things, stuff

I meant to share this a while ago, but got bogged down in the attempt to write a how-to. Our apartment has seven rooms/distinct spaces, and five ceiling lights. Of those five ceiling lights, only two have coverings- the rest are bare bulbs. Recently I have undertaken the task of creating coverings for those naked bulbs, and here is my first project: the hall light. 

I had seen things like this earlier and boldly thought to myself (as I so often do), "Psh! I can do that!" While this does often turn out to be true in the end, it usually takes weeks or months to actually do it because my over-confidence (which you can probably detect in my thought process in the previous sentence) leads me to not think through every step of the project, which leads to problems, me getting discouraged and frustrated but refusing to start over again...usually I'll figure something out (with the end result possibly not being as good as if I'd taken the time to think it through completely in the first place). This project worked out pretty well, but the circular pieces at the top and bottom, and especially the attachment piece, stumped me for quite a while.

The second lampshade I made was for the bathroom. Because we don't have any sort of fan in there (and having the window open isn't always an option), it tends to stay humid for a while after showers. So a paper shade probably wouldn't be best. Also, I wanted to be sure that whatever the shade, it didn't make the room dim. Bathrooms, in my humble opinion, should be bright spaces. Bart and I were meandering Old Town looking at couches a couple months ago and I saw a light sort of like this. I was entranced by its shiny glowy-ness. And I thought, "Psh! I can do that!" Well, upon reflection, I realized that I couldn't. But from there my thoughts went to the jars and boxes of sea shells I've amassed (and intend to continue amassing, because I loves them). I pulled out all the thin/translucent white ones, the white sea glass, and sand dollars. I bought heavy-duty wire, and some very very fine-gauge wire. I made a large ring and a smaller ring with the heavy wire, and then wired the shells to the ring. When I ran out of shells, I hung the rings from the mounting fixture in the bathroom (with the smaller ring a couple inches below the larger one). It looks a little sad- more shells and possibly a third, smaller ring would do the trick. So I need to go to the beach. My lampshade needs more shells!! Then I'll take a picture of it and post it.

Here are some drawings I finished recently. Faith, Hope, Love. 

It was sunny and warm yesterday for the first time in a while- warm enough to open the doors and windows, which was really nice- somehow our home has felt really damp for the past several weeks. 

We went out to Choza Mama last night. It's a fairly new Peruvian place in Old Town (replaced the Hooters that had been there, thanks be to God). We ordered chicha morada, fried plantains with custard-like coconut dip as an appetizer, and had the pulled pork (Bart) and paella (me) for the main course. There is enough paella left that I'll add more rice to it this evening and we'll have plenty for dinner for the two of us tonight.

Happy Friday!