i don’t know. i can’t explain it. it’s crazy - i know - but what’s a girl to do?.

i moved to a new physical house this year, and as if that didn’t wreak enough havoc and eat up enough clock and calendar, i decided i wanted a new digital place to lay my head, sooooooo i’m moving to my new e-nest, the barefoot heart.

flying the white flag

picture taken from just inside my front door. apparently there’s a break in the fence somewhere . . .

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welcome wagon . . . without the wagon

the entry, a place to mark the crossover from there to here:

a found-object piece created by a friend i grew up with:

the bottle-tree-chandelier, a gift from mr. thrillenity. it’s not unusual to see bottle trees and bottles turned upside-down and pushed into the ground in the front yard. the idea is that evil spirits are attracted to the pretty colors and soon enough find themselves held captive inside the bottle with no obvious means to exit.

pete, a rescued piece:

what event (read: garden) is complete without music? meet singergirl. (she always dresses impeccably.)

our first:

this fella is tired, not lazy. (and he’s made from melted 5-gallon paint buckets.) (really.):

meet spring chicken and his protege:

and last but not least: the cat and the dog . . . who are just not hitting it off:

stay tuned for more pieces as they find their way into the garden we need a name for.

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decorating the outdoors

every morning like clockwork, ms. redbird shows up to defend her space. she’s a tenacious thing, continuing her task despite the would-be distractions of a nosey cat and a growling dog. outsiders are not the issue, you see. ms. redbird tenaciously defends her space from her own reflection, from her own self. when it comes to protecting her personal territory, she is her own worst enemy.

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life lesson from a bird brain

this past weekend we did something most unusual: we sat and watched a movie on television. unable to sit completely still, i sifted through the rolodex cards bearing my favorite quotes, and i was amazed at how many quotes no longer touched me. proof i was somebody else when using my system of rolodex cards, i guess. proof of evolution.

not every card found its way into the recycling bin, but the stack of keypers fell far short of the stack of once was’es.

i’m adding a page of quotes to my blog. let’s pretend i said these things, shall we?

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so many different ways to spell my name

again.

perhaps not as eloquently as i wish, but hey . . .

UPDATE:
we are in the new house now, sleeping in a real bed, on the floor no longer. once we move the things to their new, intended home, we will be able to park in the garage: a milestone for me. and tonight we hang pictures, another milestone that speaks to our being nested. there are still more boxes downstairs beg my attention (on tap for tomorrow), and my closest is still in need of a few tweaks. i am probably only days away from moving my space from the dining room table to my studio. hooray!

will send photos of the house soon, but for today, i thought i’d share snaps of some the wildlife that comes to visit regularly. (disclaimer: i am in the market for a new camera because i know - i just know - that the blurriness is not due to operator error. at least not always.)

LEOPOLD:
as the cable guy wandered around in search of the easiest, quickest way for him to do what he needed to do, he rather nonchalantly asked, “if i tell you something, will you freak out?” “that depends,” i said, and when he said nothing more, i added, “okay. i won’t freak out.”

“there’s a bat in your house,” he said, jerking his head smartly to the right towards the ceiling behind the fans.

there was, in fact, attached to the ceiling in the hub, a little black spot that turned out to be a bat.

i called my termite guy who said he couldn’t do anything about bats, seeing as how they are protected. “protected?” i screeched in a pitch only slightly lower than the bat’s. “what about me and my new house - why aren’t WE protected?”

he then said he had a phone number he would give me, but offered that first i might want to try this: take a pair of panty hose, he said, and put a balled-up sock in the toe. then open a nearby door and position yourself between the bat and the door. start slinging that pantyhose around in a circle over your head. “bats can’t see,” he continued, ” but they can feel the air current and with any luck at all, he’ll fly right on out the door.”

“about that phone number,” i said.

rosemary, my new best friend, came straight out to the house, and in less time than it took us to pour our drinks in anticipation for The Big Removal Event, that bat (named leopold by my daughter) was off the ceiling and in the back of her truck.

epilogue: though my-new-best-friend-rosemary hauled leopold to a new location, we are not without bats, as we found out at 5:26 a.m. last thursday morning when awakened to the most blood-curling screeching you can imagine.

and right outside our bedroom door, too.

the closed bedroom door.

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WILD GOBBLERS COME TO CALL
on several occasions, we’ve enjoyed a rafter of wild turkeys amble through. (a group of turkeys = rafter, though some might effectively argue that a group of turkeys = congress.)

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TRESPASSERS
oh, i know squirrels are cute - at least rocky the flying squirrel was cute. but when you set out birdfeeders only to have them overrun with squirrels, well, that’s when you realize that cuteness is in the eye of the beholder.

and these little freeloading trespassers are blatantly disrespectful, continuing to eat even when confronted with a camera or a welcomed, invited redbird.

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LIKE CLOCKWORK
every afternoon between 4 and 4:30, 2 deer arrive at our front door

where they contentedly feast on dandelions and blooms from our newly-planted azaleas.

eventually, the deer get wind of phoebe (who’s inside),

and inside phoebe gets wind of the deer.

i open the door, and out phoebe bolts, her herding instinct taking over as she chases the deer oh, about 35 steps away into the woods where they turn around and look at the short-legged corgi as if to scoff, “oh, really.”

but satisfied that she’s done what she was put here on earth to do, phoebe celebrates.

and takes huge pride in a job well done. again.

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gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “we live in a zoo”

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cherry under foot

but as you get closer,

you see it’s a wee bit larger than you first thought

~~~

it’s true: things could be worse, but there’s just no way to get over this, or around this, or even through this - not comfortably or easily, at least - and you realize you’re gonna’ have to deal with this one.

soon.

so you call people who have the experience and equipment

and let them help

and before you know it - sooner than you could ever have ever fathomed - the roadblock has been cut into manageable pieces, allowing free access once again, and leaving behind just what you need for building a fire on a once-upon-a-cold-cold day

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Question: when a tree falls in the middle of the woods . . .

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it all works out . . .

the first big truck with the first big guys came on 1/17. the second big truck with the second set of big guys came on 1/27 - the day mr. thrillenity was (conveniently) sick in bed. (it’s also the 36th anniversary of the day we met.) since then, we have schlepped small stuff over (a scant 8 miles exists between the then house and the now house) one car or truckload at a time. i schlep during the day, and we both schlep at night.

the furnace went out on us, so we had to reschedule Operation Sleep There until we could get prices, compare prices, make a decision, schedule the new install, and get ‘er done. the new furnace was operational on monday, 2/2/09, and we spent the first night there. on the one week anniversary of the new furnace installation, we woke up without heat. it’s fixed now, though - and we hope it stays that way.

there was the delivery of the propane tank (another story for another blog), trespassers, and more, but today, now that we have internet service, i thought i’d show you around our humble abode . . .

this is what you see (now - hopefully not forever) when you open the front door:

this is our dining room - which now serves as storage room, office, and occasionally, a dining room:

here’s our bedroom - with the flooring that was supposed to go down last week. it wasn’t what we ordered or wanted, so the search for suitable flooring continues.

and until we find floors we can live with and reschedule installation, here’s where we actually sleep:

they may look like boxes, but actually they’re our bathroom cabinets (good news, though: i found a great it’s-meant-for-a-dining-room-but-it’ll-look-great-in-our-bathroom0-against-that-very-wall-just-as-soon-as-my-daughter-can-build-it-cause-it’s-from-ikea cabinet:

because we can’t get to our closets with anything even vaguely resembling ease, these serve as our closet for now (and how do you like our bookcases you see against every single wall in the house?):

then last but not least, this is what will one day (hopefully soon) be jeannedom:

so that, my friends, is where and how we are currently living. not only is every day filled to the brim with opportunities to practice patience, every day is an adventure.

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life in the (chaotically) moving lane