Living in a Fish Bowl

My husband and I have been living in a fish bowl.  My mom came home from a church function last week, and proceeded to tell me that several of the church ladies commented on our home and EVERYTHING that has been going on there.  Mom was kind of surprised because she hadn't been given a progress report recently.  I didn't think people were paying that much attention to our dog and pony show.  I guess those gutters we installed last week were as awesome as the salesman said they were going to be!  Then I got to thinking...maybe it's because we are living in a "fish bowl" for everybody to see what we are doing.  After all, I took our curtains down on the main floor the day we moved in, and I have yet to put new ones up.  I'm thinking I might invest in one of those castles, some seaweed plants, a hollow log, and some colorful pebbles to spread on our living room floor so we can truly make it look like home.

Back in January, we (meaning "I") decided to replace many of the window treatments in our home (my husband would be fine with a bath towel hanging over the window).  I had a definite budget in mind, and I wasn't looking to break the bank.  I started researching online, and shopping around for styles and designs that matched our decor.  As many of you know, window treatments are difficult to purchase until you have furnishings, carpet, and all of the other essential items picked out.  And guess what, they don't sell inexpensive curtains to fit on those funky rods with the string on the end that our grandmas put up back in the 60s and 70s.  You know, the ones that hung out about a foot past the edge of the window on either side so as to let the maximum amount of light in and trick visitors into thinking a person could afford windows the size of a side of a barn.  My first thought was to retrofit modern curtains to work on those rods.  I started by spending one whole Sunday afternoon carefully pinning the material and making each pleat 5 1/4 inches apart only to find that the one panel that should have covered half the window would only cover a small fraction of the window when complete.  No wonder custom curtains are so expensive!  It takes a small army to weave all the fabric needed to stitch them all together!  Needless to say, I scratched that idea and dashed my hopes of opening a custom curtain shop on the side.

Now that I wasn't able to use the existing curtain rods, the task of picking out curtain rods loomed before me.  I looked everywhere trying to find something suitable and reasonably priced only to find exactly what I needed on a last minute trip this weekend to none other than Wal-Mart where I was looking to purchase an ice cream maker and ended up with curtain rods instead.  Hallelujah!

With the promise of using power tools, I conned my hubby into helping me hang the curtains in the living room last night.  The poor guy was covered in grease from head to toe (even in his right ear) from a transmission project earlier in the afternoon, so he even had to change clothes to help because I didn't want my new curtains all greasy.  After a couple of small disagreements about the proper way to go about the job, and a few "I really don't care" comments from the male's point of view, the job was complete.  We can now pull the shade on our fish bowl in at least one room.  Only five more to go. Welcome Home!