Neon

Some people's mothers like neutral colors (taupe, nude, beige, eggshell), and decorate their homes in those colors.  My mother had a period once when I was seven when I think she liked light blue and white, and think we had a light peach bathroom for a while.  Five minutes later, though, she declared lime green and hot pink "earth tones" and destined my sister and me to a lifetime of shockingly bright home decor decisions.  There was a period in high school where if you walked up the stairs in our house, you would be accosted by my lime green bedroom, my sister's bright turquoise bedroom, and a hot pink bathroom (with cow print accents) in quick succession.

So no one should be surprised about what happened this weekend when I was faced with a ridiculously bare new bedroom to decorate.

Ridiculously bare new bedroom.

I made an ill-advised (because it is college-dorm-replenishing season and sort of like hell on earth at any big box store anyway) trip to Target to see if they had any cheap bedding.  After realizing that I must be the only person under age 93 that uses a duvet cover, and as such could not find one in any color but beige and navy blue, I stood in the bedding aisle for an embarassingly long time as worried mothers and hysterical college freshman grabbed twin XL sheets from the shelves around me.

I stood there trying to decide between making my room outreageously loud to the point of annoying anyone who enters or yawn-yawn boring (there didn't seem to be any in-between in the sale section).  Then I realized that unlike in grade school when you had slumber parties and/or random let's-go-over-to-JoAnna's-and-paint-our-toe-nails events and unlike in the dorms where the simple act of opening your door let 70 other individuals examine the contents of your room, there may be a total of five other people that will ever see this new room.  I am allowed to make it as outrageous as I like.

So I got this rainbow comforter on Saturday.

Tried it out for a day and decided that it wasn't nearly bright enough.  So I went back to Target on Sunday and got the matching sheets and made them into curtains.

I ironed and pinned even though I hate doing it.  The curtains are just twin top sheets turned upside-down with a five inch hem at the top for the curtain rod to slide through.  Took a total of an hour to make three of them

One blue curtain, one green curtain, and...

one pink curtain (it really is hot pink and not red like it looks here).

Still trying to work out how to tie them back (I think I am going to cut up the fitted sheets and make ties for the curtains as well as throw pillows for the bed), and the room is still in obvious need of a book shelf and work table, but I think the brightness makes a huge difference.

Thanks for my sense of color, Mom.

Other things I did this weekend:

Pizza toppings that I swear were eventually made into a pizza.

• Listened to an opera recital in an old folks home in Tenleytown. No joke.  When the singer hit the first high note, 70% of the audience reached up to turn down their hearing aids.
• Knit a sweater in 90 degree weather.
• Made pizza, taking a picture of the toppings but not the resulting pie.  I will give out the recipe for the crust if you ask nicely.
• Realized, as I crawled head first down the stairs with a dust rag to clean the baseboards, that nothing in my new home has been dusted since mastadons roamed North America and that I may be a tad OCD when it comes to cleaning.