And it Begins

Or ends, depending on your point of view.

My point of view is from a dark and achy tired place.

Oh, the ups and downs of the past couple of days...I'll get to them.  Or some of them.

But today?  Today is three things.

1.  Brew day.  Nothing all that new or different - we have them periodically.

2.  Sand and Polyurethane the Floors Upstairs Day.  The day we've been eyeing on the calendar with increasing tension and franticness and, okay, yes, occasional bad moods.

3.  ........I don't remember what the third thing is.  Maybe it's Begin Our Nomadic Existence Day.  Except we're not nomads - we've got a place to crash - THANK YOU EM AND JOE!

But to back up a bit...

You may or may not remember what I did with Alex's bedroom, so here's a picture -

That was done using three different colors of paint, a sponge roller, little sea sponges, and of course gobs of my own special brand of artistry.  (I'm tired and silly today - bear with me.)

So the question on everyone's mind, I'm sure, has been "What will she do on Julia's walls?"

So here's what I did:

And no, that tv cable taped to the window isn't part of the decor - that's to keep it off the floor while the sanding and stuff is done.

Anyway, that's Julia's room.  It's not completely done - I'm still planning to have a few butterflies fluttering across the ceiling, but that can be done later.  A.P.  (After Polyurethane.)

I found the stencil in a book I've had for years called "Border Designs:  Cut & Use Stencils."  It's put out by Dover press, and I have a ton of books of theirs that I bought for quilting ideas and who knows what else.

Anyway, I'd been originally thinking of putting flowers all over her walls, but I couldn't find a stencil I liked of a rose (her middle name) and then I saw this butterfly as part of a border grouping, and that's the one I settled on.  I made copies of it in various sizes and settled on these two - the small is the original size - about 4 inches long - and the big one is the original enlarged 150%.

You can see the stencils, cut out of the heavy duty paper in the book, hanging from the window.  They're drying.  I will need to use them again, on the ceiling and probably on a bookcase that I'll repaint in the colors of her room and then stencil some butterflies on it.

Anyway, that's Julia's room.

She loves it, by the way. 

~~~

So that's one thing.

Another thing - one of the good things these past few days - is Julia is now riding her bike without benefit of training wheels OR Bill running along beside her, hanging on to her shirt collar.  Yay!

~~~

Another thing...Bill and I moved nearly EVERYTHING down from the second floor.  It's in our living room and our dining room, and there's very little space left.

Sorry it's out of focus.  Anyway, that's our living room.

Funny story about all this.  See that window?  It's also got two little windows, one on each side.  Those little windows open.  Yesterday I'd opened them, like I'd opened many other windows around the house.  And then we piled everything into the living room...and then it was time to go to bed...and the little windows were still opened.

Now, they're skinny little windows, and they face the street, so odds are no one would come along and decide to break in and steal any of our stuff.  But I knew I'd lie awake much of the night if I knew they were still open.

I'm like that.

And so, while Bill was in the bathroom, I somehow (don't ask me to describe it) managed to climb over all sorts of things including the side support things from the kids' beds, and get up onto the arm of the couch and close the near little window...and then I had to get to the far window...and...I could hear one of our neighbors across the street talking to someone outside, and all I could think of was here I go, like some caged lunatic, making my way across the back of the couch, kind of pressed up against the big window, half tilted sideways, just - oh I have no idea what I looked like, but I'm sure it was not pretty at all.  I managed to get to the window and close it.  And then I turned around and stood there, kind of helpless, trying to figure out how to escape from my predicament without embarrassing myself further.

Bill came out of the bathroom and saw me standing there.

"Do you need help?"

"Um...no..."

I managed to get out of that predicament without injuring myself, which was pretty good, considering.

~~~

And I think I'll end this now.  We've got to move mattresses and a few other things out of the bedroom and then I need to vacuum and clean the floors upstairs so they're ready to go when it's time to sand.

I'll fill you in on all the other insanity around here later.  Oh...it was not pretty....