Narcotic Induced Stream of Consciousness

(Warning... this post has been brought to you post-surgery stream of consciousness induced by Vicodin.)


Things have been a bit crazy around here lately. Much of this was centered around my having surgery yesterday. I had to prepare at work to be gone for the week. I had to prepare myself to be housebound for a week. I had to prepare myself mentally for going under the knife. And we had to keep everything going along in the right direction at the same time for two little kids.

On the keeping everything moving along in the right direction front... Leif "officially" started kindergarten on Monday. I say officially because if you ask him he has been a kindergartener since June. And he is staying in the same private school, in the same classroom and so not much is changing. The first day of kindergarten is often viewed as a big huge deal, but for Leif and us, not much changed.

Then there is Skadi. The latest for her is that I took her in for her first eye exam last week, just to rule out any problems since Leif has eye problems. I knew she sees well and doesn't have any trouble doing any fine work at school, so I wasn't expecting any problems. She was a trooper and even offered to do all the eye tests willingly to keep up with her brother. They were quite impressed with her. Anyways, I was wrong. We have another appointment coming up in mid-September to have her eyes dilated and determine the extent of her eye problems. We know right now that her left eye is poor with distance vision and her eye doctor has indicated that she suspects similar problems as Leif has. Sigh.


Then there is the fun stuff. We hit the fair on Saturday with our good friends. When I was a kid growing up in Wyoming the fair was a huge event, one that we attended nearly everyday of the week that it was in town along with the rodeo. I like being the adult now. I take my kids to the fair on ONE day, we look at the animals, ride the rides and then we go home. No rodeo. I am just not a rodeo type person... I got my fill the first 13 years of my life I suppose.


All that brings us up to Sunday. Sunday I hurried and prepared myself for the week of sitting around the house, or lying around the house as the case may be. I went to the fabric store and bought more fabric for my quilt and got it washing. I stocked up on groceries for the week. I prepared myself mentally. Or so I thought. But it didn't help that I dreamt about my mom the night before, Skadi was up and my nerves would not calm.


I told myself over and over that people get their gall bladders removed all the time. My surgeon, who I had been told by others was very gentle, meticulous and does the most gall bladder removals in our area as he is a gastric surgeon, he had fully prepared me. Still when 5:30am arrived and I was sitting in the pre-op waiting room I couldn't stop the nerves.


I only have had surgery once before in my life, when I was 5. I had a hernia repair done and the details are vague, but what should have been a short routine surgery ended up in an extended stay in the hospital after I hemmorhaged afterwards. It's true, redheads have more complications in surgery. My grandmother used to tell me this during her nursing days. I used to kind of think she was just full of it. But I have since heard this from most of my doctors, including my obstetrician, my surgeon and the anesthesiologist yesterday.


Seeing what a mess I was, the anesthesiologist (who was super sweet) ordered a sedative for me before taking me into the OR. Thank you anesthesiologist. I only vaguely remember her asking me what color hair I had as I was fading in and out and confirmed with her that yes, my hair is red and that it was natural. Later I found out that she was concerned about this and upped my anestesia as she was worried about me staying under.


Next thing I knew I was waking up paranoid. I thought they were putting me out? What was I doing waking up? I got a glimpse of the clock and finally realized an hour had passed and they were actually done. Time in recovery, time in CDU (clinical decision unit - where they decide if I get to go home or stay), and then I was sent home at noon.


That first afternoon went fine and I slept a lot. Then night hit.


I have a fabulous husband. Really, really I do.


He set the alarm for every three hours to get me up and give me my pain killer as things were not going good. Then to top it off my daughter, who decides not to sleep through the night about as often as she does, woke up too. Poor AB, very little sleep last night thanks to the girls in his family.


Today has gone better. AB got the kids to school and brought me a pumpkin spice latte home which I have nursed most of the day.


He finished finally, installing the chandelier in the dining room. What a pain. A serious pain. And at one point he was asking me if I really disliked the old one that much, wouldn't it be easier to just send the new one back?


See this decorative plaster thingy? Yeah, it sucks. Royally sucks. No, don't get me wrong. It is pretty and I do like it, but it seriously complicated our installation of the chandelier. It adds a full inch to the installation distance. A full inch that our new chandelier didn't have.



I don't know what he did today, because I was on the couch watching Pawn Stars crocheting. (Yes, my new obsession thanks to Rick - the TV show Pawn Stars, not crocheting. I have successfully pawned off this addiction on AB and my sister in law as well.) We had worked on the chandelier over the weekend and left it hanging half done saying, "I don't know what we do next!"


I don't know what he did, but look... it is hung! And it works! And today is August 31st, so we succeeded in our August goal! (Ok, so my quilt goal was just way way off... we will just ignore that aspect of the August goal...)




So today I watched Mamma Mia (never saw it before but I recorded it knowing it was one of my mom's all time favorites). And because I have a horrible time just sitting and watching TV, I crocheted some:


I ironed my fabric for the quilt so I can finish cutting out 7" squares.


I watched Pawn Stars and Cash Cab.


I wasn't going to check my work e-mail.


No comment there. (But I am totally freaking out that two proposal calls I have to respond to were released today.)


I have taken my narcotic every 3 hours.


I have whined.


I checked Facebook.


I talked on the phone to my dads.


I am looking forward to being crafty tomorrow and maybe sitting at the table and sewing blocks together if I am able.


I am really, really looking forward to a shower.


I am bummed AB plans to work tomorrow, I have enjoyed having him home.



I am looking forward to feeling better and hope that tonight is a vast improvement over last night.

If it isn't one thing...

It's the other.

So I bought all my fabric. Washed it. Ironed it. And the other night while watching "Covert Affairs" I cut 118 seven inch squares.

Then I did a quick calculation. Round up to 120 and that makes approximately a 10 square by 12 square quilt. Or 60" by 74".

Or so not a king sized quilt at all.

A king sized bed is 76" x 80". And I like some overhang. I like lots of overhang because I have a tendency to wrap myself like a burrito.

Back to the fabric store I will go this weekend!

----------

The chandelier arrived! I ended up going with the slightly more rustic one. AB liked it best. (I liked the Pottery Barn ones best.) AB liked the price of the more rustic one best mostly I think. I can't blame him. It was half the price of the PB ones.

It arrived, we set to assembling it this weekend and got it most of the way done. The next task at hand is to remove the old one and wire and hang the new one. I don't think it will take more than 30 minutes to do. It all looks quite straight forward.

I am not terribly far off my schedule, though it is slipping.

And I have had another interference come up.

We will get the chandelier hung and then we can decide on paint. But I am pushing back the paint date for a few reasons. One of them being that AB has grand plans to take a few days off next week as well as the Labor Day weekend (4 days for him) and replace the nasty flooring in the big bonus room! We are leaning towards a bamboo laminate flooring.

I am very excited to get this done. It needs it bad.

But how does this affect the dining room?

I may get my flooring for the dining room. Our big bonus room is large and square and very forgiving. AB wants to test out the flooring install there. If it goes well then we are thinking we may go forth with replacing the flooring in the dining room as well. And no way we would paint the walls before doing that.

So the dining room redecorate is slipping. But it isn't going away. It just may get better is all!

A quilting we will go!

Way back when, once upon a time, I had time to create. Part of my monthly goal this month is to get that back a bit. In March I tackled setting up a cross stitch (which I admit, I haven't picked back up).

One of my all time loves is quilting. I have a weakness for fabric big time.

I needed a stress reducer - and I wanted to get started on my next project - so I looked forward all week to Saturday when I was allowing myself a few hours to wander the fabric store sans children. Peace. Fabric love. Camaraderie. Textiles.

For my two hours wandering I walked out with 11 fabrics loosely coordinated around a blue and brown color scheme. Here they are in all their glory!



They have been washed and pressed as of tonight. Awaiting their deconstruction into many, many little squares only to be sewn back in some random pattern.

Here is the quilt I made for Leif. I was pressing on getting it done before he was born. Then my mom came to town and pushed me to sit down and finish it.

Thanks mom!


And here is Skadi's baby quilt. My mom arrived and hers was done because I was not going to condemn her to the ordinary life of a second child where nothing is fair or done to the extent that it was for the first one. (Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I know, if I laugh too loudly I will wake her up.)


I have a pumpikin wall hanging I did for myself that is identical to three others that I made for the most important people in my life - my mom and Rick, my dad and grandmother.I will post a picture of it someday.

I also did an apple wall hanging that hangs in my mom's and Rick's work out room. And I need to find it in some packed away box somewhere, but I also have the quilt that AB and I used on our bed for nearly a decade.

I know I have said all this before... I just need to put it out there for motivation to finish this quilt!

Oh and I didn't buy anything else at the fabric store. Nope! That wasn't me buying foamies for my daughter... or outdoor upholstery fabric... or the most fabulous thick soft yarn and a crochet needle... nope nothing else that might divert my attention from my quilt project!

Stay tuned!

On goals

I have too much stuff I want to do. Way too much.

I want to redecorate my house. I want to do my cross stitching. I want to cook fabulous meals on a nightly basis. I want to sew adorable little clothes for my daughter. I want to plant more roses. I want to get back to quilting. I want to work through my stacks of books. I want to organize all my recipes. I want to (well more like I need to) purge the kids’ toy boxes of all the toys that they don’t play with. I want to exercise more. I want to work on photography and editing photos. I want to maintain my website and keep my blog more active. I want to volunteer with organizations that I find important. And lately… don’t tell my husband… but I want to write a book. AB would reply, “you’ve done that, twice now, right? Your dissertation and that 250 page deliverable this past February counts too!” Nope, this one is fiction, I would love to write a fictional novel and I even have an idea stirring around in my head. But don’t tell AB.

Motivation? I have it in abundance. What I don’t have is time.

My lists can often times seem daunting. The purpose of my monthly goals that I started 2.5 years ago was to take a month to focus on one thing at a time. It has done a world of good for me. Things get accomplished. AB has been quite supportive of my monthly goals, particularly the ones that don’t involve tasks for him. But even he gets into the groove with the monthly tasks and asks on occasion, “what’s next month?”

My goal for July, knowing how busy the month was shaping up to be was to choose paint for the dining room. AB got on board and we have a front runner and a few runner up selections. The final decision has been postponed however because the lighting in the dining room sucks. Sucks royally.

Hence the August goals.

The first of the August goals is to get a chandelier selected. We have selected three chandelier options. We need to pick one and order it. August Goal #1 – select, order, receive and install chandelier.

August Goal #2 – Select paint colors.

I know ourselves well enough to know that it may take the entire month of August to get Goal #1 completed. Yes, I know. It shouldn’t take that long. But it will. Give me a week for a decision, a week or two for it to arrive and a week or two to get the thing hung and we are at the end of August. Blammo. August is gone. My plan is to shorten this critical path in order to enable task #2 to take hold and deliver at the end of August, thus enabling a long weekend of painting over Labor Day. We never do anything for Labor Day anyway. That would make the September Goal a complete and painted redecorated dining room that includes a little reorg, some new linens and draperies. (I can wish all I want for new flooring in there… but that will be a goal for another time.)

But let’s jump back to August…

August is a pretty open month for us without much on the schedule. A lot of the August goal, while critical path, includes down time for me. Me actually doing anything short of making a decision and hitting click? Not much there for the first 2/3 of the month.

So I need August Goal #3.

What I really should do is to declutter the kids’ toys. But that isn’t a fun goal. I need a fun goal.

Yesterday I got a little huffy at work and I needed some downtime. So I flipped open a Pottery Barn catalog that somehow made its way into my purse. I normally go straight to the trash can with such items lest our credit card inflate itself.

And I fell in love.

Isn’t it pretty?

The thing about PB stuff – at least a lot of it – is that many of the items can easily be made. As a quilter… err… umm… former quilter, I looked at this and said “easy peasy”.

I started quilting back about 1997. I did a quilt completely by hand and backed it with a sheet. Mostly just to say I could do it. Then I bought a book of quilting patterns. Then I bought a nice sewing machine since I was nowhere near my mom and her sewing machine anymore and started quilting with a vengeance. I made wall hanging quilts, I made a large queen sized quilt that became AB’s and my summer bed cover for years. Maybe even nearly a decade. I still have it but the poor thing has seen better days. It is worn in beautifully at this point, but a bit fragile for a bed that kids crawl onto. I made each of the kids quilts for their births.

Then reality hit. And the reason that I have the “I want” list above. Kids take up time. And my sewing machine went to the back of the closet and I started avoiding fabric stores at all costs. (That whole inflatable credit card thingy again.)

I want a new quilt. I could never spend the $250 on that quilt because I look at it and see how so very easy it would be to make that quilt.

Think I can do it in three weekends?

Ready… set… GO!

Design major?

I am not a decorator. I loved art classes through high school and when I meet up with people who only knew me in high school, they typically speaking put me with the art crowd… not the science crowd. I started out college as a double major – biology and art. I dropped the art major deciding that I could do art anytime I wanted, what was more important was that I had a good paying job (and art wasn’t it). Soon after I switched from bio to chem.

Given that I liked art so much you might think that my home looks like a designer magazine.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

I suffer in the design department. Badly.

On houses in general…
When AB and I house shopped for both houses we toyed with the notion of “fixer uppers”. I envy people who can do that. Who can come up with neat layouts and see options in houses that need an upgrade. Who don’t mind flipping through tile after tile and carpet books and can make decisions on granite versus… well versus whatever the countertop of the minute is. We have dreamed about renovating a house and then we laugh. Our weekends are almost always full so doing it ourselves is out of the question and neither of us likes dealing with contractors. Flipping houses? Not for us.

On knick knacks…
Does it surprise you if I say that I am not into knick knacks? I don’t like things that collect dust. I don’t mind clutter and you will find clutter in my house. But something that is purposefully left out to collect dust? Doesn’t work for me. I don’t have shelves with things on them save for my china cabinet and hutch. When I do have a shelf, I am never quite sure what to put on it. I have a cute corner shelf in my entryway… no idea what I am supposed to put on it. Seriously. The cat likes to sleep on the bottom shelf and so it is half filled with a framed photograph, a wooden carved bird my dad sent me and a candle, then the bottom two shelves serve as a cat bed.

My hutch I love. My mom bought it for me one Christmas and I walked past it at Ennis a few times before AB pointed it out. I sat there and looked at it, not so sure about it. It wasn’t what I was envisioning. (Wasn’t even sure what I was envisioning.) But I liked the two tone black and wood. And functionality was there. It could hold my very few pieces of crystal and serving ware. Once it was in my home, it was perfect and now holds more china and crystal than I ever expected it would.

Speaking of those crystal pieces… during the trek to Colorado, and then Wyoming, in July I returned with luggage and to wait for about 8 boxes I shipped to myself. In the stacks of stuff are a few pieces of crystal from my grandmother’s house and some knick knack type things from my mom’s house. For as neat and tidy as my mom’s house was, they have a number of knick knacks. A few of those things spoke to me and I returned with things that I would deem to be knick knacks. Thus, I have been completely perplexed what to do with them. The crystal, notsomuch. It goes in my hutch. My mom’s five little pie birds? Well they belong out somewhere, not in a cupboard. Where… I haven’t quite figured out.

Knick knack type things perplex me.

On painting…
If you know me, then you also know that I love painting walls. This is my idea of decorating. I wasn’t always this way. My mom enjoyed painting when they bought a home after I graduated from high school. I didn’t always care for my mom’s color selection and techniques. So when we bought our first home I shy’d away from color. Then one boring weekend BC (before children) I painted a bathroom green. Before I knew it I was hooked and had an orange kitchen. Not everyone liked my orange kitchen… which is fine.

AB and I have taken a bit more conservative approach with painting in the new house. One problem we had in the other house was a lack of cohesiveness with color. We want to avoid that this time around and have taken loads more time to decide on colors than we ever did before. I had to have a colored wall to put my black and white photos on and so that was one of the first things we did. A deep green… that now doesn’t sit nearly as well with me as it did a year ago. Then we jumped to the kids’ rooms and I let my mom’s painting influence take over. The kids rooms include colors like black and pepto bismol pink.

Now I am faced with the dining room.

Amazingly AB and I are on the same page in the dining room. We don’t really argue over decorating much (because we don’t decorate much). But we don’t always see eye to eye on what should be done and IMO, my husband likes to be too involved somedays. Though fickle me… I want to make all the decisions, but don’t want to do all the work.

The July goal is nearly done, we have selected the color for the dining room – a slate grey blue color. Actually we have a few selections in this color scheme, but haven’t honed in on a color as the light is so bad in the dining room that we fear making a decision before changing out the chandelier. Taking things one step at a time… the August goal is looking like it will be a new chandelier followed by paint.

On art…

This is where I get really, really picky. I have an interior designer friend who really enjoys finding art to fit a space, but her husband drives her nuts. He believes that a piece of art on the wall should mean something, i.e., come from a vacation or have a story with it.

I agree with her husband.

We have a few prints by one of AB’s closest friends’ dad. They are in our favored contemporary style, are by someone we know and even better are personalized. We love our paintings.

And I like photographs that I (or someone else) has taken of subjects that I know. Namely, my kids. I have photos of my kids all over the house. For a long time they were professional photos that I paid an arm and a leg for after sitting in a studio with whiney kids. More lately, they have become photos that I have taken of the kids and then have processed professionally. I emulate my sister in law a lot. Even lately with family photos? The best ones are proving to be ones that our friends or family take and thus no whiney children in studios.

At the Colorado Renaissance Festival AB found a piece of art he loved and thought would work fabulously in our newly decorated dining room, but failed to get me back to see. This has created an unfortunate circumstance whereby he really, really wants the piece he found, but has no way to get it and furthermore, cannot find anything similar.

The challenges ahead…

Melding the treasures I found at my grandmother’s house, the items I took from my mother’s house and my design / décor together. We are talking three very different styles here – my grandmother’s antiques, my mother’s traditional styling and my contemporary stylings. Melding these three together is proving to be an interesting challenge.

Chandelier, oh chandelier, why must you be so ugly? Yes, replacing the chandelier in the formal dining room is a must. Soon. AB and I like this:
Once the chandelier goes then so does the matching window treatments and non-matching hardware. Window treatments. Yeah, I haven’t even gone there yet. Window treatments I will tackle AFTER the new chandelier and paint.

I wish I could say goodbye to the grey carpet that has seen better days, but that will still be awhile.

And my neverending battle with clutter.