
Her husband looked at her like she had three heads and he asked, “What are you going to do with all that junk??”
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Her husband looked at her like she had three heads and he asked, “What are you going to do with all that junk??”
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The best feature of my new rental house is one that didn’t even appear on my list of search requirements. (That would be the list that consisted of exactly three items, none of them aesthetic: enough bedrooms, in current school district, and affordable.) The bonus feature I now can’t live without?

UPDATE: I received a total of 117 votes on roof color. THANKS Y’ALL!
The comment/email selected was number 40. I used random.org:
Here are your random numbers:
40
Timestamp: 2010-06-29 20:51:36 UTC
That’s you, Laura Lea Laws, so email me with your address for your goody! Use the link over on the right!
I’m actually usually a pretty good decision maker. With personal decisions, I mean. I’m usually pretty good; not great, but good. (Now professionally, I’m a very strong decision maker. Split second, never look back. For some reason, that’s easier for me.)
It’s true. It sometimes takes me a while to mull things over. To think about it. Consider all the angles. But usually not this long. I don’t usually be-labor it the way I have be-labored this one. Why am I so stuck on this? I have no idea. You’d think it was a huge decision. It’s really not such a big deal.
Yes, this decision has gotten the best of me. I have spent months obsessing about it. And just now my hubby announced:
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What does a future rancher look like? You’re lookin’ at it.
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What’s your decorating style (besides, I bet for most of us here, country chic)? Mine, historically, has been lackadaisical. Or as my mom liked to say, “lived in.” Having lived for 23 years with someone who had stronger stylistic preferences, these tended to influence the overall look. Now I’ve moved into my own rental house — just this past week and yes, I can still hear the rrrrrripping of packing tape on cardboard box in my sleep — I’ve had to figure out what goes where “all by self.”
It’s been fun. (Excepting the complete exhaustion…funny aside here about the effects of my sleep deprivation!)
As I’ve positioned furniture and filled shelves and drawers, it strikes me that that there are two camps of housemakers:

Springtime … early summer on the High Plains will have one of two effects on you. Wyoming’s bountiful beauty may inspire words of admiration or you’ll feel quietly awed and perfectly content to remain in that state … completely surrounded by the renewal of life in every direction you look. (Above: Newborn Pronghorn Antelope)
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Anybody remember Holly Hobbie? Not the annoying biker-capped cartoon reintroduced a few years ago that your daughters or granddaughters of 2010 might know. I mean the original, blue-bonneted American Greetings version, who was created in the 1970s by an artist actually named Holly Hobbie.
While my friends were grooving to eight-tracks of Andy Gibb, crushing on David Cassidy, and borrowing their big sisters’ Lauren-Hutton-style Qiana shirts, one of my favorite pop-culture icons was a girl in a patchwork apron. Yes, that would place me a few bean rows beyond squareness. Call me a late bloomer. Decoupaged Holly Hobbie pictures (gifts made by my friend Jinny — there’s a HHish name) hung on apple green walls of my bedroom, next to cornflower blue gingham curtains. There may have even been dried flowers in a jelly jar on my nightstand, where Tiger Beat or Seventeen should have been. I may not have been a hipster, but I was a farmgirl before my time!
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