Name: Susie
SPF, a day late!
I haven't played SPF in a while, and I really wanted to this week, but realworld life was quite demanding. Among other things, the Junior Girl Scouts spent the night here last night, earning their "Looking Your Best" badge -- you'll hear more about this on the next Biscuit Friday. Anyhow, I wanted to play, but I couldn't yesterday, so I am today. Thanks Kami and Princess Kristine, for keeping SPF alive and fun.
What I love most about my house:
No contest, it's the fireplace. We always wanted a stone fireplace, and when we walked into this house and saw the huge one, it was all over. It is raised hearth, floor to cathedral ceiling, and we use it quite a lot. It is good for all the things fireplaces are good for -- warmth, romance, even extra seating (see the pillows on the hearth?) when we have lots of company like last night. Oh, and see the striped bucket of flowers in the lower left corner? THAT is what Gumby is standing in front of in my profile pic. People have asked about that, believe it or not.
OK, you gotta give me props for the photograph, too. I wanted to try to show perspective, to show how large it is. So I lay down on the floor, flat on my back, to shoot up. That should work, right? But I took two pix and something was terribly wrong.
"Jif, something is wrong with my camera. There's these weird lumps in the foreground of the picture."
"Lumps?"
"Yea, I was lying down like this, with the camera right here, shooting there, and there's these two blurry lumps. Two times. It's gotta be the camera."
He looks at how I'm showing him I took the pic. And he grins. "The lumps, are they gray?"
"Yea! Do you know what's wrong?"
"Are they gray like your T-shirt?"
I look down. "Well, yea!" pause "Oooooh." (If you're slow like I am, just read it again, you'll get it.) Then I was, literally, ROFL. Then I shifted to my side and took another pic :)
Before I show the thing I hate most about my house, I wanted to show you another thing I love. Above is my kitchen. I love the wallpaper. It makes me feel good. Jif and I did it ourselves. As you can see, it's RED. When we moved into this house, everything in it was either lavender, pink or baby blue. We are slowly changing these things. SLOWLY. So, I love the kitchen, now, except that also in the kitchen is
the thing I love least about my house:
I mean, the thing I hate most. The freakin' pink countertops. Uglier than homemade sin. It actually looks better in this pic than it does in real life. Because I blove you all, and didn't want to frighten you, I just put a small pic of it here. Brrrrr. We do have the ability to replace the countertops, now; it's just a matter of going out and finding what we want. I'll show you an "after," soon, I hope.
Next, what I love most about myself
I am bottom-heavy, have multiple personalities, and look really good in red. No, that's not true. Well, actually, it IS mostly true, but that's not what this is about. I have some of these nesting dolls at home and at work, because I love them. Because they are how I see myself, and how I see all of you, too. Inside 40something Susie is also 35-year-old Susie, and 27-year-old Susie, 19, 14, 9, baby Susie. We don't leave our earlier selves behind. They're still inside. And they still come out, from time to time, depending upon our situation, depending upon with whom we're interacting. At work, I am almost always 40something. My age on this blog fluctuates considerably, sometimes even within a post -- like this one. I may comment on one of your blogs as a 40something, and on the next one as 22. You with me? What I love about myself, where this is concerned, is that I have made sense of myself very thoroughly by seeing myself this way. It works for me.
Now, because one of my ages is apparently quite egotistical, I also picked something else I love most about myself. This is what I REALLY love most.
My sense of humor. My favorite thing (person) to laugh at is myself. If I'm laughing at myself, I never have to worry that I'll take it wrong and leave me, or talk behind my back, or any of that mess. I always take it well. For a photo of my sense of humor, I'm showing you a page from a calendar I got for Christmas. When I looked through it on Christmas morning, this page made me literally LOL. When I flipped the page the other day, for February, I L'edOL again:
It says,
"If I did not wear torn pants, orthopedic shoes, frantic, disheveled hair, that is to say, if I did not tone down my beauty, people would go mad. Married men would run amuck."
I really cannot be responsible for wreaking such havoc, so . . . I tone it down. :)
posted by Susie | 2:25 PM
19 heads are better than one . . .
For the second time in a week, you are responsible for making me laugh so hard I nearly coughed myself into a coma (you can see my blog to reference the first time). That is not a nice thing to do to a girl with the flu. Yeah, "tone it down"! :)
And those nesting dolls' faces look a lot like I imagine your face to look, based on the older pictures of you I've seen.
I seriously love this blog. This post is perfect and it is a classic example of what I like about you.
No need to tone it down.
Love the fireplace, but I wanna see one of the "lumpy" pics. :)
You don't have a pink bathroom too, do you? A friend of mine has one where everything's pink--tile, sink, tub, toilet, wallpaper, carpet (carpet!). It looks like a case of Pepto Bismol exploded.
I like your nesting dolls and the story that goes along with them. I hadn't really thought about it that way before, and it's so true.
Have a great weekend!
this is a great post, love your photos and congrats on getting the shot sans lumps ;)
I played :)
OK, your house is beautiful (pink countertops and all) and I also fell ass-over-feet about the nesting doll story - it's amazingly accurate. I think we all still have our nine-year-old-and-up girl inside us, don't we?
I got some nesting dolls for my nephew while I was in Prague (15 of them all in one! Amaze your friends!) but now I'm going to have to tell him your story.
Thanks for this - it was lovely.
andrea, the thought that I nearly killed you twice just makes my day! heeheeee I think these faces are pretty, so thank you for that ;)
william, aw, go on. No, seriously, go on -- tell me more ;) I feel the same about you.
sharkey, the um, whatevers in the bathrooms are white or almond, thank the lord, but the wallpaper is STILL big pink flowers from HELL! Someday I'll try to do a before and after of the whole house. No lumps!
kristine, welcome, and thank you. It's Mary Englebreit's calendar. I have framed pages a few times, I really like her humor, whimsy.
lee, welcome, and thanks! I'll come see you.
jim, believe me, these are the two best parts of my house, so far. Lotta work to do. And sweetheart, my 9-year-old girl would so love to play with your 9-year-old girl :)
You didn't know what the lumps were? OMG. I so wish you would have gone to the camera shop with that one.
I love the fireplace and the kitchen! I had a red kitchen in my old house. I miss it. :(
I sometimes get a finger in my pictures, but not usually lumps. tee hee I love that one.
I know what you mean about seeing yourself in the nesting dolls. I can pull any past age out whenever I want to. I kinda figured everyone could.
And the pink's gotta go.
I like how you write us all back. This would be a dialogue right? Constued as billable hours right? Should I be expecting an invoice?
Dr. H.O. Potamus-Fellow Practioner
kami, yea, I'm a little slow sometimes ;) I was told that red and yellow make people hungry (McD's, Burger King, etc.), but hey, it's a kitchen, so that's OK.
squirl, yea, usually the lumps don't get in the way of anything at all, but then I'm usually not trying to take pix from that vantage point. You know, not everyone realizes that about the ages. Seriously, I find it particularly difficult when people don't realize it, and get entangled in relationship troubles because of it. For example, if my 6-year-old brings out Jif's 40-year-old, that's OK. If my 6 brings out his 6, and we're playing, that's OK. But if my 6 brings out his 6 and we're arguing -- that's going downhill fast. Just thinking outloud, this stuff fascinates me :)
hippo, see, that was my original intent, but no one will give me their freakin' address or credit card number, so that idea is pretty much screwed at this point ;) Actually, I LOVE talking back; I do it almost compulsively . . . maybe you could help me with that?
I Led OL twice while reading this post. I love your sense of humor too. Thanks for sharing it with us. Our bedroom is red and camel, and I LOOOOOOOVE it! Love your kitchen, too. But PINK countertops? WTF? WTFityF are people thinking?
ern, I like your bedroom :) Someday I'll post bedroom pix. It is still so godawful, I can't even describe it here, or someone would "flag" my blog as offensive :0 I LedOL, while describing to Jif your variation on WTF there ;)
shoshie-the-13th-head, Aretha? I get to be Aretha?! I am trembling with excitement!
WE'RE GOIN' RIDIN' ON THE FREEWAY OF LOVE, WIND'S AGAINST OUR BACK
WE'RE GOIN' RIDIN' ON THE FREEWAY OF LOVE, IN MY PINK CADILLAC!
WHO'S ZOOMIN' WHO?
It's about damn time you showed me a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T!
Alright, how much are you my sister, that you recognize my beloved plate as Pierre Deux? Do you like that crap, I mean, fine stuff? I really do. I bought that platter and planned my whole kitchen around it!
It is a cross on the mantle, and that fireplace is right behind me while I blog my life away.
If I put all those dolls on one couch . . . the couch would break, Shosh . . . you know, the Cheetos and all ;)
Yea, Deb is in my heart, and in my prayers. So are you :)
Oh, and yep, we went to the store for white stuff: milk, bread, toilet paper. Apparently when it snows, you need white things from the store, immediately. I'm glad you left that comment -- finally, someone can corroborate my claim that I really might get 10" tonight ;)
The fireplace is fantastic! I love it.
My parents have 2 fireplaces, and the living room one has a full wall of brick, and the downstairs one is half a wall of brick, but they hardly use them!! I want to take them, and put them to use!
I used to have a fireplace exactly like that! I miss it. Unfortuanatley, is was our only source of heat in the winter and we froze unless we were sitting right in front of it. The house would finally get warm about the time we went to bed.
Your kitchen is so cheery! How could anyone be grumpy there?
Susie, I love the same things about you that you love. You are alot of fun!
Well, if you are loving the red wallpaper, I can see how you might not be loving the pink counters.
Your nesting dolls analogy is great, the best description I've seen of the "baggage" we carry with us. And your sense of humour is priceless. I particularly enjoyed your description of the "lumpy" photo session. ;-)
And finally, I think I covet your fireplace.
Digging the nesting dolls analogy.
I am still lmao about the "gray lumps"! You have to most awesome fireplace! I just wish I had one, maybe someday, right?
Great SPF!
I played!
Love it all! The fireplace, the 'baby susie', the red and white flower vase, the torn pants...
You are twenty kinds of great, Susie.
lawbrat, I know, I love to have a fire. This is the first house I've lived in with a working fire place.
dashababymama, you're so sweet to me. Yea, that fireplace wouldn't be enough on its own for Maryland winters. I hope my kitchen keeps the grumpies away :)
karen, thank you for saying such kind things. We really couldn't believe our good fortune with the fireplace, it's very much what we had wished for, and it's actually an exceptional feature in an otherwise rather ordinary house.
thanks, kalki :)
charmed1, welcome! Absolutely, some day :)
amy, then you're 21 kinds ;)
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