Writing on the Wall

I have this wall. I hate blank walls. I had a plan for all other walls in this room except for this one. Every time I go in the study, the wall is challenging me: "Hey man, think you got a plan, huh? Well you don't! I'm big and empty and I like it that way. You lose. Sucka."

The wall did not speak to husband in the same way as it spoke to me. He didn't feel taunted and teased by the blank study wall. But I did. And I knew I needed to conquer it. So. I found a plan. It started with listening to Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 4-5-1 [which, by the way, don't. It's read by Ray Bradbury and he's either 100 years old, extremely fat, extremely drunk or all of the above. Slurring and audible breath refills don't work for audio books].

Anyway. There is a quote in the beginning that I loved. I thought:
Hm. I love that line.
I should do something with that.
How about I type it up in a cool font, frame it, and stick in on a wall.
Which wall?
How about the study wall? Ya know, books in the study, book quotes on the wall. It could work right?
It's too big for just one little quote.
How about a bunch of quotes in a photo collage?
That would take a lot of frames. That's expensive and I've already planned a photo frame collage for another wall. Don't want to go picture collage crazy...
What else could I do with this quote?

I could write it on the wall! 

By this point, I've missed about half of the slurring, breath-gasping first chapter of the book but am totally jazzed about my new idea and am already thinking of other books/authors/quotes that I want to use to fill up my wall and what kind of pen/art supplies I should use.

Problem step: convince husband.

His initial response was "I don't know how I feel about encouraging people to write on our walls." Because I had included my almost favorite part of my plan: have people who come to my house contribute and write their own personal favorites on the wall. I could see he needed more convincing.

I don't know about you but when I come up with an idea for something "creative", I'm not entirely sold on my own ability to come up with something cool. So I go to Google and search for validation that someone else on some cool decor blog has done something like it and therefore, I'm not completely off my rocker for wanting to do said creative project. Although, if I don't find a similar project, I just chalk it up to having a completely original cool idea. Either way, Google validates all creative endeavors.

Validation #1
Months ago on a wallpaper search, I found this wallpaper at Anthro. I love it. But don't love that it's $700 per roll. That's just insane. But I mentioned this to husband. See! Someone else did this in wallpaper form and is charging obscenely for it!

Validation #2
Extreme doodling. Granted this is actual artwork and not written word but I write much better than I draw. Plus the idea of drawing anything on the wall caters to that inner-rebellious child. And we're all supposed to listen to our inner-child right?

Validation #3
If you saw this movie, you know how totally rad this was. Perk: my wall won't have the inconvenience of chalk dust all over the place.

Validation #4
You. I know you can't see the vision I have in my head of this project but you get the general idea. Fill an entire wall with handwritten quotes from books. The font will not be too big or too small. Too tiny will look messy and too big will look unintentional. I'll start in the middle and balloon out. Use the same color throughout. What do we think?

Mulling Things Over: Part 3 (Holiday Edition)

Halloween

When I tell people I don't really like or even celebrate Halloween, you'd think I just cursed their firstborn child or spit on the American flag. I'm not going to go into all my reasons for why I don't care for it but they are very legit and I stand by them. But this year, I started to reconsider my aversion to the holiday. For reasons as follows: 

1) I love pumpkin. I made pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pancakes, and chocolate pumpkin pie this fall. I'm considering devoting the entire month of October next year to pumpkin recipes. 

2) The color orange makes me really happy. I think my house would look totally rad in orange decorations. 

3) A dozen or so costumed kids rang our doorbell Saturday night. They were so happy and excited and SO cute in their often ill-fitting costumes. I told Jericho that once we have kids, we'll become better Halloween people.  

Thus I have found that there are things about an otherwise annoying holiday to enjoy and celebrate and therefore save some face for all those that think it's offensively un-American to not like Halloween.

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Thanksgiving

This year, Thanksgiving is at my house for the very first time ever. Our guest list is a whopping five people but I'm researching enough recipes to feed a football team. [Is four pies too many for five people?] I can't help myself. I feel intimidated and empowered by the challenge. Thanksgiving is the gold medal round for all cooks. A culinary walkabout. It's the culmination of all my cooking skills, all to be manifested in one glorious day full of sweat and tears and decadent fall fare. And, it's giving me an valid excuse to buy more fun kitchen gadgets. And I'm pre-ordering my never-frozen, organic turkey from Whole Foods. I do work in Chapel Hill, after all.

Anyone need a place to go for Thanksgiving? Our house seats up to 14...

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Christmas

I decided to send Christmas cards this year. I've finalized the list and ordered them from Pear Tree Greetings getting the early bird discount. I've even started my Christmas shopping. Every year, I always say I want to start my Christmas shopping earlier but it never happens. I end up planning but never actually doing. This Saturday, I may attempt do some more at the grand opening of the Tanger Outlet mall. It's going to be epic. This beauty occupies a piece of property directly across the interstate from my neighborhood. It's going to destroy traffic on our exit. But it'll be epic. Our neighborhood HOA is petitioning for the town to build a skywalk over I-40. 

My house will also be host to some family over the Christmas holiday. I've never played hostess to house guests before so I'm a little excited. Husband doesn't understand why I plan so much for anticipated house guests. I guess it's a woman thing. At least now we have a mattress for the extra queen bed.

Who knew having a house would infuse so much domestic responsibility into my life?

Eighteen Months Old

Today, Jericho and I are eighteen months old. Eighteen months. We're definitely still newbies. [Keen Mary decided to count her marriage age in months until they reached the two year mark, much like you do with children. It makes sense so I shall do the same.] 

It seemed the first few months of marriage went by rather slowly. Not in a bad way. Lots of transitions and newness. Lots of excitement on our new adventures.

But newness and adventures wane a little and you get caught into the swing of life. Adventures still come along and you learn your lessons together instead of individually. You learn how to make things fun and not sweat the small stuff.

You learn that you're not just playing house. But it is comforting to have a house, a friend in that house every day to come home to, and a husband that provided that house. And mows the lawn and builds shelves and vacuums and plants bushes and yells at the construction people for oozing mud all over our beautiful grass.

No matter how busy we are, I'm still thankful every day that I'm married to Jericho. He is my constant.* He is my confidant and comedian. He is my cheerleader and tissue box. And he thinks I'm funny.

I'm glad I have someone that goes fun places with me and even some places that aren't fun. Well, maybe not fun for him but I think the bookstore is fantastically fun. To know you'll never be alone in anything is delightful and totally spoiling.

You're pretty stinking in love on the day you get married. But every day after tells you just how much you didn't know about love on that day. It's a pretty small day in comparison to everything else that you have from that day forward. I'm excited for many more months to come.

Happy eighteen months to my favorite person ever. 

*see Season 5 of LOST