The Lighter Side
The Lighter Side: More on choosing paint colors (and reducing visual torture)
Apparently, based on reader feedback from a recent column, choosing paint colors is even more torturous for homeowners than even I imagined.
The Lighter Side: New year organizing, stuffing our stuff into other stuff
It’s January, which means some of us feel a biological imperative to organize our mass amounts of stuff.
The Lighter Side : 2020 year end check-in: How are you doing?
Let’s be honest: 2021 could not have gotten here soon enough. How are you faring during this pandemic? Here’s a test to check the level of your well being.
The Lighter Side: The 2020 holiday letter of gloom, doom and gratitude
Every year my husband and his siblings look though my mother-in-law’s holiday cards and letters to catch up on the lives of extended family and old friends. She used to get these truly amazing holiday letters from a former neighbor who has since passed away. These...
The Lighter Side: Ghost in the house? Could be nice, but maybe not
This is the time of year – when the heat is cranked up – that one hears all kinds of creaks and groans in old houses, which I always live in. One time a woman said to me, “I could never live in an old house. I mean someone probably died there.” I thought, so what?...
The Lighter Side: Selling during the holidays? Perhaps your house but not ours
Many homes look especially appealing this time of year with decorations creating a charming holiday scene. Our house, however, is not in selling form this time of year.
The Lighter Side: Unwanted houseguests: Mice and squirrels
It’s that special time of year. It’s the time of year when temperatures drop and snow falls. It’s the time of year to snuggle up in front of the fireplace (if you’re lucky) with some hot tea and a good book (okay, Netflix). It’s the time of year to watch a field mouse...
The Lighter Side: Time to create some cheer and decorate for the holidays
Now that you’ve gotten through your turkey meat induced coma, it’s time to drag out the holiday decorations.
The Lighter Side: Choosing Good Paint Colors Takes Wacky Effort
While we’re hunkered down at home, many people are using the time to spruce up the joint, including painting. To start, a color must be selected.
The Lighter Side: Thanksgiving Planning in the Time of COVID-19
I heard Christmas music in a store recently which made me realize that Thanksgiving is right around the corner.
The Lighter Side: Quarantining At Home: Are We Sliding into Hibernation?
Our old cat Poppy has taken to sleeping even more than usual lately. I think she’s going into semi-hibernation from the lack of activity in our house. She’s a social critter (orange tabbies are people lovers), and is use to my husband and me having family and friends...
The Lighter Side: Evacuation Planning: What Stuff Do We Take?
The night the CalWood Fire started, my husband and I stood at a second story window and watched in horror as the bright flames burned on the north end of Boulder. I wish I could say this was an unusual surreal experience, the first of its kind. But, no. Actually, it...
The Lighter Side: Best Color Names: House Paint Verses Nail Polish
Like most couples that have been together a long time, my husband and I like to play the game “Who is Right,” just good old-fashioned we-spend-way-too-much-time-together fun. Some fact will arise where we have a differing opinion of the answer, like who the actor is...
The Lighter Side: Leaving the Home Bubble: The Excitement of Grocery Shopping
There was a time oh-so-long-ago – when we use to be able to hug people and see their faces – when I hated going grocery shopping with a passion. But now these occasional forays to the great lands outside the four walls of our protective barrier are one of the highlights of my routine.
The Lighter Side: Pandemic Daze at Home: Month Eight – Quashing Quarantine Habits
“We’re getting low on toilet paper,” says my husband, the King of Quarantine Supplies. “Don’t want to get caught with our pants down on this one,” I reply. (Yes, it’s this kind of jaunty repartee that keeps the home fires burning.) “Put it on the list and we’ll get...
The Lighter Side: Winter’s coming: Get Out the Flannel Sheets
It’s fall in Colorado which means it will be winter any day. Yes, we have both flip-flops and snow boots by the front door, but soon it will just be the boots. It’s the time of year to get out the flannel sheets.
The Lighter Side: The “COVID Closet Syndrome”, The mysterious shrinking of our clothes
It seems many of us have a case of “COVID Closet Syndrome,” yet another byproduct of the pandemic which scientists have not yet been able to explain.
The Lighter Side: Six Months of this Column: Your Hard-Hitting Questions Answered
This week marks six months I have been writing this column. Yah, time flies when you’re quarantining during a global pandemic and the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Every week since I started I have received kind e-mails from you readers. Thus I thought I’d take this occasion to answer a few:
The Lighter Side: Colorado Daze – What the Heck is Next During These Bizarre Times?
Man, what a week it’s been! We went from a record heat wave with smog, ash and un-breathable air from the fires to a 70-degree temperature drop with a foliage-zapping freeze and snow.
The Lighter Side: Who’s missing garage sales? Some kooky folks but not me
For some people, the lack of garage sales during the pandemic has been a loss. Not for me; I’ve had enough for a lifetime.
The Lighter Side: Real Estate Junkies in the Time of COVID
Man, has it been stressful lately. Here we are heading toward month seven of the pandemic (with all the other related horrible happenings as well), but I think it’s the fires that have put people over the edge, mood wise. It just feels like new disasters are constantly being heaped upon us. What next? We all need to do what we can to relieve stress. For my husband and me this means looking at real estate.
The Lighter Side: Houseguests coming – Finally things will get done
Like most writers, I need a deadline to really get my brain popping and my fingers clicking. Unfortunately, this doesn’t just apply to my work, but my personal life as well.
The Lighter Side: Pandemic daze at home- Month six! OMG, will this ever end?
We are in month six of this pandemic. Wow! That’s a long time. In this period, two-thirds of a new human has been grown inside its mother. Meanwhile most of us older, born humans who have been penned up in our homes feel like we’re just stagnant, or worse, mildly...
The Lighter Side: Musings about Houseplants: From Hipster to Horrendous
It’s funny that certain houseplants – and houseplants in general – are now considered in style. Every creative hipster has a few in their well-designed abodes: usually one in a glass orb hanging from the ceiling, a couple of structural succulents on table tops, a fiddle-leaved fig in a corner, and some vine-y plant tacked to a wall, usually behind a bed frame. I love it all!
The Lighter Side: And Now for Some Soft News: In Praise of Accent Pillows
Times are hard, so let’s talk about something soft: accent pillows. I am Spock-like logical when is comes to buying most home furnishings, but accent pillows are my shopping Achilles’ heel.
