My best friend Laurie...

Hi Steve,

I hope you're enjoying your week so far.  Is that new album done yet?! GAAAAAA!! You're killin' me.  Anyway, I have been trying to get this house all decorated and ready for my best friend Laurie's visit---in 9 days.  Time is getting away from me.  But, I have managed to paint the entire kitchen, put up a wallpaper backsplash, paint a wall in the small living room, decorate the small living room with beach stuff, rearranged all of my mom's living space down in the basement apartment, and almost finished painting the upstairs guest bedroom.  Whew.

Needless to say, I have been busy.

See, we bought this house 2 years ago, but it's not yet done being decorated, nor is everything we own even unpacked yet.  Our 3 car garage has one available parking space for my car in it.  The rest of the garage is STUFF.  Boxes of STUFF.  Too much STUFF.  So, IF SPRING EVER GETS HERE, (somebody shoot that damned groundhog), I'll be able to get all that stuff outta there, and dispose of it.

We have 3 floors in this house.  My mom occupies the basement which is fully finished and has a bedroom, a living room, a dining room, a small half bathroom and a kitchenette.  It's quite nice.  She had been sleeping and spending most of her time in the bedroom---(with wall to wall dark brown paneling)....it used to be the office of the previous owner.  And, I've noticed she's been very depressed a lot lately, so I figured a nice change of scenery would do her a world of good.

Now, what USED to be her living room is her new bedroom (much more light, and bigger), where I put up a "wall" which is actually a large cabinet that she uses as her standing closet, and in what used to be the dining area is now her living room space, and what used to be her dark and dingy paneled bedroom will now be her storage area for clothes, and her yarn, purses, and everything else.  It will cut down on clutter everywhere, and she can work on getting organized.  I've been meaning to do all that for her for a long time.  We're still not completely finished with it, but the majority of things have been moved and she's getting settled in a bit.

The main floor is very nearly finished with everything, all decorated, and clean.  Our larger living room has our t.v., and a tropical flowery theme with orange and green and brown.  I have sage green furniture, so it looks pretty nice on the evergreen colored rug (which I loathe).  I put an accent rug over it to ground the furniture.  It's brown with orange and green flowers spread out on vines.  Very pretty. In the 2 back corners as you walk into the room, I have a bamboo room divider up against the corner, and a large (tall) vase in front of each one, full of orange and cream colored fake flowers from the wedding.  A couple bookshelves, a pool table, a large cabinet full of board games, etc.....now Pete wants me to add his mom's dining room set....so we'll have somewhere to sit and play the games, he says.  We've owned a Wii for nearly 2 years, and have never once played the damned thing.

My office area used to be Pete's mom's living room space.  It has a wall of Journey stuff, including framed photos of you here and there....yeah yeah, I know, but ever since I was a young kid, I've always wanted a Journey shrine....so lemme have it for a little while, will ya? Just humor me....dammit....it's the next best thing to having you come visit for real.  Besides, Pete said I should "use the stuff I've got," to decorate with, rather than going out and buying new stuff.  So, I had a ton of Journey junk, might as well put it up on the walls.  Right?  (Yes, I will soon be 45 years old, and yes, it seems juvenile, but you're very special to me, a big part of my life really, so I enjoy seeing you every day on my walls).  You share the walls with my large movie theater framed poster of Anne Frank, too.  I love her.  She's my inspiration in all things.  Always has been.

Anyway, so I decorated my office by painting the walls a pale grey color, almost silver...and black and white damask curtains, and matching damask bins that fit inside my large light-wood cube shelving unit from Ikea.  I have our black and white zebra striped glider rocker and ottoman in the corner, and my desk, some shorter shelving cabinets, and a large black chaise lounge chair in the other corner.  Cozy!

Our downstairs guest room used to be Florence's bedroom.  I've only moved furniture around, bought new bedding, and a few things to hang on the walls.  I haven't painted or anything.  Might put up some wallpaper at some point, not sure.  But, it's clean, it's nice, and it's as done as it's gonna be for now.  Our full bathroom (guest bathroom) has new wallpaper, and a theme of cherry blossoms, because I miss them from all my years of living in DC.  Used to go there every year to walk in the pink "snow" falling from the sky....beautiful...just loved it. So I have a cherry blossom wreath, a shower curtain that has a few cherry blossoms on it, with beige and cream background, matching rugs and toilet seat cover, and a couple cherry blossom candle holders on either side of the sink faucet.  It turned out really pretty.

The smaller living room is at the other end of the house, it has no t.v.  It's supposed to be a conversation room, a relaxing room, a reading room, etc.  It has a fireplace with slate rock which takes up most of one wall.  You should have seen me trying to put up adhesive hooks in order to put up decorations!  I had to super glue the damned things onto the stone in order for the candle holders and stuff to stay up! The room used to be just kind of the room of mix-mox furniture and leftover stuff that I didn't know what else to do with.  Now it's all beach themed, with one light blue accent wall, Florence's favorite light blue and light green recliner chair, her tan colored loveseat and our hideous black couch that I loathe.  I want to get rid of it, but Pete doesn't want me to buy a new one just yet.  He says, "Since it's a beach theme, just think of the couch as an oil spill."  Nice.

So, I put some pillows on it, and a tan colored throw blanket.  Screw it.  I bought a new accent rug with the colors all in it to ground the furniture too.  Then I put up my huge, heavy, round mirror that has seashells all over it.  I decorated that years and years ago, actually, but it's been sitting in the garage for a long time.  Now it's on the wall. I painted all the seashells with an iridescent white pearly paint, and then added beige/tan colored tiny shell pieces all through it, too.  Then some netting at the top with 2 white star fish.  Rope all around the outside of rest of the mirror too.  It's heavy as hell, but it's simple and pretty.

Anyway, now I've moved upstairs to the larger guest bedroom.  I moved all the green items and former small living room decorations to this room, with the green curtains and I bought new bedding in a pretty light green with gold swirls all through it---very fancy---and now I'm painting the walls a coral color. I love coral, and a darker orangish rust color too...in fact, those were my wedding colors.  So, putting light green and coral together just seemed a bit "beachy" too, but not with beach themed decor.  So far it looks like a room out of a decorating magazine!  I'm not quite done with it though.

So, you can bet that MY bedroom will not get touched at all, (though it's not TOO messy).  I just won't have time to do anything else in there before Laurie gets here.  She's never been to my house, you see, so I want it to look extra nice.....but I do have a fear....see, Laurie and I have been best friends since we were 15 years old.  We shared a locker in high school, and the girl that I no longer liked and moved from her locker started spreading rumors that Laurie and I were lesbians.  She yelled at me every time we passed in the hallway, "Look at the two love birds...lesbians!"

She bullied me for months, tossing nasty notes at me, trying to trip me, pushing me if she was behind me...stuff like that.  But, I didn't do a thing.  I had butterflies in my stomach the entire time, and cried a lot when I got home...she threatened to beat my ass several times, and I'm no fighter, so that had me a nervous wreck every day.  However, Laurie and I just smiled and locked our arms together, and pretended to smooch right back at her.  Eventually, other people started ignoring that hag, or making fun of her for being so stupid, and she stopped.  (She was a slut, and I didn't want to be around her).  Funny how life works out, now I am the slutty kinky chick!!! hehehehehe  Ya know, I might be a little bi-curious, but I've never gone there, but I see nothing wrong with being lesbian.  I just don't know if I could handle the flavor....ya know?  Bleah.  I probably could if I were a bit tipsy though!! hehehehehe

Anyway, my fear of having Laurie come here to see my house is.....she may become or act or say things that seem very jealous of me....because she and her husband lost their home to foreclosure a few years ago, and now they have to rent a place...but she isn't allowed to paint any rooms or anything.  And our house is about 5 times larger than hers.  Most of the time, Laurie isn't jealous of anything that I've done or things I've got, but I do send her money sometimes...usually every other payday.  She and her husband no longer work, because they are both on disability benefits.  So money is very tight.

They have about 6 dogs living in the house along with the 4 of them, it's very loud and crowded, smelly, and always messy.  They have mismatched yard-sale furniture or hand-me-downs, too.  My husband Pete, on the other hand, has worked in the computer field since his 20's.  He's 55 now.  He makes 6 figures plus owns a lot of Apple stock.  We aren't at all hurting for money.  In fact, we are in the 1%.  (NOTE:  I have never EVER been wealthy in my entire LIFE...so, I don't FEEL like we are, ya know)?  I still love to shop at thrift stores, or get things on clearance, or on sale.  I never EVER buy anything full price.  I don't go to the salon to get my hair or nails done, either.  I wear t-shirts and jeans.  I'm not pompous, snobby, or stereotypically "rich."  Everything is relative. We have a house that is paid for.  No mortgage.  We have 2 cars that are paid for.  No car payments.  Our utility bills are minor.  We do like to go to different places a lot, and do fun things....which is something Laurie can't do often.

These things worry me, because Laurie might just be peeved about it when she sees the house.  I mean, it's NOT the ritz, but it's cozy, and it's mostly country-cottage-ish decorated, (because that's what I feel most comfortable around, having lived in Michigan most of my life), which she also likes....but, she might just get here, take one look around, and tell me I'm a bitch for having such a huge house.  I dunno.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I do have that worry in the back of my mind.  My mom knows what I mean, and said it's a valid concern, because Laurie has had some jealousy before---when I moved to DC, and when I went to college without her. (She got married instead, never attended college). She even told me once that she loved living vicariously through me....especially the kinky side of me.

So, even though she's my best friend, we have very different lives.  She's very Catholic.  I hate the Pope---the former one AND this new one.  I hate the man-made BS rules that religion dictates too. We sometimes debate these things, and she knows my heart and soul gravitates more towards Judaism.  I have lost a lot of weight since the last time I've seen her, but she's obese.  My hubby works, makes good money, her hubby has spent nearly 15 years on his ass, having a nervous breakdown, dealing with bipolar, and can't work anymore.  She also has 3 kids, and now a grandson, that she takes care of on occasion.  Their car is always in the shop or on the fritz.  Their disability income barely covers the bills every month.  They do get food stamps too, but it's just not enough.  I left home at 27 to rule the world, or at least put my mark on it....but she stayed in our hometown, only a few doors down from her parent's house.  I graduated college and have some graduate classes, she only went to high school.  I am UBER-liberal minded, and she is more conservative.  She is also more racist than I ever could be.

We have made very different choices in life, that's for sure.  I waited until I was 40 to get married.  She got married at 20.  Had a baby at 21.  Lived in hardship since then most of her life.  I struck out on my own to "change the world" by moving to DC, and I got chewed up and spit out after 10 years of trying.  Now, I could be jealous of her, too----I have diabetes, and she doesn't.  She's shorter than me, and weighs more than I do, but she doesn't have it.  Yet.  I don't know if she'll like eating food with us, since we no longer do bread, wheat, sugar or carbs...(the things she eats the most of).

She also has kids, which is something I cannot ever have myself.  She was a nurses aid and nursing technician for many years, and I admire her for that....but I can't stand the sight of blood and I hate hospitals.  I played the flute in high school, she played the trumpet.  I am super creative, she's not really into creative stuff other than making jewelry, but most of the time she can't do that because it's expensive to keep up.  I can't make jewelry at all.  We have some things in common, but we've really grown in different directions.  I can't tell her much about the kinky side of me, either, because she gets all into debating it with me, that maybe I have some mental issue that needs therapy or something, etc....and I keep telling her "don't knock it 'til you try it."

I'm nervous about her visit, needless to say, so in my own crazy way, I'm just trying hard to make it nice....but Pete pointed out, "You're only going to make it worse, if she does react negatively...because you're making it TOO nice."  Maybe I should make a mess in every room and just leave it before I drive up to Michigan to get her?!  I don't know.  But, I'm trading my mom for a week to stay with my sister there, and Laurie's coming back with me to stay with us for that week.

I hope it goes well.  I hope she doesn't stop talking to me after this.  I don't like being in the 1%.

Well, I guess I'd better go make some dinner.  Thanks for listening to my irrational fear.  Women seem to have those from time to time, don'tchaknow.  Love you lots....xoxo

Bye for now.

Love, Rebecca