Stretched Skin

Sometimes I feel like I've lived so many lives in my 30 year old skin that it is stretched beyond its years. Augustin Burroughs once said that when people met him they expected him to be funny, but what he really was was tired and wrinkled, like he'd shoved 17 lives into his skin and now it was stretched and saggy. I can relate. My cat, my dear clumsy squeaky cat Oscar is in the kitty hospital tonight thanks to bladder stones and the whole ordeal made me realize that on any day of the week I'm so jaded I don't let misery and emergency come within a 30 ft range of me. I'm the master of blocking out Bad. For those of you that can master this avoidance technique, I highly recommend it. It doesn't do much for your relationships, but it's one hell of a coping mechanism. Eventually you learn to only let in what you feel like dealing with. Incredible, no? I'm completely in awe of my brain's coping mechanism. Yeay brain!

The Go-Go's Had it Right

Thanks, Belinda Carlisle, for so aptly putting my feelings into song: Vacation, all I ever wanted, Vacation, had to get away.

As I sit here at my 1940's painted desk that I rescued from the side of the road last year in bad shape and refinished, I think of what a lovely week off I've had. Josh and I refinished our hallway, had a housewarming party, bummed around, rifled through junk stores and just generally enjoyed each other's company. I've had a chance to feel human again - no stress, no worries, no obligations. Just me, my boyfriend, two cats, two turtles, guppies, a happy house, and the world to explore. And now, with champagne and local strawberries in hand (thanks to all of you who brought champagne to the party, by the way!), I intend to spend the last day of my break in high fashion: sewing skirts, drinking, and watching B sci-fi movies.

It is an interesting conundrum that has hit me square in the face this week. I love my job. I love writing for a living and working to help kids from crappy homes have better lives. It's satisfying and fulfilling. But I'm exhausted. I'm under so much stress that I've had heart burn for the last month and a half for the first time in my life and can't sleep thanks to all the nasty nightmares I have. I'm too tired when I get home to do anything fun and I'm constantly anxiety ridden. This job has hijacked my identity. I'm no longer the collection of quirky and colorful things that make me who I've been in the past, I'm now the sum total of my career. In short, I'm reaching my breaking point.

So what to do? I don't know really. Quitting seems like a dream come true, but I'd really like to pay off my mortgage in the next 7 years so Josh and I can take the long road view of our future. With no mortgage, neither one of us will be beholden to jobs that make us crazy. But to get there I have to make as much money as possible, so I can't quit. Plus there's the responsibility to my agency not to leave them in a lurch in a bad economy, threatening their ability to complete grant cycles and get continuation funding. Guilt is a powerful motivator.

I'm stuck. In the grand scheme this is not a big problem. Lots of people would LOVE to have this problem right now. I know how extremely fortunate I am to have the life I lead with great family, friends, and the love of my life. I'd just like to have my sanity and identity back. I don't want to be "the grantwriter" any more. At least not with 60+ hour work weeks, the constant after hours phone calls and emails, and the small paycheck. I'd really like to go back to being me. So if anyone would like to hire a freelance writer, furniture refinisher, tailor, floral designer, fine crafts person, potter, screen printer, carpenter, tile layer, beer brewer, coffee roaster, insert-title-here, drop me a line.

Poverty Breeds Creativity

Please excuse any typos in this post - one of my cats has decided that the spot between the monitor and the keyboard is kitty nirvana and has firmly ensconced his ample flesh in that space, which occasionally spills onto the keyboard.

But to the point - in my lovely new flat that I adore, all colorful and patchwork, I have craigslisted and refinished a fair bit of furnishings due to the poverty that purchasing this flat has created. This last week found me craigslisting and refinishing a small dresser to hold all my linens, which until this moment have been housed on a chair in the bedroom.

The nicest couple I've met in quite a while had painted this dresser to go in their 3 month old daughter's room, but they were moving and it no longer fit. So for $35 I (and Josh's yellow hatchback) took it off their hands:


While I enjoy the color scheme they chose, it doesn't quite work with our red bedroom. So I painted it white and finished the faux bamboo trim in black:



Then thanks to a couple sheets of Snow & Graham wrapping paper and a big jar of mod podge, I added the red poppies to the party:



After a thorough drying, the dresser is now happily living in our bedroom, protecting our linens from an onslaught of cat fir...



Thank you, poverty, for inspiring a new fondness for reuse.

Good Ol' Vermonters Make Craigslist Fun

This was posted on craigslist's household section this morning and it is just so typical of Vermont, I had to share:

Vintage items on Porch, Summer long (Rutland, Nichols and W. St)

"I have been collecting, buying, and selling vintage items for years and years. I have glassware, pottery, porcelain, linens and more. I have some gorgeous items out and will be continuing to put more out all summer. I’m there, well just kinda when I down there, no set hours, but making Sunday a regular day. It’s hard to find other places open then or that have anything worth looking at by then at regular yard sales. Stop by and look whenever you want, if I’m not there, feel free to come to the back wooden steps and see if I’m home, or leave me a note downstairs when you want to come back and I’ll be there."

Welcome to how the Vermont economy functions for the most part. Throughout the growing season you can also find un-staffed roadside farmer stands with a box, usually sitting on a stump, where you leave your payment. The honor system lives!

A Tale of Two Chairs

Since renovating a condo has significantly sapped my disposable income, I have taken to renovating what I already own to suit my new surroundings. Today's tale? Chairs!

I purchased two of these very standard brown school chairs from a woman in Winooski who'd used them at her kitchen table for her kids when they were young. 30 years later she finally decided to get rid of them. So I bought them last year to use at my kitchen table, which I did. However, I now have a different kitchen table that fits in a tiny corner of my kitchen, and that table is black and white. So...


A primer coat - many times I have skipped this step and many times I have regretted it.


Then a couple coats of gloss black:




Then I covered the seats with Snow & Graham wrapping paper:



Yay kitchen chairs!

And in that vein, the chair that went with my old kitchen table (which happens to be my grandfather's gorgeous dining table) had seen better days. But since it too was my grandfather's and is around 100 years old, I really wanted to give it a new life.


The cane seat was ripped in a couple of places so I removed it:


As I mentioned before, primer is a must:


Then several coats of white gloss and a kitchen towel for the new seat:



And viola! I love it. Though I kind of wish I'd painted it blue, Josh has assured me that it works. So with little money spent other than the cost of a couple of cans of paint, I've reclaimed seating for three!

Sorry Norway, It's Not a Game Until Someone Puts an Eye Out

In my meanderings from design blog to design blog I happened upon a Norwegian blog called Hei-Astrid. Without reading much of the text, I came across this:


It came with the cryptically awesome descriptor of "We played more games of kubb...". While I could very well wikipedia "Kubb" and have most of my questions answered, I prefer to leave this in its bizarre natural state: 5 Norwegian men, 1 dog, and 14 blocks of wood.

It Says What it Does - Thanks UK!

While perusing The Dieline, a blog dedicated to the coolest darn packaging around, I came across the winners of the 2009 EDAwards (European Design Awards) and I couldn't resist sharing this delight from Studio Blackburn for Traidcraft tissues:

Thank god someone has a sense of humor about fair trade products. Want to purchase these beauties? Get out your currency calculators, folks. Unfortunately they're a UK creation.

Fun With Pirates

For all my friends who celebrate "Talk Like a Pirate Day", I invite you to:

Pirate Festival

(From Seven Days) We probably have Captain Jack Sparrow to thank for the buccaneer culture that has inched its way into daily life in recent years. There’s the annual “International Talk Like a Pirate Day.” There’s the “English (Pirate)” option on Facebook. There’s the whole Internet piracy thing ... But there’s no better way to pay homage to the treasure-trovin’ swashbucklers of yore than to throw them a festival, as the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum is doing this weekend. Kids don breeches and feathered hats to become gentlemen — and women — o’ fortune as they learn more about the age of discovery and exploration. Crafts, sing-alongs and pirate-themed activities complement live performers, such as stilt-walking pirate juggler Stephen Grotto. And, in light of recent real piracy on the high seas, older kids learn about “The Good, the Bad & the Ugly: Pirate Realities and Fantasies.” Sail ho!

Saturday & Sunday, June 6 & 7, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Vergennes, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. $6-10.

I love this state!

The Bluebird Express Rides Again

Thank you to everyone who has wished Josh and I well on our recent home purchase. Luckily we're moved in and have completed most of the construction that coats the house in at least an inch of dust, which I'm apparently allergic to. So in lieu of boring construction pictures, I thought I'd offer up a "best of" post and give you the low down on the transformation of by bike "The Bluebird Express" that Josh and I rehabbed last year and have now brought out of storage.

I bought a 1978 Tyler one speed bike out of Poland for a grand total of $40 from an AmeriCorps member who lived down the street from me:



The bell is what sold me. For weeks Josh had kept murmuring "bring bring!!!" whenever he tried to convince me to buy a bike. Eventually he won.



So a few weeks after I bought it, Josh took it apart while I was away and we stripped most of the finish with sandpaper when I returned:


Then I sprayed it with two coats of a flat gray auto primer:



Then it got three coats of silver:



At some point I realized this was not a good thing to do barefoot. Turns out my feet became an structural part of the porch on N. Winooski Ave:



Then, the color! Baby blue turns out to not just be an awesome color, but also a great spray paint to find in several local paint stores that typically run out of the paint I'm using mid-project. But they were so flush with baby blue I still have extra:



With ten coats of poly and a couple of stickers from Michael's, "the Bluebird Express" was born:



And then we realized we had to put the bike back together:



I even made my bike its own metal face plate:



Viola, the finished product!!!



Not only is my bike awesome, it's super fun to ride around town and it can hold all of my groceries from the farmer's market. Yeay bluebird express! Bring Bring!