SEARCH AND RESCUE

It all started with a lovely little red wreath.

A few weeks ago during a trip to the Michael's, Aunt Chrissy carefully selected a lovely little red heart wreath for her front door. "I'll put this up for Valentine's Day", she said. "Then once Spring comes, I'll change it to my hydrangea wreath."

I, of course, was probably lost in some craft store haze, and I'm sure I muttered to myself something along the lines of "Why do they have the freakin' Valentine's decorations out now? It's only November." Or something to that effect.

The lovely little red wreath is, naturally, absolutely perfect on Aunt Chrissy's front door, and in the evenings when the street light comes on you want to walk right up her front sidewalk and peek in the windows to see if the rest of her house is as lovely as the porch.

For the record, it is.

When you walk into Aunt Chrissy's house, it always smells nice. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it's fresh and homey and warm and inviting. Then, within seconds of stepping in the door there is a bouncy, happy little dog smothering you with kisses, and he wiggles his heiney and wags his tail and lets you know that he has no use for silk smoking jackets. (Or sarcasm.) Every vignette or wall is decorated perfectly without looking "stagey", and all you want to do is kick your shoes off and curl up on the big couch and look around. There's stitching everywhere, and when you really look at it carefully, you can see the entire history of Aunt Chrissy's life. You can see the piece that she worked on when she took Dad to chemo, the pillows that she stitched when she was still in Phoenix, and even a few pieces that she stitched when she first came to Indiana and spent hours and hours and hours up in the studio. In short, Aunt Chrissy's house is a very very happy place.

This is all by way of explanation of why I had a full-on ugly cry meltdown last Thursday night and how my little sister singlehandedly got rid of a bad case of the Mean Reds.

I'm not sure if it's the goofy weather or an impending stitchy slump or the lack of Jeffrey Dean Morgan sightings, but I have been an absolute pill. Pouty and grumpy and whiny and very very high maintenance.

(Anybody who knows me will tell you that this condition is actually not new at all, but rather a general state of being for me these last 45 years or so, but what do they know?)

Anywhoo, on Thursday night I dropped Aunt Chrissy off after our weekly grocery shopping and I came home and sat down in the middle of my bathroom floor and threw what can only be described as a Veruca Salt hissy fit of epic proportions.

"Why can't I have anything nice?" I moaned. "I hate my house and my stupid decorations and my big empty walls and my ugly front door and my plain old rooms and..and...and" (insert hiccupy ugly cry here).

Apparently, the sight of that lovely little red wreath was enough to send me into hysterics, and I did my level best to play Single White Female until I got exactly what I wanted, which is apparently the ability to be exactly like my little sister and to live in a house that's cozy and nice and not at all like a bus station.

Stewey poked his head in to see what all of the fuss was about, and then I assume that he picked up the phone and called his Aunt Chrissy to request a rescue, because before I knew it my shoes were on and we were standing in the Targets looking for new bath towels. Then it was on to the Michael's to find something for MY front door, and finally, we ended up at the Bed Bath and Freakin Beyond for a painting that magically has the name "Constance" in it .

She started with my front door and she didn't stop until she had transformed my crappy, dumpy, ugly little house into something wonderful. I'm pretty sure that we made eighteen trips to various and sundry places, but the end result is a very very happy spinster who now lives in a very very happy house.

(By the way, another way of saying all of this is: Once upon a time, I was throwing a tantrum at the bottom of a very deep dark well. Aunt Chrissy heard my whining, took out her little flashlight, and hollered down "What's the matter, Sissy? Dry your eyes and grab my hand and we'll make it all better".)

And then she did.

So here's a few pics of her work. I confess that I'm a little apprehensive to post photos of a bathroom, but you get what I'm trying to show you, right?

Look what she did for the Big White Wall of Nothingness! (And yes, I know that the tags are still on the flowers, but we wanted to make sure that they worked there before ripping them all off.) OH! And did you notice the spanky new lampshade? The wattage of the light bulb stayed the same, but I no longer have to wear a miner's hat to see things in here at night! Woo Hoo!



Ahhhh. My front door. (You'll be happy to know that Aunt Chrissy already selected the flowers for March and that they are ready to go.) (Stewey wholeheartedly approves.)


And last, but not least is my new bathroom. Doesn't it look like a woman lives here now instead of a herd of frat boys? (P.S. Who doesn't LOVE some purple?) (Oh, and the painting with the flower has a bunch of French words written on it, and very clearly in the upper left corner is my name...Constance!)

So that's my story for today. Thank you for indulging my need for a "Look at meeeee"moment, but I really wanted you to know that there is no reason whatsoever to feel at all sorry for the likes of me. I might have a dog who ties my tiny little brain up in knots just for the fun of it, but I do have a sister (er, um, I mean caretaker) who MORE than makes up for it!

Happy Monday!