3 Ring Binder

With all of my interest in interior design, my quest to be at rest, comfortable in an aesthetically pleasing space, my fascination with dual purpose pieces and multi-functional furniture, you'd think that my house would be a perfectly designed and lovely haven.  Not. Even. Close. I've given it some thought and it's the convertibility thing, I think. Everything is in a state of flux. Those who know me know my stock phrase, "it's in transition." So it really shouldn't surprise me that each of my children have lived in my house as if they were transients. But it does. We've been lucky enough to have rooms for each of the children from a very young age (it was tough sharing with the screaming Mimi for two year, for which I apologize to the Boss). Each room was carefully designed and decorated to delight, comfort, and provide a quiet space to work, think, or read. We painted murals on the walls, including integrated chalk boards, sewed canopies, curtain...

make the bed! Seriously, if there is ever a time where I think to myself thank god I lift weights, it's when I'm changing the sheets on my bed. Our bed in someone else's way cool room. As slaves to modern minimalist design tastes, we own this awesome funky clean-line Japanese-style platform-like bed. Sadly we do not have a foam mattress, but a standard innerspring which weighs roughly 7,000 lbs. Even more sadly, instead of an actual platform, we have slats across the base (not sure why).  The platform around the bed (what I refer to as its running board) and slatted interior adds a level of difficultly to the dressing-the-mattress feat because tucking in the corners to remotely resemble the inspiring clean lines above means reaching to pick up its corners approximately twelve times each change, four times each tidy making. This means holding the top of a 300 lb. dead lift out in front of you while magically maneuvering the corners and lengths of the bedding layers ...

An out-of-commission laptop led to dueling Heinleins, instead. (The cover of my book has a man in a kilt in case you were wondering.)  Original Dueling Laptops here .

To ensure your safety when casually reading through curriculum materials don't gesticulate wildly while your full cup of black coffee teeters on the edge of your lap desk as it rests across you in bed. Three out of those five circumstances might be okay, but adding the other two added approximately two hours of laundry and hard labor to my day.    On the plus side, my folly did generate this priceless juxtaposition of the trappings of homeschooling and some fabulously clean, lavender scented bed linens.

I've been collecting a few things that I'd like to link to in this one post. This is not to imply that each does not deserve its own post, but rather after having given them all some thought, I could come up with nothing better than the links themselves. I Love Cheese A list of facts you may or may not have known about this luscious substance can be found here at listverse . And if you love cheese and typestyles , this little quiz (via a Facebook friend) is not to be missed! I Love Words Though I may sometimes seem model myself after Norm Crosby or Amelia Bedelia, I appreciate the actual and implied meaning of words. Like the faintest change in hue, the subtle nuances of words can create an amazingly different tone. World Wide Words (via Rockhound Place ) is a fun blog about words and phrases - my most recent favorite of which is crepe hanger . I Love Atlas Shrugged Because of our sadly inconsistent efforts, we are only now nearing the end of Part I in our rereading of the book...

I have started at least four posts of some substance and been sidetracked by one thing or another, so I've decided to let loose some of the linky love (TM) I have built up inside (or in the coffee mug on my desk if you prefer). Is it wrong to have a two year-old as my new fashion icon ? I don't care. She works that wig like nobody's business. I have fallen into another doggie-do pile. This time it's the Iditarod Dogsled Race! Check out all that is Iditarod on both the official website , and on the website of my friend and fellow homeschooler, Fiddler . We are still in the planning stages of constructing a giant wall map (thinking about using painter's tape) and then picking our mushers to follow. The race starts on March 7, so there's still time for you to prepare. Two new blogs have caught my eye - well, let's face it - I noticed because they stopped by my blog. Both bloggers seem to be just starting out, but had the serious good taste to link to my blog i...

I'm sad because one of my two matching "Life is Good" mugs (featured center above) cracked when I was pouring hot water in it for tea. I love that mug - it's got a good weight and a nice diner-style shape, and now it's only fit to hold the lint roller. Sad. Happily I did get a new witchy one from a friend who only recently found out about my mug-collecting habit. Thanks, Fiddler ! Speaking of tea, we've gone from water and juice, to tea and hot cider. It's been unseasonably cool around here and I refuse to allow the heat to go on until November. As those of you who may have been checking Martha Stewart's Halloween Idea of the Day may know, she's not keeping up with posting her craft ideas too well. So here is my contribution. This is the best pug costume ever. I wish I could say it was mine (dog or costume), alas it is not, but my dog does look just like that. This brings me to my next point: I love that expression. It all comes down to a few sem...

Je ne parle pas Francaise, mais j'essaie. Hier soir, j'ai parle avec la femme qui guardes mon fils quand il etait a France. Si cette est difficile pour vous lire, imaginez-vous comment difficile il etait pour la femme pauvre me comprends! Ah, Francais de la college etait de plus nombreuses annees. (My sincerest apologies to those of you who can actually speak or read French.) In honor of the feisty woman who played the role of my son's mother in France, and who, without speaking 10 words of English (really) has managed to travel to America for the first time in her life, alone, no less, and who loves Marilyn Monroe (said something nasty about President Kennedy, but my French, she is not so good) and who I met only yesterday, I offer my favorite picture of Marilyn. [I bought this poster to hang in our basement gym to inspire me, but have yet to be inspired to find the right sized poster frame to hang it. That's a problem. ] Today's Word of the Day is ambisinister . E...

Any given Sunday morning: Lounging in bed with my coffee and computer – both brought to me by my manservant, I hear the dog whine softly. I hear dog yelp loudly. I know that dog has whizzed in her crate. Deciding it’s time to actually leave the cocoon (manservant doesn’t do the dog-thing unless under duress. It’s like the diaper-thing: “No! You won’t have to change the diapers” until you do ) I head for the pee zone. Getting the dog out of crate, not really later than usual, she just doesn’t like to hear happy voices that don’t include a copious amount of praise and petting for her (and, really, who can blame her), I bring eight to ten paper towels to wipe off her pee-paws and wipe up the pee puddle she left in the crate. I use another four to six to swipe Just Try To Get The Urine Smell Out pet cleaner in and around the crate and floor (pee jettisoned from the patented “Pug shake” and where the initial pee-paws had fallen as she left the crate). Then I take her out to encourage any r...

These are a few of my favorite mugs. I collect coffee mugs. I never intended to do this, but ceramic mugs are texturally appealing to me and completely functional. Combine these attributes with a low price and a display that strikes me as funny, clever, or appeals to my sense of life or feelings of nostalgia and BAM! It’s mug mayhem in the kitchen! When it’s time to cull the stock (those that are chipped, stained, or just don’t otherwise meet my needs any longer), I try to repurpose my favorite ones first. As many others I’m sure have discovered, an unused coffee mug is a perfect place to collect pens, pencils, and other tall/skinny stationery items on one’s desk. However, I have begun to use my coffee mugs to collect all the little things, which belonging nowhere else in particular, I like to have at hand. While I am certainly not commenting on relative importance of the following items, here are the contents of the virtual coffee mug on my mental desk of late: Getting Things Done ....