Family room

Our yellow-golden-orangey family room:

A conversation with a co-worker last week...

Me: We're painting our family room this weekend.

Him: Oh? What color?

Me: It's called "Prairie Grass."

Him: So, like, a green color.

Me: No. More along the lines of "Prairie Grass After Drought."

About the time of my last post, Jason was recovering from yet another lung collapse. This one was fairly minor - except the "pain" and "labored breathing" parts, of course - so I wasn't too concerned. And by too concerned, I mean I only stopped to make sure he was breathing a couple times a day instead of every hour. But he's back to 100 percent now, so all is well.

The piano, which my mother-in-law calls "Big Black," arrived a week ago and is now taking up a large chunk of our formal living room. We bought a rug to go under the pedals so Jason doesn't tear through the carpet, as well as a lamp for the keyboard and music so he can practice at night. After a week, I already miss the digital piano a little - the headphone jack came in handy when I was, say, watching the Amazing Race finale and whatnot. But I've quickly developed a passing ability to read lips and figure out sentences after only hearing chunks of individual words. And Jason sounds amazing, so the TV always has a nice soundtrack. Plus, I make him clean out the litterbox for me. So I can't complain too much.

Jason and I spent the weekend being amazingly productive around the house. On Saturday, we stocked up on odds and ends - rugs, a dining table centerpiece, bath mats, etc. - and on Sunday we tore down more boxes (where are these things still coming from?!?) and hung photos and assembled the daybed in the guest bedroom and got a suprising amount done before noon. Which... never happens. Last weekend we sat around a lot, with the exception of the couple hours at a movie theater spent seeing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (as an aside, they should totally make yarn action figures of the cast).

Maybe this flurry of activity will continue into next week, when we plan to paint another room. We're still confused about which room it will be - while we were out Saturday, I kept suggesting things for the "living" room, when I was actually talking about the family room. Jason tried his hardest to shoot down my ideas, which he thought were not in keeping with the formal decor we were going for in the actual living room, without coming off as a heel. And by the end of the day I figured out that we were talking about two different rooms and we jumped back on the same page.

Wednesday morning we're meeting with our landscape designer to go over the "concept plan" for our backyard, which will end up being more of a courtyard, less emphasis on "yard." There will be stamped concrete and aggregate and plantings and retaining walls, and I'm sure it will be lovely. And then we just have to get it approved by the HOA before the end of the month and start installing it.