Before and After, well more like Middle

This was my kitchen before I discovered the wonderful world of glue and paper and appearently a very tolerant husband.






This is after, sort of. My Kitchen/ Art room is about 300 square feet and it is turning into more of a giant art project than anything. I am using as little money as possible. So far I am getting away with about 20$ a week. Believe it or not the paper covers up every little imperfection in the wood, no sanding, no primer was needed and no perfect paint strokes.
I had primered the cabinets because I was going to paint them, but my art shelf was so entertaining that it became extended.





These are the drawers,the cabinet itself is not finished but I am taking my time. Plus every time I do work with the painting I am doing I have a toddler *helping* me. Two of my dogs have purple and green paint on them. The floor looks like crap because we had to jerk up almost the entire thing a couple of weeks ago including the living room floor. So my floor will be last.

The cabinet under the sink has to be completely redone. I am going to try to convince him it needs to be done this weekend. Wish me lots and lots of luck.

Summer!!!

Oh the turn of air, when the humidity creeps it's way into the house and you are sticky less than an hour after you get up. I feel the itch to go into the woods and find the best spots to sit and throw rocks into the water. Oh do not get me started on swimming, I cannot wait to haul the kayaks down to the bayou and wander off. I miss swimming, it has been at least 3 years since I have just floated for an hour or so. I can not wait to catch turtles again or feed fish or get that weird creepy feeling that is akin to panic if it gets out of control because a HUGE fish just brushed by you.

I must tan!! I have been working on my yard and outside so much in the last couple of weeks that my arms are a nice golden brown. Under arms and under clothes is still a blinding white. And I feel this insane urge to put blond streaks in my hair again. Then in July I will want to make the blond dark pink. Every summer for the last five summers I have fought the pink, mainly because my job at the time would not let me. Or rather I could as long as I did not work there. And get a tattoo, why on earth do I want another tattoo only during early summer?

My gardens are growing excellent, I have my first crop of green beans. Depending on how many we pick on Saturday will decide if we will plant purple hull peas.

I found a *spend all your money* website. It is nothing but hard to find seeds and some of the plants are just 'omg I have to have this plant!' http://seedrack.com/index.html
Oh ho- they have plants I have never seen before much less touched and I am just itching to buy and grow. Sadly, one of my all time favorite plants, any kind of vine, I am allergic to it's touch. I will have a rash within 24 hours from Jasmine, English Ivy etc.

I buy gloves. I have about 4 pair because my husband leaves his excellent leather work gloves near my gardening shelf and depending how you bend reality, geometry, and logic - the gloves are actually in MY work shelf so therefore I have the insane right to get them wet, muddy and covered in lord knows what. Then I give them back and "find" another pair while the first is drying in the sun.

My kitchen is coming along nicely, I have the drawers done except for the final paint on the sides of the cabinet and I have to replace the toe kick. Then my husband wanders buy and makes the remark that he should rebuild the cabinet.

The cabinet that I just spent the last week on, gluing, nailing,sanding to make it look like it is not made from particle board. "the hell you are.....GET OUT" is something along what I went from stunned mumbling to shouting. Do not come into my kitchen and comment on what needs to be rebuilt after I have rebuilt it to my happiness and function level.

I textured the walls Friday night, well I textured one and a half walls. I like the texture product but I do not like the normal texture the roller did. I am thinking of doing a dripping water or squishy hand thing. oooo maybe odd dot impression, the dots make swirls but each dot is painted a different blue then the wall is painted.

I wish I could have free reign to redo all the rooms in the house. I could do the matching swirls into other rooms. Maybe I will do swirls on the trim of the house instead after we paint it this fall.

My mind is moving million miles an hour to keep from thinking about how bad my husbands pain is from the injury. I think the chiropractor would have worked completely but Donald does nothing but hard labor all day even on light duty. So he is not talking too much over the last couple of days and we cannot even sleep in the same room. He is one three pills and still cannot sleep.
Deep inside I am breaking down even more but on the surface and right under that I cannot let this affect me or everything will go to hell.

I might have a contract job for 10 days to cook for 17 ppl 3X a day. The money is worth the hours and cleaning. Cross your fingers it gets approved.

AND I won the contest to name an anomaly in the Big Thicket. I was really hoping they would pick one of the Dragon names, but they voted on Big Thicket Trees Knee's Pass. I hope to have a link to the picture pretty soon.

Lots of Glue

Lots of glue. I thought would be a good name for me considering the artwork I am getting into. While I have wavered for 10 years on how exactly I want my kitchen to look like I have gone from country to modern and everything in between.

I spend allot of time in the kitchen. My kitchen is also the dining room, although we do not use it aside from formal holiday gathering; the last of which was 9 years ago. My family eats in the living room, we still have rules about table manners, which I am teaching my two year old. Yes, she is smart enough to learn the rules quite fast.

My kitchen is used for cooking, playing catch games, listening to music and my art room. It takes up a third of the house, the living room is the other third and the bedrooms and bathroom the last third.

I would kill to have an art room to myself but I am not putting myself in the hole for 15 grand for one room. And no, I will not demand my husband to build it for me. We don't have good luck with DIY projects running smoothly. So I am taking over the kitchen formally and making it my own.

Now back to the original topic. I am using scrapbook paper and Mod Podge to redo my kitchen. I have also found a way through www.craftster.org and french websites to build furniture out of cardboard that is fun and sturdy. Think of Dr.Seuss.






I started small and am going to work my way to a bed frame in about two months. I would really like to have my own shop and build custom beds for children at a reasonable rate. I would love to build beds and furniture and have a drawing once a month for children in need to redo their room.

But getting there is a whole trip by itself, the French sites show some step by step but for the most part you can take their classes and learn how to do it their way.....uh, I am not flying to France. The other sites i have found are not as good as the French. Go figure.

The cardboard is free but finding the right glue is becoming tricky. Hot glue is the best but my glue gun is small and rinky. So in two weeks a buy a big one.....*evil grin* I really cannot wait. I am gathering supplies so I can be busy this summer if I do not have to work. I might work to save because I have an incredible feeling that things are about to break at an alarming rate.

ujujjhjjjjuytrreeef <------- Nikki says hi

Well she is up and terrorizing me so off we go:)

Realization

I feel as though this time in my life is here, not for a reason, but here to force a change upon me. I have been having a series of mini break downs over the past few weeks. I feel slightly better after a crying bout but not better as to deal with new stress.

My best friend is going through court issues and I do not hear from her for more than once every two weeks. After two years another friend, living in an existence in which she could barely be herself or tap into creativity, moved away and I do hear from her once a week, it just is so sad. I miss them both, but it is part of the change I must go through.

I have to learn to become stronger to the point of completely on my own. Emotionally and mentally. My husband was hurt a year ago this month, part of his injury or side effect, is a short term memory that is near gone. I can talk about (insert topic here) we will have a full fledged discussion about (topic) BUT when I start on said (topic) he becomes irate because he has no idea why I am doing whatever I am doing. This is less than 24 hours after we spoke about (topic). This behavior is not normal for him. It would take him about a month to forget a topic.

Or he has developed a split personality- one is happy with whatever I do, the other wants to control little bits of everything I do. But then he turns around and tells me to do whatever I want. After we argued over the shade of blue for my kitchen, he demanded that I paint my walls pale blue and two days later when I showed him some paint chips, he asked me why I was asking him. It is your kitchen do what you want.

After months of yelling at him which is degenerating our healing relationship, I started crying. So now twice a week I am crying over inane topics, which I rarely did before. It is highly irritating. But I know each time I break down I should become stronger.

Or so I hope. I know he might have another year to work and after that he is going to have to become disabled or have surgery for the bulging disc in his neck. The headaches and pain are almost too much for him even on pills.

So being unable to control the pain he is going through on a daily basis or much of anything else except when the bills get paid, I have developed some OCD issues.

1) I want my yard, gardens and shed to be completely streamlined and clean. This is a LARGE task considering my gardens went for two years without any cultivation. Don't get me started on the shed.

2) I seem to have flipped from darker colors to brights, borderline annoying. But something in my brain just keeps going back to bright blues, bright purple, and lime greens. I think it is my body's way of fighting depression.(these are the kitchen colors)

3)Even if it is not my stuff I want to organize it. That is scary because I do not recall being like this before or if I was, not to this level.

The artist that dwelled inside but only exposed itself in doodles has blasted it's way to the fore and is just "artisting" everything I am working on. My grandfather has an arc welder and I am collecting silverware to tack weld into people, cities, fences--etc. And I am collecting broken tools to make Tool People for my gardens.

I have not written in two months, I think I am taking a break. I will probably send some stuff off for short stories but Ava has to be completely rewritten from the ground up. Which is annoying. I know why I am having a hard time writing, just like with playing pool; I cannot write unless I am smoking and since I quit I am stuck in limbo until I learn to write without cigarettes.

I still have stories swirling in the muck. But getting 3 hours to write without a two year old bugging is impossible when your housemate/ other half is doped up. It is bugging me that I have not worked on Ava since last January, she was an incredible story for me to put together and only being half done is annoying.

I hate having ADD. Even on meds I still screw up and don't finish. Even on meds I still cannot get the whole story out of my head.

Mix the OCD with ADD and certain projects take over, I must finish them before I can start something else. This last week I have fought not painting my kitchen and lost. It was all I could think about until I got up, painted the damn wall and then,only then was I able to sit and finish a water color.

I think this is part of me breaking down. I have to break down certain barriers in order to become the person I wish I could be. I am envious of women who can match their clothes and accessorize. I have no idea how to fix my hair or how to wear certain jewelry, do not get me started on shoes. I am clueless. So I have enlisted an old friend of mine to help me this fall. She is going to help me shop.

So in a sense to me I am growing up, finally at 29 years old I have figured out who I am and what I want to do with my life. Now all I have to do is change a few things and go.