Colour Me...

a little Grumpy, leanin' towards Belligerent...

my side hurts, my toes are cold and I'm hungry...and I'm too lazy to do anything about the cold toes and dinner...

some times it just feels good to wallow in the mud, doesn't it?

and I know blog entries are more fun with photos but I am not going to take a photo of my toes...especially since a man I was madly in love with a long long long time ago looked down at my feet once night, as we walked along after seeing a friend off on a train, and completely out of the blue said, and I quote: "You have strange toes"*...

that's right...he went there...

we didn't see one another much after that...he did beg, but that is the way the Big Ball of Rejection bounces on your head after talkin' trash about my toes...peanut head...

anyhoo...Miss Becky over at In Every Season tapped me for a little book love...

here is how it goes:

Pass this on to 5 blogging friends.

Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, to page 56.

Write out the 5th sentence, as well as two to five sentences following that...

well, I reached into the basket under my bedside table and I was hoping against hope to grab Winnie-the-Pooh but I grabbed Jan Karon's Out to Canaan instead...

so here goes: okay...that was boring...so I'll get Winnie-the-Pooh which is right by where Out to Canaan was and I could have just as easily grabbed it...

"Having made certain of this, he took the jar back to Piglet, and Piglet looked up from the bottom of His Very Deep Pit and said "Got it?" and Pooh said, "Yes, but it isn't quite a full jar," and he threw it down to Piglet, and Piglet said, "No, it isn't! Is that all you've got left?" and Pooh said, "Yes." Because it was. So Piglet put the jar at the bottom of the Pit, and climbed out, and they went off home together.

"Well, good night, Pooh," said Piglet, when they had got to Pooh's house. "And we meet at six o'clock tomorrow morning by the Pine Trees, and see how many Heffalumps we've got in our Trap"...

...all I have to say is I thought I wrote rambling sentences...and I'll leave the speculation about what Mr. Milne may or may not have been smokin' up to somebody else**...

I'm going to tap anybody else who'd like to play along who'd like...'cause I already broke one of 2 rules anyway...

Take It Easy, ya'll...

**********************************************************
*and he most definitely did not mean "You have the most strangely cute toes"...he meant "strange toes" period. peanut head...

**don't get angry about my little Milne joke...I love Winnie-the-Pooh 'cause he's [sing along] short, fat and proud of that...I even have Tigger socks that I've had for years and years...

2 Months and Counting...

and ya'llllll know what I'm talkin' about...Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, you know...

That's right...Christmas!!!!!!

While sluggin' about the house recuperating, I've made a nice little dent in my Christmas Shopping, thank ye very much...

I figured I'd better go ahead and do some of my CS before the economy finishes imploding*...the banks shut down & our credit cards stop working**...all those little plastic cards will be good for is working as windshield ice scrapers***...

not that we'll have gas to go anywhere...buuuuuutttt, looking on the positive side of things, the creditors won't have gas to come and get my stuff...or will they? hmmmmmm...might be time to look into a P. O. box...

and it never hurts to get a little somethin' somethin' for yourself while shopping for others...

and Mr. Travis has a new Christmas DVD available for pre-order too...might have to get that one as well...we'll see...and I also took a Big Ol' Leap of Faith and ordered my first Elvis CD of any stripe...

BN.com is my friend...

So...what Christmas CDs will ya'll be buying this year?
******************************************************
*am I the only who is afraid to even look at the 401K account any more? just checking in makes me feel like I need a brown paper bag to breathe into...and then I can use it for, um, cookie tossing...

**I don't care much for using debit cards over the Internet so I generally use my Visa that I try very very hard to pay off each month...because debt, along with the deepening RECESSION, global warming and the Iraq War, makes me feel like I'm about to have a heart attack...and hives...and eat my way through the fridge...

***and I don't believe I'm the only one who has ever stood in freezing temperatures with a credit card trying to carve myself an opening large enough to avoid running over small children and pets...and those crazy mean-assed squirrels...****

****yep, Squirrels get an asterisked asterisk...Squirrels will you Mess You Up...and they'll talk all kind of smack at you too...I had one squirrel that his favourite thing last year was to hang upside down on the dogwood tree outside of my kitchen window, glare at me and shriek all sorts of Squirrel Cuss at me...like I need that kind of attitude in my own kitchen...I Don't Heart Me No Squirrels...

What is This?...and those?

This is the detritus of a sick room...although, technically, I'm not sick...just recuperating from a hurried surgery...thus is explained my lengthy absence...just one more hurdle left to jump, knock wood, and all that is left is for me to heal and get myself ready for the Holidays*...

This is my new best friend...the cheapy little pillow you get at the hospital...it now is no longer a so much a pillow as an abdomen buffer-cushion-massive- compression device...I love this thing...and yes I know I could have at least asked for somebody to put a pillow case on it, but trust me...that hasn't even been a blip on the Radar of My Concerns...

I just decided to name the pillow Bumpy...

This is who is known as Teddy Weddy...found about 3 weeks ago in the local H/M's parking lot...bless his little heart...my husband actually hefted his 45 year-old-haven't-climbed-a-tree-since-at least-grade-school** behind up into a Bradford Pear to try and catch this little booger...I kept waiting for the tree, the cat and the husband to come crashin' down on my head...so I moved around to the other side of the tree...

This is who is known as Roxie Squidge...Roxie found herself lovingly dumped, along with her sibling whom we failed to catch, in the woods next to our house...well, I caught Roxie's sister/brother, but somebody afraid of a little cat bite, let him go...after I was already bitten...in retrospect, I guess that explains the whole climbin' the tree thing...redemption is a powerful motivator, friends...

catching a wild or scared cat is a little like driving through the woods at night with your lights off...it isn't a matter of if you're going to hit a tree, just a matter of how big the tree is and how much is it going to hurt...

RoxieSquidge and Teddys have been keeping me company...they're little enough so when they pounce on my stomachunderneathtwopillows it doesn't make me scream...just wince...but they're so cute it is worth a little pain to enjoy their silliness...

This is what I've been reading...and lovin', I might add...Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Domesticity***...I made a B & N run last weekend (not this weekend, but last weekend) in preparation for my downtime and just happened across the book...flipped through, read a few pages...love the attitude and pixs...get a copy...for me to actually pay full price for a book (well, less my B & N member discount of 10%) speaks volumes about how good I expected the book to be...and I'm not disappointed at all

judging by my book marker...oh yes, I trundled myself and Bumpy into my office to grab a pretty sheet of scrapbook paper, my ripply-edged scissors and made myself a cute little bookmarkish thing to mark down Things Worth Following Up On...

See? the list is long...

and these are just too cute to not share...even if I still take crappy photos...which I always will...

This is my husband...the ever elusive...I banged tapped on the wall for him to come in, hoping to surprise him for a good photo, but he is still too quick for me...the man has been Good as Gold...even went to H/M to buy me an over sized nightie (grey with pink coffee cups, pink roses and a pink ribbon...what can I say? I imagine there are men who wouldn't have even tried...) and over sized pink granny panties (yes, pink again, but also again, how many men would have even gone there? bless his heart, I have to tell this cute story...DH didn't know what granny panties are and he said no way was he walking up to an older lady to ask her to show him where the granny panties were...I laughed even tho' it was very painful and I was very nauseated at the time)****

This is the crappy view out of my bedroom window...the neighbor's half-painted Man Shed...the remains of the trees taken down about 2 months ago...I've got to do something with that area...but I'm makin' plans, people, makin' plans as I stare out this window for hours and hours and hours...

now, I've got a lot of blog reading to catch up on so if ya'll will excuse me...
*************************************************************
*I'll be doing some on-line catalogue shopping here shortly...

**although I'm sure willin' to bet good money there are a few college high jinx involving late nights, liquor, tree climbing and some others things I'd just soon not know about lurking around in the DH's past...

***but if you are expecting page after page of How-To's with Detailed Instructions, be forewarned you will be mightily disappointed...this is Not That Kind of a Book, thank you very much...

****the pink thing is only relevant because I own nothing pink...nothing...but maybe, subconsciously, DH would like me wear a little pink every now & again...well, I'll think about buying a pink t-shirt or a pink cashmere sweater to tool around in every once in a blue moon...just because he's a sweetheart of a guy...and because I'll take any excuse to buy cashmere...

Look What Happens IF...

you're nice to the lady at Lowe's who is stuck with unpacking all the Christmas Stuff out in the Formerly Garden Stuff area...thatttttt's right...faboo cardboard stars...that I have no idea of what to do with...Lord help...I mangled that sentence, didn't I? but I don't care...I've been under the weather and I'm claiming, um, Recuperating Editing Rights...

she had them in the trash bin! I had to save them...naturally, I'll move them about for maybe 5 or 6 years and then they'll end up in the trash anyway...or at least the recycle bin...

the following day I will be struck by a brilliant idea of what I could have used the things for...

because that, friends, is the Way of the Universe...

Miss Julie over at Gingerbread (yum) Pumpkin (yum, again...because I bought some Pumpkin Spice coffee this past weekend...that I just found when cleaning up the pantry...we'll have another talk some day about so called "deals" with spouses about putting up groceries in exchange for escaping toilet scrubbing duty...and then having to revamp the pantries/cabinets/fridge/freezer every time you use the "deal"...but like I said, that's another day) tagged me to throw 6 Random Facts About Myself Into the Universe...I know the Universe can hardly wait so here goes...

1) I'm absolutely in love with David Suchet's Poirot...the Poirot from before they cheapened the series with the new episodes...I'm sorry but you do not have to Sex Up Agatha Christie...whose idiot brilliant idea was that?

2) I will clap along with a crowd at just about any gathering...and I'll sing along and I'll dance along...now ya'll know to get seats far away from me...

3) I Heart Me Some Grey...I love grey weather, grey clothes, grey cars...I even can't wait until my hair that I unfortunately coloured an unfortunate shade of dark reddish brown goes completely silver so I can, snap, WearItWithFlair...I have not, however, ever seen an episode of Gray's Anatomy...probably because they spell "grey" all wonky...and considering Henry Gray was British, I totally don't Get It...

4) I never met the jar of jam or jelly or marmalade or curd that I didn't like...or chutney or pesto or whatever funky mix you can put in a jar...along as there aren't chunks of animal parts floatin' in jelly or something equally disturbing...

5) I have a Secret Desire to wear house dresses and chain smoke...this may be tied to the fact that I'm sick of perennially dieting, exercising and having to wear things with fitted waists...or at least the illusion of a fitted waist (the things they can do with elastic these days!!!)

6) I am Not Always Right...just enough of the time to Make It Seem That Way*

**************************************************************
*the rest of the time I just keep my mouth shut...that is the secret to not bringing your batting average down and appearing to have a FGGOE (Fairly Good Grasp of Everything)...hah...

Take It Easy, Ya'll

Sheila

Pardon This Interruption...

of a blogger who primarily likes to rattle on about little mundane things...

by a blogger who is simply fed up with A Whole Lot of Things...

(click to enlarge...created at wordle.net)

and let's not go into finger pointing...we're so far beyond that that we can't even see that in the rear view mirror...

so all I'm askin' is: Do any of ya'll have a couple of Middle Schoolers who might be available a couple of afternoons a week to help all the grown-ups get this mess straightened out? or even some 4th graders good with long division, multiplication, addition, subtraction...ya'll know...the basic stuff* that we all use to balance our piggy banks...

...because surely the little ones couldn't do a worse job than the bunch currently runnin' the show have...

actually, maybe we should just check the zoos for primates with drinking problems**...

****************************************
*basic stuff=apparently unimportant stuff once you enter certain job arenas

**better known as a barrel of drunk monkeys

OOOOOOOhhhhhhh the Shame...

of it all....

what are these?easy enough, right?

these are magazines...

but what kind of magazines?

old magazines, she said with a hint of defiance in her voice

what kind of old magazines?

old magazines...bought off of ebay...

that's right, people...I've hit a new low for magazine addiction...

I'm buyin' them off ebay...

...and I just won the complete 1990 and 1991 issues of Country Living [hooray...$4.99 plus shipping]...

can I tell ya'll how much I'm loving these old magazines?

a whole bunch...they're a really cheap thrill...keep me amused and out of trouble for hours on end...

several months ago, our bet-ter Goodwill started keeping magazines in the book area...I was thrilled...I grabbed up a handful and practically trampled children on my way to the register to enquire the price (I'm thinkin' to myself "couldn't be more than 50 cents an issue")...

after the check-out ladies looked at me as if I had more than 1 screw loose, one trotted off to the back room to see how much to charge the insane person at the register for the crummy old magazines...

BUT THEY WEREN'T FOR SALE...

just for "customers to browse"...

what? people, this isn't Barnes & Noble...until ya'll start up a coffee bar and sell over-priced slices of cheesecake too, THERE IS NO SITTING AND BROWSING MAGAZINES (that I want to buy)...

I expect I was a pitiful sight, slowly trundling back to the stupid book area to return the stupid magazines to the stupid bin where nobody was going to do anything with them at stupid all...

But I feel, with time, I've moved on...recovered a bit...found a new way to feed my addiction...

next, please...wicker furniture found at the Habitat in Rincon...settee $30, chair $20 and end table $10...the only flaw is that little broken band at the bottom of the chair...easy fix...

I've been wanting wicker for the front porch for a while but refused to get up off at least a cool $300...because I'm frugal like that...

Life Lesson: eventually, all things pass through Goodwill, the Salvation Army and/or Habitat for Humanity...like a good pitch...you gotta waiiiiitttttttt for it...SWING!

a nice coat of olive green paint will perk things right up...a nice coat of olive green paint that will be applied when the heat and humidity back off just a touch...come, say, November...
and a long bloomin', late blooming daylily...that I cannot recall the name of for the life of me...

most daylilies in our area have long since stopped blooming...actually around here, a lot of blooming perennials hang up their hats by June or July so I love having these pretty orange blooms in late August and on into September...

Take it easy, ya'll :)

Thanks for...

the award, Deb...
it is tres cool...

and since my foreign language skills are, well, horrible, I used altavista's babelfish translator to see what the award says...

it says, according to the babbling fish: this blog invests and credits na proximidade

so...I imagine that letter I sent to the vet in St. Martin using babelfish was a bunch of incomprehensible gibberish...

no wonder I never got a response...

sigh...it is hard to make a whole nation look bad, but I think I did a pretty bang-up job of it with that pitiful letter...

but Deb says the award means "My friend Sharon informed me that the award celebrates how lovely someone is! That's a pretty nice award and I'm sure it means inside.

Mrs. B also found a translation of the award on the post below to be. THIS BLOG INVEST AND BELIEVES IN THE PROXIMITY ( proximity> noun nearness in space, time, or relationship)"

we're going with that...

and now I pick 8 bloggers who I think are lovely...

let's see:

A Girl Named Timi's, um, Timi (she's a funny mess...with a cool car)

Bay Side to Mountain Side's Darla (she's just so funny too...and funny counts for a lot)

The Berry's Patch's Brandee (she is just plain sweet...)

Gingerbread Pumpkin's Julie (another sweetie...and I love Gingerbread & Pumpkin)

Lavender Hill Studio's Penny (Penny is just pleasant and friendly allll the time...plus she likes brown transfer ware too...and I love her roosterchickenpillow)

Rabbit Run Cottage's Susie Q (another funny lady...with a really cool dog co-blogger)

The Pleasure of Homemaking's Manuela (I'm so glad you're blogging again!!! you have a lot to offer :)

Southern Hospitality's Rhoda (because the woman can decorate a house on a dime...& do it well)

there...all done...

Remembering 9/11

for many Americans, for several generations, September 11th is going to be one of Those Questions...

each generation has some of those questions; sometimes the questions overlap generations...

society-altering, soul-shaking moments that make people say "I remember where I was when..."

like when people say where they were when JFK or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were assassinated or when The Bomb was dropped...or when the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up...although, sadly, now there are 2 of those instances to recall...

Too young for the first two, I do remember when Challenger and her astronauts blew apart in a fiery explosion...

and I remember the utter shock and disbelief taking over my emotions...

and now I also remember when a man ran up to me at the hospital where I was working on 9/11/2001...

I cannot remember his face but I can remember him saying "a plane just flew into the World Trade Center" and I remember some of the thoughts that raced through my mind...

the ones I voiced were "a little plane? it was an accident, right?", thinking some poor hobby pilot flew horribly off course and lost control of his plane...

but it wasn't, was it? patients and staff gathered around as we could to watch the tragedy unfolding, hoping that somehow those people would be rescued...we knew those on the airplane were beyond help...

then we watched in disbelief as the second plane flew into the WTC...

I will never forget watching people fling themselves from those buildings, tiny dark figures hurtling down through the air...

...then those towers came down before our disbelieving eyes...

and as that grief-filled day unfolded, we learned of more victims...the victims of the attack on the Pentagon, both the passengers and crew of American Airlines Flight 77 as well as the Pentagon staff, and the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93...

My heart still hurts for the victims of 9/11...

the people who died, their families and for the rest of us too...

9/11 wounded us all...

I believe time heals wounds...this one will take a long long time to heal all the way...


***************************************************************************

Deb at Deb's Country Kisses has gifted me with a Sweet Award...

Deb, I promise I'll pass this award on tomorrow when we all aren't feeling quite so blue...

A Little Christmas Gift Thriftin' Love...

for my favourite SIL who is absolutely bonkers for PINK! the woman (and her husband) are just finishing up building a great big pink house on the water...that is how much she loves pink...

we're a lot alike in our decorating tastes...but I go with brown/olive green/gold/burnt orange/brick red/black...she goes with turquoise/kelly green/sunshine yellow/pink/turquoise/white...

we love the same stuff, we just choose different palettes...

given the love affair with pink in all of its shades, I know SIL will love this for her Christmas Gift...

The bowl is Polish Crystal (still has the label...actually still had the price sticker on the bottom) with no chips or cracks, stands about 10 inches tall and is about that wide across...and weighs a ton...I love the cranberry colour of it and the beautiful cuts in the surface of the crystal..

and I'm going to fill it with Christmas ornaments...not the ones I was thinkin' about that are pictured above...those don't really fit the bill...I think I'll go with ones I custom make by filling clear ornaments with craft paint, swirling about it all about to create a beautiful look ornament with SIL's palette in mind...

Don't worry...I'll tell her I thrifted it* because we're both into thriftin' , we've a history of exchanging thrifted gifts** and we're both l-o-v-e getting something fabulous for a song ...well, not an actual song because my singing voice would scare anybody who still draws a breath...not encourage the generous bestowing of great things for no cost...

this is a Home Run in the gift department...

so....do any of ya'll Thrift Gift? (I am going to feel so bad if I am the Only One in the Whole Wide World...just keep that in mind...)



******************************************************
*no, I won't be all uncouth about it and blare it extra-real loud right when I hand it over...

**the most important part of receiving a gift is when a person knows you well enough to just pick out a Perfect Something...doesn't matter to me if it is second-hand, third-hand or picked out of the Free Bin at the thrift shop...it is the thought that counts...I have friends and family I'd gift with thrifted items without a second thought...but I do have friends and family that I know that wouldn't sit well with so I Never Go There...

moral: Know Whom to Gift with Thrifted Items and Whom Not to Gift with Thrifted Items :)

As Promised...

the bed, the goblet, the new office door...plus my new Mass-Produced-But-Adorable Pumpkins and Crows and our mantel...

lookin' better...but not there yet...I'm going to do some type of glaze...I'm leaning towards a barn red...honestly, I'm going through some type of decorating midlife crisis...I've always mixed rustic with modern/cottage/french provincial...whatever is at hand and works...but I'm a little unsettled that I seem to be heavily gravitating towards a prim feel...this is somewhat new territory...

no, not going out into the back 40, harvesting saplings and lashin' them together to form our kitchen table (although I have given serious thought to doing that for a bed frame...wouldn't the cats just pass out from sheer hysterical delight?) but definitely tilting towards a home with more rustic leanings than before...

although some of my friends would say that seed has always been there, just waitin' to burst into the light...

invariably, when we were going through our auction stage, the worst looking Piece o' Junk that came onto the bidding floor elicited excited whispers of "Sheila! did you see that?!!!! that looks like you! you have to get that!"...

now I know what is meant by that...but still...

movin' along...

new goblets intended for the Thanksgiving table...very excited about these...let's see...new office door...lovin' this...our home is a ranch-style house built in the early 70s...love the layout...mostly...but all of the bedrooms are on one end of the house, opening onto a shared hallway that gets dark as a cave when the doors are shut...and my office door always stays shut because the cats love to knock my stuff off the shelves...

(what can I say? have cats? don't drag it home unless you can put it up and away or don't mind it being wrecked)

solution: french door picked up from Habitat* for a song...$20, I think...

still in the primer stage while I decide what colour I want to sling up there...leanin' towards black, but red is a strong contender...

and this is our mantel "stuff"...do ya'll know how hard it is too find black tapers?! welllllll, pret-ty darn hard it seems...at least in these parts...($1.99 a piece at Grand Harbor)...

my poor swan...I bought him offa e-bay and the seller did such a CRAPPY job of packing that he arrived with his neck broken in 2 places...I could have filed the insurance but by the time the cost of shipping was deducted I would have been out $20....plus I didn't like the idea of Swan being thrown in the junk pile just because some Knot Head is a slacker...

yep, I'll throw that harsh talk right out there and I'm not a bit sorry...unlike that seller...

one of the few bad experience I've had on e-bay...actually, one of two...oh well, I guess I'm batting pretty good...

anyhoo, I decided "HEY! my speciality is decorating with stuff that has been wrecked in some fashion or another" so I glued Swan back together, placed him on the mantel and call it good...Swan gets dusted around...

***********************************************************
*always always always check your local Habitat shop for building/renovating supplies...it keeps stuff out of the landfill and helps others at the same time plus, generally, the prices are easy on the wallet...a visit to Habitat can be hit or miss like any other thrifty shopping so make yourself a list for any future projects and just get into the habit of swinging by...

just this past weekend, DH and I wandered over to look see (we need 2 nice big windows for our garage rehab) and while we struck out, the big find this time if we were in the market was beautiful wood doors with leaded glass inserts that probably came from one of the local home improvement stores who were discontinuing those styles and didn't need the display items any longer...sweet deal if you could use them...

Where There Are None...

we must create our own...

Traditions, that is...or Hallmarks, if you prefer...

now I love the Big Holidays...I start anticipating Christmas on December 26th...

and Minor Holidays are fun too especially if we don't get all anal about them*...

but there are places in our lives where we need to create Tradition for ourselves...

Traditions not necessarily addressed by a card at the stationery store or in an aisle at your local Wal-Mart**...

My September 1st tradition is, roll that drum, please, to re-read allllllll of Ms. Karon's Mitford books...yep, that's right...livin' large in the 'Boro...

and can I tell ya'll just how excited I've been about doing this?! look how dog-eared my copy of At Home in Mitford is...I love it...

last year, I actually set a Begin Date of August 15th...but somehow I feel that September 1st, the first Official Fall-Like-If-You-Live-Some-Other-Place-Than-Here-Month, deserves a bit more fanfare than being just the Extra Month of Summer around here...or One of the Extra Months of Summer around here...

next year I need to come up with something to add to the mix...maybe bake a Marmalade Cake and eat it alllll up...

The best part of creating our own Hallmark Days is we can add or subtract as we go...whatever feels right...no rules already so entrenched by Generations of Somebody Elses that our own ideas or inclinations are verboten...planning to dress up like a pirate and rent a parrot for Talk like a Pirate Day...cool (please send me a pix)...or just want to answer your cell "Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum" and call it good? great...whatever floats that proverbial boat...

I may tire of my current September 1st celebration at some point and cancel it...or it may morph into something else...who knows?

the Days roll around come what may...we may as well have a good time while they do...
***************************************************************

*My favourite Minor Holiday has to be Talk Like a Pirate Day...how hysterically funny is that? and how irritated people get over it...oh well...arrrrggggghhhh...I love Captain Barbossa...even if he does need a good wash...I do have a confession...I have never made it through an entire day talkin' like a Pirate...like I said, people tend to get irritated by it pretty rapidly...

I think for Talk Like a Pirate Day we'll watch the At World's End and eat something Pirate-y...hmmmmm...maybe shrimp something-or-another...I have to write this on the calendar...

**don't get me wrong...I can spend lots of time reading cards and laughing out loud over the funny ones (I think greeting card writers must be a fun lot)...and I have actually been known to shell out $3 or $4 for a card...I'm especially weak-willed when it comes to Glittery Cards...those are the best...you actually get to wear some of the glitter for the rest of the day if you're lucky enough to receive or shop for Glittery Cards...My Granny always gave the Best Glittery Cards...


Next Post: the Bed Gets Its Second Coat, my new Office Door and Thrift Christmas Shopping

Makin' a Mess...

that is what I've been spending a lot of time doing here lately...
this how I bake*...and Fall must be on the way because I cannot make myself bake unless I start to feel like the worst of Summer has come & gone...please let it have come & gone...

although this afternoon has been hot enough to fry just about anything you'd care to put on the driveway...makes me want to cry...and cuss...but ya'll already knew that about the cussin'...yes, I'm still working on the cussing thing...I am getting better...slowly slowly slowly...

so this is what happens when I snap and start a project half-you-know-what-ed...
sick of staring at this stark white king-sized bed, I hit the paint store with a vague idea of what I wanted...sort of Prim-Meets-Pottery-Barn-ish with a dash of Been-In-the-Family-A-While...oh, the Project Gods were clutching their stomachs they laughed so hard...

the paint I chose first couldn't be done in a little can...too much pigment for the can...so I picked another colour...couldn't get that in anything but a gloss...tried again...I was able to move to a semi-gloss for my third choice (I'm workin' in oil so it can be difficult or maybe the Paint Chick just Hated Me on Sight)...

man...I thought I had something akin to honey mustard...not SCHOOL BUS YELLOW...

School Bus Yellow from a school bus with 10 years of Georgia Dust ground into the surface...

I believe I can say without fear of the Heavenly Lightening Bolt that I haven't botched a project this badly in a long long long while...

so now we're callin' this The Base Coat...okay, the only coat I hoped to have to do...hah...

now I've re-thunk my strategy...I've bought some white oil-based paint that mix with the SBY so I can attempt to tone this mess down...then I may go back with a coffee-coloured glaze over the top...we'll see...

if this flops, I will be visiting the furniture store very shortly...

this another project one eighth half-done...first coat of poly on the oak table I'm refinishing...the sides are proving to be a nightmare to strip...
and this project...well, let's just say I'm learning to live with Imperfection...the shades are monster-sized on this little dinky chandelier ***...and the chandelier does have to be dink-sized because the ceiling is so low...I kind of like it tho'...so either it looks better than I think or I'm becoming more adept at lyin' to myself...and let's keep it that way...(so what do ya'll think about adding a few amber drops to the bottom center piece...that section is wood so I can screw some little eye hooks in there and jazz it up a little bit without makin' it a hazard to anybody over 5'10 (my height...the DH and DS are, respectively, 6' and 6'5-ish)Chubby Bubby isn't quite sure what to make of all this foolishness...

********************************************************
*giving a gingerbread biscotti recipe a trial run...it is okay but I've had better...of course, I replaced the dried cranberries with raisins and the walnuts with pecans...I know better than mess with a recipe on the first time out but I'm also too lazy to drive to the store and too cheap to pay for walnuts and dried cranberries right now environmentally aware* that driving to the store for 2 ingredients is Not Good...

and, yes, I actually do have my spices in an old old old Popsicle box...I almost cared enough to cover it in some cute Rooster Contact Paper before I shot this photo...almost, but not quite...

**pretending that oil-based paint is not an Environmental Nightmare...but, she whined, latex paint just won't hold up on furniture or cabinets that is used more than once in a decade...at least not around this household...

***originally bright faux brass, brown wood and bronze metal...and shadeless...replaces a flat ceiling fixture with daisies in bas-relief...

Hurry Hurry Hurry

for one day only Hearst Magazines (or whatever the official company name is) is having a great sale...there are lots of subscriptions for $6.99...I already subscribe to House Beautiful (my favourite magazine...great decorating and Ina...just perfect) and Country Living or else I'd be allllll about giftin' myself with a, er, gift subscription...

here's the link: https://subscribe.hearstmags.com/multititle/housebeautiful/IXXEM0038/IXXE60038?src=de

Tybee Update: we had a great time...but I'm so out of Marathon Shopping and Eating Shape that by the second night I had to be medicated and coddled a bit... by Tuesday a.m. I was bright-eyed and bushy-haired again (I didn't even consider draggin' hair products and appliances to the beach...why bother? ) annnnndddddd we did some more shoppin'....*

I thought I'd be ultra-hip about the group (well, 3 is a group, right?) photo snapping and take one of those long-armed photos you see all the Young People takin' and they look like they just stepped off the pages of a fashion rag...well, I got a some very strange photographs...

okay...a better word would be frightening...so I'm not sharing them at all...

actually, I could've sworn my digital camera had a self-timer so I thought the group photo thing would be easy enough...good thing I don't get paid for thinking...of course, since I hate with a capital H A T E havin' my photo taken anyway, there may have been some subconscious undermining going on...not swearin' to it or anything, I'm just sayin'...

but that's all right...good memories last a long time too...

our rental cottage has a name: Sunburst Cottage...

very darlin' and very very small...

http://www.renttybee.com/properties/2nd%20Avenue/02AVE-1514-Info.htm

and ya'll know, give some women a little bit of time to start dreaming...we had that little cottage all mentally dolled up and expanded...we added a screened front porch that went from corner-to-corner, opened up the ceilings in the front, enclosed the back deck (all you see if the back of the house behind the cottage) for an additional bedroom and did a jack-and-jill bathroom...and there was loose talk about bumping out the kitchen side, I believe...we added built-ins in the living room, replaced the front windows with single 15-pane doors and did a lot of built-ins for books & sech....

oh...and I got to watch several Not Edited for TV episodes of Sex in the City's first season...my jaw dropped a few times but I made an effort to not gasp...a lot...there were a few raw parts but it wasn't as bad as I imagined it would be...but I've been informed it gets, um, more, um, well, Vivid...yes, we'll use the word Vivid...

now I can cuss up a storm when I get upset...it is a bad bad habit I should work harder to remove...but, believe it or not, I'm a Prude when it comes to matters of the flesh...I am, I can't help it, I just am...

and all my friends know it...good Lord, I just had a visual flash-something of some bit of information about one friend's intimate dealings that I wish I never had heard...see? that is what happens...

I hear something I don't want to know in the first place and then I just get these flashes...blech...

so, actually watching SITC at all was a massive undertaking for me...just call me Prudence...



************************************************************
*I've got to take a photo of the glasses and dishes I bought...I love them so much that I wish Thanksgiving was next week...well, actually I wish November was next week so we could just skip the rest of stinkin' August and almost-as-hot stinkin' September...

Headin' Down to Tybee...

yep, because there ain't much better than going some place hotter than the 7th level your own home in August...in Georgia...and payin' for the privilege...

tomorrow evening, the DH & I will be pickin' a Northern friend* (yes, we Georgians can be friends with a Yankee...although, does Michigan count as Yankee turf?) up from the airport...a friend who about died from heat stroke when she came down to Savannah in July that first time all those years ago...

and apparently she liked the sensation so much, she's not only comin' back again in the summer, but in a hotter month...

I think she fried her brain down here the first time 'round...

another friend will be joining us so we'll have a 4-day 3-night Girlfriends' Weekend...although technically it isn't a weekend because we don't head down to Tybee until Sunday...just to run our mouths, eat, shop...(Lord, I hope nobody is planning on loggin' any beach sunning time...)

and truthfully we're all well beyond a fair use of the word "girl" but that is what these gatherings are called, I believe...

I must really like these ladies because I truly have no idea why else a Summertime Beach Hater like myself would be going for this unless it was for the company...or a lot of money...



and unless they've been holdin' out on me, we can just go ahead and rule the money thing out...





******************************


*apparently, Michigan is where those Summer Sweaters we Georgians see advertised in catalogs go to get worn...it wasn't until NF explained the weather up there that I realized one could actually wear a chubby knit sweater during the summer and not get signed up for the loony bin by concerned family members...





******************************


movin' along, Brandee of The Berry's Patch has awarded me this:

ooooh ahhhhh...I think this is the prettiest Blog Award I've seen...and now I have one too...thanks, Brandee :) (Brandee must sense that I desperately want to be artistic :)

And I'd Like to Thank...

Deb for the scintillating

please visit Deb's sweet blog by clickin' on her name...or you can click here to be taken to Deb's Country Kisses

Now to pass the award along to:

Bay Side to Mountain Side's Darla....because she has a great sense of humour...

The Berry's Patch's Brandee...because she is also so sweet...and because she posts photos of all her children...not just the 2-legged one :)

Gingerbread Pumpkin's Julie...because 1) she is movin' and deserves an award just for that alone and 2) I love gingerbread & pumpkin...plus Julie is pretty darn nice :) (well, of course she is because, duh, she likes gingerbread & pumpkin)

hmmmm...I can't quite remember how many bloggers I'm supposed to pass this along to but I have a terrific headache so I think I'm done...

thanks again, Miss Deb :)

O' Tannenbaum, O' Tannenbaum...

You Are a Cranberry and Popcorn Strung Tree

Christmas is all about showcasing your creative talents. From cookies to nicely wrapped presents, your unique creations impress everyone.

What Christmas Tree Are You?

...the scent of live Christmas Trees makes me giddy...old pieces of our 2-Years-Ago Christmas Tree are tucked into a basket in our hallway and when I go past, some times, I catch a little hint of Christmas...and I love it...even on days when Frazzled is my Middle Name and Badly is my first, those old fir needles bring a smile to my face...

the cats love it too when they remember to get up there and grab a piece, bustin' up housekeeping in the process and makin' me Say Ugly...

last year (because, apparently, I lost my mind) we decided to put up only 1 tree...a pre-lit artificial tree*...a beautiful easy-to-pop-up If One Light Goes Out The Rest Don't Tree that, unfortunately, didn't Do It for Me at all...other than when I plugged the tree in at night, the tree just kinda hung out in the dim dining room collecting dust bunnies under its feet...not a soul pulled up a chair to just sit a while gazing at the tree as one of my Countless Christmas CDs** played on and dreams of Christmas Past waltzed about the room...

I tried to capture that Christmas Scent...

I bought fresh garland and draped just about everything that didn't move...nope, nothing...could have been because the garland was Too Fresh...those live Christmas Tree/Garlands really have to get to the Fire Hazard Stage before they start smellin' good, don't they?...

Christmas is Important...I know we should think and act as if it is Christmas all the time (Christmas does bring out the best in people...well, most people) and I know It Isn't About the Gifts (mostly) or the Decorations (mostly) or the Food (mostly)...or even the Christmas Smell...

But I have to tell ya'll when I get disappointed at Christmas Time, I do not Wear It Well...My Butt tends to climb right up to my shoulders, plant itself and stay there for a good long while...

So this comin' Christmas***, there will be at least 1 Formerly Live Christmas Tree at Number 17...

The younger cats will think they've died and gone to Feline Heaven...Mungo Mungo may simply pass out from Sheer Ectasy...as it is, choppin' vegetables around here is just about impossible because when Mungo Mungo espies a carrot or celery stalk, he cannot rest until the veggie at hand has been thoroughly wallowed all over as if it were the Very Finest of Catnip... I know...makes Not Havin' A Meal With Cat Hair In It very difficult...frankly, I'm getting to the point where I don't care anymore...okay...I've gotten to the point...

what can I say? if you come to eat at our house, then come prepared to have Cat Hair in your food or bring your own...actually, that won't work either because it [the cat hair] floats around in the air, waiting to land on anything it can...

I doubt I'll even bother with ornaments for the next several years due to above mentioned young cats...why court disaster? but the scent of Christmas once again being in our home will make it more than okay...


**********************************************************************

*no offense to those who love the pre-lits...they are a blessing when a Formerly Live Christmas Tree just won't work out...

**favourite Christmas CD: Kathy Mattea's Good News...and here shortly I plan to add Randy Travis' Christmas CD to the collection...

***why no, it isn't Too Early to Talk About Christmas...As a Matter of Fact, it is never Too Early to Talk About Christmas... and yes, I do have some of my shoppin' already done...

I Have a Question...

*cow photo supplied by freefoto.com

what, exactly, does milk do in a recipe?

I mean, is it just a liquid binder?

I've recently decided to not buy any form of dairy (yes, we can talk about it if ya'll want to, but I tend to get a little irritating...a little more irritating than usual when the "Subject" comes up*) but I'd like to continue making baked goods...and while I can search out vegan recipes that use as substitutes soy or rice milk (blech), I'd much rather just not bother with that at all...


so if a cookie recipes calls for 1 tablespoon of milk, can I just sub in 1 tablespoon of water?

...and don't worry...I've got the Butter Angle allllll covered with my old friend Crisco...the best banana bread I've ever eaten in my life is made with Crisco...or whatever vegetable shortening is on hand...calories galore! but a stick or two of butter isn't all that weight-management friendly either, is it?

my Granma used Crisco all the time in her baking and boy, oh boy, could Granma cook...one of those old-fashioned Southern Cooks who didn't really use a recipe but everything she turned out was delicious...except her hamburger patties...Poor Granma...bless her heart, the woman could not fix a hamburger patty that wasn't kin to a charcoal briquette...and every Monday Night was hamburger night...

but that's okay 'cause Saturday Night was Waffle Night (with cane syrup, please) and Sundays were all about the Fried Chicken...

*******************************************************************

and if you truly want to know why I'm no longer buying dairy (I stopped buying "beef" (that means "cow") and "pork" (that means "pig"), watch the video...my conscience finally got the better of my stomach and my lazy tendencies...if you have a tender heart, be prepared to be sad and angry...for a long time...but if you're brave enough and don't mind havin' your comfort zone sized down a bit...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWmAJlwLnQI

It's Big and It's Blue...

but it catches sweet rain for the veggie garden & fruit trees so I guess I can overlook its Blueness...

as projects go, this was not an expensive one or a skill-challenging one...we bartered for the rain barrel and the supplies for the gutter system & spigot were well under $100 (purchased from Lowe's)...the wood for the stand we had stashed in our Maybe We'll Need It One Day pile o' wood in the garage...

and I'd say DH spent maybe 2 to 3 hours installing the whole set-up...pretty darn impressive :)

2 things to do differently on the next barrel:

1) instead of removing the whole lid, make a small opening in the top and run the downspout straight into the barrel

2) the spigot needs to be sited lower on the barrel

I truly love the ease of this project and its reward...havin' rain water for the veggie patch...I haven't researched this but it seems as if the plants love rain water so much more than tap water...I've spent countless time and lots of potable water when I've had to water in new plants and ended up with plants just barely hangin' on in the Hot Summer Weather...what a pain and what a waste...

but then a good bit of rain water and it is like the plants stop holdin' their breath and get on with living...