February 2019 Randoms

Here they are, in no particular order. And now once again including my phone pictures! 

A scrump-diddly-umptious meal of scrambled eggs and fruit for Sam. 😋

Sam filling out valentines for his class. I bought Fortnite valentines through an Etsy download since there were none to be found in stores or on amazon.

A random shot upstairs, looking into Sam's room and the boys' bathroom.

Scene of a classic American childhood in the 20teens (what is the term for this decade, exactly?).

I liked this cover from the the Bas Bleu catalog. And the quote from Whitman. 

Sam's last Pinewood Derby was a bust. His car didn't do well. The strategies he and Peter had successfully used in the past on his car's design didn't work this time. C'est la vie!  

 Pineapples were kind of my thing in 2018 because of this saying.

Some of the reasons why we do what we do.

This chocolate mousse cake from Trader Joe's was SO GOOD.

A beautiful sunrise sky. 

My updated DNA estimate. I love how British I am!

I have to go to the United Kingdom! My very blood cries out for it!

My friend Meredith gave me this sculpted chocolate "perfect man" for Valentine's Day. So funny!  

I read a book in February about American heiresses who married financially troubled English nobility. One of them was Jennie Churchill, mother of Winston Churchill. She had another son as well. I relate to women with just two sons, and I like this picture pose of them together. I'd like to get a picture like this done of me and John and Sam together. 

I don't know why, but she kind of freaks me out a little.  

Evidence of our paltry, disappointing winter. 😭

 The boys at John's ninja gym.

Organizing Project : Project Room

The last big unpacking/organizing project left in the house was the fourth upstairs bedroom, which was destined to become my "project room" from the time our offer on the house was accepted. I had a room like this in our house in Iowa to hold the various odds and ends of my life, and it was time to whip this room into shape so that I could have one in our house in Massachusetts!

Before

This room was a mess! By this point, which was about six months after we'd moved in, it had become a very cluttered catch-all for all the things that I didn't know what to do with, in addition to the boxes and things packed up from my Iowa project room.

I use the Pomodoro technique for big projects. It's easy--you work on your project for 25 minutes a day until it's done. (For more urgent projects you can use 25-minute increments throughout the day.) This is how I get big projects done while not letting them take over my life. Diligent consistency leads to completion. 

First I got the boxes and little things cleared out, leaving only the furniture so that I could figure out where that would all go and how to arrange the room.

This project may not have taken over my life but the things that I removed from the room certainly took over the upstairs for a few weeks! 

Does my bedroom make me look like a hoarder? Yes, it does. But at least I'm a conscientious, fairly organized hoarder. 😄

After

I was happy with how the room turned out. It is now a happy place!

Honoring my owl collection on the walls and the dresser. 😁🦉💖

I've had the dresser ever since I was 13 and in 8th grade. It's pretty much an antique by this point. 😂 I love that I still have it and that it holds things that I love.

I bought two new things for this room. The first is this picture on canvas. I saw it online and had to have it. There's something about a dancing couple in evening wear near a body of water that speaks to my soul. I'm not sure why, but I find it so romantic! I guess that's why.

The second thing I bought for the room is the oversized chair below the painting, which pulls out into a surprisingly comfortable twin bed so that overnight guests can sleep there if they want. There's a guest bedroom in the basement but this is an additional option, particularly for when the boys' friends or cousins sleep over so that they're on the same floor as them. Sam liked this pull-out bed so much that he set up shop in here and slept in it for a few weeks after we got it.

I think it's a very cozy set-up, personally!

The glider chair is the one I got when I was pregnant with John and it was in both John's and Sam's rooms when they were babies. I love that chair and hope to have it always!

The chest on the floor has my name carved into the top. My dad brought it home for me from Honduras when I was in high school. Another treasured piece of furniture in the chronicle of my life. 😊

I liked the built-in system that was in the closet when we bought the house so I didn't do anything to change it.

It felt so good to get this room done. Another satisfying and worthwhile organizing project in the books!

Winter Weekend at the Cape + A Sad Goodbye

Last February my mom and I went to the Cape for a nice little weekend together. It was relaxing and fun, and I didn't take very many pictures at all, but these are the ones I did take.

We stopped at Lighthouse Beach in Chatham, which is nearly impossible to go to in the summer because it's popular and has a small parking lot, plus it's not close to my Cape house. It wasn't crowded at all when we were there (imagine that), but it was freezing cold. Trade-offs!

In the winter the sea loses its light blue and turquoise colors of summer. It's a somber dark blue, which is fitting for the season.

Boot prints in the sand 😄

The Saturday night we were there we found out that my grandma, my mom's mom, had passed away that night. She'd been in a nursing home for years where we visited her, and we'd known for awhile that she could go at any time, but it was still unexpected and very sad.  

I loved my Grandma very much. She was funny and nice and caring and had a gentle voice and a great sense of humor. Like me, she liked her home to be neat and clean, and she liked to read. I missed the "old" her (no pun intended, for real) from before she got dementia when she knew who I was, but I still enjoyed bringing the boys to visit with her in the last few years of her life. She liked seeing the boys and thought they were cute, especially Sam. I felt and still feel guilty that I hadn't been to see her since I'd moved to Massachusetts the summer before. That will always be a regret in my life.

Her funeral service was the following week. It was at a funeral parlor in town that was right near my old house. My brothers and sisters and I got this flower arrangement for it.

This flower arrangement was there as well, I think from some my grandma's (seven) children. This one reminds me of her because these were colors she liked to wear.

The get-together for all of the family after the service was at my house since I live in town now and my house is big enough to hold a lot of people comfortably. It was nice to get together with cousins, aunts, and uncles. I didn't taken any pictures and wish that I had.

I hope that my grandma is happy and at peace now. I know that I'll see her again someday, and for that I am very thankful.