Unfinished Projects

Unfinished Projects

I wish I had a before & after to blog about, or a room that I have decorated to show you, or perhaps some fun thrift store find to share the story of. But I don't.

Since Mom passed, I have been in a funk. Which, I suppose, is "normal." There were just so many things that we were going to do together in the new house that now I have to do by myself. I mean, sure the husband plans on helping me, but really... It isn't the same.

Mom wanted to buy white wooden blinds to replace the cheap-o plastic ones that are there. She wanted to buy me a pot rack so that I would have somewhere to put my pots and pans in my tiny kitchen. She was going to help me turn this KILLER door we found at a flea market into a head board for my guest bedroom. And now I have to do all of this without her there... and I only get to think about how much I miss her while I am doing it instead of listening to her whine and go on and on about how hot and muggy it is or laugh at one of my latest horror stories from that wretched place I work.

I thought it would make me feel better to come home to my husband after spending a few days with my Dad after the funeral, but walking into our new house just opened up all these fresh wounds and the gnawing hole in my chest just gaped open and I could hardly breathe. I was there for around 20 minutes and I had to leave. I couldn't be there and look at all the projects that we had been so excited to do together over the summer.

Mom was the ultimate picture hanger. I have boxes and boxes of pictures and crosses and other decorative wall hangings that are staring at me in disbelief wondering why they haven't been removed from their musty containers and displayed proudly on the wall. A couple of memories come to mind about hanging pictures.

In our last house, we had a tall, skinny space where we wanted to hang my husbands college choir pictures. (He was a member of the Centenary College Choir - The World's Singing Ambassadors.. very prestigious!) It was a tricky little arrangement. Mom got out her calculator and her measuring tape and after about an hour of intense trigonometry had a drawing of measurements and where to drive in the nails and everything. I have it somewhere. If I can find it, one day I will scan it and put it on here. It was really quite amazing. But we always laughed at the amout of work it took to hang those 4 pictures on the wall.

The other one involved six 4x6 picture frames that I had spray painted black. I found a slideshow of pictures that someone had made out of their vacation to Paris and had six of the best pictures printed and then put them in those frames. I wanted to hang them behind my TV in the guest room, so again out came the paper, calculator, and measuring tape. Once we had it all marked and figured we started hanging the pictures. For some reason, I still to this day don't know what got into me, I got tickled and could not stop laughing. She started laughing too and we just had to stop and sit down and laugh. I have no idea what was so funny. Maybe we just needed a break and needed to laugh together.

I don't know how soon I will be able to bring myself to do any of these projects or start on any new ones. I know they will wait on me as long as it takes and that when I do get to them, it will really be a healing experience for me. I expect to cry a lot while I hang those [damn] Centenary pictures (mom's words, not mine) and laugh a lot while I hang my Paris pictures. I know she will be standing right there next to me guiding my hands and telling me where each picture will look its best. I just wish she could cry and laugh with me.