Wednesday's Whetting

===-===-===-===-===

LAST WEEK:

(boys chose this for their room)

(Ada chose this for her room)

Okay, this project was not what I thought (what project is, right?) But that's okay. I'm not nearly finished, but I hope to at least be done with the boys' room tonight. Ada's room is a disaster (dumb cement wall). I won't go into detail. A few lessons learned:

1. Plaster is a taunting, evil compound. Now I know what people were complaining about. I was hesitant to hang pictures before, now I'm pretty sure I won't as long as I live here.
2. Water is life for the body, death for this basement.
3. Small rooms are hard to organize/prep for painting (where do I put the furniture???) But cleaning walls and taping goes super quick!
4. It feels REALLY good to be doing something for my house, even if I make a hundred mistakes.
5. There was no other way for me to really learn this stuff without actually starting.
6. My kids are so excited about their colors, the anticipation has been very rewarding (I just hope they like the end product).

Pictures may or may not come. These bedrooms are so small, I'm not sure I could get any good ones. We'll see.

THIS WEEK'S CHALLENGE:

dreams

(I CAN'T FIND ANY DETAILS ABOUT THIS PICTURE...IF ANYONE HAS ANY INFO, I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW MORE, THANKS!)

I read an article in Psychology Today titled "Dreams: Night School", which explained how one study showed that dreams are a way of helping us to prepare for dangerous or stressful situations... to be deprived of sleep, we lose our defensive edge, not because of fatigue but because we missed out on our mental training during REM. (Click here to see this and other articles on dreams).

While reading I realized I hadn't dreamed in a while (at least that I could remember). I was able to recall a few nights back, that I was laughing so hard, I kind of woke myself up. Sam says I do this a lot... Dreams are fun, terrifying, crazy, elating, confusing and altogether cool. I've had many dreams with a sky just like the one in the picture above, where the clouds are low, the sky some stark color. Only, in my dreams they roll and tumble, moving fast across the sky. It's kind of scary, but I love when I dream of clouds like that.

So I decided, for this week, to make sure I have a notebook and pencil at my bedside, and when I wake in the morning, I'm going to write down my dreams/first thoughts.

Why this challenge?

1. Because it has nothing to do with housework :)

2. To enhance creativity: Because almost every day I wake up with a song in my head, and sometimes it's not one I've heard before. I'd like to keep track.

• Once, I was trying to think of a good guitar rhythm to fit a song I wrote, and I woke up one day with this fun beat in my head. I hopped out of bed, found a scratch paper, and wrote it down as best I could. I promptly lost the scratch paper - that annoys me.
  
• I also occasionally wake up with phrases or words, and I think, "hey, that would be great for a song" or "that's a great thought. I need to remember that". But I don't remember.

3. For Fun:

• It would be fun to have glimpses of my dreams written down, and see if the crazy songs correlate at all, like a dream soundtrack. Did that dream I had about Johnny Depp fall on the same night I woke up singing "It's So Easy to Fall in Love" ??? Hmmmmm....
  

4. To Enhance Relationships?:

• I think sometimes my subconscious is telling me to call Grandma. Once I dreamt of a friend of mine, we were in the mall and she just broke down. She was extremely discouraged, crying and exhausted. I woke up thinking, "I'm going to bring her flowers". Did I do it? Nope. Forgot. Did she need them? Maybe, maybe not. But I wouldn't mind getting flowers from a friend - good day or bad, y'know?

Well, that's it. I've got to get back to finishing last weeks project ;)

===-===-===-===-===