Well, it certainly has been a long time since I last visited!  It has been a very long and eventful year, which hopefully will soon settle down.....

But never fear.... come feast or famine, excitement or melancholy, planned events vs unexpected last minute changes.... renovations do continue on!

Chapter 4: A Child of the 70's

Being a baby boomer may mean different things to different people. There's the crowd that thrives on 4 wheel drive urban wagons.... or the ones who specialize in early retirement...or even the ones who spend all their time trying to be overachievers!  But for me, being a boomer means that I actually grew up in the 70's... not born then, but definitely the formative teen years which shape your thoughts, your abnormal ideas, and yes, even your strange perceptions for the rest of your life.

Now I know most of you are totally puzzled and are probably thinking 'Yeah, sure...how far out could it really be?    But I see a lot of you nodding your heads and smiling.  Yup... you were there, too, weren't you?

Take for instance...... school.  School back then was fun. Really!  Trust me...I'd never lead you astray.  But hey... you should know all about it. Reality shows were not a new trend in the last ten years.  For those of you who were there, the only reality that really exists on television was.....(drum roll, please...)...'That 70's Show'.  Oh, yeah, now that was real. That was my class...those were my friends...and those were my clothes.  I just can't figure who was taking all the movies of us!! There must have been hidden cameras everywhere!   (But come to think of it, I somehow lost track of my yellow/green/blue plaid pants and the yellow short sleeve sweater with the navy and white stripes that I wore with it over a dark blue long sleeve shirt.  I was so cool!  I really rocked!!)

Hassan was our real foreign exchange student.  And Carlson's hair was actually a lot bigger (psst...and he experimented a lot more, if you know what I mean.)..... Jim was the nerdy one always trying to be the 'in person'.  The girls...well they were all of us, and who we all wanted to be. But you know.... I can't figure out whose parents they typecast for the television roles!!  I think they stretched to truth there... probably for entertainment value!

The music, the fashions, the hairstyles, the colors.... the 'new movement' that grew out of the 50's 'Happy Days, and the 60's 'Hippy' days. Days when 'Love' would rule the world...  Bear in mind that my older brother was of an impressionable age in the 60's...so I saw a lot of that era first hand...although not necessarily from him!  After all, could you picture him as a hippy?  There is not an imagination strong enough to conjure up a picture of him with long hair, beads and flowers in his hair!  Just too freakin' funny!!! But I did notice his friends...and siblings of his friends!  Music, on the other hand, he did enjoy.... from the 'Beatles' to 'Please Mr. Custer', he had them all!!   Of course, some things from the 60's needed to meld into the 70's and slowly fade away as newer and more refined customs took their places! 

Like flowers....in the 60's everyone either wore or sang about flowers...flowered neck leis or 'Going to San Francisco with Flowers in Your Hair'.......  So, how did this transfer itself into the newer, hipper 70's children?  Hey we liked flowers, too, but we were more interested in learning how to survive in case of the world coming to an end. After all, the hippies weren't successful in saving the world with all their love, so now we were all going to be very sensible about it and find a way to use those flowers in case of emergency.  Hence.... tulip stem salad!   Oh, yeah....and tasty it was. With a pinch of camomile flowers and a bit of rose hip broth...we were ready to face whatever was thrown at us!  The town suffered a major tulip crisis in the summer of 72....

Music.... well, the Beatles survived, but we found a duo that was ...oh, so much better!  Hours and hours of time spent listening to the hilarious comedy and shenanigans of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong!  There's not a 70's child who can't still break down in uproarious laughter and side splitting shaking just at the mention of 'Sister Mary Elephant' or 'Fifi'. Or who cannot sympathize, if not actually immortalize their own experience, when things went 'Up in Smoke'!  Ah.... those were the days, my friends.........

And the booze....those tiny little sample bottles so easily hid in your pockets on Friday night!  We thought we were in heaven if we scored one of those!  We'd carry it around with us for weeks, just to look important!  (I don't know if anyone ever thought of actually drinking them... but they were a very important accessory!)  And the visits to the friendly, if somewhat suspicious, neighborhood after-hours 'store'.  You know the one....where the dear little lady so carefully wraps up those 'brown' paper bags, and hollers out as you leave here house 'be sure to bring those potatoes right home to your mother, dear!'. Well, about a mile down the hill, we'd all 5 meet up, head off to our secret spot in the woods, with the fallen logs for benches, and each sip back on one of those sweet 'potatoes'.... and when we were done of those, the sixth 'potato' was passed around for all to enjoy a last few drops!  Man, were we cool!  

So, how does this fun loving, risk taking, product of the 70's become todays somewhat staid, if not seemingly boring (but not bored by any means!!!), hard working, multi-tasking, energy professional?

Well, first you go away to college. Then you grow up, get a job, take on responsibilities, get married, start enjoying other things in life, until finally you look back and realize you've come a long way from where you used to be.  So now you are the 'parents' from the 70's show, with the house, the car and the 9-5 job. While some started families of their own, some of us just 'borrowed' kids...that way we could send them home if they didn't behave!  (Now you tell me who's the smarter ones???  All of the pleasure and none of the tantrums!!)

So its March of 2006 and there I sat, ready to remodel this, our newest acquisition.  My mission: To kill off the Pastel Bunny and perhaps make the world a much calmer and serene place to live, with a splash of color to liven things up.  Now, there will be some method to my madness.  Hubby is still in Alberta, and this is my chance to make color decisions which I know may not be as easily done should he be here at my side.  Not that he would mind, but he leans toward beige walls throughout being the ultimate in design choice.  And we all know that most (but, not all....) men do not see the distinction between the thousands of shades of each color. From experience, I've learned to just go ahead and pick a color... once it's on the walls, he never fails to comment on how nice it all looks!  Years ago, when my husband would mention a weekend with the guys to go hunting, or a weekend visit to his relatives, I would mentally start the list...paint, paper, brushes, etc and literally run out the door 10 minutes after he left, actual list in hand!   Then I'd stack the old turntable with 6 or 7 Elton John albums and work like the devil.  One weekend I managed to paper and paint an entire apartment on my own, before he got back to town!  He's quick, though... next time he went away and called home, his first question when he heard the background music was 'What are you doing over now?'  So, I am confident that however outlandish I go, however dark I decide to paint the rooms, that he will be pleased with the result in the end.  Now here is where strategy comes in..... I don't plan to finish the entire house while he's gone...just the rooms I want to make the most drastic changes in.  I'll leave some for him.... most likely the places where I want a light non-color, or where there are high ceilings.  My momma didn't raise no fools!!

So, I'm armed with measurements, knowledge of all my furniture and accessories and mental images of how I want the rooms to 'feel' when they are done being painted. For one remnant which lives on from that wonderful 70's decade is that everything must have a good 'vibe' and needs to be really 'cool'. The feeling of relaxation is important as is the need to revitalize our energy! So.... It's off to the hardware store and hours and hours of checking out the paint types and colors.  I know I'll come home with scads and scads of little paint samples and yes, scotch tape.

Come on, now, you must know what I want the tape for???  Surely no one can tell what a color is going to look like on a wall from one little sample.  And how do you match a 1.5 by 1.5 little square of color against your furniture or window coverings?  Yes...you tape several together to get a better 'feel' for it.  I know Debbie would encourage us all to buy little sample bottles of the colors we want to try!  Martha would encourage us to bring in existing items we want color coordinated and have a 'custom color' mixed for us!  But, dammit, this is 'Decorating on a Dollar' here, and we don't even have the $1,000 for the whole house, let alone for each room! So samples and tape it is!

My biggest dilemma.... After sacrificing the 'Pastel Predator', should I lean towards the more outlandish and bold colors of my 70's self, or .... will I remain with the pale but more stately earthtone colors which would seem closer to my professional image? I can see the challenge now... my right hand grasping a gallon of 'mulled wine', or 'mediterranean sunset', while my left is getting ready to swing a gallon of 'dessert sand'!  Meanwhile...if you could only be privy to the conversations I'll be having with myself!!