Larrabee's Profile

@lifeinthefortress: Very excited to hear about your gardening adventures! I've just started keeping houseplants for the first time ever, but we also have a small shared backyard, and I have been talking to a neighbor about starting to garden there. How are you starting? Do you have an expert gardener who's helping you, or are you just going on books and the web as your guide?

I love the dressers-as-night-tables idea and have been looking around for the past few months for the right ones. Does anyone know if there is a similarly-sized option (24-27 inches high) that has drawers all the way to the floor? We are short on storage space and want to hide our ugly baseboard heaters behind the night tables, and the little feet on the Anes, cute as they are, don't help us with either of those problems.

I just finished going through my husband's files--I use the term liberally, since in recent years his collection of receipts had turned into a big, messy pile at the back of the file cabinet--and have now added all his files to my big file lateral file cabinet. I organized all those receipts (including many, many grocery, restaurant, and gas receipts going back at least three years!) by month for the current year, and then by year for previous years. The hope is that, now that these things are better organized, it will be less intimidating for him to go through and cull. He's been meaning to do it for two and a half years, and I can see now why he's been avoiding it!

Definitely less toxic paints. Will be looking at the Benjamin Moore Natura when it comes time to paint.

This week I emptied our inbox, which had not been totally empty in months, if not a year! There are always one or two things I can't let go of, that I put back in the box. This time I finally said goodbye to several pieces of clothing I'd hung onto since college--10 years ago! I hadn't worn them since then, but they were a reminder of my younger, more glamorous days, and I couldn't part with them. Now I am finally feeling glamorous again, so I don't need them!

As I was walking down the stairs with the bags for Goodwill, I was struck by how HEAVY they were. My husband and I have been carrying all this stuff around, some of it for a whole decade, and it has really just been weighing us down. We still have a ways to go, but it feels really good to lighten up.

Hi Curees,

I must admit that I'm a little bit in need of moral support this afternoon. . . For one thing, the weather here in Boston is dreadful! For another, I've spent the past two days looking for shelving and filing cabinets to create a built-in office in our living room, and I don't feel like I'm making any progress. I spent 6 hours today researching Knoll products, and I just don't think I can click on one more photo! And you would not BELIEVE how much that Vitsoe shelving costs. Not sure where to look next: kitchen cabinets? Ikea? Custom built-ins? I don't have any experience with any of this, and it is all seeming really overwhelming right now.

In happier news, I just updated my Flickr account with a new layout and some inspiration photos. Please let me know what you think!

I just joined Flickr and posted some photos! Link is in my AT profile.

Hi all! I second the concern about the change from city boards to very broadly defined regional boards. It does seem more manageable, and less daunting, to just keep up with your local folks. But then again, who knows? It could turn out to be great: more support, more creative ideas!

I have started many Cures but have never made it all the way through. This time I'm doing a One-Room Remedy, which I've never done before. My room is the living/dining room, which also houses office space for my husband and me. Yup, it's pretty crazy to ask a room to do all that, but the other options are the bedrooms and the kitchen, and neither of those have worked out so well. So, here goes. . .

Poppet - my brother lives in Arlington but the wedding was in Williamsburg, where his wife is from. I grew up in Richmond. What about you? And please do tell us about your Ikea trip!

A happy post for a sunny Saturday: My husband and I finally moved his dark veneer media cabinet outside to the curb today. He bought it before we were married and I was never a big fan, and we decided months ago to get rid of it--around the time he converted our music to a wireless streaming format and put all the CDs in the basement. But. The cabinet is tall and heavy, and it has been a cold and snowy winter, so we have lived with the thing in our dining area for quite some time.

Today, in honor of starting the Cure, I asked him to help me take it outside and he happily agreed. And you know what? It really wasn't that hard to move after all! And the best part was that an hour later, I looked out the window to see a boy of maybe 11 or 12 and his father loading the cabinet into their minivan. A little girl was inside the car watching them. Hooray for freecycling!

An entire "pets month" theme seems off topic--as some of the comments here illustrate.