Transformations!

Helllooooo! I seem to have palmed you lovely readers off with my manky dead flower photos and wotnot and not actually written anything for aaaaaages...... life's been full-on lately...

I've just read Patti Smith's Just Kids - as it came out last year it'll have been blogged to death elsewhere, but it was Totally Fantastic And Absorbing. I spent a happy week staying up til the small hours reading huge chunks, playing her tunes, and looking up dead French poets, and so forth, and wishing I could have at least two lives: one now, and one in late 60s and early 70s New York. Oddly enough, Patti discovered Rimbaud by reading about Modigliani. The week before reading Patti's book, guess which artist I'd been researching... To "come down" from the book, I played PJ Harvey and The Doors. Am now reading Kristin Hersh's Rat Girl.... loving that too.

And then The Brits happened. Luckily it was on pancake day, so I was able to spend much of the show in the kitchen, far, far from the likes of weedy li'l Ed Sheeran and Brit-pap. BUT BLUR WERE ON, so the 12 year old was giving me shouts when it was safe to be in the same room as the tv. And they were FABULOUS (albeit the timing meant the Adele-cut-short-and-middle-finger-episode, but she was FABULOUS TOO).... so most of their back catalogue was on the cd player for the next day or so.... Phwoar - Damon is looking Quite Fit these days. And afterwards I watched No Distance Left To Run, which is brilliant. Graham is extremely chameleon-like, isn't he...

I have also had the bathroom redone..... my version being upgrading the shower from a one-minute-freezing-next-minute-lobsterising dribble to va va voom that could easily jetwash a large horse, should I care to try to wedge one into the bath... plus new washbasin (aka potential horse trough) and new loo. And posh taps! The original woebegone shebang was inherited with the house 11 years ago - wish I had "before" photos from that long ago, but if I describe it as being decorated by Jayne Mansfield on acid you'll get the picture. Apricot decor and frills - those went Very Quickly Indeed, but the chipped and eventually-no-longer-working fittings lingered on...

teeny preview of the new non-Jayne taps

The only hitch is that the plasterboard lining the exterior wall* came away bigtime with the old washbasin -  obviously Sensible People would have known that could happen and would have stripped out the room, had the walls redone and then put the basin in. Oh no, not me. I'm looking at a lot of filler, and possibly a crazy mosaic affair to disguise it... There's also a Worrying Hole through to the outside, where the plumber ripped out a pipe - am going to rummage through what he chucked in the bin bag to find it and wedge it back in, otherwise I think there'll be wasps wanting to get themselves between the outside wall and the plasterboard. *Boring construction details now over with;)

Transformation part two is that I am machine-dying a naff pale mint green dress and a bright pink shirt this morning. Am using a Dylon Wash And Dye sachet in Denim Blue - sooooo easy and clean to use; a far cry from the last time I machine-dyed when it was shake the packet, which went everywhere, and add salt. This sachet is all ready-to-go - perfect for a lazybones like me. The colour looked ok when the dye cycle had been done; just waiting now for the wash-and-rinse stage to be done. Then it'll be off to the flea market in search of some more cracker rings. I need a purple one I think...

Resolutions 2012

1. Must. Not. Have. Any. More. Pretzels. In. The. House. Ever...
2. Must stop buying vintage Quality Street tins. Its getting silly now...
3. Ditto posters. Even ones that are not massive. I do not have enough walls.
4. Must remember that cleaning CAN be relaxing, de-stressing and CAN involve the whole family.
5. Maybe I should start delegating the cooking too, for the same reasons.
6. Will read more books again, even though magazines are easy visual eye candy.*
7. Will sort my books out so they are grouped properly, instead of bunging new ones into random available spaces.

*Have started John Steinbeck and Robert Capa's 1947 "Russian Journal". Saw some fuss in the press about schools allegedly copping out by setting Steinbeck's mere 6-chapter "Of Mice And Men" to year 10 kids. Michael Gove, Minister for Something To Do With Making Children Cleverer, thinks children should read 50 books a year. That's one a week. Maybe he means short-ish books. I'm not tying either of my kids to chairs to make them "achieve" a novel a week...

Good Yawning, Whoops, I Mean Good Morning...

Had a big, big, January slump last week from Tuesday til Sunday and pretty much stopped doing anything sparkly. The post-new-year thing hits a lot of people - starting January full of renewed va-va-voom, then just running a bit empty after a while - but this time it was down to literature!

We were too early for the dentist on Tuesday afternoon, so killed time in Waterstones - the 11 year-old found 2 books, and it was 3-for-2. I went for a really thick novel with lots of orange on the cover - "One Day" by David Nicholls. I got stuck into it that evening, only putting it down to sleep and go to work, and finished it Thursday night. Ok, it was chick-lit stuff, by a man, but very thought-provoking and cleverly woven together. So, that's Trashsparkle's first ever, official, book recommendation...

The book was ace, but the not-doing-anything-else wasn't - hence the slump. I was reading blogs but there was nothing happening in my mind, no comments firing up, I had nothing to post about... I think the only thing I managed to write was a shopping list. I hibernated on the sofa all day Saturday, flicking channels. Zilch. Not even the 2 Carry On films... then Sunday I began perking up, and wolfed handfuls of Christmas rum truffles all afternoon.

I came home from work on Monday, and picked up some blackboard paint to retouch the tv unit. Then I painted the inside of the front door. All that sofa time over the weekend had me looking at that door in despair; I'd stripped it in the summer, hoping to get a waxed, walnutty effect, but it just looked like a paint-stripped door. Very unfinished. I don't do gloss - too much like hard work. So that is now fully blackboard-painted. With new dark plastic letterbox draught-excluder-thing, and all fine and dandy.

Yesterday I had a spare hour after work, and stood at the sink wondering why we've lived here for nearly 10 years with our window looking onto a dreary brown fence. Out with the cream masonry paint, and one panel is now revamped. Which means more painting today....but the day is shiny and sunny, so It Will Get Done.

I function better if I do little things all the time, so that little regular achievements are being made... Sofa-Time is no good. Just remind me to remember that!