Look at me, I'm bloggin', I'm bloggin'!

West Des Moines thought they'd discourage people like me by moving Spring Clean-Up from June to March. Sure, June offered more daylight for junkers, but serious junkers are undeterred from darkness.

Or we just wait for the period between daybreak and pickup.

Valley Junction, the oldest part of town, was on tap this morning. Treasure. Trove. I spotted a few antique doors, complete with knobs. I really wanted the knobs to use as hooks, but I didn't have any dismantling tools with me. I have a thing for old wood windows, too, and I snagged a couple of those for future painting projects. I found some discarded shelf organizers (perfect to slide over the shelf under the workbench in my "studio") and an old metal flat of some sort (another organizing find). Just rusty enough to make me smile. A few pieces of corrugated tin, too, that I just know I'll have some use for down the road. Really, Joel, I just KNOW!

The best finds of the day, though, were a discarded dresser mirror frame and an antique oak chest. The frame is curvy, feminine, and HUGE. I immediately thought "bulletin board for E". She insists on breaking the cardinal rule of painted walls in the house of a descendant of Tom Rice: affixing her artwork with Scotch tape. This puppy, when completed, will take up most of her "art wall", so she will have no choice but to use pushpins. Or tape, if she chooses. All I have to do is get cork cut to the shape of the backer board on the frame and paint the dickens out of it. E's requested some spatter paint like I do on my collages, so I'm really looking forward to going hog wild! Oh, and the other thing? That antique oak chest? It's in pretty sad shape: the top is split in two and it has only one drawer. But that drawer is curved, and just too cute. All I have to do is repair that split top, of course, and cut out some surfaces to divide the empty drawer spaces into shelves. It's sturdy as heck, and it will be lovely after I give it some TLC.

After Fitness Kickboxing (yes, I'm using official terms now...afterall, it's Week Three and time to be serious!), E begged to go junking. I can't deny that of her, so off we went in the dark. What did we find tonight? Well, first, more old windows. (What is with me and old windows? REALLY?!?!?!?) These were pretty large, split in two long panes, and painted an adorable shade of green. Snagged two. Then we hit the jackpot. A Singer sewing machine table, complete with the sewing machine and original instructions tucked inside. Do I need a sewing machine? No. But it was sitting there on the curb asking me to take it home and love it. It's in perfect condition, almost like it had never been used, and it had to be mine. Or, in reality, E's. Now she can have something all her own to sew instead of making her mother nervous on the computerized machine.

There is craft time in our near future. I can sense it.

On the way home, we picked up an old school desk for Ben. We have an entire art outfit in the basement, but there's nothing like a sturdy old (and free) school desk of your very own. They can take so much abuse. If I find two more tomorrow, I promised Joel I'd junk the Little Tikes art desk in the playroom on our Spring Clean-Up day.

More junk on the horizon tomorrow. It's one of those art things, I think. I love dreaming of the possibilities of discarded things. I've always thought that things have lives of some sort, that having something means that it's touched your life or means something to you. Even the things we throw away. Maybe that antique chest I rescued today was made by someone a hundred years ago and was part of their family for so many years, so well-loved that it wound up being overloved to the point that they could no longer see any use for it. I'd bet that school desk could tell a few stories about the children who sat at it long ago, learning how to spell or practicing their penmanship. And windows. Those are something special to me. They speak to me in so many ways. They were part of a home for many years, through which the people who lived there watched rain fall and snow blow and flowers grow. (It's late, I'm waxing poetic, humor me!)

And then there's this other side of me now, the oatmeal-eating, roundhouse-kicking side. I am really loving the fitness part of life that I mocked for so long. It's fun not feeling so matronly. It's fun to know I will be able to kick someone's "ya-know" in seven more weeks. It's fun to achieve sit-ups after bearing three children. And I'm looking forward to the moment I finally push through this running issue I have and actually ENJOY running again. I feel more awake and alive than ever, even when I was a young buck (or, rather, that would be "doe").

I get the opportunity to do another run after Resistance Training tomorrow night. You see, 6:30 does homework after each class, we just don't rush out the door into the safety of our cars. Tonight, it was 75 push-ups, 50 sit-ups and a plank. I still have to work in 25 more push-ups, 50 more sit-ups, 100 crunches and two more planks before class tomorrow. That would have slaughtered me three weeks ago.

Today? BRING IT ON. :)

Life is so short. Spend time engaged in it. Don't sweat the things you can't control. I honestly believe that everything will take care of itself. I see so much fret and worry, and while we haven't been *too* adversely affected by the recession (yet...hopefully, NEVER), I have no control over the whims of commerce. All I can do is live responsibly and fully and happily. I'm hoping you all choose to do the same, too.