Mummy's Home!

This is what we have pinned up on our door this month. Sam wrote the note that says, "Warning! Danger! Mummy's Home! If entered you will die." He gets into holiday decorating more than his sister or I. He even makes decorations for his own room.

Diniyoyo loves to look out the window. And in the process, she loves to send all my potted plants crashing to the floor, scattering dirt and gravel all over the couch and behind the end table. Charming habit.
We got into the Halloween decorating mood. Target had really fun stuff, but I had to resist the temptation because I haven't room to squeeze even a sliver of a toothpick into the house.So we went for the foldup paper lanterns and the foldup plastic window and door wraps.
These things look really creepy at night when the house is lit up. They seem to glow.


And finally, The pond has a net over it so I don't kill off all the fish and frogs. I'm still suffering severe guilt from killing off the pondlife last year. The guy came and did it all in about 1 and 1/2 hours. It would have taken me much longer than that. Just finding my damn net would hav taken longer than that.

Where I While Away the Hours at Work

Here's my classroom. The windows have paper over them because the kids from outside come by and bang on the glass as they go to lunch and create quite a ruckus. By the time I get outside to fuss, they've all scattered. Most of the classrooms don't have windows, so I'm actually very lucky! For the last 8 years I was in a room in a little building and it felt like home. Now I've been moved to "the big house" and am still trying to figure out the best way to set up the long narrow space. I did get new desks in this classroom and they all match!

We're in a 4 story building with about 1500-1700 kids. It's a pretty ugly building on the outside, squat and windowless. It looks like it is hunkering down, some huge, brown beast. It was built in the 70's during the race riots and is truly obselete, but there is no money to fix it up. Or tear it down.

October Night

The weather is beautiful and mild here these last few days. The leaves are changing and the colors are truly fantastic this year. It was a hell day at work, but the drive home is so beautiful it takes some of the sting out of it. My student teacher quit (for health reasons), and I was truly sad to see her go. I've had 5 or 6 over the years and this is the first I've had who didn't work out. It's a bummer, but I have one coming for the spring semester. So there is something to look forward to. She seems a little better suited to the stressfulness and unpredicatable nature of teaching in the inner-city. The one that left just had too much going on in her personal life to cope with the added stress of student teaching. After her second meltdown, I can't let her come back. It's just too confusing and disturbing for the students. But, never mind. The leaves are so beautiful and fleeting that I had to take pictures.





To cheer us all up, we went out to eat and took goofy pictures with the camera.



And then, back home to practice piano before bed, with Milo Man, the Chihuahua from Hell, to supervise.

The Piano Room in Use

I had envisioned this room as a place where the kids would practice the piano and do their homework and then I could read or do embroidery. So I purposely did not put a tv in here, knowing it could easily become the tv room. Sam in crazy about making comic books right now.

He carefully draws all his pictures and then painstakingly colors them with colored pencils.

Diniyoyo likes to hang out with him for moral support. I threw a paint cover over the couch to keep all the dog hair off it.

Later, Sadie plays the piano for Jim, who is quite talented himself. He can listen to the impromptu concert and burn dinner at the same time! There should be billows of smoke issuing from the kitchen, but that came later.

Sadie reads to her adoring audience. And Diniyoyo continues to provide necessary moral support.

Meanwhile, as Diniyoyo sleeps, a nefarious plot is being hatched....


by the innocent, doe-eyed Henri...

for a sneak attack!!!!!!

The New Family Room, Kitchen and Hallway Update

Our family room is actually an addition with no basement. Which means it gets as cold as a witch's patootie in the winter. We have been working on remedying that. Insulated drapes are on the list and we shall be working on those in November. Here are some of the renovations that have been going on in there. We decided to put the kids' computer up here. We found this unbearably cute desk on the side of the road in the trash and I bought the chair for $5 at Goodwill. Ignore all the wires running around. Those will be re-located.

We moved the yellow chest (another Goodwill purchase from long ago and painted yellow with gingko leaves)in here because it houses our extensive DVD collection (which will be useless when the Blu-Ray or whatever the new thing is comes along). The mirror was a Pier One import sale find. The shrine was a $15 flea market find and I need to find some candles. The Saint is the patron for lost causes--Saint Anthony, I think--and Lord knows we're all lost causes in one way or another. And lost articles and don't even get me started on that. As a non-catholic, I find certain aspects of the religion very intriguing.

And I finally moved my dust-collecting doll collection from the bedroom to the china cabinet (another E-bay deal--a whole dining room set for $100 and this is the china cabinet).

I so love my old dolls. They get me all tingly when I look at them. Finding wigs for the baldies is certainly a bitch, though. I found one in the trash on Weselyan University's big moving out day though. That was a gift. On e-bay they cost an arm and a leg.

Here are snaps from the kitchen. My much loved and used washer and dryer. I feel so European when I use them! And no more trudging up and down the treacherous basement stairs with a fully overloaded laundry basket!

This is the garden window. I got a great deal on those little stone mosaic tiles so I had to put them to good use. They were about $3 for a sheet of 3 x 12. I found them on a tippy top shelf at Home Depot and I bought every one of them! They have an amber glass tile in there that gave me hot flashes. The extra I used in the basement bathroom around the shower, intersperseed with the stone tiles. Underneath the counter is a bookshelf for cookbooks. The kids' stools fit in the niche so they can eat breakfast or lunch there. It's also good for sitting and chopping when I cook.






And last but not least, the hallway that we turned into a kids' art gallery. The jazzy, wool kilmn from E-bay ($23.50 including shipping)brightens up the floor.

Fixing up the Piano Room

This is what we're starting with. Something of a wreck, I'd say. So I started cleaning on Saturday with the help of the kids. We made a good dent in the mess, but we're not finished yet.
We had to take Sunday off to go to the local agricultural fair. Then we came back and I had to make an emergency antique store run. I hadn't been in a long time and just knew something there might need me to take it home. Turns out it was this vintage fabric. Two yellow barkcloth drapes and a chunk of vintage fabric that I'm going to make mushy throw pillows out of. And two little bits of vintage fabric I hope to use in a quilt one day.

This is a light switch plate we made a few years ago by color copying a photo from an old children's book, glueing it to the front of the switch plate and then sealing it with clear gloss. It controls the piano room lights.

I took down the mirror over the fireplace and instead put up all my e-bay Ocean views pictures. I've just got a little fetish going for those things.

The piano is tidied up and looking nice at least. The picture over it is by a Canadian artist and I got it for about $50 off E-bay. It is one of my favorites. The piano lamp is $5 from Salvation Army. We have a piece of fabric on top, but I'm looking for a really wonderful old dresser scarf or runner to go there.

The last dahlias of the season in a vase on the piano. I love dahlias. I just wish they smelled like roses and didn't have to be dug up ever year.

These are the pictures with black frames that I moved various areas and now have along the wall by the stairs (well, I call them stairs, but actually they are the 5 steps leading to the bedrooms). Four of the prints are ones I made when I was in art classes and the other three pictures are photos by Sally Mann that I cut out of her book (I bought it just for that purpose! Totally for the picture called "The Last Time Emmett posed nude" which I really love!) I think arranging the pictures that way makes the celing look higher. I don't quite know why. The plan is to paint next spring. I'm thinking the piano room should be a sunny yellow or an apricot. I'm leaning towards yellow.


So on Monday--Discover's Day Holiday--we continued with our "fixing up." This is the place where you walk in the front door and hang your keys. I had a cabinet leftover from the kitchen remodel and I bought 5 parson coffee table legs from Home Depot. I screwed them in to the bottom of the cabinet and now it is a bookcase with doors. On top, I have a lamp and knickknacks. The painting is from E-baby. The plaque says, "To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world." It was a gift from my friend Andrea. And the clock is above the painting so we can see when we need to leave in the morning!



Today we all piled in the car and rushed to the Goodwill to buy a 50's credenza I had seen yesterday. It was $34 and last night I decided I desperately needed it for the front entry under my Black portrait that I had bought years ago from a student artist at AZ State University. There was a great gallery in Scottsdale, AZ that sold just student work from the surrounding colleges. I loved it. It had lots of funky stuff you didn't see in the more traditional galleries. Plus it was affordable. Anyway, I fell in love with this painting and paid $500 for it which seemed like a fortune to me at the time. But I've never regretted it.

The cow skull I've had since the 1980's when a professor had in graduate skull got it for me. He'd seen it in his wanderings and got it for me. The African masks are from E-bay (I said I was addicted, didn't I?) The lamp was a sale deal from Pier One imports. I was sucked in by that color combination of brown and turquoise. The aloe vera spent the summer in the yard and recovered from my neglect the previous year.

We worked a little on the mantelpiece still life. The truck is a color I love. It's as close as we'll probably ever get to buying a camper. We all lust for one, but can't really justify the expense. So I broke down and bought this at the Goodwill for $35.00 which is fairly ridiculous considering normal Goodwill prices. Goodwill has gotten savvy though when it comes to stuff that will bring a good price and is collectible. It's hard to get a good deal on some things. I may be forced to visit yardsales in the future. Goodwill is still great for furniture, though!

Sadie worked with me to re-do the piano. We decided our Thailand Goddess should go up there and two pictures from their younger years.