Remembrance of technology past.

Today I was at the grocery store and my friend called me. I pulled out my cell phone, the cell phone I had just taken off the charger and placed in my purse less than 24 hours ago, and it was almost dead.

So when I came home I searched around for the closest landline phone to call her back. It was sitting on the coffee table, and it was dead, too.

So I came upstairs and searched through two rooms for another landline phone. Finally found one that was charged.

(The third landline phone gave up the ghost entirely about 6 months ago and is sitting on Todd's study shelf waiting to be assumed into the heaven of useless plastic things.)

More and more lately, I find my thoughts turning to the bright and lovely days when I had one phone. It was 1992. Todd and I had just returned from our honeymoon and one of the many things we needed to buy for our crummy Pittsburgh newlywed apartment was a phone.

We bought a fun, cream-colored plastic phone with oversized number buttons. Remember when phones had big buttons? These were even bigger than normal. It had a nice chunky handset that you could wrap your whole hand around because it was narrow in the middle and wide and round at the talking and hearing ends. Remember that nice shape? You could tuck it between your ear and shoulder and it stayed put, so you could talk while you washed a couple of dishes or stirred a pot on the stove. And the cradle could go on the wall or on a table. (I liked the wall mount, personally.) And it had a nice long springy cord that you could absentmindedly wrap around your finger while you talked.

Every time you picked it up, it had a dial tone--unless there was a power outage or some other problem out of your control. Nothing you had to do about it, nothing you could do about it, just wait till the power came back on. And you never had to search for it--it was right there, on the wall, where you put it. Since you couldn't walk all over the house with it, it stayed where it was supposed to be and you didn't have to cock your head like a dog and try to figure out which direction the ringing noise was coming from.

And it was cheap. I don't remember what we paid for it, but since we had virtually no money, I can't imagine it was more than $20. And that phone lasted us about ten years, and I'm sure would have lasted longer had we not upgraded our technology at some point and gotten fancy phones.

Well, I want my old phone back. And the answering machine that went with it. I'm tired of these tiny phones that I have to pinch between my fingers to hold onto. I'm tired of having to dial into voicemail. I'm tired of having to sit motionless and not get anything done while I talk on the phone because I can't hold it on my shoulder and use both hands to do something. I'm tired of all these complicated calling plans and contracts that I can never remember the details of.

I have warmer feelings toward my cell phone, but I want one that will last ten years and not become obsolete every six months. I want one that will hold a charge. I want one with a less-annoying beep when I miss a call, and it would be nice if it would catch every voicemail and not inform me I have one that's six months old, and then not inform me of another that I don't catch till six months later.

Why do we race headlong toward owning so many things that add more and more layers of frustration and annoyance to each day? I was in a terrific mood this morning, and then all my phones started failing me, and now I want to smack somebody upside the head.

I wonder if we ever threw out that old big-button phone? Maybe it's in a box somewhere...

These are terrible pictures of the bathroom paint...I'm just posting them so I can link to another site where someone's looking for a sage green paint at Lowe's.

Late-night blather.

I have been all atwitter with home decorating ideas--it seems this bathroom re-do has jump-started my mind and reminded me of all the things I'm still meaning to do to this house.

I went and picked up a few magazines the other day for a treat, and I missed seeing Mary Englebreit's Home Companion and Country Home on the shelves, since, of course, they have both gone under.

I liked MEHC more back in the beginning when she seemed to have more home ideas and eye candy photos of vintage stuff. In the later years, it seemed to become more about artists and their studios and the things they sell, and I found that much less interesting.

Many people have huge collections of MEHC...most of my copies ended up in the recycling bin after I'd torn out what I wanted to add to my idea binder. I tore out lots of stuff, though! There are a few homes that were featured years and years ago that still bump around in my daydreams of a perfect home. Maybe when I'm a little less exhausted I'll scan a few of my favorite pictures and share them, if anyone would like to see them.

Country Home was another magazine I liked better about ten years ago. In recent years, the style changed to a more modern, contemporary look, which I know is hot, but which really does nothing for me. (HGTV has moved in the same direction, with some very modern-looking, youthful home re-dos that totally leave me cold.)

My mom subbed to Country Home for years, so every now and then I'd just go home, bring a stack of her old issues back with me, and again, tear 'em up for the idea binder. I guess that may have contributed in a tiny way to their demise, huh?

There are still a couple of home dec magazines that are hanging on (for now) that I like to pick up from time to time: Do It Yourself and Creative Home, both published by Better Homes and Gardens, which I know is in financial straits right now along with everyone else. They have also moved to a more youthful vibe, compared with some of my saved issues from six or seven years ago, but there are still a lot of really creative and more importantly, do-able, ideas in them. I like to look at a magazine picture and think, "I could DO that!" instead of "Who would DO that?!"

I found an interesting magazine that I'd never seen before, called Mary Jane's Farm. It's sort of got a bit of everything--recipes, projects, stories from readers, but all under an organic umbrella. What caught my eye about the Feb-Mar issue on the stand was that the cover featured one of Jessie Wilcox Smith's paintings of children--I love, love, love Jessie Wilcox Smith. I haven't had a chance to go through it in detail yet, but it's worth looking for and paging through. It reminded me a tiny bit of MEHC.

Boy, am I pooped. My mind is buzzing, though! Night!

Happy Heart Day.

I guess it was good that I took Todd his kayak paddle when he forgot it last night, because he caught the biggest fish he's ever caught: a 44" striped bass!

Pretty exciting! Too bad it's not striper season, because that we could have gotten four or five dinners out of that bad boy! But he's happily back swimming around Wormley Creek now.

We've spent the day in home improvement centers, tracking down a sink top for the bathroom vanity and getting various other odds and ends. It's been a fun day. Not exactly romantic, but fun! Now I'm cracking the whip and making Todd finish the bathroom painting and getting ready to start some V Day supper. (Steak, scalloped potatoes, fresh green beans, strawberries dipped in chocolate. Yum!)

I got an e-mail today from the Clumsy Lovers, who are a fantastic Canadian bluegrass/celtic/rock fusion band that we've liked for a long time...their new album "Make Yourself Known" is out and you can listen to it and buy it on their site. The player's up in the right-hand corner of the home page, just click play. We just love this band. Their albums "After the Flood" and "Smart Kid" are also fantastic.

Hope everybody's having a love-y day!

TGIF.

Well, this week I have:

--bought a $32 gallon of the wrong non-refundable paint.

--incurred a $15 late charge on an $18 bra that I forgot was charged on my Macy's card, which I never use.

--ruined a beloved, expensive and irreplaceable pair of yoga pants by kneeling in them in half-dried paint on the floor.

I am going to stay in bed tomorrow and not touch anything.

In other news, Todd got contact lenses last weekend and has been adjusting to them this week--namely, adjusting to the putting-in and taking-out process, which is really hard for him to do, but getting easier, I think.

As further proof that I'll never win the Best Wife award, I have to say that I was not real excited about his getting contacts. I really, really like glasses on men. Especially on my man, who's worn glasses for all of the 21 years I've known him.

Plus, his glasses were the one lingering quality that kept me in his league. Now he's the hot young-looking guy with the ugly fat middle-aged wife. Who wears glasses.

I wore contacts briefly in high school, but I felt, and still do, that I need glasses to break up the vast expanse of my big face. It's tempting to switch now, watching Todd flaunt his spiffy off-the-rack sunglasses, but my face is even bigger now than it was in high school. I think I need the glasses, even though it means wearing dorky clip-on sunglasses..

Anyway, for absolutely selfish reasons, I'm not stoked about the contacts. But they will make things a lot easier for Todd when he windsurfs and kayaks and whatnot. I'm glad he likes 'em, even if I don't.

I've got the bathroom about 85% painted. Todd will be doing the rest as penance, because he forgot his kayak paddle and I had to drive out to York County to take it to him tonight! Actually, he'd end up doing the rest anyway, because it's mostly ceiling cutting-in, which I can't reach to do anyway. I've painted everything I can reach.

The color looks great. It's Laura Ashley Sage. I'll put up a picture or two once we get it all done. It's a little dicey around the shower, because I taped over the caulking and now the paint wants to come off the wall when I peel off the tape. Todd will be dealing with that, too. My patience ran out right around the time I ruined my yoga pants!

Now I'm kicking back with an episode of "Dirty Jobs." Mike Rowe can make the worst day better. Mm mm!

OzBushfireAppeal.

Since by all accounts the Australian Red Cross is overwhelmed with donation offers, why not check out what some of the Etsy sellers are doing to raise money for the Australian wildfire victims? The money still goes to the ARC, but in one lump sum, and you can buy something really pretty and unique for yourself as well. They've raised $5,000 AUD as of this morning!

Here's the link: OzBushfireAppeal at Etsy. I had my eye on a very pretty necklace, but it was snapped up before I could get it. They keep adding new things, too.

I hope they can get these fires under control, I can't believe how many people have died and how many homes and towns have been lost. It's an awful thing to happen to such a nice country.

Happy 200th, Mr Lincoln.

Whenever I think of Abraham Lincoln, I think of this quote from Sarah Vowell's book The Partly Cloudy Patriot:

"How many of us drew [Lincoln's] beard in crayon? We built models of his boyhood cabin with Elmer's glue and toothpicks. We memorized the Gettysburg Address, reciting its ten sentences in stovepipe hats stapled out of black construction paper. The teachers taught us to like Washington and to respect Jefferson. But Lincoln - him they taught us to love."

The weekend that the WW II memorial opened, we went to see it and then strolled down the Mall to see Abe. I had been to D.C. several times, but hadn't visited the Lincoln Memorial since my first visit in 1984. It is so, so powerful to walk up those steps and crane your neck up at him sitting there. If our country has a secular saint, surely it's Abe Lincoln. What a gift he gave us, with his work and his words.

I get the impression that kids don't memorize poems, scriptures or famous speeches any more, which is a real shame, because some of Lincoln's beautiful phrases float around in my mind and give me as much pleasure as the bits of Shakespeare and Bible verses that float around in there, too.

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right..."--that's a favorite. Also "the better angels of our nature" from his first inaugural speech.

There have been some really great books about Lincoln in the past few years, and one I recommend is Lincoln's Melancholy by Joshua Wolf Shenk. I haven't very often been as low in my life as he was in his, but I was inspired to read about the coping skills he developed and the way he was able to work through the sorrow and depression that plagued him. What a tremendous man he was.

Whew.

Everything went fine at the dentist; I had an awesome hygienist who really took her time with me. And the Valium was a BIG help.

Good news: the crown I thought was cracked is perfectly fine. Bad news: I have two other teeth that are cracked and that will need crowns. No root canals, just crowns. But that doesn't have to happen for another three months, so I'm not worrying about that right now. Much.

My teeth are cracking because I clench and grind my teeth, esp. at night, so getting a nightguard is in the future, too. I think I may pick up a cheap one at the drugstore and see how I do with it before I have to shell out big bucks for a fitted one.

Thanks for the good thoughts (and Cheryl, thanks for driving me there and back so I didn't kill anybody under the influence!) It sucks to be afraid, but I think this good visit will help me not feel quite so anxious the next time. I hope so!

Once the Valium wears off, it's time to get some stuff done around this place! Oh, and that paint I bought yesterday? Yeah, that was totally the wrong color. *forehead slap*

Dentophobia.

Augh, what a frustrating couple of days...I broke down and called the dentist yesterday morning because I have a crown that's cracked and the crack is getting bigger. Then I spent all day yesterday and most of today wandering around the house wringing my sweaty hands, trying to figure out how to quell the anxiety and terror engendered by a looming dentist visit.

I seriously cannot get anything done right in this state. I went to Lowe's this morning to get paint for the bathroom and I bought a different color/shade than the one I've been planning for for months, and now I think I made a big mistake. I'm not even going to attempt to put it on the wall till the dentist trip is over, Lord knows what would happen.

You'd think getting absorbed in a task would help with the anxiety, but what happens is I start doing something and then I start thinking about sitting in that chair tipped way back and all those fingers in my mouth and the sucky thing and the buzzy brush and the drills and the huge needles and the giant pair of rusty pliers they're probably going to have to use to pry this crown off, and before you know it my hands are shaky and my eyes are teary and whatever I've been trying to do has gone way off track. It's ridiculous.

I'm not this way about the gynecologist or the eye doctor or the regular doctor. They can cram whatever they want in my girly parts or my eyeballs or jam however many needles in my arms they want. Just don't...touch...my mouth!

I can't stand feeling this way about something as innocuous as the dentist. It makes me feel completely stupid and ridiculous. And yet I don't seem to be able to grab any scrap of rationality about it. Or when I do, it gets swept away on a wave of blind terror.

The dentist called in some Valium for me to take before I come in, and I'm really hoping that will help. A sledgehammer to the head would probably help more.

Oh well. Such is life. It's not the worst thing in the world, it just feels like it. I keep thinking of all the things that are way worse than a trip to the dentist, to try to give myself some badly-needed perspective. Dying in an Australian wildfire is way worse. So is being a Palestinian in Gaza. I'm lucky that I can go to the dentist and have insurance and money to pay for it, and that a couple hours in the dentist chair are probably the worst thing that will happen to me this week.

I just don't feel lucky! Hope that Valium is powerful. Think of me tomorrow at about 10:00; the hygienist will probably be in up to her wrist at that point and I'll need the good vibes. Shudder.

Soapy.

I read this very nice British blog called Posy from time to time, and today she wrote about her favorite soap, which is wrapped in tissue paper with a band around it--very classy. She, and several of the commenters, mentioned how certain soap scents make them think of certain people.

That reminded me of how my dad says that the smell of Ivory soap always takes him to his grandparents' farm house, where there was always a bar of Ivory on the sink when you came in and washed up.

One of my very favorite soaps is Yardley...rose, lavender or lemon. Oh, and oatmeal. The smell of the rose soap makes me think of early married life in Idaho for some reason--I guess I must have used it for a while when we lived there. Ivory is also very evocative of childhood days, though I don't think we used it all that much.

And now I've found Ellie's soap which is a new favorite, though I haven't settled on a favorite scent, since I've liked every one I've tried. And they last so long, I haven't had the chance to try very many yet!

What's your favorite soap? And do you have a soap scent that takes you back in time?

They're gone!

The ducks are all gone! Yay!

Ah, how I've waited for this day! Three long years and they're finally GONE. So...happy...! *choke, sob*

And Todd sanded down all the paper/glue bits, so I am ready to paint!

You may be wondering why I'm so excited about a guest-bath makeover...well, the guest bathroom is essentially my bathroom. The master bath only has a shower stall, so the guest bath is where I take my baths and shave my legs and do all those ablutions that really require a tub. And it's cozier than the master bath, which has a window that faces out onto the street and which I would constantly be walking naked in front of absentmindedly were I to shower in there. Yes, it's safer in the guest bath.

So that's why I'm particularly stoked about my guest bath transformation from brown-and-beige duck-a-rama to (hopefully) sage-and-lavender feminine vintagefest.

Monday, Monday.

Still working on the wallpaper border, but I'm at the point now where Todd has to take over: the area over the shower where I can't put up the stepladder. I'm too short to reach the border when I stand on the tub. This whole project would have been much easier if I was about five inches taller.

In fact, life in general would be easier if I was five inches taller. I could find pants that fit, and I wouldn't have to ask complete strangers to grab stuff for me off the top shelves at the grocery store. And my upper kitchen cabinets would be completely useful, instead of just 2/3 useful.

Now we just have to get down the tiny bits of paper backing and the glue smudges, and again, I think I'm going to have to turn it over to Todd. I tried a hot water/vinegar solution and a sanding block and it's just not doing the trick. I think it's time to pull out the power tools.

The bathroom is ankle-deep in paper bits. It's so satisfying!

Todd has a little more work to do on the vanity doors and then they'll be ready to prime, paint, and hang. I can hardly wait! Can't wait for that butt-ugly floor to get tossed out on the curb, too!

Here's a prettier shot than the wallpaper bits: this is the cheap blue quilt I bought at Kohl's. I have it folded on the chest at the foot of our bed, and it's quite pleasant to look at. Some of the fabrics almost have a vintage look.

The weather has warmed up dramatically, so I'm trying to get more walking in, and getting some Valentine's packages ready to mail to the nieces and nephews. This week will hopefully be all about painting, once we get the walls totally clean. That's it from here!

Ouch.

I'm not quite as grumpy as I was this afternoon, but I'm not quite happy, either. My arms are killing me!

I'd say we've got about 1/3 of the border down. The part above the shower came off in nice big chunks, mostly--bigger chunks than anywhere else, anyway. So that was good. But there's still a ton of scraping and peeling yet to do. I am SO grateful there's only one border in this house! Glad it's a smallish bathroom, too.

While I was peeling and scraping, Todd got the vanity doors mostly done, and I think they're going to look very nice indeed.

Todd thinks he should tackle the last bits of wallpaper backing and glue residue with the electric sander. Anybody know of any good reason why he shouldn't? They never mention the sander option in any of the articles I've read about wallpaper stripping, and yet it seems like such a good idea...easier than scraping every last millimeter off by hand!

I forgot to mention that I went back to Kohl's on Tuesday and bought another cheapie quilt, this time a blue full/queen for our bedroom. It was $6.99! 90% off! And it came with two pillow shams! (The twin red quilt came with one sham.) The funny/sad thing is, it seemed like an appropriate price for the thing--it's cheaply made, made in China, not at all high-end, and yet someone thought people would fork over $70 for one. And they were wrong, obviously! I like the quilt, don't get me wrong, but $6.99 seemed like a very fair price for it. I wouldn't have wanted to pay more. It will be nice to have for a springtime bed cover; it's got pretty floral patterns in it.

I can't lift my arms any more, off to watch TV and push the remote buttons with my big toe. Heh!

Ugh.

People who put up wallpaper in their homes should be ostracized from decent society and made to live with their horrible tasteless walls for the rest of their natural lives.

It's not coming down easy. That's all I have to say--I don't have enough strength left in my arms to type any more words! I. Hate. Wallpaper.

Painting and scraping.

Since I'm sitting here waiting for paint to dry, I thought I'd show what I've been doing this week, though it doesn't look like much yet.

I decided to paint our existing vanity in the guest bath, rather than replace it. I haven't been able to find any vanities I liked, and the one we have holds way, way more stuff than any of the others I've looked at. So I just decided to paint it white. And I'll do the same thing with the one in the master bath when I get around to it.

You can see how much stuff I've got crammed in there.

I pulled off the drawers and doors, because they're kind of beat up, and I don't really like the style...


...and Todd is going to make me new ones. He's cut the drawer fronts and the panel that goes over the big hole in the middle.


The drawer fronts are just plain boards with a bit of a taper on the edges. For the big middle one, I may try to find some kind of decorative carved piece to put on it.

The doors will have a flat raised border the whole way around. I'm hoping he can cut those for me this weekend so I can get those primed and painted, too. I bought new brushed nickel handles for everything, and the doors willl have brushed nickel hinges also, if I can find a store that has them in stock!

I've also started yanking down the bits of duck wallpaper border that I can reach:

I'd love to know why this border is up there. The original owner lived here for 15+ years and did absolutely nothing decorative to the house at all...so why the duck border? I'm just glad this was the only one he put up.

This weekend I'm going to get up on the stepladder and really attack it. I think it's going to come off pretty easily, because it's old enough that it doesn't have that impermeable vinyl covering on it. So I'm hoping the water/fabric softener solution will penetrate the paper and glue without too much trouble. I can't wait to see the last of the ducks!

Once the border is down and the walls are cleaned, I'll start painting them a nice sage green. And then in another couple of weeks, we'll pull out the sink top and floor and medicine cabinet, and replace them. And then we'll have a sparkly new bathroom. I wish it could all be done as fast as those room makeovers on HGTV!

The day the music died.

I didn't realize it till I logged onto Paperback Swap tonight and their home page mentioned this--today's the 50th anniversary of the day Buddy Holly's plane went down in an Iowa field.

I adore Buddy Holly. When I was 10 or 11 years old, I saw "The Buddy Holly Story" on TV and I was just smitten with him. I saved up my nickels and dimes and bought an LP of his greatest hits--the cover art on the album was a shot of graffiti on a stone wall that read "Buddy Holly Lives."

His music probably sounds completely dated and peculiar to anyone who grew up on hip-hop, but I love the way he played his guitar and harmonized with himself. His music is so light-hearted; even the sad songs are hopeful.

From reading about Buddy Holly as a kid, I discovered the Beatles and Elvis, and became a fan of what was then called "classic rock" and I guess now is called "oldies"--the rock-and-roll of the 50s and 60s.

So I've gotten a lot of enjoyment from Buddy--both from his own music and the music he inspired in other people. Dying at 22 didn't sound like such a big deal to me when I was 10 years old, but looking at it from age 38, it seems heartbreakingly sad.

Here he is on the "Arthur Miller Dance Party," introduced by the squarest, whitest, most middle-aged lady ever:



And here's another guy who died too young, singing some of Buddy's songs (fast forward over the one with Yoko blathering in the background, yuck):

You gotta love serendipity.

I had a bit of good luck today. I've been looking for a quilt for the past six months or so, with the idea of wrapping it around the seat cushions of my couch, to extend their lives a little longer. I found a frayed spot right in the center of one of the cushions a while back, and it's just been nagging at me. I don't want the fabric to tear.

We bought the couch new exactly nine years ago and I love it as much now as I did then. It was a momentous purchase because, if memory serves, it was our very first NEW furniture purchase after eight years of marriage. I wasn't at all sure what kind of color/pattern I wanted, but the minute I saw the swatch, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that was what I wanted. The funny thing was, it wasn't at all a color I'd even considered before!

It's just a very simple gray-green with a leafy pattern woven into it. I think the fabric's called jacquard...? This shows the pattern well:

Such a great couch, I just love it. Sigh.

I happened to pick up the Kohl's flyer out of the newspaper yesterday and all their quilts were on sale. So I stopped by this morning and found a twin-size quilt on an end-cap that looked much closer to what I had in mind than anything else I'd seen. It was $31.99 on sale, which wasn't great, but I figured I'd take it home and give it a shot and bring it back if it didn't work. $31.99 is still cheaper than a whole new couch, right?

When I got to the check-out, the girl beeped it, and then gasped. "This is only $5.99?!" she said. Yep, as a matter of fact, it was! It's discontinued! Huzzah!

Here's how it looks:

What do you think? I haven't sat on it yet, but I think it looks nice. I may have to safety-pin it along the bottom if it shifts around too much, but that's okay.

Later!

The Bowl.

Something happened in this house tonight that has never happened in our home, to my memory. Todd and I watched football. Together. And screamed at the TV. Both of us!

I am decidedly NOT a football watcher, and Todd only watches football when the Steelers are doing well at the end of a season. But his buddy who was supposed to come over bailed on him, so I watched the game with him tonight for fun. (I had a book close at hand and read through most of the second and third quarters.) I was rooting for the Cardinals (if a mild interest can be described as "rooting") and he, of course, was rooting for the Steelers.

What a nail-biter, right down to the final minutes, though I was bummed that "my" team didn't win, since they'd made such a great comeback from behind. It was exciting, esp. that last Pittsburgh touchdown! Maybe in another ten years I'll watch another football game! But probably not. I'll watch a little of the rampaging and rioting that's undoubtedly going on in Pittsburgh tonight, and that will be enough to convince me that the football world is not my world. Fun game, though.

Saturday doings.

Yesterday I sat down and made my Valentine's Day cards for the nephews and nieces. I found these great papers at the scrapbook store--it's a line called Splendid by Fancy Pants.

The one paper in the set has 12 small valentine images on it that you can cut out and either use for school exchanges or glitter up and put on a bigger card. I did the latter.

I just think they are SO CUTE.

We went down to Portsmouth today and had lunch, and stopped in at The Queen Bee, which is a small but wonderful antique store right across the street from the Biergarten, our favorite purveyor of knockwurst and German potato salad. The woman who runs The Queen Bee seems to have the exact same taste as me, because her store is loaded with old china, vintage hankies and pins, old kitchen doodads, etc. And her prices are very fair. Some things are expensive, but it's because they're rare and in perfect condition. And the things that aren't so rare or perfect are nicely affordable. I can live with that. What annoys me is when I see a dealer trying to sell some chipped, cracked dirty piece for way more than its worth. But The Queen Bee doesn't seem to do that.

I got this, which I don't think is vintage, it just looks that way:

And this, which is definitely vintage:

The owner told me it was a pattern that Jewel Tea sold in the mid-20th century, made by Hall China. I guess their famous pattern is Autumn Leaf, and I can't for the life of me remember what she said this pattern is. I like to collect china made in southeastern Ohio, and this dish is stamped "Cambridge" which is about an hour from where I went to college.

A cursory Google search reveals that this topic is far more complicated than I have time for at the moment. I may have to call the store and find out exactly what this pattern is called. But anyway, I've been thinking about getting a small casserole dish, since our two-person meals don't always require big dishes, and this should fit the bill.

I am extremely disillusioned with my Pfaltzgraff dinnerware and I decided I'd like to replace it with something American-made, but the options are very, very limited. So now I'm thinking about leaping into estate-sale season with a goal, when it starts up here in the next couple months: a new (old) set of dishes. I'm kicking myself for selling the like-new set I picked up at an auction two years ago for five bucks, but at the time I didn't have a place to store it. Now I wish I'd kept it, now that the Pfaltzgraff is cracking and crazing and making me mad.

All right, I'm off to pry up and paint some bathroom trim. Yippee!

Having fun.

Here are a few fun things we've done lately:

Two weeks ago we went and visited my brother's family, armed with a present for my niece Natalie's sixth birthday.

I decided several years ago that for each of my nieces' sixth birthdays, I would get them an American Girl historical doll. Our birthday gifts are usually much, much more modest, believe me, but I just think those dolls are so neat. So Natalie was the fourth niece to get her AG doll, and I got her Samantha.


She seemed to like her! This was the first time I've actually been able to give a doll in person, all my other nieces live too far away.

So there are two nieces left who have yet to turn six, one next year and one the year after that. It's fun to do something special for them when they're right at an age to really enjoy it. I like being an aunt.

For dinner that night, my cousin Trina and her husband Brian came over, and I finally got to see their baby boy Tristan, who is six months old. He's so precious!


I love holding babies. Tristan is very alert and loves to look all around and smile at people.

The girls like him, too.

I tried to take a lot of pictures, I really did, but two active girls and a squirmy baby don't make for good photo ops. But we had a really great evening...the adults got to talk and talk, and the girls played, and the baby hung out on various people's laps till he fell asleep.

We hadn't seen Trina and Brian in a year or two, so it was super to spend some time catching up. They are both smart and funny and just very good people. Baby Tristan totally lucked out, getting them for a mom and dad.

The next morning, we stopped off in Charlottesville on our way home and met my cousin Alan and his girlfriend Krista for lunch on the downtown mall. This time we had such a good time, I never even remembered to take my camera out of my pocket! I think I need my scrapbooker's club membership revoked.

We went to a restaurant called Himalayan Fusion for lunch, which is one of the things I love about C-ville (funky restaurants) and stopped into several used bookstores, which is another thing I love about C-ville (people there read), and then we had gelato, which is yet another thing I love about C-ville (fancy ice cream.) I bought a biography of Catherine the Great, a book about Richmond burning at the end of the Civil War, and a book about the Jamestown colony.

I am a big fan of my cousin Alan, so I was curious to meet Krista, and I liked her a lot. She's super-smart and we had a big long conversation about books. In other words, she completely filled my requirements for Alan's girlfriend. Hee! It was another terrific time of just talking and laughing with two good people.

I realize, re-reading this, that smartness seems to be something I look for and appreciate in a person. In my experience, smartness usually goes hand-in-hand with niceness. Now I know there are some smart, mean people out there (Dick Cheney springs to mind) but in my experience, the smart folks I've known are also super people.

Also in my experience, stupid seems to go hand-in-hand with mean. In general.

Speaking of Dick Cheney, last weekend, we went to see the movie about his old boss: "Frost/Nixon." Richard Nixon, another smartie but baddie. It was a good movie. Funny, interesting, and a great character study. You don't have to know a whole lot about Watergate to enjoy the movie, it's really more about a president who broke the law and the very unlikely person who made him look hard at what he'd done and finally take some responsibility for it.

So then on the drive home, Todd and I had a long chat about why Nixon got caught and yet Bush 2 has gotten away with crimes that seem much worse to me than anything Nixon and his co-horts did. This is also why I love my husband, because he'll talk about Watergate with me. Smart and nice. Last night we were watching TV and this funny phrase kept coming up, and I turned to him and said, "We need to add this to our..." and he said, "Lexicon?"

And I swear that made me want to jump his bones right there. 'Cause smart and nice is sexy, too!

Have a fun weekend!