This morning—I’m writing this on Monday night—I looked at my stat counter and was shocked to see that although it was barely 7 a.m., I already had a couple hundred hits on this here blog. Scott looked amused and pointed out that it was TEN a.m. on the East Coast, DUH, and all those hits were my morning-coffee readers and I’d given them nada. And you know here at ClubMom we are committed to posting at least five times a week. Five times—ha! I could write about fifteen posts a week for the next month and I probably still wouldn’t have told all the stories from our trip. But then, Steve the LlamaButcher says I should just turn it into a novel. He’s probably right. So much to tell! And new stuff every day, that’s the thing, I just need a pause button to get caught up.
I like our little bungalow more and more each day. Mostly I just like saying bungalow. I’m not even sure it IS officially a bungalow, but it sure seems bungalicious to me. The front part of the house is all unpacked now, although technically it’s more like the right half of the house—it’s like a square split in half and one half is slid back a ways. That half has the living room, the kitchen, and another room whose name we keep changing.
I think we’re a little weird about room names, the bonny clan and I. In our Virginia house, the bedrooms all had names: the Blue Room (the girls’ room, which our great pal Dave painted blue for us as a housewarming gift—Benjamin Moore "Summer Blue," which is such a scrumptious color that Scott painted the girls’ room in it HERE as a surprise for them, and boy did that go over big!! but I digress); the Pooh Room (I know, I know, so silly, but see, when we moved in there was a border strip of Winnie the Pooh wallpaper around the top of the room, and we never got around to taking it down, so the room was always the Pooh Room even after it became Wonderboy’s and would have been called Wonderboy’s Room by normal people) (except normal people probably wouldn’t call their son Wonderboy); the Train Room (really the dining room, but we don’t have a dining set, and we DO have a large Brio train table inherited from Scott’s sister); and the Loom Room. Yes, the Loom Room. See, I have a loom. I have actually woven three fabrics on it in my life. One of them is the swatch of woolen cloth that serves as the background on Bonny Glen, and yes I’ve been waiting for a solid YEAR for someone to ask me about that lovely woven background. (Lissa blushes modestly: Why yes, I did weave it myself. Oh, go on, you’re far too kind. It’s just a little thing I threw together. Stop, you’re embarrassing me!)
When we moved into the Virginia house, we put my loom in the extra bedroom and immediately christened the room The Loom Room. The Loom Room it remained for five years, despite the fact that no weaving ever took place within its walls. The loom loomed in the corner, a homey, inviting, faintly reproachful presence, sort of like Marian Cunningham. Even when we moved the loom OUT of that room three years ago, we kept on calling it the Loom Room. Later we moved the loom back into its old familiar corner. I stored my stack of special Christmas-themed picture books under it, untidily and for no sensible reason.
Anyway. Here we are in a new house and the loom is in pieces. (Sob! The darn movers, they didn’t ask me, they just unscrewed!! As if I know how to put it back together! Oh sure, there’s a manufacturer’s website but it’s in SWEDISH. I highly doubt Babelfish is up to the challenge. But we’ll tackle that puzzle another day.)
So no loom room here. But the rooms here are already growing their own names. For example, there’s the Mystery Room, so named because we haven’t decided what to do with it. It’s the only unassigned room in the house and will probably be our Fun Learning Stuff room or maybe my office? We dunno.
And then there’s this room, the Patio. Except there’s a real patio right outside. This is sort of an enclosed patio/sunroom/family room space, and the owners call it the patio room, and we started off that way but now we’re wondering if that suits it best. Scott wants to call it the Salon, with a snooty faux-French pronunciation. I was thinking Sunroom, but Sal-O makes me laugh.
Of course, we stuck the old train table in here, and today I heard one of the girls calling it the Train Room, even though we haven’t unpacked the actual trains yet. Huh.
Oh, brother, my apologies to those of you reading this incoherent rambling over your morning coffee. You probably needed a second cup to get through it. Forgive me; I haven’t yet unpacked the box with my brain in it.
Aaahhh–My breakfast is complete once again. Grapenut Flakes, a Diet Coke and The Lilting House. No better way to start the day. Hugs.
Yes, you should do it.
Also, thanks to this post, I’ll be walking around today with “Bungalow” (pronounced using the voice of Beavis, chanelling Cornhholio [ask Scott]) going through my head.
The brain is unpacked and ready. I’m so glad to have it back with my morning coffee. 🙂
How nice to hear your reports of moving. I’ve been enjoying the whole thing vicariously. We’re just moving too, and I have to confess some bitter angst at your ability to be already halfway unpacked. I am wretchedly slow and well, wretched about unpacking. Blast.
I did always wonder about the background on the Bonny Glen. I have to go back and study it now! Beautiful. I am a morning coffee reader too. When you were on East Coast time I could always count on you posting before I had sat down with nice warm cup.
Same here. I’ve been in the habit of catching The Lilting House first thing every morning. Then I realized that first thing *my* morning was middle-of-*your*-night. Duh.
I’m glad you’re liking your new home so much. May it lilt as much as your old home did.
Actually, I loved it that there was a post late last night after I (finally) got the kids to bed and was staying up studying. (Well, maybe I wasn’t as I was browsing the internet …).
The house sounds great — glad you’re getting settled. But, oh dear! The Loom!
Funny you should mention the time zone. I was just thinking, as I got ready to sit down AFTER lunch, my 15 minutes of quiet before the afternoon swings into full throttle, that I may not see any new posts, because I thought you usually did them at lunch time, which is mid-afternoon here. Maybe, my time to read the new posts will work out! Oh well, baby is crying (wouldn’t you know it?)
Glad you’re back! We miss you on the East Coast.
Love:
Mary Beth
Hi, You don’t know me but I actually speak Swedish and I live relatively close to the San Diego area. I don’t know that I know words to describe looms or loom pieces but I can try.
Carlie–oh no, no, no, let me clear up a misconception. I don’t have HALF THE UNPACKING done–I’ve just unpacked HALF THE HOUSE, which is different. Because, see, 80% of the boxes are crammed into 50% of the house. I’ve just begun to make a dent. I can upload a picture of my back rooms (aka Wonderboy’s bedroom and the mystery room) which are wall to wall booxes, if that’d make you feel better. 🙂
Our “spare room” got renamed after ds misheard us and kept calling it the Sparrow Room, which we like much better. I really want to mount a birdhouse on the door!
I love reading about Bonny Glen West. Joy abounds as always!
>Oh sure, there’s a manufacturer’s website but it’s in >SWEDISH.
Do your remember when our playmobile victorian dollhouse was dismantled? The only manufacturer’s website I could find at the time was in German (I should have had you translate.) Anyhow, I figured out how to send an email to the sight and wrote an imploring note saying I do not speak German and need directions on putting the house (which was then in about three million pieces) back together. They wrote back immediately and mailed the English directions within less than a week.
Comparing the loom to Marian Cunningham?! How perfect! I love it!
Oops! That last post was from me . . . the one who witnessed the “homey, inviting, faintly reproachful presence” in the loom room often. I’m just not accustomed to POSTING comments since I’m SO accustomed to commenting in person. Oh well . . .yet another area of potential growth!
How about calling your enclosed patio a “solarium” — you can add a lilt to it to make it sound as snooty as “salon,” but it actually just means “a room built largely of glass to afford exposure to the sun. A common example of this is a glassed-in porch” (definition from wikipedia).
Fabulous Fabric background over at the Bonny Glen! All this talk of weaving has me itching to find my few pieces I brought with me to the boat and I could NOT easily find them today!!! It is really bugging me, I thought I knew where they were…Regarding your multi-pieced loom, ask around local yarn shops and you’ll be bound to find a weaver to help you reassemble and be pleased as punch to do it too, I’ll bet!
Oh yes…that room would be a sunroom. They are very common in Florida, my old stompin grounds…. 🙂
Welcome to California! Our family just made the big move, too, for my husband’s fellowship at Stanford. In June, we get to do it all over again when it’s time to go back home to Florida. Woo hoo! Packing and unpacking! At Stanford, there’s something called SURPS (Symposium of Undergraduate Research and Public Service). I think of you every time I see a poster for it on campus.