These are the tulips just off the back deck. They are always one of the first signs of spring around here.

I love my bulbs so much – always so reliable, and that beautiful splash of colour just when I need it, after a long and rather dreary winter.

These particular tulips don’t look like classic tulips. I can’t remember their name, but I loved them because of their gorgeous star shape.

We don’t have that many bulbs at the front of the house – we need to put in a new gate and walkway, so we haven’t devoted that much attention to the front the past few years. But these little beauties have been around for the past few weeks:

As have these:

I love my garden!

See, I’ve been noticing something during this last round of deadlines. And it’s this: whenever I’m stuck working, you know, on the stuff that encourages the flow of money through this household, I suddenly find myself energized to do a lot of other things.

(Which explains, in a way, why my posts here have picked up a tad in frequency.)

This is a phenomenon that I’ve noticed before. Back when I was in university, I always thought it was strange that whenever I had an assignment due, or an upcoming exam, my apartment would become virtually spotless. Suddenly, doing the dishes promptly became very appealing. And one thing would lead to another, and before I knew it, the laundry would be done, the kitchen clean, meals pre-cooked and one time (and one time only) all the wood floors in my then-apartment were waxed.

Yes. I actually waxed my floors that one time. And as far as I can recall, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Which leads to my mini-epiphany. When I’m doing something I don’t really want to be doing, I’m actually telling myself something. Mainly, I am suddenly reminded of all the wonderful things there are for me to do all around me. Even housework is wonderful (well, that’s the outlook right now). But especially all the things I love to do, which I never get around to doing. Like writing. Or re-connecting with friends. Or blogging.

When I have some downtime from work, I find that I fall into a sort of de-energized complacency. I lounge around. I read somewhat desultorily. I wander around the house. I sometimes even get bored.

For some reason, I don’t tend to remember all those wonderful activities that I never fail to remember when I’m stuck here, slogging through yet another deadline.

So I’ve decided that it’s time I embrace this gift. Obviously, I’m creating this type of work to pay the bills for a variety of reasons, one of which is to remind me of all the fun things I love to do. And if I remember this, see it as a dialogue of sorts from the Universe, remember all these wonderful things I love to do even when I, well, have the time to actually do them, that’s one less reason I’ll have for creating work I don’t enjoy.

One more reason to move towards the creation of work I love. That pays the bills. And is fun.

I’m getting there.

Photo credit: Flickr

I ended up buying three tops and three dresses for the summer. And I realized something when I got home and laid my newest buys on the bed: with the exception of one black top, my new clothes were a riot of color. Blues, magenta, pinks, greens, lilac. Just so beautiful. And so different.

That’s when I took a look at my wardrobe, a really close look. And I got a technicolor eyeful. When did this happen? When did I start embracing a more colorful life?

It wasn’t that long ago when black was my thing. And now look at me! Show me a cocktail dress in red and I’m far more likely to try it on than one in black. Not that black doesn’t appeal to me; the black top I bought yesterday took my breath away. But I’ve truly fallen in love with color.

And I’m really liking it. It’s another step closer to living a truly colorful life.

Sleep finally came as it was getting bright out, and I managed to snatch a few hours before having to wake up with Dylan.

In the past, something like this would have just wiped me out, made the whole day a blur. But this morning, I thought to myself, it doesn’t have to be like that.

I’m going shopping with my daughter this afternoon, some mother-daughter bonding time. I don’t want to stumble through it like a zombie. And I’ve got a whole slew of deadlines to get through this week, too.

So I’ve decided the bout of insomnia doesn’t have to affect me. Sure, I’ll go to bed earlier tonight. But in the meantime, I can still enjoy my day.

Seems to be working …

(By the way, if you want to get a sense of what some of our house still looks like, just check out the “before” pictures below – I could take shots like that in a bunch of places. I am way too familiar with bare, unmudded drywall …)

So fast forward seven years (my goodness, it’s been THAT long that we’ve lived in this half-finished house!) and we both feel we’ve discovered the right contractor for our place. Out of all the contractors we’ve talked to, all the ones who’ve deigned to come see the place and give us a price, he’s been the only one who (1) didn’t suggest we tear down the whole place and build a ranch house instead, (2) gasp in horror at the idea of doing a renovation instead of a tear-down (are you sensing a pattern here?) or (3) marvel at how “different” a house this is, and how a tear-down would be the thing to do.

We have no plans to tear-down our house. We do live in the suburbs, just outside of Toronto, but unlike the rest of the community, the area we live in is not made up of new or practically new houses (as in, built within the last 20 years). We have a very distinctive house, the kind of house that a realtor would say, ah, yes, not everyone would like it, but certain people would just adore this property.

We are that type of person. The first time the house was listed, we were all ready to go see it – but the sellers, who were in the midst of a break-up, decided they would give their relationship another go, and took the house off the market. A little while later (the go at repairing the relationship apparently didn’t work) the house was back on the market, and this time the timing was perfect. We were in the market, and went to see it on the day it was listed. We made an offer for the house that very day.

I remember saying to Ward, if the inside is only half as beautiful as the outside, I want this house. And the inside turned out to be about three-quarters as beautiful as the outside. It was small – too small for us, really – and it was old. The roof leaked, the windows needed replacing, and it has a very odd design. The front door opened directly into the sleeping area, and the gathering areas (kitchen, living room, dining room) are all downstairs, in what would be a basement in any other house. We don’t actually HAVE a basement. But this downstairs walks out to the backyard, so when you’re down there, you don’t actually really feel like you’re in a basement area – because you’re not.

So no, this house is not a tear down (although after the botched renos, I have to say it’s probably far more of a tear down now than it ever was!). Our outdoors is just so beautiful. We’ve fooled with it quite a lot in the years we’ve been here, so it looks nothing like what we fell in love with, but since we had a hand in the transformation, it’s safe to say we’re more in love with our property than even that very first look.

This is a part of our side garden:

Zen Garden

This is a part of our back deck:

Back Deck

This is our kitchen deck. This picture was taken just after Ward finished building it. We have two long wooden tables there now plus wooden chairs, but I can’t find the pictures, so this will have to do for now!

Kitchen Deck

We put in a new IKEA kitchen about three years ago that we like very much. These pictures are from just after that renovation – it’s too messy right now to take new pictures. Just replace the appliances with stainless ones, move the microwave to a different corner and replace the small bookcase with a large one with glass doors, and that’s about the way it looks now (when it’s not messy).

Kitchen

Another View of the Kitchen

So you see why we’ve shied away from all the contractors who hinted it would be the perfect thing to tear down our house and put up some sprawling ranch house? Sure, it’s not perfect. It gets very cold, especially in the addition, during the winter. We have exterior holes which mice apparently have marked as the entrance to their winter abode (ie inside our floors).

But this contractor (the one who STARTS TOMORROW), who is a good friend of our bookkeepers, took a look at the house and said, “wow, look at those lines.” “What an interesting job this will be.” And, part of what sold us, “I like the actual renovation-type jobs the best.”

He also got bonus points for not laughing at the drywall mudding job in the master bedroom, which yours truly worked her behind off to accomplish, huge bumps and all.

Plus, he’s only ever been at the most an hour late for appointments with us (unlike other people who’ve worked on the house and seemed to consider arriving the next day as being “fashionably late”). Not only that, so far he has always CALLED us if he’s going to be late. We find this to be very amazing.

So this is the area he’s going to transform first:

Before Picture No. 1

As to why there’s an exterior door hanging in the middle of nowhere, I’ll just say that I’ve been known to say things like that scene in Sleepless in Seattle. You know: “why don’t we just pick up the house, rotate it, so that the living room is the dining room and the dining room is now the kitchen and …” Once, about an hour before company was due to arrive for dinner, I actually persuaded Ward to MOVE the train room into the dining room, and the dining room into the train room, transforming it into, uh, the dining room (again – because a month previously I had persuaded him to do the first switcheroo).

Anyway, I had the bright idea of increasing the valuation for our house (which kept being appraised as a bungalow, so that none of the living space downstairs, in the not-basement, was counted) by cutting away the floor and putting in an entrance right in the middle. It transformed our house into a “backsplit”. But it just never really worked structurally. (It did help with the appraisal value though. See, there is usually a method to my madness, if you look hard enough …)

Before Picture No. 1

So the door’s going to go. We’ll get a nice window, the ceiling put back in, a laundry room that leads into the bathroom (right now you get into the downstairs bathroom by going through the furnace room, which means walking by the cat litter, which our daughter Hayley is in charge of cleaning. Enough said about that cat litter – I’ll leave it to your imagination.) And upstairs we’ll have a nice little alcove where we’ll be putting a sofa bed. My mom will be able to have a nice little place to herself when she sleeps over.

It will be perfect. Just keep your fingers crossed for us, please!

I got my new book review site up yesterday, and in the process fell in love with this new Wordpress theme, which really wasn’t suitable for the new site. But the theme kept nudging me all afternoon, so I finally gave in and uploaded and implemented it.

I think I’ve worked out most of the kinks, although I’m going to leave the integration of the Flickr feed in the sidebar for now. And I have to figure out how to get my images centered again. But I think I’ll leave it for now – I’ve got more deadlines to get through, another NaNoWriMo session tonight, and need to work on my mandala for Art Every Day Month!

Earlier this month Hayley had an assignment in which she researched women’s battle for the right to vote. She’s such a sweetheart – ever since she handed in her project, she’s been using an old-time logo promoting women’s right to the vote as her computer’s desktop background.

Here are Dylan’s Big Draw catchup drawings (not really catch-up for Dylan, more like catch-up for Mommy who managed to get everything scanned tonight). We’re posting three, one for Sunday, Monday and today:

Tree scene (Daddy drew the star). Crayola markers.

Face mask. Crayola markers.

Car (Daddy added the headlight, which Dylan did not like at all!) Crayola markers.

And here’s my entry for today (no catch-up drawings for the two missed days, unfortunately!):

Face. Pen.

Magazine reading doesn’t actually count in my mind as “reading for enjoyment”, not quite like a novel or good non-fiction. So I thought for today’s Sunday Salon, I’ll post the to-be-read pile that’s currently sitting on my bedside table. I have several TBR piles all around the house, but the one that’s beside my bed contains the books that are most likely to get read next:

	The Mysterious Benedict Society. When I was a kid present-day fantasies topped my list of great reads, and such books are still very much at the top of my list these days. I have been waiting for the perfect chunk of time to read this book – it’s one of those that I suspect I will enjoy so thoroughly, I won’t want to put it down until it’s finished. I’m hoping to find that time this week, as I’m eager to read the second instalment (which says a lot about how much I’m anticipating this first book).
	The Young Bond Series, Book One: Silverfin (A James Bond Adventure). I must confess, I’m not too sure about this one. I just really like the idea of reading about the young James Bond. Why this is, I really can’t say, since I’ve only ever read one of the original James Bond books and the movies aren’t on my top favorites list, either.
	The Risk of Darkness. I had read Susan Hill’s The Various Haunts of Men back in June, and enjoyed it immensely, even though I personally would have preferred a different ending. I enjoy dense, literate mysteries, and Susan Hill’s writing is spectacular; I think I enjoyed just the deliciousness of the writing in The Various Haunts of Men as I did the mystery itself. So I’m looking forward to The Risk of Darkness – again, it’s the kind of read I feel I need to have a good chunk of time set aside for.
	What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love I love memoirs, and this one by Carole Radziwill looks like a good one. I saw this a while back when I was at Chapters, and couldn’t resist. “What Remains is a vivid and haunting memoir about a girl from a working-class town who becomes an award-winning television producer and marries a prince.”
	Notes from a Small Island. Bill Bryson is one of my favorite authors, and Notes from a Small Island is the one older book of his that I have yet to read. One thing I like about non-fiction books is that I never find myself needing to race through one to get to the ending; for that reason, I think I’ll be finished this one first.
	The Alienist: A Novel. I am actually re-reading this one – it’s a very good, very re-readable mystery by Caleb Carr. Set in the 1890s, the protagonist is a psychologist (or “alienist”) who is trying to track down a serial killer who murders prostitutes. The writing is filled with rich details, and you really get to know the main characters.

But there have been some areas in my life where I’ve been slowly leaving behind this habit of thought for good. Work and finances both spring to mind.

So today I got a request from a client for a very big job. And as luck would have it, two other assignments got shifted to the following month. Perfect. In Field Center terms, I’m amazed but not surprised.

Plus, I really love when this kind of thing happens.