Eggs, Baskets & Lollipops

I talked with a good friend yesterday who - before she knew our current situation - broke the news to me that someone close to her had died recently of multiple myeloma.

What a coincidence - life is so odd, huh? Her friend who passed was much older than Gerry (he's so young to have this!) and when I explained the situation I realized what a great resource she will be, having gone through this and having done a lot of research herself.

It made me think, though, that when folks are unaware that you're facing a specific life hurdle they tend to be a lot more honest - perhaps even dramatic (although my friend wasn't dramatic in the least!)

However, once they know that they're dealing with a friend in an - altered - situation, they tend to be very upbeat. I totally understand, and I'm the same way - we want to put out a positive, you-can-beat-this vibe, and it's appreciated!

But it made me ponder this morning (in our downstairs shower, brrr) how rarely you run into the middle ground, how often folks are either Sturm und Drang or Sunshine & Lollipops. And then I imagined the Valkyries singing Sunshine & Lollipops and I snorted out loud. Rinse, repeat.

Then I came upstairs to a bereft little boy who was expecting Easter baskets to be in front of his door, like they usually are. At least I had the wherewithall to BUY something at Ikea (a plastic easter egg filled with Swedish candy) but I totally forgot to take it out of the bin in the kitchen and place it in front of the doors. Oy.

So while he looked downstairs, I slipped them up on top of the built in sideboard in the dining room, and set him to looking all through the rest of the house. Right now they're hidden by the blinding light that comes in from the dining room window in the mornings, but soon they'll be visible, and then the kids will be sated with chocolate and sugar. We're a multi faith family - Jewish and just pagan enough for chocolate.

Today I'll make a trip to the aforementioned SR Harris Fabrics (after checking to make sure they're open on Easter) to check out some slipcover fabrics. I feel like I'm nesting again. But first I'll print out the coupons. I like to get a few projects set up so that when I have down time I can move on to something else that needs to be done.

And that involves working through a redesign for the kitchen. No, we're not going to push into that immediately, but working on the computer calms me - hence the blog entry this morning - and a commenter asked about how I do my ground plans. So here's how I do it...

I have used CAD (computer aided drafting) software, but it was a LONG time ago and I'm sure those apps are light years better now. For laying out a rough ground plan, though, I like to use Appleworks (aka Claris Works)

There's a function in the drawing palette that lets you alter the ruler settings (format/rulers/ruler settings.) I set up my rulers for picas, with a division of 12, so that when I rough in my layout I can see it in "feet" without a lot of extra mental math. It's a quick and dirty way to get my ideas down while I'm ruminating.

And we really DO have to add a bathroom, that's becoming painfully apparent with Gerry as he is right now. We need a bathroom on the ground floor, or else he's pretty much relegated to spending 90% of his time upstairs.

We've met with a contractor, the next step is to rough out how we'd like to lay out the addition (we're adding a few feet to the kitchen to add a bathroom - which will also allow us to redesign the kitchen so that it's more workable and has more 'pantry' space) and then make a trip to Home Depot to look at cabinets, etc. Our pipe dream is to be able to have the washer/dryer upstairs in the bathroom / utility room off the kitchen, but that may be pushing it...

Believe, me, I know it's not the time to start on this. And I'm not saying we will. I'm just saying I may as well get ideas down now. It gives me a break in the knitting.