locker sneak peak.

well, the lockers are in the apt, they're painted.... and while i'm still trying to decide if i love them or not.... and there's lots of details to share... i figured i'd give a quick photo as a NYE present to you all :)


gotta love that stack of stuff still sitting there, on the other side of the chair :) you may be able to accuse me of many things... but being dishonest [or fabricating a home that looks perfect] isn't one of them :)

due to it being night, poor lighting, and new year's eve, i'm going to beg off with just this one photo and hope that you'll be kind enough to come back tomorrow for the whole story :)

be safe, and happy new year!! :)

2010 in review.

well, we're winding down 2010.

i feel like 2010 was the year that i lost my youthful idealism. the first five months of living in arizona was rough, and then 2010 was full of sober realities. i was lucky enough to be spared from going through any really tough stuff myself, but i saw people who i care about shoulder some very difficulty circumstances, and even tragedies.

i don't know about you, but i'm ready for a little upswing and a renewal of my youthful optimism.

and to segway into some positive, happy stuff, here's a review of my favorite projects i've completed and documented on here... even though it's only been a few months :)

there was the project that spawned the blog... the fabric covered bins :)



my pretty little sun catchers for the porch...



the martha-inspired pumpkin :)



the couch slip cover!! :) [only took me *forever* to finish it, with all the interruptions!!]



the photo frames i painted navy...



the lovely wreath, inspired by jones design company :)



my no-sew window mistreatments :)



...and finally, the continuing locker adventure that will certainly stretch into the new year :)


so those are the my life as prose highlights from the first few months :) i hope you've enjoyed this blog as much i have :)

...if you haven't voted on the moving poll, please do!! there's only a few more weeks to vote :)

i'll be linking to all the usual end of the year parties... you can find those links on my favorites page.

christmas in vegas.

did you have a nice christmas? i hope you did :)


for myriad reasons, steve and i decided to do vegas for christmas. the main reason is that we don't have family here, and [forgive me if you're a native arizonan] but things just aren't christmasy for me here. i'm too used to the traditions of the northeast, and i knew steve would love to get away... so away we went :)

one of my favorite hotel/casinos is the bellagio :) not only does it have that ocean's eleven mystique, it's also just plain classy :)

they have a lovely fountain display, and on christmas eve, the one we saw was "oh holy night," one of my favorites :)

on christmas day, we spent a little time in the casino :) neither of us are gamblers, so we really just did it to get some fun shots :)

and for our christmas dinner, we did sushi :) :) :) it was *really* good!!

there were no shortages of brightly lit buildings to photograph...

there was some holiday decor that i saw in a few of the casinos that i'll have to share... it was lovely :)

hope that you're enjoying the week between christmas and new years... i'll be working hard on a few projects this week, as my mother in law will be here soon (!) ...so i will have lots of fun things to post soon :) :) :)

he rules the world with truth and grace.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

my favorite verse of joy to the world :)

merry christmas to you :) and as a little christmas present, i am giving you a sneak peak of the lockers... though it will be awhile before there's more work on them, as we are away for christmas.

what??

i'm a bit shocked right now. i don't know how to talk about this, so i'm just going to tell you what happened last night...

...steve and i came home... he was going to remove the legs from the lockers, but he felt like it made too much noise, so we opted to wait until tomorrow. we ate some dinner and made plans to tackle some organization projects...

a cat appeared at our door. it tried to come in, like this was its home. it was the strangest thing... i didn't think i'd seen the cat before, and it was clearly well fed and someone's pet. i shooed it away, but we heard it mewing outside from time to time.

of course, it started climbing on the lockers, and steve started to worry that it was going to make a permanent home in the lockers, and when we looked out the screen door, it was right there. i tried hissing at it or barking at it, but it wouldn't go away. steve went and got a little water and tossed it through the screen to get it to go away. it went away.

awhile later, steve ran out to the pharmacy to get his prescriptions, and when he came back, he told me that there were a lot of police outside, and a news van. i googled the news [we don't have tv... just netflix & hulu], and there was a few short lines on a murder-suicide that apparently had happened at our apartment complex... just a few doors down.

we tried to think through who it could be... i can't say that i really know who lives where in our part of the complex--i really only know or have talked to the people who are next to, below, or right across from us, and the apartment was a ways down the building. but the news story said that it was a 60 yr old woman and 57 yr old man... and there was this nice older lady who had commented on my wreath, and been friendly with us in the past.

i mentioned her to steve, and she seemed to fit the bill... apparently they'd been found by her son, who also lives in our complex, when he had stopped by after not hearing from them since the weekend.

it was the strangest thing... to have all these crime scene investigators at our complex late into the night... the neighbors stepping out onto their porch for a brief moment to glance in the direction of the apartment, but not lingering... being respectful and sombre... and stepping back into their homes.

and after awhile, steve and i realized that the cat was probably theirs... that it was probably starving, and freaked out... we went to go see if it was still wandering around and only made it as far as our porch, where it was sitting. while i tried to get it, one of the detectives asked if the cat was ours, and i said that i thought it might belong to the people. another investigator came over and got it, as the son had been hoping to find it.

this morning, the only addition on the news is that the woman had recently been diagnosed with a serious illness. i can't help but hope that in late december, only a week before christmas, it was an act of mercy... for both of them. and my mind and heart think of the survivors... and how their december will never be the same.

locker inspiration.

just a little inspiration... trying to decide what i want my lockers to look like...

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since i've got the locks off, the lockers empty, but i can't paint until i fix my locker foot problem, i thought i'd use this time to get a little inspiration a la google images.

i have to say... considering the green/white/navy palette i'm working from, white is definitely out. what do you think? do you like the more industrial look? or do you like the bold, bright colors?

lockers unlocked.

if you've haven't been following along... the past week has become a locker saga. here's the cliffnotes to catch you up:

• i heard about the lockers that were up for bid.
• i bid on them.
• i won... sort of... and paid for them, and tried to get them into my apt.

which pretty much brings us up to friday night... when i had the lockers outside and downstairs from my apartment, locked up. i had a drill, but the wrong sized bit to get them open. [i forgot to mention that it was at this point that steve says to me, "well, we can return the bit and get a different size... and if that doesn't work, i can just take a crowbar to it and put it in the dumpster." um, thanks, babe... i know that's an option... but hearing you say it aloud doesn't exactly help.... since i wouldn't be too happy to have paid $20 to dispose of the lockers for the community college.]

we had a christmas party on friday night, at which we told the sad tale of the lockers. our good friend, chris, told us that he thought he might have the right bit, and could come over the next day.



saturday:
i got up relatively early, and went back to ace to return the wrong size bit for what i hoped was the right sized one. [oh, and encountered more condescension. i could go on a rant about this, but seriously... we all learn how to use these tools at some point, just because my learning is happening now and yours happened 40 years ago doesn't mean you have to be a jerk about it, mkay??]

i went home and lined up the bit, but it seemed just a little too small. the directions tell you that you might need to tap the bit with a hammer to get it snug. since i'd never done this before, i decided to wait until chris came with all his experience and knowledge. [i wasn't quite sure what constituted a tap vs a bash.]

chris came just after noon. we got the extension cord and drill, and chris let me know that the newer size probably wouldn't work either. glad i didn't start bashing it onto the screws [though that may have relieved some of my frustrations].

so chris broke out his drill bits that he had brought, put them on our drill, and went to town on the first locker. of course, the screws were out in like 10 seconds, and i was singing chris' praises :)

i should interject here that we had all been conjecturing what might be inside these lockers. [wish i knew another word with the root "ject" in it that i could add to this sentence!] julia continually threw out the idea that they were full of ninja-monkeys. [not sure what a ninja-monkey is, but she liked saying it.]

i got a shot of us opening the first locker...

full of papers and stuff.

the more lockers chris opened, the more the pile of stuff we got out of the lockers. i'm guessing that these were staff lockers at the community college because there were lots of papers and tests and instructor's manuals, instructional videos, highlighters, pens, soup cans, bowls, a spanish-english dictionary...

i didn't mention that the lockers had been kept outside at the auction, and even though we live in the desert, it rained all night on thursday night, and even on saturday, many of the papers were still wet. [i'm sure that on friday, it had been even more wet, and probably even heavier as a result.]

i love how the pink post-in says "to be returned." hmmmm... maybe not.

even an unopened stapler! there was a LOT of stuff in those lockers... including several textbooks that were barely touched... probably going to put those bad boys on half.com or ebay and see if i can get some of my money back! :)

i weighed all the stuff that came out of the lockers... it was over 100lbs!!

once they were empty, it was much easier to get them up the stairs. the guys used a shoulder-dolly that we own... it's usually used for moving appliances and really helps to make the weight less awkward and less straining on the back.

happily, we were able to get it up on the porch! yippee!!

i also got a special tool to take apart the locks to see if there were any extra quarters [i could hear a few in there when i shook them]... we got $3.25 in quarters :) here's the wreckage from the disassembled locks... i had fun taking pictures of the pile :)

i don't have any more photos because they're in a tight space on our porch. i took all the stickers off the front [each one had a sticker with directions on how to put in a quarter and take out the key], and got the legs that were bent off. we still need to take off the front legs, but need to borrow some tools to accomplish that. [what's that? you're surprised that in our 450 sq ft, we don't keep power tools that cut through metal. i know, it's shameful, really.]

i'll keep you posted... i'm hoping to have the legs off in the next few days and maybe even a new coat of paint!! :)