Under the dust lay beautiful bones.

I wasn't going to use this picture of the house I lived in the longest in my entire life of moving around...but for some reason neither of my blogs will allow me to fetch pictures from my laptop right now and asking it to makes it freeze up like a lone woman in a Louisiana bar full of men.

I was going to talk about homely matters though so it's kind of fitting to use this picture.  I have moved around a lot in my life.  Not the way Army families do.  Not to different states or countries.  Just from house to house in specific areas.  Mostly in the Bay Area.  I was born in San Francisco and then spent my first year of life in Larkspur.  Next I lived in Berkeley.  Then El Cerito.  Next was Richmond.  Then Ashland Oregon.  Then back to the Bay Area on Mount Tam, then Corte Madera, then Strawberry, then Corte Madera again, then San Francisco...

WAKE UP!  (I know, that's pretty boring crap.  You get the idea.)

This house we lived in in Ashland is the most stable environment I've ever had.  I lived there for almost 8 years.  I never wanted to leave.  I didn't have a choice.  If I'd been clever enough I might have chained myself to the porch and forced one of my divorcing parents to continue to live there.  Me and the house loved each other very much.  I mean, we loved each other because we were meant to be together.  It had a laundry shoot- how brilliant is that?!  I have been haunted by this house ever since.  I dream about it all the time.  More of my dreams take place in the house you see in this picture than they do in hotels with serial killers in them.  That's saying a lot.

In fact, those are the two most frequent dreams I have.  They aren't recurring in the sense that they are the same dream every time, just the same house or the same hotel.  Different things going on, different serial killers.  But the dreams with this house in them always fill me with a deep sense of loss and longing when I wake up and realize that I didn't just buy it back after all these years and move in.  I wake up and feel like I'm going to die from longing.  So silly to feel that about a house.  A house in which a lot of bad family shit went down.  But it wasn't the house's fault that we couldn't be a peaceful loving family.  The house was a good house.  The best house I've ever lived in. 

I was incredibly angry when my parents covered the upstairs with wall to wall beige carpeting.  It was previously fir floors painted glossy black with a red runner carpet and red and white Victorian style wall paper.  It was gorgeous!  Oh well. 

I am thinking of home matters today.  Yesterday Max and Philip cleaned the living room.  I bribed Max to help by offering to bake him some peanut butter cookies and a dollar.  While it didn't go completely smoothly, it got done and they did a wonderful job!  It's unbelievable how much of a difference it makes to put things away and clean.  We all watched a movie in there last night (Monsters versus Aliens) and I decorated the mantle with our small collection of Halloween knick-knacks.   

It's such a small thing, to clean a room and put out decorations.  But our house has taken a serious second to everything else going on and seeing how nice it can look is such a wonderful break from the chaos and dust build up we've grown used to.  As much as I apparently still love "my" house in Ashland this house I have now has a lot of the same appeal and potential.  (No laundry shoot though, that's a pity!)

The next thing to do is make curtains for the windows in this house.  The cold is coming and although we do have storm windows on most of the windows, we still need more barriers against the cold.  I hate vinyl windows and though I might be willing to replace the really bad windows in this house, if I do it will be with more wood sash windows or multi-light wood windows. 

I love the idea of seasonal curtains.  Breezy sheers for the warm months and lined cotton for the winter.  Obviously I'd do velveteen or wool if I could afford to.  What I have on hand is a lot of cotton yardage.  I am going to see what muslin JoAnne's Fabrics has and see if I can buy a whole bolt of it with a 50% off coupon.  People don't use curtains to keep warmth in their houses the way they used to and it's a pity. 

So I have my house on my mind right now.  In a really pleasant way.  The chaos will continue to reign for a while.  I just don't have enough time for everything.  However, just that one clean room has lifted my spirits a great deal and when I look around my mangled weedy yard I see not how incapable I've been of taking care of it this year, but how it will improve at least a little bit every year.  When I look at my forest green living room walls I can see how the room will be transformed (eventually) by a much nicer color.

I feel so happy that I'm about to make a third harvest from my thyme plants!  Three times in five months is fantastic!  I use thyme more than any other herb from my garden. 

There's a really good soup in the fridge too.  Soup season is here and soup is on the top of my list of favorite foods. 

The impetigo is almost gone and my cold has turned out to be fairly mild. 

That's a lot of stuff to feel good about.

I told Max he had to empty his basket by the front door and he did it without argument.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Plus, all week he's been sweet to me, random hugs and "I love you mama" comments.  He's even snuggled in a few times. 

Who replaced Max with an impostor?!

I'm kidding.  He's a really great kid who had a really great week.  I love it when that happens.

It's time for me to go shower and get dressed and run an errand before the kid comes home. 

If anyone knows if it's possible to build one's own soaking bathtub, please let me know.  Something possibly like a Japanese soaking tub or a tiled tub?  People had tubs before the claw-foot.  Can I learn how to construct my own to fit in a tiny bathroom?  Tell me!