Behind the Red Door - Part I

Finally - I have the red door of my dreams. The process was tedious, but worth it. I had a hard time finding the perfect red - not unlike trying to find the perfect red lipstick. Some are too pink, others are too orange, some are just WRONG!


I sampled many colors on the door. I considered leaving a note on the door and a sign at the sidewalk asking passersby to come vote. I almost chickened out and painted it blue. I asked for opinions on Facebook and had more comments about that than any other thing I've ever said.

Finally, I settled on Red Delicious and sent my husband to Home Depot. (Trip 1.) He came back with the correct paint AND the correct primer, took the door off the hinges and put it on sawhorses. He borrowed my pal, the Orbital Sander (more about this in another post) to smooth it out and put on the paint. Done, right? Wrong.

First, it didn't dry in one day so we had to sleep without a front door. We took careful security precautions though. The door had a sheet of plastic stapled over it to keep most of the bugs out and the cat and the dog in, so that was the first barrier. I was still nervous that a truly resourceful crook could figure out how to get through the plastic shield so my husband stapled a quilt on the inside. He told me that would make it look dark so that no one would know we didn't have a door.

Okkkaaayyy...everyone knows that a sheet of plastic AND a quilt are inpenetrable. But, just in case, he set up a trap. He put two chairs in front of the door and filled the seats with the tools he had been using (staple gun, screwdriver, orbital sander, etc.) Anyone coming through the plastic and the quilt would not expect that and would fall over it, making a lot of noise.

And, at my request, we added our main noisemaker. We left our dog, Tally, out of her kennel. She barks loudly at anyone (known or unknown) who comes into our house. She is really saying "Yay,yay,I'msogladyou'rehere.I wanttolickyourface.Yay,yay!" But, crooks wouldn't know that and she does sound very fierce.

As it turned out, we were safe and ready for Part II of Behind the Red Door.

First Post!

So, I've decided to carve out my own little space in the crowded blogosphere. I'm not really sure why or what this will be. I do know that I've spent (too) many happy hours reading other blogs and feel like I should at least have a place to invite readers to visit.

However, this is mainly for me. I am at an interesting new phase in my life. My nest is more or less empty since my son has now left for college. He does return to it for periodic visits but I no longer have the day to day responsibility. I am fortunate to have a loving, hard-working husband who supports me, both emotionally and financially. I have the real and rare luxury of free time.

But, too much free time can be a dangerous thing. Like any excess, it's easy to squander it and get to the end of the day with nothing to show for it. Part of my problem is doing things in a vacuum. It's not that I need an audience, but I do need a place to recount some of the things that happen during the day. And, a place to show off some of my creative side a bit. And, a place to hold me accountable.

So, that's more or less the purpose. It will probably evolve along with me. Feel free to read along and I love comments, opinions and challenges.

Oh - about the name. It was inspired by the croquet scene in "Alice in Wonderland." That has been my favorite book for just about as long as I can remember, long before Johnny Depp and Tim Burton made it cool. (Although bless Tim for including my man, Johnny, in his movie!) This is the specific inspirational paragraph:

The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.

That feels like my life. It can be difficult to keep both the flamingos and the hedgehogs in line at the same time. But, most of the time, all you can do is burst out laughing.