San Diego

We spent a long weekend in San Diego.  It was warm!  It was sunny!  We were outside wearing sleeves that exposed our white withering arms to sunlight!   

Before booking the trip, we looked online to see some destinations to check out and found a place called the Gaslamp Quarter which has a lot of great restaurants and shops.  We booked a hotel in that area so that we wouldn't have to go far to find something to do.  

We spent some time in the Cedros Design District, which has a lot of neat shops & antique stores.  Within a few blocks of the Design District were some huge consignment stores. I could have spent a whole day there.

I saw so many neat pieces and a very pretty vintage ring almost came home with me.

We also went to Coronado, a little island right across from San Diego.  We checked out the Hotel del Coronado, which was built in 1888 and is still gorgeous.  The whole town is a cool place to explore.  If we go there again, I'd love to rent a bike and cruise along the boardwalk.  

Also checked out the San Diego zoo and really loved the bus tour.  And the landscaping was ah-mazing.

We took Marielle with us and she was such a great traveler on the plane despite some layovers and long lines.  We had to explain to her what that glowing ball of fire in the sky is: "See, Marielle, that's called the sun and it warms our planet but only seems to work in California."

And then we had to leave, put on our winter coats and fly back to Wisconsin to enjoy more of the polar vortex.

When we would chat with people on the sidewalk, they'd ask where we were visiting from.  When we told them Milwaukee, their face would fill with compassion and concern and asked (quite sincerely) how we were holding up.  At least we have others' pity to count on to get us through the rest of winter.  You hear that, Wisconsin?  Others are rooting for us to get through this thing. 

A Letter to the Masterminds behind the Rainbow Loom

Yes, this letter is to the designers and fabricators of the ever popular Rainbow Loom.  

Thanks for taking a break from rolling around in the piles of money that you made during this past year to read this letter.  

You successfully marketed a product under a seemingly benign campaign of "inspiring a child's creativity" in such a way that every little girl I know owns one of your looms.  Parents felt obligated to purchase one of your looms because, surely, they did not want to thwart their child's creativity.  

Oh sure, they all played with the loom for a couple days, perhaps even a week, crafting beautiful bracelets for their family and friends.  They got creative with the color sequences and designs.  And now, the sad and forgotten remnants of the seven thousand rubberbands lay all over the home, sometimes in the most unlikely of places.

But the genius didn't stop there, did it Designers?  You somehow were able to fabricate the rubberbands out of some space age plasticized rubber blend that is impervious to the vacuum cleaner!  Try as you may, parents, but the rubberbands won't suck up into the vacuum cleaner for easy cleanup.  Which means that we parents get to spend time on our hands and knees hand picking the small circles out of floor crevices and corners, muttering under our breath. 

I know that right now, you may be ready to introduce the new spring color lineup so that we are once again inundated with the new batch of pastel colors to scrape off our shoes.   But this time, we parents have wised up to your schemes and will steer our children clear from your part of the toy aisle.  But, Designers, we know that you have likely covertly partnered with the Grandparents in a conspiracy against us and that somehow, someway, the new spring lineup of rubberbands will still end up in our homes.

Well played, Designers.  Well played.  

Sincerely,

Laura

Small Things

I am a task-oriented person.  I like to check things off a mental list at the end of the day so that I can "prove" to myself that I spent my time well that day.  

You can see the problem with this list.  First, it is impossible to check off laundry.  There is simply no end, no completion of this.  Unless you live in a nudist colony.  Which reminds me....

Kidding.

Second, there is no checking off "raising children". As far as I can tell, there is no end.  Third, there is no foolproof toy organization; that is, if you have children.  I have recently tricked myself into thinking that if I purchase a lot of baskets and cubbies with pretty labels that toys will find their way into their neatly labeled baskets.  IT'S TRICKERY!  BASKETS AND LABELS ARE FOR DECEIVED PARENTS WHO THINK THEIR CHILDREN WILL FOLLOW THE SYSTEM!!! (But the baskets are really pretty and so well labeled).  

But I am fortunate.

I have a network of people around me who support and encourage me to write, to think about valuable things, to keep a sense of humor about the everyday, to be a better mom and better friend.  

It reminds me that I want to be the kind of person who shows up when life is difficult for others around me.  I want to encourage others to rethink what success is.  My days, like everyone else's, is filled with small and seemingly insignificant things.  Our lives are constantly being disrupted by things that aren't on our list and most of those interruptions are really inconvenient and annoying.  How can I [we] use our day today to inspire, encourage and be available to someone who wasn't on our list this morning? 

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Pondering

I think what I enjoy most about decorating is pondering where things should go and how they should look.  Lately, I've been pondering the family room.  We will be using the back bedroom on the first floor as a tv room/family room.  I ordered the sectional for that space a couple of weeks ago and it should be coming soon.  I still haven't painted the room, but here's what I've come up with so far:

I'd like to have some funky plant in the room and would love to have my fiddle leaf fig in there, but I just can't convince it to stay alive.  I have two of these plants now and they are struggling between life and death.  Apparently, I do not have a knack with indoor plants.  I am on the verge of writing them off as too needy and ungrateful.  

Does that Persian rug look familiar?  I bought it for the sunroom, but I really like how it looks with the charcoal color of the couch.  I'm sure this rug will get moved around to lots of different rooms in the house from time to time.  I love it so.  I have an armoire for the tv and movies and I think I may paint it or strip it.  It's a bit too red for the rest of the stuff going on here.  Also, I plan on reviving a thrift shop coffee table using this tutorial:

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So many projects….

         

Lime Away

A couple of years ago I purchased a set of 6 dining chairs at a rummage sale and I think I paid about $12/chair for them.  We sanded them down and recovered the seats with new fabric and they've been our day in and day out dining seating.  

A year or so ago, one of the cane backs on the chair ripped and I called a place to see what it would cost to fix it.  As it turned out, it would cost $235 to fix the caning.  Ouch.  

In other words, our set of 6 chairs went down to a set of 5 because I just couldn't commit to $235 to fix a chair that I paid $12 for.  I've been wanting to find another set of 6-8 chairs but the price hasn't been right: it's kinda hard to beat $12 per chair.

We got an email last week from Perry at Hope Street that one of their residents is graduating and will be moving into an apartment.  He needs some items to get his new place set up.  One of the items needed was a set of dining chairs and we decided to donate our set of five.

I checked out Craigslist and some consignment shops.  I found this set of 6 in the "make an offer" section.  Well, don't mind if I do.  The chairs had some rad 80s fabric and it looks like the wood had been limed.  But I liked the shape, they were really comfortable and are made of solid wood.  Done.

When I brought them home, I tried a little bit of hand sanding and an orbital sander just to see what I was getting into.  In a few minutes, I could see that this was going to be a time consuming job because the layer of finish on top was really thick.  I took a chair into the basement and put some stripper on it.  

A couple hours later I did some scraping and there was still some finish left, which would mean that after I stripped them I would still have to sand off the remaining finish, which is more time than I'd like to commit right now so I think I will just reupholster them and leave the limed finish (for now).  

I looked on Pinterest for some limed chair inspiration and here's what I've come up with:

I hope to get to the fabric store this week to score some non-80s fabric for the chairs. Keep you posted on that progress.

If anyone is interested in donating to Hope Street, there's still some items needed to furnish his new apartment.  If you have pots/pans, couch, chair, kitchen table, bed or dresser that you'd like to donate, let's talk :)