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...

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*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...



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*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...