Lunchtime post.

Did you ever have one of those weeks where you seem destined to look like a total idiot everywhere you go?

That's totally the kind of week I'm having. That's all I have to say about that.

The carpet cleaners have come and gone, and the carpet looks much better. Much cleaner, anyway. Now I'm going to tape off the trim in the living room and paint it while I have an empty room. Can I get a *groan*? I hate to paint. But the trim is sadly in need of a couple nice fresh white coats. I might do the dining room, too, if I get a big blast of mojo.

And then we get to move all the stuff back in. I'm going to weed it out as I move it...there are lots of old catalogs and magazines that need to go, and Todd has a whole mess of mags and booklets that he needs to put elsewhere. I'm also going to pare down the books, AND I think I may take some of our lesser-loved DVDs and put them in a CD holder booklet so their cases aren't taking up room on the shelves. I might try to get rid of a few, too, if Todd will let me.

I just want to have a paper- and pile-free home. No clutter! Is it possible? I used to be pretty good at it, but we seem to be getting more cluttered over the years.

My very own Chairy.

(PeeWee's Playhouse, anyone?)

I think I mentioned before that I'm working on turning my scraproom into more of a computer/sitting room, and I'm looking for furniture to accomplish this.

What I really wanted was a comfy chair to sit in and read or sew, especially late at night when I can't sleep. One night a month or so ago we stopped by a few furniture stores just to look. The first one we went to had a couch covered in this fantastic floral fabric. A chair sat next to it that was the exact style I had in mind. Of course, this store was by far the most expensive furniture store I'd ever been in. Which isn't saying too much, but still...

We went to a few more stores, and then I hit several thrift stores, and I was planning to also go to some auctions and sales this spring and summer to see what I could find.

But I just couldn't get that fabric out of my mind. It was PERFECT for my study.

Last week I went back to see if it was as great as I remembered, and it was. Long story short (too late, you say?)--I ordered the chair I loved with the fabric I loved. And it wasn't near as expensive as I feared--the fabric was marked down and the chair was on sale. My allowance will be in arrears for a few months, but I think it will be worth it.

The saleslady printed me a copy of what it will look like, so that's what's in the picture. The arms will be different, because I changed my mind on that, and the color is brighter, but it's a good general idea. It will be about a month before I can get it, and I am DYING to have it, so I can curl up in it and relax in my study!

Now I can get a coordinating fabric to cover my thrift shop ottoman, and to make curtains, and it will all be perfectly girly, which apparently is something I'm morphing into in my middle age. Go figure!

I'm so excited...!

Sunny Tuesday.

I had lunch with my friend Cheryl today and bestowed upon her a 2-foot-tall stack of stamping and scrapbooking magazines that I had to clean out in my ongoing Purge of the Scraproom. And we laughed at how magazines take over your life and how we should never buy any more, and then I went to Barnes and Noble and bought two magazines.

However, they were home and garden magazines, which doesn't count, since my previous problem was with hobby magazines. Right?

Also, I don't hoard home mags the way I did hobby mags. So it's all good. Yep, I don't have a problem at all.

Anyway, one of the mags I got was Romantic Homes, which seems to have taken an interesting turn recently. I used to pick it up and flip through it, and it always seemed to be all big curtain swags and floral wallpaper, but I've gotten the last couple issues, and they are really wonderful and more updated and simple.

They have a French editor who writes very peculiarly-worded articles (she has a little essay on the page I linked that is much better written) , but the pictures are pure eye candy. So check it out!

The weather is so ideal this week--cool but sunny, very refreshing. I got all my hair chopped off last week--seriously, like six inches gone--and it feels great to have a light and airy head to go with the springtime breeze. It's been years since I had my hair so short, and it's very layered so I can pull out bits with hair putty and make it look sort of tousled. I have no feminine hair skills, but I can just about manage the hair putty thing.

Now I have to go empty out the living room and dining room so the carpet cleaners can work tomorrow. They're doing the LR, the DR, and the stairs. I've taken a solemn vow never, ever to buy a house from a dog owner again...the previous owner had several dogs, and being a guy, never cleaned up after them, and the spots where they would apparently sit and shed or pee or just emanate doggy odors are just...NASTY. When the air is dry and the windows are shut, the smell isn't too bad, but when the air gets moist and the windows and doors are open--ugh.

Ideally, we'd replace the carpet, but till we can come up with that chunk of change, I'm hoping the carpet guys can at least knock down the aroma a little. We had them cleaned before we moved in, but not realizing the extent of the pet odor problem, we didn't have them do a pet treatment. Tomorrow, I will.

This is part of the reason I have a less-than-warm attitude toward most canines and their owners. Not all, but most!

Off to move books and breakables, wish me luck.

Books.

I updated my book blog today. I have GOT to go to the library and find something fun to read!

Saturday stuff.

I just wanted to announce that I've been feeling much better the past few days. I stopped taking both medications that were supposed to make me feel better but just made me feel dead, and now that they're out of my system, I feel alive again. Maybe I'm just not meant for better living through chemistry.

Neither medication was keeping me alive or anything like that, so don't anybody worry that I'll be keeling over shortly!

We woke up to about 1/2" of snow over everything this morning--the first snow of the winter and we don't get it till Easter. Go figure. It's mostly melted now, but boy was it cold and breezy today. Wussy little me was whimpering all day.

We spent this morning being fiscally responsible, as Todd did the taxes and I brought our bank accounts up to date. Each of us at our computers, being industrious--it was quite impressive.

Then we went out and drove around looking at the blooming dogwoods and the redbuds and enjoying all the lovely green leaves. We stopped at the Yorktown Victory Center which we've never been to before, and took in as much as we could before closing, which wasn't much. The people that run this place and the Jamestown center put a tremendous amount of thought into it--it's truly impressive. Jamestown has a re-created Indian village, a replica of the Jamestown settlement, and reproductions of the ships the English came over in, complete with tons of re-enactors. Yorktown's site is smaller, but there is a small replica village with re-enactors in costume.

Outside the "kitchen" building, they had a huge vegetable and herb garden, with lots of stuff coming up already: peas, onions, sage, leaf lettuce and spinach. I'm so excited to plant my new herbs this spring, but seeing the veggies, especially the leaf lettuce, made me pine for a vegetable garden of my own. It would be hard to find a good spot for it in our shady back yard, but oh, how I want one. There is nothing better than a salad full of stuff out of your own garden.

They had an herb called burnet there, which I've heard of, but never seen before. I rubbed the leaves, but there was no smell. Sounds like it might be good in salads, and it was a pretty plant. I want to try some new herbs this year--tarragon, for sure, and I don't know what else.

Flowers are hard for me to grow, especially annuals. I never seem to get the spot just right, or I over- or under-water them, or maybe they just hate me, I don't know. But herbs are the darlingest things--they almost always grow beautifully, and it's easy to find lots of info about the best spots for them. And they smell good, and they're useful if you feel like using them, but you can just enjoy them if you want to. I adore growing herbs!

Speaking of flowers, I saw the most GORGEOUS planters in downtown Yorktown--two huge cement urns on either side of a store doorway, and they were planted with yellow pansies, red geraniums, and what else? A clumpy white flower that has been blooming in my garden for a couple months, and whose name I can't remember--candytuft? And there was something blue, too, maybe blue pansies. Anyway, it was stunning--so bright and colorful. I'm craving flowers and colors like candy right now. Just gotta wait till the snow is done!

A little seasonal humor...

...I spotted this at Two Peas and literally laughed myself to tears:


This is another fave that a certain Pea puts in her signature line every year. It always makes me laugh, every time I see it:

These are the days of miracle and wonder.

We have a special treat in our backyard every spring--lots of violets scattered around in purple clumps. So pretty and delicate!

The violets are surrounded right now by pear tree petals that have blown around like snowflakes for the last few days. The trees are green now instead of white, but here's what they looked like a few days ago:


And the dogwood in the back yard is blooming, too:


I wish we had some forsythias or azaleas--something with a little color. I've been admiring the neighborhood's flowering shrubs, so gorgeous. Maybe I can plant a little something in the front yard that will impress us next spring.

And now the green leaves are coming out, which is the happiest moment for me. There's just nothing like seeing those tiny green buds grow and seeing bare branches become green. Spring is such a happy time!

Oldies.

I'm using my blog to host a couple pictures so I can post them over at Two Peas. There's a thread about showing the oldest picture you have.

The top picture is my great-great grandmother on my mother's side, with her two sisters. (Great-great Grandma is the one on the left.) I believe this was taken in the late 1860s.

The bottom picture is my great-great-great grandparents on my father's side, and it's a metal tintype with the color painted on. I think this one is also from the 1860s.

I have lots and lots of old pictures, but I think these two are the very oldest.

Still here!

Still not feeling great...it's getting tiresome. Some of it is "lady parts" trouble, which is particularly fun. I've been growling at Todd for having the good foresight to be born as a dude.

So there's just not much to update here, because I simply haven't been doing much. Let's see...I finally got my Target hutch and table set up, and they look nice. Then I sweet-talked Todd into getting me a new keyboard and mouse (both wireless) and a flat monitor. So I'm stylin' now.

I have a mountain of stuff to haul off to the local charity shop, and the house is a disaster area because Todd's been painting the stairway, which requires lots of plastic sheets and equipment sitting about. Also, to round out our conspicuous consumption for the month, Todd found a 37" flat-screen TV at an excellent price a couple weeks ago, and so that necessitated tearing our whole living room apart and rearranging it, and there are still miscellaneous piles sitting around after that.

Then Todd got under the house last weekend and wired up his surround sound speakers (the wires run under the floor so I don't have to look at them), so he finally has the home theater he's been pining for. The guy is as happy as a pig in poop...he watched Return of the Jedi on Sunday night and almost shook the house down.

Other than that, the most exciting thing that's happened is that after years of dreadful haircuts, Todd finally bought a clipper at Wal-Mart and decreed that I'm in charge of his hair from now on. I gave him his first coif on Friday, and managed to shave a bald patch over his left ear, which required him to find specialized seating positions (left side to the wall) during his business trip to Atlanta on Monday. I'm SUCH a good wife.

The trees are blooming their hearts out, and it's such a pleasure to see them. I can't wait for some green leaves to follow!

Happy spring!

We're having a very spring-like day here today--warm and breezy and sunny. I've got the windows open, trying to blow out the winter stuffies.

I started taking birth control pills a couple weeks ago, and I think they are making me very sick to my stomach, compounded by my seasonal allergy post-nasal drip. So I've been laying low in between bouts of gagging and occasional throw-ups. It's delightful.

Also, our Internet has been in and out for several days. So I'm here and doing good, just nauseated and occasionally incommunicado. I'll post again when I'm feeling a little less yakky!

Art.

I found this picture at a thrift store on Monday--three bucks. I just love it, it's some amateur little oil painting that someone masking-taped into a cheap frame, but look how nice it looks against my teal study walls!

Itchy.

Why do I itch all over today? I feel prickly all over my skin. Do I need a lotion bath or something?

Makeovers.

My Target desk and hutch came today, huzzah! Now everybody needs to post a comment and tell my DH to get my old countertop torn down so I can put these together and start whipping this study back into shape!

I love thrifty finds, and screw-it-together furniture seems so...soulless...but honestly, I could look for months for something like this at sales and thrift stores before I found what I was looking for. So, soulless and quick it is.

I am, however, scouting the thrifts for an armchair of some sort for my study. Something comfy, maybe overstuffed, or maybe a little more structured. Not formal, more cottagey.

I found a little ottoman that should be easy to slipcover yesterday, plus a funny little table with a magazine rack built in that I'm going to paint white and put my teal lamp on. So that's done. I just need the countertop down, the computer table moved, and a chair to sit in, and I'll be almost there!

Then I want to slipcover my office chair, put up curtains of some sort...and then one room in this house, at least, will be done.

More yada yada.

I'm doing a little housecleaning on my blogs today, and I added a new blog, too. It's called Nose in a Book, and it will become my new book journal, as the old-style (paper) book journal I started for 2007 is already showing signs of not being sufficient to hold all the books I read in a year. Besides, blogging about books will be more fun.

I have another blog, called Fresh Sweet Corn, that I started last summer when I thought I was going to be cooking lots and becoming a foodie blogger. Well, there are lots of foodie bloggers out there who are far, far, far more qualified than I...and yet, I still harbor the idea that my kitchen will suddenly become so alluring that I'll start concocting wonderful yummy things and writing about them all.

Well, a girl can dream. In the meantime, I am going to try to start updating that blog more often, which will mean cooking more often, so do check it out on occasion, if you'd like.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Chopping heads off chickens and other life skills.

Simply Recipes is one of my very favorite blogs--easy to look at, well-written, entertaining--and oh yes, excellent recipes to boot! Elise, the blog creator, was interviewed on her local NPR station the other day. Here's the link to her post about it, and from there, you can navigate to the broadcast and find her spot. It's about 1/3 of the way through.

It was so fun to hear her voice and find out a little bit about her, and she mentioned something that I think about a lot: how our parents and grandparents carry around so much knowledge and experience with them that we younger folk often don't pay attention to until at some point in our lives we wish to have it.

I commented on her blog that I have a very vivid memory of my grandpa and my dad butchering chickens in my grandparents' yard, and then wandering down to the basement and watching my grandma and my mom plucking the birds and taking out their guts and whatnot. I remember being amazed when they opened one of the birds, and there was an egg intact inside of her. Talk about fresh!

Anyway, I would have no clue, none, about how to butcher a bird. No desire, either. I get yicked out handling grocery store chicken with the skin still on it.

But there are other skills, less gross skills, that I just never got passed along to me. I guess because by the time the 70s and 80s rolled around, they weren't skills that people needed to get through life. But how convenient it would be to be able to sew, or crochet, or make yeast bread, or...any of the other myriads of things I don't know how to do. Seems like the older folks in my family know at least a million things that I don't.

Of course, I can blog. But that doesn't seem like a good skill trade-off!

iPot.

Isn't this the darlingest thing ever?

It's got a mesh insert so you can brew tea, but you can pull it out so the pot can go in the microwave to heat the water.

Here's where you can get one of your own. It's awfully hard to pick a color, though! I picked Sunflower.

Yay, books!

I'm excited...I indulged myself with three new home decor books, which is a real indulgence for me. Paperbacks, no biggie. But big full-color hardback books, those are a little more rare for me to buy.

They came from Amazon today...here's what I got:

Flea Market Style, by Emily Chalmers

The French-Inspired Home, by Kaari Meng

Decorating Easy, by Jane Cumberbatch

I'm so excited about sitting and savoring them that I'm putting off sitting and savoring them, like a kid hoarding bubble gum in a treasure box. Ridiculous.

I had another book by Jane Cumberbatch called Pure Style, but I'm very much afraid I unloaded it in one of my book purges, because the style was a little too pure. Lots of empty granite sinks and shower stalls, if I remember correctly. But I do still wish I had it. If I did indeed get rid of it. Maybe I should just go look.

We had a fabulous book store in Columbus that was inside an old church. Appropriate, as I had a feeling of reverence walking up the steps and seeing books, books and more books.

Most of the books were overstocks...a few used items, but mostly overstocks and, oddly, lots of British books. I got some fabulous British embroidery books there and also quite a few home decor books, like Pure Style.

The really famous bookstore in Columbus was in German Village downtown, and the name completely escapes me rght now, but it was in one of the old brick buildings there, a rabbit warren of room after room absolutely crammed with books. Again, lots of overstocks and odds and ends, but it was hugely popular. The rooms were tiny and full, and then they'd fill up with, oh, two or three people per room, and you couldn't turn around, and your breath would get stopped up in your chest, and you'd have to worm your way out to the tiny courtyard and take a few deep breaths. So although it was a beloved landmark, I never really warmed up to the place after my first visit. The church bookstore was better. It definitely contributed to my book collection explosion of the mid- to late-90s.

We don't really have any bookstores like that here in Hampton Roads. There's a Books-a-Million in Hampton, but it's pretty soulless. There are used bookstores in Newport News and Williamsburg where you can trade in your oldies for credit, and I do take advantage of those, but again, they're both in skanky strip malls and very much without character.

It amazes me that this area is soooo incredibly old, settled for so long (400 years!) and yet soooo without beauty or character. The history is confined to tourist-approved areas (Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg, a few blocks in Portsmouth) and everything else is tract housing and strip malls. I don't understand it, and I don't like it.

Not that Columbus didn't have its incredibly ugly spots, but the thing about Ohio is that it's rife with small towns that were all built in an era when people cared about doing things right, and about making buildings beautiful. And there are enough of those towns left, and enough of them have been encapsulated by Columbus' growth, that you can find very charming places wherever you go. I do miss that.

Wow, what a ramble. Maybe I should go crack open a book!

Blogs.

I haven't been writing much on my own blog lately, but here's a few random blogs I've discovered in the past few months that I love to check on regularly:

Posie Gets Cozy
All Buttoned Up
Every Little Thing
Emma's Closet
Daisy Cottage
Folded Gingham
Jane's Apron

There are so many women out there creating beautiful lives for themselves and blogging all about it. That makes me love the Internet!

Spring.

The clouds are pretty this evening. And it feels like spring is really here.

Time to think about gardens and dirt and paint and furniture. And doors--we're on a mission to replace every interior door plus the front door. Time to scrub the siding and paint the trim and shutters. Time to lay down mulch and put in plants.

Time to think about capri pants and tee shirts and bemoan the winter weight gain.

I'll miss winter...this one was a nice one. We had our evenings in front of the fireplace and our nights under my beloved down comforter. I sleep so well under the weight of that comforter! We had our one snow experience--struggling through a blizzard between Baltimore and Washington one Sunday night in January, but that was all. I actually wanted more snow, one or two of those days inside watching the snow fall, but it was not to be, this winter.

Here comes spring, ready or not.

Come back, bunny bowl!

Don't you hate it when you're having a dream in which something really great is about to happen, like having the best sex of your life with your favorite celebrity, and then you feel yourself waking up before you get to the good part? Sometimes I know, in my dream, that I'm waking up and I tell myself, "Stay asleep! STAY ASLEEP!" But that never works, sadly.

This morning I had a dream that I wandered into an auction in the midst of the bidding on a ceramic bowl shaped like a bunny rabbit, with a bunch of other cool stuff piled into the bowl. I didn't really catch what-all was in the bowl, but the bidding was at $3.00, so I bid, and then the other woman who wanted it bid $4.00, and then I bid $5.00.

So all eyes were on this other woman, and she hemmed and hawed and showed me this shelf she'd bought and how cute the ceramic bowl would look on it, somehow thinking I'd relent and let her cheap self have the bowl for $4.00. Chuh! As if.

But I hadn't gotten a number before I bid, so I had to fill out all this paperwork, and I woke up as I was writing my address, and I never got a good look at my bunny bowl or what was inside. Alas.

Those particular lots at auctions are my favorites, by the way--the stuff left over at the end, where they've taken a mess of odds and ends, piled them in a box lid, and then auction them off for a few bucks.

I've gotten some interesting things in those lots--an ancient English teapot, a Carnival glass crock with a lid (which was sadly shattered in my falling table tragedy of November), a pile of very old Sunday School books with beautiful pictures, two lovely old sepia photos of cocker spaniels. To me, there's nothing more fun than rummaging through other people's detrititus.

And my dream denied me the fun! Ah well.