New years celebrating, cleaning, demolishing, building, unpacking, repacking, sorting, baking, dreaming, planning, writing, and, of course, ranting

thirteen months of stress about my health, the neighbors, the agonizing decision to leave my garden,  selling and buying a home. sometimes a little thing tears one apart.  Stupidly missing an amazingly perfect cabinet hardware solution sent me over the brink.  i recuperated from my ebay tantrum with the kitty, the ipad, and a new angry birds game (with my gamer son's help, which delights him).  http://www.amazon.com/BeBop-Garden-Riffing-kingdom-ebook/dp/B005EBZT3I
i am enjoying reading my first e-book  waiting for spring to come.

 how long will it be before i lose my sense of smell and am unable to breathe clearly?  i feel like i have to live quick and do everything while i am well.  sudden happiness - a box that the table leaves will fit in perfectly. 

the living room as we first saw it.  my husband ripped out all the carpet and padding before i ever set foot in the house

you can see one last icky scrap of particleboard on the left, and my tireless guy, and the mint brick fireplace

 he removed a nasty layer of particle board and discovered we had  a perfectly serviceable layer of plywood upon which to lay the new flooring

prefinished birch floor in place of carpet, overseen by the xmas trolls.

i fell in love with xmas again, because these guys are now a part of it.

my husband's spacious lovely garage is  our new storage facility and i go out there in the cold and sort out a little bit every day. no more 'as-u-stor-it' bills. (that was really the name of the self storage place, i love that corny nod to Shakespeare) Those big bags of ghost poop are gone now.

old rusty timepiece i gave my old rusty astronomer husband for xmas

first batch of cookies baked in our new home.  our most traditional xmas food!

 "you should have bought a squirrel" kathy bates, 'the rat race'
my son bought me two 

WHY NOT HAVE FUN WRITING CRAIGSLIST POSTS?
with this swing structure you will never worry that your grandma or kids will be in danger. this baby probably weighs about 500 lbs. it is constructed of 2 1/2 inch diameter steel pipe. use it to wench the engine out of your car. make it into a chicken coop. cover it with hanging plants. the wooden swing needs a lot of work. make a new one out of recycled doors! 7 1/2 ft wide x 6 1/2 ft deep x 8 ft tall. come on by with your big pickup truck, and a bunch of strong guys. plenty of time to have it ready for nice warm summer evenings. those cheap swing sets at the big box stores weigh 80 lbs. do you trust your grandpa on that? this one will still be around sturdy and safe for your great great grandchildren.

big office supplies accident in the bathtub.  

here is a first look at our new yard, for you and our cat, Juliet, as my 19 year old son looks on, she takes her first steps.

those branches, a six foot lilac i purchased for one dollar

Juliet was born the day we first visited Ashland on a school field trip, 300 miles from our last home, in the Sierra foothills of California.  it is a sweet story i will share in a later post.

evening twilight. first time i had seen a clear evening sky at our new home. looking west at our new view of the siskiyou foothills. 

NINJA EATING A PRIDE PATTY 
after a long sad, 8 year hiatus, my son is making drawings again! way-to-go internet! you can join the fun, too  http://doodleordie.com  

happy new 2013 everyone, gangnum-style!