How shall I begin to blog again?
How DID I get here from there?
I've thought hard on this...not long, haven't had the time. As a former "24" fan I've often characterized the last four months of my blogging life as "going dark." I mean, I am sure that when Jack Bauer disappeared into thin air he also neglected the sending out of Christmas cards. I can't stop thinking about all those people we communicate with each Christmas who think we've fallen off the face of the earth, or those who've attempted to contact us to ask what's happened to us.
Maybe I will send Ground Hog Day cards and try to explain the story of our last nine months.
In a nutshell, after a summer of selling off our properties and storing the stuff not sold along with our old places, we spent three weeks living with our son and daughter in law before moving into our new home; the property which intrigued us with it's spaciousness, neighborhood and white on white on white interiors. For two days ( or was that minutes?) the Third Coast Colorista thought about what living in a completely white world might be like. Restful? Calming? Peaceful? But then I began to unpack the furnishings and boxes stored through the summer...and recall how vitally important COLOR is in my life.
After a period of creative paralysis, the remodelling plan and process burst through like that old television ad where the Drano pushes the plugging clog through the glass drain pipe. With Avery and Tawe's help the white white white white turned into Sandy Hook Grey, Semolina, Dark pumpkiny Dried Mustard, Beacon Grey, Pale Avocado, Oxford Grey and Soliel. Blues, pale and dense cadet, yellows, sunny and deeply golden, coppers and greys inspired by the beautiful little red breasted nuthatches and Titmice, and Chickadees eating all day just outside our new kitchen's windows. For a month and a half I personally experienced the process I have walked so many clients through for the last thirty years...up close and personal. I gained a whole new empathy for those people as I've lived through the dusts: drywall, wood, ceiling tile and others and the hot odor of soldering, scents of paints and flooring adhesives. My ears now ring with the LACK of cycling air compressors and although all the contractors who worked on the house were more than swell guys, it's kind of nice to dawdle over my coffee in my pajamas beyond 7am. Really I can't complain. In a shockingly short period of time, with guys sometimes working here late into the night ( or early into the morning...) we gutted and replaced the kitchen, finished off the lower level and repainted all but a couple rooms of the house. Amazing. Just amazing. We pretty much lived in the basement for afew weeks, and until a new stove was wheeled into the house with only a day or two to spare, Thanksgiving dinner looked pretty dicey. Even the contractors were shocked at the unheard ofturnaround from order to delivery/installation of new kitchen cabinets and Corian countertops, both arriving weeks sooner that the norm resulting in the impossible dream of pulling off the family Christmas with everything completed. Work was being done until almost noon on Christmas Eve and I literally pulled protective plastic off appliances and immediately pressed them into service.
Now the holidays are over and the dust is settling...AND blowing around (LITERALLY. We have to have the duct work cleaned for sure!). But I think the new "normal" is setting in. Pictures are hung, almost all boxes are unpacked, and cleaning the house is no longer a futile, counter-productive endeavor. I'm beginning to let my mind wander to what I will plant in the garden plot hacked out of the backyard sod late last fall and what shrubs and perennials might best surround the small courtyard patio we had poured as the first snowflakes began dancing in the air last November.
...and then there are those Ground Hog Day cards.....
