Flex time

Today I heard someone on the radio say, "President Obama says that the 6 month moratorium on deep sea drilling will be here for some time."

Um...duh? Won't it be here for...6 months???

Is it wrong that every time my husband asks if I'm writing or blogging that I get embarrassed? I'm embarrassed by the fact that I have been writing on every scrap of paper and in the back of every school notebook since I was about 12 years old and I still haven't produced a single thing that is a.) finished or b.) publishable.

Is it wrong that I have yet to make it through the most recent J.K. Rowling documentary (where they followed her around for a year while she was finishing Book 7) because I know that I can write just as well as she can and probably better--but I can't complete anything?

These are things that I rarely voice, but as no one reads this anyway, I've decided I can start using it as a diary of sorts.

Bad mood. Probably the result of too many veggies and not enough brownie. :-)

A rose by any other name...

The outside petals of this rose were dying, so I took it outside to see if it could be salvaged. While outside, I dropped it on the barbeque by mistake. This is the result.

"but I'm le tired!"

The good thing about learning French on iTunes is that you can listen over and over to the pronounciation of all the words.

The bad thing is that I have no idea how to spell any of this crap.

Vive le France! (Maybe...if that's how you spell it...)

Yes. I'm learning some conversational French. The school at which I work sends students to France each Spring and we often take on at least one French student a year ourselves so I could say that I'm learning to better interact with our student population.

But let's be serious here. I want to go to Paris and Provence and really...anywhere that will have me where I can look at fashionable people, spectacular architecture and eat great food. Currently I don't have anyone to lead me around the country to translate so I guess it's up to me!

For those of you who don't know, iTunes has a ton of free podcasts to help you learn other languages. Now, the Rosetta Stone they are not, but the one I'm using called "Coffee Break French" gives you pretty good 15 minute lessons.

Au revoir!

Q&A

If I could ask just one question of any fiction writer it would be, "Once you have a general idea about a story, how do you narrow down and actually decide upon the details and plot points?" This is the thing with which I have the most trouble.

For example, I had an idea for a story about a boy (or a boy and a girl, possibly related or possibly neighbors) who inherits (or finds) a key that will lead him (or them) through a door into another world. In that world he (or they) will find doorways to 3 other worlds (making a total of 5 worlds). The keys to those worlds are being held by an evil sorcerer (or perhaps they've been lost...or maybe some are lost and some are held by the evil sorcerer) and he (or they) meet(s) up with a number of people who are hoping to get the keys back with the "good guys." The sorcerer doesn't know that the Earth key is in this world (or the sorcerer DOES know, and is hunting him/them down).

And so on. I have a number of stories like this, and they all end about 1/4 of the way through because as I write I start to think of other ways the story could be told and I can't make up my mind as to how to continue. I don't want to write myself in a corner in book 1, decide there should be a sequel and not get to write the story that really should have been written if I had only made the right choices in the first book. (Not that I should be thinking about writing 2 books when I haven't even written 1, but I like to plan ahead).

Any suggestions? Not that anyone reads my blog besides my Mom...but you never know. And Mom--I always love to hear your suggestions. :-)

"Tell me if this hurts."

Sorry kids. No pictures today. Trust me, you wouldn't want them. This story begins at the denist's office...

Last week I had a filling in one of my back upper teeth. I had originally thought that it was a cracked tooth, but it turns out that it was a cavity. Fine. I've had fillings before--not so much fun--but fine.

Just in case though, they did some poking and "tooth sleuthing" both of which have various amounts of pain associated with them. In fact, the whole thing was started by the doctor saying...

"I'm going to tap (BANG) on some of your teeth. Tell me if this hurts."

(The doctor says "tap" but I insert "BANG" because that's what it feels like to my skull sometimes.)

In the middle of all the "tapping" however, it started to occur to me that this was an absolutely Byzantine method of determining whether or not something was wrong. We have put a man on the moon, we have discovered that in a group of matter and antimatter--more matter will survive in the Universe, we have electricity and hybrid cars and phones that take pictures and play music. We as a society are healthy and wealthy enough to pay people exorbitant amounts of money to sing songs that they didn't write, and to play games and pretend to be other people for a living...and yet the best way we can come up with to determine if your tooth is dying is to keep banging on it until it hurts.

And it's also a terrible method because it doesn't work. I was in such excruciating pain after this "standard" procedure that I went back to the dentist on Tuesday (Where they banged on my teeth again) and told me that maybe I DO have a cracked tooth. Then I went back today and they did stage 1 of a root canal! Thank goodness really. I was feeling so terrible. But believe it or not, that meeting started by the doctor saying,

"I'm going to tap (BANG) on a few teeth and you tell me if it hurts."

You've got to be kidding me.

You light up my life

I really am a cool-color kind of person. I will take blues and purples and greys and greens over reds, oranges and yellows every time. That being said--an entire house full of cool colors can be kind of boring. If you're anything like me, here are a few things you can try to warm things up this Spring:

1.) Painting the inside of a lampshade. I've heard that painting the inside pink can warm up the compact flourescent bulbs--but I have the kind of lamp where the inside of the shade is exposed. I'm thinking metallic gold.

2.) So yes...I have large expanses of blues and greys on the walls. Also, most of my furniture is square. So I'm thinking of trying to find something in a natural material, with a bit more fluid of a shape--like a natural wood side table or a mirror framed with shells or stones.

3.) Another option is to go with pops of colors from the opposite side of the color wheel throughout the room. My blue walls could easily be the backdrop for an orange or yellow accent.

4.) Finally--pattern. Mixing patterns is something from which I have traditionally run, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. When mixing patterns, 2 of these things should be the same about the patterns: scale, color, or the pattern itself. If you have two paisleys that are the same size, but different colors--that's okay. Stripes and polka dots with the same color scheme and approximate scale are okay. A large-scale damask and a small-scale plaid with none of the same colors....that's not going to work so well. Another hint here is to choose an odd number of patterns to display. (This actually goes for all accessories.)

Mixing patterns doesn't necessarily "warm up" the room, but adding texture always adds another dimension, which is essentially what you're trying to do anyway.

If you try any of these techniques--feel free to share pictures! I will post mine as I work on them!

It's backwards day

Wow--the internets are a-buzz with scathing remarks about Amanda Seyfried's BodyAmr dress that she wore backwards to a movie premiere.

(photo courtesy of dailymail.co.uk)

Okay, so it's not the greatest. But it's a great color and if the zipper had gone all the way down to the hem I really probably wouldn't have noticed at all.

Plus--let's put this in perspective. Her look was a little odd because it was on backwards. This one's just plain insane.

(photo courtesy of hollywire.com)

Yes. This is Lady Gaga. Out, in public, not on stage--just doin' some shopping or whatever. Now let's judge Amanda Seyfried.

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls

My newest obsession? Marble. I don't know what the differences between all the types are and I don't know the good from the bad (except that "bad" generally means "more grey") but I want to use it everywhere. I want it on the floors, on the countertops--everywhere. It started with Sarah's House, on HGTV when I saw this...

(picture courtesy of hgtv.ca)

Here's a pretty, but not-so-affordable-on-my-budget option from The Pottery Barn...

(picture courtesy of potterybarn.com)

And how about this gem from FrenchBlue & Co? It's an antique marble sink from Turkey. It's so rustic--it would look so fantastic as this one does--in an indoor, more refined space--but I think it would also look great out in a garden.

(picture courtesy of frenchblueandco.com)

The waiting game

My husband and I have three bedrooms in our house. One is for us, one is for our guests and the final room we intend to be for a child some day. At the moment that room is being used as an office/clothes closet and occasionally a second guest room when all of my in-laws come.

I have this internal tug-of-war over this room all the time. Should I turn it into a full-time office? Now that I'm running a business out of my home AND my husband's getting his doctorate we could really use one (like this one, designed by Troy Beasley)

(Picture from HGTV.com)

Should it be a full-time closet? My husband's clothes fill up the closet in our bedroom, plus most of another closet, and an armoire in the guest room. I also have an armoire in the guest room, but there's not a lot of other places for my hanging clothes to go.

Or do I keep the room in limbo? My concern, of course, is that the moment that we get used to the function of the room, that we furnish it accordingly to the dimensions of that room in a style that we'd like dependent on the function, we're going to a.) have to turn it into a nursery and b.) try to find new space/function for everything that was in the room previously.

Any opinions?

Things I should know about myself (but clearly don't...)

1.) I should really give up white wine. If I have any more than 1 glass it makes my heart race and it makes it pretty much impossible for me to go to sleep--but man do I love a good Riesling!

2.) I should really give up caffeinated coffee. It makes my heart race and freaks me out for most of the morning--but man do I love a cup of Pumpkin Spice coffee!

3.) I should really give up Starbuck's hot chocolate. It's got to be a gazillion calories--but man do I love it. It's not too rich, not too sweet and it's always the right temperature! How do they do it?

How is it possible that I'm still drinking all this stuff? Seriously--not only do I know that it's not good for me--2 out of 3 of the things actually make me feel physically bad! But the momentary satisfaction--the taste--overrides all other thoughts. And we wonder why we can't lose weight?

I wish I had managed to learn this stuff between June 2009 and 2 days ago so I could have added it to that post and been done with it!

"Up, up it goes, but never grows"

So I'm starting my own business. It started out as a home organization business--but has become more of a "life" organization business. I actually just became official on Monday, when I finally had my DBA, my EIN and my bank account (with nothing in it). I haven't done any advertising yet though, because my cousin and I are working out the website details--and I don't want to advertise a website and have people go there and find that there is no information.

Long story short--I was working on some print advertisements today (the kind where all I'll have to do is print them out once the site is up and running) and I started looking for pictures on the internet. I came across this site with photos that you could use royalty free, and saw this picture.

I couldn't use it in my advertisement--it just wouldn't have made any sense and there was too much green in the picture for what I wanted, but it took my breath away all the same. It reminded me of the Troll scene in The Hobbit, or in a way, the Paths of the Dead in the Lord of the Rings. The path winding between these giant pillar-like stones in the middle of a forest awoke every fiber of young-Amy who wanted nothing more than to walk through the back of her closet into Narnia.

Who am I kidding? Current-Amy wants that too. :-)

PS...The quote in the title is from the chapter "Riddles in the Dark" from The Hobbit.

10 things I've learned since June 2009

I really love reading Paloma's blog, "La Dolce Vita." I get the impression that she and I would agree on just about everything if we were partners in an amateur interior design firm. One of my favorite parts of her blog though, does not necessarily have much to do with fashion or interior design. It's finding out what all of her guest blogger's/friend's, "Top 10s" are, and I decided to create one myself, after a fashion. I started this blog in June of 2009 in an attempt to pull myself out of a bit of a downward spiral brought on by (but not necessarily caused by) my job. I have learned an awful lot this year, and though I only ended up posting here four times in the days between then and now, I am happy to be doing so again now.

10. You can do anything for a year. I am referring, of course, to my job. I have done it for nearly 2 years now. I have continually made excuses as to why I should stay. "They want to help make it better!" "Things might change though!" "If only I worked a little harder, things would be better!" "But what about x-person and y-person? They don't like it either and they still stay!" I am glad that I stuck it out for at least a full year. I really put my mark on it, but it leads me to number 9...

9. You do not have to be a martyr to be a good person. Over the past 2 years I realized many things, but the most significant is the fact that I do not have to be completely unhappy and without hope in order to be a good person. Leaving this job does not make me a terrible, selfish person. Though many of my friends purport that no one will ever do the job as well as me, I hardly think that is the case. In fact--perhaps a person coming in now--who didn't have to fix everything AND sustain everything will have an easier time. My being there doesn't make me a good person. It makes me a stupid person for doing something which made me so depressed for so long when there were other options open to me.

8. Grey is the greatest of all neutrals. Seriously folks--you can't beat it. It goes with every color. It goes with brown, it goes with black, it looks awesome with white. I used to hate grey because I associated it with depression. Now I associate it with thriftiness and fashion.

7. You don't need as much caffeine as you think you do. I used to drink 4-5 cups of caffeinated coffee or tea a day. When I met my husband, I reduced it down to 2-3. Recently I have been having some trouble with panic and for while had reduced it to none. (It's amazing the way the fear that your heart is going to explode makes you want to stay off the stuff). It's back up to 1--but it hasn't been a problem at all. Being happy and busy is way better than any caffeine I've ever had.

6. The reason why I cannot keep up with a blog is because I'm a compulsive editor. It's true. In my own work, in other people's work, in my house in my job--I can't stop the editing process. It's a blessing and a curse.

5. The value of family. It sounds so cliche, but nothing soothes my soul like being with my family.

4. How to use a staple-remover. I can't believe this--but I never knew how to use one correctly before. Did you know that you're supposed to lift the prongs on the back of the staple first, and then pull from the flat part that shows on the front of the document? Neither did I!

3. Any schmoe can start a business. That's right. I just started one and it occurs to me that the process, while involved, is pretty easy. Sometimes I used to look at websites and see typos everywhere (there I go with the editing again!), or even wander into stores and think, "How is this person in business?" Well now I know. It takes 1 form of identification and about $31.00. That's how.

2. In the future I intend to include pictures on my blog. Your welcome. I wouldn't want to read all my blathering-ons either.

1. The worst that can happen is hardly ever the worst that can happen. If you're in a situation that is affecting your life in a negative way--ask yourself what's the worst that can happen by getting out of it. If the answer isn't, "I'll die" then pluck up your courage and do it. Just do it. Nothing is worth feeling terrible every day if a simple change in living/working situation can change it. Remember--you don't need to be a martyr to be a good person.

Well that's it kids. Hopefully you've learned something since June 2009 now also. :-)