Author: Staci

Staci blogs about travel at TheVoyageer.com.

Maturity

Maturity, what an interesting word, isn’t it? My puppy is physically mature at the age of one, but won’t be mentally mature until closer to two. Typical boy, right?

Libby directed my attention to an article called The Rush to Maturity. She wrote her own response to it and invited me and Katie to do the same. So, instead of home-decor-related adventures, today you, dear readers, shall get a dose of self-related adventures. Feel free to skip if you’re craving something shallow. Not all bloggers do this. I might over-share big time,but things are about to get “real” and if you’re down with that, you may come along for the ride.

The above-mentioned article discusses the Middle School Girl of today skanking it up because that is what they see their media role models (and probably big sisters and other older females) doing. I’m not going to say I’ve noticed it, here in Kansas, at least, since I don’t pay that much attention to middle school students. I did notice it in a more exaggerated way in California (“Daisy dukes, bikinis on top…”). I can attest to the fact that it is becoming increasingly harder and harder to tell the age of people younger than me–to differentiate between middle school, high school, and college–the lines are extremely blurry. It’s a “gradient” effect. This may be a result of my own aging, and the result of dress trends, or (most likely) a combination of these two factors.

If you knew my 6th grade self and my 7th grade self, you knew two different people. There are layers to why this happened. The first layer was the fact that I moved between those school years. The summer of 1999 was a huge turning point. I had lots of cool friends from 6th grade and I had more self-confidence than I’d had at any point of my still-quite-young existence. I dressed almost like a tomboy–with huge baggy jeans that were all the rage and tight 70s-inspired striped shirts. My shoulder-length blonde hair fell to a part in the middle and I looked like the lost female member of Hanson. I had plenty of access to make-up, since my mom sold Mary Kay (samples galore) but had very little interest in it. Then we moved. To California. Suddenly my overalls, big t-shirts, and sock-with-sandals motif was a fashion nightmare. It was all about tiny tops and short shorts, tight jeans and Brand Names. When I rattled off a list of coveted brands to my Colorado friends–Hurley, Roxy, Volcom, DVS–I was met with giant question marks. Ah, the days before the internet.

I immediately knew I was a resident of loserville and something had to be done. I knew what was “cool” but I didn’t know how to acquire it. The price tag was a huge deal. I had plenty of good clothes that fit well, my parents weren’t willing to buy me a whole new wardrobe–with good reason–those brands cost an arm and a leg! I fell into a close-knit group of friends, all of whom I still love dearly but we all knew we weren’t in league the “cool” kids. We had our niche and a good group of friends, and looking back on it, that was much healthier than having shallow connections and trying to impress the “cool” girls so they’d be our “friends.” I suppose that was my first little jump into maturity, my eyes were opened more than ever to the class warfare of middle school.

Fast forward to 2011. I am more self-confident than I have been in my whole life. I get pangs of insecurity when people take jabs at me about giving up California for Kansas, but I am seriously owning this “Kansas” thing. I finally got a good job, I have tons of friends and a great husband. But maturity is in the forefront of my mind more than it has been in years. I keep feeling like I need to act older. Be older. Set up a 401(k). Stop making foolish decisions. Have “standing appointments” for things. Make lots of money. Have “colleagues” instead of friends. I am only 23! Some of my peers are still living with their parents. To each his own. But in this respect, I feel like the girls in the article. Dying to be older, be more responsible, have a more “glamorous” life (obviously this word is interpreted differently according to age range). I suppose I need to settle, be comfortable in the “in-between” moments in life, that middle school and early 20s both happen to encompass. You’ve departed, but not yet arrived. Not quite young, not quite old.

To be content in the “now” is something incredibly hard for most people, but, from what I can imagine, must be pretty nice. Free. Relaxing.

Check back tomorrow for a new-house-related post. Renting a house instead of an apartment. Maybe I am growing up.

New House (With Pictures!)

This post is extremely long. I feel like Sherry from YHL! Get comfortable!

The moment has arrived. Photos of the new house. The interior, at least. It’s been dark out while we’ve been over there working, so I couldn’t get any shots of the exterior. Those will go up next week after I take some more pictures this weekend! All of these photos were taken after mopping the floors (didn’t want to majorly gross you out).

When you enter the front door, you step into the living room, with non-functioning fire place, which you can kind of see here. I can’t wait to paint everything a lighter shade and liven up the inside of the fire place with a glossy pop of color! The reason the front room light isn’t on is so you can get a better view of what lies beyond the arched doorway… the dining room, kitchen (you can see the cabinets) and small strange off-kitchen nook. The nook has a window with a high bar counter. I can envision eating breakfast there.

 

Here’s the living room from another angle. On the right of this picture you can see the doorway leading into the dining room, and the front door is out-of-frame on the left. What I stupidly didn’t take a picture of is the view as if you were standing by the fireplace. There are 5 windows in this room! The two on the front wall are really tall, and the 3 on the other walls are “normal” sized. Whatever normal is.

Here’s another view of the small off-kitchen and bar area, taken from the middle of the dining room. In the following photo you can see….

My doggy! And… one of our many doors for exit (we have 3). This one was painted shut and Doug had to use all of his manliest strength to open it from the outside. One of the first things to do is get our glass guy (we have a friend who does glass for a living; I love saying “our glass guy,” I hope someday I can be somebody’s “something guy” or gal) to replace that missing window. Due to the nastiness around it I assume a window AC unit used to be there. Note the breakfast bar area on the left. Getting your bearings?

Here is the kitchen. The room isn’t small but the counter space is surely limited. Is it sad that this is an upgrade from our current apartment? I assume the refrigerator is going to go on the blank wall next to the window. There’s no other spot for it!It will be SO nice to have a double sink. The drawers are tough to open and close so we are toying with the idea of turning them in to shelves (with cabinet doors). Out-of-frame, on the left side, the wall comes back and there is a door to the basement.

Now for the second half of the house!

First, I’ll show you the hallway. This is taken from the front bedroom. If you go through the doorway next to the fireplace (scroll up and picture it) and make a left, you are in the front bedroom. As you look down the hallway on the left you have a small closet, and the bathroom, and at the end you have the back bedroom. On the right you have two doorways. The first leads to the living room and the second leads to the dining room. This hallway is navy blue (even the ceiling!) and absolutely abysmal.

This is the view into the front bedroom. The window that goes all the way to the floor makes me hesitant about making this the master bedroom–harder to arrange furniture– although this room is slightly bigger

Eek! The bathroom. Look at that paint job. This room will be brightened up. I kind of hate the arch over the tub but we’ll see how it is once it’s repainted.

Lastly, here is the back bedroom. In my mind, this will be the master. I feel like the back of the house is safer than the front and the size of these windows lend to more interesting furniture setup (as opposed to the floor-length mirror in the front bedroom). However, this room is 11×11 as opposed to 13×11 so we shall see what we end up with.

In summary:

I am so excited over the floors in this house. So easy to keep clean. The wood is actually in quite nice shape. The smallness of the bedrooms is going to be interesting after going from our more loft-style apartment to this little hacienda-style bungalow. (You’ll see the exterior soon enough). I also have big plans for this place and I’m really excited about it.

It’s Tough

Life is tough when you’re this cute.

Yep, those are new sheets. The ones I’d been mad crushing on for ages. More on that in another post.