House Tour: Dining Room

The living room opens into the dining room, which doubles as my writing studio. This giant table is an excellent place to spread out, say, 48 pages of poetry and try to put it in some sort of order. And to write.





Behind the table is the desk. Note the pale green wall my dad repainted (the previous owners took their shelves and left the wall with the old paint torn off where the shelves had been). It is the only green wall in the house. It is my favorite wall.



This is Amelia's elephant, who currently lives in the corner of the dining room. I got the elephant at Goodwill (which is 2 blocks from our house) for her to practice standing on. We are used to it now but when I first got it, it kept scaring me and Dean. It sort of lurks, looking like a large, unfamiliar dog.

House Tour: Living Room

We love the living room. It is the prettiest room in the house, with shiny wood floors and this gorgeous built-in bookshelf (original to the house, which was built in 1895). We no longer have a TV in our house due to the living room's beauty. A TV just did not fit in, so ours in sitting in the garage. We've canceled our cable. (Instead we have been watching reruns of Arrested Development on hulu.)





The rocking chair was Dean's great-grandmother's. We just bought the coffee table from an antique furniture store in our neighborhood. And the couch is from Ikea.

House Tour: Front Porch

I am doing some cleaning today and my plan to to take pictures of each room as it is cleaned, then to post the pictures on the blog for a house tour. Here is the front porch! It didn't really require much cleaning, but it did get a makeover from Luli and Linda a couple of weeks ago. And a fabulous new welcome mat as a gift from my friend Laura.




The house, like most in this neighborhood, is very colorful.



I love having a place for hanging baskets. And to sit and watch thunderstorms (if it ever rains here again).

!!!

I just submitted my manuscript to the first book contest! I spent most of my writing time in July finishing a set of poems (the "4 and 40 Blackbirds that were inspired by Carline's 40 Forts), revising older poems, and arranging the whole mess into a collection. Now the waiting. I have big plans for relaxing all through August.

Creepy Crawly

This video captures Amelia's early crawl, which involves dragging one leg. It also features her "Vogue" smile (as she realizes that she is being recorded) and her "this is very serious" expression (caused by a sudden and intense desire to pick up something that is stuck to the floor).

The video is from Monday. The crawling is progressing! Our happy sitting Buddah days are numbered...

For the Record

Friday night: 2x crying out, 1x crying and calling for 30+minutes (3:30am, 1 feeding)

Saturday night: 2x crying and calling for 30+ minutes (11:00 and 3:30, 2 feedings)

Sunday night: 0x crying or calling! Amelia slept from about 7pm-5:30 am. !!! (0 feedings! And I slept well too!)

Monday night: TBA...

Permutations

These are some of Amelia's nicknames:

Little A
Baby A
Amelia the Baby
The Honey
Honey Bunny
Amelia Brown *(**)
Amelia B
Amelia Bee
Honey Bee
Honey McBunny
Honey McB
Honey McBee

*after both of her grandmothers' maiden names

(**no, we are pretty sure that Dean and I are not cousins)