A Tale of Two Light Sources

Back around Labor Day, I noticed that Wayfair.com was having a sale and I decided it was officially time for us to replace the light fixture hanging in our dining room. We've been trying to keep with the mid-century aesthetic of our home and a cool sputnik-style chandelier just felt much more appropriate to the space than the box light that came with the house.

Here's a shot of the old light. Solid, but not very exciting.

I jumped on the sale and ordered the light—of course making sure Mr. W was on board with it before I sealed the deal. Thankfully he was, and a few days later this eruption of chrome-covered disco goodness arrived on our doorstep.

Mr. W went to work hanging and wiring it and once it was done, we turned it on to admire its brilliance.

"It's kind of...loud," he said, eyeing it skeptically.

"It's not—it's beautiful," I countered. "It makes me want to sing the Katy Perry firework song. Lampy you're a fiiiirrework!"

Mr. W wasn't convinced.

A little later, the real crux of the issue occurred to me: I was the new chandelier and Mr. W was the old one.

Mr. W is practical, sleek, sort of timeless, a bit sharp around the edges. He's solid. Maybe even a smidge square. But lights up a room without screaming "Look At Me!" first.

Then there's me... Kind of explosive, limbs often flailing in every direction, a style that most certainly is not for everyone. The opposite of subtle and refined.

Surely if Mr. W could learn to love me, he could learn to love the new light fixture. Surely he could come to appreciate the graphic flowery pattern it casts on the ceiling when it's lit. Surely he would soon feel the urge to dance under it to "Stayin' Alive" and "Boogie Shoes."

I'm sorry to report that he has not joined me for any dining room disco parties, but I do think he's gotten used to the lamp.

And I believe that with some persuasion, Friday nights doing the electric slide under it are just a few short months away.

Those Good-For-Nothing Chickens: A Love Story

Our girls are a year and a half old now, and sometime in late June they began their very first molting session. (If you want to see some extremely sad looking hens, Google "chicken molting.")

I had read articles online about the amount of feathers chicken owners have in their yards during molt season. One blogger described it as looking like "a group of teenage girls had a pillow fight." Seemed awfully dramatic to me. For some reason, I believed our ladies would only lose a feather here or there, largely retaining their beguiling avian beauty.

And to some degree, they did. All of them lost their tail feathers. Carrie Birdshaw lost some on her head. Charlotte had a bald butt for awhile. And Samantha's chin looked like she had stolen it from elderly man for a couple weeks. Yet, Miranda, our beautiful red (and neurotic) Welsummer stayed perfectly intact for months. Then, almost overnight, she turned into this...

Poor, pathetic little baldypants. It makes me laugh and want to cry a little every time I see her foraging in the backyard like that. Haggard little creature....

In addition to most corners of our yard, the coop and the run looking like this        —>      —>
we have also been egg-deprived for weeks. Carrie Birdshaw has not laid an egg in over 4 months. Charlotte and Miranda  slowed down, but were still giving us at least a few a week— and now both of them have stopped altogether, too. The only girl earning her keep around here is my sweet, sweet Sammy. Nearly every day, we find one of her blue-green eggs in the nesting box. I love that chicken.

Mr. W and I have been joking about how we're going to turn them into soup if they keep up this hiatus. But even if none of them ever go back to laying full time (although I really, really, really hope they do because we miss our farm fresh eggs) we'll continue to treat them just like any other pet. Why? If only because of how incredibly adorable they are when they take dirt baths. I mean, seriously...


I haven't seen the four of them all bathing together like that since they were babies. My heart almost exploded when I walked outside and found them all snuggled together.

And the fact that they look like little heavy-eyed weed addicts just makes it even better. Total stoners. (This was before Miranda started shedding, by the way.) 

I swear they go into a trance when they're "in the tub." Carrie even played dead for a minute.

Antics like these are what will make us keep chickens for the long haul. Eggs or no eggs, they provide great entertainment. And if I ever decide to open a pillow factory, once a year I'm going to be more than set on my supply of feathers...

 

Creating Curb Appeal in the Land of No Curbs

I remember once hearing from a real estate professional—or maybe on HGTV—that neighborhoods with proper sidewalks are considered higher value. If you live somewhere with crumbly asphalt sidewalks or nothing at all, you're in trouble. Concrete, allegedly, is a big moneymaker.

Well, out here in the country, there plain darn just ain't a lot of concrete sidewalks. Sure, some of the ritzier neighborhoods in town have them, but most of the people dwelling in those areas aren't spread out on acre-plus lots. On our street, most everyone has some sort of mulch or gravel or even just bare dirt leading out to the road. Which can make it a little tricky to really master curb appeal.

Perhaps in the country, we just have "drive-by appeal" or "front-of-house allure."

Anyway, our curblessness has been in desperate need of a little polishing. So after we finished the backyard compacted granite project, we started tweaking the front yard. We had already run a line of lavender plants from the front to the back to create separation between the granite and the mud patch that will soon be our new lawn.

Next, we raked up all the wood chips that lined the front of the house and pulled up the 1960s stepping stones.

We found stone blocks at Home Depot that matched our front planters and chimney almost perfectly, so Mr. W arranged them in a similar pattern to form a new walkway to the front door.

The old stepping stones were placed so haphazardly, as soon as we laid down the new walkway it felt like order had descended upon the house. Sure, the decomposed granite makes it look a little like we installed a sand volleyball court in front of our house, but overall I think it looks so much better than it did before.

We may not have curbs at our house, but I think we've nailed the appeal. Now to start saving to pay for a new driveway...