Almost there

Remember being bored when you were a kid? I can remember time going by so slowly I thought I would go crazy from boredom. My mom would always say "only boring people get bored". I must have been the dullest child, because I was bored all the time. Now it seems like days go by like minutes. I can't get ahead of my list, there's always more. Maybe this is to do with being an adult, or being a parent, but I think it's also to do with being a perfectionist. I'm never satisfied until I've got something just so. I'm doing better at appreciating the things I've done once they are done, instead of moving right along to the next thing. Sometimes I have to mentally handcuff myself to the task at hand because I'm always contemplating the next thing. Working on being present in the moment is my biggest challenge. 

So here's a little bit of progress on one of my many pies. I found rug for the pink man cave. I'm going to come up with a better name for that room. Suggestions are welcome. I had the hardest time finding a big enough rug, in the right color, and for the right price. Finding a 8x10 or larger rug for less than $300 is hard. Finding one with pink in it, proved impossible. The rugs I really wanted were from Anthropologie (natch). They were also $1100. Eep.

I even ordered a wool rug from Overstock.com. It was hideous and I sent it back. Then last week, I was wandering through Target, when I stumbled on this rug. The color was perfect, even though the look was a little bit too cozy kitchen for me. The other problem was that the only size they had was 4X6. My mom had the brilliant idea to buy four of them and tape them together with carpet tape. I didn't have any carpet tape on hand, so I just used packing tape, which worked just fine. Presto Chango, I have an 8X12 rug that only cost $160! I bought a non slip rug pad, and put another chenille rug underneath it for a little more insulation from the cold concrete floor. 

I think the little bit of lavender grey in the rug picks up the same color from one of the silk trading company curtains I used to cover up the washer/dryer and water heater. Now all that's left is to hang pictures, and put in the skylight. It's almost perfect:)

One last sneaky peaky. This was how neat and tidy it looked before I filled it up with furniture.

But it's not my fault!

I tried. I REALLY tried. You saw all those paint chips right? It's not like I didn't at least try not to do the right thing. I even went through the motions of buying four little green paint samples and dutifully painted them on the wall. I looked at them in different light at different times of day. I cocked my head to the side and stared at them thoughtfully. I really tried! Then I asked Nipper to come in and look at them. As soon as he said he didn't like any of them, maybe before he'd even finished the sentence I knew what had to happen. I didn't even say it out loud. I simply set to the task at hand. Picking out the perfect shade of pink.

uhm, no, no, no and NO

I know for a lot women pink is repulsive. It's viewed as a color best left for babies or bimbos or baby bimbos, or god forbid BARBIE. But I love it. It's a flattering color for me, and I think there is a flattering shade of it for most people. But mostly I find it cheerful and soothing. Especially that pale pale warm peachy pink. You know the color of the bottle top on the johnson's baby oil? That's just about my favorite pink. Blush, or cloud, or apricot fluff. By any name I love this color. I also love that deep dark cherry pink, but it has to be just right, and used in moderation or it evokes dirty plastic things you find in the bottom of a sale bin at walmart.

oui!

I had a few pink swatches set aside for what I thought would be the door color. I added to those 7 or 8 more in the same vein, and had Sadie look through them and help me choose. Until Sadie met me she HATED the color pink. I think maybe our entire friendship might have been a rehabilitation process for her to prepare for her daughter Hattie who ONLY likes pink (atta girl). But she has in recent years warmed to my favorite pale pink, which by the way looks great on her. She chose the color I had chosen for the door. Great minds. Then our nanny Brenda chimed in that she thought we should paint the alcove a dark shade of the same pink to give the room a little depth. Oh my god it was like we were on one of those HGTV shows. The ladies in my life are so stylish and wise.


SO I sincerely hope he meant it when Nipper said I could paint the office, or as he is now referring to it my "man cave", any color I like. Did I mention I'm going to put gold leaf polka dots along the trim? Goody goody gum drops. That's just the kind of thing a girl who loves pink would say right? Frack yeah!


Big reveal soon to come. I need to paint the floor which means removing everything from the room, which is kind of hard, because I don't know if you noticed, but we are experiencing monsoon type rain here right now. 

The best laid plans of mice and men

Our living room is an odd shape. It's plenty wide, but the length is ridiculous and there are doors and windows on almost every square inch, making furniture setup awkward. We've settled on having all the furniture down at one end, leaving the other end, which is around 15'x16', open for Jack to ride his tricyle and play with his trucks. I spied this great sort of giant ottoman dealie at The Little Seed on Larchmont.

I thought it would be perfect for our space. It wouldn't close off the other seating arrangement, nor block any of the doors or site lines for the picture window in the sun room. It would provide more seating and a great place to flop and watch a movie. The girl there told me it was custom made, and it was $$$. It has organic cotton batting, and an organic cotton slipcover, and also I guess it's also made of solid gold. Ok, so it was totally out of our budget, so I started trying to think of other solutions.

You know when you were a kid, and you wanted something really badly, like a popsicle, or tree house, or tickets to see The Cramps, and your mom gave you an apple, or a cardboard box, or tickets to see Fiddler on the roof, instead. My solution ended up kind of like that.

I bought six large (30"x30") down pillows at Michael Levine, and decided I would make slipcovers for them, and the kids could pile them up, and flop on the floor. The adults would just live on the couch. Hoorah, Topol is going to sing, again.

It really is a miracle that Nipper and I are still speaking at all. I bought the pillows in April, and they have been sitting on the floor uncovered, and shedding massive quantities of goose feathers all over the living room. I had other projects to finish (to start). I couldn't decide on fabric that would go nicely with everything else, but still be kid friendly, and not cost more than $10 a yard, because the pillows were HUGE, and I was going to need a lot of it. This effectively ruled out anything I liked. I mean I could spend $400 on irish linen and fancy trim, but then, I'm part way towards buying the oversized ottoman, but stuck with sad pillows.

A few weeks ago, during one of my tutu visits to Jo-Ann fabrics, I saw they were having a sale on all of their chinese brocades and sari fabrics. It was polyester, but I could overlook that because it was hot pink, and orange, and shiny, and machine washable, and THREE DOLLARS A YARD! I bought 12 yards. That's right, I bought 12 yards of hot pink polyester urban outfitters apartment style fabric, to cover the flop pillows. Nipper Knapp, I'm sorry, but you took a vow.

SO it took me a while to get it together to start this thing. I spent the entirety of Jack's nap one day, just trying to figure out how best to cut the fabric to maximize the amount of slipcovers I would get. I should have paid more attention to Ms. Nesper in Geometry class. Once I had the pieces cut out for the slipcover, I had to figure out how to cut the trim fabric to custom cover the cording. Right. Check. Three websites, two nights of swearing, one phone call to my mother, one visit from my mother, the purchase of one self mending cutting board, and voila, bias cut custom cording. No problem.

I learned that you have to cut a little wedge in the cording cover to help it round corners. I learned this after more swearing and cursing the day I was born. Geez sewing has a lot of rules! I decided to take a little shortcut with the cording and use iron-on fusing to create the tube for the cord. I thought, it would make for less sewing, and since the fabric was so slippery, I wouldn't have to deal with pinning it. Great. You're a genius. Except once I had the cording pinned to the slipcover fabric, and I started sewing through, what I soon came to realize was GLUE, the whole thing went off the rails.

The needle quickly became totally covered in the fusing, and was so tacky, it couldn't pull through the fabric, and the machine would jam, and the thread would break, and I would shout lots of bad words at no one in particular. At this point I called Meema, and she made some suggestions, but also reminded me that it might be time to have my machine cleaned and serviced. Considering that before a few months ago, I hadn't used it in 17 years, that was the least I could do. I dropped it at SewJoe on Mission in South Pasadena, and some nice lady is going to fix it up just like new. Either that, or Mrs Nipper Knapp is getting a fancy new machine for her birthday. One that embroiders too...

So once again, slipcovers are on hold. Nipper suggested I pay the upholsterer who made our kitchen shades to make them. But where's the fun in that? Poor Nipper.

The tutu dilemma

  

 

In the last few weeks, we've had a mini drama in our house over one pink tutu. I say mini, because for the most part, I am of one opinion, and don't care what other people think. That said, I'm aware that some people persist in the notion that it's "the clothes that make the man", so to speak. 

Several weeks ago, Jack's friend Cleo came over wearing ALL of her costumes. This included one elf dress, one princess dress, several tutus, and two headbands, one bumblebee, and one flowers, and a pair of shiny slippers. Upon seeing her, Jack immediately wanted a costume of his own. Now I guess I could have gotten him a wizard cape or a dinosaur suit, but what he asked for was a tutu. He sees Zoe on Sesame Street wearing one, and Cleo wearing one, and it's one of the first words he could say. So over and over he would say "Tutu mine". What's a mom to do? I thought, I'll ask him if he wants a blue tutu. Maybe that will make it more acceptable. Nope, he wanted a pink tutu, just like Zoe. I am his mother and (sometime slave), so I made him a tutu. 

He freakin loves this thing. He asks to put it on every morning. He sometimes falls asleep in it. He shakes his booty, runs his trucks, and hammers at his work table in it. Sometimes he and his dad even have a catch while wearing it. He sometimes accessorizes it with a yellow hard hat. In my opinion he is all boy (whatever that means). But there have been several comments and asides from the peanut gallery to the effect that this innocent pink tutu might in fact alter our "boy" into something "else". Seriously? I mean. Come ON! He's two years old. He's playing. No one EVER worries that playing with a truck, or wearing pants will make a little girl somehow less of a girl. And frankly, so what if it did? Why the double standard? 

In the book Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood, William Pollack examines this contrary set of values we try to impose on boys and young men. We expect them to grow up to be sensitive and emotionally intuitive men. And yet, we shame them for expressing themselves in any way deemed feminine by society. In one section of the book he talks about the way boys and girls were introduced to separation, at kindergarten. The mothers of girls were encouraged to stay as long as was needed, until the child was "ready" to be there independently. In contrast boy's mothers were told that it was better if they just left, and that the boys would "get over it". One young boy vomited into a garbage can every morning for weeks after his mother left. I mean are you fucking kidding me? If my child is barfing because he's so emotionally distressed, I don't think he's "getting over it". This type of conditioning leads to high rates of depression, suicidal tendencies, and anger management issues, in young men. I totally understand there is a need for all children, to go through the many painful stages of growing up, and separating from their parents, but seriously, weeks of barfing isn't good for anyone. 

I have confidence that Jack will grow out of his tutu faze, and he'll hate that I took so many pictures. Or maybe he won't, and he'll love us for allowing him to be just who he was, at that moment.