Here Fishy, Fishy, Fishy

Of course it had to come to this -- spring cleaning of the pond. Personally I am a little ho-hum about real spring cleaning. Frankly I don't have a week to dismantle my house. sort through all the linens, repair tattered edges, discard everything that's beyond repair, beat rugs, scrub ceilings -- good grief, does anybody do any of this any more? In my own house I give everything a good vaccum, spray all the corners with Renuzit and call it a day.


But the one thing that could not be neglected, ignored, overlooked or dispensed with was the pond. After a long winter of battling leaves and algae and other icky stuff, my fishies were much in need of fresh and clean digs. Despite their protests to the contrary I am only guessing that they do not really love that dirty water. I certainly could not stand to look at it another minute.

Not to be too hasty, before I could empty out and clean the pond, what I needed to do first was move the fishies to temporary quarters. Let's see, with all the new babies there are roughly 30 fish in all... these storage tubs filled with their own familiar brackish water would fill the bill.



And then to catch the fishies... you'd be surprised how unwilling these fishies were to be caught. Despite the sludge and mess in their home, despite the promise of better things to come, they were really very happy where they, thank you very much.

Just to catch fishies and empty the pond ended up being an all-day event.

Here I've taped the pump hose to the garden hose so's the water could be drained down the driveway and not flood my yard -- it's a good thing.

By the time the fishies were caught and the water was drained the sun was setting oh-so-low in the sky. Boy were my muscles aching. Catching fish is brutal, bending, swishing, missing, bending swishing, catching, carry to the holding tank, back to bending. And a couple of these guys held out till the very bitter end.

The plan for the next day, Sunday, was to remove the liner, scrub it of all traces of algae, replace it into the pond, shore up in sagging spots, fill it again and return all thirty or so fishies to the fresh clean home. The Boyfriend had agreed to help and there is nothing more fun than working with him -- he makes great suggestions and he makes me laugh -- how good a day is that?

Imagine the horror the next morning when I went outside in my jammies to check onmy fishies to find some 7 fishies, including my very biggest fantail, lying dead on the pavement around the temporary tank. OMG, had they leapt to their doom. Was the trauma too much? Had they hoped to leap back home? I hadn't thought to screen it in any way. I was worried about oxygen getting in, not fishies leaping out.

Oh, but wait! The big fantail blinked. Was that a blink? Was it possible she was still alive? I picked her up and slipped her back into the tank. Holy Smokes and blesssed be -- she was still alive.

The rest of the day was a worry and a concern. I was too upset to even think about taking more photos. The Boyfriend helped me remove the liner. We dragged it out to my driveway, scrubbed off all the algae, without slipping on our fannies even once. The low sagging spots around the back perimeter of the pond edging were shored up and the liner was replaced. Whilst the hose pumped fresh water into the pond I made us a nice lunch and we watched Bullwinkle. How nice a day is that.

To replace the fishies from the holding tank back into the big clean pond I needed to dechlorinate with water conditioner and I needed to float the fishies in plastic bags, so the temperature change would gradually acclimate and the fishies would suffer less trauma. So little by little I caught the fishies in the holding tank and shifted them into big plastic bags to float in the fresh pond.

Imagine my surprise when I got to the last of the fishies and hadn't yet transferred my two very biggest -- a very large bronze fish and a very large calico. How does one loose 7 inch fish?

And then the whole picture of my fishies that morning having leapt to their doom came clearer. They'd been invaded... something snatched them. A cat or a raccoon had gone fishing and hit the jackpot.

I am trying to not be too devastated... but I feel I failed to protect them. I hadn't guessed there might be danger. What I am grateful for is that whatever marrauder snatched up the bigger fish and laid waste to the half dozen others didn't entirely knock over the hold tank and kill them all.

There are now 26 fishies, all the more wary and wiser for it, swimming in the fresh clean pond.

Whew! The ugly part is done!

The Difference a Door Makes!!!

The question isn't whether I have Too. Much. Stuff! The fact of it is I have a very tiny house and no place to put the stuff I have -- which makes me wonder why I bother ever to buy anything new.

See... clutter gone wild!

I built this cabinet, heretofore referred to as the Mother Of All Cabinets (MOAC), because all that stuff you see living in it now had previously no place to live at all. There are cleaning supplies on the right and office supplies on the left. If it weren't here it would be... everywhere. Piled, stacked, shoved into corners, spilling out of drawers. The upper left houses excess baking pans (like I bake!!! ROFLMAO!!) The center is Command Central -- TV- computer-printer. What more could a person need? Not to see it all hanging out all the time would be nice.

Even with the MOAC built and in place and filled there is clutter spilling out everywhere. Aaaaaaaaagggghhhh. There I am, still in a complete shambles all of the time. I am not built for this kind of mayhem. At this stage of the game, and I am loathe to admit this, who I am is a "place for everything and everything in it's place" kind of girl. There, I've said it. My name is Jenny and I like, no, I require, an organized life.

When I moved into this house there were exactly two closets. Neither one of them in the master bedroom. One was a coat closet in the dining room -- an afterthought of a thing wedged into a corner built for the primary purpose of hiding a radiator pipe. The other "closet" was tucked under the eaves of a second bedroom. It is what normal people in normal houses would call a cubby hole.

Before moving into this house I never before thought about stuff, excess or otherwise. If I needed a new pair of pants I simply went out and bought them. I didn't stand in the store and wonder what on earth I would do with them once I got them home. But in this house, everything has to be thought out. Printer paper? Ammonia? Dog leashes? Where, oh where, am I going to put it?

And there I was with this big expanse of wall... standing there doing nothing. Eight feet of blank space...

Building the cabinets themselves was not particularly tricky. Any four-year-old understands the concept of a box, which is what every cabinet is. Other than the lumber being very unwieldy -- a concept not at all understood by the people at the lumberyard who sell it to you. "Little lady, wouldn't you really rather have 3/4" ply?" Well, yes, the Little Lady would but the Little Lady can't freakin' lift it, so we'll just muddle along with 1/2", thank you very much.

The tricky part was the doors. But they are the most essential part too. I don't have the right tools -- or the wherewithall -- to build doors. Oh, thank heaven for brothers. My brother has not only the right tools, but the know-how. Hooray! Hooray for brothers. Hooray for doors.


There. Isn't that better? All nice and tidy and tucked away. A person can walk through the room without being assaulted by a barrage of stuff.

Clearly I am still deciding on color.... Black? White? Medium glazed amber beige? I will think about color tomorrow. Today I will open my little TV/computer cabinet and simply breathe, calmly, in and out. Ahhhhh.


Doors. Don't you just love them?

Support Your Local PBS Station!!!

I've been watching PBS forever -- haven't you? I know, I know, some folks think this is strictly a high brow thing to do, like yachting or joining the Junior League. Well, maybe other folks don't watch PBS the way I do. I started watching PBS when it featured the indomitable Julia Child -- and not because she made a first rate coq au vin. I watched her because I was nine years old and she talked funny. I had a secret private my very own TV and I was the only one in the house who could get the "UHF" stations and so I watched. I watched Julia and Big Bird. I watched Alistair Cooke and there was nothing high brow about it.

PBS took me to China and Alaska, it explained things the president said and it brought me Kukla, Fran and Ollie. I LOVED Kukla, Fran and Ollie.

And so I do this tiny little thing of donating to their Action Auction. The thing I have in abundance are doggie accoutrements -- a bed, a carry-bag, a water bowl, a collar and leash. This year the bed is paisley. Pink. And green. Last year it was red plaid.

Isn't the bed cute?

It's even cuter with Talia in it... but I draw the line at donating Talia. She's mine all mine.


See, the stuff I watch on PBS isn't high brow at all. In fact, I watch a lot of dumb stuff -- bad mysteries, old movies, woodworkers, seamstresses, painters. I once spent an entire rainy Saturday watching ANNE OF GREEN GABLES from beginning to end. The wonderful thing about donating to our local PBS is that when I am watching my favorites (or parking my grandson in front of Big Bird exactly the way I once parked his father, my son, in front of Big Bird) I don't feel one bit guilty the way I would if I didn't offer up so much as one thin dime.

Talia likes donating to PBS too -- she'll gladly trade in this bed and settle instead for a place on my bed. It's big of her.

So what's your favorite can't miss PBS show?

Bloom Where You're Planted

Surely, I am delighted to have laid not one, not two, but three lengths of fabric cloth in the Children's Garden. That's 150 feet of garden fabric stretched, overlapped, pegged and trimmed. This is the garden fabric so carefully fitted so's errant plants and weeds don't come bursting through...


And yet, how to complain about Daffodils... I should be thanking my lucky stars that they were determined enough to bother.
And these little daffodils popped unexpectedly in the lilly bed


My guess is this is the work of an industrious squirrel who must be thinking this compost bin is sort of an outdoor pantry.

However they got here, wherever they grew, I've gathered daffies from all over my yard for a beautiful indoor bouquet.

Sick, Sick, Sick!

I can't tell you how much fun this has been...

Endless Entertainment

I could watch this for hours - the cat grabs the dog and the dog grabs the cat and the cat grabs the dog, on and on it goes, round and round, day after day. Are they fighting? Are they dancing? Who's to say... all that's for sure is that I am the cheapest of cheap dates. I could watch Bailey and the Beloved Talia square off and spar endlessly.


I'm not sure precisely when this started... but it started with a whole different cat. It started with Maggie who was black and white and practically perfect in every way. My current two cats have issues, as do many cats... with a capital I. But Maggie was a text book perfect cat. Charming pleasant, didn't tear up mail, pee on carpets (or shoes or the stove -- I once knew a woman whose cat regularly peed on her stove!!!!) Maggie was perfect. And she played a perfect little game of "Poke" with Talia. With her nose Talia would poke Maggie before hurriedly darting backward before Maggie could liesurely grab her. Then Talia would dart in for another quick nose poke to which Maggie would calmly stretch and reach out for another grab. It was a sweet game - kind of quiet and charming, like watching two little kids taking turns to play jacks.


Suddenly one weekend Maggie sickened. She was gone before we knew it. Our Practically Perfect Maggie. We missed her terribly -- none of us missed her more so than Talia. For weeks Talia had that lost look, a little sad, a little confused. But I give Talia huge credit for her attempts to rally. She first tried to play the game with Molly. I should say that Molly is 16... you can only guess how little Molly was up for a game of Poke!

Talia then tried Poke with Bailey... who was NOT amused. "Poke me, will you?" Bailey hissed. Talia's face was priceless. She had offered her greatest gift -- the invitation to play Poke and the snotty haughty Bailey had the nerve to hiss! Harrumph!

But maybe hissing wasn't so bad. It wasn't the way Maggie had played the game... maybe Talia could teach Bailey the rules. Maybe they could take the game of Poke and make it their own. Maybe.


Poke has evolved into a game of Grab-n-Snatch. It is not a quiet little parlor game. It's a tumble-bumble raucus good time. Talia pounces on Bailey, Bailey pounces back. It is anybody's game. There's an object lesson in here about resiliencey and evolution and blah, blah, blah... but mostly it's about the little white dog and the big black cat making splendid good fun.

The Big Reveal!

For most of us we are never truly DONE with home decor -- we're forever adding, a plate here, a throw there... or taking away, the vase that doesn't work, the print that misses it's mark. So I can't say I am done.... but what I was shooting for is "livable". (My secret dream was for my rooms to feel like a jewel box. From the sub-standard, less than humble beginnings, what I had were HIGH HOPES!)

That was then:



This is now:

Notice the picture on the wall above the pitiful blue chair never changed.

It started with removing this wretched radiator! My problem with the radiator is that it extends beyond the window (read drapes) by several inches. My second problem with the radiator is that even an attractive cover would have resulted in a large "dead zone" in an already small room. Clearly the radiator HAD to go.
Here's the radiator:


Here it's gone:


Here's the result:


Finally, this shot of my living room, is from the space between those dark cabinets (where the radiator used to be) looking squarely across the room.



The dining room was another "Project". Initially when I moved into this house I did not want a "Full Time Dining Room". Thinking that we use a dining room twice a year and I use a work room on a daily basis, what I wanted was a Full Time Work Room and a Part-Time Dining Room. But it did not work out...

It wasn't a bad idea... the problem was that I did not take this room seriously. I didn't really "decorate" it. I kept the ratty old carpet, I did nothing to disguise or gussy up the lower cabinets. I did not consciously worry about storage or edit my projects and materials. The room quickly grew into an Unmanageable Monster Mess.

So I took it apart -- moved the work room upstairs...



And reclaimed the dining room...



It has been a very long process -- it started with having the radiator removed and baseboard radiators to replace them. Then there was installing the carpet. Both were projects I hired outside contractors to do. Everything else was all me. From painting the walls to dyeing fabric for the drapes, sewing the drapes, upholstering the furniture... oh, I did have my boyfriend build the china rack. I even learned to matt my art -- not because I am such a stickler for details... though maybe I am, but because of "creative differences" with the frame girl at Michael's (let's not go there).

One of the cabinets in the living room had to be, shall we say, rescued. It feels like a baby's bottom now, and I've turned it into a first rate liquor cabinet with a wine fridge and all, but when I first suggested bringing it in the house the looks I received were shock and horror.

It's been a lot of work and there are still things to do... but we've gone from a frightful chaotic mess to pretty and presentable.

And during the process there were birthdays and holidays. I did the kitchen too. And the occassional time off for good behavior or to prevent bad behavior. So I hope you can understand why there were weeks, even months, when I was silent here... there just wasn't much to report... there were often things I'd rather not mention... But finally, finally, I have what feels like a home. Ahhhh.