outside and loving every minute of it

i spent the day with my cousins today. it had a lot of grief management going on. there were plenty of other emotions holding court as well. the deepest problem was seeing my relatives so discombobulated. the person that died was my first cousin, once removed. this means in more specific terms, that my mother's mother's sister's son was the person who had died.

in my family, there are a lot of males. my grandmother had a son and daughter.one of her sisters had no kids. the other was the mother to three boys. between these 3 sons, 7 more boys were built.

i was, as my mother is,the only female of our generation. this is only remarkable in that the relationships between men are different than those between men who have been raised with girls. i feel like we females are the wolves in the relationships that evolve.

i saw my cousin (of my familial generation) who is now a young man, literally half my age weeping copiously. i used to babysit for him. well i was completely and utterly unprepared for the level of grief he expressed. to see someone you love in that much pain is really difficult.

it is also remarkable that the memorial service was very loosely constructed. no one of us knew where we were going to release some ashes into the wilds of a natural water feature in MA. it was all free form in its organization. i have no idea why, but it was pretty disconcerting. everyone had feelings about the memorial and the incompleteness of the plan added to the rising sense of discomfort we all shared. everyone expressed things so very differently. again, the all male sibling relationships which are so very difficult for me to understand on a good day, well they left me feeling hugely unsettled.

perhaps it is a feature of all the stuff we process while dealing with death or else it is a series of micro emotional peaks and valleys that we are to contend with. i don't know.

i feel like i have a wicked and weird hangover.

this has left me with a huge thirst for some more attractive visuals as i wander through my night time rituals.

in this, i am equally exhausted by looking through blogs of other designers and some truly gifted writers.

they are witty, charming and productive as a group. some of the to-do lists that they power through make me feel like i have been in a coma.

i live in a chaotically organized place. it is of my own making. now i feel that i have a way to face spring which seemingly has made its grand entrance this week. i feel like some purposeful redecorating should be in the mix... and in a big way. i am sure i will be soon purchasing some huge inexpensive bundles of foam paint brushes. along with a nifty, large white canvas drop-cloths to renovate and slipcover my living room. it is an itch of reverse nesting that i think is overdue. the reverse sensation is that two of my kids will be readying for college. one for a freshman year and the elder for her sophmore year.

in this wild new phase, personal industriousness will be obliged to partner with ideas about how i live in my life shell. i will post any ideas, pics(before and afters) that are good to share with you. i think some cheeriness is overdue. as well as a good dose of organizing, throwing crap out, and cleaning up.

as i move forward thinking of losses, pain and generally a rough year, i plan to carefully slap some paint on some furniture and repurpose as if my life depended upon it. perhaps it does?

anyways,

thanks for listening...

here is an inspirational group of painted items. just to whet my appetite and yours too i hope.

kkk

i love how bright and how purposeful they are.

i want to see some improvement here by my own hands!

i have a victim,

i mean i have selected a nice first candidate for this exciting program

of RENEWAL!

This red desk is so sweet and to me seems so SCANDINAVIAN .

it is Cheery against all possible odds with a capital pom-pom toting Cheerful!

OK, i am out and loving every minute of it.

PINK!!!!

seriously, i do not have enough pink in my life these days.

NEED ME SOME

PINK.

and you know what will be playing on my ipod?

PINK!

temporarily, this is one of my favorites.

i would hate to tell one of my kids that they are my favorite.

i do it all the time.

i whisper it in each of their ears.

they are all my favorites.

and they know it.

so what if they are in therapy forever?

they all share how much i love them.

and i do love this chest with the fantastic wallpaper

serving as a backdrop.

not to mention how MUCH i am grooving on the

cleanery of the cloches.

of course, i think i would have a big bowl of jellybeans

under one of my cloches, if i had some.

Credits for photos... i think that i swiped all of them from the fantastic blog:

http://missmustardseed.blogspot.com