Attic vs. AirBnB

It's been a quiet Saturday of work, snugged away in the Attic, which while snug, sometimes is TOO snug -- especially when the neighbors are tromping away upstairs, your next door neighbor has decided to pull out his upright bass to work on scales (I mean, why?), and you would like to escape to another room ... Except, there isn't another room to escape to.

How lovely would it be to go outside and work, or an office, or to spread out on a lounging piece of furniture that is NOT your bed? Or to indulge in your favorite decor styles, or experiment - except ... you can't because it's snug?

Oh well. Since I didn't win the lottery to make this happen, I can pull out my photos from my recent New Year's trip to Long Island courtesy of Christine's very generously extravagant Christmas present, where we stayed in an out-wardly unassuming late 70/80s split-level ranch, which had been updated to a very lovely AirBnB, basically lifted from shelter magazines, and the pages of Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and Restoration Hardware.

Look at this beautiful back porch table. 

All the light. The room. The seashells.

(It was really hard not to pocket this blue hunk of crystal!)

Even beyond the hot-tub, fancy Kohler showroom bathrooms, the chrome kitchen, 

and the downstairs wet bar that is fancier than my entire kitchenette, 

 the three bedrooms mixed with my favorite blue and white, wood, and nickel finishes,

 or vintage school desk/beach cottage features, 

A dedicated OFFICE,

my dream entry wall, color schemes, finishes, salvaged stained glass, and beach-combed chic,

there were two places that I could have willing never left.

This lounger.

Doesn't it just invite you to spend an entire Saturday on it, 

reading, blogging, and/or sleeping?

EXCEPT ...

It looked directly at this assumedly vintage wooden advertising sign.

I love the graphics, but ...

it still irritates me for one HUGE reason.

 If you don't know why it irritates me, we can't be friends.

And then there was this couch in the "basement." 

The deepest leather couch I have ever had the glory to curl up in.

Next to the "fireplace," in front of the sharpest HDTV ever.

What with an all-weekend Downtown Abbey marathon, a wet-bar behind us, a bathroom within steps, the only thing to figure out was how to maneuver to the snacks and drinks when it was so deep. 

If you ever can't find me, maybe check that I haven't checked myself back into this AirBnB, or decamped to a Restoration Hardware showroom somewhere.

Who needs shelter magazines? A lot of THIS is exactly what I wish I could afford ... 

One day.

Okay. Enough dreaming.
Back to work.

AFTER I bang on my neighbors' wall in a very passive-agressive kind-of way.
 
 
~ photos by iPhone

Quote of the Day

To quote a friend:

Sometimes you just have to visit that small Mexican town of Incommunicado. 
No passport required. No suitcases needed.

Please hold.

This is my brain. This is my brain full of static.

It short-circuited enough today, that it was either:
~ spend the day blogging for the week
OR
~ nap.

I chose the latter. It was glorious.

Naps are totally wasted on the young. I think of all the times I refused to nap ... and I shake my head. I could nap all the time. Every single day.

Posts may resume as the static fades.

Photos of the Day: Adventures in Advertising

 Don't these all look like advertisements for cruising?

Nope. I took 'em all.

With material that Mother Nature presented, it's hard to go wrong.

Sometimes She makes me feel "this" small.

Dreaming Out Loud - Canada Calling Me Home

Image from here

A few months ago I got a text from my friend Christine that read something to the effect of:

Do you have a passport?

Yes ...

And a few texts later:

Do you want to go on a cruise?

Depends on when and where ....

And still later:

To Canada?

I had to call her back after that one ... because I was shaking. A lot.

NB & Nat'l flag image from here

Back at the beginning of the year, when I started jotting down the preliminary notes for what would be the seeds for these future Dreaming Out Loud installments, I made the following entry: 

NOT a cruise, but a smaller boat trip – maybe to:

Prince Edward Island – for my Anne of Green Gables addiction, and to find the port of entry where my ancestors came in from England

Or

Alaska

I don't think I had ever articulated this dream to Christine. There are more times than I care to count, however, when Christine and I have been on some weird karmic connection when it comes to calls, cards, e-mails, jokes, observations and other odd things. 

Carnival Glory: Photo credit

After talking to her I got the details of this proposed cruise, and while it may not be the EXACT dream, it's pretty darn close. I've learned to start taking advantage of opportunities like this when they come up. Call it a prompting. An opening. What have you.

So I'm getting on a boat. A big boat. A ship even. This Carnival Glory cruise liner, actually. With over 5,000 other people and spending a week doing something I never envisioned at the beginning of this year when I started to dream. Cruising. Me. The introvert. Who would have thought? It will be an adventure to say the least. I hope poor Christine realizes what she's in for. (And, hopefully, The Shushing Librarian is coming with us, so who knows what will happen.)

Nova Scotia flag image from here

 

While it turns out this cruise won't be heading to Prince Edward Island, we will be getting close enough ... this time ... and spending a day exploring Saint John, New Brunswick and Halifax, Nova Scotia. While Saint John is also a port city, Halifax was a major port of call, especially back when my ancestors were migrating to North America and I feel there's this mysterious connection calling to me.

I just can't tell you where and what and when that connection is ... but it's there. In the seas. In the land. In the songs. In the breeze. And, in the genes.

 This trip is just whetting my appetite for the Canadian Maritimes.

Image from here

With a day in port in both cities, there is not time for major island hopping or genealogical explorations, so the plan includes touristy things, like:

 

Pier 21, Halifax: Photo credit

Citadel, Halifax: Photo credit

Public Gardens, Halifax: Photo Credit

Saint John, NB City Market: Credit

Photo credit

As more of our family history has been explored, more and more of the "pull" back to PEI can be explained due to family connections. I thought it was just my love for that "Anne Girl," but turns out my father's ancestors ended up settling in, and being buried, in the same mid-Island area that are close to the roads and lanes of L.M. Montgomery's beloved books. 

Photo credit

Photo credit

About two weeks after I agreed to go on the cruise, I got an e-mail from Cousin Frank, (the aforementioned author of the book about a paternal grandfather), outlining plans for the first Annual International Reunion scheduled for Prince Edward Island from July 25-29, reconnecting some of our family lines which have long been severed ("slightly") since the family left the island in 1850. 40 odd "cousins" were planning to visit family sites on the island, including homesteads, the port from whence the family sailed from PEI to the USA, the graveyard where a great+ grand-father and mother are buries, AND, (this is what got to me):

• "All of the Anne of Green Gables "stuff" ... Mongomery gravesite, schoolhouse, etc."

People who don't believe in mysterious heavenly influences having a tug on our heart strings and collective consciousnesses ... I don't get them. 

*MY* ancestors are definitely up there trying to get us all headed in the right direction --back up north -- but as usual, my timing is all off and I was overcommitted.

I still dream of PEI, but for the next week or so, I'll just be out to sea, coming close to "home" port, but not quite. I have a feeling I'll still be having sweet dreams.

Wish me luck and ... Bon Voyage  

until my return to the Attic and blogging in general.

Photo credit information

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

"Sea" you soon ... or later.

Wreck it Wednesdsay: Wreck this Journal

After a long week of staring at one screen or another, it was so lovely to spend last Friday with Christine. After hugs and news were exchanged, there was also an exchange of birthday goods.

Christine knows me so well. She could just tell that it was time for some crafts therapy.

My present was Keri Smith's Wreck This Journal - the expanded 2012 edition.

Wreck This Journal: To Create is to Destroy

Per Amazon.com

Already showing my imprint

For anyone who's ever had trouble starting, keeping, or finishing a journal or sketchbook comes this expanded edition of Wreck This Journal, an illustrated book that features a subversive collection of prompts, asking readers to muster up their best mistake and mess-making abilities and to fill the pages of the book (or destroy them). Through a series of creatively and quirkily illustrated prompts, acclaimed artist Keri Smith encourages journalers to engage in "destructive" acts--poking holes through pages, adding photos and defacing them, painting pages with coffee*, coloring outside the lines, and more--in order to experience the true creative process. With Smith's unique sensibility, readers are introduced to a new way of art and journal making, discovering novel ways to escape the fear of the blank page and fully engage in the creative process.

From the Preface:

Warning: During the process of this book you will get dirty. You may find yourself covered in paint, or any other number of foreign substances. You will get wet. You may be asked to do things you question. You may grieve for the perfect state that you found the book in. You may begin to see creative destruction everywhere. You may begin to live more recklessly. 

All color added by me

I spent part of the weekend playing in this ... here are some horrible iTouch photos, which just don't do it justice!

I was writing on top of my own writing

Certain pens bleed through - which I'll have to remember. Also, I can't draw.

Traced my hand with pencil, made annotations, and then illustrated with 3 nail polishes. Added note about which hand.

I love this duct tape. There is a pattern, but you can't see it for the paisley.

Page numbers bleed through. I've been adding dates of which pages I do.

* Coffee/tea substitutions will have to be made, or done with guest journalers.

Thanks for the inspiration Christine. What have you wrought?

Given that some of these pages instruct you to remove them from the book, I may split the spine and remove them all for preservation purposes. How I will do that with the 3-D stuff, I don't know yet!

Stay tuned.