Can we all just drool over this house? That piano! That secretary desk! That successful Etsy shop!
Keep sweeping, Martha
3.25.2014
the cruelest month
Things have not been going very smoothly over here at the Beeton household. Right now, we have this tally... Bridget Jones' style.
1 new car, 1 new car sideswiped
1 experiment completed, 1 cold room heat-up, resulting in the combustion of said experiment
1 stressed out toddler who "Doesn't want to go to the nanny share!!!!"
1 momma who is trying to juggle teaching her class, being a competent administrator, and writing an academic analysis of Betty Draper's parenting practices for a conference next week
And it's snowing. Again.
That's why - no matter what - on the only nice day in a while, you just have to head to Brookside Gardens. A little green makes everyone better.
Even if it was followed by projectile vomitting in the backseat of the new car on the way home.
Keep shoveling.
Martha
1 new car, 1 new car sideswiped
1 experiment completed, 1 cold room heat-up, resulting in the combustion of said experiment
1 stressed out toddler who "Doesn't want to go to the nanny share!!!!"
1 momma who is trying to juggle teaching her class, being a competent administrator, and writing an academic analysis of Betty Draper's parenting practices for a conference next week
And it's snowing. Again.
That's why - no matter what - on the only nice day in a while, you just have to head to Brookside Gardens. A little green makes everyone better.
Even if it was followed by projectile vomitting in the backseat of the new car on the way home.
Keep shoveling.
Martha
3.03.2014
moody
I love the mood boards that home design bloggers often post to show their inspiration for certain rooms. In high school, I obsessively collected various home design magazines (Country Living was a favorite), clipping photographs of inspiring rooms and tucking them away in a folder. I still have that folder in one of the drawers of my desk, and I pull it out occasionally to see how my taste has - or has not - changed.
Though I have a mood board for the kitchen and one for the dining room, I didn't come up with one for Baby Beeton's room. Instead, I realized as I was putting pieces that I loved together that those pieces were the inspiration for the room.
The felt board the elves made for Christmas.
The Seattle print that Great Aunt K gave us one year along with a clementine box that I saved because I loved the colors.
The mini-rocking chair that Great Grandpa made with the seat cushion that Great Grandma made.
These items - with their navy, orange, red, and turquoise hues - are what has defined Baby Beeton's room. They dictated that I bring in an old yellow and aqua owl bank from Mr. Beeton's Grammy as well as Mr. Beeton's Snoopy bank from when he was a little boy. It's the reason why a photo of Ella and Baby Beeton rest on the side table next to a Westie plant potter that Mr. Beeton got me one Valentine's Day.
Slowly, the room is coming together. We have a radiator cover that we got on craiglist that we'll paint navy, the grating white. We'll stack books on top with these bookends. I'd love to get a Color + Plus turquoise lamp for the dresser. And these Superhero prints from Etsy. And a big wall clock like this one. Maybe a bird cage or two. And a crazy quilt for snuggling.
Decorating is the best.
Keep sweeping, Martha
Finished reading It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, A Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita by Heather Armstrong.
Though I have a mood board for the kitchen and one for the dining room, I didn't come up with one for Baby Beeton's room. Instead, I realized as I was putting pieces that I loved together that those pieces were the inspiration for the room.
The felt board the elves made for Christmas.
The Seattle print that Great Aunt K gave us one year along with a clementine box that I saved because I loved the colors.
The mini-rocking chair that Great Grandpa made with the seat cushion that Great Grandma made.
These items - with their navy, orange, red, and turquoise hues - are what has defined Baby Beeton's room. They dictated that I bring in an old yellow and aqua owl bank from Mr. Beeton's Grammy as well as Mr. Beeton's Snoopy bank from when he was a little boy. It's the reason why a photo of Ella and Baby Beeton rest on the side table next to a Westie plant potter that Mr. Beeton got me one Valentine's Day.
Slowly, the room is coming together. We have a radiator cover that we got on craiglist that we'll paint navy, the grating white. We'll stack books on top with these bookends. I'd love to get a Color + Plus turquoise lamp for the dresser. And these Superhero prints from Etsy. And a big wall clock like this one. Maybe a bird cage or two. And a crazy quilt for snuggling.
Decorating is the best.
Keep sweeping, Martha
Finished reading It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, A Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita by Heather Armstrong.
2.15.2014
2.13.2014
1.30.2014
a little self-shaming never hurt anyone
It's been a rough week here at the Beeton household. I've been transitioning to a new position at work. Mr. Beeton just got his spring class schedule and found out that he's teaching at exactly the time I am teaching on Tuesdays. We've been scrambling to find childcare for that afternoon. It's just been bleck.
Not to mention this...
What is that, you ask? Well, it's a certified mess. A few weeks ago we decided to transition Baby Beeton into the guest room and move our guest room into Baby Beeton's nursery. We were full of good intentions, but life got in the way. I feel like I need a shot of motivation to get this project going again, but I'm not sure how to do it.
And then I remembered people like Yuka. When I taught a course entitled "The Personal Is Political: Writing About Women's Autobiographies," I did a segment on documentaries. We watched Yuka's Fat Chance - a really delightful and thoughtful chronicle of her struggle to lose weight. At one point, she addresses the fact that it's a little nutty to document what she sees as shameful - her extra body weight. But, she laughs, a little self-shaming never hurt. My post here is in that spirit. Maybe sharing this photo with all of you will kickstart something here on Quackenbos Street.
Of course, right before I sat down to write this post, I went through the mail and found this:
Talk about adding insult to injury?! Now I have to go to the thrift store and look for an old card catalog to refurbish into a toy chest.
Keep sweeping, Martha
Watched Lost in Translation. Watching Dexter: The Final Season. Finished Homeland: Season Two.
Not to mention this...
What is that, you ask? Well, it's a certified mess. A few weeks ago we decided to transition Baby Beeton into the guest room and move our guest room into Baby Beeton's nursery. We were full of good intentions, but life got in the way. I feel like I need a shot of motivation to get this project going again, but I'm not sure how to do it.
And then I remembered people like Yuka. When I taught a course entitled "The Personal Is Political: Writing About Women's Autobiographies," I did a segment on documentaries. We watched Yuka's Fat Chance - a really delightful and thoughtful chronicle of her struggle to lose weight. At one point, she addresses the fact that it's a little nutty to document what she sees as shameful - her extra body weight. But, she laughs, a little self-shaming never hurt. My post here is in that spirit. Maybe sharing this photo with all of you will kickstart something here on Quackenbos Street.
Of course, right before I sat down to write this post, I went through the mail and found this:
Talk about adding insult to injury?! Now I have to go to the thrift store and look for an old card catalog to refurbish into a toy chest.
Keep sweeping, Martha
Watched Lost in Translation. Watching Dexter: The Final Season. Finished Homeland: Season Two.
1.16.2014
in the meantime
I saw a post today on Facebook about poetry. A friend of mine from graduate school had assigned another friend of mine from graduate school the poet Amy Lowell. The idea behind the assignment was that my second friend would then make her own assignments to anyone who liked or commented on her post. Reading these exchanges first and foremost brought back excellent memories of a study abroad trip to London (TOX02, Wagamama, weekend trip to Dublin, creepiness) - both friends were on that trip. But, it also got me thinking about poetry - something I rarely read now but read a lot of while living in the first state.
I posted Deborah Digges's "For Sylvia Plath." I hadn't read much of Digges and didn't know her tragic story, but of course, I'm a sucker for anything Plath. And reading that poem prompted me to re-read the poem that Plath wrote for her son, Nick. It resonated with me as I laid out the rug in Baby Beeton's big boy room and as I sang "Away in the Manger" to him tonight.
Keep sweeping, Martha
PS - I know that I owe a post about our trip to the Sixth City. It's coming. I promise.
Nick and the Candlestick
I am a miner. The light burns blue.
Waxy stalactites
Drip and thicken, tears
The earthen womb
Exudes from its dead boredom.
Black bat airs
Wrap me, raggy shawls,
Cold homicides.
They weld to me like plums.
Old cave of calcium
Icicles, old echoer.
Even the newts are white,
Those holy Joes.
And the fish, the fish—
Christ! they are panes of ice,
A vice of knives,
A piranha
Religion, drinking
Its first communion out of my live toes.
The candle
Gulps and recovers its small altitude,
Its yellows hearten.
O love, how did you get here?
O embryo
Remembering, even in sleep,
Your crossed position.
The blood blooms clean
In you, ruby.
The pain
You wake to is not yours.
Love, love,
I have hung our cave with roses,
With soft rugs—
The last of Victoriana.
Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address,
Let the mercuric
Atoms that cripple drip
Into the terrible well,
You are the one
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.
You are the baby in the barn.
Finished watching Girls: Season 2.
I posted Deborah Digges's "For Sylvia Plath." I hadn't read much of Digges and didn't know her tragic story, but of course, I'm a sucker for anything Plath. And reading that poem prompted me to re-read the poem that Plath wrote for her son, Nick. It resonated with me as I laid out the rug in Baby Beeton's big boy room and as I sang "Away in the Manger" to him tonight.
Keep sweeping, Martha
PS - I know that I owe a post about our trip to the Sixth City. It's coming. I promise.
Nick and the Candlestick
I am a miner. The light burns blue.
Waxy stalactites
Drip and thicken, tears
The earthen womb
Exudes from its dead boredom.
Black bat airs
Wrap me, raggy shawls,
Cold homicides.
They weld to me like plums.
Old cave of calcium
Icicles, old echoer.
Even the newts are white,
Those holy Joes.
And the fish, the fish—
Christ! they are panes of ice,
A vice of knives,
A piranha
Religion, drinking
Its first communion out of my live toes.
The candle
Gulps and recovers its small altitude,
Its yellows hearten.
O love, how did you get here?
O embryo
Remembering, even in sleep,
Your crossed position.
The blood blooms clean
In you, ruby.
The pain
You wake to is not yours.
Love, love,
I have hung our cave with roses,
With soft rugs—
The last of Victoriana.
Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address,
Let the mercuric
Atoms that cripple drip
Into the terrible well,
You are the one
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.
You are the baby in the barn.
Finished watching Girls: Season 2.
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