Not the drug. Derek and I tend to avoid illegal drugs; we generally consider that to be a good plan for our lives... In fact, we hardly even ever drink. Sometimes we like to add a flavoured "beverage" to a smoothie, or our coke. And, of course, there's Passover wine (what kind of Jew would I be if I didn't drink wine at Passover?!) but definitely no crystal meth happening up in this house. Can you imagine how well that would go? I'd probably get so excited and euphoric that I'd try to do something completely beyond my ability and end up breaking everything... or burning down the house.
Actually, the Crystal I'm referring to is a good friend of mine and Derek's from school. Her name is Crystal Peters (good Mennonite stock, there!) and she is the most amazing artist. Her paintings tend to be very flowy, free-moving, abstract - often with themes including scripture, God, etc. Many of the faculty at SBC have their offices or homes graced by one of her colourful, exciting paintings. And, really, if you want to see her "gallery" just go visit the apartment that she shares with Lana, where the majority of the paintings she still possesses hang, displayed on their living room walls.
But, recently Derek and I took one of those paintings from her. After paying for it of course! And then it sat on our bathroom counter for about two weeks. Perhaps this is something to fix, but perhaps it is not! Maybe having things sit for so long gives them the time to adjust to being in our house, and gives us the time to adjust to having them there. I like to be a "glass half full" kind of person.
Despite the fact that it took a bit of time to get the painting off the counter and onto the wall, it was actually a very simple process to get it hanging. I held up the painting to a height where I thought it looked nice, and marked that. Then I took my fabric measuring tape (I often use that for small jobs like this because it doesn't have the awkward hook on the end, so I can hold it directly against the wall) and measured the centre of the wall. Then I made a mark (perpendicular to the first line) to make and "x" to mark the spot to hammer in the nail. Voila. A total of maybe five minutes and we have more art.
It brightens up the room a lot. We really do love it in there (don't mind the missing wall plate; took it off to paint and then it... disappeared) because of the contrast it gives to the walls. It also complements the jewel tone blues that we have going on already in the bathroom.
Although the painting looks off-centered in the picture, it really isn't. In fact, it's the towel bar that's off-centered. But that's fine, since the thing is rusty and old, and really nasty, and we'd like to replace it down the road. And when we do, we'll centre it, but all in time. That's the great thing about our quirky home: the odd little things don't need to be rushed, because there's so many of them that we can just take our time and save our pennies and do things when we can. That way, I think, it'll be more of an art of love than a rush to fix things up. And yes, I have huge visions of grandeur and splendour and gorgeous rooms that are everything that I want, but at the same time, I can look around my living room with its mismatched furniture, and ugly, old carpet, and annoying front door that you need to slam to close... And I can honestly, honestly say that I love it here, because it's our home.
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