You may have noticed the conspicuous omission of The Child’s room here.  I guess there may have been (not so) veiled references to the Bermuda Triangle that was my daughter’s domicile, but I’m pretty sure I never horrified you with a visual of the carnage.

There was very good reason for the omission…  you will thank me later.

Her room in San Francisco started off with two major strikes against it:  it was impossibly small; and the only window did not look outside, but upon the kitchen (yeah, don’t ask – I have no idea why either).  I tried to be very creative in my space planning.  I got her a loft bed and put a desk underneath.  Her dresser was tucked in an awkward nook.  I made every possible attempt to preserve as much floor space as possible.

My efforts were in vain.

The third, and quite possibly largest, strike against her room in SF was that I really tried to let it be “her space”.  I didn’t want to nag about keeping it clean – hoping that she would also want to have as much space as possible by making efforts at tidiness.  No dice.  On at least 4 different occasions I took everything out of her room (overfilling the livingroom), and put it all back neat and orderly-like with “fool proof” organization systems. 

The day The Child started packing to move, THIS is what her hovel room looked like.  Yeah, I warned you…  Honestly, it’s so dark in there because the drifts of detritus eclipsed all light sources.  Honest.

So once all of our stuff landed in Sebastopol, one of my first priorities was to create a new and beautiful room that was exceedingly realistic for a 10 year old to keep clean.  I wanted lots of open space, a lot less crap, and the threat of great bodily harm whatever is out of place going in the garbage can if she goes to bed even once with a messy room.

This is the result…

She LOVES it.  It needs curtains and an area rug, but it’s darn close.  In fact, she’s been living in it for 2 weeks straight and I didn’t move a thing to take these pictures.  This is exactly how she left it.

Since ABSOLUTE PERFECTION was achieved in our apartment *ahem* it’s about time to start this crazy train all over again!

The girly fabu-palace has packed up and left San Francisco!  Since I have a new HOUSE that will be suffering benefitting from my love of decorating I thought it’d be a good idea to kick back on with the online ramblings.  I am sure you have all been living utterly joyless lives without being able to laugh at my misguided attempts at making pretty!  So I am back, to relieve you of the drudgery that is your daily lives

I should probably redo the ole masthead since we’re no longer in The Avenues and start taking pics of the jumping off points.  We actually moved in with one of my friends from waaaaay back so we are adding to it the joy of combining two households.  It’s like getting married without the benefits of snuggling and health insurance – yay!  I kid, I kid.  Haley and I are so lucky because not only do we get to share in a HOUSE but we’ve also got a fair amount of land to play on, too.

So my lovelies, with this I endeavor to post something every day or two… so I better get cracking!

* formerly known as our garden…

My poor garden is long-suffering.  It goes through periods of total neglect, being used as a paint/workshop, or is the victim of my less than expert attention.  Last week when attempting to dig up a science project I realized the dire situation that had bloomed back there.

Weeds!  Giant killer weeds!!  And they were taking no prisoners!  It’s shocking how they can grow on top of  brick!

There were at least a thousand chores I didn’t want to do so I decided to head outside and slay some weeds.  A little bit of effort yielded a BIG sense of accomplishment – and a big sense of dread at the enormity of the task at hand.

It ultimately took 3 hours to weed my tiny little garden - and I filled the curbside composting bin TWICE.  As you can see, there’s not actually a lot of dirt back there… it’s mostly brick.

Oh… and while I was pulling weeds like a mad woman, what was The Child doing?  Uh, she “helped”.  Who doesn’t need a gigantic hole in the garden?  I really can’t tell you just how helpful it is to hear “LOOK NOW!” with every shovelful extracted!  The annoyance pride shone across my face as I reminded myself that there were many other ways she could have “helped” that would have been far less helpful

 So today – in honor of the first day of spring – we prettied up the clean, weed-free dirt with some actual pretty and EDIBLE things! 

Red-leaf and Meyers lettuce, two kinds of tomatoes (at least one is fog-tolerant – we’ve had them 3 other summers), sugar snap peas, and catnip for the Hairy Beast.  The tall, green-thumbed super salesman at Sloat Garden Center assured us that all of these things would survive the total lack of unclouded sun, cool weather and questionable soil that graces our neighborhood.  Riiiiiiight.  We’ll see about that.

We put some major COLOR!!! along the far wall to brighten up the view from the livingroom.  I’ll be happy if the Forsythia survives… because it’s so bright and grows quite large, and also because it’s my namesake

Last week The Child’s school had their “Family Projects Fair” (aka school science fair).  I had weeks to prepare, but kept putting it off due to a number of flim-flam excuses. 

We searched on-line and found a fairly easy cool project where you took soil samples and extracted the little creatures that lived therein.  It was a good excuse for a trip to the hardware store where The Child was not kicking and screaming for once The directions were pretty straight forward and we had high hopes on producing something that made us look like one of those smart, involved families – yet was not just another baking soda volcano. 

The result?  Epic fail.  Apparently either our dirt is mite and nematode-free – or our scientific methods were seriously lacking.  (I’m putting my money on the latter.)  So as we’re waiting in line at Walgreen’s, contemplating our impending failure, I bemoan why we didn’t just do something “simple” like an illustration of the tidal zones….

EUREKA!  That was it!  All we had to do was get some construction paper, some pens, and – WOW! – lookie there!  Blo-pens are even on sale!  Ring it up!  This will be easy.

HA! 

Famous. 

Last. 

Words.

In an unprecedented cooperative effort, we got A LOT done in the 2.5 hours before Haley went to bed (yes, the night before it was due).  I tucked her in to bed thinking that I would just do the finishing touches and it would be done in another hour or two. 

I’m sure you can guess what happened next…  When I woke her up at 7a the following morning I had just started picking up some of the 10,000,000 little scraps of paper littering the entire living room.  Yes, I stayed up all night working on that bastard.  You would not believe how long it takes to cut out anemones, urchins, free-hand crabs and sea lettuce.  (Having a printer sure would have been a time-saver.  Ugh.)  I even channelled my inner UmberDove and painted (becuase cutting and glueing and measuring and drawing weren’t stressful enough… I needed to add paint to my perfectionist-A.R. insanity)!

I was pretty pleased with the result and sent Haley off to school with it.  Thankfully my life of leisure allowed me to crawl in to bed until it was time to go to the evening festivities.  Much to my surprise (and shock and dismay and – dare I say – delight) our project was the subject of much praise!  Haley’s 3rd grade teacher even asked if they could keep it to use during the upcoming Water Week at school!

So, now I’m officially one of those parents that stays up all night doing science projects.  *sigh*

This last weekend we went on the annual Christ Church Lutheran ski trip.  It’s one of many reasons our church rules.  You’d be hard pressed to find a better bunch of folks – and you’d be hard pressed to find better snow conditions than we had this weekend!

We rented an amazing house in Tahoe City (thanks for finding it, Lois Anne!) where the kids played, we ate like kings, and the grown-ups killed many bottles of fine wine

We went to Squaw Valley on Saturday.  Haley took a lesson in the morning while I had some time on my own with Elizabeth and Annie (my current favorite teenager).  At various times we spent time on the hill with everyone in our party – quite a feat!

It was soooo much fun, but now I am equally sore

If you did… awwwww *hugs*.  If you didn’t, humor me for I am piteously unemployed

I have been alternating between doing nothing, and doing LOTS AND LOTS of stuff.  Through it all the computer has not been my friend, hence my absence.  Whilst not entertaining you, Dear Reader, I have had some adventures!

True to my previously stated intentions I have been spending a lot – a lot- of time at The Child’s school.  I have been on a field trip (who knew HIV/AIDS age-appropriate education could be so entertaining when set to music?) and worked in her classroom 4 days.  And I didn’t just “help” by making copies and organizing the art supplies.  Noooo…  I led “Centers” where I (me!) was in charge of getting a bunch of bright but unruly 9 and 10 year olds to get work done.  Now, if you are privy to our adventures in homework completion on a daily basis you will be suitably shocked by this.  The reward for hours of gritting my teeth and stifling untold amounts of profanity?  Learning that there are children who make Haley look like Princess Focus, heir to the kingdom of Productivity.

My trip to Colorado and Utah was the perfect antidote to Big City dramz.  We hiked a lot.  I got to breathe fresh air, share serene silence with a good friend and no one else (the benefit of visiting national parks in the off-season), and contemplate my navel.  Actually, I contemplated all kinds of heavy shit, but I haven’t yet sorted it all out in my head so I’ll spare you. 

I was also reminded how much I like to have adult conversations.  Work-life isn’t to conducive to deep thoughts, and this last month I’ve been socializing almost exclusively with 4th and 5th graders.  Yes indeed, it was lovely to engage in some intellectual calisthenics.

I flew in to Grand Junction, Colorado, where my friend Tim lives.  We went straight from the airport to Moab, UT.  God clearly was in full support of this trip because the weather was gorgeous – bright sun and chilly with a bit of clouds bearing snow flurries.  Pristine patches of blinding white against the richly colored landscape was almost too good to be true.

We started – and ended – with Arches National Park.  Go there!  As soon as you can!  Go back if you’ve already been   It’s that amazing.

Due to a total idiot maneuver on my part I had to buy a new camera there – and it has this kick-ass panorama function!

We also went to Canyonlands National Park.  It’s like the Grand Canyon, but on steroids and a whole landscape of it!  It is more geological magic courtesy of the Colorado River.  Next summer I plan on taking Haley there to go on a rafting trip. 

I’ve also been poking around the house, doing some projects and making some messes.  I’m cleaning up more messes than I am making so it all works out!  I will work on getting over my aversion to the computer and hope to not be such a slacker-blogger.

xoxo

I am tidying up loose ends at work today… my last day will be a very brief one…  tomorrow!  After lunch with the office ladies I will be running home just in time to meet Rae Rae, pick up The Child, and go to Willits. 

*contented sigh*

I’ll be back next week, though, so dont’t you worry your pretty little heads.  Have a superduperfanfreakingtastic weekend!

Gee… I wonder… just what is the protocol for announcing new additions to my venerable link collection that hangs out over there in the right column?

Anybody?  Anybody?

While I’m awaiting my blog protocol briefing I’ll just say that I have been sneaking away little happy daydreams courtesy of the pics on Willits Daily Photo.  She keeps turning out snapshots of warm fuzzy places from my childhood:  riding horses in town, Frontier Days, the peely bark on a madrone tree.  *sigh*

I am so excited that Rae, Haley and I will be venturing north this weekend for a heavy dose of Sandi-branded Willits chill time

Watch out! I’m getting crafty-decoratey again! 

You thought your time of trial was over, didn’t you, Gentle Reader?  Well, you were wrong!  Steel yourself for a revival my of amateurish vision, insufficient preparation and failed execution!

Tonight’s unimpressive endeavor is a door mat!  This beaut was cobbled together from fraudulently ordered FLOR “samples”!  Did you know they will send you 6 tiles for free?  (Yes, the checker-ish looking ones are actually 4 smaller pieces that count as one large one.)

 I know you’re thinking “DAYUM that looks sweeet!”  But trust me, that thought is misguided.  Remember how I said you get six tiles for free?  Guess who only ordered five!?!

HALEY!!!

Ok, fine, it was me.  I only ordered 5 tiles and while it may look kinda totally impressive up there, in actuality it is tragically wee.  Should you feel wacky and attempt to use it for its intended purpose, be prepared to work some serious Geisha-style tippy toe steps.

Oy. 

Oh good jeebus… how did I miss the symbolism of this project?  A door mat?  Really?  A door mat??  I keep begging for someone to shoot me now – and hopefully some Brave Little Toaster will come forward and spare us all the terror and agony we all know is ahead.

This afternoon I noticed the cherry blossoms were tricked in to coming out early by this recent bout of sunshine.  Funny how they appear out of nowhere.  My garden is choked with a thick blanket of weeds – though they are lovely, lush and green at the moment.  I find it frustrating that every year I pull them all out, fertilize and try so plant something new; and every year I hope that something will finally take hold, grow thick, and choke out future weeds. 

Ever-hearty is a miniature yellow rose that was given to me 2 months after I moved in to this house – almost 5 years ago.  It was one of those little Easter flower things they sell at Safeway and was on death’s doorstep within a few days of my receiving it.  Cavalierly, I planted its almost dead carcass in a little spot in the garden.  I felt bad for (almost) killing it so quickly so I attempted to absolve my guilt by letting nature decide if it lived or died.  Despite often going months without water and usually being dwarfed by surrounding weeds, it survives.  If suffering my neglect it will bravely bear one small flower.  If I give it any love it busts out loads of blooms.

Today there are two little buds, about to open up and show their beautiful buttery yellow selves…  Awwww… such perseverance!

I hope I get some time this week to start some work in the garden.  Hopefully I will finally coax it towards its potential this year.  For such a little space it presents some serious challenges!

1. There is no direct sunlight.
2. Indirect sunlight is between 4-6 hours.
3. The soil is incredibly sandy.  I have amended it a number of times, but I really need to take some out in order to make room in the beds for better soil.  In order to do that I have to move dirt through my house as there is no access to the yard from the street.
4. Sandy soil = high surface tension = difficult to get water in to the soil to the plants.
5. I’m not a real fan of what would do well – succulents.

Any how… enough of my list-bitching.  I guess I’m happy to see some signs of life back there yet still felt the need for a small scale rant. 

I’ll try to post some Before pics this week.  That certainly worked wonders for getting my house in order!