The Hunt for Green

There is a certain, special comfort that comes with living in a land of regular seasons. While my Midwestern friends enjoy their cold winter days interspersed with tee-shirt weather, slaves to the unpredictability of temperature change and unable to put away shorts for the winter, I enjoy the consistency of one cold day after another, chains of chilly or sticky or downright freezing nights all linked by weeks and months upon the calendar.
Along with the comfort, however, there comes a nagging brand of monotony.

A Visit to the Zoo

Tall Boy was my boyfriend when I graduated high school. A whimsical search on Racebook brought him back into my life (after the disastrous affair with The Colombian turned positively James-Patterson-awful) by long-distance phone line, and now he was about to enter my reality at Ina Hall. I could not have been more excited. I suppose one could also say I was nervous. While our conversations had been easy and somewhat magical, I worried that our chemistry might have evolved enough over the years to have simply disappeared.

Last Stop Before Home

When a business closes in a small town, everyone notices. First there are the rumors at the church social. (“I talked to Bob and Sally the other day. Looks like they’re having trouble making a go of it at the store.”) Then there are rumblings at the bank. Then decisions are made, and as quickly as they are, the crowd at Stewart’s has the full story and passes it to everyone who wanders in–which, in a town the size of Hoosick Falls, means everyone. Period.

Bathing Beauties

A quiet Saturday night at the Zoo can feel like a curse at times, bound to be lonesucky. Tonight, however, I’ve chosen to enjoy the quiet and human solitude, and appreciate my furry buddies for what they bring to the table.

Waiting for Paint to Dry

Outside, the sky is opening in cool evening air. The drizzle taps on my living room windows, adding texture to an otherwise bland Friday night.

I have wrapped my paintbrush and put it aside for a time. A dinner for one of comfort foods–frozen taquitos and chile con queso, followed by greasy chocolate chip cookies–has long been put away, leaving me with nothing to do but wait. A coat of ordinary antique white glistens on china shelves, standing against the blank wall of an unfinished room. Wiry black hairs attach themselves before I can shoo them away, making Katie a permanent part of Ina Hall’s decor.

Dying to Get Into the Zoo

Despite Katie and Biscuit’s penchant for chasing the neighborhood stray cats, my back porch remains a cat-friendly hangout. Regular visitors like Scruffy, Fluffy, Blackie, and now Tux, gobble up my cheap, discount store cat food faster than I can fill the dish.

In Dreams, We Ripen

As soon as I saw him, I was hit with a wave of sadness. Had I let Thom, Jr. go too soon? I missed him, and longed to see him back on the vine. When I looked at the giant crop of new tomatoes, all I could see was the absence of him.

Clean Slate, or Plaster

Every home improvement project is a process. I’ve already discussed the wallpaper-removal process, and the toll it took on me and my already messy house. But priming is no more fun to me than removing tiny strips of stale paper. Priming is smelly, time-consuming, and offers no real payoff.

Premature Birth of an Idea

As of this moment, it looks as though I will not be moving home to the farm. At least, not while my parents are still alive.

I was speaking with my mother on the phone a while ago. She was doing her famous bluetooth-while-you-work babbling, standing on a ladder and talking while she painted, when she did something else she is famous for: she slipped an unintended nugget of information.

Peeling Back the Layers

When I moved into Ina Hall last summer, I vowed that the dining room would be one of my early projects–mostly because the narrow, vertical-striped blue-and-white paper made me dizzy every time I entered the room. It was perhaps the room with the most potential for transformation from shab to grandeur. But lo and behold, life took over and shaved layers off my project time here and there, and other things became more important than being able to enjoy a meal without falling off my chair.

The Chair

I don’t remember exactly when the chair came into my life. It was sometime during the summer before I moved into my first ever apartment, my second year in college. My mom and I went to an estate sale at the fairgrounds in the nearby “big town,” the first time I’d ever attended such an event. She had always gone to estate sales and picked up random junk, and had recently gone through a phase where she was into refinishing furniture. On this particular day, I had nothing to do but tag along.

Lobster Claws & Doggy Paws

Patrick stayed over last night, in “his” room–the one guest room that is furnished to date, in which he is the only person who stays–to help me dig up shrub roots today. It was some quality family time. I did regret telling him to come on over, at least for a little bit. Though I feel lonely and cut off from the world lately, I do enjoy my alone time and hate to give it up unnecessarily. That said, when he and Biscuit and Wyatt Earp hit the scene, I was glad to have the company and the extra furry bodies to wrangle–speaking of the pets, of course.