fragments of the day.

I was more excited to begin reading my new Chelsea Handler book today at lunch than I was when I bought a new car this weekend. Sad? Probably. I barely made it to one o'clock, (my top time choice for lunch) the excitement was so great. At one I trotted off to Love Park with book and iced coffee in hand. perfect. 80 degrees, sunny and a slight breeze...sitting on the wall, I read, laughing outloud for two chapters of peaceful bliss. fourty-five minutes and two chapters in, my bliss was cut short by a group of five rowdy adults. Just my luck, even though the entire length of retaining wall surrounding the park was empty this group chose to sit 5 feet away from me, smoking cigarettes and talking loudly. Obviously little me stood no chance of standing up to five people that have almost no consideration for others so I sat there for a minute to see if they'd actually read the newspapers they brought with them. Just then, an explosion. Brown water burst from the Love Park fountain as it shot twenty feet into the air, spewing water for the first time since fall. A ring of brown slowly worked its way to the outer edge of the pool and dissipated into the blue water. I felt the cool fountain water hit my face and quickly re-located to a bench off to the right of the LOVE sculpture. I read for fifteen more minutes of hilarious bliss (thank you chelsea handler). perfect lunch.

befores... and afters...

I am preparing for the Trenton Arts Festival/Kenetic Sculpture Derby which is on May 22nd. I am excited and have been Painting making and refinishing things to sell at the show. I made a goal to paint 5 pictures a week, and in between spend time refinishing and making things. Currently I'm in the middle of re-finishing an old chest I used to use as a coffee table, an old shoe shine box and I'm making little coat hooks on reclaimed wood I've acquired (sometimes it pays to hoard crappy wood) and gotten from my own house. I'm really into it and looking forward to this show...big time. Its been so long since I've made such lofty goals for myself...I'm such a sucker for making goals and fulfilling them. So here are some pictures of my works in progress, and a couple finished things. its all soooo exciting.

holy moly.

I have been working hard... certainly not as hard as I could be working, but I am alright with that. my bedroom has basically been a construction zone for two and a half years... I've absolutely hated it every single day I have lived in this house and since I have recently stumbled upon a large amount of free time I concentrated a good amount on working on my room, finally. It was a fair amount of work since I've started, new windows, new walls, new floor. The last 3 weeks I had to finish putting in 3 feet of uncompleted flooring, a new soffit, spackle and sand the entire room and paint. I hung new curtains, I cleaned out my closet all my drawers and now it looks pretty good. Its not quite complete because it needs moldings and window sills and is going to cost a little more than I can afford at the moment...but for now I am very happy with my bedroom. onto the next project I go!

i lost myself for a second.

This week is a week about me, I guess. I have come to realize this week that I've been neglecting myself for awhile. I haven't been doing things I need to do, I wouldn't say I really wanted to do the things I needed to do, or maybe I just didn't realize I wanted to do them. At any rate my bedroom has been making me really miserable probably since they day I moved into my house. It used to be really really bad and then slowly its gotten better...two and a half years slowly. I had decided that my bedroom was going to be the last thing I worked on when I moved into my house (that hasn't really worked out), besides the kitchen. The two extra bedrooms were the most important for me to finish because I rent them out so those have been done for quite awhile. nothing else is really 'done' but sort of in limbo.
I was sort of forced into working on my bedroom last october when my parents moved away...before they moved my dad decided that he had to help me replace ALL the windows in my house before they moved, so over the course of 4 days all the windows were taken out and replaced. it was a messy messy ordeal and pretty much made every room in my entire house a construction zone. All the walls around every window were rotten and needed to be replace...thus began my bedroom process. thats been going on for a year.
I put in a new floor, but i didn't finish it. I replaced the front a wall about 6 months ago but haven't painted it because I had to finish fixing another wall that I attempted to fix 2 years ago. I finally finished this wall I started 2 years ago this weekend. I had to take the entire thing out and put it back in....it took two hours...so today I got home from work and decided I needed to really get this done. I plastered and spackled the wall...which took like no time, so I embarked on finishing the floor. I'm not completely done with the floor, I have a couple rows left and need to rip out the molding and replace an outlet tomorrow but that shouldn't take more than an hour. All in all this process probably only took me 4 hours and I had really forgotten how much I enjoyed working on my house. Its seriously been so long since I really worked on it. I mean, I finished my bathroom a couple months ago but that was NOT fun for some reason. this was. I guess I just like mindless repetitive things like putting in a wood floor by hand...or maybe I'm just excited by the fact that soon my bedroom will be done and I won't feel like I'm living in a disgusting mess like I have for the last 2.5 years. Its exciting to see something getting done for the first time in awhile and I'm glad I'm finally actually doing it. so. yeah. go me.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.

though this time its fo-real. for years...YEARS I've said I was going to take a picture of myself once a day for at least a year...I said i'd do this last year, the year before. etc. I'm sure some cannot believe that I really haven't been doing this. (yes I know I take a lot of pictures of myself) but its really happening. I started 3 days ago...and I've been keeping it up. Honestly it isn't that hard. I officially want to start on my birthday, but I've started early...maybe I'll come up with a more clever set up in a couple weeks from now....maybe I'll just keep my tripod in the same part of my room....maybe I'll move around place...who knows...I have a whole year to figure it out I guess. I can't wait to wait myself age, one picture at a time...a year from now.

for like.ever

Summer is almost officially over. I find it interesting that as soon as labor day began its approach the weather cooled about 20 degrees and the humidity completely disappeared. It hasn't been getting up past 80 degrees lately which is prefect weather in my opinion. You could wear a light jacket at night, but you don't have to.

Last night was a 'free night' for me. No roller derby practice, no plans with anyone, it was nice. Unfortunately I needed to take a trip to target and homedepot to buy some much needed supplies like cat litter, and corner bead for my walls. Thankfully this trip to two stores took less than an hour of my time - and I was a good shopper and didn't buy anything I didn't really need at target. on a whim I decided that I was going to buy some wood to make shelves in my kitchen. nothing fancy, just some wide pieces of pine. My kitchen is extremely small and living with 2 other people that love to buy tons of food is proving to be difficult sometimes...

I purchased a really long piece of 9inch wide pine and went home. I didn't really PLAN on making the shelves last night, but I got bored cleaning my basement and decided that I would. I cut them out and hung them in less than an hour, man I'm good. I started painting them last night. I decided on white because thats what color my horrid kitchen cabinets are...I figured I should keep it consistent even though I'm a hater of anything white. I don't imagine that I'll use these shelves for anything useful in the kitchen rather I think I may use them as display for all my neat little antique kitchen gadgets....we'll see. pictures to follow.