Curtains, cookies and chaos

Okay, I've been MIA.

First, Jenny came to visit Wednesday-Thursday. We went to Founders for dinner and ordered what turned out to be an absurd amount of food. Before that we had done a lot of shopping.

I'm looking for window treatments for the guest bedroom. Since that room is not even halfway finished, I decided to buy new curtains for the home office/guest bedroom.

I bought new curtain rods, which I know I like. I bought a curtain panel to bring home to see how well it matched since I was no longer looking for window treatments for the room in which I was originally planning on buying them for. I wasn't prepared to change the home office/guest room curtains, so I didn't have any idea of what color I would need for that room. Jenny and I guessed and it turned out to be a bad guess.

I returned the wrong-color panel today. No harm no foul. While I was out today, I stopped by another store and found curtains that would be great for our bedroom.

Wait a sec. Would the curtains in our room look good in the home office/guest room?

They sure would! This means new curtains for our room.

I bought the one panel that was at the store that will now go in our room. When I got it home I hung it to see how much I liked it. I had already liked it a lot in the package, and I liked it even more hanging in our room.

However, the store only had the one panel so I quickly got online and bought three more. I'll have new window treatments [hopefully] by the end of next week. And the home office will have "new" curtains too. Eventually the guest bedroom will have new window treatments but first it needs windows, a fresh paint job, a finished floor, a scraped and painted ceiling, and the furniture moved back before I think about window treatments. However, Jenny did help me figure out exactly what kind of window treatments I want (not curtains although as I've typed all of this why would I have different window treatments in one room when the other two have curtains… I have time to think about that one), so I can at least work on getting them ready for the eventual finished product.

Tonight, we went out for our friend's birthday. We went to the Winchester. We had a very good time.

Tomorrow, we're going to a CMU game.

Today, I baked cookies to take with us tomorrow.

We also helped a friend, who had foot surgery, put air in her tires and take out her recycling.

I had an eye doctor appointment.

So you can see, I haven't had much time to blog and I certainly haven't had time to work on the guest bedroom. I'll have time next week… or at least I'll keep telling myself that.

Empty Nest

Who knew, after nine months of having a houseguest that we would feel the "empty nest" syndrome.

Bill may not, but I do. In a small way.

For those of you who didn't know, we had a friend (Bill and he went to Central together) who needed a place to live. I had felt a call to help out someone else, so when this actual plea went out, I knew I was being called to be there for him. After all, Bill had lived with him and his [now ex] partner in Detroit for two years. It was the least we could do to pay him back in a small way.

Time may not heal all wounds, but it does help to lessen the pain.

Let me just say, a lot happened in the last nine months. It wasn't always pretty and it wasn't always easy. I discovered a lot about myself and I hope that I grew in this time.

We gave him respite and a place to heal. With absolutely no expectations (no rent, no asking for money for electricity, etc) other than to buy his own groceries half way through, he had a roof over his head and his cat's.

Now he's gone. The room is empty. The attic is empty (we had cleaned the attic and the basement back in the late summer in anticipation of his moving here with his stuff). The basement still has a few boxes, but they're tucked away in a corner out of the way.

Bill and I are going to re-do that room which is our guest room. Sort of like what happens when parents are empty-nesters. We'll give it a fresh paint job, new window treatments, scrape the popcorn off the ceiling and re-finish the wood floors (which have been in poor shape since we moved in eight years ago).

We have an antique table from a friend's deceased grandfather. It was given to us back when I was refinishing antique furniture. I have since had a revelation that I can use that table in the newly finished guest room.

This past weekend, Bill pulled it out of the garage and I removed the newspaper that it had been wrapped up in. It needs a little more work then I realized. One of the dowels on the leg is broken. I'm going to have to drill it out and replace it. Then I'm going to sand it. And then, if I can handle it, I'm going to paint it. It's not like it's mahogany or anything like that. If anything it's oak, probably pine. The legs are turned. I'll take pictures. Like always.

I'll also take pictures of our progress on the guest room. Which is completely empty and full of echoes.

I'm thankful for fresh starts.