Thursday, August 03, 2006

Little Decor Tip

Came across this little tip for transforming a regular door into a French door. Not sure if the link I've posted will work.

Add the look of a pretty French door. This is a great way to give a plain interior door an intriguing treatment. Have a mirror cut to the size of the interior door panel and add muntins painted to match the door.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

God is good

More on the niece. She caused a disturbance at a downtown church and because there wasn't her usual support group present, the clergy called the police, who then took her to the hospital. This was a good thing, a very good thing, though she is furious. The psychiatrist ran tests, both blood work and whatever psychiatric tests are necessary, and then they transferred her to the psych ward of a different hospital. While I feel sorry for her being in a panic to get out, I am so thankful that she is finally getting a) a proper assessment and b) meds and treatment.

The other thing that came of all this was the revelation that there's quite a substantial support group that she has, good people who worry about her, buy her clothes when she needs them, help her find work, listen and talk to her, and actually like and respect her. It's generally believed that she is much worse now than she was a couple of years ago, before heading to Quebec City, and that she is more aggressive. But at the same time, she feels very deep upset at not being able to care for herself in a proper adult way, and grief over not having a marriage, home, family, and so on. These things I understand.

So, I've been able to connect a couple of social workers with some people DH knows so she can get some housing help, get her into a stable living arrangment, so that she can heal partially. Oh, and the other thing -- much of her behaviour is directly related to her being high almost all the time. Likely on street drugs, like crack. As desperate and grim as all that sounds, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Until of course the next tunnel appears. But that's life. And you gotta deal.

Monday, July 31, 2006

Gender specific decor

Lately, my daughter has been playing a video game called Animal Crossing. In it, these little gremlin-like animals putter around their community, knocking on each other's doors, receiving mail, finding things at the dump, trading up or down for goods -- larger homes, decorative items, etc.

While it does bother me that the DIY home remodeling craze has hit such a young demographic, there's something anthropologically interesting about the choices of each of my children (13 year old son plays too).

Today, A proudly showed off her new home. Inside was a splendid fuschia and green oriental carpet, and wallpaper that resembled an ivy-covered brick wall that you might see in a garden. It was really quite a stunning tableau. She then "took" me over to her brother's house to see what he had in his lair. There was a couch, a TV, a fridge and stove (no sink, however, because who needs to wash dishes or lettuce leaves?), a dinosaur skeleton, a ping pong table, and a bobbing bird "perpetual motion" kind of toy.

How telling is that?