Projects

I painted the ceilings in my bathroom and bedroom on Sunday. The plan was to get a jumpstart on Saturday and have it done Sunday. Next thing I knew, it was Sunday, and I'd slept in, getting up at what I hoped would be an early enough hour to catch my mom to wish her a happy Mom's day before she and Dad left for bingo. After a conversation, I cooked a decent lunch, then, around 1, I started. I cleaned the walls, tried to take the vent covers and switch/plug plates off without damaging too much (they'd been painted on by the previous painters), and decided I was too lazy for taping or drop clothes. Thank goodness for edging pads and patience! No drips (of consequence). Status: ceilings painted, most of the bathroom painted. The bit of bathroom wall closest to my bedroom isn't painted because ... I ran out of paint. I got a quart, but underestimated how dark my starting color was and, therefore, how much I'd need to cover it. I'm trying to see if I can coax a creative idea out of my brain aside from going back for another quart. I don't know if I can get a sample jar, or if I can get a sample jar of the gloss finish. The real bummer is that it's the bit of wall that holds my medicine cabinet, so until I figure something out, the cabinet is just hanging out in my bedroom. Which I'm hoping to paint tomorrow. Tonight, I was hoping to be asleep by bedtime (11 p.m.). It's 12:33 a.m. I will make a concentrated effort to fall asleep as soon as I finish writing this (because making concentrated efforts to sleep always works, right?).

Also on tap for someday: try to fit most of my office into my closet so it's not crowding out my bedroom. Maybe I should get a murphy bed ... maybe I should think of one thing at a time. Like hanging the shelving solutions I picked up from IKEA.

Anyway, I love how my bathroom looks now--so much brighter and cheerier. I chose the color of the Arizona sky at sunrise, and I think it's a good approximation! Just when I thought sitting on the commode couldn't get any more inspiring. ;)

You can't really see much aside from the curtain in the before picture. And you can't really tell the color in the after picture. And also, my camera seems to be giving everything an unsightly sienna-red-orange tint lately ...

Back at It

Did more sorting last night and cleared up all the mess from last week's final project for my Advanced Pastry Arts class. Now, it's time to get back into my cure. That bedroom. It's gotta get done. I think it's depressing me, among other things that are depressing me. April was National Poetry Writing Month, and Hun and I participated. It seemed like the darker poems came a little easier. At least I did them all in my online journal so that they're not gathering up in piles in my room. That bedroom. It's filled with scribbles. I need to take care of all the scribbles.

I’ve been a scribbler all my life. I have an entire shelf filled with various things I’ve written, some coming from my childhood. A lot of them are college papers. There are a LOT of poems. When I was active in the local poetry community, I’d always have a pen with me, sometimes tucked into my French twist, sometimes just jammed into a pocket. I’d almost never have paper, so I’d scribble on napkins, placemat margins, or even my bare arms and hands. If I could’ve taken off my skin like a suit, I would’ve had it pressed, folded it up, and tucked it into the shelf. And that’s just the big shelf. Another shelf is filled with journals. My 6th grade teacher had us keep journals, and she’d give us prompts. What do you want to be when you grow up? A Jim Henson muppeteer. What kind of house do you want? One with a lot of books. Of course, none of those things happened, but I’m fine with that. It’s fun to look back, and interesting to know that I’m still journaling to this day. I also have a big shelf just for zine projects. Some are the zines from the two 24-Hour-Zine Thing events I spearheaded, and some still need to be scanned in. Then my own zine projects. Then there’s a shelf with computer stuff (hardware, software, media files, etc.), dog stuff, techno stuff (wires, cables, adapters—oh my!). Then the cubby holes for the tall, skinny bookshelves—those carry spray paints, colored pencils, block print sets, gift bags and tissue paper to reuse, special art papers, random stationery. Then under my bed and in my closet ... sweater boxes filled with collage materials and art supplies, paper-making stuff, scrapbooking material, rubber stamps. Then about 5 or 6 little tool boxes, each with a designated purpose—paints, sewing and crocheting, tools, more tools, drawing. How do I even begin to make heads or tails of it? Maybe I’ll start with clothes. There’s a big box in my closet holding all my winter clothes. I think I wore maybe two or three things out of it over the winter ... I guess the rest can go.