Home Today

A cleansing and beautifying project seemed the way to go this weekend, and it's a rare weekend off, so I've been painting the orange wall a soft white as the start of redoing the wall in white, pink, and green.  A couple months ago, I ordered a wallpaper sample of this print--

--but since I'm not allowed to wallpaper here, I'm using the sample more as an idea for a hand-painted design.  

The red gingham curtains will be (moved into the bedroom possibly and) replaced with green gingham ones.  I have green gingham fabric I've ordered, green gingham fabric my grandmother's passed along, and a ready-made green gingham valance found at a thrift shop on one of my last visits home, so I'm thinking some combination of those pieces to make the new curtains.  I don't enjoy sewing, the curtain rods' brackets are rickety and like to fall out of the wall/window-frame whenever I so much as stare at them too long, and the wall and widow-frames themselves are as unyielding as bricks, so nothing about the curtain-making or curtain-hanging sounds like anything but a hassle except finishing it, so as soon as all the white-painting and rose-painting are done, I will need to buckle down and just do it. 

The white wall, green gingham, mostly gray pots/pans, probably-black frames for the samplers, and the pink roses all sound comforting and fresh and "me" to me and are the coziness I need right now, so I'm happy to see the change taking place finally, after having collected various pieces of the project for the past few months.  The safe haven of home is going to be that much sweeter and prettier, and the goal is to finish this part of it by Christmas.  Painting the swirls and stems of a few roses a day will be therapeutic this next month, and in the meantime, the soft white is soothing too.  

Thank you all for your kind words and prayers the past couple weeks.  ♥  I haven't had any nightmares the past two nights, which is huge.  And after working late the night before and racing around the morning of to finish making a sign to take with me, I did attend the peace rally in the park yesterday.  Security took away my sign before I could enter, telling me signs were not allowed, so I had arrived late for nothing after having made it.  Ah well, I made the effort, I attended, and now I will enjoy home and time off for another day.  Life is going on, and I remain determined to make it as sweet and good as I can, using cardboard signs, cans of paint, prayers, piles of books, hazelnut candles, wallpaper samples, and whatever else it takes. The back of my sign had simply read "Hang in there, Pittsburgh," and I will take my own advice. 

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