I spent the day at Yvonne's house Monday, finishing up our latest illustration project and i froze! I asked Chris if he had fallen prey to that whole "turn your thermostat down one degree and you can save $50 a year" crapola. It felt like he'd been turning it down one degree a year since they've been married. Seriously, though, he said they just keep it cool because he is miserable if it is too hot. And I was a little uncomfortable. But i also realized that part of what made me so uncomfortable was the fact that when I heard about the energy savings, i thought to myself, "so it only costs $50 a year to be a little warmer?" and i turned my thermostat up a degree. I have acclimated myself to being 6 degrees warmer than I was that day.
That got me thinking. If i'm so afraid of being out of my comfort zone, maybe what i need to do is get myself used to a little less cozy lifestyle. Maybe i need to be a little cold and a little hungry and a little sore and a little scared. Just possibly i will be a better, stronger person if i turn my thermostat down a degree (or two). I might be better off if i exercise more. And eat a little less. If i stopped procrastinating the organizational tasks and awkward phone calling i'm supposed to do every day, i might even benefit in other ways.
So i'm doing that. Slowly. But i've also done some things that have made my lifestyle a lot cozier and more beautiful and fun. And i'm okay with that. When we decided to add on to this cute little house last Spring, we knew that it meant that we would probably be here for a while (God willing), so we decided to make it a little cuter and more functional while we were at it. We added a family room and a garage and we dug a basement under the family room to use as storage. Well, that meant the storage would be joining the house through our bedroom, so to me, that only meant one thing: WALK-IN CLOSET!!! We have a kind of funny shaped bedroom. it's long and skinny, but the closet on the end was really smallish. I'm to blame, but when we finished the basement the first time, i couldn't see any way around it. I should have covered up one of the ridiculously teeny totally useless windows. Okay, i'm sure if my life depended on it, i could get out of it, but maybe not if i was pregnant, and no way could a fully-dressed fireman get in or out
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Our closet was built by Michael and Grant and Roland and Paul Crowther, and painted by me (thank you, thank you) but the shelves are from IKEA. Brilliant. I even put some of it together. William and Conor and Grant and Michael and Darlene helped, but i couldn't believe how easy it went together. Above is the view from the entrance. This is "my" wall of closets(closed and open).
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Our closet was built by Michael and Grant and Roland and Paul Crowther, and painted by me (thank you, thank you) but the shelves are from IKEA. Brilliant. I even put some of it together. William and Conor and Grant and Michael and Darlene helped, but i couldn't believe how easy it went together. Above is the view from the entrance. This is "my" wall of closets(closed and open).
To the left and below is Michael's wall. He thinks this is unfair somehow.
He has two fancy drawers to organize his ties and he has another whole closet on the other side (not as deep, but still, he could have 20 pairs of shoes and a trunk full of sweaters if he wanted to. It's got tools stored in it right now. hmmm.)
This is (not to brag) the IKEA jewelry insert that holds just some of my Tallulahs wealth. Tawnie asked me when she saw my list of favorites, "What's a Tallulahs package?" I'm going to answer that question, Tawnie, I promise. Soon. This is just a sneak peek. 
We have one of those fancy (read: expensive) keypad locks on the door from our closet to the storage room, but believe me, even though that means i have to go get the new bag of flour or the can of olives, it's worth it. Plus, Santa has a place to store his stuff. I had a friend in Jr. High whose dad used to lock the food storage and i thought that was so wrong. I couldn't believe he didn't trust his kids. I get it now. He trusted them implicitly. And he knew that next time he wanted to make cookies, the chocolate chips wouldn't be there. And in the future, I may be a little uncomfortable, but by golly, i'm going to have my earrings and some chocolate chips! 
8 comments:
I think I have closet envy.
i'm laughing really hard about you turning the heat up a degree. i always froze at work, too, where chris controlled the temperature. always kept my coat on in the winter.
i do love your closet. i want to come see for real.
and i love your tallulahs collection.
K. I have to make the long walk across the street to see this in person!! Gorgeous!!! Love you wit. Love your thoughts. Love your posts!!
You are a great blogger. Doug and I laughed out loud.
About doing things we don't like. Your mom once told me that we should do something we don't want to every day. She mentioned flossing. So I do that and figure the rest can be pampering.
That's funny - i only floss because you and Doug floss. i thought it was part of the pampering. heh.
Wow...THAT is a closet! Seriously, I am sooo jealous of that thing!! I so hope you are enjoying it!!
lol I love it. You're hilarious. You just have a way of saying what everyone else thinks. Your house is looking so good! I never thought to lock the food storage. Might be something to think about.
WOW Lorinda, that looks awesome! I bet you're having so much fun with all your new goodies! I need to come by sometime and see the new version!
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