I have decided that it is not God’s will for me to have a clean house.  Part of that is my fault.  Who allowed a Bunny into the roost, and even encouraged the idea?  Right.  And who willingly succumbed to 4 pregnancies, knowing that upon birth I would welcome another critter who joyfully upside-down’s my home?

Right.  It was me.  It is me. I chose this life- this rich and messy life!

Will is the latest tornado to strike.  He is never happier than when I naively leave a drawer open. 

Caught red-handed

Sometimes in the utter excitment of putting away laundry, I leave a drawer or closet door cracked.  And then the turbulent wind of Will crawling at break-neck speeds alerts me to the fact that he has noticed.  Darn it.  He has noticed my mistake.

And he has found a place called home.  Emptying the diaper-drawer is a new favorite.  Stacks after stack of Pampers tossed around makes him feel very proud and fulfilled. 

Project 101

 I like to imagine him an intrepeneur- engaged in thinking outside the box.  How can I make something of these pieces?  But the naked truth is: I just have another boy on my hands. 

He smiles at me.  “Look Mom.  See what I have accomplished in your honor.  Cheers!”

Then he crawls off, quick and sneaky-like, looking for his next project.  Only his projects always require disassembly, instead of the usual assembly.

Off to the next thing!

His room is almost complete- minus a few cosmetic changes to make still.   I took a few photos of his new room.  Our closet as it was, is no more.  We switched all kinds of storage around, and have a system going now that works well for our shoes and clothing.

View from the Bathroom

But I was too lazy to really make it look spiffy. 

My dresser from childhood

 Lots of color.

Corner where wire shelving used to be

Lots of books.

Old Office Mail Sorter for his books

Every morning, Will greets the day by swatting this wooden toy Pat brought home from Italy years go.

Dangling toy-of-joy

I found these plastic crates by the side of the road:), and numbered lables for them.  Our shoes are stored in here.

Crates for Storage

After a day of destruction, sleep is needed!

Good-night, Mess-Maker!

Got my 8 year-old’s room more grown-up for her while she was out of town.

I do not prefer pink.  So we went a different direction.

I LOVE her art-work.

I LOVE this glass-globe lamp.

I LOVE this fabric I found at Goodwill…that is now a valance.

And used it to cover her ottoman as well.

I LOVE having a place to hang her creative hat.

I LOVE that she collects vintage purses, just because they are funky.

I LOVE my sweet girl.

Much of my time the last few days has been spent in our master-closet.  As a result, I am sniffling and sneezing, as my house-keeping skills are not best displayed through the out-of-the-way areas of our home.  Closets are a case in point.  Yuck.

Pat has been carefully removing shelving, patching holes and trimming walls.  He prefers for me to stay away from the trim- “You don’t care enough about getting it right.  You are in a hurry”.  My entire life I hurry.  It is hard to slow down- what does that look like anymore?  But I admit, he does better than me.  He has his Dad’s genes to thank for this.

 I am constantly in awe of how my perfectionism about needless detail can be so consuming in certain areas, but then completely falls away in the face of things like trim.  I really don’t care.  Just throw it up there and be done.  DO NOT CARE.  I guess that’s his point.

Pat ordered a camera lens.  One he has wanted for a long, long time.  Camera-equipment is an investment in his eyes.  It keeps in great detail the record of our lives.  Some people scrap-book, and this is what we do to solidify these early family years.  I had a brief conversation with Emma’s pre-school teacher about photography- she loves it- and we were the thankful recipients of Ms. Wendy’s click-clicking.  She took an entire album of photos of each child, which was sent home at year’s end.  Memories.

Lenses transform photos.  What looks dull-ish and grey is picked up with incredible detail and pigment through a good lens.  I hope to learn this camera.  It is an amazing tool.

Will’s room is near-completion.  I cannot wait for the Baby to have his own space.

Just in time to re-arrange kid-spaces, I found this Pottery Barn farm-house table for Josh’s room.  I have been on the look-out for almost 6 months, so this was a special find.  And for $10, a steal.  The chairs were thrifted for $2. 

I have enjoyed the challenge of taking our dusty closet in a tucked-away part of the house, and making it into something colorful, vibrant and fun for Will.  He is 4th-born, but that shouldn’t prevent him from having a stab at a little piece in a place of his own.

I have been working on Anna’s room here and there for some time now.  She desperately needed space from rambunctious little Emma….and so their twin-beds-room was given over to her sister.  We regularly use our guest room and were hesitant to give it up.  She promised to “share” her space with visitors if we moved her in, and she has held up her end of the bargain beautifully.

Although, the unedited reality is that she’ll say things like: “Mom, please.  I’ll do anything.  Just don’t make me share a room with Emma!  I’ll sleep on the floor.  With Josh….!”

I finally covered her memory board in fabric and hung it up.  The frame was left-over from another smashing good-time at our house- get it?  smashing?

The desk was given to us by a neighbor moving out-of-state.  She refused to take money for it, so I paid her back in Starbucks money- which in my world, is as good as cash.  I sanded and painted it red.

It is a necessary function to have a matching purse for each and every occasion:).  The monogrammed purse was a serendipitous find at a thrift store.  What are the chances the initials would match up?

This stitched canvas from a yard sale: from Urban Outfitters, price- tag still hanging off.

All but one of these pillows came from various yard sales (We have a “sanitary” cycle on our Kenmore washer, which is a God-send).

Once or twice a year, a golf-course community near our home hosts a neighborhood yard sale.  I am always amazed with what I can find as families purge and clean.   I pack up the younger two with snacks, drinks and a movie….and we drive around for a little over and hour.  I keep a written list of what to look for, in order to not buy what is unnecessary, and also to help me focus as I peruse. 

I found this canopy for $2, and hid it from Anna until I could figure a time to hang it. (The light washing out the definition in this photo really, really bugs me.  I need to learn Pat’s 40D this summer.

She loves little spaces, so I collected various pillows and made her a reading corner.  Now, many evenings I go to tuck her in, she is sitting inside her gauzy world, nose in a book.

I love making my kids’ rooms special for them- representative of their interests and passions.  One of my favorite elements of being a Mom.

The hidden chaos hidden away in closets,and keeping on top of it.  “Let’s fold our clothes.  No dumping things on the floor.  Wet bathing-suits should be hanging up”…perhaps NOT my favorite Mom-task:).

Though most of round 2 will have to wait until Saturday when Pat is home and free for a few hours…

…Will’s room is looking more like a real room.

Real nurseries do not have camel-colored bath towels on the windows.  They do not have adult dress suits hanging on hangers beside the bed.  They do not have ladies’ suede boots strewn about the floor.

They do have fun art. 

Primitive Painting the Kids and I Made for Will

Puzzle Pieces

And beautiful toys.

Will's new love.

And a window to let in the light.

Closet - Some shelving still to come down!

They are created with love and time…out of love for the sweet little souls who live in them.

Here is where we are so far. 

Closet with Shelving Removed

 Getting there!  With a long way to go.  Remember: we are working in “Real-time”:).

**************

A great quote from a blog I adore:

“You have thousands of opportunities today to be offended.  Don’t take the opportunity”.

I go through cycles in my life.  Sometimes not one thing bothers, offends or hurts me.  I am impenetrable in my lack of concern for the opinions of others.  On the other side of the cycle everything stings.  I over-analyze and over-think and over-hurt.  God is the same closeness on both ends of the cycle.  He never goes anywhere.  His feelings toward us are constant and consistent.  I need to remember who I am before God when the “spin-cycle” of hurt is on.  Though I am thankfully not on the offensive right this moment- thank God- this quote is one to tuck away for “rainy days”.

If you knew that I called Will “Lambie”, would you make fun of me?

Isn’t that a terrible thing to inflict on a son?  The name Lambie.  Of all the terrible, horrible curses.  No man is bound to leave home before the age of 40, if his mother calls him Lambie.  And that same man is bound to live forever in the basement of his parents, rising each morning and going to bed each night with kissies and huggies for Mommy.

Poor little Will.  What started out as thinking of him as sweet lamb, somehow twisted and turned itself into the name of Lambie.  An animal- a poor,  intellectually-challenged animal.

Pray for us, and please pray for Will’s future, which I have clearly interrupted and led in a wrong direction.

Lambie does not have a room.  This is where Lambie sleeps.  Yes.  A towel on the window to block out the light.  The same mother who places a lamp in her laundry room….

Don't Judge, part 1

….makes her son sleep amongst dress shirts and shoes, with a bath towel for a window dressing.

Don't Judge, part II

But no more!  Lambie is getting a brand-new home.  No, DFACS has not come to claim him.   I am clearing out our huge, over-sized closet and making it a room. I was fearful to ask Pat to take on this project of my imagination- but he has been nothing but sweet, supportive and helpful.

Don't Judge, part III

Here is where we started. An enormous space, one that does not match our clothing consumption.   Much of my effort was expended in sorting: I- like most women- tend to wear my favorite items of clothing over and over.  I purged a few things, although my closet was recently purged, resulting in a full-size garbage bag-full of clothes I had worn through/did not fit, etc.  It is so helpful to pare down:

WE ALL NEED FAR LESS THAN WE THINK WE DO.

Here are a ver few of the inspirational items for Will’s room.

I do not prefer matching crib sets, so this room is going to be bright, fun, modern colors, with vintage elements.  I want his room to be young, but boy-ish nonetheless.  And I specifically do NOT want the bedding to match the lamp to match the rug to match the curtains….!  This means a little more hunting, but I am enjoying the hunt….

….to be continued.

I was so thrilled to find big bags of beads for $1 at the antique shop.  Each girl got her own bag, and when home chose colors.  Anna chose red, and Emma the blues.  I actually prefer Emma’s choice.  Emma was having much more fun spilling the beads all over the floor for our foraging baby to find, so I relocated them to a jar with a lid. 

Much better.

There were these funky little hardware pieces in a basket in the back.  25-cents each or whatever I wanted to pay, as the store-keeper informed me.

They are very cool for Josh’s room.  And in keeping with his vintage, thrifted look.

He has lots of books to store.  I like these wire baskets from Goodwill.

These are mostly non-fiction books, as I have found Josh to prefer learning about “real” people and places, to fiction.

Pat’s old dresser, we painted red.

Shower-curtain for the window.

Another favorite art-piece: Josh brought home from school last year.

A place for all those little pieces.

Original art, by Josh:).  He painted this in the weeks before Will’s arrival.  And it depicts him walking with his new brother.  I will keep this forever.  These canvas tablets are much cheaper than stretched canvases, and easy for kids to work with.

Art by my Dad’s uncle.  Most of my father’s relatives were painters.  So, we have boxes of art-work in our basement and all of my siblings and I have been able to choose through the years which pieces we would like to keep for our families.

Art by my uncle Ron (www.roncowle.com).  Pat bought me this painting a few years back.  It has always been one I admired.  My uncle and his wife are wildly talented.  Check out his sculpture-work… reminds me to pick up Sculpey at the craft store next time I am there.  (That is how my uncle taught his sons to scuplt).  My aunt sews and quilts and raises vegetables and flowers.  And she paints exquisitely too. 

Badminton Raquets I found at an antique store: $1 each.  Turned over they say Made in Japan.  That alone dates them to post-WWII, my Mom thinks.  Imagine a time when mass importing came from Japan and not China.  Kinda hard to believe!

The room is clean for a moment.  A blink of the eye.  

Actually, Josh is my cleanliest-minded child.  He thrives on order, and is task-minded.  His sisters believe in a philosophy of free-thinking with their rooms.  They can happily dwell in an environment of chaos, without feeling stress at all.  And they believe that the more little pieces scattered about for me to step on, the better.

I’m holding out hope that my boys will keep the house straight.  Who would have thought?

We have cycled our kids around in various rooms since living in our home.

We tried at one point to link the girls together.  I desire for them to learn to share and to get along, and to be unspoiled.

But… I also desire sanity.  And the Anna-Emma marriage definitely did not succeed.  A seven year-old sharing a room with a very naughty 2 year-old is just not the stuff of dreams.  Actually, nightmares.  As Anna still to this day will grasp me and hug me hard and say: “Thank you so much Mommy for not making me share a room with Emma anymore”.

Ah, parenting.  The school of choices made and choices undone.

Her highness now lives in this happy little space.  She shuffles back and forth between either one of her twin beds, depending on the mood of the day.

This room cost so little.  Tiny little deals have popped up everywhere:

This Garnett Hill bed-skirt: $1.

Original art-work: Me=FREE

This art-work: 20 cents (thrift store had a packet of scrap-booking letters, I took and framed them). 

Valance: $1.

Ruffled Pillows: $1

Still so much to do in this little space.  But her feisty-ness leads a happy life in here.  And at some point I just KNOW that the tiny table I envision for her drawing…will turn up.  Things always do, when I wait.

Three weeks ago, Justin, Grace, Pat and I were able to catch up for a double-date.  Though the original plan was to hike, weather prevented outdoor activity, and we met up for coffee and dessert at Greenlife in the North Shore, instead.  There is nowhere like Greenlife for all things gourmet.

And then we trolled some antique shops.  Justin suggested off-hand, that we should go check out Architectural Exchange, a store dedicated to recycling old bits and pieces of historical buildings.

It was absolutely freezing in the warehouse.  We were bundled up and shivering uncontrollably.  But we walked further and further back in the store, admiring all the somewhat useless things: bits of pottery, iron letters,chipped-up moldings.  I of course, wanted to buy any number of these neat little nothings.  They had such charm.  No intrinsic value to any of them, but I am sure  broad imagination could lead to good use.

Way in the back, there was a huge stack of $5 windows from torn-down buildings.  I love grey.  And this window was perfectly grey.  Needed a long bath and scrubbing.  But it worked out! 

Anyone passing through Chattanooga should definitely make a pit-stop at Exchange.  A little bit of money buys a lot of interest.