Just like he said he would, my dad came home from jury duty and installed a new motion-sensor light in my backyard laundry area. It’s wonderful. When I walk around the corner the lights automatically come on for me and I no longer have to blindly swipe through the cobwebs to find the plug for the existing fluorescent light that plugs into a power strip that connects to an extension cord that runs from inside the house somewhere. I know it sounds Mickey Mouse. It is.

As you may remember, I’m living in my grandpa’s old place and everything has been rigged by him. He was the master inventor and also the original MacGyver. Well, not really but sometimes I wonder. Most of his inventions are very handy but sometimes they leave me scratching my head. Really, Grandpa? You strung a wire from here all the way to there and never worried about fire hazards? But hey, who has Christmas lights in their pantry? I do!

As my dad was futzing around with the wires on the motion-sensor light, he let out a familiar frustrated sigh. When I asked him what was wrong, he didn’t even have to answer. We both chorused the same phrase we always say over any project we do around this house.

“Nothing is as easy as it seems.”

It’s almost a formula for the jobs my dad sets out to do here. He’ll look at something, declare it an easy fix he can do in an afternoon and then head off to the hardware store for parts. Then he comes home and starts working. Right away he finds out the part he bought is the wrong part and back to the hardware store he goes. Half the time the hardware store people give him the wrong advice and the other half of the time it’s just the house’s fault for being old and incompatible with everything new. In the end he always manages to fix everything in the nick of time before he has to go back out on the road but everything always takes longer than he anticipated and he’s always late going back to work. His dispatcher hates me, I’m sure. I should probably bake him some cookies.

Here is the floor my dad painted for me. I was going to take before photos of the water-damaged plywood because it was so awful I thought it might make a good background if I ever needed some stock art for a grunge/punk design job. True, I don’t have very many grunge/punk clients, but you never know. It’s always good to have a big library of background images on hand.

But then my dad surprised me and painted it while I was gone. I had told my mom that painting the floor was on my big important list of things to do. I was actually thinking of painting it something like this but I was procrastinating because the floor was in such bad shape. I knew it was going to take me forever to get it clean enough to paint. So I casually had mentioned to my mom that if my dad wanted to paint the first coat, I wouldn’t mind a bit.

Of course my mom took my casual request as something that must be done right away for their favorite paying renter and had my dad do it the minute he got home. So I’m not going to complain at all about the color or for not giving me a warning first. It’s cleaner and now I can send guests off to the restroom without having to apologize for the floor that might give them leprosy. Eventually I think I’m just going to put some groovy 70′s linoleum in there. The stenciled-floor idea is really fun and I’d love to do that someday but I know I’m not going to get to it. I have do other things, like work so I can keep paying my rent to my favorite landlords. Maybe I’ll let Bug go crazy with some pink paint.

She seems to be in charge of the rest of the decor.

What I really want to get rid of are those hanging-chain light fixtures. But they are not on my big important list of things to do. I’m sure if I fixed them then I’d want to change the counter and put in new faucets too and before you know it I’d be blowing so much money on this place I’d be stuck here forever. For now I am getting along just fine with my mint-green floor and my avocado-green tub.

Mostly because I am still on cloud nine over my oven.

I’ve found that one can put up with a lot of things when one is surrounded by family one loves and an oven that bakes tasty treats. And yes, I did send my Dad off with a great big bag of cookies and homemade dinners that he can eat on the road. He earned them!

Summer is upon us and the heat has been oppressive. I know I can’t complain since we live at the beach and it’s probably a zillion times hotter in other parts of the country. It’s just that we don’t have air conditioning in our old broken down apartment and sometimes I find myself wondering if winter ever existed. And if it did, why did I complain so much about being cold?!!! I would take that cold any day right about now.

Do you like my makeshift curtains? I knew that crocheted blanket would come in handy when I swiped it from my mom last year. I swear it drops the temperature on the couch about five degrees which is really wonderful when the weather feels like hot dog’s breath.

I’ve been daydreaming about Paris again, as I’m wont to do when the sweat is rolling down my back. It’s my happy place I go to when I’m hot and hating my ugly stained carpet. I like to think about the old broken down apartments I saw when I was there. Window ledges were crumbling, paint was peeling, walls were cracked. Life wasn’t all clean and modern and air conditioned but it was still beautiful in that gritty, these-walls-have-been-here-for-hundreds-of-years sort of way.

My apartment might not be a hundred years old but it feels like it sometimes. So I’ve been trying to see the beauty in it. Not just in my hot sweaty apartment but in life all around me. You know, just ordinary life. Just like that famous photographer said, if you look hard enough you’ll find a picture.

Actually I’m quoting that all wrong. It was Stieglitz who said, “Wherever there is light, one can photograph,” But in my mind I paraphrased it to be something like, “There is a picture everywhere, you just have to find it.” I love thinking that. I love trying to find that picture. Sometimes I have to bend over backwards to find that weird odd angle but it’s there.

Today I tried to find that picture at the laundromat. It made laundry day a lot more fun. Maybe they are mundane photos but life is mundane. Personally, I don’t have a lot of pictures from my own childhood. I’d pay a lot of money to see photos of myself helping my mom do laundry back in the 70′s and 80′s. (Did I even help my mom do laundry? I don’t think I did.) We’ve got lots of pictures of my brother and I at Sea World and camping in Yosemite but not a single one doing something ordinary. I’d love to go back in time and see what that ordinary looked like.

I wonder how much different it is from how we do things now… I find these mundane details way more interesting than say photos of a mountain or a pretty lake. Of course I love photos of beautiful scenery. But it’s the people who change, the fashions, the moments, the little things… that’s what I want to capture. I wonder what Bug will think of all these photos when I’m old and gone. Will there be so many of them that she’ll find it all exhausting? Or will she treasure them?

As you can see, laundry time ran into nap time but I chose to stay at the laundromat and fold my clean clothes there. Why? Because the swamp cooler was blasting out a nice humid breeze and the oldies were playing. I might even say it was pleasant. Which is a first for me and laundry day.

My Great-Aunt Velma died today at eight-something in the morning. We are not sad about it. She was 98 years old. She was a feisty old lady who lived a long happy life. The end was really hard for her though. I know for months she fought dying but her body just kept breaking down. Every day was incredibly painful. She talked about God and Jesus a lot and I know she is in heaven but still letting go was difficult for her. I think she held on as long as she could.

My mom says my aunt had a long talk with my grandpa (her brother) this morning and then just finally felt at peace with it. And then she died. It’s strange how sometimes death can be so slow that you can almost count your days right down to the very last one…and then other times it’s snatched from you when you least expect it.

A few weeks ago Bug and I went to the laundromat to do our laundry. As usual we were excited to see Judy, an employee who worked the fluff-and-fold service at the back. She was a funny old lady with a lazy eye that listed off to the left. She never really smiled much but everyone loved her. She was sort of grumpy but with a soft center. She had a great memory and would always remember whatever you had talked about the last time you had been in, even if it was six months ago. She liked purses and was always complimenting me on whatever bag I happened to be carrying. She really liked Bug and Bug liked her.

Then one day we walked in and Judy wasn’t there. At the front of the laundromat there was a sign saying she had broken her hip, gotten a blood clot and died on her way to the hospital. The owner knew she would be missed by many. The note rambled on a bit, a sort of thank-you to the community and introduction to the new employee at the back, Maria.

It was shocking. I stood there and re-read the note three times. How could this happen? I had just talked to Judy the week before. I can still see her face so clearly in my mind even though it’s been five weeks since it happened…

Bug and I have talked about Judy a lot. Judy is the first person that Bug knows that has died. I think she understands that Judy is “in the sky with Jesus” but I’m not sure. When I first told Bug that Judy was gone and wouldn’t ever come back she asked if we could “buy a new Judy.” I wish we could. We really miss Judy.

For some strange reason Bug was being really well-behaved today at the laundromat. I decided to stay a while and fold my laundry on the nice counters they have set up for that. Usually I’m a frazzled mess and cram everything into my giant zip-lock bags and get out of dodge as soon as I can. Even Judy in all her quirky kindness couldn’t make me love sticking around the laundromat any longer than I had to. But today I just felt like staying.

Bug curled up on one of the comforters I had laundered and quietly sang to herself. As I stood beside her folding the clothes, I listened to random strangers come in and talk to each other about Judy. Everyone had a story to tell. One older man, in his 60′s, seemed especially disturbed. He said he didn’t know Judy very well but he’d had a connection with her over their health. I don’t know his full story but I gather that he has had a heart attack and was thinking about death a lot too. Maybe he and Judy are the same age. I guess they both were on some of the same medication.

Then he walked back to his own laundry and I could see from his shaking back that he was sobbing silently. It broke my heart. I didn’t know what to say to him but I felt like I had to reach out. I went over to him and patted his back awkwardly. I told him about Bug and me and how we miss Judy too. He smiled at me and thanked me. Then he went back to folding his t-shirts. Later when he was done he thanked me again. “You just never know where you are going to find exceptional things in life,” he said.

I’m not sure exactly what he was referring to, but the thought that stuck with me is that even though our paths through the laundromat were brief and fleeting they were still meaningful. None of us know each other there. We pass each other weekly. Some faces are familiar, some are not. It’s a community but the only common denominators are our laundry and Judy. Judy is that exceptional thing that we didn’t know we had.

It’s been more than a month and still people are talking about her. I wish there was some sort of memorial to her. A picture, a tree…something. I know it would be covered with fond farewells. If only we could tell her just one last time how special she was. A silly cranky old lady with a lazy eye. I never knew I would miss her so much.

Of course this sort of makes me feel a bit bad about not missing my aunt as much as I miss Judy but it’s more of a practical selfish day-to-day missing that I feel. I didn’t know Judy. I didn’t know her family life or where she lived or what her dog’s name was…I just know that she’s not there anymore and now there is an unexpected void.

I know this sadness will pass. New faces will take her place. New friendships will be formed. I think I just want to end this post with the thought that we should reach out and thank the Judys in our lives because they might not be there tomorrow.

We cruised down to Bethany’s for the day and two things happened. She made croque monsieurs for dinner which always take me all the way back to Paris AND she let me play with her new 50mm lens! Normally I say Lens schmens, it’s what you do with the camera that counts, but this lens?!! It makes everything look like smitten kitchen. I’m so in love with it. I’m trying really hard not to be jealous but it is difficult!

Does that look like it was taken in fluorescent light? Where’s the green cast? You’d think I did some fancy photoshop work to warm up the shot. But I didn’t. I did absolutely nothing. Doesn’t Bethany look like Nigella? It’s good to have friends who can cook.

It’s good to have friends who let you use their fancy camera…

…and let you do your laundry in their garage.

p.s. By the way, the cookies on my saj plate are smitten kitchen’s pecan sandies. This is a very smitten-esque post. (Hi Deb!)

p.p.s. The plate is for sale. I have a lens to save up for.

This is Baby Bug’s good friend, Audrey. They love each other. They get along really well. It’s almost eerie. I can have a complete conversation when Audrey is around because Baby Bug is not interrupting me every five seconds. She’s off telling secrets or having laughing contests. I don’t think they’ve squabbled over one thing in the entire two visits that they’ve spent together. Maybe two visits isn’t long enough to judge by but Baby Bug has fought with other kids in less than two minutes so I’m thinking it’s Audrey.

It helps that they are only two weeks apart in age but I think the real reason they get along so well is because Audrey doesn’t mind getting bossed around by Baby Bug. Audrey is a little sister already and she is used to it. She likes it even. Maybe she misses her big sister, who is off at school, and is happy to have an event coordinator back in her life.

While Baby Bug talks up a storm, Audrey is very quiet and shy. She understands every word Baby Bug says and is more than happy to tag along with her to do whatever Baby Bug wants. I can see in Audrey’s face that she is happy to have someone who understands her and will act as a mouthpiece for her.

I’m not saying that Audrey doesn’t talk or that people don’t understand her, because she does talk and she is understandable but I get the feeling that Baby Bug is almost an interpreter or a louder spokesperson. Baby Bug is really good at letting the whole wide world know what is really going on inside a two-year-old’s brain. And believe me, there is a LOT going on inside two-year-old brains. I think Audrey likes that.

Whatever the reason, I think Audrey should come over everyday because it’s so nice for me not to be bossed around all day!

So you can imagine my delight when Jen from Jen’s Space offered to meet me at the laundromat for a play date with Audrey. The laundromat? Who wants to hang out at the laundromat? I do everything in my power NOT to hang out at the laundromat, including wearing smelly clothes that don’t fit me very well. I hate the laundromat!

There is a park behind the laundromat for Baby Bug to play on but it’s always like pulling teeth to extract her from the sandbox or the slide or the tiny pieces of grass that she is inspecting so I can go take my clothes out of the washer before the mumbling guy with schizophrenia steals them. Then there is the door she could run out of and into a car driving by or the scary germs all over the floor that she likes to wipe her pacifier along…my point is that usually laundry day is difficult. A long difficult struggle with wet clothes and my bossy kid.

But yesterday? Laundry day was a dream! The kids loved the washers and depositing the coins. It was a game! They had discussions about what was swirling around in someone else’s washer. Was it a wet sheep? It sure looked like a wet sheep. Then when the washer switched cycles and the sudsy sheepskin folded in half, away from the washer window, they both jumped back as if the sheep was really alive! It was pretty funny.

They both helped me quite a bit, carrying over wet laundry to the dryer and just generally being delightful little girls. I would have taken more photos of them being adorable but I was too busy blabbing my heart out because for once I could have a real conversation with another mom without being interrupted! The bliss! Who knew!?

So yeah, that’s my kid with no pants. There’s a story behind that of course. Even though I let her go without pants at home, I usually try to keep her clothed when we are in public. But there was a slide with water on it. You know how that goes. The sprinklers got the playground wet or the dew hadn’t quite dried off in the sun yet. It’s always like this for us. You’d think one of these days I’d pack a towel to dry off the slide before she goes down it. But no, I never learn.

She went down the slide and got her adorable skirt and black and white striped leggings wet and that was the end of that cute outfit. Plus, there were other kids at the park playing in the sand with no shoes on. We had a little battle over why she had to wear shoes when they didn’t have to. So I gave up the skirt and leggings in exchange for her keeping on her shoes because that park is a little sketchy. I affectionately call it “Drug Dealer Park.” She can run around and look like trailer trash but she will not step on glass or a hypodermic needle in bare feet under my watch. Okay, the park is not that bad but I have to be the boss on some things. I draw the line at shoes.

I’m home! Home at a last. Of course I’m completely overwhelmed with all the catching up I have to do. If I thought I had a lot of blogs to read before, now I am steamrolled! I met so many people that I desperately want to keep in touch with. It’s going to be impossible. Not to mention my real life is going to steamroll me too.

Right now as I type this (and the munchkin is sleeping blessedly), the mail is cascading off the edge of the dining room table and onto the floor, dishes are stacked a mile high in the sink (thank you Toby), the floor is vacuumed (also thank you Toby but this time not sarcastically), my motley crew of bulging tote bags and stuffed suitcases are sitting in the other room plotting a riot. The cats are noisy and begging for more food. The refrigerator is bare and the milk is going bad. I think my laptop is dying from over-use and too many photos. So I need to spend about a thousand hours processing photos, uploading them and then putting them somewhere else so my laptop can breath again.

I think I’ve been gone too long.

Was it worth it? YESSSSSSS! Toby says I need to write a long debriefing post linking everyone I met and be done with it. I don’t know about all that linking, I’ve probably lost half the cards I collected, but he is right. I do. I know I’ve already been searching the internet over to see what people have been saying about me and they’ve been saying nice stuff. (Everyone is SO NICE!!!) So I need to make an effort to do the same. It’s just going to take a while because I need to peel myself up off the floor and walk around like Flat Stanley getting stuff done.

It’s such bad luck to write about how manically happy you are. Singing songs about boxes…such foolishness! Well, you know what happened. A switch flipped in my head and suddenly I was struck with PMS (or something) from hell. That’ll teach me to brag about my office box. Whatever goes up must come down.

Don’t worry, the office box is still rocking. The sun went behind some clouds and a storm moved into my head, that’s all. Thankfully, I have some very good friends who’s feet are firmly grounded in reality and they called me on my crap. I moped a little bit and decided they were right. I know not everyone can kill the blues with a good talk with a good friend but it worked for me…this time. And I am soooooo thankful. I hate falling down that pit of sadness.

I plodded through the day, faking smiles at all of Baby Bug’s cute and not-so-cute antics.

Let me just take a sidebar on the not-so-cute antics. I’m not complaining here, I just thought I’d share…because I can.

Suddenly out of the complete blue nowhere, Baby Bug has a huge aversion to scratchy seams. She never cared before. She’s not an overly sensitive child. I can yank on her hair pretty hard when I put her ponytail in. She never complains the way I used to when I was a kid. She never complains that the bath water is too hot or too cold. She’s really mild-mannered for a two year old.

Until lately. Oh my goodness! She will not wear anything that has “scratchy” seams anymore. Of course all the really cute clothes have super scratchy seams. It’s part of some great conspiracy involving Target and Old Navy and children from China sewing with thread made of steel wool for three cents an hour. Or maybe not.

Maybe Baby Bug is just rebelling because I have not jumped on the organic-free-range-vegan-threadless-hairy-armpit bandwagon all my other friends have jumped on. (I’m just teasing you guys!!!) I guess I’ll have to start budgeting for more expensive clothing from now on. Hopefully, it’s just a phase.

The other day she was walking around shirtless again and Toby told her to go put on a shirt. I already knew the battle ahead so I told her to go pick her own shirt out. I figured maybe if she was in charge, we might get somewhere.

She goes in her room and comes out five minutes later wearing her super-soft crocheted blanket her aunt made her wrapped around her middle three times. Apparently, a wrap-around blanket sufficed for a shirt in her book. Whatever. Toby got a kick out of it but I just rolled my eyes. This is the sort of stuff she pulls all day long.

Later in the day she decided her shirt and her pants were too scratchy so she took them off. Five minutes later she decided her diaper was too scratchy and off it came too. Then she ran around the living room screaming, “Naked Baby! Naked Baby!” I allowed it since this is sort of a fun game we play right before bathtime and frankly, I was worn out with her antics. I just wanted to sit on the couch and stare off into space for a minute or two.

She crawled up on the couch next to me. It was nice. Just a few minutes of quietness between the two of us. I sighed. Maybe motherhood isn’t so hard after all, I thought. It’s moments like this that make it all worth it…

AND THEN SHE PEED ON THE COUCH!!!

Oh well. Life goes on. My new couch cover is very easy to remove for washing (because I’m a thinking mom like that and I planned ahead. I know you all thought I was an idiot to sew a couch cover in white but believe me, I had my reasons). I rinsed the cover off and set both the cushion and the cover out on the porch to dry.

Wow. I got so sidetracked on my sidebar, I forgot what I was talking about.

I guess I’ll just finish up by saying it was a pretty blah day with laundry and absolutely no box time, which could be part of the problem. But by the end of it things got much better and Baby Bug and I baked some watermelon cookies!!!! Which I will write about in my next post.

In the meantime, I’ll just leave you with this photo:

When the weather gets you down, just yell at it!

UPDATE: Don’t leave these on your windows in the sun! Yikes! A reader emailed me the following,

Good to know!

p.s. As of 11:12 p.m. this post has not been edited by my hyphen-loving professional editor. So blame all errors on me.

I think this photo tells a better story than what I can come up with now that it is midnight and I am turning into a pumpkin. I am SO tired! I cleaned all day from top to bottom. I cleaned EVERYTHING!!!! The house will be in tip top shape when Toby gets home on Tuesday.

I also did some jumping on the bed. You know, to get the dust out or something spring cleaning-ish like that. I thought it would be super cool to take a picture of my feet while I was jumping and then like an idiot I jumped too close to the edge and toppled over the footboard and caught myself on the closet like a pelican face-planting into a window. So graceful. Then to add to my humility, Baby Bug started singing “No more monkeys jumping on the bed.”

So I’m a bit sore. Sore and tired. I’d love to blog about my car getting broken into and the super fun beach time and tea party I had with my nieces but I need to turn in so I can turn back into a princess tomorrow morning. This pumpkin business is not very becoming.

I’m not making excuses but I have not been blogging much. Maybe that’s okay since it is DECEMBER and NOT November. Man, when did December get to be such a busy month? And I’m not even talking about holiday plans. We haven’t even gotten to those yet.

I’ve been busy with the shop. Hooray for the shop! I had no idea that was going to keep me so busy. I’ve also been out at my Mom’s and if you know anything about hanging out at my Mom’s, you know there’s always something going on. Never a dull moment out at the sticks.

Unfortunately, it’s been rather cold out here so I’m not taking pictures outside. Also, my mom’s house is so dark and unphotogenic, it’s impossible to take pictures inside. So if you were judging my business by activity on my blog or flickr account, you would think it was nothing but dullsville.

Not so! NOT SO!

I’ve been busy busy busy. We started things off with five hundred loads of laundry and then there was the giant task of reorganizing the complete and extended collection of outgrown clothes that my mom houses in her garage. That would be seven or eleven or so giant Rubbermaid totes full of clothes from my nieces and Baby Bug. We never throw anything out. Baby Bug and any other kid I might ever have after her will have hand-me-downs until the end of time. I wish I had pictures…

After the Olympic clothes-sorting event, I decided to take on an ornament-painting project. This was a journey to failure and back. Long ago in November I decided it would be fun to be part of OMSH’s super-fun swaparooni project. For the month of December it’s an ornament swap instead of the usual color-coordinated loot. I figured it wasn’t that much of a commitment. Surely I could manage to get one ornament in the mail before a deadline. How hard could that be?

Obviously this was before I opened up the world’s most popular flash card shop and before I was struck down by the flu. The deadline came and went and I got squat in the mail. Boo-hiss for me and my internal over-achiever. It was really hard to take actually. I hate missing deadlines, even though I do it nearly every day.

I decided it would be very fun and exciting to paint an ornament. Paint! Let’s paint! My mom never needs to be talked into going to Michaels. You say, let’s go, and she says, “How high?” or something like that. My mom loves crafting as much as I do. So off we went Michaels. I don’t know why I am drawn to that crazy store. It’s jam-packed with so much tacky awful stuff. (Sorry, not talking about anything you bought there of course!) Maybe I go there because there is nowhere else to get supplies around here.

Of course I had to walk down every aisle and get sucked into every little pre-packaged idea of how to amuse myself with stuff that I probably already have. But hey! It’s right here in a box so maybe I should just buy it and not bother looking for it when I get home! I hate that trap. Thankfully, I wised up and put most everything back before I got to the check-out counter but I did manage to buy two baskets (to hold all my crafting crap of course!) that WERE NOT fifty percent off like they said they were.

I hate it when that happens. Since when do baskets cost 50 bucks each? I had to turn right around and take them back the minute the receipt finished printing. What a hassle.

Michaels is totally guilty of up-marking stuff so they can discount it later. I know. I priced them way back when I was buying up canvasses for my Dog Days of Summer project.

But anyway, I was talking about the ornament painting. It didn’t go so well. At least not to my standards. Now that I’m lurking around Etsy all the time these days, I’m starting to think I’m some kind of professional crafter or something. I was sorely disappointed with my painting strokes. The paint we bought (that is specifically for glass) was messy and goopy and showed every stroke like nail polish. I think it was nail polish, actually. If you put on more than one coat at a time, it would pick up the layer underneath.

It was just a mess and a headache and definitely not a project for someone with a toddler who gets into everything and/or wants to “help” all the time. I barely got two ornaments painted that I’m happy with and I still have a whole table full of paint and brushes and glass ornaments that need to be filled with paint on the inside (because I don’t like them when they are clear for some strange reason). I’m just over it.

So I moved onto something I’m a little more comfortable with:

Iron-on transfer paper! I’ll have to share pictures of the results tomorrow.