Welcome to Tumbledown

Home is where the art is... :)

The first thing I should probably do is welcome you to my home, and here it is. Or at least here is its front door. I named the place 'Tumbledown' years ago when it was even less scruffy than it is today. (And this is not an up-to-date photo, so you can imagine what state it's in now!) Picking my house out of the neighborhood lineup is a piece of baklava; in my opinion, it's the only one with any character.

I've lived at Tumbledown for over twenty years. It's the residence I've been connected to the longest in my lifetime. I have some mixed feelings about it, mostly because several big life changes of both the happy and sad varieties occurred here over the years. And now that my daughters are grown and married and making lives of their own, I'm torn about staying in the house they grew up in....

James lives here with me now. He doesn't have the history with Tumbledown that I have. Occasionally I ponder what it'd be like to pull up stakes and find a whole new place that is ours alone. But about the time I begin to think seriously about it I open the door to the upstairs closet and see the pencil marks on the wall there of just how tall my girls were at different stages of their lives and I know then that it'd be impossible for me to leave. Which means that Tumbledown will be my forever home. Or at least the last one before the Nursing Home.

I'm not a housekeeper. The word is not even in my vocabulary. My mom, however, is an AMAZING housekeeper, and a day doesn't go by that I don't see a cobweb or a cat hair out of the corner of my eye and hear her voice in my head admonishing me to put down my pencil and sketchbook and do something important with my time. Sometimes I can tell myself that keeping house is her art and she's a master at it. And sometimes I can say with conviction that art IS important, more important than a clean house. But most of the time that voice in my head just saws away at me and I begin moving in circles: draw a bit, see something I should be doing, do it poorly, feel guilty, go back to the sketchbook, draw some more, lather, rinse, repeat....

James and I love stuff (especially books) and we love to collect it, and the odder the stuff the better. As a result, Tumbledown is a bit like Disneyland in that you can't see it all in one day. When my mom visits now, she can hardly speak her eyes are so busy! But her reaction over the years has made me self-conscious of my nest and more than a little hesitant to share it with others. I love it here, but I know it's not for everyone....

So this shabby front door is all you're gonna get for now. And I'll try to introduce you to the rest of the Tumbledown Experience in little bits, 'k?

Trust me. 'Little bits' is best. :)
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