where wildly different is perfectly normal
Cause, meet Effect
Cause, meet Effect

Cause, meet Effect

So I took a peek at my stats over the last couple of weeks, and holy heck, the chart looks like the Dow Jones over the last several months. So I checked my last post…and there hasn’t been a whole lot from me lately. Short, boring posts. Cause, meet Effect indeed.

It hasn’t been one thing in particular, like a broken limb or something, just…many things. Many small-to-medium sized time-consuming projects.

Things like: we painted the living room. And now I have pictures. Because it took me over a week to take them and then another day to actually post them.

Terra Cotta Walls

These two walls are technically the dining room, but we don’t have nor want a formal dining set, so it’s a library/kids’ office. Yes, it’s a bright color and I love it. The ceiling is bright white.

Up the stairs

This is the view going up the stairs. The color is difficult to describe. In some light it’s cream, in others it has a pinkish hue, in other lights it’s yellow. I call it warm cream. And I love it. See that ceiling from hell? That’s a two story ceiling. We do not own scaffolding, just an adjustable ladder. Tom, bless his heart, did the ceilings and I think they look great. Doing the creases was the hardest part; accomplished by taping a brush to the end of a long pole and slapping a crap load of paint up there.

North wall

See how the color changes? Oh, and those filing cabinets will be replaced by wood lateral cabinets hopefully this summer. Gray metal just doesn’t fit into the room.

Big wall

And this is the big honkin’ wall that was the PITA to paint. It’s huge. I wanted to have artwork or something up there, but nothing is big enough. So I’m getting some wall art from Wonderful Graffiti. This one. I’m all for humor. I just hope I can get it printed large enough to read up there.

So that’s the most time-consuming thing I’ve been doing lately.

The boys are out of school now. So far, so good…but A has been at camp this week, so it’s been a gentle easing in to the summer.

We started Accountable Kids again. It’s a great program, but it takes time and effort to get it up and running.

I have been on the detox diet from hell for the last two weeks. That alone has sucked my will to live. No wine! No caffeine, no dairy, gluten, corn, tomatoes, peanuts, soy, beef, pork, lunchmeat, sausage, shellfish, eggs…get the picture? What was I living on, you ask? Well. Did you know that rice can be made into pretty much anything imaginable? I didn’t until I was forced with possible starvation. In the past two weeks I’ve had rice tortillas, rice milk, rice ice cream, rice bread, rice noodles, rice of every color and preparation. And small amounts of chicken and fish. Until the six days I couldn’t even have that. Then it was rice and beans pretty much all day, every day. And, on top of all that, I had to drink this funky concoction of God-knows-what in rice milk. Imagine vanilla flavored baby powder in milk, but grittier, and you got it nailed. I’d mix it up and slug it down through a straw as far back in my throat as I could stand. Gah. But I’m done with the diet and now I’m starting to add gluten back to see if I react to that. If that’s ok, I add dairy. I’m not worried about soy, and the acupuncturist said if I got through those three, I’d be fine.

Yes, I’ve started seeing an acupuncturist. Western medicine said my stomach was fine and I said bullhonky, it still hurts. And I’m still wiped out most of the time. He thinks I never really got over my first bout of mono…16 years ago. Hmmm…that explains volumes. So once a week I drive the unholy distance into downtown Boulder and get stuck full of needles. No, it doesn’t hurt, and yes, I do notice a difference.

I saw a couple of movies. Shocker, I know! Within one week I saw the new Indiana Jones (pretty good, but Tom was disappointed) and Sex And The City (good movie, liked it).

Finally…and this was the big one for me…I didn’t want to just start typing and whine. I’m getting tired of doing that. When I write, I want it to be good. If I’m going to complain, I want to do that with humor and snark. Just writing and complaining…I’m done doing that. When there is radio silence here, it’s usually because I’m overwhelmed and can’t find the humor in what’s going on. It means I’m grumpy and can’t find the way out. It’ll be better, but at the time it means I’m in over my head and other things have to take precedence. These past two weeks a lot of things were going on (painting, detox diet from hell–no wine!!!, kids out of school) and writing wasn’t going to happen.

That all said, I’m still here. With a beautifully painted front room, the anticipation of a hamburger and wine tonight!, and the knowledge that I don’t have to go out and weed today because it is pouring rain.

Always look on the bright side of life…

Oh, and one other thing. Good friends are invaluable. Karen sent me these lovely multi-purpose wipes that she made. I love the ladybugs. They have really cheered up my week. I’ve been using them to dry fruit instead of paper towels. She has a couple of posts on what you could use these for. I suspect I’ll be using these a lot this summer, especially since we start getting our CSA veggies this afternoon. Yum. Thanks, Karen! 🙂

17 Comments

  1. Karin

    I can’t seem to write much on my blog lately either. My photo blog is updated every day, but the other one. Eh. Not much to say. Potty training right now. Exhausting…lol!

  2. I think we’ve got a very similar cream/yellow/honey type color in my living room :).

    LOVE the graffiti idea.

    Sucks big time about the diet. I hope you pass the challenge and get your wine back SOON.

  3. The paint job looks wonderful!! I love the color. Your husband is my hero! I broke into a cold sweat just looking at how high up he had to go! Glad to hear summer vacation is going well so far. My “baby” graduates Monday, so we’re almost finished!

  4. What I like about the blog thing is it waits patiently for me to come back to it. Life gets in the way of alot of things and a lot things get missed because Life got in the way. The blog just treads water and hangs out waitng for some inspiration to dive in.

    Hope the hoistic type route works for you. I know I have about given up on the AMA resolving the health issues I have.

  5. your diet reminds me of the diet I was on when nursing Sj, elimination we called it.. I ate nothing but rice/rice products, meat, and fruits/veges. I have to admit, I was thin, but starving. LOL.

    oh and the painting looks fab, can you tell the hubby, anytime he is ready my bedroom is desperately in need of a paint job… (normal height ceilings and all)!

  6. Pingback: Weekly Linkage « Tendrils’ Ink

  7. Pingback: The great national hangover « Never A Dull Moment

Whaddya think?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d