Sunday, February 21, 2010

Peaceful

(Original artwork by Lil Sweetie)

Ordinarily, I'm all for going to church.  I think it is important on so many different levels.  But today, with a cold rain falling and everyone feeling slightly under-the-weather, we opted not to go. 

Instead, we puttered around the house in our jammies, doing chores, playing board games, and enjoying each other's company.  I had some soup going in the slow cooker, making the whole house smell wonderful and homey, the way my great-grandmother's house used to smell.  Lil Sweetie and I made cornbread.  It was a lovely, peaceful day.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Remodeling Update

The remodeling project from hell is dang near done.  It quite possibly would have been completed yesterday had we not had a pipe burst (completely unrelated to the remodel).  Thank God Uncle Dave, our friend and contractor was here.  He knew how to get the water to stop spewing and then he did a temporary fix on the thing.  Do you know how much it would have cost us to have a plumber come out on Sunday evening?  I shudder to think.  All Uncle Dave charged us was a couple of cookies!  Anyway, a closet was flooded so my decluttering goal got a jump start--I threw out a bunch of crap that I might have been tempted to hold on to otherwise...things aren't nearly so tempting when they are drippy.

Speaking of drippy, here's how we paid Uncle Dave for emergency plumbing services:



Our Valentine's cookies, like love itself, are imperfect and messy. 

The closet part of the remodel is done so I thought I would give you a peek-a-boo.  (This is not the closet that flooded, just so ya know.)  Here is a pic of the closet before the remodel:



Here is a pic taken during the remodel, looking from Lil Sweetie's room, through the closet, into the bathroom:



And here are some "after" pics of the closet:



That top shelf in the very top of the photo goes all the way around the closet.  You can't really tell, but the paint is a very light gray, called "Subtle Touch."  (I so want a job naming colors of things.  Wouldn't that be fun?  But I digress.)  Here's another view of the closet:



It's rather difficult to take exciting photos of a closet.  But it is a big improvement.  The closet went from a poorly designed regular ol' closet to a walk-in.  I lost the coin toss for the closet, but did win the consolation prize of one regular ol' closet for my clothes and another regular ol' closet for my crafts.  Everybody wins!

Here's another view of the closet:


But wait!  What can that be in the corner?  Let's take a closer look, shall we?



Well I'll be!  It's a sparkly-eyed brown-bellied munchkin!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Happy Valentine's Day!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Cookies and Baseball


Lil Sweetie likes to play with my iphone sometimes.  The other day, I found this series of text messages on it:

Lil Sweetie:  Mr Sweetie hi

Mr. Sweetie:  Hi baby!

LS:  What

MS:  How are u?

LS:  Good

MS:  Aren't the jonas brothers dumb?

LS:  No.

MS:  We should turn to baseball

LS:  What

MS:  Baseball!

LS:  I hate baseball

MS:  No, you love baseball

LS:  No

MS:  Yes, you love baseball

LS:  No

MS:  Yes, you love baseball

LS:  Yes

MS:  Yes

LS:  Cookies

MS:  Cookies and baseball

Sunday, February 7, 2010

A Topic for Discussion

I love quotes and collect them, but every once in a while, one gets under my skin and I just can't shake it.  This quote from Steven Soderbergh has been haunting me for months now:

"What tragedy has [art] kept from happening?  Tell that [that art makes the world a better place] to the 13-year-old girl from Somalia who got stoned to death last week after being raped by three men and then convicted of adultery, buried up to her head, and stoned in front of a crowd of 1,000 people.  If the collected works of Shakespeare can't keep that from happening, then what is it worth?  Honestly?"

What do you think?  Do you agree with Mr. Soderbergh?  I love the humility in that quote, but at the same time, I respectfully disagree.  I think we couldn't possibly bear to live in a world in which a 13-year-old girl is stoned to death, in which hundreds of thousands die in an earthquake, unless that world also included the collected works of Shakespeare and Mozart and Monet.  Somedays, it's only the collected works of Shakespeare that keeps us all from flinging ourselves head first out the nearest high window.

Your thoughts?