good bones

my sister is back home at our parents' house. these days it belongs to her. she had rented it out for the past few years. the people who lived there tore out all the horrible carpet that was everywhere, including on the stairs. i always wondered if there wasn't some nice wood floors underneath all that 80s pile. and it seems there was. 

it's weird to see this room empty and the blinds open. my mother weirdly kept the blinds closed and that room was always so dark. i think she thought she was protecting the furniture from the sunlight. the wallpaper is the same wallpaper my mom put up years ago. it's not too bad, though generally, i have realized that my mom didn't have very good taste. 

my sister is thinking about making a big change in her life and moving back there. i find it comforting to think of her living in our childhood home. sanding and polishing those floors. and bringing it to life again. the house has good bones and it saw our family through many good times. it must be good for many more. 

home for christmas

three flights, one missing bag, nearly 24 hours of travel later and our peeks is home for christmas. bob is so happy to see her and we totally get him. i took the day off to make The Soup, vacuum and secure all her favorite snacks. her good friend, who wants to spend christmas with us(!) came along to the airport to pick her up. husband met us there between meetings. then us three girls came home to snuggle up with the kittens on the couch and watch christmas movies (love actually was first up). aside: dang, it does not age well, and yet remains weirdly charming. i have a quite a lot of work to do up to christmas, but the whole week off between christmas and new year's and i'm looking forward to making good food, playing loads of cards and board games, building a big lego set (i still have a couple stashed away) and having lots of good conversations. now, just to make it through the next ten days of work. 

back at the computer again

appropriately out the front window of the car, since that's where i've spent so much time of late.
somewhere between payson and phoenix.

i didn't mean to disappear, but a fried battery on my laptop intervened. i'm home again, the laptop is on its way to the hospital and i'm back in front of my desktop computer. what a trip it was! i extended my stay by 10 days in order to get everything done. and it is all done. mom is buried, all the paperwork surrounding the estate is notarized and filed, a headstone is ordered, we drove about 2500 miles, found an apartment, bought everything for it and settled the child into her first home, got some new ink at black sails tattoo, ate a lot of great food, swam in a pool to cool off, enjoyed the arizona heat, and just generally made a whole lot of things happen. i'm pretty exhausted, but glad to be home with husband and the cats. it's been grey and rainy all day - about 12°C and 97% humidity, as opposed to 42°C  and 22% humidity in phoenix. it's all a bit of a shock to the system. i slept as if i were still in arizona, waking in the early afternoon our time. now it's headed towards 11 p.m. and i'm still not tired. i guess that's how it goes.

that said, my head is filled with plans - an exciting writing project, a job search, a local writing group starting up, plans for making part of the house airbnb-ready, including yet another new kitchen, tidying up in the box room (aka, having a major purge), a bit of sewing, some mending and a weaving project or two. in other words, it's a whole new season...of the year and of life.

what's on your agenda for the new season?