Clutter Flutter

I’ve noticed a higher tolerance for disorder in my physical space as my emotional landscape has become much less messy. This has been gradual, so I don’t know exactly when it began, but sometime last year I would guess. I suspect it has to do with giving up dating sites and some other activities that stressed me out. Now a cluttered desk and an unmade bed simply don’t bother me the way they used to. My obsession to compulsively keep my tiny corner of the world super organized and at right angles dissipates as inner peace manifests. Who knew? Ommmm…

~*~

The Daily Prompt: Messy

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Approaching Lavender

I adore every shade of purple, from lavender to plum. When I was nine and we moved to New Jersey, my mother indulged my love for purple by finding beautiful violet-flowered wallpaper for my new bedroom and creating a Barbie house to match. She painted an accent wall for my room a medium violet and it was fab. I don’t have photos unfortunately; we weren’t into snapping pics of everything so much back in those days, except on vacations. It’s too bad about no pics of the Barbie house especially, since that truly was a masterpiece with different rooms and a guest cottage for cousin Skipper.

I’ve always wanted to love the scent of lavender, but sadly I hate it. I do love this song by Gordon Lightfoot however.

The Daily Prompt: Purple

Gatsby & Greenery

The Daily Post Photo Challenge:
It IS Easy Being Green!

My Creative Mommy

When I was a kid, I didn’t think it was anything special that my mom single-handedly remodeled our homes. No, I don’t mean she went shopping and had furniture delivered, hired men to paint, and found contractors to install new flooring. I mean she stripped wallpaper, put up new paper, painted walls, redid floors herself, built shelves, planted gardens with fences, created fancy dollhouses for me out of moving boxes, etc. Didn’t all mothers do these things?

I spent a lot of time walking with her through hardware stores, yet for whatever reason she seemed to avoid teaching me to help her. I’m not sure why this is, but I suspect she didn’t want to impose her interests on me because she wanted me to find my own. While she was busy with her DIY stuffs, I would be reading or drawing doggies or making bead necklaces or embroidering a denim shirt… not that there’s anything wrong with that.

In New Jersey, she experimented quite a bit with recipes. We had a large garden and the typical zucchini megacrop. That was fun. She also went through a homemade soup phase and a Jell-O mold phase and a DIY ice cream phase… and of course a breadmaking phase. We also had a summer of candlemaking. I wish I had photos. See, if I’d made candles with my kids, that would definitely have generated a scrapbook spread, but my mom didn’t do scrapbooks, and photos were mostly taken on vacations. I have no tangible evidence of our candle phase, except the memory that it was fun. I know I made a few colorful mushrooms that could have festooned a set of Alice in Wonderland. There was also at least one frog and possibly other woodland flora and fauna.

Later on, whenever I was interested in something, my mom found a way to help me with it, if she could (or if I would let her). I didn’t appreciate this so much at the time, but isn’t it a nice quality of someone who cares about you? I appreciate that now, when a friend offers the gift of their time unexpectedly. It’s such a generous thing to do. I’m trying to be more that way myself, remembering Mom and what a kind, caring, generous person she was.

I will always miss her.

Odd Ducks

I live in an apartment building with an interesting architectural design, like a Spanish mission, with a large central courtyard. In the courtyard is a swimming pool, which, I assume, would have been used by the padres and visiting dignitaries and such, back in the olden days. It’s rare that I see anyone in the pool, and I have never used it myself. But last summer we did have a couple guests, who stayed for about a week or so.

~*~

Via The Daily Post Photo Challenge: Rare

The Yellow Wallpaper Redux

Surely you remember the famous Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story The Yellow Wallpaper? Well…

A while ago, I used bookcases to create a divider in my studio apartment to make it feel more like a living room and a bedroom rather than one great room. Since the backs of the bookcases were plain and boring, I covered them in aminal print paper. They came out pretty cool.

Lately I’ve noticed that the paper is getting scratched and shredded. Is something trying to get out from behind there? Is someone trying to help? Could there be a psycho creature clawing at the paper in fits of madness? Possibly it’s only my wild imaginings.

Mystery.

Sick Day ~ A Study in Cat

I stayed home from work today because of a vicious migraine. Luckily, I had company.

10:47AM ~ he pulls down the blanket to make a cave and disappears

1:17PM ~ he’s still there, but slightly visible

4:17PM ~ he’s awake!

4:18PM ~ nope, false alarm

6:52PM ~ hard day, time for nap