Dawn

A dear friend died last night after a couple years of battling serious illnesses. Dawn, who I had yet to meet in-person, was working on her doctorate degree at the same time I was working toward my Masters, and we met through a grad student support group however-many years ago. We would make each other laugh throughout long nights--and years--of reading, researching, and paper-writing by describing our "work clothes" to each other. "I think I have you beat tonight," I would tell her. "Charlie Brown 'zig-zag' t-shirt, candy cane-striped pajama pants I got for Christmas, and my hair's pulled back into one of my dad's Pirates baseball caps. It will be a sad day when I have my degree and am not this fashionable anymore!" She would share her own crazy outfit--and no small amount of love and wisdom, as well--and another night spent trudging along on the long road toward our goals would pass with much laughter to combat the exhaustion and stress. I finally earned my degree in 2006, and she finally became "Dr. Dawn" in 2009. In a recent email, she wrote, "You are so dear, and I miss our chats about the most outrageous outfits. I'm currently wearing a worn-out Henley 4 sizes too big, and boat shorts. . . . will shortly add an ancient 2 sizes too big maroon sweat outfit and white fuzzy slippers."

"I don't know how you do it," I told her as she plodded along on her new and more difficult journey of cancer treatments a year ago. "But you do it. I admire your persistence." Big-hearted and brave, Dawn responded, "I do it because I'm one stubborn old broad, and because I have a lot of help from my friends and my dear sister and from God." To all her friends and family, 62-year-old Dawn has been the epitome of love and friendship, so often the one we would all look to her inspiration and advice even while trying to support her in her own battles. The student group through which I first met her is heartbroken today. To find anyone in this life who loves you and makes you laugh is a gift, and to find someone who loves you, makes you laugh, and makes you try to be a better person is a whole other level of a blessing. Dawn was a treasure.

"OK, I am tired, gotta go," she signed off in one of her last emails to me. "God bless wonderful, faithful Val." Bless you too, my dear. But friendships do not die. If you're sporting sparkling wings today, Dawn, then you finally have me beat. But you would want me to try, at least, and as a respecter of tradition, I don't mind telling you that I am wearing an oh-so-80s neon green nightshirt with screen-printed stars on its front, rainbow-striped underwear that is probably showing through in the back, and pink rabbit slippers. And I miss you so much already. And even when I'm 102 years old and find myself wearing some nutty mismatched outfit, I will think of you and laugh. And always, always, I will be grateful for your goodness to me and to so many others. Your heart was as big as your sweatshirt. 

Pink One-Year Anniversary Party

This Saturday marks six months since Mike's and my one-year wedding anniversary. The weekend of April 15th, we rented a car and went back to the town where we'd gotten married to have a couple days away. My mom had asked us to tack on a side-trip to her and dad's house for an anniversary dinner on our way home, and especially since my dear aunt Laurie was staying with them for the weekend, I was looking forward to the visit. This would be the first time dear Aunt Laurie and her family would meet Mike too, so I knew it would be a sweet afternoon. I did not know, though, that Mom and Aunt Laurie had been planning a pink anniversary party for me and Mike for weeks, and that Aunt Laurie had arrived at Mom and Dad's Friday evening with a car full of pink paper lanterns, baking ingredients, candies, silk flowers, and handmade anniversary gifts. Since Mike and I had "run away and gotten married" and hadn't had an actual wedding or reception, my mom and aunt decided, unbeknownst to us, to go all out for our first anniversary.

They had spent the weekend before our arrival transforming Mom's colonial blue kitchen and dining room into a pink party space.  I couldn't believe my eyes when I walked into the house--Mom is synonymous with the color blue to me--and ooh-ed and ahh-ed at the transformation. They had thought of everything from pink heart-shaped paper doilies to pink paper lanterns, and it was all gorgeous. "We wanted it to look like our Vally," Mom smiled.
(That's Papa and Grandma's old Hoosier cabinet above at left. :) ♥ Click to enlarge any photo in this post.)
 
The food, like the decorations, was all in pink, spring green (like my wedding dress/jacket), and white too. :) Aunt Laurie had baked pink-and-green-frosted sugar cookies. Mom had made pink heart-shaped marshmallow-adorned Jell-O salads. She had ordered a pink Roses-topped marble cake from the local bakery. They had set up dishes of pink and green M&Ms, tiered tidbit trays of pink foil-wrapped candies, plates of white chocolate-covered pretzels, and pots of pink wafer cookies. 'Just dreamy, a sea of pretty colors.

Mom and Aunt Laurie had cooked our traditional Thanksgiving dinner for the meal: Turkey, stuffing/dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, peas, green bean casserole, pickles and cream cheese-and-olive-stuffed celery, rolls, and ham too. The ham was somewhat of an in-joke between me and Mom, because in the late 1980s or maybe early 1990s, she and I had been tickled by an article in one of her decorating magazines about a pink and white wedding that "continued the pink and white theme" with overlapping slices of (pink) ham and (white) turkey at its dinner reception. It was such a pretty detail, and I remember squealing to Mom at the time, "Ooooooooooh! Just THINK, Mom! We could color-coordinate the whole MEAL!" And now, decades later, she had remembered to make up platters of the turkey and ham. ♥ One of my sisters-in-law contributed a cucumber salad that was a pretty mint green. Aunt Laurie had dyed hard-boiled eggs in pinks and greens. Mom had made pink lemonade (especially for Mike, who likes it, but you know the punch bowl would have been pink-filled somehow). The cups, napkins, and plates were all pink and white, as well. Rachel Ashwell, eat your heart out. ;)
After lunch, we opened Aunt Laurie's incredible gifts.
And then Mom and Dad stunned me and Mike with something I had wanted for our little apartment since the summer before. While Mike and I finished our cake and caught up with everyone, my dad and brothers disappeared outside and then returned carrying a heavy oak fireplace mantel. My mom had paid for the wood for it, and Dad had built it. (He also built the mantel that's beside the "pink Roses/twinkle lights tree" in the third photo from the top. And Mom's beloved kitchen nook/booth to the right of the Hoosier cabinet. ♥) I finally have my mantel! ♥

He said he hated to leave it unfinished, but that Mom had told him that I'd want to paint it and doll it up anyway, so he resigned himself to giving me a plain and unstained wood piece. :) Fixing this up is one of my next projects. It will be colorful and trimmed in Roses when I'm done, to be sure. Dad made it the perfect size for a specific wall in our apartment that I'd mentioned I'd been saving for a mantel. I still had "mantel wanted" ads posted on craigslist when Mom and Dad gave us this one, so this, like the rest of the visit, was a real treat. ♥

After taking more pictures and saying our goodbyes, Mike and I got on the road, the car's backseat and trunk filled with pastel-colored foods and our other gifts. The real treasures, I know you know by now, were the people waving at us as we drove away.

A Hutch Story

August 1st marked a year that Mike and I have been in our new apartment, and I have spent the past couple months trying to cross as many things as possible off my to-do list. Finishing the hutch was a big one, and as of this morning when I took the photo above, it is, indeed, officially done. ♥

This hutch--or the base of it, at least--was the first piece of furniture Mike and I ever bought together, back in the summer of 2007 as we talked and emailed and made plans for me to move in with him.

Val:  I just saw this desk/hutch/bookshelf on craigslist, and for $35 total, they'd even deliver it, and something like that would be nice to have here too, for my books and stationery things and extra kitchen things. I haven't contacted them, but something like that could be worth it, especially when delivery's included.

Mike:  That's really nice looking, so if you want it, we should get it. :)

Val:   Okay, I'll look into it. :) And if this person also has a sheepdog, I can have that added to the bill, right? :)

Mike:  Only if they'll deliver the dog in the same trip as the hutch. :)

Above: Hutch acquired and somewhat fixed-up. 

But I "[had] a vision," as my mom would say. In November 2010, another craigslist seller was advertising an antique cupboard, and I was that much closer to having the finished hutch I wanted. 

The original hutch was a beast, weighing what felt like 400 pounds and standing taller than my 6-foot-tall husband. Mike didn't want to move the hutch into our new apartment at all, it had been that horrifically heavy to get into our tiny studio apartment in the first place. There was mention of donating it to charity and having it hauled away. There were arguments. There was revisionist history taking place. ("It's just a stupid shelf. We can find another one." ~ "Ohhhhhhhhh! You didn't think it was so stupid when you kept using it for your keys and books and precious pans from your mom the past four years! No, it's only stupid when it's time to MOVE it!")   There were Two Stubborn Newlyweds Stressed Out By Packing to Move.  There was an ongoing email-exchange.
 

Val:  You do realize if Stuffed and I successfully sell all your cds and movies, we'll be rich! RICH!! :)

Mike:  Uh, huh.

Val:  Stuffed was actually super-excited about the plan! He's asleep again now, but I'm sure he's just resting up for the big yard sale.

Mike:  I seem to recall that a certain someone has a bunch of her belongings there as well. Better be careful.

Val:  Ah yes, but that certain someone's things aren't really worth much money. We'll stick to our original plan.

Mike:   There is a hutch that might fetch some cash.

Val:  Good luck getting it down the stairs by yourself. :)

Bull-Headed, my dad calls me. Two weeks before we moved out, I walked to the hardware store and bought a handsaw and somehow managed to saw the old hutch into three sections. I remember locking Stuffed into the bathroom to keep him safe, but all I remember after that is that the hutch was somehow resting on its side on the floor beside the bed and I was sawing (and sawing, and sawing) for most of a humid afternoon to break it into three sections. It's likely best not to recall the details. No doubt I dripped sweat and sawdust onto my cell phone and sent Mike a triumphant text message.

In the new apartment late last summer, I put the bottom of the old/sawed-up hutch under the second little craigslist cupboard for the first time and painted it in yet another shade of green. It still didn't look the way I wanted, but it would do in the meantime. 

Below: Yet another shade of green. And Stuffed sleeping blissfully through the ongoing hutch saga. 

Finally last month, I decided to dig into the project and get it done once and for all. After having tried how-many shades of green acrylic on the hutch, I looked at a bunch of colors online and at a Sherwin Williams paint store and found the shades for both the hutch and its trim that I had had in mind all along: "Mesclun Green" and "Captivating Cream" in semi-gloss. I ordered new knobs from the impressively-fast-shipping Kennedy Hardware for the bottom cupboards. I painted Daffodils freehand (but based on stencils I'd seen on eBay and loved) in black inside the little glued-on chalkboard-frames I had added to the cupboard doors in 2007.

And I found the sweetest, most Val-like vintage liner paper for the inside of the middle shelf from an etsy seller who was kind enough to send a little extra in case I'd measured wrong and ended up needing more. It is almost wax paper, this old "Sweetheart"-brand bread wrapper print. Different and colorful and just perfect for this hutch, it was only $5 for a little over a yard, and it went on with regular school glue. I couldn't be more delighted by all of this. 

A full five years in the making, this morning the hutch was proclaimed finished. And without my even mentioning it or fishing for compliments, Mike said how much he liked it. (Ha!)

I know nothing about the people who owned these pieces before us, but today the finished hutch truly has its own crazy love-filled history with us. And a happy, even if bull-headed, home. ♥

Father's Day from Richard Scarry

These beleaguered-looking pigs played a big part in my childhood, as this story was one of my favorites. I was thrilled a couple weeks ago to track down the book that contained this illustration. The story it accompanies is "The Three Wishes," and this telling of it is found, it turns out, in Richard Scarry's Nursery Tales. I remember my dad reading this to me when I was a little kid, and I had wanted to find it for him for a long time. Something jarred the memory loose and made me think that it was, indeed, a Richard Scarry-illustrated book that I had been remembering, and just like that, the search was over. 

This story of the bickering husband-and-wife pigs and their three wasted wishes always made me hysterical, and these illustrations still got a laugh out of me when I reread the book this month. Look at the angry eyes of the shouting husband-pig above and the way Scarry's drawn him with the accusatory pointed hoof. :) 

And the crazed look in the pigs' eyes here as they try to wrestle the sausage off the wife-pig's real nose? That was the height of comedy to this five-year-old. I tried to get Mike to see the humor in these pages, but I seem to have been thirty-some years too late. Dad, however, should be delighted. I didn't mention in his Father's Day card that I had found it, but this book is one of the little presents I'm mailing him in his belated package tomorrow.   ♥

Road Trip for Radiohead

Mike and I returned home yesterday from an overnight stay in Ohio, where we saw Mike's favorite band, Radiohead, outdoors at the gorgeous Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls. They unexpectedly played one of our songs from 2007, the hauntingly pretty "House of Cards," ♥ and unlike on the lawn at the Tom Petty concert a couple years ago, none of the drunken kids around us stumbled all over our blanket sloshing beer all over me. Another plus. :) The usual motion sickness got me down on the way out there, but after an emergency Dramamine-stop and some lunch, I could listen to Mike without feeling annoyed and could look out our rental car's window without getting dizzy. :) Our motel room Wednesday was clean and comfortable, and I slept the best I had in ages that night, although when we first walked in, Mike and I just looked at it and then at each other and said, "Isn't this the motel room people always get in the movies when they meet up for an illicit affair?" It was that room. "Where did you tell your husband you'd be tonight?" Mike asked me with a "heh-heh" and a wink as I unpacked.  A short-but-sweet getaway to kick off summer 2012.

Memorial Day 2012

'A pie for Mike's parents this morning.  I talked with my parents last night and know they are visiting cemeteries today, as they faithfully do this weekend every year, to plant flowers around loved ones' graves. That my own dad was welcomed home from the service in 1969 with a family party and a cake in his honor and not with a graveside American flag and red, white, and blue Petunias is something I am more grateful for the older I get. And that Memorial Day seems to have become appreciated more for stores' sales and a three-day weekend than for the sacrifices of those in our military is something that disturbs me more each year. Thank you to those who have served and who are serving now, and a thank you to their families, as well.

Chalkboard Green

I had been trying to think of a way to cover some of the glossy brown faux-wood cabinets in our kitchen ever since we first looked at this apartment last summer, and finally, a couple weeks ago, it occurred to me to cover them, as much as budget would allow, with adhesive sheets of green chalkboard. The chalkboard sheets arrived in the mail yesterday, and within ten minutes this afternoon, I had transformed our cupboards from something I didn't like to something Mike and I are both getting a kick out of, and now the cabinet-fronts pick up the rest of the green in our tiny kitchen too. It only took nine months to think of this. :) 

♥

35th Birthday Rainbow Cake

After returning from my parents' yesterday afternoon--where we did not take family photos at midnight, thank you :)--I raced around creating my birthday cake for me and Mike. I'd wanted to make a rainbow cake for awhile, and yesterday was the day: Six layers of white-cake-turned-colorful with homemade pink buttercream frosting in between and on top. I used the "Congratulations, it's a girl" button my parents had been given by the hospital the day I was born and also my long-saved "Valerie" heart magnet from my aunt Laurie, both wrapped in plastic wrap, as cake toppers along with rainbow sprinkles and 35-plus-1-to-grow-on candles. Baking the six layers in yesterday's heat and humidity wasn't the most fun I'd ever had, especially after waking up at 5 a.m. and being on a bus all morning, but it was worth it. I wanted my 35th birthday cake to reflect what I want to put into and get out of this next year of my life: Boldness, creativity, joy, and love. 

Methinks you have to know how long you'll live before you can state when you've reached the halfway point, but I think that by most definitions, I'm now considered middle-aged. I love it. May this next year be filled with love and learning and laughter and light. And may I never stop looking for rainbows. 

Birthday Reenactments

I'm soon traveling home to Mom and Dad's for an early birthday visit. Last year at this time. . .

MAY 2011 AT MY PARENTS' HOUSE, GOING ON MIDNIGHT:

MOM: (knocking on my bedroom door) Vally? You still awake?

VAL: Yeah. Come on in.

MOM: (looking sheepish) I just realized--We forgot to take pictures during your party tonight! Do you mind if we take some now?

VAL: Now? What--?! Mom, I'm in my pajamas! I already packed everything for the trip back tomorrow!

MOM: (looking sad) I know, but I really wanted pictures. Couldn't we just set it all up again real fast and I could take just a couple?

VAL: Are you serious?! What, do I have to get dressed again too? Are we going to re-wrap all the presents?!

MOM: (smiling) I can just set it up pretty. It'll only take a minute and then you can get back to bed.

VAL: (laughing and getting out of bed) You are crazy. Oh my goodness. (walking out into living room where my dad's still watching TV) Dad! Do you hear this? Did you hear what she wants me to do? Mom just got me out of bed so we can set up my birthday party again because she forgot to take pictures! She's crazy. (to Mom, who's already busy unpacking my bags and setting up the gift table) You're crazy! This is really nuts, Mom, even for you!

DAD: (not looking up from his baseball game) That sounds about right. Oh, now that I'm retired, you should see some of the oddball things she comes up with. . . . "Build this, Geno! Make me one of theeeeeeese. . . .Climb up on the roooooof, Geno. . . ."

MOM: (mumbling to herself as she bustles around the dining room table) I think if I just put a few napkins over the side of the cake, it won't look like we ate any of it.

DAD: (groans in the living room)

VAL: W-o-w. (resigning herself to the madness) Let me at least tie my hair up. . . .

May Flowers

A local church's garden is full of rain-soaked Iris flowers this morning. 'Love, love, love. ♥