Wednesday, June 20, 2007

It's my Birthday!

Happy Birthday to me! Forty-four. That is certainly mid-life. It doesn't feel as old as it sounds, except when.... I'm having hot flashes (at this moment, actually); and then I don't feel old so much as hot and damp.

My Mom and Dad sent the beautiful floral arrangement you see here; the girls have made card after card after card for me and cleaned the kitchen, to boot! The girls are going to have a little overnight party at Pilar's on Saturday so Rob and I will shop together for my gift (not my idea but I can be flexible...) and go out for dinner at a new French place nearby that is reported to be excellent. I am very, very excited about having a large chunk of time without the kids in our house.

I'm not a cake kind of girl but I saw this cake and its recipe on one of the more inspiring blogs I watch, Yarnstorm. I like the idea of a very flavorful cake and a fruity moist topping and none of that messy icing. I wish Haley'd been able to find my real camera so I could get a better photo; its very lovely. I'll let you know how it tastes later. I wish I had a pretty paper doily to make mine as pretty as hers but I'm not unhappy with the eye-appeal of this one.

Mission: Complete

As much as I do indeed love my house, I did not know when we bought it that we'd have three kids or that the closet space is simply inadequate for even two people. Sure, we've got the monster closet in our budoir and the closets in the girls' rooms are reasonable but otherwise we have only a wee little hall closet and two hints of linen closets in the upstairs baths. That's it. Not enough by a long shot.
For the last four years or so, I've been using one of the larger non-master bedroom closets for my craft organization and storage. That was a reasonable thing when the room was a guest room. With all three girls now in their own bedrooms, its no longer viable. And truthfully, it was never a great solution as I never really wanted to drag things downstairs and then back up.
About this time last year we reluctantly converted our library (oh, it was lovely!) into a sort of staging area for the comings and goings of our household: coat hooks, "cubbies" for backpacks and school materials, some temporary storage of gifts and household materials awaiting deployment for whatever purpose---stashing of luggage of guests. Haley and I have now added the craft stashing into that space as well.

It was much of a chore but also pretty exciting as I reacquainted myself with projects tabled indefinitely---particularly the king-sized quilt I started many years ago for Rob and myself. I didn't realize I had actually begun to assemble the pieces! I think perhaps my children are now mature enough to allow me to spend the kind of time required to complete quilting projects. And hopefully, I might now be able to take up scrapbooking again without excessive concern for my tools and supplies being misused by the little crumbcrunchers.

While in Indy, I was treated to a glimpse of Penny's craft room.... Oh. My. Gosh. Pure heaven, it is. Lots of storage, work space, creature comforts. It was actually the first time I ever considered that there might be something to look forward to in my kids growing up and leaving home... oh, Penny! What a heavenly little workspace you have!

5 comments:

Special K said...

Happy Birthday! Many happy returns!

Oh yes, my mom's craft room is really something, isn't it?

Special K said...

I forgot to mention, in our old house, she turned my old room into her sewing room the second I left for college, so, yeah, at the very least, you'll have a bunch of space when your girls move on. (:

KHM said...

I would do a great many unethical things to have a craft room like your Mom's! One of these days...

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday Dear Cousin, Happy Birthday to you. Sorry I missed it yesterday. I'm cleaning my house for more guests this weekend and found a white kitty under the bed in the guest room. I believe it came out of LaLa's pack pack. I will forward it on soon. It was great having you here and hope to see you again soon.
LYFE Nonna March

Melissa said...

I hope you had a great birthday!! Love ya!