Wednesday, June 13, 2012

I am productive.

Work's been crazy. I have some posts in the works that hopefully will get published soon.

Life lately:

Wednesday, my hold on Catching Fire (the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy, for those of you hiding under rocks or with bad memories for book titles) came in and I picked it up at the library.

I read a chapter at lunch on Thursday.

Friday, I ended up not getting a lunch but instead getting to leave work about an hour early. I came home, sprinkled baking powder over the family room carpet in a futile attempt to make it smell less like dog pee, started some pizza dough going in the bread maker, made a very belated lunch, and sat down to read Catching Fire while I ate.

Four hours later, there was still baking soda on my floors and dough in the machine, but I had finished my lunch--and the book.

I love getting swallowed up in a story. I rarely have the luxury of doing so for hours at a time anymore. My soul needed it.

Also, my hold on Mockingjay needs to come in now.

***

Over the weekend, I turned our guest bedroom from a junk graveyard to a welcoming resting place in preparation for some visitors next week.

It's a bit of a novelty for me to have a guest bedroom in the first place. I grew up with three siblings and three bedrooms; my sister and I shared a room not too terribly much bigger than my furniture. Guests were relegated to a pull-out sofa in the living room.

Then my dog ate my grandmother's expensive Italian leather shoes. After that, they stayed in a hotel when they came to visit.

The DDH and I, however, have five bedrooms all to ourselves (and The Roommate), because the DDH bought this house in order to rent out the rooms to other students. So now I have a master bedroom, an office, a craft room, and not one but two guest bedrooms. Or, now, one guest room and one Roommate-room, and soon to be one guest bedroom and one nursery.

These aren't true before pictures, as I took them Sunday, when I had already spent an hour or so Saturday mostly-clearing the bed. I also didn't think to take pictures until after I had reorganized and neatened the bookshelves. Let's just say that when The Roommate moved in, a lot of what was stored in what is now his room simply crossed the hall to this room and has languished there ever since.

The bed used to be worse. Much worse.

Admittedly the stepstool is there because I just finished dusting
and straightening the bookshelves. But the vacuum had been
stored in that exact same place.
Too much furniture in this room. You can't even see it all
because I couldn't photograph from the fourth corner.

But look at these nice afters! Wouldn't you like to come stay with me?

The Neuschwanstein poster is straight; the camera is crooked.

Much better.

I can actually take a picture from this angle now!

Ta-da!
Ok, so it lacks curtains. And pillows. And the walls are just white. But look! There's stuff on them! And not on the bed/tables/headboard/floor! You can get into the bed from either side, and all the superfluous furniture has gone on to bigger and better things.

I was going to frame that horse breeds poster on the bed and hang it on the blank wall, but the DDH had a better idea. He bought some wood, made a frame, and stretched a canvas map we had lying around to make a lovely art piece for the room--not pictured, because he hadn't done it yet. And because his level is at work so he can't hang it until he remembers to bring that home.

So with the map and the Neuschwanstein poster that I bought at the actual Neuschwanstein*, there's sort of a travel theme going, I guess. And look at all these lovely books:

This is where I keep all my "kids' books:" YA/children's novels,
kids' Bibles, picture books, and illustrated reference books.

The MIL and the sweet boy I babysit both donated to our
picture book collection.

There are a lot of books on horses.

Mein liebstes Maerchen Buch, a puppy from the DDH,
and a sketch of balloons by a college friend.
***

There was originally more re-capping that was going to occur in this post, but it's been three days since I intended to write it and this is all I remember.

Everyone loves a good before-and-after picture set, though. So that's enough. ^_^


*Proof:

Famous fairy-tale castle and somewhat-less-famous me.

What are you up to these days? How do you accommodate guests?
Do you have too little space or, like us, too much?

4 comments:

  1. You're right- I like seeing the before-and-afters. The guest room looks great!
    We have 3 bedrooms: one for us (of course), one for Nolan and one that serves as a guest room/office combo. We never had a guest room growing up and did the pull-out couch thing, but I do like having one. I feel like it helps make guests feel more at home- like they have a personal space they can retreat to if they need/want.

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    1. I love before-and-afters. Of pretty much anything.

      Having shared a room while growing up and hating it, I am all about having personal retreat space--for me, for the DDH, for guests. We'll lose the guest room (or the office or the craftroom) eventually once there's more than one kid around, but for now it's really nice to be able to confidently say we have a place for anyone who wants to visit.

      And while I have had quite amazing visits with friends where I slept on a pile of their semi-clean laundry at the foot of their bed, as a guest I definitely appreciate having a comfortable and semi-private space of my own, too. ^_^

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  2. So the last two times Doug and Erin came to visit they slept on our couch (albeit, a GIANT couch) in the "living room" of our tiny 400 sq ft studio apartment. So yeah, too little space. But we're all friends here so whatevs! Plus, we moved a year ago to a much bigger apartment and now have a pull out couch bed and three actual separated rooms. So we could have guests now and it would be a bit more comfortable :-)

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    Replies
    1. Lol. Yes, been there, done that. And my brother's still going to end up on the couch next week because my parents will be in the guest bedroom and The Roommate has the other room. Still.

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