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fire, toile and a potted plant

February 27, 2008
So let’s say your house is on fire. You have only seconds to grab what you can and run out the door. What do you grab? The photo album? The row of journals on your bookshelf documenting the early days of dating your husband? Your heirloom wedding gown? Or, in a desperate attempt to grab what is most valuable does all rational thought fly out the window and it suddenly become essential that you grab your L.L. Bean pea coat and that potted plant by the door?

Evidently, I would grab the plant. No, my house has never been on fire. But almost as bad, I did one day get a call from my sister stating that she and a friend were on their way over to “see how cute the twins room is!” It was like someone yelled “Fire!” in a crowded building because, let me assure you, their room was in no condition for an open house. It was a wreck. So what did I do? Make the beds? Pick up toys? Vacuum? Of course not. True to my inability to properly prioritize, I quickly decided the single most important thing to do between the phone call and the doorbell was to line the inside of their drawers with scrapbook paper.The girls have this used-to-be-changing-table-now-a-dresser dresser in their room. When they were babies, these drawers were so cute with the see through window in them. I would fold fuzzy burp cloths and proudly display them in neat rows of yellows and pinks. And then they turned 3 and the dresser became the toy chest and all of a sudden, it wasn’t so cute anymore.

So I cut paper. And scotch taped it to the inside of the drawers. The girls were fighting in the background and I stuffed toys under the bed with my feet. But that dresser, it looked so cute when I was done. I finished with time to spare. Boy, do I know how to prioritize.
It definitely wasn’t perfect. I had actually planned to get some fabric for this project. But seeing as how I kind of hyperventilate when I go into a fabric store (unless The Nester is there to talk me through it), that was not to be. The paper was only 12×12 but my drawers are wider than that. I had to piece them together. Lucky for me, toile just looks all toiley from far away, so it’s hard to see where one paper stops and the other begins.Can you tell? Bet you can’t. It’s been over a year since I did this little project and now the tape is beginning to fail, as you can see from this inside shot.
My sister recently posted about lining the back of her dish hutch (what do you call that thing, anyway?) which kind of reminded me of this little project. She also used scrapbook paper, but she used a glue gun. Evidently tape is for amateurs. Seeing as how mine is falling apart, I guess I agree with that.

So now, instead of seeing this…I get to see this…
It fits in nicely with my cleaning habits.

Filed Under a freak, a sister 13 Comments

my weekend with the Nester

February 24, 2008

We are so different, she and I. But not so much that we don’t thoroughly enjoy each others company and perspective. I make her laugh. She makes things funny. I go to bed late. She turns in early. I like my coffee hot. She’d rather have it over ice. We both love chocolate cake and Pushing Daisies and laughing. Hard. At nearly everything. She helps me not take myself too seriously. I think I do the same for her.

I spent this weekend with her. The men were out of town, so we decided to join forces. Otherwise, we would be in our prospective houses not sleeping, listening for all the killers who were targeting our man-less households. But with all of us together under one roof, we were so much safer. We had each other and all of our six kids ages 10 and under to protect us, after all.

She spent a lot of time this weekend doing what she does…namely, nesting.
She pulled ribbons from cabinets like this to wrap gifts. There are several of them.

She wrapped up some tassels she made and is selling. But first she took photos of them. Then she said goodbye. Then she cried a little. She gets very attached.

She also spent time putting together this centerpiece for a shower. Why all this nesting? No, she’s not pregnant. She’s the Nester (or haven’t you heard?) I kept busy helping her. I worked real hard on this.
There’s something so special about having another person in the world who has the same parents as you. We stayed up talking late one night about growing up memories. It always surprises me that I am surprised when we talk about those days. Because even though we lived in the same house with the same parents and ate the same food, we turned out so different from one another. And we remember it all differently as well.

Family history is becoming increasingly important to me. We don’t have any surviving grandparents so any stories that exist remain with our parents, aunts and uncles. I want to remember to ask them to remember. Because I don’t know what I don’t know so I don’t know what to ask. In other words, it was good to hang with my big sister. Because she has stories, too. Different from mine…they overlap, certainly. But they are different. Just like us.

And I’m happy to report, no killers. The whole weekend.

And completely irrelevant to anything in this post (or in my life, for that matter), Ryan Seacrest just asked Jessica Alba if she’ll be breastfeeding her baby. Live. On the red carpet. At the Oscars. I just don’t think I can handle hearing Ryan Seacrest say “breastfeeding”. From the looks of it, neither could Jessica Alba.

Filed Under a sister 17 Comments

keep the change

February 20, 2008

The split-level house smelled of cigarette smoke, Chanel No. 5 and burnt cinnamon rolls. It was the home where my grandparents lived. Familiar. Comfortable. It was the house where I had celebrated every Christmas, birthday and fourth of July since I could remember. Predictable. Safe. I was in the bathroom and I didn’t want to come out. It was the summer of 1987.

Standing there that morning, I remember wishing I could crawl under the sink and not come out. Maybe they’ll just leave without me. I can stay here. Under the sink. With Grandma. But I knew that couldn’t happen. Because we were moving…from our small, Indiana town, where I had lived all my life, where my parents had met and gone to high school, where our cousins and aunts and grandparents lived…we were leaving all things right and familiar and heading to Iowa, the land of all things different. One last trip to the bathroom, and it was time to make the 6 hour drive to what would be our new home. I was 11. And I didn’t want to go.

And so began my personal life-long journey of learning to accept change. I’ve been thinking a lot about change lately. Not even the worst kind of change, like from divorce or sickness or death. Just regular, life-stage change. It isn’t as scary as it was that day in my grandmother’s bathroom. But it is still definitely not my favorite. I find myself looking at women who are pregnant for the first time or high school seniors or friends who are preparing to move far away and I think about all that is ahead for them…exciting days for sure. But also unknown, unpredictable days. Long days. Lonely days.

I tend to want to avoid the long and lonely, the unknown and unpredictable. I find unhealthy comfort in believing in the illusion that I have control over my future. But the more I live, the more I see that not only do I not have control, but I don’t think I want to. Not really. It’s too much pressure. Because though the days can be lonely and crazy-scary to anticipate, they are also dependent days…days of knowing that I can’t so He must. Days of resting in His provision because that’s all I really can do anyway. And many times, days of waiting for all of those words that I know are true to become true in my experience.

Sometimes I wish character and patience and growth could happen without all the change. So far I haven’t found a successful way to avoid it. But I’ll keep you posted.

Filed Under a girl 19 Comments
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