp on the end of the bedroom dresser, he would get into bed, then clap his hands twice, imitating the commercials for "The Clapper". He'd mutter about forgetting to turn the light out before getting into bed, then get up, turn it off, and slip between the sheets again. It became a standing joke until turning the light off first became a habit.

So I logged into the internet and started searching for a Clapper. Amazon had the best price, and he just laughed when he opened the package. The next afternoon, he installed the device, and it has become my favorite household appliance. Really!

It's been getting dark at 5:00 here. I walk out of my office into a totally dark hallway. I climb the three steps to the bedroom level, make my way to the bedroom door, and clap twice. Voila! There's light in the bedroom. It's just magical. Such a simple, silly gift, and we love it! And the model I bought has a remote in case your bedmate is already asleep. Genius!

I also got him something less silly—a pair of Tec Touch gloves that will enable him to text or write an e-mail without removing his gloves. (He hasn't used them yet, while he uses the Clapper several times a day! Guess which is his favorite.)

Oh, you want to know what he got me? Two very valuable gifts: a new iPhone 4 to replace my broken-screened early model iPhone, and a water heater. I have always loved practical gifts!!

Hope you got what you really wanted. I did: a very thoughtful man!!

What Pleases Your Eyes?

This is my library, at the back of the first floor. It's what I see each time I walk up the stairs to the bedrooms or family room. It pleases me.

Every time I glance over into that room on the way up the stairs, I smile. My mind pauses from whatever race it's on and says, with awe and wonder, "This is my house!"

I often contemplate the elements of that room—in what way are those components coming together to please me so much?

I think the first element is color. Much as I almost always wear black so I can adorn it with some spectacular piece of jewelry or shibori'd jacket or hand-knitted scarf, this room with its ivory couch and loveseat and the mahogany leather bench are a canvas.

Wanna see the original couch and loveseat? This is one of the pieces I refer to as "legacy to the house". It remained after the previous owner's departure. See the cat-scratching on the front? It was a M*E*S*S! I took them over to Mark Shaw Upholstery in Girard. Mark did a fabulous job of reupholstering these pieces, and I absolutely love them!

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So the ivory upholstery and the ivory rug from the mountain cottage and the leather bench form the cake, which is then iced with two mixed media pieces by Tucson artist Carol Thayer.

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Tossed over the back of the sofa is a throw I knit from a rayon/cotton tape yarn. This yarn started out to be a vest for me, but quickly let me know it would rather be a throw. And isn't it gorgeous in this environment?

This is a room for Sunday mornings with a cup of tea and the New York Times crosswords. This is a room for a glass of wine and tealights in those lovely glass holders. This is a room just right for pondering life.

I love this room!

So think about your environment. What pleases you? What do you love to stop and look at? What brings you joy each time you think about it?

(As long as we're walking backwards through the cobwebs of our minds, here are the two Carol Thaler pieces in their original home in Tucson. Isn't that a lovely room?!)

Coming Up for Air

I'll bet you've been wondering where I've been (she mused, narcissistically).

This is what choristers refer to as "Hell Week". Tonight and Saturday night the CleveOrch Chorus will be performing Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Five Mystical Songs" and "Toward the Unknown Region". My week has been insane balancing work and singing, with nightly drives to Severance Hall. But I love every minute of it.

Along with working, driving and singing, yesterday and today I've been watching the installation of new windows in my kitchen and office. Yippee! Already I can hear the difference in the ambient noise, and feel the difference in the lack of drafts around the windows.

I chose Valley Energy Solutions, owned by Dan Quinlan, to provide and install the windows. The thing about having Dan do the job: energy efficiency is his thing. I knew he would do the absolute best job of insulating around the new windows—far better than Window World or the Pella or Andersen people. And the windows arrived at about three weeks before the projected delivery date. It's cold today, and I can live with it! I'll be very excited to see my fuel bills stabilize (rather than skyrocketing) as the temperatures drop.

I'll be back to the blog after the concerts are concluded. And we need to talk about "Eat, Pray, Love", which I've been "reading" as I drive back and forth to University Circle.

Eat. Love. Pray if you feel like it. I'll be back.

The Debutante

Two posts today; none tomorrow.

The Jazzman and I are hosting our first-together dinner party tomorrow night. There will be ten around my heirloom table (heirloom: it came with the house). We were doing some preliminary planning last night and realized we needed to position the table cattywampus in the dining room to make everyone comfortable. (Did you know "cattywampus" is actually in the dictionary? It's an outgrowth of cater-cornered, but you knew that. You just didn't know the English language had deteriorated enough for "cattywampus" to make it into print!)

Now everyone knows I don't cook anymore, but I can make a mean lasagna when called upon to do so. It's easy, can be prepared ahead, and most everyone likes it. I rely upon Giada De Laurentiis's lasagna recipes, and make a pan of vegetarian lasagna and one of meat lasagna. We were thrilled last night to find Mt. Carmel Marinara Sauce in Giant Eagle. I'll be saving time and buying local!

Guests are bringing salad, appetizers, and desserts. The handyman/carpenter who brought my new office to fruition will be at the table and will, I'm sure, receive much praise. Jazz spent a couple of hours last evening polish beautiful antiques that have been ignored for far too long.

One of the guests forwarded the picture above to spur me on. The Jazzman commented last night that all the guests are cat people. At least we don't have to worry about having enough Benadryl on hand!

We're excited. (Well, that's easy for the woman to say. But once I sent out the e-mailed invitation and starting receiving responses, Jazzman actually said, "I'm excited!" Imagine that! A man eager to host a party!)

Today I'm working and cooking, with Hallowe'en costume alterations set for tonight. Tomorrow I'm cleaning and cooking—and ignoring the computer.

<My-Granddaughter-Is-Amazing Story On>

Last night my phone rang with Tyler's "Brenda and Eddie" ringtone. I answered with "Hey." There was a pause, then Miss Ridley's sweet voice came on the line. "Grandma," she started, "Next week for ballet class we can wear our Hallowe'en costumes. Would it be convenient for you to finish my costume before next Thursday?"

Convenient? What seven-year-old talks like that?!

<My-Granddaughter-Is-Amazing Story Off>

So while I'm preparing for the first dinner party in my almost-two-year-old home with my almost-roommate, how about sharing your favorite dish to prepare for guests?

The Renovation Continues

Yesterday I relocated my wall of travel pictures from the downstairs hallway to the wall in my office. I love pausing to look at these photos and remembering where they were taken and what I was doing then.

In a perfect world, they'd all be in black frames, but they're not and that's the way it's gonna be.

Let's start at the bottom left and continue clockwise; here's a mini-travelogue.

1. The Washington Chorus in St Louis en l'Ile Church (built in 1622) in Paris; June 2004


2. A postcard I picked up in Rome of a small brown tabby cat sitting on the toe of a very large statue


3. The 25th anniversary of Florida Epsilon chapter of Pi Beta Phi. The women pictured were all members of the local sorority, Tyes, founded in 1969 at what was then Florida Technological University. The three women on the right were charter members; I was a charter pledge. We stayed local for twelve years until just the right national fraternity came along.


4. A watercolor of Market Square in Cirencester, England. The drawing prominently features "The Cathedral of the Cotswolds", St. John the Baptist Church, where The Washington Chorus sang the Vivaldi Gloria and the Fauré Requiem in 1996. I dearly loved the Cotswolds and hope to revisit someday.


5. A photograph of umbrellas at a sidewalk café taken by fellow Washington Chorus singer, Wayne Guenther, in London on our Paris/England tour in 1996.


6. In 1997, the family gathered in Las Vegas for T.J.'s wedding. Jaci, Greg, Tyler and I took a flightseeing tour over the Grand Canyon. One word: Wow!


7. The newest photo: Cleveland Orchestra Chorus 2009-2010. Singing with this chorus is one of the greatest joys of my entire life.


8. Venice, 2002. A watercolor of one of the canals in Venice. This was a concert tour for The Washington Chorus. My friend, Walu, and I went along just to enjoy the music and spend time with old friends.

The other grouping that is dear to my heart sits on the file cabinet. All these pictures were taken without my knowledge.

In the black frame is a photo of me with T.J. and Tyler, hiking a trail along Skyline Drive in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I think the boys were about 9 and 11.

In the small gold frame is a photo from my law school graduation in May of 1990. Tyler was 15; T.J. was almost 17. Walu flew up from Texas for this memorable ceremony and walks alongside us. She had known the boys for ten years at that time.

The photo in the silver frame was snapped by the brilliant Pittsburgh photographer, Kim Reed, last year when she did a photo shoot of Tyler and Jaci and the kids. I'm walking hand-in-hand with my darling grandchildren, just as I did with their father and uncle many years earlier.

I hope you enjoyed this walk through my history as much as I enjoyed recounting the events.

How to Paint Your Floor

I totally love the floor in my office. I can't believe I did something that came out looking like that. The Jazzman deserves 90% of the credit, as he did all the prep work, after I sanded the floor, and applied the polyurethane after I did the faux finish.

More than that, as I was asphyxiating myself with the glaze, he realized what was happening and saved me from death-by-chemicals—and from myself!

I got this idea on an episode of Trading Spaces that was shot in Orlando, where one couple painted the other couple's nasty old flooring.

Here's my nasty old flooring. This is the bathroom floor. The flooring in the office was the same pattern, but in a 1930s or 1940s blue-green that was stained, tired, and needed to go buh-bye.

I sanded, then deglossed the vinyl. The Jazzman taped the trim, laid down two or three coats of primer, then a couple of base coats of beige. Then I was going to sponge a taupe glaze. I had bought a cool sponge-on-a-mitt, but couldn't figure out how to make it work. I remembered when I ragged off the glaze on Boston's nursery with Jaci nine years ago, and started doing a similar process on the wet glaze. When that dried, I touched up a few places, then Jazzman applied two coats of polyurethane and touched up the trim. What's not obvious is 24-48-72 hours curing after each coat. So the whole process took several weeks, but is totally and completely worth every bit of effort.

If you're thinking you'd like to do the same thing to one of your floors, here's the process on eHow.com.

Here's another scene of the final result.

Ta-Dah! The New Office

In May, I left my office job where I spent over two hours a day driving to and from work. My new job enabled me to work from my home.

I moved all my sewing things from the small bedroom back to the basement, and erected a folding table and small computer table in the new office, which had been painted many years ago to an institutional blue green yuck color. The heavy old double-hung windows were painted shut. A heavy metal rolling cart from the basement became the bookshelf. I sit with a view out over the vacant lot next door, which my neighbors, Jean and Marilyn, have landscaped to the hilt. As I work, I glance out and watch squirrels and birds cavorting.

My Really Good Man (RGM) decided I needed a new office if I was going to work from home and sit in this space all day every day. See if you agree:

RGM started with thinking I needed a deep, rich color for the walls, similar to the lovely deep colors my brother used in his mountain house. Then he said we should go to Star Supply and get a countertop. He started talking to Tom, an acquaintance who is a retired contractor/jack-of-all-trades. When they started talking about mitering the corner of the counter, they decided to place a large square of wood in the corner and run the counter off both sides of that wood. Then he started talking to Tom about building a bookcase at the end of the counter.

The floor was an ugly, ugly sheet vinyl, circa 1927. I watched an episode of Trading Spaces, where the homeowners painted the sheet vinyl floor. We googled "How to paint sheet vinyl" and found the instructions on eHow.com. RGM did most of the work on the floor, but I did the faux finish, while nearly asphyxiating myself on the chemicals in the glaze. RGM did all the painting—the walls, trim, bookcase, and bathroom. Look at that trimwork in the bathroom! The man is a genius!

We looked at rugs at Home Depot and Lowe's on Wednesday night, then on Thursday I went around the corner (shop local!) to a little rug store on Belmont owned by some Palestinians. There we found a beautiful rug at a very affordable price. The rug will keep the floor warmer, and will hide the inevitable cat throw-up that's sure to come its way.

The gallery of photos from travel—mostly abroad—that was in the hall downstairs will go on the wall to the right of the bathroom door. Diplomas will go in on the green wall in the corner. Once I move the rolling cart back to the basement, a comfortable guest chair will go into the space occupied by the cart.

New double-hung fiberglass windows have been ordered and will arrive in about four weeks. Two weeks later they'll be installed, and this will be the warmest room in the house.

And my new office will be done!

See what you think of the result:

The window overlooks the "garden". The basket for Angel is in place beside it.	Beautiful bookcase, custom made for the space.
Don't you just want to wrap that green around yourself?	And look at the trimwork in the bathroom!
The view from the bathroom back into the office.	The Guardian overlooking the office.
How about that floor? I love it! And don't you love the rug? Isn't it perfect for this space?	This is the gorgeous square of wood, put into place to get around a mitered corner.

Many thanks to Tom for hard work and good ideas on the new office. And mega-thanks to the Jazzman, my RGM, for conceiving the idea and bringing it to fruition.

A final note about the first photo on the post. This Native American figurine is named the Guardian. He guards his family and his home, and yours too. This cool guy was a gift from Tyler and Jaci when I was again newly single in 2003 and all alone in my new house. They found him to help take care of me. And look where we are now!!

My Life in a Quote

When single adults over, oh, fifty start spending more time together and morph from dating to a relationship, they start spending more time in each other's spaces. And they have to get used to the way each other lives.

I'm a visual person. I have to see something to be able to remember it. It only took me about fifty years to learn that about myself! I can have an object—a stapler, a favorite necklace, a ruler—in an obscure resting place, but if I've laid eyes on it in the past twelve weeks, I can lay my hands on it within three stops. It may not be your ideal organizational scheme, but it's mine.

Similarly, if I have something that I don't know what to do with, it can sit in the same spot for weeks until I no longer see it when I pass that location.

So as the Jazzman started spending more time in my house, he would ask me for a measuring tape or a screwdriver. When I pointed him to the bottom drawer in the dining room or the top drawer in the breakfront, he would look at me like I was absolutely crazy. He'd ask why I stored something in that odd location, and I'd just shrug.

When I saw today's Daily Thought from Real Simple magazine, I knew I had to share it.

“One person’s mess is merely another person’s filing system.”

― Margo Kaurman

Postscript: I will confess that the Jazzman is moving in one t-shirt at a time. And as he accumulates more of his possessions over here, he brings more organization to the space. He's actually quite amazing in his ability to leave order in his wake. I may give up my most unique filing system in favor of his organizational abilities!

Time: Things You Might Not Think About

In case, you just dropped in here on a random Google search, you should know I work from home. Most of my interactions are through text messages, either iPhone or Gmail. I rarely talk to people.

In the old days when I drove an hour each way to work, I had lots of time to think, talk on the phone, listen to audiobooks, and sing along with the radio. Now I rarely have time to breathe. I met with my boss for half-an-hour this morning, face-to-face (!), and my todo list today is long enough that it could last all week.

I don't have time to think about things I want to say on my blog. I used to have five ideas pop into my head during my morning commute, and I also had the time to develop those ideas. Now? Forget it! I might have three ideas a week, and as soon as they pop into my head, they're gone. Gone! (Yeah, okay, so that's part and parcel of being sixty years old! Argh!!)

The Jazzman goes out for drinks every Friday night with his nearest and dearest drinking buds. Sometimes the buds go home before he does, and he ends up at Lemon Grove with his cousin and his wife. I suggested to Jazzman that he could call me, even at 11:00 p.m. on a Friday, and I'd meet him down there. When he suggested I'd probably be asleep, I told him I'd be happy to get up and get dressed again just to have a face-to-face conversation with adults. (I don't think he was swayed. That 11:00 p.m. call hasn't happened yet!)

So this post is an apology to myself for not having or making the time to post as I'd like. I really miss the creativity of writing posts for this blog. But I'm having to make do with the creativity of updating Web pages for client after client.

Oh, and here's a commitment to write more posts. I have to tell you about how I'm decorating the house with Mother's furniture; and the beautiful new window sill in the library; and my fabulous new office that Jazzman created. And my new piano.

(On that last one, I'm sure you can feel the heat from the glow of my smile wherever you are.)

This Old House

I've mentioned that a beautiful new office is in the cards for me. Handyman/carpenter Tom finished installing the counter/desk, and building a new bookcase for the corner. The Jazzman has finished painting the walls and will get to the trim in the next day or so. I want to paint the floor (ratty old linoleum) as I saw in an episode of Trading Spaces. I'll try to get to the primer before I leave for NC on Friday.

The other tasks we found for Tom included the west window in the library. The brick wall had risen up or the window had sagged down, to the point that the window sill was angled in rather than out (\ instead of /). Over the years, water has been draining into the house—rather than out to the yard—during heavy rainstorms. As a result, the plaster and molding under the window was destroyed. Tom figured out how to cut the window sill so it was angled out and the Jazzman spent time planing and rasping and sanding to smooth it out, then priming it. It's gorgeous, or will be gorgeous when Jazz paints it.

And there was one more item that bothered me. At some point between 1927 and 2009, the owners decided to replace a couple of the old radiators with baseboard heating units. In doing so, the holes were not repaired where the water pipes came up from the basement into the radiators. When I pulled up the wall-to-wall carpeting on the first floor before moving in, I discovered the lids of tin cans nailed into the floor in four strategic places. It took me months to realize that's what the owner had done to cover up the holes under the carpeting. Without carpeting and tin can lids, I could imagine some visitor in elegant high heels falling into the 1½" square hole, breaking an ankle, and suing my pants off. (Yes, yes. That's what law school teaches us.)

Tom—brilliant Tom—found some wood left over from the other projects and cut it to fit the four holes, fitting it snugly into the holes. The result is that I no longer have holes in the floor. Yea! As soon as the Jazzman varnishes the patches to match the hardwood floor, you'll never know what happened.

Did I mention that I love having brilliant men around me?!

Paper Everywhere

My beautiful new office is nearing completion, and I spent most of Saturday sorting through and consolidating files and throwing away papers that didn't need to be kept or referenced.

It's astonishing how I can accumulate so much stuff! I shredded several files full of old bank papers, and took two black trash bags to the curb. I'm not yet pleased with how much stuff I have to move back into the office when it's finished, but it's a far cry better than it was.

I've started the thought process of a similar purging in the sewing room. I don't even want to think of the yards and yards of fabric I've collected over the past 15 years. Nor do I want to think of the pain of ridding my shelves of all that cotton, silk and linen.

But it's gotta be done! The process of sorting through Mother's things two weeks ago, and the impending packing that will take place this coming weekend convinces me that it must be done.

I think the kindest thing I can do for my children is keep an orderly house with minimal unneeded stuff.

When's the last time you cleaned out a closet?

Old and New, But Neither Borrowed Nor Blue

I recently had my front steps rebricked and my front columns replaced. When the workman was finishing up, I went outside to inspect the work and discovered I could no longer fully open my mailbox!

The mailbox was beside the front door, which I only ever use to bring in the mail. This misalignment was the perfect excuse to get a new mailbox!

I played Hannah Homeowner for an hour, trekking to Lowe's and perusing all the mailboxes. I finally found one I thought would be big enough to handle my mail volume and easy enough for me to install. I checked with my mail carrier, and she loved the idea of placing packages out of sight on the back porch.

Voila! A month later, the mailbox is finally installed and functioning (thanks to lots of hammering on my part and some expert guidance from the Jazzman). Witness yesterday's first delivery of mail in the new box.

I am no longer blue about having to deal with the sticky front door just to see if I received any junk mail. Now I'm Hannah Happy Homeowner!