Author Archives: Chrissie

Drat You Ikea

Over the weekend we headed up to Ikea to check out counter tops for our stalled kitchen remodel.   We found a very nice butcher block top for the desk area and were very happy with that.  As we walked out, however, we turned the corner by the bedroom area and saw this incredible daybed set up.  It was awesome.  Both Kevin and I stopped in our tracks and said, “this is exactly what we want to do in the bonus room!”  Then we looked at eachother with that manical Ikea-esque gleam in our eyes.  Could we do it?  The kitchen isn’t done, we’re leaving for Hawaii in a week, school is starting up…. but there it was.  All set up and lovely and perfect and we decided, what the heck!  Lets go for it!  We installed a kitchen, dang it, how hard can a little bed and cabinet thingy be?

Don’t worry, we managed to restrain ourselves enough to wait on ordering until we get back.  But the last few nights I’ve tossed and turned in bed trying to figure out how to rearrange everything.  No matter how I try, I keep coming up with the same answer.  I can’t.

You see. most of our furniture was purchased for our 69th house.  It fit just right in all the little nooks and crannies of an old craftsman home.  When we moved to the ‘burbs, we hauled all our nice little pieces here and scattered them about.  But the sad truth is, they don’t really work.  It’s time I parted with the old and embraced the new but it’s so hard to give away things that I’ve lived with for so long.  But our house is full now so if I bring in something new, something old is going to have to go.  Sigh.  Well, I suppose I can wait on the weeding of furniture until I get back from vacation but it will be hard.

Even harder, I’ve decided to totally redo my craft corner as well with (wait for it) a new Ikea desk and storage system.  Yup.  This room is going to be totalled!  I’ve already started cleaning out the craft goodies and very slowly tossing the old stuff.  But it’s hard!  Oh so hard!  I want to keep every scrap of fabric, every sheet of paper, every pad of ink but I know I need to reign it in and focus.  Focus. 

Darn you Ikea.  Why must you flaunt your evil designs so?  Can you give a poor woman no peace?  Must I flee to an island to escape your devious influence?  Well, ok!  If you insist…..

The Bum

Right now, my sister is probably sitting on the beach in Hawaii, watching the waves roll in while her boys dig and play in the sand.

What a bum.

I am pretty much inconsolable when I think about this.  My only refuge is the throw myself into packing.  At this rate, I’ll be packed and ready to go about 6 days before my flight leaves.  That’s not neurotic, right?  Right?

I can almost hear the waves calling my name……

Presents…Yum!

We had a very lovely birthday dinner for Leina on Sunday night.  It was all the family and Kat & Josh (’cause, you know, they’re pretty much family too after this long!)  Leina had a blast running around the backyard with the cousins and Kevin (’cause, you know, Kevin is really just a kid at heart too.)  This was the first year she wasn’t totally overwhelmed by her party.  In the past, we’ve tried having it in the afternoon which runs into her nap time so by the time the cake and present roll around she is done, dead done.  This year, we tried an evening party.  Instead of afternoon crankiness, we had happiness!  How wonderful is that?

As for presents, Leina made out!  She got some soft and lovable animals, my little pony figures, books, outfits, pop beads and games.  But my own personal favorite gift?  The easy bake oven.  Yup.  That’s right.  Not only the oven but the cake decorating kit, sprinkles, and cake mixes.  I can hardly contain myself!  Baking by light bulb?  That’s my idea of a good time.  I never had an easy bake as a kid but I secretly wanted one.  Now it’s my chance to bake all those tiny cakes and cookies.  Leina is a bit unsure about the whole thing but she’s willing to try anything that involves sprinkles and frosting.  She is 5 after all.  So tomorrow we’ll fire up the easy bake and get a-mixing.  Yes!  Watch out Betty Crocker, here we come!

Stuck on Books

I’m a book binger.  I’ll admit it.  If I find an author I like, I plow through everything they write all in a row.  If I’m not stuck on an author, I’ll hit a genre and ride if for weeks.  For a while, I was all Fantasy, then Sci-Fi, then historical romance, then mystery, then non-fiction environmental, and now, memoirs.  But not famous people or historical memoirs.  More like fish out of water.  Random adventures of otherwise normal people in foreign lands.

I’ve been hooked on an English family transplanted to the Greek isle of Korfu, a sheep sheerer who moves to the hills of Spain, or a man trying to revive a neglected English garden after the war. Right now, I’ve pouring through a Thoreau-like memoir of a man who buries himself beside the Rogue River here in Oregon for a few months to wrestle some demons and I’m totally hooked.  I find myself day dreaming about escaping to a cabin somewhere out in the wild where I could roam the hills and fish for wild salmon with the bears.  Yeah, it’s pretty crazy.  When I told Kevin this, he looked at me oddly.  He could see maybe staying alone for a few weeks but for months and months?  No thank you.  I’m thinking once I finish this book I may have to pick up the source book of On Walden Pond and really immerse myself in some good old escape-to-nature reading.

As much as I love these types of books, I don’t have much luck finding them.  There are some that everyone recommends – A Year in Provence or Under the Tuscan Sun – but after you mine the obvious ores, where to go next?  I have had some blind luck in just wandering the non-fiction section of the library and grabbing arbitrary books but I’d like to find something a bit more focused.  Let’s face it, the odds of me moving to the Rogue or raising sheep in Andalusia are slim to none at the best so a good book really is my only hope!  But where to look….

Unless, of course, you could recommend something….eh?

Artie-0; Skunk-2

Yup.

That’s right.

Artie got sprayed by a skunk again last night.

You’d think that dog would learn, but no.

Will my house ever stop smelling of skunk?!?!?!

Last 4

I told Leina today was her last day of being 4 for…. EVER.  Never again would she be 4.  It was gone.  Gone baby.  Kiss it goodbye ’cause it’s half way out the door.  She looked at me a moment, and then started to cry.  Well, more like dramatic wail which she excels at really.

“I don’t want to turn 5!” she moaned, “I want to stay 4 forever!” And then she threw herself across my bed and proceeded to sob into my pillow.  Until Kevin yelled upstairs that her bacon was ready at which point she hopped of my bed, tucked her hair behind her ears, and pranced down the steps happy as can be.  And that, my friends, pretty much sums up Leina.  She is drama.  All day long.  All night.  Throw in a few fits and stops, and you’d have a pretty good idea of what 4 has been like for us.  So while I, too, will miss 4, I’m hoping 5 brings a bit more mellowness.   A bit more maturity.  Less crying tantrums please?  Alright, alright, I won’t over reach here.   But really, where does this drama queen behaviour come from?  I mean, Kevin and I are pretty mellow jello people.  We aren’t prone to random fits of despair or raptures of joy.  Neither of us can call for a cascade of tears on demand.  And yet, I have this little person walking through my house who can go from happy, to irate, to devastated, to overjoyed in the amount of time it takes to travel from the sofa to the fridge.  It’s unreal.  If this keeps up, I’m going to have to move to LA and enroll her in some acting classes ’cause the kid has some serious talent.

Tomorrow we have a mini celebration of the day of her birth with her girlfriends and then this weekend we’ll have a BBQ for the bigger folks.  When informed of the plan, Leina threw herself onto the ground and started to moan, “oh mooooooooom, I don’t waaaaaaant a birthday party…..Can’t you tell them not to come?”  This lasted until I reminded her that they would be bringing presents and which point she flicked some internal switch, jumped to her feet, and scurried off to make room on her bed for her new toys.   Some days, I feel like I have emotional whiplash people and she’s only 4!  Just the though of 12 makes my blood run cold……