the final frontier.

I am a VERY decorative person by nature. I like to be surrounded by coordinating colors and cute knick-knacks... I love furniture, I love fabric, I love projects! We have now lived in this apartment for about a year and it occurred to me last week that Silas' room isn't the least bit decorated. It's just a mish mash of completely non-matching items, stuff hung on the walls haphazardly, bed never made... typical kid stuff. I decided to upgrade his room without taking away the kid element. I wanted it to still be his space, his refuge, his domain, but with an edge. So last weekend while he was at his dad's, I overhauled the place! For a look at what his room was like when we first moved in, check out the 3 photos close to end of this post.

My baby likes to insert himself in photos and pose. Wonder where he gets it...

The circles are just red construction paper, to tie in with the red stripes in the blanket I made for his bed. It's an Ikea duvet cover from a few years ago that I found at GoodWill for about $5.

Posing again... badass. I know this photo is too dark, but it was the closest I got to a full-room shot, so I kept it. The green things and the wall behind him is a mountain range he made out of construction paper a few weeks ago. There's a beaver, two campfires, and a cell phone tower involved... pretty awesome stuff.

Posing again... and looking slightly uncomfortable. What's up with that?

For this picture he wanted to appear to be working on a project... mission accomplished. That seat used to have an awful gray fabric on it, so I got a Pier One cloth napkin for 99 cents and fixed it up!

Smarmy little bugger... with that smirk. That blanket he's sitting on is the one I sewed from the duvet and based the entire room around. Hints of teal and red all over the place.

I adore that blue armchair. It was $12 at GoodWill and is in near pristine condition.

Silas loves the robot postcard on his light switch. He feels the need to point out to me daily that the way I cut it makes it look like the switch is the robots penis. Yes, thank you son. You're a model citizen.

I constructed a make-shift yarn and postcard bunting over his window... the robots used to just be taped above the window in a row... this is... not much different. But somehow better.

slow and steady wins the race.

We're almost done with our 4th week of homeschooling... It's been an interesting adventure so far. Halfway through that first week I sat down with Silas' teacher and principal and got some things taken care of. I didn't want him to go from full school days, 5 days a week, to never seeing any of the kids from his class, never seeing Peter, etc... so we worked out a plan. He attends the first 3 hours of the day Mon, Tue, Thur, & Fri. This is the class' literacy block where they read to eachother, do writing projects, work on grammar, spelling, editing, share their stories.... Sometimes a tiny bit of Math or Science is thrown in during this block, but not usually. No music, p.e., or art electives during this time frame (all that happens after lunch), so it's worked beautifully for Silas. He's with Peter the whole time, not some other teacher who's doing crowd control. There is one recess during those 3 hours, but him & Peter have worked it out so that he stays inside and reads or draws and has a snack. It's gone really well so far.

Our afternoons are relaxed and slow. We do a little bit of penmanship worksheets, history, and art appreciation. We read a lot and do random projects... still holding off on Math. I got all the books and I just need to figure out exactly where he is and what he already knows before we jump in. I also plan to add in some hands-on science and spelling, but am waiting until I can order the materials. Sometimes I worry that he isn't focusing, some days we skip school all together and just exist... and I worry he's not retaining anything we're doing. But then this morning he started rattling off stuff about the nomads during breakfast... and I just knew. He gets it. He's absorbing.

Score!

Last week I saw an ad on craigslist for a craft cabinet... in Sequim (half an hour away) for only $15. I just about screamed right then and there. I emailed the girl selling it to see if it was already spoken for... it was not. It is now mine. I picked it up last weekend while getting Silas from his dad's place. My original plan was to sand it and paint it bright yellow, but when I saw it in person, that just seemed like too large of an undertaking. Plus I wanted to get it set up right away and filled up with my supplies.

You see, I've never had a designated area for my sewing stuff. And even though I've been doing hand-sewing since I was about 4 years old, I've never done so much of it as I have these last 5 months since I openened my Etsy shop. I've never had this much fabric on hand, this many completed projects, this much motivation.

This thing is amazing. It's got a top and a bottom cabinet that screw together. The top has deep shelves in the middle and shallow shelves in the doors that have dowels installed to hold things in. The bottom has the deepest shelves, which I decided would be for my fabric. Before, all of my fabric had been shoved in that closet to the left of the kitchen. And when I say shoved, I mean it. Mostly stuffed into canvas bags, plastic bags, and random piles. Things were rarely ironed except right before using them. Nothing was folded, nothing was organized, and I always had a hard time finding certain pieces that I knew I had somewhere.

As you can see, I went back and forth a couple of times about where my spray paint would go. Once I figured out that my iron made the most sense on the bottom shelf, the spray paint had a permanent home up top.

I've only had this thing a few days, and it's only been filled with supplies since Monday afternoon when I finished organizing, but I already practically LIVE at that fold-out counter.

I used to sew at the computer desk, in my green chair, at the kitchen table. My supplies were always strewn all over the apartment, impossible to round up what I needed when I needed it. It feels amazing to have a home for things.

Those apples on the front of it were a hard sell for me. I thought they looked hokey when I first picked it up... but then I painted them sunshine yellow and they were instantly awesome. That's the color I originally planned to paint the whole thing. Now I'm contemplating a solid orangey-yellow or dark brown contact paper to cover it. It's durable, different, and easier than sanding and painting (in my opinion)... just measure, cut, apply. I can do that. Now if only I could get over my intimidated fear of sewing patterns.

Pernilla... how I love thee, let me count the ways.

Our story begins with my favorite piece of furniture on this earth: my grandmother's ottoman. Growing up, this was where I sat at her house. It was positioned right in front of a fireplace no one ever used, right in the bright natural light of 2 corner windows that overlooked 49th street & the puget sound, respectively. It was the best place to read a book, stretch out backwards and look at the world upside down, and curl up for a nap...

Then I grew up. Grandma started showing signs of Alzheimer's and dimensia and had to move in with my parents. This was the same year I got married. My mom, knowing I'd always loved this ottoman so much, let me take it with me when I moved out and started what I thought was going to be my adult life. Unfortunately, I spent several years stunted beyond belief in a suffocating relationship with an incompetent child as a partner. Even more unfortunately, he was so careless with nice things that he left my beloved leather ottoman pushed up against a heater once when I was out of the apartment. I noticed the smell when I returned and completely flipped out. He didn't see what the big deal was. We'd just turn that side towards the wall when people came over, he suggested. This ottoman has more backstory and sentimental value than just belonging to Dorothy: this was a mother's day gift to her from my father in 1963. He was 15 and had worked at a small furniture store until he'd saved up enough money to buy it for her. This is a part of my family.

In May of 2004 we moved to a small duplex in Sequim where we were finally able to have pets, so we got a tiny gray kitten named Fred. I tried to train him not scratch things, did the silly spray bottle thing and everything. I should have put the ottoman away, but the damage was done. He didn't scratch much, but just enough that I was ashamed to have let Dorothy's ottoman fall into such disarray. That summer my exhusband arranged for his cat to come to Washington to live with us. This cat had been his since he was 14 or 15, but had been with his family in the midwest since we'd lived in places where he couldn't be with us. Almost immediately after he arrived, he got a ridiculous case of fleas. I didn't let him go on the furniture, but I know that when I wasn't home, James let him. There'd be blood and dead fleas and little bits of dried kitty skin on every chair, couch, and yes... on my ottoman. I don't blame the cat. So it goes...

April of last year my grandmother finally passed away after almost 10 years of living in an alzheimer's care facility. I miss her. She's the person I'm most like in my family. I really don't understand most of my family, but I understood Dorothy. At her memorial I said that some people have their mother's eyes or their father's nose, but I have my grandma's crazy. And that's a good thing. Everybody describes her as this god-fearing woman, blah, blah, blah... but the Dorothy I remember was erratic, passionate, frustrating, wonderful, and held principles I more closely associate with humanism. She was kind and really cared about people, but not out of some sense of religious duty... out of her heart. She was demanding and frivilous and amazing... I miss her. After she was gone, I knew I needed to do her ottoman justice and restore it to something to be proud of. I can't afford to have the leather re-done... and the actual value of the ottoman wouldn't warrant the expense. It's value is 100% sentimental. I'd always been on the lookout for a good, sturdy, cheap fabric to sew a new cover for it... This last Thursday I found just the fabric. 2 1/2 yards of Ikea Pernilla fabric at GoodWill for only $7!!

So I cut out rectangular panels to sew together to go around the side and a large round piece to go on the top.

And here she is!

I'm so ridiculously happy with the results. I feel like I can have this in my living room and be proud of it again, and be proud of the fact that it belonged to Dorothy. I hope I've given her memory some more pride... I don't have to feel guilty anymore..... Now I just need to replace my couch so my living room isn't so wildly mismatched. Heh.

It's been a hectic week...

...and I haven't felt like posting. I've been wiped out frankly.

• My best friend from highschool, who I've recently gotten back in contact with, is pregnant. Silas and I will be visiting her the last weekend in June (she's due mid to late July). She just found out last week that she's having a boy!! So I have been completely neglecting my Etsy shop to work on a quilt for little Torsten Thomas Crawford!! I didn't want to reinforce antiquated gender stereotypes by making a blanket in traditional "boy" colors... plus Lexi is kind of unconventional (a lot of why we've always gotten along and why we are having such an easy time reconnecting), so I went with yellow, orange, and slate gray.

I cut out all the squares first, ignore the teal green edges... just tracing marks.

Here’s four rows done. I’m actually completely done with the quilted side now. I just can’t be arsed to take another picture until the WHOLE thing is done. I did nine rows of nine squares each, though it’s not exactly square, since each piece was technically a rectangle (barely). Now I just need to a border, sew the slate gray fleece onto the other side, and then do the little yarn knobbies to keep the whole thing solid.

• I think I've finally found my body's natural setpoint. Three months ago I got weighed for the first time since I'd started practicing HAES, and was a little taken aback to see my weight close to the highest it's ever been. I wasn't the least bit upset, but was just a bit jarred by seeing the actual number. I wasn't sure if it was because my early experience with FA and HAES has been a bit rebellious. Once I was free of disordered eating, dieting, and the desire to lose weight, I went through a brief period where I gave myself permission to eat crap ALL the time and NEVER exercise. It was so freeing to have that choice, and I went a little overboard. So I wasn't sure if at that point, that number was MY official number, or if it would change. Now that I'm in a groove where I take total and complete care of my mind, body, and well-being in general, I'm happy to say that I've leveled off and stopped yo-yo-ing!!! I had an appointment on Friday to renew by BC and my weight was one pound less than 3 months ago. I haven't changed. I haven't gone up and down and up and down. My clothes nolonger feel baggy then loose, foreign to my always changing body. This is truly a revelation to me. Not only that, but I have lowered my BP from 140/90 to 110/70 without losing any weight. This baffled the nurse. I told her I was taking care of myself, and had managed to reduce my stress by quite a bit.