• sky nest

    Remember when I wrote about my bedroom getting a facelift? If you don’t, that’s okay. It was three years ago, so here’s a recap: my husband tore out the teeny closet and installed a bigger and better closet on the opposite side of the room, and then, a few months later, he build a freestanding wardrobe, too. 

    November 2021

    We still weren’t done, though: I wanted a box with drawers for under our bed. Our bed has always been perched on the floor, an arrangement I actually prefer to a raised-up bed because, with the bed directly on the floor, I don’t have to clean under it and nothing can grab my feet. But we have always been ridiculously short on closet space (old house charm!), so I figured a bed on top of drawers would be the perfect solution. 

    My husband agreed, or so he said, but then nothing happened. 

    So for my birthday this year, I put “bed box” on my list (along with “patio” and “cheese cave” because —pro-tip — if you ask for something big, make sure you put several other big, BIG asks on the list because then it will make one of the big asks look more reasonable). And you know what? It worked! My older daughter mostly built the boxes (she works with my husband so “make mom’s birthday present” must’ve gotten tacked on her to-do list), and this week they installed the boxes while I was at work.

    When I got home that day, my daughter was giggling. “You gotta go look,” she said.

    As soon as I walked into my room, I busted up laughing.

    The bed is so high! As in, it’s so high the air feels thinner up there. As in, getting into bed takes some effort. As in, getting out of bed requires some actual sliding, and then there’s a wee drop, too. 

    finishing up the drawer handles

    But the drawers, oh, the drawers!

    They are absolutely massive.

    That very night, my husband and I went through our closets, and I dug the boxes of my off-season clothing out of the attic (actually, two of them have been parked on the bedroom floor for months), and we organized and put away — PUT AWAY — all of it.

    No more storage boxes for clothes! Our sheets and blankets are stored under our bed, and we still have room, lots of room, to spare.

    The room looks a little weird — giant bed, tiny furniture — but I don’t care. Eventually I’ll figure out what I need to do to fix the “problem,” but for now it’s everything I ever wanted and then some.

    Well, except for lighting. I really need to figure out a good bedside arrangement so I can read when I’m tucked in my nest.

    This same time, years previous: the quotidian (10.2.23), sunflowers, the quotidian (10.2.18), the soiree of 2014, a lesson I’d rather skip.

  • the quotidian (9.30.24)

    Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
    everyday; ordinary; commonplace

    Don’t be like me and forget to line the pan with foil.

    An unwatched pot will boil over.

    My mama made me a cake.

    My husband named it “La Buena” for a reason.

    To pierce my blues.

    What is this and what am I using it for?

    Fiona, boxed.

    Porch pretty.

    Birthday math.

    Be still my heart.

    Couch cuddles.

    This same time, years previous: wanna place bets?, wedding buns, church, the quotidian (9.30.19), hey-hey, look who’s here!, you’re invited, welcome home to the circus, the myth of the hungry teen, chocolate birthday cake.

  • party at the polls

    This is the first election in which my younger two kids get to vote, so yesterday I exercised my birthday privileges and requested (read: decreed) that we all go do early voting together.

    I typically like to vote on the the day of the election — there’s an excitment in the air and a fun community feel (a couple times, I’ve physically run to the polls to cast my ballot) — but this year I decided to vote early. I’ll be out of the country up until a couple days before the election, so I wanted to get it done ahead of time, just be absolutely sure I didn’t miss it.

    So yesterday afternoon we all met in the parking lot outside the polling station (my husband and I were on our way back from a hike, and my older daughter came from work). There were some last minute jitters — what was on the ballot again? had the online registration been done properly? — but then in we went. The correct names were found in the database, addresses recited, and then the poll workers handed us each a ballot, still warm from the printer, and we filled in our circles, fed our ballots into the the maw of the quietly-blinking machine lurking in the corner, grabbed our stickers from the table by the door, and back out to the parking lot we went.

    It was painless, fast, and efficient, and it delivered a nice little civic-duty buzz to boot.

    Go on, people Make a plan. Register. VOTE.

    This is one party you can attend for free, no birthday required.

    This same time, years previous: currently, the quotidian (9.26.22), what we ate, evening feeding, the quotidian (9.26.16), home cut, the run around, she outdid herself, a jiggle on the wild side.