The Week So Far

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You know how sometimes you just need to get away? A freezing cold, silent hotel room or a day at the beach without any children...

Over the weekend, a relative said something really hurtful about my house. It's taken me this long to accept that the individual was trying to be ugly, not stating a true fact about my house. My house is fairly tidy. Not pinterest clean, not pinterest decorated. But for no budget, it looks pretty good. And for housing two tiny wild creatures, it's pretty damn tidy. 

I vacuum and sweep every day and mop, like, once a week! We always have three square meals, 98% of which are planned and made by yours truly. And we always have clean clothes. So there. 

So that happened over the weekend and then today I found out that a really essential graphic design class has been indefinitely cancelled. A class I was registered to take this Fall. Now I have to find another class to make up my hours when that was the last thing I needed. So for years to come, I will have to live with the knowledge that rather than paying off debt for a useful, much needed class, I'm paying off a superfluous waste of time. 

I'm trying to find a way to turn this around, but it hasn't come to me yet. 

It will.

...   ...   ...   ...   ...

I guess the graphic above could be misleading. The relative wasn't my mama. Or my husband. Or anyone in my own immediate family. 

Home

I started to feel really hemmed in recently. Most days, I am in our house all day with both kids because we have just the one car that James takes to work. There are so many huge things going on in the world from Snowden to Istanbul to DOMA and Wendy. But it's all I can do to get these children fed and exercised and most days even that is a struggle. Things have been hard with Bea.

But I don't want to feel hemmed in. This life is my choice and I need to just make the best of it for what it is now. This too shall pass. Every time we go to anywhere, people tell me to "enjoy them while they are young because they grow up so fast." I just smile.

Anyway, while we were stuck here this week, I finally moved in!

We've been here well over a year now, yet our living room walls were bare and our sofa had no pillows. Recently new neighbor stopped by and she asked if we just moved in. Yeah, it was bad.

The first thing I did was cover this chair. We call it the Hudson Chair because Hudson's the one who pulled it out a dumpster back when we lived in Charleston. The seat and back have stains and holes, but these cushions cover them right up:

Then I put some art on the walls. It is all either by myownself or people we know:

Then I covered every pillow I could find with fabric I had lying around, re-arranged some chairs, hung up more art and brought in some plants!

I made a special corner for the kids. It is for when they get too mad to participate in family life and need to cool down. It has books. So far Amby hasn't had to sit there, but Bea spends a lot of time in it!

Rain Break

The weekend was completely gross. It never stopped raining and –if the weather report is to be trusted– we still won't have a sunny day until next Monday! Can I just say something right now? It is hard to be an inside-Mama. It is hard to be cooped up with rambunctious preschoolers for any amount of time, but for an entire weekend? Wow.

It is ridiculous to even think about going out anywhere with kids in the rain. So we stayed here. We made tents and messes and fought and cuddled and read and watched movies and we didn't eat pancakes because I forgot to get butter at the store.

If it is going to be like this all week, I'll probably have My Father's Dragon memorized, my kids will know math (we've been playing number games with black beans), there will be an eternal Thomas ban in our household and I will need a major vacation.

Also, if we're cooped up all week, I will hopefully finish my first Summer class and dive into the next one!

Next Door

I love my neighborhood. It is quiet and shady. There are some families with young kids (like us!), but it is mostly older folks, retirees. One family has a pool and they let neighbors swim in it. The lady across the street works in her yard a lot.

I love our house because it is old and full of hardwood floors and charm and big, open rooms. Likewise, the yard is open and flat. Perfect for gardening.

But there's another thing I love about where I live: the house next door. Well, I haven't been in it, so I can't say I love that part, but if it's anything like ours I would.

It's the yard that has me captivated. It is magical. All green and lush and full of soft grass, moss, vines and flowers. I went out there like a creeper and took pictures of it. Mostly over our fence.

It is all enclosed by bushes and trees so that it's like a secret garden.

There are bushes and flowers growing wildly along the front.

Roots like what one might find in the Shire.

Azaleas and moss and clover along the side that touches our driveway. 

There is a nice deck on the back of the house.

Magical, right? That hydrangea bush in the first picture inspired one of my pop songs, "I'm So Jealous of Your Bush." It is amazingly full in summer. Huge blue blossoms.

Anyway, I don't know how this is possible, but the house is vacant. No one has lived there for years! The lights are on and it is climate controlled to preserve it during the disuse.

But now it's for sale.

I hope that someone lovely moves in someday. I hope it is someone who appreciates the grounds!

Home and Garden

If you thought that last post was boring, get a load of this. Here are some images of my house. It is clean. You may also see the view out my kitchen window below.

The First Best Day

a tired, messy child

Yesterday was the most beautiful day of 2013 yet here in SC. I spent a good a part of the morning wrapping my stuff for the student art sale. Then we all went out.

We went to Pita House, which for all you non-locals is everybody's favorite middle eastern restaurant and grocery. We stocked up on some essentials then headed to the park. Am made a friend while Bea and I dug a pretty good hole on the soccer field. (By the soccer field!) James went off and got our produce while we played.

When the kids were thoroughly worn out, we came home and put 'em down for naps. Homework, etc.

And then it was time for dinner.

Dinner was a three hour period of cooking, eating, repeating. I fried up some corn tortillas into taco shells while James got everything else ready. I made a shit-ton of sopapillas that were gone before they got to the table!

After dinner, we took our messy, sticky kids into the backyard for a bonfire. Bea and Am played in the treehouse while James cut firewood and I kept the fire going. Oh, summer, get here already!

When the sun went down, we came in for baths, storytime (The Lorax) and bed. For the kids anyway. I still had hours of research for a speech I'm writing on nuclear energy and James practiced songs for an upcoming show. I oughta do that too. :)

Home Again

I'm back from California! I got back Sunday night, but have been so confused with all that time changing. It's good to be back in the South, back with James and these babies.

I learned so much and gained so much in just one week that it's pretty overwhelming. But s'tch-k because I took mad notes. The entire time. I wrote down everything, even my meals. Well, almost everything. Let's not get boring with our descriptions, right?

My homesickness was only kept at bay by the intense camp schedule and powerful winds of Castaic. It's a really beautiful place and I'll show you pictures later if you want. In fact, I think I will show you pictures over the next few days and tell you a lot about what I learned and how it inspires me.

Here's what I came home to:

Here's what else I came home to: a clean house, a bunch of sweet letters from James, an organized studio, an unrelenting amount of homework and the first Darger Pop show in years on the books for April 19th!

Loving Where I Live

As much as I have always wanted to travel and see the world, as much as I have complained over the years about not fitting in in the Bible Belt where I was born and raised, as much as it bothers me to live in the fourth most paved state, I really love where I live! For once, finally, I love where I live.

I live in a part of Greenville, SC called Berea. Greenville has all these different areas and each one has its own defining characteristics. Berea is known for being run down and, I'll just say it, trashy. Much of the population lives below the poverty line. (The median income is $29,137 for males and $21,849 for females.) A year ago when I told folks we were moving deeper into Berea, they made faces, like, are you crazy? Has your family fallen on hard times?

In the past decade or so, there has been a great influx of latinos to this area. I, for one, am thrilled with the resulting bursts of culture. Previously brown, brick, rotting strip malls have been given new life to the tune of orange, teal, pink and yellow paint. Houses have been painted thusly, too! At night, the streets come alive with taco stands and clubs like Caliente and Mexicali. You don't even have to spend money to participate in the night life: folks set up tents and awnings with tables and chairs underneath and just hang out there, in otherwise vacant parking lots.

What I like most about where I live is how friendly people are and how safe I feel. I go to the store late at night and all the faces are familiar. I am starting to know people by name from Harry's Convenience and Liquor Store to the Quick Stop Garden Spot Grocery to Wilson's Five and Dime to, yes, Pizza and Then Some.

Once I get a little more comfortable with photography and people skills, I want to go around the area and photograph locals. I want to show you Wayne, the old man who bags groceries up the street and walks to Harry's after his shift. I want to show you Little Harry who is very proud of his tiny liquor store. I want to show you the divas at Wendy's and the rosy-cheeked boys who make our pizza. There are so many interesting characters! Just you wait.

Room Tour :: Ambrose's Nursery

Just because I'm showing it, doesn't mean it's done. This room needs some help here and there, but it is already very sweet and quite inviting. The whole wall next to his bed is huge and empty, begging for a mural or quirky wallpaper. 

When James was a kid, he had this room and it was all jungle themed. I may have to go through some albums from his childhood to get inspiration...

Around the House

This week was a long, stay-at-home week for me. There was a lot of chasing. Our new house has one of those loops, you know, kitchen-dining room-living room-kitchen. It's perfect for chasing. We had one when I was a kid and we played Velociraptors until Mama just about screamed. And I don't blame her. I may or may not have raised my voice on a number of occasions this week. But if I did, it was only to be heard above the fray. 

I have the living room decorated with pretty, colorful things and old cameras and globes. It won't be like this for long. As soon as we put Bea's furniture in her room, those decorations will be hers, other than the cameras. Then, my living room will be bare and I will go thrifting. 

Check out Amby's hair. Everyone thinks he is a girl and I am tempted to cut it. But it's too soft. 

This coming week, I am looking forward to more home days. (My car is broken down: transmission.) We will have lots of drawing, reading, writing and piano lessons, I will read Go Dog Go and Fox in Socks at least one hundred times each, I will make some good meals and I will also give the Wendy's up the street at least some of my husband's hard earned money. 

Oh, and I am having another party. 

Housewife/Housedress

reading lessons

Bible verses

dance sessions

laundry

meal planning

diaper changing

potty training

naps