Martha Stewart Is Not Afraid of Me

Not fit for sleeping on, but useful.

One of the delights of our mission trip a few weeks ago was that we had several fabulous late-teenage women with us. They were young and gorgeous and flat-bellied and looking at them made me feel pretty much like a cross between Methusaleh and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man but they were so NICE that I wouldn't help but love them, and they were so SMART that I couldn't help but admire them. Every once in a while one would toss out a nugget of young smarts and I would think "Oh, I need to write a whole blog about that thing she said." My favorite was something one of them said as we were painting, a task a trained monkey could do but one that was giving me some challenges.

"You have to adjust your goals according to your skills," she said. My goal of perfection, I inferred, probably wasn't going to happen given my inability to paint a straight line.

I thought about that often Saturday when Husband and I spent the day with Boy#3 helping him spruce up his rented house. Husband's job was putting some new shelves; my job was to figure out window coverings for the living room. I've not done this before, but I had good intentions and Pinterest--what more would it take? Could I not do better than this?

Yes. The answer to that question is 'yes.'

I started out like gangbusters with a link to a pattern for Roman blinds. It was easy, the blogger said. No-sew, she promised. All you need is fabric, an old mini-blind, scissors, and fabric glue.

Unfortunately, Three lives in a town so small that not a single store sells fabric. Not even the "super" WalMart. Also, fabric glue? It is to laugh. So these became the most MacGyver-ed Roman shades ever. Let's see, we'll start with the broken mini-blind off the window:

Then if the WalMart has no fabric, how about a craft kit that includes a couple yards of cotton duck material, and for the lining the absolute cheapest bed sheets ever? (Actually, cutting up those 120-thread-count sheets made me remember what a super special princess I am, now that I sleep on much higher thread counts. These scratchy things are for linings only.)

Okay, disassemble the miniblind and throw away the extra slats, use spray adhesive to form the remaining skeleton...

And, as we say in the orchestra, viola! Pair with a valance purchased for a dollar at a garage sale and it's looking not so bad at all.

The Roman shade is imperfect. You have to hold your head just right and say a few magic words to get the up-and-down system to work, but eventually it folds and unfolds. Look back to first picture of this window, though, to the eight-inches-too-short kitchen curtain that had been filtering the morning light.

Martha Stewart feels secure, but this is a definite upgrade. And considering my skills, I met my goal. Thank you, young friends from the mission trip. I plan to use that advice often.