"Buy a good book, read it and then pass it on to another person each month."
It is almost time to send "The Book of Lists To Live By" back over the big mountain and to the mailbox of my friend from the "land of long ago and far, far away", Dennis Ulrey. There are just a few more lists that I want to reread again before I wrap the book up in brown paper and mail it on its way. I knew I'd be needing something to use for mailing it so when I went to City Market the other day I was ready with my answer for their timeless question~
"Would you like paper or plastic today?"
There is a section towards the middle of the book, one on home living, that addresses the list of "make your old home feel like new". As a resident of an over 100-year old farmhouse here along the Western Slopes, that almost seems like an impossible task. It's a little hard to imagine that a person could actually do that. My initial question would have been where in the world to even begin. As I read "the list" I began to smile because I realized that just last spring as the snow began to stop falling here along the Rocky Mountains, I had already begun the process of making one of the rooms in our old house look different. Just a few weeks back, we finally put the last of the finishing touches on it. The cost was minimal, all in all no more than $125 to make the changes, but I think it turned out ok. What was once a mudroom/catchall for everything is now a fairly nice "sun"room that I like to sit in and write my blogs.
I never took "before pictures" but here are the "after ones".
We already had most of the things that we used in this room. They were just scattered in other places around the house and in the boxes that I was reluctant to unpack in the early days of being here last year. The most costly item it took to make this room look different was the 3 gallons of green paint that it took to cover over the ghostly white that had been on the walls for a long, long time. I wanted to choose a color that made me feel at peace and for whatever reason, this one was my favorite. Back home in my old house in Kansas, the walls of my mom's old bedroom were painted this color. It reminded me of her, I suppose.
Ok, Ok~so I might have moved away from Kansas.............
But I will always and forever be....................
A Kansas farm girl~
One of the things that Mike and I have in common is our collections of "old" things like wooden boxes, old crocks, and pottery. It was actually kind of fun to mix and match our groupings, turning them into new sets of things to display on the shelves above the big windows. Sometimes I think we all tend to forget just how much we have already and with just a little bit of rearranging, old houses do look just like new. A person really doesn't even need to go out and buy new things. Just use what you have and rearrange it.
We also collect old enamel ware, so this was what ended up on the shelf above the window to the north. I was able to visit the local WalMart to pick up valances for the big windows that were exactly like the ones that I left hanging on the windows of my old house back in Hutchinson. It felt good to be able to see them hanging out here, over 600 miles away.
We love plants and have about 20 of them inside on shelves and against the wall. I keep skooshing all of them over and trying to fit just one more inside. When I was a kid growing up in a big family with seven kids in it, we learned the fine art of skooshing over at the supper table all the time. I think we may have already reached the critical mass stage with things from the plant world. I suppose there are worse things to have a lot of, you know?
Both Mike and I like to read, especially books about growing things and preserving them. Our bookshelf is filled with enough books to start our own little lending library. It will make for nice reading when the snow begins to fly atop the mountain and the days are cold and darkness comes much too soon in the long winter season.
I intend to sit out there and drink coffee of the mornings, even when the weather decides to take a turn towards the cold side. All I have to do is wrap that prayer shawl that you see lain across the chair around my shoulders and everything seems just fine. My good friend back home in Kansas, Neva Jane, made it for me and my good friend, Sarah (Neva's daughter) made sure that I got it this past spring. Actually I am wondering what it might look like to gaze out those windows and see the first snowfall of the season begin to come down from the heavens above. The fact that I am not much of a fan of winter is pretty well known but even someone like me can find beauty in the quietness of nature's first offering of soft and fluffy snow. By the sounds of the Old Farmer's Almanac for this year, we will have more than a plenty opportunities to do just that.
According to the "list", I did what I was supposed to. I chose a room, saw the potential, stuck with it until it was done, and was able to make the change for a minimal amount of dollars spent. It wasn't a bad little attempt at all.
I have really enjoyed reading "Lists to Live By" and would highly recommend it to anyone who is drawn to reading books whose pages are not filled with heavy wordage. It's pretty much clear cut and to the point. It tells you as the reader what you need to know and if you should happen across a list or two that has no meaningful purpose in your life right now, well then just turn the page and continue on. I've been a list maker all of my life. The landfill back in Reno County, Kansas contains thousands of the ones I've made over the course of nearly 6 decades of life. Dang it, why didn't I think of writing a book like this one? Someone had the great idea before me though and turned it into a best selling book for the world to enjoy. I was one of them.
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