Anniversaries...

Time has just been breezing by and I wish I could get it to stop for a moment or two so it wouldn't feel like life is on fast-forward all the time.  However, so many important milestones are popping up here and there and they help me feel like life is on the right track.  It's a terrific feeling!

This time of year holds two important anniversaries for me.  First, and most importantly, the anniversary of my wedding day.  I am blown away that the 3rd of June marks our 9th year of marriage, and our tenth year of knowing one another.  Nine years ago I was finishing up my Literature degree and moving back to WY to marry my best friend.  Such a happy and sad time.  I hated leaving the life I had built in Nebraska, but I loved coming home.  Kyle and I are going to go on a sunrise hot air balloon ride this coming weekend in Boulder, CO.  I am so excited!  And I hope we live through it so we can celebrate #10 next year. :)

The other anniversary is not so happy, but still gives me good reason to reflect on how far I've come.  Two years ago I was in a hospital with severe memory and cognitive issues.  I didn't know why I was there.  I was scared and confused.  I lost my independence in many ways.  I was at a very low point, and didn't see my future or any potential for it.  My identity was shattered, and I became a different person in many ways.

Fast forward two years.  I just finished the second quarter of my graduate program for counseling.  While I already have a Masters, it's much more gratifying this time around than the first time.  That is mostly because I am having to work much harder for it.  But it's worth it!  Most significantly, I made the trip this past week to my first Residency, and I went all by myself.  I was so intimidated about the travel involved and the interaction this Residency would require.  I did myself proud, though.  I reached out to people.  I emerged from my introverted shell to interact.  I got from WY to GA and back with no mishaps (although when the Southwest airline said "Welcome to Mexico" accidentally upon our landing, I must admit I had a few moments of panic.  Fortunately, they were just tired and confused, not me!) I forced myself to explore a little bit of the city instead of holing up in my hotel.  I just kept telling myself, "I'm here, now I might as well take advantage of this opportunity.  And if I screw up, I get to go back home and no one will ever know it happened!"  I think I did all right, though.

I loved being in a new place and in the South.  I'd never been down there before. I loved hearing the languages, seeing new sites, and visiting with people from all over the world.  I loved the Coca-Cola.  I loved the excitement and passion of others in my Counseling program.  I did not especially love the humidity, nor did I have any idea what approximately half of the menu items were most of the time.  Google and I spent a great deal of time together trying to figure out what in Sam Hill I was eating.  They know how to make a mean dumpling down there, though!  I also started picking up the drawl, and I now say I am "fahn" instead of "fine".  Luckily I still had "ya'll" in my vocabulary from when I spent six weeks in Texas a few years ago, so I was somewhat prepared to talk their language.

It was a wonderful experience and gave me a much needed boost at a critical time.  I continue to surprise myself, and that is part of the excitement of being alive.  I made new friends and pushed my own boundaries.  I realized that I'm just as strong (and maybe even stronger!) than I was "before" the hellish year of 2013.  I realized how much I love sharing my life experiences with Kyle not because I can't do it without him, but because it makes it so much better to have someone to share the ride with.      

My Office Makeover..

I never posted pictures of my office redo.  I thought I could redo my office in the week before I started a new quarter of school.  It actually took about three to four weeks, but here's the transformation and all it entailed. (And it was totally, totally worth it!!!)

Before the transformation began.  Purple painted over wallpaper on the walls.  Ugly office grade blue carpet on the floor.  A catch-all for random items. 

I began by removing strips of the purple wallpaper. 

 After getting all that wallpaper down, I spent what felt like about 40 days and 40 nights (actually about 2 days) spraying the walls with vinegar and water.  The thin paper that was left pasted to the wall came off in tiny pieces.  Excruciatingly tiny pieces.  Then, there was a paste left on the wall, so I scrubbed with more vinegar and Dawn dish soap.  By this point I was hating myself for starting this project and I was only 2 days into several weeks worth of fun.  What was I thinking?  

So fast forward several days or a week or so.  I spackle, I sand.  I spackle, I sand.  I finally get the new color on the walls - a color I LOVE - Benjamin Moore's Coventry Gray.  It's the same color that's in my living room, and with white trim it looks just lovely!  I put two coats on.  

Then I prayed to the remodel gods that when I pulled up that detested blue/gray carpet there would be decent wood floor underneath.  And there was decent wood floors underneath, but the carpet had been glued to it, and before that the wood floors had been sprayed with white paint.  

   

 I pulled up the tack strips along the wall, which was easy, but there were also these heavy duty staples pushed into the wood floor that were monsters to get out.  Don't look too closely because there might be one or five left in the floor that I just couldn't get out.  Then I scraped paint and glue off the floor, then scrubbed and scrubbed with Murphy's Oil Soap.  That is an amazing little potion!  

 Another 40 days and 40 nights later (it seemed) I was seeing vast improvement.  But!  What you can't really see in these pictures, but was obvious when in the room, was that there was a big gap between the baseboard and the floor where the carpet used to be.  What to do?  Take the baseboard off and move it down?  But then the gray wouldn't go far enough down and I'd have to paint that in.  Kyle suggested using quarter round, which some professional contractors see as cheating but I saw as life saving.  I picked some up at Lowe's, as well as a miter box and saw.  I had never cut pieces to fit into corners before, so it was a tiny learning curve but I picked it up quick, and I even kept all my fingers!  So after cutting came nailing, caulking, and painting.  I put frog tape on the floor to protect the clean floor from getting paint on it since I was so close to the floor when painting.  

Then I used a polyurethane coating and coated the floors to make them nice and shiny.  It took three coats with 24 hours in between coats.  And you need a LOT of moving air to get that smell out of the house.  I think Pip, Dobby and I were high for a few days.  

And after that my knees looked like this.  (Ignore the goosebumps.  It was cold.)

 Then I had to wait 7 days to put furniture or carpets on the floor.  Seven days!!!  You should have seen my living room with all the contents of my office stuffed into it.  It was a catastrophe.  In the meantime, I went area rug shopping.  I knew I wanted something squishy for my feet and something pretty.  Target never lets me down.  

 And since I hadn't spent enough time on this project already, I decided I wanted to do something really interesting on the wall with some Penguin postcards I had.  I'd gotten an idea on Pinterest from this post http://littlehousedesign.com/diy-postcard-wall-art/

But what I didn't realize when I started this little endeavor, was that a project like that takes math.  I don't do math.  I can balance my checkbook, but there's limits to what I can achieve.  Never fear, my sister-in-law Penny rescued me.  She helped me convert, and figure, and before I knew it I had a tape outline.

I'm a little obsessive compulsive (seriously), and so I spent hours debating how many of the cards to use.  The box had 100.  I wanted to offset them, so I decided I would use 98. But then which two to leave out?  I finally found two that I didn't like.  But, how to organize them?  Oh, the agony of decisions.  I set to work, but good, grief!  Not only did I have to measure above and below each one but beside!  And then I had to put 98 of them on the wall, one at a time!  What was I thinking?!?  (Notice how I ask myself this question quite often?)  Pandora and I hung out for the afternoon and we had it done in a few hours.  And it was all worth it!

I moved bookshelves and my desk and my chair back into my office.  

All my craft bins, organized by type of project, went into the closet area.  I currently have the doors removed because it made it much easier to access my supplies.  I don't like the sliding doors that were originally in there.  Eventually I will put bifold doors on the closet, but for now I've spent my budget on the redo, so it's just going to remain open for the time being.  I put a tiny bit of my hedgie collection on the top shelf of the bookshelf.  I have many, many more, but I have to figure out a better way to display them.  

 And my little angel on the door reminding me to "Dwell in Possibility". (Thanks, Maggie!)

So now I have a beautiful and cozy place to study, to Skype for my mock counseling practice sessions, and to craft when I can't sleep in the wee hours of the morning.  I am really loving it so far.  It was worth the headaches, the chaos of the contents of two rooms in one for four weeks, the fumes from polyurethane and paint, and the blisters, calluses and bruises.  It made me feel so good to do this project from start to finish with no help other than a few suggestions from Kyle when I was stumped about where to go next.  It makes me want to redo other rooms in my house.  Sort of.  

Some Thoughts on Shapewear...

I attended the lovely wedding of some friends this past weekend.  I watched as they pledged devotion to one another and shared their vows.  Bread was broken and rings exchanged.  I thought of the beauty of their commitment to one another, and reflected on the similar commitment Kyle and I made to one another almost nine years ago.  But what I was mostly focused on was...how bloody uncomfortable my shape-wear made me.  I considered how much I dislike the idea of all those confining garments women have used throughout history, and the irony in the fact that I also use confining garments to feel more stylish and acceptable.  

I'm familiar with a basic history of corsets, also known as "stays".  Women have worn them for hundreds of years to shape their bodies into fashionable form.  Corsets were generally worn as undergarments, but were often elaborately embellished.  Many materials, including ivory, steel, horn, and whalebone have been used to produce their desired slimming effects.  They reached the height of popularity in the Victorian era, but started their decline just before World War I.  Corsets were one of many items given up during the war to free up metals and materials for the war effort.  There is some debate as to how harmful these garments were to women's health, especially during the Victorian era when tight lacing was the trend.

The image that always comes to mind when I think of corsets is the scene in Gone with the Wind when Scarlet wants to entice Ashley at the barbecue, and insists that Mammy lace her as tightly as possible into her corset so that she can get her waist down to a tiny 17 inches.  I've always scoffed at the idea of such an experience.  Who wants to be that uncomfortable at a barbecue?  Will a guy really notice that extra inch or two on a gal's waist?  And if he does, what does that imply, exactly?  Health hazards aside, the idea of cinching a woman into a garment merely for attractiveness is repugnant to me.

And yet, I do it, too.

I've struggled with my weight for about 22 years.  In that time I have tried any number of methods for appearing slimmer, at nearly any cost.  I've subscribed to the notion that beauty is painful.  I've spent too much money on garments promising to slim, smooth and flatten.  Most of them have not succeeded in fulfilling their guarantees, and those that do result in shallow breathing, lots of skin indentations from elastic, heartburn, nausea, and overheating, just to name a few of the effects they have.  In a particularly embarrassing admission, I even used duct tape in middle school to try to "tape down" the excess pounds.  Unfortunately, there are some jobs that are too unmanageable even for duct tape.  I underwent weight loss surgery, partly for health reasons, but partly so that I would fit into a more socially acceptable weight range.  While the surgery went well, recovery consisted of battling a wound infection that took months to heal and left a permanent scar.  Just one more example of beauty being painful.

I'm not my ideal weight, and I struggle with that every time I look in a mirror or buy clothes.  However, I am starting  to see the ridiculousness of an existence of discomfort for the sake of appearance.  While I can't promise that I'll ditch the Tummy Tanks and Spanx right away, I am starting to evaluate their worth and how much they might be costing me despite the peace of mind they offer that I'm smoother, an inch or two thinner, more acceptable and therefore more worthy.

I don't want to miss the beauty, fun and poignancy of moments such as the wedding this weekend just to feel adequate.  When I am an old woman reflecting back on my life, I doubt I'll remember the importance of shapewear.  But I will regret the moments I missed out on when I was focused on the wrong priority.