Modern Atlanta Homes Tour – 2014, and the Weekly Photo Challenge: Between

On the weekend between my recent plumbing difficulties, Sam and I toured 10 houses on the Modern Atlanta Homes Tour. Here’s a peek at one — this is a walkway between upstairs rooms.

Fabulous except when you’re barefoot (ouch) … or, um, wearing a skirt.

Searching for the right term for this structure, I found myself calling it a catwalk. Then I realized why… here’s a detail in the library, just to the left —

Cat bookends!

I love the round lamps too, a nice echo of the windows in the living room below. Here’s a view to the right of the catwalk —

Catwalk and living room.

 I’m just now winding up on donating and recycling stuff I sorted out when unpacking boxes from the last few weeks working on my basement, and almost ready to start my next round of unpacking. Seeing these sleek and modern (not to mention uncluttered) homes was just the eye-candy I needed to:

1. clean my palate, and
2. inspire me to keep working.

Still, if you’re like me, you’ve got to wonder “where do they keep their junky stuff?” Maybe there’s a junk-room not open to the guests on the tour? Or do I dare to dream they don’t have any, and maybe, just maybe, there’s a junk-less home in my own future?

Don’t you love this room — full of color and light and rhyming circles, plus, it’s a room that’s a bridge between indoors and out.

 I’m eager to share my other photos from this tour, so if you like tours as much as I do, stay tuned. Hint: if there’s an upcoming photo challenge for “Bookshelves”, I’m ready. Here’s a preview — can you find the other cat bookend?

Another cat bookend, and, can you tell how much I love a library with a ladder?

 Related posts:

More on the Weekly Photo Challenge: Between

My post on the 2013 Modern Atlanta Homes Tour

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Tally 31 Boxes, and the Weekly Photo Challenge: Extra, Extra

Who knew I’d  have an extra plumbing adventure so soon after my water heater experience? In the basement last week, pulling out more boxes, I was surprised to see a few looked damp.  Then I felt something on my hair (spider alert?), brushed my hand through it, and felt a drop of water —  panic — where did that come from? Then I looked up…

This may have been leaking for weeks, just a drop every few minutes.

I was lucky. This could have gone on until it got much worse. In the above photo you can see a patch where a similar thing was repaired a few years ago. When it happened before, the pinhole leak resulted in a fine spray that was nearly invisible unless seen against the light, so that’s the kind of thing I looked for when I checked the basement since then.

Meanwhile, the plumber found this extra place to repair, not leaking yet, but soon…

Here’s what to look for, a blue-green spot is an extra leak in the making.

 

Once, I thought I’d get the basement cleaned out by bringing a box up every time I went down there. The result, of course — I quit going to the basement. That’s until I got started on the books that are stored there, and that kept me working, albeit slowly.

Trouble is, I’m annoyingly meticulous and feel I have to look at everything. Here’s an example…

Bob’s maps and travel brochures… oh the places he’s been. There are still a box or two of these left; why can’t I just dump them straight into the recycle bin without looking?

 The damp got some of my art posters — I had more packed away than I remembered — but I’ve sorted out the dry ones, plus a hefty packet of art-reproduction postcards, for an art teacher friend to use. Now I’m moving on to magazines.  My favorite so far is the cover of MS, December 1972:

“Peace on earth, good will to people.”

Quote-wise, the one that sprang to mind the night I found the leak was Dorothy Parker:

“What fresh hell is this?”

Don’t forget to check your pipes, and, tell me… What extra things are hiding in your basement?

Here’s more on the Weekly Photo Challenge: Extra, Extra

A Blog Hop, and the Weekly Photo Challenge: Room

I still have the basement-blues after recent water woes. So before launching into my Blog-Hop news, I’ll share a photo of an upstairs room: as far from the basement as I can get!  This room used to be one of Bob’s store rooms. My goal in painting and decorating it was to use things I already have. Some things are from family, and some are flea-market finds from past years that I had packed away.

A cleaned-up spare bedroom with a vintage quilt as a wall hanging.

Now for the Blog-Hop news. Thank you to Pip Marks at Sustainability Soapbox for tagging me in a blog hop in which I’m asked to answer four questions about writing. Pip’s carefully researched posts fill us in on social and environmental issues. Her topics always pique my interest, and, being on the opposite side of the world from me, bring up issues and topics I would never have known about, like … “Using Wombats to Promote Your Blog” for example.

Here are my answers to the four “why we write” questions.

• What am I working on/writing?

I’m working up some additional chapters for my memoir about coping with grief after Bob’s death.  An editor at a recent writing conference gave me a positive critique on my work, but also told me it was too short.

• Why do I write what I do?

Bob, my late partner, weathered two cancer diagnoses and many treatments, ultimately losing his life to a complication after he was cancer free.  Losing people we love is a searing and unforgettable experience that we all have to face sometime.  The more we can share our experiences, the greater the possibility for comfort and connection.

• How does my work/writing differ from others of its genre?

Memoir about grief isn’t usually funny, but he was such an entertaining and eccentric person that it’s impossible to write about knowing him without a big dose of humor.

• How does my writing process work?

I’m writing memoir, so I’m mining my experiences clearing out this house full of Bob’s stuff. OK, my stuff too. As one good example… there’s that basement I’m always complaining about. Having a leak in my grimy basement full of boxes may be horrible, but I’ll bet it’ll be entertaining before I’m through. Now all I need is a photo of me in my hazmat suit setting out to clean it up.

 

Hopping forward.  I’m pleased to tag the following bloggers as the next participants —

 

Sheila, at A Steward’s Heart writes about simple living and a missionary life in Italy. Be sure to check out those header photos on her blog — they’re views from her home.

 

Next is Christine at Red Pin Adventures. The red pins are points on the map, the places that she and her family live, and the points they travel to. After writing from her recent digs in Norway, this expat adventurer is moving again.

 

I look forward to reading their Blog Hop posts in the next few weeks. Please check back to see what they have to say.

 

Now, one last thing about that photo challenge.  If you can stand it… here’s a “before” shot of that room.

Spare room “before” —  when it was a storage room.

How’d I do?

 

More on the Weekly Photo Challenge: Room.

 

And, P.S. apologies to anyone who noticed that I accidentally hit “publish” before I finished this post… I un-pubbed asap, but I’m not sure what happens with email format.  —   Sandy

 

25 Boxes, and the Weekly Photo Challenge: Split-Second Story

I love looking at art.  Next to that, I like to watch other people looking at art. I had only a split-second to take a photo of this woman before she moved on, no longer rhyming with the Wayne Thiebold painting ‘Bikini’ and the black line of the bench in the foreground.

Wayne Thiebaud’s ‘Bikini’ and observer. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City MO

I’ve spent the last week unpacking 25 boxes from my basement after a leak from my water heater expansion tank forced me to action. When I counted boxes down there a few months ago I thought there were 45 left, but now I see there are nearly that many remaining even after all I’ve done this week. I’m beginning to wonder if they’re multiplying behind my back.

Photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson was a master of catching the “decisive moment” in pictures. I’ve always thought of that term as applying to the visual, but now, in the midst of all my unpacking, I realize there are other decisive moments, the kind that happen all the time: every object in every box I unpack is the result of a past decision to acquire or not to acquire. Our lives are full of split-second stories, and I wonder how many it took to add up to all this stuff.

On the bright side (I hope there’s always a bright side) I’ve sorted out a big load of donations, a mega load of recylables, and only 2 bags of trash.

How many split-second stories do you have today?

For more on the Weekly Photo Challenge: Split-Second Stories, click here.