Friday Five
It's that most wonderful time of the week, once again -
Friday Five time.
1. What is your most prized material possession?
My first reaction was that it's my computer because of how it opens the world up to me here in this little Ohio burb and keeps me in contact with friends both old and new. Then I second-guessed myself and thought that sounded shallow. But as I
again re-think the question, I think I need to go back to the computer. Sure, it's not worth that much in and of itself, but it's the
idea of what it represents: communication, entertainment, news, photographs, writing, art, music, and so much more. But I'm not completely about electronics - My photographs are really important to me, even if I have never organized them all in albums like I'd planned (been too busy on the computer).
2. What item, that you currently own, have you had the longest?
Oh, that's easy. I have a little stuffed bear which someone gave me when I was a baby. He's small, only about 5" tall, and the ribbon around his neck is faded and limp. He's a real trooper, that fella.
3. Are you a packrat?
God help me, yes. I have periodic bouts of throwing/giving things away, mostly spurred on by my husband, but I am a hoarder.
We might NEED this is my battle cry. My husband likes to tell people of how his sole contribution to our household as newlyweds was a few pieces of clothing and the contents of his footlocker. The clothes were probably in the footlocker, too, actually; eleven years of marriage has dimmed this memory. I've noticed a decline in the number of times he mentions it a year, too. He's the one who keeps us from having to wend our way through the house amidst a maze of stuff, though!
4. Do you prefer a spic-and-span clean house? Or is some clutter necessary to avoid the appearance of a museum?
What do I prefer, or what is reality? Oh, I like a happy medium. I don't mind some clutter - this place is never going to be free of clutter, believe me. I prefer my house be clean. The problem is, I procrastinate because I don't like cleaning. Oh, once I get started, I do, but it's the
getting started that gets me. See #1. My cycle is to let it get so bad it drives Howie and me both crazy, then finally jump on in and clean the hell out of the house. Then I walk, amazed, from room to room and intone that I will keep it this way from now on, by gosh. Yeah.
5. Do the rooms in your house have a theme? Or is it a mixture of knick-knacks here and there?
The rooms are somewhat themed, but they contain knick-knacks, too. Our bedroom is "the moon room", with deep golden walls, a wallpaper border of coppery-gold moons and suns on a crackled blue background, and the ceiling is dark blue. The pictures in that room do have to do with the moon and stars, yes. It's a really restful, cozy space.
The office, by far the room we spend the most time in, is sunny and cheerful, even on grey days. It is our garden room, with a Marjorie Bastin birdhouse wallpaper border, walls painted in a parchement-like effect with three shades of yellow, and nature-oriented pictures. There's a silk sunflower scarf stretched out on one wall, two frramed antique fruit crate labels on another...Just a cheerful, out-doorsy feeling room with light wood.
The living room is the eclectic one. It's a long room, featuring a fireplace at one end. The fireplace wall we painted a deep forest green, but the other walls we painted a rich deep golden-brown. It's all tied together by a wallpaper border featuring clusters of grapes. In front of our couch we have a kitchen table that's enjoying a second life as a coffee table; it's amazing what sawing half the legs off a table can do. It opens up with a hidden leaf and is big enough to host a night of games or a big Chinese take-out dinner (providing everyone sits on the floor, of course).
Our kitchen is the Great Unknown. The cabinets are metal, vintage 1954 Geneva metal cabinets. They're one of the things I liked most about the kitchen because of their quirkiness. Now, four years later, they are still unpainted and look terrible. That and the bathroom are two rooms we have just not been able to bring ourselves to tackle. I wanted the cabinets to be
perfect when painted, and that phantom has kept me at bay. I believe our happy solution is going to be taking them out and having wooden cabinets installed by the same guy who's doing our basement renovation. That way, we can also re-arrange and make better use of the limited space. I suspect the kitchen will be another out-doorsy rooms, maybe with a mural of lattice and vines on the wall housing the window overlooking our back yard. It's all up here (tapping my head as I say that).
That's the 2-cent tour, folks. Pictures coming later!
Whadda ya get when a crazy 
