Words Escape Me

Well hello there. I've been breaking the first rule of blogging lately, which is blog.
That was profound. Maybe you should write this down:

Rule #1 of blogging: Blog.


I haven't been writing lately because of my other rules: be positive, don't complain, work through your feelings first before telling others. Truth is things have been downright exhausting, hard, and sad lately.

To keep all of my rules, I'm not going to go into it as yet. Just know that 2.5 weeks ago I intended to write a plucky piece about other things you can make when life gives you lemons. And I wanted to make this phrase viral:

When life gives you lemons, make lemon curd. 

Curd is such a gross word; it fits.

Here were the pictures for the positive post that I didn't write. This picture symbolized the things going wrong:

make lemon curd

This one represented controlling the "lemons" and making them into something useful and pretty:

bunt those lemons!

Shortly after taking this I almost keeled over because I was taking them on my back porch and overheated. I fled to Target to use WiFi, drink water, and get Advil. (I couldn't go inside my apartment because...it was filled with an asphalt smell. So much lemon curd to be made!)


At any rate, things have been difficult, and one thing I know and learned was after a lot of stress a person's higher level thinking skills (including creativity) plummets. It's simple brain chemistry. My brain was/is trying to help me survive.

I can fight. I can take flight, but unfortunately, I couldn't write. The thoughts were too visceral too raw, more meaningless onomatopoeias than words. It felt so unlike me that I wondered if I had brain damage. I asked friends if I seemed somehow altered, dumber, to test me, to be honest. But really it was my brain on cortisol over far too many days.

I think I see a glimmer after today of finding words again, which is a relief because I need to write to earn my keep.

For me, health and writing are linked, and they come only with quiet, peace, stillness and being alone. Are you that way?

I sat in silence for hours and hours driving. Hours and hours at home all alone. Hours in silent exercise in nature and another hour getting a massage. And I can hear myself writing now in my head.

So today I learned:

Until I am composed, I can't compose. 

The Fault in Our Stairs

There are so many perks to owning or renting an older home in St. Louis: the charm, the neighborhoods, the older trees, the unique floor plans and architecture.

However, there are a few things inherent to the older homes that are problematic at best, the closets and the staircases.

I have been on the lookout for a wardrobe, since my home has one closet; I found one last weekend. After asking around, I got my friend to agree to help me transport it. We were two girls with a truck and the open road limited only by our upper body strength.

As it turns out that was a pretty great limitation. We got the furniture in the truck, back to my place, and on the porch. I suggested we stop there because my staircase is scary steep. But my friend decided we shouldn't give up before trying.

Tried we did.

First pulling, then scooting and lifting stair by stair. At a certain point, I thought we would very likely win a Darwin award for this effort. "What will I say to Steve if I let Natalie get smushed by a wardrobe before the wedding?" I kept thinking. But it made it up to the landing and there we came to a crossroads. Definitely we make a good team and I credit our communication prowess more than any brute strength.


With a lot of older homes, as I said before, the stairs are problematic. One case has a 360 degree turn from bottom to top. The other has a 90 degree angle and right at this bend we had to stop.

Brainstorming, wiggling, leveraging didn't work. After about 20 minutes we had 2 very viable ideas on how to get the wardrobe up the last 4 steps, but we also agreed we lacked the arm power.

And here it sat.
And sat.
And sat.
And sat.

I've imagined many grim and cartoonish scenarios about it sliding back down the stairs, possibly killing me or my cat, and most certainly smashing everything so if I am not killed I will have to pay for the damages to the home.

I have done extensive cat jumping simulations to test it's precariousness. And it has passed, while the fear has remained. I felt better leaving the house after adding a counter balance Because if there's one thing Autumn has taught me, it's that everything's better with pumpkin on it.

And here it will continue to sit until more friends, of the male gender, come and to help me.

Everything Falls in the Toilet: a Weekend Project & Solution

I have a bathroom problem.
There is terrible little space.
The area between sink, toilet, medicine cabinet, and radiator is minimal.  Inches.
And my habits in getting ready in the morning render opening the medicine cabinet difficult.
See?

On multiple occasions I have dropped important things in the toilet.
My toothbrush, for instance.
The replacement toothbrush, for another.

Understandably, I dislike fishing things out, which means I needed to come up with a way to contain makeup and toiletries that isn't on a very narrow ledge.

And here my solution has been staring at me for months.

Enter tea canisters.  

I love these tins, and in fact I love all boxes, so I greatly increased my tea intake to warrant purchasing more.

Bravo tea company, you got me.

Now I thought on my problem this morning and realized have many many empty tins (about 8).

I imagined a few different ways to suspend, elevate, the tins this morning.  One thought involved tension rods (it didn't go well on the test run) another 3M hooks.  

Apartment living, and trying to do no harm to keep your security deposit sure does help 3M doesn't it? Remind me to get their prospectus this summer to check stock options. 

I decided some discrete tea cup hooks would work best.  The holes (if properly placed) won't show up in an inspection. 

One of the good things about me being me is, I had everything I needed already:
An imagination.
A surplus of tins.
Hooks.
Nails.
A Hammer.

Do you have those?  Good... let's get started.

First I drove a nail through each tin.  I poked about 3 holes per tin and you will need the metal to be up against a hard surface, if it isn't the sides will dent.  I decided to nail it on the back porch to utilize the crack in the boards.

The hole (if you are poking out) will make the metal around the hole sharp.  File it down if you have kids or are prone to accidents. 

Then I drove a nail in the medicine cabinet shelf to make twisting the hook relatively simple.  Depending on the wood, you may need to use pliers.  

Make sure that the hook will clear the wall when twisting before starting the hole.  It may seem like I am talking down to you, but even if your spacial skills are keen pretend to rotate the hook first, then start the hole.  Trust me. 

If you've made the hole in the tin 1.) large enough and 2.) close enough to the top to accommodate the hook, you're in business.  Everything is smooth sailing from here on.

Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.


And 25 minutes later, if you got distracted by texts, making coffee, or misplacing your hammer multiple times (it happens) you should be done.

I gave this a vote of confidence and then stood on the toilet to show you how logistically this is a difficult bathroom setup.

I can open my cabinet now!

Harney & Sons, you have been instrumental in helping me get organized and stay sanitary.
I salute you.

Hot Cool Yours: Simple DIY for Saving Money

It seems all to fitting that they Olympics and my heating situation could both have the same slogan.
Hot Cool Yours
Though, I think it more apt written this way:  Hot?  (No.) Cool = Your[s] (home)
This explains how my apartment feels.
At night it is downright cold.  But there are certain pockets of the space that feel hot.
Such is the condition of a place built in 1913.

One aspect of the apartment that I found appealing aesthetically were the radiators.
Beautiful to look at, and functional, but I haven't utilized these as well as I might have.

After TGBD'13 (the gas bill of December 2013), I found a tip that could help my heated pockets spread the wealth.  The radiators can get quite hot to the touch, so I wanted to increase its thermodynamic radius*.

*I made that term up.

The tip suggested using aluminum foil.  The foil, when placed dull side to the wall has the shiny side facing the radiator.  The logic goes like this, since the heat source is next to a reflective surface the heat should bounce off instead of straight into the wall.
I decided to fix the foil to each wall using Washi tape.
Washi tape is growing to be a popular way to decorate apartments, and I've been looking for a reason to use it.  Since it is adhesive but doesn't leave lasting marks that could jeopardize my security deposit it's great for apartment livers like myself.  I found my tape at Target.

It's difficult to capture, since the behind the wall space is so small, but I pre-folded the edges of the foil, measuring and tearing sheets of about 2 feet each.  I found managing tinfoil longer than that was difficult.
I don't like wrestling with tinfoil, it just crumples under pressure.
Be ready for the foil to fly up towards the radiator.  I put the Washi tape on the tinfoil to troubleshoot this.

Then I fixed Washi tape at the top and bottom.  I wanted to ensure I had enough tape to place foil behind every radiator.  But now that I have them up, I will be framing the sheets along all edges to help it look a little more polished.

Essentially the foil serves the same function as it would in an oven.  The shiny side reflects heat off in a more useful direction than the wall.  Because who needs a warm wall?  I need warm toes!

Nerd alert: The science behind this intrigues me.  I hope to place thermometers around my apartment and take readings with the foil in place and without to see if there is a difference, or if this project was just had a placebo effect on me.