green room

long story with a few side trips...
when i was a lot younger i couldn't really carry a tune unless there were lots of people around me and i was singing along with them .... a few of my high school friends invited me to a Sing Out Colorado rehearsal and i was certain that nothing would come of it - me sing? 
nah...

but i went anyway...

and it was kinda fun, so i went again...

and again...

till i knew enough of the songs and the choreography to join the cast in a show...

i was really nervous - i'd been in a few school performances (like all kids) in front of audiences who HAD to be there because that's what you do for your family - and had no clue what would be waiting for me when i was told to report, in uniform, to the Green Room before the concert ... i do remember thinking that it was odd that they knew beforehand that the room we were to meet in was green ... and i was even more confused when i found out that it wasn't, in fact, green...

anywho...

after those first few Sing Out concerts
messing up the words to songs

 and fumbling through the choreography

 and dreading the end of the performance because we were expected to leave the stage and mingle with the audience

all the while singing Up With People 

being incredibly introverted 

and unable to stay on key if there wasn't someone singing right next to me 

well..

it was something i didn't much like doing

i found that Green Room was my favorite part of the deal...

anywho...

when we moved here twenty years ago i was newly divorced and completely broke...

 we had to make do with half of what we'd had in our Other Lives because there was no money for anything new...

and that meant lots and lots of grey paint for the walls because grey was the only color of paint that the eXMan would accept in my Other Life
 and the half of what we were left with was grey...
grey furniture...

grey rugs...

grey pillows...

grey window coverings...

anywho...

about ten years ago i had saved up enough money to have the floors on one level of our house replaced with hardwood flooring ... and that meant that i needed to paint the walls, too...

so i painted them green...
not army green
or forest green 
or kelly green
but a warm, easy-on-the-eyes green...
and i really liked living in green rooms...

anywho...
it isn't just about me anymore 
and Auntia has her own opinions
sigh...
and when i asked Auntia what color we should paint the living room, she did NOT say what i wanted to hear...

i have had to learn to live in yellow rooms...
sigh...
she did choose a NICE yellow...
not sunshine yellow 
or lemon yellow
or jaundice yellow
and certainly not pee yellow
but a kinda buttery yellow

and NOW we are finding that the stuff that has hung on the walls for the past ten years just doesn't go anymore and we are slowly replacing old things with new things...

i love you to the moon and back again times infinity 
was the first new wall hanging.. 
and now we have this...

shot through the heart

it is my take on this thing...

lottsa sharp metal arrows stabbing that poor little heart
that we found at Hobby Lobby ... looks simple enough, right?!? applique some arrows shooting toward a heart and then quilt it...
 i am still awful at applique, so i decided to paper-piece the arrows and the heart first and then machine applique them onto the background of black Quilter's Linen ... an off-center heart just wasn't cutting it, so i put it in the middle - but the first heart was too small...

no, no, no - no Grinch hearts

and had to be replaced by a larger one - but there wasn't enough red fabric left and i skimped on some seams... 
can you tell where this is going?
 laid out the arrows and heart, appliqued them down, quilted it with simple straight lines, bound it and threw it in the washer...
 when i took it out of the washer i was so so so upset with me - the applique edges had shredded 
and the skimpy seams of the heart separated 
and all i had left was a big mess...
and i grumbled and sat on the Pity Pot till i came up with a Plan and set about fixing my mess...
which is another explanation for why the heart is broken other than the Actual True Meaning
and the back has a lot of black zigzags in tidy rectangles and a square...

anywho...
it's done and it's hanging on the wall...

yellow is hard to photograph - it's a lot nicer yellow in Real Life
and nobody needs to know, right?!?

shot through the heart and you're to blame
you give love a bad name
bon jovi