Prosperity Smoothie

Recently, my mama gave me some extra money to play with, and play I am!

I started by scraping the popcorn ceiling in the living room, then one thing led to another, and before I knew it I was in the middle of a summer-long project of changing my entire house.  It's been one of those sky's-the-limit projects in my world.

I told Kate, "I love this temporary prosperity!  I could get use to this."  She cautioned me to avoid the word, temporary.

But it's got me thinking about the word, prosperity.  It's all relative.  If you have it all the time, maybe you take it for granted?  I like it this way.  It's been, as Carlene said, very much like building a quilt--a patch of this, a patch of that, until the overall effect matches the idea in my mind.

Due to the coming and going of fibro, I can't actually do all the things I could do ten years ago, but I have Edward, who's loyal and competent and funny.  Even he can't do some things--due to a hernia--but last week when Will and my kind neighbor hauled in my new dining table, he thanked them both for "helping Miss Linda."  I provide lunch, take naps, run to the store when he needs something, and he hammers, drills, paints and climbs on ladders, none of which I'm inclined to do.

I wanted a couple of projects painted with chalk paint.  Edward was dubious.  "This isn't the way you paint with real paint," he said.  "It's time-consuming and odd how you do the strokes."  But in the end, he did a great job of painting and waxing and the pieces look great.

Yesterday Kara came over and brought in a new mosaic floor lamp from my car. When she arrived, I had a red multi-colored rug under the new table, but everything else was blue and turquoise and white.  Sometimes you need a second pair of eyes to see things clearly.  She wisely suggested we take out the rug and keep the room in cool blues.  It was amazing to see how the room was altered by that one change!  (I knew that one or the other had to go--the rug or the curtains.)

I looked in my trunk and found several table cloths I'd had for years, all in tones of blue. I chose two from which I will make kitchen curtains.  As it happens, the colors we are drawn to keep showing up, and when the time is right, they find harmony together.

I've hauled home enough curtains to wrap my entire house five times over, and taken back all but the blue and turquoise ones from Anthropologie. I've shipped back about seven area rugs--and Edward has wrapped them all tight in plastic for their journeys back to Wayfair and Houzz.

Two more rugs on the way--these the final choices; the backsplash installed--and the project will be complete.   I'm going to miss the process, but I'm ready to settle in and enjoy the peacefulness wrought by all these changes.

Kara made me a smoothie yesterday.  She was telling me about the one she enjoys and I happened to have every single ingredient, even frozen bananas.

Here's the recipe:

A handful of greens
some almond milk
A handful of almonds, another of unsweetened coconut
banana and blueberries.

It was yummy!  After I drank one, she put the blender jar in the freezer--I'd never thought to do that!  Now all I have to do to have another meal is to turn on the blender and let it whirr!