"I say no bed"... and Meme- Five Things And What They Say About Me

Today, I'm grateful for sassiness. Especially at nap time. *sigh*



So I came up with five things and what they say about me a lot faster than I thought I would. The snow outside really dampened my desire to do anything outside my own house. I don't even have the blinds open so I can see outside. That's how much I hate the snow.

Five Things #1

This is the curio table in my living room. Since we got married, I've been gradually building items to decorate my house, especially living room, with. My original goal was to have something for each season, plus Christmas. I've ended up with a strange mixture of holiday and seasonal tabletop decor, but I make it work. The catch is, a little boy takes over your entire life. Half of the living room I tried to painstakingly decorate and make cute has been taken over by his race track. That's fine, as he loves his race track so much, but there is still this one table I can call my own. He doesn't play with the stuff on it by some miracle.

So I take the time, every couple of months or so, to make this one little spot of the house mine. My husband doesn't care, because I know something like this is WAY girlier than his interest level. But it feels like a place I can make my own statement. I can make the colors as bright as I want. I can put out flowers. I can be a girl in this house full of boys.

Five Things #2

These are the bookshelves in our loft. When we were first looking at the model home, it had bookshelves installed here. Being too cheap to pay the builder's (ridiculous) cost for them, we just purchased bookshelves to fill in the area ourselves. I remember looking at them after we got them all put together and thinking they looked so big and empty. We filled them with pictures and various knick knacks to help cover up the fact that we didn't have very many books. Well, we have also budgeted an insane amount of money for books. Whenever we have the money, they seem to be our luxury item of choice. As a function of distance, we didn't go to the library very often because it was not close to us. So we purchased the books we wanted to read. Now we have quite the impressive collection of books, so much so that our pictures and knick knacks are being pushed out of the way.

This speaks of our (my) love of reading as much as it speaks of my disorganization. My husband desperately wishes for a return to the days when the books were categorized. I have yet to bring myself to tackle that job.

Five Things #3

This is my keyboard. When I was in ninth grade, I expressed my long-harbored desire to play the piano. I already played flute (which is sitting just below the guitar on the box of music, but I couldn't fit it in the picture), so learning to read music wasn't the big stretch. Buying a piano was a big stretch. It's a large financial investment and I'm not notorious for sticking with things. So the compromise for that Christmas was my mom bought me this keyboard. I have spent hours playing on this thing. The guitar is an addition made by my husband when we both decided we wanted to play. These things have all taken the backburner as life has gotten out of control, but they sit there and occasionally I get a few minutes to play and it is equally relaxing and frustrating because it's not quite like riding a bike and makes me wish I could spend more time playing. Nothing is better when you're angry than pounding out a violent song on the piano! Samson whines or howls when I play my flute, and that is fun in its own way.

For now mostly, I just sing songs to Mason when no one else is paying attention. We sing lullabies at night but we sing quite a bit more during the day. Music is a huge part of my life, and hopefully I'm making it a huge part of his, too, because I don't think there is a better outlet and way to express thoughts and feelings.

Five Things #4

This is what I like to call "The Wall of Vanity". It has our wedding pictures and a framed copy of our wedding invitation. We haven't hung anything else on this wall, but I can see it someday full of pictures of Mason and our friends and family. These photographs and the memories they hold, are very dear to me. I like to remember the places we've gone or the people we love. More often than not (the picture above being a rare case), the curio table across from this wall has several framed family pictures. Mason is, naturally, my favorite subject. But our families are very central to our lives, and for me in a lot of ways, our wedding was really the beginning.

Five Things #5

Last but not least, this picture might seem kind of odd. This is our downstairs bathroom. A bathroom is not necessarily how I want people to remember me. But the color is. The color is bold and vibrant, and not traditional. It's kind of my example of the times when I am unique. I am capable of being bold and vibrant. I am often untraditional. Kind of like the plates in the bathroom or the synthetic flowers in the plate holder.

On a good day, I can be creative and spontaneous. I will admit, the spontanaeity of the bathroom was sparked by my husband, as he had it all ready to go one day when I got home from work, but the qualities it represents are things I have shown hints of and qualities in myself that I want to develop and embrace.

Well, Jill and Joey, you are the only two bloggers I know of at the moment besides Nicol (who invited me to do this). How about it? Can you find five things around the house that symbolize who you are and join this meme?