Aganetha The Horrible

My mama has always been a woman ahead of her time. She made us compost, reduce, reuse, and recycle way before our friends and relatives in Wolesley had ever heard of it, never mind flaunt it as a reputable lifestyle. Back in the day we thought of it all as rather embarrassing that nothing went to waste like stuff did at some of my trendier friend's homes. Well, come to think of it, I think I'd still be embarrassed if my mother gnawed on a chicken foot at the dinner table..... but I digress. Ma has always been an avid gardener, way before terms like "organic" and "homegrown" meant that you were somebody really special and knew complicated formulas about soild ph and nutrient levels. The stinky pig kak seemed to work pretty well for ma as well as her team of slaves that she had pushed into this world for the sole intent of making them hoe row after row of green beans in 35 degrees without cold water or wine or anything.

Mom never figured out that she should grow old, either. When her friends and relatives started dying or moving into little side-by-side places where you hang up a little card on your door knob every morning to show if you're dead or alive, mom was out tilling her garden. She had lost a lot of her slaves due to laws and regulations and child labour advancements, but she still had "Abraham, the father of many" who hadn't either figured out that he was supposed to be old by now and nodding off in a coffee shop or something. So, in the spring when other people their age were checking their pulses, ma and pa were out planting the beans and potatoes and tomatoes so they'd have stuff to compost later on.

Since mom had lost a lot of her unpaid staff, she couldn't send one of us out to the garden to scare away the local scavengers and looters who tended to come around in the early morning to nibble on her greens.

So, she borrowed Brian's pellet gun.

Brian gave her a quick lesson, and loaded her up with ammunition. She had shown no indication of senior dementia (if you ignore the dish cloths in the freezer) and had given up depression for menopause some years back so we figured we may as well give the gal some slack, she'd lived a pretty sensible life up to date. Sure enough, granny raced out in her nightie the very next morning and bagged a thief before most of us had reached for our first coffee of the day. I was sure we'd hear of more strokes and bothersome Dr visits when the phone rang at 7:20 am, but it was just mom sounding younger than a spring chicken (intact with feet) feeling jubilant about dropping that bunny with one, single, well-aimed bullet. (consistent with her whole life view of not wasting).
It was around this time that her honourary membership to the Wolsely guild was revoked.

(and that's not a fern on grandma's nightie. That's dad's fingerprint because he probably quivered a little with the excitement of the whole thing. We're talking polaroid from 1971 or so.)

When mom dropped the second bunny, she was already suspecting that her new fascination with hunting would likely be her claim to fame, so she quickly dashed into the house to slip out of her nightie and into a more respectable outfit. Then she had the foresight to pose in front of her rose bush since the pinkish glow brought out the colour in her cheeks quite nicely. (it also complemented the red in the rabbits eyes, but they were closed at the time.)

I'm hoping that the shovel in pa's hand is reassurance enough that next time we make the trip to the homestead, there won't be a giant pot of succulant stew on the dining room table....

If I Could Afford a Frame, I'd hang up my New Award

This is off of Danielle's blogspot:

"The Courageous Blogger Award "For those bloggers who are battling or have battled with physical and mental illness, those who are survivors of abuse, poverty, or who have overcome other challenges in life. This award is for the strong, the brave, and the courageous."

I admire these women for their strength of character:
Ame at Amexpression
Joyce at Chronicles of Blunderview
Linds at Rocking Chair Reflections

Grawsh, thanks Danielle!

I've gotta say, its not easy living with a biker in a rusty trailer while coping with multiple personality disorder, OCD, and paranoid delusions. Especially when much of my day is spent walking barefoot through large snowdrifts hauling firewood so I can cook dinner for little Timmy and his crippled brothers.

It takes some courage to run the generater to power my typewriter so I can share these horrers with you all. It often means that by nightfall, we have to play our ipods and gameboys by candlelight since there isn't enough power left for the patio lanterns and Brian had to hide all the lamp oil because I kept setting imaginary intruders and seven-legged spiders on fire.

Well, I'm off to some more battle, but I've got to find a breastplate of some sort that doesn't flatten my implants too badly.

I would have gotten decent quality ones but we never could afford much that wasn't found in the Eaton's basement, or off the back of the bread truck. It hasn't been easy, but with a little strength, bravery, and courage, I believe we may overcome.

*maybe its clear why I didn't get the "thoughtful blogger" award.
Thank you Danielle, and I really mean that! It was sweet of you.

You Know You've Moved to the Bible Belt When....

daughter: "Mom! Emily won't be at camp this year because she is in Europe with her family. It seems like everybody goes to Europe!"

son: "Yeah? Well last year in grade three, it seemed like everyone was going to PARAGUAY! What's the big thing about PARAGUAY?" I think everybody got born in PARAGUAY."

progress report

With admirable determination, a no-nonsense plan, and a menu packed with whole grains , the results were nothing short of dramatic.

Blog Like No One is Reading

I'm going to be forty in November. Its not a crisis, (I don't think) but more of a marker for life- a sort of check stop, or maybe a reality check.

Deep down inside me there's an ignorant, naive child who I'm afraid embarrasses me and I'd like to shut her up. However, the older I get the more clear it becomes that some aspects of her are likely to stick around for the duration. She deserves some exploration.

I do have a terrible memory. I don't know if that's because I forget to drink water and drink copious amounts of black coffee? I don't know if its true what kind people say that the scattered brain is a function of a highly creative mind? I do know that this unreliable brain embarrasses me, and mocks me for thinking that the stupid little girl up there will ever mature and sound intelligent from one minute to the next. I admire intelligence a great deal, and would hate to regress to the level of never being embarrassed again by my ignorance or brain-dead-ness simply by laying low so that when I open my mouth I should remove all doubt of my stupidity.

That's a rambling introduction for what I'd like to explore when it comes to approaching my fortieth birthday this winter. I have certain demons. They are not particularily unique or fascinating and my fear is that these demons reveal the truth of my smallness and stupidity. So, let's turn on the lights, shall we? Time's a wastin'. It's not up to you, the reader, to decide whether its true or not. Rather, the writing of it, the exposure of the voices, the lack of willingness to hide behind these fears may be a part of my redemption.

Its no secret that I have a history of eating disorders that began in junior high. My onset of puberty was delayed because of my fascination with starvation during the years when my friends began having bra straps for the boys to snap at recess time. A stupid little girl indeed. Well, its been quite a road and not without its successes. Fabulous successes. When I first decided to get well and develop a normal relationship with food I joined a weightloss group. I joined for the accountability, for the food baby-sitting that they would provide, and was careful to find a group that made food choices from meal to meal extraordinarily controlled. If I kept my nose to the grindstone and simply followed the rules, I could learn to eat normally and avoid the dreaded weight gain that was sure to come from this recovery.

It worked. Sort of. I actually managed to follow the diet, which I assure you is nothing shy of a miracle. I actually got down to my "dream weight". It felt every bit as good as I had imagined.

EXCEPT. When I was the only manager of my own food choices, I was filled with terror and very quickly fell back into my old ways. I didn't know how to maintain my new body size, or my new relationship with food. I felt like a failure. I beat myself up about this weight loss group decision for years, even after having navigated recovery successfully and having developed an actual, authentically healthy relationship to food and my body.

Which brings me to now. Now, I can look back and say- "Hey, Self! Way to go! You were proactive, you did something, and when it didn't work as well as you'd hoped, you got up off the ground and kept trying other approaches to getting your life back. And you did! You learned from what didn't work, and then you applied that knowledge to the next angle that you took at killing Goliath. Its all part of the learning curve."

For nine years now, I've been beating myself up. I experienced some setbacks due to trauma nine stinking years ago and I've never really been the same since. So? Even if I fall off of fifty horses, I'm going to have to decide to get on them anyway. Or loll around in fear and regret for another thirty years, then die. I really dislike my body size. I don't hate it, nor do I think that I'm a fat person. I just don't feel like "me" when I'm carting around twenty pounds more than what I used to. My expectation has been modified over the years, and I know that a twenty pound loss would be too much. I also know that after forty, I can expect to gain a pound a year, simply because of metabolic changes. So I'd like to lose ten pounds. There. If the admitting of that removes all doubt of my stupidity and self-centredness, then at least I've said it aloud and I can grow from here. Maybe even change my mind. But right now, that's my internal truth and I'll spell it out, black and white and try to be proactive instead of replaying some mental drama until I want to shove screwdrivers into my ears until my brians drain into my ice cream bowl. (ice cream with chocolate sauce, slivered almonds, and a few peanuts. mmmmmmmmmm.)

There's other stuff I want to be proactive about between now and November. One of them is to get more committed about prayer. I'm not going to say a lot about that because I don't want to sound self-righteous or preachy. But I believe in the power of prayer and the quietness of it often gets gobbled up in the chaos of daily living. So, I would like to get more committed about this.

And of course, this is all connected to mental health. I've got some options to navigate, and I need to check out some stuff for my family as well. I've got some phone calls to make (I hate and abhor phone calls). I've got two support groups to check out. (I feel vulnerable sticking my neck out that way). There's another stupidity marker.... so.... you feel vulnerable about attending a support group with maybe twenty people, but you're ok with blogging to the entire world?!)

I'm almost forty. There's a lot that is really great about the life I live. But I refuse to settle in.
Consider this my first step.

Daycare

Proposed poster (hand scrawled in pink crayon) to hang in local grocery store and bank may read as follows:

Lady in Town opens home daycare.
Its all she really knows. She never finished her degree, which probably has to do with her fear of success and fear of failure issues. On the topic of issues, she probably has a great many. Where a normal person could look at events and quickly categorize them, she has the uncanny and entirely useless gift of mulling things over for years on end. She can take the average monday to friday problem and turn it into a bonified disorder and create drama with very few props and only a slight hint of a story line.

Her brain is multi-faceted and fragmented. This means that she can walk past a stack of fabric scraps on her way to picking up a Robert Munsch story book and get so distracted by their colours and designs that she forgets that she ever invited children into her home to read to in the first place. Hence, when she calls; "Just a minute....", its helpful to think of the Biblical passage that refers to a minute being a thousand years and vice versa. She simply cannot be trusted.

She will burn the last pan of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies every single time. And garlic toast. Having placed said item into the hot oven, her mind will tell her that the task is complete, and she will wander off, distracted by some pattern of light on the wall. In time, she may moan; "Dr Penfield.... I smell.... burnt toast", but by then she's probably scrubbing the bathroom sink with her pants down around her ankles. Having gone into the bathroom to pee, she probably noticed that many life forms have set up colonies and governments in the streaks around the faucet and mirror, so after rising from the throne, she likely has begun to evict them before her bottoms have risen to the level of her own sagging bottom.

As she scrubs, someone begins banging on the door, and she herself fights the urge to bang her own head against the wall. This reminds her of the possibility of other latent disorders and she remembers that she and half her offspring need Dr appointments for various undiagnosed anomolies. On her way to the phone, she notices the stack of information given her by another medical professional. She really should sift through that, make some phone calls, make some decisions and follow through.

But the kids are hungry and the laundry has been hanging in sun and the rain for two days now. All she really wants to do is wander down to the local junk shop to see if there are any more scraps of fabric with distracting colours and prints on them. Then she could wash them and fold them and imagine making things out of them while she is busy tripping over the stack that she folded last week thats sitting on the floor beside the oven.

Right. But I think this was supposed to be about childcare. Right. Okay, so......
About the kids. Hmmmmm...

Right. She's home anyway, so if you needed somewhere to leave the kids because you finished your degree, your kids will probably be happy there. There are tonnes of toys and no one has to be careful about the couches because they are so ugly that she's hoping eventually just to throw them in the trash and find someone else's cast-off that's still in way better shape than her ancient germ-infested lumps. They'll be relatively safe because bad things never happen to her, and she'll never be critical of your parenting style since she's so preoccupied by her own. Sometimes she'll sleep in and not hear you at the door, but then because she's obsessive compulsive, she'll feel so lousey that she'll make you an apple pie and deliver it to your house warm from the oven. And she'll apologize repeatedly. Then she'll wear the guilt and humiliation for so long that she probably won't expect you to pay for the childcare for about three weeks after.

So, anyway. I forget why I was writing this. I think I'll wander down to the thrift shop. Its tidier there.

you ARE the weakest link

"Yes, she said sitting a little straighter in her chair, "its simply good business for me to expect that customers would pay for their daycare spot, whether or not they decide to use it. I get up, don't I? and turn over my OPEN sign? Its not like I get to decide whether or not to work that day, right?"

WRONG!
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

Why, just that morning she had decided quite spontaneously to change her work hours. She resolutely slept through one alarm clock, two phone calls, and three knocks on the door.

Oh, yes.
She did.

I said Summer

Dang! I love summer.

Especially when its too hot for sensible people and I'm on holidays.

And I don't take small people camping, only those for whom I've invested a small fortune in swimming lessons so that I can practically ignore them for two glorious, scorching days on the beach while I completely lose myself in a good book.

Yeah, baby.

Summer

"Hi. I'm Sam. Remember?"

I guess its true what those blue-haired ladies in Safeway used to say.... "They grow up so fast..." At the time I wanted to shove my screaming, mangey crew at blue-grandma and say; "Oh, yeah?! Well how about you take them for an hour so I can shop? Or a week, if it goes as fast as you say, you romantic old biddy." But I'd twist my features into an imitation of a grateful smile and pat them on the arm instead. (Dementia. Odd what memories it melts away...)

Well, its been thirteen short years of parenting now, and we just realized yesterday that we've done a week of activities with practically no tension. No meltdowns. No peeing of the pants. No packing the stroller. None of it.

And we even had fun!

The summer list of good intentions has a few tick marks on it now. Zoo? check. Folk Fest? check. Beach? check. Fishing? check. Picking strawberries and raspberries? check. Tinkertown? check.

Maybe I'm growing over-confident here, but with this successful unfolding of events so far this summer, it seems a good weekend to take the girls and their friends on a camping trip to Birds Hill. With temperatures in the mid-thirties. In a tent. With precious few shade trees.

Where's that blue-haired lady when you need her?

Quick Question

If you had just enjoyed a fine, fine outdoor meal amidst the sights and smells of the Forks, then slipped away to "powder your nose".... And you noticed that the bathroom wasn't all that clean... And as you lowered yours truly, you observed change scattered across the floor...

Would you:
Pick it up? Pick it up but not answer me truthfully? or Wrinkle up your nose disgustedly that the bathroom wasn't clean and some slob was in there carelessly throwing money about?

And By Day, He is a Plumber

(a disrespectful photo that I took before enjoying a truly fabulous meal at the Beachcomber restaurant at The Forks. We celebrated our fifteenth anniversary there on July 17. We shared it with our favourite friends and laughed ourselves entirely silly. If I'm proper, I'll write something reminicient and sentimental with proper pictures at another time. Or, keep clicking over at I Wonder. Brian keeps promising that he'll blog again. I think he intends to start with the anniversary event.)

Hmmmm.....

Almost invariably you can find me moved (often to tears) by the singing/band playing when I go to church on Sunday mornings. Not because their performance exudes "excellence" (a new-ish church word meaning you practised a lot, talked on the phone about what colour schemes your clothing should match to, and secretly hoping that your team would get a call from a producing company because of your stellar sound...) but because the words and sounds and people around me somehow roll over and through and around me in a way that I can only describe as deeply spiritual. I hope again. I pray again. I feel tenacious about my desire to believe in a good God who loves me and mine.

But as much as I love it, I sometimes I wonder about the "Christian music scene". Occasionally I'll put on our local Christian music station while I'm working in the house so that the words will soak into me and the dirty couch and the wildebeast children. It never does a darn thing for the couch. But almost every time I feel vaguely disturbed about some aspects of what I'm listening to. I imagine the bands feeling as pressured as the "secular bands" to look and sound a particular way. I imagine them fussing with their hair, whitening their teeth, checking their rear view in the mirror and not wanting to come out looking frumpy or grumpy or chubby. Well, of course not. I'm not above that, and I'll bet my right thigh that you're not either. Then I imagine them checking their record sales, their placements on the popularity charts and glancing over their shoulders to see what gifted Christian singer is sneaking up behind them, about to steal their thunder, their sales, their moment in the sun.

I hear the Christian real estate salesperson advertise about how we should ask her to sell our houses because she believes in God. I hear about the conferences where we should all go and be together and rub shoulders after we buy our tickets through ticketmaster. I hear about the Christians who would like us to buy their cars, their lumber, let them landscape our yards or groom our dog.

And it just sits kind of funny with me.
Is it just me?

oh, Those Darn Kids

Far be it from me to offer any advice on parenting because then you'd probably start watching my kids for all their weaknesses and flaws and then you might be tempted to come around and criticize me and I don't want that. (Did I sound defensive? I'm sorry; I meant to sound threatening....)

There's a funny thing that happens when you make your kids do jobs. A few months ago I had a rant about how insane I was going, how tired I was of wiping and washing and picking up after everyone, how annoying I found it to see people so relaxed in my presence. I insisted that I no longer do any supper clean-up and that I would not even involve myself in delegating duties. This was to be a war fought by the army of dad and the legions of offspring. The first few days or weeks, I had to physically remove myself from the room or the house because of the significant resistance that was met with this non-negotiable proposal.

Its still ugly a lot of the time. But there's a new dynamic emerging. There's a weird bonding that happens when these wild ones have to band together to complete a task. (and their dad is a task master. He won't accept a sloppy job. He won't do a "mommy" and do it for them.) Amidst the screaming, sometimes crying, sometimes racing around the table, there is the presence of an almost hysterical giggle. Annoying, but invaluable. Often, the craziness that envelopes dish-washing time (and I make them use the sink and not the dishwasher. I think its a good life skill.) spills over into after-dish-washing time. I'll hear them rumble down into the basement for a life-in-the-eighties costume game. Or we'll get a fashion shoot of bubble beards. Or Micah will give himself vacuum hickeys after getting the floors clean.

Its like after hating each other through the process of figuring out how to work together, they lose some of their selfishness and actually begin to like one another.

Besides, I usually forget to bath them. At least this way I know that their kinda clean. -ish.

Extreme Make-Over Do-it-at-Home Edition

How do you get from hippy to happenin' in time for a wedding that you thought started at 7:00 when it started at 5:00 and you're still sporting dirty feet and a grin from last Saturday's happiness?

Well, all you need is two feet soaking in a sink, a scrub down with a bottle of VIM and an old toothbrush, and a $10.00 hair pick-me-up from any drug store. Just don't land up with vim on your hair, and hair colour on your hairy toes, and things should work out just fine. Once you've found your toenails, brighten them up a little with the nail polish that you bought your kid for her birthday party. Trade in the sneakers for a couple of sexy slingbacks, and transfer what little cash you have from the tattered shoulder bag to the little gold sequined number that you just knew you'd need some day. Top it all off with that expensive little black dress that you picked up at the thrift shop for a cool hundred (cents) and you're good to go.

(Well, everyone's there to look at the bride anyway. If they throw a glance your direction, its to notice how tall the daughters have grown and how much they look like their auntie Mary.)

Happy Wedding, niece Jaynee.

May much happiness come your way before you land up a cynical, dusty old hag in a used dress like your auntie joyce....

On Dumpster Diving

Our recycling pile has been extraordinarily high lately. Our bookshelf has been purged of most books with easy or irritating answers, and instead of donating them to our local thrift shop which seems overwhelmed with donations, I set them in boxes at the end of the driveway, hoping that someone would find them and help themselves. Maybe someone who could still be comforted by easy answers.

Sure enough, someone did come along. We didn't want to embarrass him by staring out the window, but we live a pretty moderate life and sometimes need to create drama and recreation out of the ordinary. So we hid behind the blinds.

He took his time going through the boxes. We imagined his excitement as he began a small mountain of reading materials beside him on the road. The kids made some snooty comments about people going into other people's garbage. I reminded them that we live in a culture that preaches reuse and recycle, so maybe we should embrace the idea of living it?

Meanwhile the book mountain grew. How would he carry it home; we wondered.
He crossed the street carefully, arms down laden with books on theology, and books with seven easy answers to any problem the Christian Ever Had. He deposited the stack at the door of the Mennonite Church. And he made his way across the parking lot cradling a single book.

The Art Of Sensual Massage.

(of course, that wasn't OUR book. Cough, snuffle, shuffle.... Somebody must have left it here.... How embarrassing.....)

I Just Wanna-Be Wanda

"Why can't I be Wanda?"; she whined when she wandered by Wanda's wares and wondered at the sign that said "Sold Out".

Wistfully she wished that she was good at marketing. Wished that her ideas would grow wings and win customers. Wondered if wiping bums would be her weeks winnings forevermore.

ah, Wanda. Why can't bags and hats and bracelets made of winning vintage fabrics be my writing on the wall? Whistling all the way to the bank then, would I.

All those winning pieces of washable wonders. My wearable wares whipped up from weary wardrobe cast-offs ought to be well-worn by the wealthy and make me well-to-do.

Wanda. You are yet wet behind your whimsical ears, while I wither with wind and work and age.

I wish I were worthy of that workwoman, Wanda. Will my willpower wither if you withhold from me your winning marketing ways?

Woe-be-gone are we. I can hardly withstand my want of becoming Wanda.

Happy Trails To Me

Spontaneity is good.

My sister has volunteered on the Le Cuisine crew at the Winnipeg Folk Festival for the past number of years. I meant to fill in the online volunteer form myself this year and attempt to join her, but somehow the urgency of the everyday kept getting in the way.

She called me on the day before the festival with an amused, slightly apologetic tone to her voice. "I think you're volunteering this weekend....."

And so, that's where I got to play on Friday.
Its been ten years since I'd last made it to the festival, though we thought about it every year. Before I had kids, I always loved seeing families there together; the kids all dirty and happy and hippy. Then I had kids, and I tried it myself.

YUCK.

So, yesterday I got to be a grown-up, all by myself, at the Folk Fest. Woo hoo!!

Have you heard of pasties? No, not pastries. Pasties are about two or three inches in diameter, backed with adhesive, and used as body decor. If I were wearing pasties right now, they would likely be peaking out of the bottom of my t-shirt.

Do ya GET it? Its like a very, very small bikini without the strings.

My Kid is Gonna Be Thirteen!

She's a nice kid.

~

She and her friends are fun to hang out with.

~

There are some neural connections being made that don't always involve someone's wallet or someone's self-interests.

~

She learned to take responsibility for her own academic career this year.

She's pretty.

~

She's not a klutz like her mother.

~

She is creative.

~

She has confidence.

~

~

~

Clearly, there is a loving God.

But...

Some of the things that tie my guts into knots which then re-knot themselves into other knots I can't write about here.

But it would be so good for me if I could.

But I can't because it would be disrespectful towards people who are involved. My thoughts would be unprocessed, quite possibly harsh, and probably dramatic.

All my people are good. Nobody is beating me with a stick or anything.

But I feel like doing a word puke.

But I can't.

(but don't I look riduculously poutey there?!)

On Living Without a Memory

I have no idea when my children got their first teeth. I can get you to the airport but I can't remember the names of the streets to get you there.

I've got some lovely perennials in the back yard. Every spring I'll ask a seasoned gardener what the names of all the plants are.
Next spring I'll ask again. Well, I'll wait until next spring, but I should ask again in a week.

I've got all these mental files upstairs and they're packed full but I have sporadic and undependable access to the information. This can be embarrassing when someone asks me to repeat something that I apparently once said. If its not written down or tattoed on my inner arm.... good luck.

Its frustrating when I know I've learned things and I'd love to communicate them because they set me free in some area of struggle but I can't pull up the specifics on how I got there.

My brain works like a song you hum, but you can't remember the words. You have an excellent feel for it, and it evokes the emotion that the words carried but its hardly karaoke material.

Everything is kind of swirled together and melted around the edges. Its a brain that is not regulated by intellect so much as by emotion sets. Its hard to express the effect of information when all you can remember is the effect and not the event.

I can't remember why I started this post...

Why Sensible People Don't Throw Costume Parties

Canada Day holiday and I'm not "working" today. I mean to say that I'm not going to get paid to work today.

*

Some time to venture into my "work space" and contemplate doing something about the endless clutter squatting there.

*

This is what my sewing room looks like for about 14 seconds after I've spent half a day cleaning it up.

*

All the vintage fabrics and trims I've collected over the past 15 years or so are properly stored away in old suitcases or cleverly stacked on my big old wooden work table.

*

Then I have a space to work in, so I open up the suitcases and begin to rummage through them.

*

Then I plan a party and have to go about de-cluttering the living room, dining room, bathroom, and kitchen.

*

I deposit large piles of strange things under my wooden work table.

*

The things I simply don't have time to identify, I shove into a grocery bag and huck under that same table.

*

If I were sensible and i didn't collect stuff to begin with, I wouldn't have to figure out how to keep it all tidy.

*

If I were sensible, I wouldn't plan fun, fun parties where we laugh our guts out and play

dres

s-up. I couldn't plan them, because I wouldn't have collected all the props for that particular theme.

*

If I were sensible, I'd likely live in a conservative bungalow, a nice tidy one without old fabric spilling out of bags and boxes.

*

I'm awfully glad I'm not sensible.