saved by the bell

So it's been almost a year since I started keeping this-here blog-thing – and over a week since I've posted. My husband pointed out that I seemed to need the outlet of this particular space much more last year when my life was in a blender than I do now that things have settled down. Although I tried back then to keep the mewling and puking to a minimum, there may be some truth to that. My life outside the internet is just so much more satisfying now than it was a year ago when I started ao neko. What a difference a new job has made, that and my mom moving just a mile away, making us an extended family.

A year is longer than I've kept any form of journal since I was 23, but don't worry, I'm not going to mark the occasion with some big paean to blogging and how it has changed my life. Obviously, it has, best of all by helping me keep in touch with far-away family, but, somewhat unexpectedly, also by opening up friendships with people who amuse and inspire me daily, whom I feel like I know even though we have never met. But blogging has also brought its own set of weird little issues which, for now at least, I am not going to try to unpack here. I have thought of quitting, not because I don't enjoy this on the whole, but because who needs more issues? But I'm not announcing that I'm quitting today either. I'm just rambling.

So what have I been doing when I'm not doing what I'm doing now? Well, working of course, though a little less now that my teaching semester is over, which is nice. Playing outside with Iris. We've inaugurated a Pittsburgh Tour de Playground, trying to hit a new one every week. (Anyone local? I'll try to let you know where we'll be, if I'm that good about planning ahead, and you can meet up with us there.) And because there will be rainy days, I'm still working on the playroom, trying to make it a fun, functional yet flexible space. I'll show more pictures when it's farther along, but for now, look what I found over the weekend for $3 a piece:


Four old school molded fiberglass chairs with steel frames. I got them from Construction Junction, where $12 buys a lot of dirt, let me tell you. But they cleaned up real nice, and they'll be the perfect rough-and-tumble playroom furniture. I love that they can stack together to take up less space or link arm-to-arm to make a row.

I've also been rocking on my rectangles. New table linens are in the works – thank goodness, because I am sorely tired of my old ones, which I've been using since my last big bout of home ec crafting about 12 years ago – and curtains are being planned. With most of the work on these simple projects being the pressing and pinning, I am anxiously awaiting the delivery of my new iron. I've been using J's mom's old iron, a trusty appliance if there ever was one, and so very 1970s in its lovely almond and orange color scheme. But the casing on the cord is shot and that makes me just a leetle nervous.

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but the project I started a year ago when I started this blog, I still have not finished. The problem is color paralysis, which does not happen to me very often so I am not sure how to overcome it. Since you all are so clever, maybe I'll post an updated picture soon and ask for your input.

! ! ! That was the doorbell. Hello Brown!