First, I’m a grammy! Isn’t she wonderful? Smart and pretty. And, Yes, that’s Stella’s nose in the picture. She knows Marina is a puppy but can’t figure out why we won’t let her play with her. Being a grammy is so much better than I imagined. This being said, I am a little worried. In the course of one week I did the following things.
1. Started listening to MPR in the morning, and enjoying it.
2. I watched not one, but TWO documentaries on PBS. One on the Lindbergh kidnapping and the other on Henry Ford. Both excellent – although I must say while each man had some amazing qualities, brilliant contributions, they were both more than a little touched. Maybe a little creepy, definitely mentally irregular.
3. I joined Weight Watchers. My next blog is going to be called “Losing the last 10 pounds – my 3 year journey into madness” Well, 13 pounds due to some bad decision making and working too much. I am considering alternate titles, such as How I Never Met a Carb I Didn’t Like, or My Fat Ass: the path to hell.

I’m beginning the fear that the next step to Seniorville will to be sell the Jeep and get a sensible mid-size sedan (or Hover-round) and start wearing jeans with elastic in the waist. I’m one bad decision from a bright pink velour jogging suit. Maybe I need to go “occupy” something. Get the protesting, social minded, free thinker back. But the truth is the only place I want to occupy is the bakery aisle at Byerlys.

It’s an INSTALLATION –
I can not explain accurately the look on beleaguered Ben’s face when he came home to find the latest “project.” He may never go out of town again. Which is a bad thing, for both of us!

It all started with the xbox. I purchased the Nike Personal Trainer for the box, thinking this would give me a day off from the usual workout and it was supposed to be pretty good. I quickly figured out that the current arrangement of furniture was not going to work for the xbox. It kept telling me to move back, and I kept hitting the wall. Literally. So before the next “session with my trainer” a perky and annoying avatar I started moving furniture. This of course is in no way an excuse to “fix” what ever issues I was already having with the completed den…it was just a happy coincidence….yeah, that’s right. After moving the furniture to “work” I sat down on the sofa and realized two things. One, I needed a sofa table to move the sofa a little closer to the tv. One doesn’t want to be too far from the tv. And I hated the big blank lumpy wall behind the tv. That’s when I remembered. On an episode of some show on HGTV or as we call it here “The Dead Zone” (also used for Lifetime television movies) They had a big blank lumpy wall and had covered with a bunch of reclaimed wood. All different depths and sizes and angles. I can’t remember who the artist was that did pieces like this but I loved the idea. So Friday night I’m laying on sofa and Saturday morning I have a hammer in my hands.

SIDEBAR: the above was written 3 weeks ago. Work has been ridiculous! I’ve never been so swamped…but I’m back now – here is the rest of the story…

Because of all the projects in the last year I had a lot of old wood. I also scavenged, dumpster dove and pilfered with permission Al’s Home Depot and Garden Center ( aka Tom and Al’s garage). I laid out my pieces, pulled nails til my hands hurt and started putting up slats. It was a giant puzzle and while I cut pieces to fit, I tried to use what I had, rotate, mix depths and I used two 4 x 4 to make long shelves for photos etc. It was fun, until it wasn’t. There was bleeding, of course. Slivers and I managed to hammer at least 4 out of 10 digits. One repeatedly, until it was a bleeding, black and blue, mess. I’ll admit it, I cried a little. Poor little thumbkin. In addition, Ben was pissed. The room a mess. And he wasn’t convinced it was going to look like anything but shit. I don’t think my telling him “it’s art, let it wash over you” helped. I don’t really think of it as “art” but it sounded good. This is when he told me that I had to stop watching HGTV! But he agreed to wait and judge when it was finished. The kids on the other hand loved it and it’s been dubbed the “Big Junk Wood Wall.” I had hope. I finally finished staining and painting this weekend and proceeded to add and move and subtract and rearrange and change and o.c.d. over the items on the shelves. Next pay check (which should be from a rather large city – If I don’t kill someone or go insane) I’m getting art and accessories. And a refrigerator (more on that next blog). I’m finding that my zero knicknack policy (the minimize years) is proving challenging. But art doesn’t count as clutter.

At one point I couldn’t find the hammer to put the table together, and after searching for about 10 minutes is suddenly occurred to me that it was probably the last thing Ben put in his overnight bag. I can’t say as I blame him. He’s been a good sport but to be fair, I’ve been pushing him to the edge. I did find the hammer but then lost it again about an hour later. This time I think was hiding it from myself.

SIDEBAR: If you need to use a q-tip to paint something, you’ve made a serious error along the way.

The Controversy
The single yellow board. You can see that I originally had 2, but one got stained by accident. I forgot. I like the single quikcrete board – everyone else doesn’t. The vote (Al likes it to) is 5 to 2 to paint it black. I’m thinking about it. Feel free to voice your opinion, I’ll keep you posted.

Cost: Zero – I had everything I needed. But, there is not one scrap of wood or shim in the garage. It’s all gone baby gone.
Stress on marriage: High. But he likes the Big Junk Wood Wall, a lot. I win!

Now that the den is done, again – On to the kitchen. Finally!

SIDEBAR: a few people have mentioned I should check out Pinterest. Ha. Hey, arsonist here’s some matches!