is your ceiling holding you down?

i intended to write about chaos, but that didn't happen.
sometimes writing is like that.
but i decided to leave this chaotic picture anyway.

hairbrush abandoned on the couch.  all of the couch pillows strewn over the living room floor. a big pile of clothes cast aside after an afternoon of three small girls' game of top model (most hilarious thing i've overheard in ages).  bits of a loom stacked against the far wall. a basket piled high with various half-finished stitching projects. iPad propped up on a child-sized chair. Wii-motes on the floor. just another typical day in our depressing low-ceilinged living room.

i don't spend much time here. the odd evening spent before BBC crime shows. a bit of bunny time on the couch with sabin (and the bunnies). the low ceiling, the sagging wallpaper, holes in the wall, uneven window sills - none of it very inviting. i think it's part of why the room attracts chaos. people come in, they use it and they want to leave again. without putting things away.

leading me to believe that some places attract chaos (because the chaos surely couldn't just be me).

the dismal kitchen isn't really that much better and the ceiling there is very low too. i find i'm content to leave the dinner dishes on the counter, pans in the sink and the oranges in that red net they come in, rather than arranging them fetchingly in the big fruit bowl, like i used to do in my old kitchen. tho' i bought paint ages ago, i still haven't painted those calamine lotion pink cupboards. it just seems like more effort than it's worth when we'll be tearing it all down (hopefully next summer).

i noticed when i was in the philippines a week ago that high ceilings do something interesting to my state of mind. they make me feel calm and peaceful. i think better when i'm not pressed down by the ceiling over my head. i have more and better ideas.  i feel generally more expansive in a good way (not in dress size - tho' eating in the philippines can do that). i wonder if my much more boring less edgy subdued blog posts since we moved have to do with the low ceilings of my current surroundings.

and i think the only thing that makes it ok on a daily basis is that i know it won't be like this forever.  it may be like this for another year or so, as other projects call first...a water treatment unit for our well, a new electrical panel, a new sewage system, finishing the upstairs of the old barn...so many projects. and so for now we have to live with it. low ceilings and all.

or maybe it's just all toxoplasma affecting my brain.