As I enter my 38th year on this planet (ugh) I am overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness of my family and friends.
As a birthday gift, my stepfather wanted to get a couple of rooms in my house painted for me. I was infinitely grateful, as I had semi-started the project myself, only to become daunted when it became more than I could handle. The previous homeowner had painted over some shelves and they were now stuck to the wall. Also the paint they had chosen was not only very dark, but was a semigloss, and the murals of the Looney Tunes characters (the master was formerly a teenage girl's bedroom) were a flat paint. This meant that there would have to be a significant amount of presanding and priming before you could start slapping paint on the walls. This kind of stuff makes me give up.
So away Mike went with the paint chips that Lucy had given me. She is a dear friend of the family and a freelance interior decorater, and had some clear ideas as to what we should do with the rooms. He gathered all the supplies on my list and dug right in.
By my birthday on Wednesday the room was dry. My mother and Lucy came over to get the furniture set up, as I would be taking this bedroom over from my sons, who currently occupied it. The boys were now in my old room. The plan was that Lucy was going to come over on the weekend and get the new bedcovers and window treatments that she had made installed.
What I didn't know what that she had much more planned than she was letting on.
On Friday, not Saturday as I expected, my mother let Lucy into the house and she completely arranged and staged the whole room. She put up new pictures, a new lamp for the bedside table and arranged my dressing table with matching accessories. It was like Trading Spaces when I came home that night and saw it all put together much more beautifully than I ever imagined.
The guest bedroom was finished a few days later, and it looks amazing too. All there is left to do is paint the boys' room and get rid of all the clutter that was pulled out.
My new bedroom rocks. Woot! Thank you everyone for all your efforts. I am truly in your debt.
-Bizzy
Oct 22, 2006
Oct 16, 2006
Clearing out the clutter
"Packrat - n: a person who collects, saves, or hoards useless small miscellaneous items"
"Creative mess is better than tidy idleness"
I have been recently accused of being a hoarder and a bit of a slob. My house is full of stuff that I've accumulated over the years. Despite losing much of my personal property in no less than THREE floods at my former residence, I have still managed to retain a plethora of extraneous items.
Oprah once had a guest on her show who was such a hopeless packrat, that she wouldn't even throw out her trash. I can't identify with this individual, as I do love to get rid of my garbage. However I do know what it's like to have an attachment to an inanimate object to the point where you just can't bring yourself to dispose of it.
My parents, on the other hand, are quite the opposite. They blithely toss out their old, unused items, and have little to no regret after doing so.
My stepfather, gawd bless him, wanted to paint my bedroom for me for my birthday. He emptied out the room (which was the room that my boys were currently using when they visited me on the weekends), primed and painted it, then rearranged everything with the help of my mother and a friend. In the end I had my boys' room and they had mine.
There were many items that were sitting out to be put away after it was all done, most of which were toys belonging to my kids. Most of these toys were not regularly played with, as they had outgrown or become bored with many of them. Mike offered to take them to the Goodwill for me, if I wanted to put them in bags and leave them out for him.
In my busy state of living, I don't have time to go through my clutter, which may be part of the reason that I end up with so much of it. I had gotten started on it, but hadn't had the chance to do much. Also, I found it completely overwhelming to sort through it all, as there was so much of it. Mike helped by bagging up whatever he thought was useless and loading it up into his van.
I got home today and saw that pretty much everything was gone, and I panicked. I called my mother who informed me that he hadn't gone to the Goodwill yet, and that I could come over and go through the stuff to salvage what I wanted.
I arrived at my mother's and began going through the bags of stuff that Mike had loaded into the van. Sorting through the toys, games and childhood artifacts I began to sob uncontrollably. I realized that I just couldn't bring myself to let any of it go. You see, every single little broken or forgotten piece of a plaything had a memory attached to it.
My boys are now gone and living with their father and are soon going to be at an age where they won't want to make the trip to see their mother, and will prefer to stay home and hang with their friends. These 'useless' items are all I have left from when they were little and living with me. I wish I could have the cool detachment that my parents have with their stuff, but instead I am sentimentally connected with most of my children's belongings.
Perhaps the clutter I should be focusing more on is the clutter in my heart.
-Bizzy
"Creative mess is better than tidy idleness"
I have been recently accused of being a hoarder and a bit of a slob. My house is full of stuff that I've accumulated over the years. Despite losing much of my personal property in no less than THREE floods at my former residence, I have still managed to retain a plethora of extraneous items.
Oprah once had a guest on her show who was such a hopeless packrat, that she wouldn't even throw out her trash. I can't identify with this individual, as I do love to get rid of my garbage. However I do know what it's like to have an attachment to an inanimate object to the point where you just can't bring yourself to dispose of it.
My parents, on the other hand, are quite the opposite. They blithely toss out their old, unused items, and have little to no regret after doing so.
My stepfather, gawd bless him, wanted to paint my bedroom for me for my birthday. He emptied out the room (which was the room that my boys were currently using when they visited me on the weekends), primed and painted it, then rearranged everything with the help of my mother and a friend. In the end I had my boys' room and they had mine.
There were many items that were sitting out to be put away after it was all done, most of which were toys belonging to my kids. Most of these toys were not regularly played with, as they had outgrown or become bored with many of them. Mike offered to take them to the Goodwill for me, if I wanted to put them in bags and leave them out for him.
In my busy state of living, I don't have time to go through my clutter, which may be part of the reason that I end up with so much of it. I had gotten started on it, but hadn't had the chance to do much. Also, I found it completely overwhelming to sort through it all, as there was so much of it. Mike helped by bagging up whatever he thought was useless and loading it up into his van.
I got home today and saw that pretty much everything was gone, and I panicked. I called my mother who informed me that he hadn't gone to the Goodwill yet, and that I could come over and go through the stuff to salvage what I wanted.
I arrived at my mother's and began going through the bags of stuff that Mike had loaded into the van. Sorting through the toys, games and childhood artifacts I began to sob uncontrollably. I realized that I just couldn't bring myself to let any of it go. You see, every single little broken or forgotten piece of a plaything had a memory attached to it.
My boys are now gone and living with their father and are soon going to be at an age where they won't want to make the trip to see their mother, and will prefer to stay home and hang with their friends. These 'useless' items are all I have left from when they were little and living with me. I wish I could have the cool detachment that my parents have with their stuff, but instead I am sentimentally connected with most of my children's belongings.
Perhaps the clutter I should be focusing more on is the clutter in my heart.
-Bizzy
Oct 15, 2006
It's that time of year again...
Well Hallowe'en is coming up soon, so the boys and I did our pumpkin carving ritual this weekend. They created their own pumpkin designs from a CD-ROM we have, and did most of the work themselves. I think they did a great job, and I'm very proud of them! Afterwards we turned off all the lights in the house and lit the pumpkins so we could watch them glow.
The boys are getting their costumes ready and looking forward to the 31st with much anticipation. I guess it'll only be a few more years before the customary tromp through the neighbourhood begging for treats is over for them. I remember going out for my thirteenth Hallowe'en and being heckled by my neighbours and admonished that wasn't I getting "just a little too old for this, Cathy???" The truth be told I didn't really care about the candy so much, I was just so reluctant to give up yet another cherished childhood convention.
I can relate to my oldest son a lot at this point. The 'Tweens' is a tough time. All the magic of childhood starts slipping away, and you start going through some seriously dramatic and confusing changes both mentally and physically. I worry about them getting themselves into trouble, and I try to talk to them often to make sure that the lines of communication stay wide open. I want to be the one they come to when they really need to confide in somebody.
In the meantime, I'll keep carving jack-o-lanterns with them, helping them find Easter eggs and prepare cookies and milk for Santa as long as I possibly can....
-Bizzy
The boys are getting their costumes ready and looking forward to the 31st with much anticipation. I guess it'll only be a few more years before the customary tromp through the neighbourhood begging for treats is over for them. I remember going out for my thirteenth Hallowe'en and being heckled by my neighbours and admonished that wasn't I getting "just a little too old for this, Cathy???" The truth be told I didn't really care about the candy so much, I was just so reluctant to give up yet another cherished childhood convention.
I can relate to my oldest son a lot at this point. The 'Tweens' is a tough time. All the magic of childhood starts slipping away, and you start going through some seriously dramatic and confusing changes both mentally and physically. I worry about them getting themselves into trouble, and I try to talk to them often to make sure that the lines of communication stay wide open. I want to be the one they come to when they really need to confide in somebody.
In the meantime, I'll keep carving jack-o-lanterns with them, helping them find Easter eggs and prepare cookies and milk for Santa as long as I possibly can....
-Bizzy
Oct 11, 2006
The decisions we make
These are my children. They are beautiful, brilliant, charming, funny and precocious youngsters, and they are 'mes raisons d'être'.
After my eldest, was born, I stopped working full time to stay home and raise him, and eventually his brother, who was born two years later. When my ex and I split, I retained custodial care of them, although we had the courts state 'joint' on the custody order. I was the primary caregiver from the time they were babies.
In the summer of 2005, I made the difficult decision to allow them to go and live with their father, who resides in a town approximately an hour's drive northwest. I made this decision after months of heartache of watching my oldest son cry himself to sleep each night upon returning from his visitation with his dad, because he 'missed him'. Josh was always very close to his father, and started expressing a deep desire to be with him. On top of this, the boys were entering a very difficult stage, and would challenge me at every turn. They needed a firm hand, and I felt that I was woefully inept at giving them the guidance and direction they so desperately needed.
After much deliberation and discussions with my immediate family, whose opinions I value greatly, I made the decision to allow them to move in with their father. My youngest wasn't completely on board with the idea, but I did not want to break them up. I had grown up apart from my two sisters, and missed out on some wonderful times with them as a result. I was adamant that this would not happen with my kids. Tyssen was only eight years old at the time, and I felt as if he wasn't capable of making such a decision on his own.
So that was almost a year and a half ago. Things have changed drastically for me since the boys went to their dad. I am for all intents and purposes a single woman without the day-to-day responsibility of childcare. However not a single day goes by when I have a moment of fleeting regret for the decision I made. They are happy living with their father, as they have told me, almost sheepishly, asking if I am upset at them for it. Of course I am not, and I don't want them to feel any guilt for being happier.
I feel as if I have lost them forever. The school bus stops on the corner every morning, and it makes me want to sob thinking that I will never again get to put my kids on the bus to school. Pretty soon they will be teenagers, and it will be hard enough to get them to want to make the trip to come and see me on the weekends.
I am in the midst of redecorating my house. We have just repainted Josh's old room and he will be switching rooms with me. Tyssen's old room has a mural of Scooby Doo on the wall. I have to paint over it, and I just can't bring myself to do it. It is like washing away the last remnants of my children's existence in our home. As an antidote, I am going to redo my old bedroom and make it into the boys' room. I intend to make it a family project where they can be involved in the painting and decorating.
I hope that makes it all a little less painful.
-Bizzy
After my eldest, was born, I stopped working full time to stay home and raise him, and eventually his brother, who was born two years later. When my ex and I split, I retained custodial care of them, although we had the courts state 'joint' on the custody order. I was the primary caregiver from the time they were babies.
In the summer of 2005, I made the difficult decision to allow them to go and live with their father, who resides in a town approximately an hour's drive northwest. I made this decision after months of heartache of watching my oldest son cry himself to sleep each night upon returning from his visitation with his dad, because he 'missed him'. Josh was always very close to his father, and started expressing a deep desire to be with him. On top of this, the boys were entering a very difficult stage, and would challenge me at every turn. They needed a firm hand, and I felt that I was woefully inept at giving them the guidance and direction they so desperately needed.
After much deliberation and discussions with my immediate family, whose opinions I value greatly, I made the decision to allow them to move in with their father. My youngest wasn't completely on board with the idea, but I did not want to break them up. I had grown up apart from my two sisters, and missed out on some wonderful times with them as a result. I was adamant that this would not happen with my kids. Tyssen was only eight years old at the time, and I felt as if he wasn't capable of making such a decision on his own.
So that was almost a year and a half ago. Things have changed drastically for me since the boys went to their dad. I am for all intents and purposes a single woman without the day-to-day responsibility of childcare. However not a single day goes by when I have a moment of fleeting regret for the decision I made. They are happy living with their father, as they have told me, almost sheepishly, asking if I am upset at them for it. Of course I am not, and I don't want them to feel any guilt for being happier.
I feel as if I have lost them forever. The school bus stops on the corner every morning, and it makes me want to sob thinking that I will never again get to put my kids on the bus to school. Pretty soon they will be teenagers, and it will be hard enough to get them to want to make the trip to come and see me on the weekends.
I am in the midst of redecorating my house. We have just repainted Josh's old room and he will be switching rooms with me. Tyssen's old room has a mural of Scooby Doo on the wall. I have to paint over it, and I just can't bring myself to do it. It is like washing away the last remnants of my children's existence in our home. As an antidote, I am going to redo my old bedroom and make it into the boys' room. I intend to make it a family project where they can be involved in the painting and decorating.
I hope that makes it all a little less painful.
-Bizzy
Oct 9, 2006
My Flickr Favourites - PART II
I love autumn. Not because it is the time of year in which my birthday falls, but because I love the fire-orange gown that Nature drapes herself in simply because she can.
Nothing takes my breath away than a scene like this in Algonquin Park, taken by another Flickrite. I was looking forward to my own trip to Algonquin, but didn't end up going. This would have been such a spectacular photo shoot! This is SO the picture I would have taken.
Edward and I headed out east on a road trip this past Sunday, hoping to catch some inspiring scenes. We didn't get many shots of awesome leaves, but we did get some sweet shots of the Cobourg waterfront. Hopefully we'll get to hit the road soon within another couple of weeks and try for the fall foliage once more.
-Bizzy
Nothing takes my breath away than a scene like this in Algonquin Park, taken by another Flickrite. I was looking forward to my own trip to Algonquin, but didn't end up going. This would have been such a spectacular photo shoot! This is SO the picture I would have taken.
Edward and I headed out east on a road trip this past Sunday, hoping to catch some inspiring scenes. We didn't get many shots of awesome leaves, but we did get some sweet shots of the Cobourg waterfront. Hopefully we'll get to hit the road soon within another couple of weeks and try for the fall foliage once more.-Bizzy
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