the boy gets a hobby...

...and it goes perfectly with my garage sale obsession. yep, furniture refinishing! woo hoo. we started with a $7 coffee table for his new apartment. which, so far, is empty.

he spent the majority of yesterday sanding. and sanding. and sanding. i always forget to take "before" photos, but this is close. i will keep you posted on the progress.

and yes, we worked on the bathroom too. the latest is that all the plaster is falling off the walls since we scraped the paint. ah. someday, i will pee in a pretty place! i will!

peace out

see ya later, june 2008. it has been really nice knowing you :)

the relatives

look! look! cute suitcase #1 has a cousin! she is kinda beige and bland right now, but oh, the possibility. the inside is kind of a grey/green, and in fairly good shape. she smells kind of musty but i will let her sit out in the sun a couple of afternoons next week, then try putting some "smell goods" in her. otherwise, she has a monogram, kmm, and is an american tourister model. ROUND! omg! happiness. i am thinking i will use her for my overnight case (cutie #1 is holding my design portfolio right now).

i think i smell an obsession coming on :))

hi YAAAAAA

went to kung fu panda with the boy last night. i give it a thumbs up.

once again, we sat in an almost empty theatre. only one other lady and her 4 year old, who said to us "i am so excited" and at one point asked her mom "does that girl have her eyes closed?"

he he.

i woke up quickly though, cause jack black, even if it's just his voice, is so dang funny. phillip and i have some great phrases and hand movements that we took from it and will proudly use in the future. that alone is worth the ticket price. my favorite line (which means nothing to you if you have not seen it) is "i thought it was just a regular peach tree." phillip and i HOWLED, if that gives you an idea of how funny we thought it was.

po the panda also says during the middle of a particularly dramatic battle "you're making me pee...you're making me PEEEEEE." oh. good stuff.

go see it. if you've got a kid, take him/her too.


:)

sugar rush

another of my fascinating "i'm a late bloomer" moments has been unleashed this summer. oh, slurpee, where have you BEEN all my life? i think it might be that i've been single for most of my 45 years. single girls don't really do slurpees, unless they are 13. but boy oh boy, does MY boy love em. and he has me hooked. i like to make a custom "mix" when i go to the local Kum and Go (yeah. it's called that). last night it was blue raspberry and cherry bomb. like a big glass of slushy bomb pops all mixed together! yyyyuuuummmm-ooooooohhhh.

just for kicks, i looked up the calories. not really sure, but it looks like a couple hundred calories for a regular sized one. a good thing is that usually by about 75% through, you run into the kind of sugar overload where your cheeks turn pink and you think your head is going to explode, and you leave the rest alone. that brings the calorie count down...i should be a weight watchers spokesperson with THAT kind of magic tip.

anyway. hot days and slurpees. that's what i like.

not that i'm braggin'

but yesterday i discovered that i can have a professional phone conference about a *very important thing* and also wash, prep and chop rhubarb at the same time.

i wonder if i could work my way up to a corner office with THAT kind of skill?!

:)

pictorial of progress

yes, i said progress. whilst i was out visiting my family yesterday, my honey the carpenter spent 5 hours pounding and scraping, and we now have almost all the wood up in the bathroom. i am starting to appreciate the process, vs. wait for the results. and just as karen is painting all her walls in color, i am scraping all the color off mine :)



now where is that dustbuster when i need it?!

and who needs a sink in the bathroom, when you can have it in the hallway?! please just nevermind the dirty underwear in the background (a whole trail of clothing, actually). it seems the carpenters in my house decide to just take a shower if they get hot and sticky during the remodeling...


oh. the site of walls getting covered up again. and plumbing. real live plumbing.


and electricity too! what does a girl do to deserve this?!


thankfully, my big jug of calgon awaits when this whole ordeal is over :) not anytime soon, but sooner. whew.

game on

this weekend produced a very satisfying 2-day thrift fest. i am amazed at the number of rummage sales in one town! although i hit on some pretty good finds, i think my favorite is this one:



games. lots and lots of games. i grew up playing alot of these games, and still enjoy board games every once in awhile. luckily, phillip does too. we played a mean game of yahtzee last night (i won, if you are wondering :)) and i am looking forward to digging into a couple of these i have never heard of. and omgosh, there is even a SPIROGRAPH in there! almost complete, only 2 tiny cogs missing. the instruction manual is GREAT on that one.

i wonder about my fascination with thrifting. there is no doubt i like the thrill of the hunt, but i think the bigger thing is mostly related to my obsession with the past. i LOVE thinking about the old days! does this happen to everyone, or is it just me?! i think it might be happening to me a little more than most. i do understand that God made me for "such a time as this" but i also just find value in remembering. what i do remember is mostly good. i think the world was just so different when i was growing up. i am glad i have the internet, and computer graphics, and ipods, but i do think the 60s and 70s had their own kind of funkiness. it just seemed simpler then, but again, i was a kid so it probably was :)

oh, who knows. i just love to thrift. it's one of my very favorite parts of summer. among the other stuff i discovered:



a turquoise fiberglass chair that i am using for my new/old sewing chair. i've been on the hunt for one of these for awhile. this one is not in mint condition, but it had white paint and sticky stuff all over it when i bought it, and cleaned up nicely. very butt-friendly, too :)




estate sale recipe cards. 50 cents for a huge stack. i only bought 2 bundles, and there were probably 20. this lady also had a bazillion aprons, and the lady running the sale said they were all pressed and hanging in the closet. this is a woman i wish i had met!



2 AWESOME smaller thermos jugs. i just may be obsessed with these, i think they are so funky and designed!! phillip takes his lunch most days, so this winter i'll be able to send soup with him to work, along with my love, of course :)

oh. there was other stuff too. a belt sander that we needed for projects, a couple cheese boards, some pearl cotton to crochet with, a few patterns and books and dvds. mostly, i just bought alot of memories, or at least brought them back to life for a bit. c'mon over and i'll share some with you!

garden update

my fave flower right now is this turtlehead. if you zoom in, you'll see what a crazy flower this is. very pretty color, too.

i love the morning walk-around in the garden. it's my chance to see what developed overnight. sometimes, big things happen. other times it's just an exercise in patience to see that jalapeno flower almost, ALMOST ready to make a fruit. not quite today, though.

the herb bucket is just exploding. herbs are SO easy to grow. they are really just like weeds. i've got chives, mint, sage, basil (about a hundred kinds), thyme, lavender and oregano growing in there right now.

and probably the biggest surprise for today, yep, i have a real live tomato in da house. it's on the "early girl" of course, and is the size of a large pea. won't be too long, though!!! yum.

all better

just bought these. disregard previous post.

go here if you also need to forget about something yucky.

undone

words cannot express how disappointing it is to take on a huge do-it-yourself project and then not. do. it.

it's been months now, and no sign of the bathroom being finished. i am used to not having a sink to brush my teeth in front of! aaaaaaaarrrggh. i guess i did not take into account the fact that i am outside all spring, and the man works 7 days a week, and sleeps the rest of the time.

anyway, i still have some remaining hope. not much, but some. we got the rest of the wood needed to finish up this weekend. the next dilemma to solve is how to patch up the badly damaged plaster.

i was thinking that wallpaper might be an option for the wall with the medicine cabinet.






wallpaper is cool again, right?

garden buddy

every spring i look forward to seeing him again. he's been here since before i was here, and he always seems pretty comfortable with me, like we are old friends. i was starting to get worried, because i had not seen him yet this year, although phillip said he had a spotting a few weeks ago.

but this morning, as i was heading out for the morning walk-about, he popped out from under a bush by the steps.



he seems good! fatter than before, and i think possibly a little older and more mellow. he's still a hunter though, i am pretty sure i have him to thank for the controlled bunny population around the garden.



he likes to make himself at home :) welcome back, loco, i have missed you!



also spotted peaking out from under a leaf this morning: the first yellow zucchini. stir fry, here we come!

a million miles of mulch

or at least that's how my body feels about all the work done on the flower beds this weekend. i was thankful when i ran outta mulch at about 5pm yesterday. i did get to menards for more, but by the time i got done, i was done for the day. but the pizza delivery man told me i had a great looking house, so i guess it works for now.

anyway, i do have some pretty tidy looking plants. mulching helps immensely to make them pop out. oh yeah, and pulling weeds doesn't hurt, either. i only had 2 snake sightings on sunday, but saturday i had about a half dozen. yikes! those snakes don't know how much they freak me out when i am freaking them out. luckily, we get along mostly.

anyway, i am glad to be almost almost almost caught up with the front yard duties for this summer, except for mowing and trimming. now i can concentrate on the garden, and the untamed wild that is the back yard!

back to monday, but at least i have a nice walk-around to take when it's break time :)

pies and old things

ah. sunday morning, i have an apple pie baking in the oven right now, before the day gets too warm. i made a pie for two reasons: 1) i asked phillip what his favorite pie was, and he said apple. i happen to have (had) two jars left of the "apple pie in a jar" i canned last fall. it's very easy. you just dump the quart jar of "stuff" in a pie crust, and top with a crumbly topping. it's really more like apple crisp than anything. oh. and 2) i got that beautiful vasoline glass bowl for $2 while rummaging yesterday! it's been loved up, no cracks but alot of worn edges. i love the feeling of using something i know has been well used for years. i looked it up online, and they are selling on ebay for $15 to $20, so i guess i got a deal.



after this week, the back yard is starting to look like an antique shop. some would say "junk" shop, but i would call it that as if it's a good thing! i'm too lazy right now to take photos of everything, but among the scores:

* free windows, enough to make a tri-panel folding screen, and at least one more greenhouse. oh. and some scrap wood too. i think possibly that phillip is even more of a packrat than me.

* old antique screen door. ohhhhhhhhh. want to plant a climbing vine of some sort on it! and maybe paint it bright blue!

* rusty iron grate. ohhhhhhhhhhhhh again. i don't know what i will do with it. maybe just stare at it.

* plant stands for the garden. the guy on the wonderful rummage sale i went to welded them together himself. now i need more plants! it's a vicious cycle :)



and for the kitchen, lots of mint green vases and kitchen ware. i think the vases are great, but i am more excited about the little melamine/plastic glasses. set of 8 in perfect condition for $3. now i am on the hunt for some 60s style melamine plates/dishes to use outside this summer. i cringe whenever phil takes my good fiestaware outside! plus, i like the melamine stuff. good memories of growing up :)




oh. and plants, plants and more plants. today i have a big day of mulching all the flower beds, and of course moving stuff around. i'll leave you with some lily power, and a happy father's day to any dads out there, including my own!

mdr* wednesday

that's it. i have decided that every single day when i wake up and it's grey and rainy, i'm going to buy something pretty. seriously. i am.

today i thought about nate duval. he's an incredibly talented guy i saw on etsy. and yeah, i bought something pretty from him. he's the one i bought the peacock poster from awhile back. it really is lovely. silkscreened loveliness.






how's that for a rain day ruiner? ha. i bought "bird bus" (on top) this morning, and i can hardly wait til it rains again tomorrow.










* more dang rain.

itching to stitch

i have had a bug for quite sometime now, and it seems to be getting worse! yes, that's right. a sewing bug! you may remember last summer, when i made a quilt in a day and a half, and it unleashed the sewing monster in me.

months and months and months of time at the computer tamed it that time, but i feel it coming back. this time around, i'm getting the urge to try some clothing. not sure about that, but heck, i need to wear clothes and i am SO OVER the mall. after a certain age, you should not be allowed to even GO to a mall. i swear.



anyway, here's what i did. i ordered this book called "the alabama stitch book." ya'll KNOW how much i love alabama. i am a southern girl at heart, for sure, except for location. and the reviews i have read on LOTS of blogs about this book are all crazy good. supposedly it combines "sustainability" and craft by reusing old stuff to make something new.



by next week at this time, i should be almost almost ALMOST caught up enough in life to try and sew something.