Designing to Distraction

I cannot seem to bring myself to have the gumption to sit down and blog regularly this week. Am forever dashing off on wild tangential projects or slumping down into a chair with a book, a snuggly kid and no ambition. There is no steady, responsible in between at the moment. I am sans equilibrium. I think part of the issue is that although far from my own due date, my sisters-in-laws are all delivering their three babies like a string of dominoes...or at least we all expect them to. Only one baby has been sighted so far! It puts me in a very distracted frame of mind. I check and re-check my email and decide not to make the bed and feel overwhelmed by the idea of coming up with a lunch and then check my email again. Useful, eh?

Image via Wikipedia

To shake things up, I enrolled in an interior design class. Ahhh!!!!! I spent the days leading up to my first class meeting alternately freaking out (Why did I sign up for this thing? I am going to be the class dunce!!!!) and pretending that it wasn't really happening (What supplies I'm supposed to have by tomorrow?). And then I really went and it was good. Better than good. It was fantastic and inspiring and I didn't want to go home. I spent the next hour buzzed, standing electrified in Barnes and Noble flipping through home decor magazines and design books and then drove home with the window open listening to electronica in the wired night air. Am feeling like I may figure out how to crack design after all. I have a feeling this class could lead to others. So exciting to feel empowered and hopeful about such a luminous and baffling subject. Am rubber cementing together mood boards for all the rooms in the house.......fabric swatches, paint chips and magazine bits abound!

Interior Design Magazine (Photo credit: Associated Fabrication)

 On the heels of my interior arts class I am starting to feel the first stirrings of spring, the first magnetic pull towards my garden and there is suddenly design spillover from my class to the yard! Huzzah! May I conquer all things....(unless all things means the dishes or the laundry...now hindered by our broken washer). I am not feeling so starched about the seams that I feel up to tackling the front yard which I basically blank of all design at this point and needs major visionary help. I still feel like I need my landscape designer friend's handholding to pull that off but I feel up to tweaking and filling beds that already exist in the back and simply need some polish. So far I've done two of them in rather slopping, kindergarden style but hey....they're done and I've feeling excited about watching for annual season at my local nursery in a couple of months.

 So, that's what I'm doing this week, designing things in a somewhat frenetic manner. Hope your week is going well and that you are managing the balance between dejected apathy and pulsing mania better than I. Happy Thursday!

The Not-So-Scary Relatives

My in-laws came and they went. I didn't keel right over from anticipation stress and the visit went very well. I'm not sure exactly why but I sure am able to make a whole lot of panic out of a friendly visit. I'm so intimidated by other people sometimes, so scared of sharing my space (lest it be sneered at), so afraid of criticism and so unsure of my ability to get "included." I think a lot of it stems from not being a very strong feeling person inside, I'm not confident in my ability to hold my own, impress, blow away the competition or be what I am supposed to be.

A's parents, in the flesh.

It was just a little weekend visit, they flew all the way out from the Midwest, just to spend the weekend with us, belnieve it or not. On that weekend visit they sent A and I on a highly relaxing overnight with no kids (Oh, baby-free, king-sized, sleep-number-bed...you were heaven!), they re-stocked our kids with books, brought us sheet-music for children's songs, did all the laundry in the house, ironed anything within a 1 mile radius, took all our trash out, shined our every dish, treated us to pizza, and even maaged to hang a curtain for me on the sly that I had been battling with.... What exactly was I so scared of? I sometimes wish I was less of a ridiculously cagey bird and more placidly trusting and smoothly optimistic. But yeah, I'm still me.
 Image via Wikipedia

So, now that they're gone and all is well after all, I'm handing out the homemade cookies my mother-in-law whipped up for snack time and we're all reciting the lines from, How The Grinch Stole Christmas (which we can now recite in chorus thanks to Grandpa's astounding patience with "one more time" requests from Ru.) I feel soundly on my feet, heading into the holidays with my cap tightened down and my kitchen counters shining. I am determined to manufacture more goodwill for my fellow man, more cookies for the Christmas tins and as much good cheer as can be reasonably obtained. Morning sickness be darned!