It's not easy being green...

What color are you? Why is there never a "rainbow" option? 'Cause I like them all!

GREEN

You are a very calm and contemplative person. Others are drawn to your peaceful, nurturing nature.

Find out your color at QuizMeme.com!

Mixed feelings.

So I saw that Jerry Falwell passed away today. Talk about mixed feelings.

Mr. Falwell was a highly-regarded figure at the Christian school I attended in the mid-1980s. He may have been the first person who made me realize, as a teenager, that there were going to be people in the world identifying themselves as "Christian" who see that title far, far differently than I do.

Or it may have been Pat Robertson who made me realize that. At any rate, people like Falwell, or Robertson, cause me lots of brain strain as I try to wrap my mind around the gospel they preach, the politics they practice, and the good they do (they do do some good, right? right?) and how all of that fits in the same box called "Christianity" that I store my beliefs in.

So here's what I wish for Mr. Falwell: that when he woke up in heaven this afternoon, his mind was blown by the hugeness of God--the amazing loving Presence that is far, far, FAR beyond any label or creed or rule that we tiny humans try to box God up in. I hope his soul was opened so wide that the wind of God's love scoured it right down to bare earth, and will blow through it forever and ever.

Because that's what I hope for myself when I wake up in heaven.

More links.

I've updated my "favorite blogs" list over on the side, alphabetizing and adding a few more I enjoy. Check them out if you're in need of inspirations or smiles!

I'm also heading over to update my book blog right now!

Updates.

I've added a few recipes to my long-neglected recipe blog the past couple days--check it out!

Fresh Sweet Corn

Monday stuff.

I came downstairs and pulled up the living room blinds this morning, and who should be looking right at me from one of my hanging baskets?

Can you see Mama (or Papa?) Mourning Dove?

There were two birds in the pot, but by the time I got the camera, only one had its head up.

I had to water my pots, though, and although they sat and watched me water the other two, when I started to tip the pitcher toward their pot, they took off, twittering in a very irritated fashion. I don't know if they had started to lay eggs or not, but they may not come back now that I've interfered.

I feel bad, but bird nests in my hanging pots really skeeve me out. I don't want baby birds anywhere that close to me or my front porch. Baby birds are the creepiest things I can think of. That's why I'll be making Todd check the pot for a nest tonight--if there are baby birds in there, I don't want to see!

Speaking of creepy--yesterday we took a drive out into the country west of Suffolk to search out some antique stores one of Todd's co-workers told him were out there. It was not a fruitful trip! Toward the end of the day, Todd dubbed these places "shacks of crap," which is both succinct and accurate. I never thought of myself as an especially fastidious person, but the shops along the way were some of the filthiest, scariest shacks I've ever seen.

Picture a cheap outbuilding erected in, oh, 1929, with several extra rooms tacked on over the years but otherwise left completely untouched. Now fill that shack wall-to-wall with every sort of old crap you can think of, and let it just moulder in the dirt and damp. Now, attach price tags more fitting with the upscaliest of upscale boutiques. Hire yourself a couple old guys in seed caps to run it, and you, too, can do business in rural Virginia. You can sell boiled peanuts if you need to actually keep a money-making item on hand.

I wish I was exaggerating, but sadly, I'm not. The last place we stopped actually replaced the Jefferson Ave. flea market at the top of my list as the nastiest place I've ever set foot in.

And speaking of the Jeff Ave. flea market, guess where our first stop was on our way out of town? Todd stops by here every Sunday morning in search of old tools and cheap DVDs, but I'd never returned after my first trip last fall.

I actually found something interesting this time, though.

This tole tray is enormous--I'm actually not sure what I'm going to do with it--but it was five bucks! I saw five or six tole trays later in our "shack of crap" tour that were selling for $50-80.

I also got a 1941 Webster's children's dictionary that has some great illustration plates...I'll try to scan and share some later this week.

I'm feeling frustrated because after days of babying my right shoulder, I yanked my left shoulder blade out of whack this morning trying to unzip the side pocket in my yoga pants, of all the dumb things. So my afternoon task of sanding, priming and painting my table is going undone after a couple abortive tries. It's extremely frustrating. So I need to tackle a few things on my to-do list that don't require arm movement. Hmmm...

Happy Mother's Day!

I sang the praises of my terrific mother-in-law last week, so let me give equal time to my own mom today and tell why I'm grateful she's my mom.

My mom is one of the kindest, most empathetic people you'll ever meet. She has the ability to put herself into another person's shoes and really feel what they're feeling. I wish I could be half as kind as she is.

She is also wonderful at making people, especially little people, feel special. We always had awesome homemade birthday cakes and fun little treats at the holidays. She's great at coming up with just the right special little touch to make a day or an event feel important, even if it's just a plain old day.

Plus, she lugged me and all my books back and forth to the library for years, and didn't get too mad about the overdue fines. She made all my clothes when I was small, and sometimes made my dolls matching outfits. And she makes the best potato soup and crescent rolls in the world.

Those are just a tiny handful of reasons why I'm grateful she's my mom! I love you, Mom--hope you're having a happy day!

Give it away, give it away, give it away, give it away, now...

My first giveaway ever, and very overdue! Kim at One Woman's Cottage Life has set May 26th as "Cottage Charm Giveaway Day" and each participating blog will be giving away a wonderful prize on that day.

This dovetails quite nicely with the second anniversary of my blog, and since I was thinking about doing a giveaway to celebrate, I decided to hop in on this and have fun with all the bloggers who are playing along!

In honor of anniversary #2, I'll be giving away two prizes. The first prize is a general fun cottagey selection, photographed on my lovely taupe carpeted floor for extra appeal:


Included in this prize are: six cards handstamped by me in shades of pink, green, and purple (envelopes included); a small notebook altered into a garden journal, again by yours truly; a packet of forget-me-not seeds (my very favorite flower to grow); Yardley Aloe and Cucumber soap (smells fresh and springtimey); about two feet of pink gingham wired ribbon; and two cute matching floral saucers from a friendly neighborhood garage sale.

Prize number two is for scrappers, paper crafters, or just lovers of ephemera.

Tucked into a small portfolio hand stamped by me are: six handmade cards in vintage colors (envelopes included); assorted pages from a vintage cookbook, an old spelling book, and an old French grammar book (these babies are OLD!); five vintage bingo cards; two pages of vintagey-looking labels; two faux antique advertising stickers; and a collage page of typewriter keys. Oh, and a paper clip with a tiny butterfly on top.

So what do you have to do to win a wonderful prize?

Simply comment on this post! Please provide your e-mail address if you don't have a blog, or if you don't have e-mail access through your blog--and specify whether you want your name entered in the drawing for one set or the other, or both. That way if you're not a scrapper, you don't have to worry about winning the paper prize, for instance. I'll be happy to enter you in the drawings for both prizes, though, if you like them both.

But wait! There's more!

For each comment you leave on this blog on any post I write between today (Saturday, May 12th) and Friday, May 25th, I will put another entry for you into the pile. So if you leave three comments on three future posts, you will have your name put into the drawing three times. On May 26th, I'll draw the names and notify the winners via e-mail.

I think that covers it, but if you have any questions, post them in the comments. I'm excited--I hope you are, too!

Be sure to check Kim's blog at the above links for the full list of bloggers participating--there are some wonderful blogs to discover, and some great prizes to win.

How does your garden grow?

Finally, some garden pictures!

So we planted five bushes last spring, that were castoffs from some friends of ours who were trying to "de-bush" while we were trying to "re-bush." Three boxwoods went across the front, what I believe is a pyracantha (?) went by the mailbox, and then we had this bush left over that I had Todd and my brother stick in the small square bed between the front steps and the driveway.

The bush is a menace--not knowing what it actually is, I just named it the "sticker bush," because each of its innocent looking oval leaves has a vicious barb on the tip. Since I couldn't really get in around it, the whole bed just became overgrown with weeds.

So I had Todd yank it out last week. Then I had to decide what to do with the little bed. Todd had brought home a bunch of oddly-shaped brick pavers from a garage sale a few weeks ago to make a pad for the garbage and recycling bins to sit on, and he had a bunch left over. Not enough to brick over the whole bed, but--and this is why I love having my mother-in-law around with her brilliant ideas--enough to make a little pad in the middle of the bed to hold some potted plants, with room around the edges to plant some little odds and ends that would grow up over the bricks and maybe make them look like they'd always been there.

Since I love it before-and-after shots, here's the "before" of the corner bed, right after we planted the bush there last March. Just picture the bush bigger and the bed weedier to get an idea of what it was like last week!:

And here's the "after":

You can incidentally see what we've wrought in front of the house too, where there was once a pile of dirt and grass. Makes me feel proud!

A better view of the brick pad itself:


Here's the birdbath Todd bought me for an anniversary present a few years ago. There was a huge bunch of ugly blue bachelor's buttons obscuring the view, and Viv very nicely yanked them out and divided them up and put them elsewhere, so I could plant smaller things in front. (I was surprised last year at how...BIG...some of the perennials got. And I don't think I've learned my lesson this year, either!):

Any hopes I may have had that my stone bunnies would scare away the real bunnies were dashed when I saw what they've been doing to my purple basil the past few nights. I like bunnies, but I LOVE my purple basil--time to do battle!

Most everything is growing along very happily, apart from bunny damage. A few items are out of the path of the sprinkler hose, so I have to keep an eye on those and make sure they don't keel over, but the babies from last year are growing up nicely, and this year's babies will be taking over before I know it. It's fun to imagine what the bed will look like by the end of the summer.


The happy little garden gnome thanks you for visiting his garden!

Janelle needs...

This is too stupid and fun a pastime not to share, although everyone's probably seen it on other blogs by now. I just spotted it tonight. You go to Google and type "[yourname] needs" and copy the first ten sentences that sound right or are funny. My list is greatly aided by the fact that there is/was (?) a person named Janelle on the show Big Brother who apparently spawned a lot of Internet discussions. And I even found some blogs from other Janelles who've done the same little game thingy. Weird to think of other Janelles out there, using my name all willynilly.

Janelle needs to win. Janelle needs to take one for the team. (sounds ominous)

janelle needs a liiiifffeee! (obviously)

Janelle needs an investment banker so that way she won't have to steal what she wants. (that's what I tried to tell the judge, but he wouldn't listen!)

Janelle needs a perm. (not ever again in this lifetime)

Janelle Needs To Keep Her Buxom Level Down (I would if the insurance would pay for it!)

Janelle needs new panties. (true dat, but I'm in denial over the necessary size increase)

Janelle needs to start participating. Soon. By tomorrow... or else.! (no thanks, I'll just sit over here and smile pretty.)

Janelle needs some better allies. (totally)

Janelle needs to face up to either choosing Kevin or a child if she wishes to have her marriage restored to what it was when they said I do. (ummm...? Yikes!)

Janelle needs to go - the sooner the better. (yep, it's late and I am off to look at magazines in bed!)

Projects.

Well, we have been busy, busy, busy around here for the last week or so. I asked my mother-in-law to come down and help me whip my flowerbeds into shape, and she very, very kindly obliged me--driving nine hours from Ohio all by herself and letting me work her like a slave for five days. What a blessing!

We gardened for the first three days she was here, and did a world of good, but I don't have any photos just yet, as it's sprinkling just enough to be annoying and get the camera lens wet. And every time I thought about snapping some pics while we were working, my hands and feet were caked with mud, which made going for the camera problematic.

The past two days, we turned our attention to the curtain situation in my study, and came up with a couple of tab-top curtains, plus a cover for my thrifted ottoman, and I'm so happy with how they came out:

The camera flash blew my lovely teal walls into a horrible bright blue, but please ignore that and admire my new pretties!

I attached the tabs with a motley collection of old buttons I had around:

These curtains were directly inspired by the door curtains posted at Daisy Cottage, one of my very favorite home decor blogs. I was trying to find a red check, but ended up with a yellow check, and thus recreated her curtains even more closely than I'd intended. So I figured I'd go all the way and include the red rickrack at the bottoms, too. On the window curtain, the length is eked out with some red material and the rickrack runs along where the red and yellow fabric meet. We did the same thing on the ottoman, and used a floral I picked out for my living room curtain on the top, since it went quite well with the study curtain fabrics, even though I bought them about two years apart. I guess I just can't get away from muted red and green and yellow no matter how hard I try!

Anyway, Viv sewed and I pressed hems and seams, as I can't sew worth a lick. And it all came out wonderfully.

Tomorrow, a few garden pics, if the sun shines.

Happy May Day!

If there's anything more fun than picking flowers and making tiny bouquets, I don't know what it could be. I have a bunch of tiny bottles, blue, green and clear, gleaned from various yard sales, and I line them up on my kitchen window sill and put a blossom or two in each.

This bouquet gets the special spot by my computer, though (at which I spend far more time than at the kitchen sink) because it has my very first rose of the year, plus a sprig of summer snapdragon, which is a perennial I planted today, plus a purple flower that I planted last year and have no memory of what it's called. The purple really clashes against the peachy-pink of the rose, though--I love it.

And the rose smells wonderful, which adds to my enjoyment as I sit at my computer desk.

I never hear people talk about the mysteries of buying a home and trying to figure out the plants that come with it. Our home's first owner was a guy who planted a few shrubs and odds and ends of flowers, the second brief owners did their utmost to decimate every shrub out front, and then I came along...trying to replenish the previous owners' destruction, and also to figure out the odds and ends the first owner left behind.

The rose, for instance--I'm sure it's some sort of hybrid tea, but I have no idea what. Next to it in the bed is a miniature rose that has had every pretty red sprig of new growth chomped off by the bunnies. Again, I have no clue what it is. Mysterious bulbs were unearthed when we put in the front boxwoods--calla lilies that refused to sprout again in the spots we moved them to. A tree is rising in the side beds that looks like nothing I've ever seen before, and there are several other mysterious stumps that are putting out sprouts after being chopped down two summers ago. And I found a bulb down by the creek happily sprouting white flowers of a type I've never seen before. How did it get there in the woods?

These little mysteries are what keeps life on the ridge interesting.

Updated my book blog.

Listening.

I'm wondering if my relationship with my CDs is typical or not.

Sometimes I buy one, listen to it non-stop for months, and pull it out regularly to have another fling with it.

Sometimes I buy one, like it, listen to it sporadically, and then forget all about it for years.

Sometimes I buy one, get distracted, and don't even bother listening to it for anywhere from 6- 12 months. Then I pull it out, give it a listen, and fall in love with it. Or sometimes not.

Sometimes I buy a whole mess of them, and end up not liking any of them. (Okay, this only happened once, but it was a lesson learned about going outside my genre.)

And now we have MP3s, which add a whole new twist to the experience. You can just buy a song instead of a whole album. This makes me worry that artists will completely stop trying to make their albums cohere into one whole work. And I haven't quite gotten a grip on how to organize my songs now. And what do I do with all these CDs I've ripped? And oh, this MP3 player that I asked for and my beloved DH bought me almost a year ago, and which I've listened to maybe once, because it feels like such a niggling chore to upload songs, put them in groups, and then take them off again and put on new ones. Oh, the guilt of that little blue gadget! I will master it, I promise, honey.

Anyway, what inspired this late-night post is that I'm listening to the MP3 version of an album I've had for years and years, and which falls into the second of my categories above...I listened to it every now and then for the first few years I had it, and now I'd say it's been three to five years since I've listened to it. And yet...as soon as it started to play, it took me right to the era when I did listen to it, usually late at night like I am now. It's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy by Sarah McLachlan, which I bought unheard, solely because I liked the title, in an age before I could listen to it on the Internet or in one of those kiosks at Barnes and Noble or Borders to see if it was worth the $15. So it was quite a gamble, at a time before Sarah became as well-known as she is now.

And I liked it. I didn't fall in love with it, but it completely suited those quiet, semi-depressed nights that I had a lot of at the time. Her voice is like coffee with cream, and the songs have an edginess under the mellow. Listening to it now, I realize how well it holds up. Unlike some of the other CDs I've splurged on over the years. So thanks, Sarah.

Now will someone come and make me some playlists for my MP3?

It came, it came!

I got my lovely chair today! Now I need to whip the rest of the room into shape!

So what I'm going to do is find a nice coordinating fabric and get some wonderful person to sew a new cover for my thrifted footstool, and a curtain for the window.

I was going to do a valance over the window, but decided last week that maybe one pretty side panel, pulled over into a swag on the left side, would look better, since there is literally two inches of wall between the window and the corner.

Then I have to paint my thrift store table white or off-white, which I think will look much cuter and show off its shape.

THEN I have to clear all the lingering bits and pieces out of the other side of the room. I don't know why it's taking me so long to get my act together with this room re-do--I think I need longer to think things over than I ever used to before. Or maybe I'm just lazy.

The Georgia O'Keeffe poster is coming down, too--the colors are too purply-pink for this room. I'm going to cover my two big bulletin boards to make one of those French ribbon memo boards, I think.

We're finally getting some wonderful rain today, which will make the grass even longer and the trees even leafier. We're getting a little pinchy-faced about our next-door neighbors, who have weeds/grasses in their yard that are easily a foot tall now. I'm not a grass nazi by any stretch, and our grass is a little patchy-looking out front, but sheesh, take five minutes and mow the front, for heaven's sake. Lovely people, but apparently not yard-proud.

I forgot how bad new upholstered furniture STINKS. How in the world can inhaling that be good for anyone? I had the window open and the ceiling fan on till the deluge began and I had to shut it. Then I spritzed on a tiny bit of Febreeze, but I think that stuff may smell worse than the original stink. Chemicals creep me out!

Home again.

I'm home from a short jaunt out to visit my brother's family. Todd took off for North Carolina to windsurf with the COWS (Central Ohio Windsurfers) so I thought I'd have a little trip for myself, too.

I was especially happy to get to spend some one-on-one time with my niece Marissa, who I simply haven't gotten to see as much as I did her older sister Natalie when she was a toddler. Marissa is almost two, and whip-smart. The amount of words she knows, and the sentences she puts together are just astounding. She also gets this little smile and amused look in her eyes that looks exactly like her dad did at that age.

Here's Miss M:

And her big sister Natalie is thriving in preschool, asking millions of extremely intelligent questions (at least in her doting auntie's opinion), and living a rich pretend life. Here she is dressed up as a bride (I was the groom, later we had a baby--it felt a little weird):

So that was fun, to get to see these gorgeous girls and spend some time with them and with my brother and sister-in-law.

Today I finally went out and bought some of the plants I've been dreaming about: the bronze fennel, the green and gold thyme, the purple basil. Also some Shasta and Gerbera daisies, and some other cutting-garden type flowers. Also some pink and purple vincas to scatter along the front of the bed, and some pale pink vincas in hanging baskets for the front porch. I've planted about half of them. It was a large chunk of change, and there's still so much I could buy--!

Well, Todd's finally home, so I'll sign off.

Plans and plots.

My friend Cheryl gave me this little pitcher last week, and it's the perfect size and color to hold the tallest of my johnny-jump-ups, plus a couple straggler pansies and some lemon balm. Thanks again, Cheryl, I love it!

I went to my favorite nursery today and salivated over the herbs. I wasn't in the mood to buy and plant yet, just to look. I've been perusing my herb books and found a few that I'd like to grow, but I'm not sure how far afield I'm going to have to go to find them.

I love thymes, I have several different varieties growing out front, and they're starting to sneak through the rock wall very picturesquely, which is what I was hoping for. I found another variety today that I HAVE to get...it had the happiest green and yellow leaves and a fabulous lemon smell. But it wasn't lemon thyme...I can't remember the name. It was darling.

They also had a gorgeous purple basil and a Greek columnar basil; I think I'm going to get both of those. I planted a plain old basil last year, and it loved the hot, hot sun out front.

Also a bronze fennel that was SO pretty. I've never grown fennel before, and I think this one would make a wonderful contrast to all the green herbs and perennials.

I just wandered along, brushing and stroking and smelling...so much fun. The mints smelled like heaven, and I think I'm going to do some peppermint and something else to contrast with it in one of my flower boxes out back on the deck. They're built into the benches in the seating area, so you have to fill them with something or they're just boxes of dirt, which is hardly an accent. I tried to grow flowers in them last year, and the sun was just so iffy. I wonder if white impatiens and dark green peppermint would do well in the same box. It could look wonderful...theoretically, anyway.

The weather remains cloudy and unsettled-feeling, and my face remains swollen and tender. I'm usually not one to cry for the sun, but I'm missing it!

Tuesday musings.

I think the pollen and weird weather have finally overwhelmed my sinuses--today I feel like I'm breathing through a sandbag placed on my face. I always seem to go along fine in the spring and fall pollen seasons, until one day my nose says, "Okay, that's it, I've had it!" Today may be that day.

I went to the library today and managed to find a few books that looked appealing, but my outstanding overdue fine is such that I couldn't take 'em out. I had 35¢ in cash on me--not quite enough to pay it! Foiled again in my quest for reading material. I started The Great Gatsby last week, but lost the book somehow in the midst of our living room emptying. Can you believe I had four years of high-school English and was an English major in college, and still have never read Gatsby? Shameful!

So I've been contenting myself with a couple gardening books, dreaming about what could be. That's kind of fun, but I'd kill for a really, really good mystery! (So to speak.)

I made another Simply Recipes recipe for dinner yesterday--Chicken Marinara, though I would think of it more as chicken parmesan. It was very delicious, and I served the extra marinara sauce over penne. LOVE that blog.

Many of us are thinking about what happened at Virginia Tech yesterday. I've only been a Virginian for four years, but it was apparent from the start what a special place VT holds in many people's hearts here. I keep thinking about my own college days and how a campus feels like a safe little oasis from the world outside. Seems like there are no safe places anymore. I can't imagine how terrifying yesterday was for the students and professors there. Let's keep them all in our thoughts and prayers.

BANGboomBANGbangBOOM!

Ka-POW! Boom boom boom boom BOOM!

Ai-eeeeeee!!!!!

Bambambambambambam!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Auuuugghhhhhh!!!!!

BAM! Ka-POW! BAM!!!!!

p-shing, p-shing, p-shing!

BANG!

Aaahhhhhhhhhh!

RatatatatatatatatatTAT!

Ka-POOOOOWWWWW!!!




Can someone explain to me why men love these kinds of movies?

Just wonderin', while the walls rattle.

Rainy day.

Is there anything as wonderful as green leaves and grass in the spring? We're having a rainy day today--the first in ages--and the backyard is so green, it makes me catch my breath every time I walk into the kitchen or dining room and see it through the windows.

I tried to capture some of it through the kitchen window, but it doesn't really convey the GREENness of it all. It's gorgeous.

Yesterday we finished getting the front flower bed weeded and put down some landscape liner in the parts where we won't be planting, at least not anything small. This week I'm hoping we can get some mulch for the whole thing, and then I'll be ready to plant.

Our front bed is huge--it runs across the front of the house and down along the side of the yard, and last year was the "establishing" stage, where we made the rock wall border, filled it with dirt, and added some plants here and there: herbs by the front walkway, perennials here and there, annuals along the front. Nothing except the herbs really looked or did very well.

This year, I can see that we've created something. The perennials that turned up their toes for me last summer are coming back, and the perennial herbs have been in full leaf for at least a month. The pansies I put in last fall are blooming their hearts out, and there's definitely a plan in sight. I can see where to go from here. It's so satisfying, after mostly muddling around cluelessly last summer and ending up with not much of anything to show for it.

And now it's raining, and everything will be even better for it. And I can sort of see what needs to go into the bare spots. A fabulous feeling.

Today I'm washing towels, and putting away the last of the stuff we had to move out to have the carpets cleaned, and I also baked some oatmeal cookies from this recipe at Simply Recipes. I used dried cherries instead of raisins, almonds instead of walnuts, and added a little almond extract to the dough. They're delicious! Todd is working industriously in the garage, humming away with Barenaked Ladies. It's a good day to stay inside and be comfortable.

Happy birthday to my sweet sister-in-law, Tracy--it was great chatting with you today! I'm glad you were born and found your way into our family!

The thrill of the hunt...

There's a phenomenon that happens once or twice a year in the scrapbooking world. A phenomenon that reduces otherwise normal women to the level of desperate junkies on the prowl for a fix.

Yes, Target has document boxes in the Dollar Spot again.

What is a document box, you ask? It's a shallow, transparent, hinged plastic box with a clasp, big enough to hold a small stack of 8.5x11 papers.

But that's not what scrappers use them for. It just so happens that document boxes are the perfect size to hold foam stamps, acrylic stamps, acrylic mounts, unmounted stamps, and...well, I don't know what-all other uses there are, since I just put stamps in mine. Often foam stamp sets, in particular, come in unwieldy packages that require jigsaw-puzzle skills to cram all the stamps back in. Document boxes store flat and you just pop one open, pick your stamp, use it, put it back and move on with your life. Convenient and cheap, is there any better combination?

So once or twice a year, Target puts these in their Dollar Spot and then the hysteria begins on the scrapbooking message boards. Which stores have them? Does X store have them yet? Has anybody spotted them in Cleveland yet? Or Grand Rapids?

They usually come out with the back-to-school stuff, but this year Target decided to put them out in the post-Easter products. Probably because some number-cruncher somewhere noticed that they fly out of the stores in the fall, so maybe they should put them out more often.

I noted with interest the first sighting of the boxes on the Two Peas board, a couple days ago, since I have several sets of stamps that I bought since the last time the boxes were out, and I could use some more boxes.

My friend Cheryl snapped into action, checking the Targets in Williamsburg and here in Newport News yesterday, but didn't have any luck. Today I had to go up to Williamsburg, and dropped by the Target, and--there they were. Fifteen left, and I bought 'em all.

Oh yes, that's what makes these buggers so elusive. Even if your store does get them in, you have to be there right after they hit the shelves, or someone will come in and buy them all, and then you're just out of luck. Like all the Williamsburg scrappers who will show up at Target today. Heh heh.

Many people buy them and sell 'em on Ebay at an inflated rate, which I find to be disgusting behavior. Me, I got five for me and ten for Cheryl. I'm generous like that!

Now I have thirty-one wonderful document boxes stacked neatly in the closet, with all my foam stamps tucked inside. And I can retire from the hunt, rest assured that my document box needs have been met until next time. Ahh.

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.

I'm still here.

Hello, just checking in again! Still trying to get the medication ironed out, but I'm doing okay. February is such a dull month, anyway, so at least I'm not missing out on anything spectacular. Just lots of TV-watching and crossword-puzzling., and making a few plans for warm-weather projects. I'll feel like being chatty again soon, I promise!

"I'm not dead yet...I'm getting better..."

(Monty Python quote there)

Just popping my head in to say hi, and all's well here. I started taking some medication last week that makes me loopy and semi-coherent--I keep waiting to feel more myself, but it hasn't happened yet. Anyway, I can barely compose a thought, let alone a post, but I'll be back when I get this ironed out!

Happy V Day...

...from me and the hubby.

Tuesday thoughts.

Rainy and cold here today, but that's better than snow, for sure. I'm getting creeped out seeing all those houses buried to the roofline in New York and elsewhere.

This week is doctor week for me--making appointments, making sure all our old doctors are part of our new health insurance network. (They're not.) I stopped by my new family doctor today and liked him and his office staff quite well. I had to have some blood taken for a thyroid test, and I've never had a stick so gentle before. I barely felt it! I'll have to find a new dentist (ugh) and possibly a new optometrist--haven't checked on that yet. I loooove insurance stuff. (drip, drip goes the sarcasm).

Todd's been at this new job for more than three months, and this is the first time we've actually cracked open the insurance packet and pulled out our cards and checked everything. Either we're very healthy or very lazy. Don't tell me, I know which one...

I went thrifting around the corner last Friday and picked up a few non-essentials: a nice heavy white metal basket, which several people commented on enviously as I carried it around the store, a book on expressing creativity through gardening (I need major help in this area), a 100-year-old French grammar book that will be great for using in various crafty ways, and a long scarf/table runner made from granny squares. Granny squares are such a double-edged sword--so nostalgic and homey, and yet often so, so ugly. Terrible things have been done in the name of granny squares.

But this piece is nice--good colors, good-quality yarn (maybe wool?) and expertly crocheted. I'm not sure if it will be a Christmas accessory or if I can get away with having it in the living room at non-Christmas times, since the living room is mostly red and green. I guess I'll throw it nonchalantly over the arm of a chair or something. Who knows? I just liked it.

I was planning to put potted plants in the basket and stick it out on the porch or something come spring, but I think it may be too nice a basket for that. Maybe better suited to holding guest bath towels or something.

Maybe I need to get my "house vision" honed a little bit better before I start dragging home stuff willy nilly, do you think? We have brought home so many yard sale finds over the years that ended up going on to a better home in very short order. It's hard to stop and think about whether you will use something and what you will use it for when you know you have to grab it now or never see it again. That's the pressure of thrift store and yard sale shopping!

And I'm finishing up yet another Civil War-themed book: The Emancipator's Wife by Barbara Hambly, a novel about the life of Mary Todd Lincoln.

Barbara Hambly authored a set of historical mysteries about a free black man living in New Orleans in the 1830s that aren't just some of the best mysteries I've read, they're some of the best historical writing I've read, and really, some of the best writing, period. So I was glad to spot this book at the library the other day.

There used to be a series of children's biographies, written in the 1950s, I think, that were about famous people in their childhood years. Looking back , I see that they had to have been heavily fictionalized, but I used to check my favorites out of the school library over and over. One of my faves was about Mary Todd Lincoln.

Her adult life is hardly the stuff of children's stories, with grief and mental illness and terrible tragedy...but Hambly takes all this sad material and still finds some redemption in it. The characters of Mary and Abraham Lincoln come to life, and they are so sympathetically described, and the story of their marriage is so compelling. Sad, but a good read.

Thursday again?

Thursday night, Todd is in bed, I'm at the 'puter. I'm watching/listening to a Reno 911 episode on a free video site, which is a pretty lousy site, but which I'm linking because you can also watch all the British episodes of The Office there. If you've never seen it, it's definitely worth checking out. But not with kids in the room--the Brits are a leetle more lax with their TV standards than we are over here.

I hadn't seen the British version in a few years, since we rented it. Then the American version came out and I was quite disdainful of it after watching the pilot, because it seemed like--and actually, was at that point--a poorly warmed-over version of the British pilot. But then the Americans found their own creative groove, and now the American Office is one of the best things on TV--in my humble opinion.

The British version really struck me, on my recent re-viewing, as even darker and harsher than I remembered, after the sunnier American version. But it really has some incredible moments, so check it out if you never have!

I wanted to mention a recent read...the majority of my reading is non-fiction, but I made a foray over into fiction and it came out pretty well. The book was March, by Geraldine Brooks, which has been on my "to read" list, for oh--two years or so!

The book is written in the voices of the parents from Little Women, which was a huge childhood favorite of mine. This book explores Father March's experiences in the Civil War, and the toll it took on his relationship with Marmee, his wife. There are also flashbacks that fill in some of the backstory of Little Women--how Father and Marmee met, the source of Aunt March's difficult relationship with the family, how the Marches lost their money, etc.

I loved the way the author filled in the blanks of this very familiar story. While Little Women focuses almost exclusively on the March sisters, and sees the world through their eyes, this book gives you the grown-up story, and really explores the harshness of the war, the slave experience, and the terrible hardships that befall Father March. Both Father and Marmee have to look at themselves and rethink every ideal they held dear before the war.

It's beautifully written and haunting...not bad at all. I recommend it, especially if you loved Little Women. And it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction last year.

Finally, I've been surfing around and have come across a few British craft or home decor or lifestyle blogs, several of which mention an event called the Shepton Mallet Antiques Fair. I would give just about anything to attend the Shepton Mallet Antiques Fair, just based on the name alone. Sounds like the kind of place where you'd find Paddington the Bear strolling arm-in-arm with Miss Jane Marple.

This has been a total February week--cold and kind of listless. I've been favoring my neck and arm this week, but it's all feeling better now, and so am I. Tomorrow: laundry. (AAAAAH!)

You go, Jim.

Senator Jim Webb on the floor of the Senate Tuesday:

"As I have said before, it is inverted logic to claim that we should continue to fight this war on behalf of the troops. The fact is that they are fighting this war on behalf of the political process. They deserve political leadership that is knowledgeable and that proceeds from an assumption that our national goals are equal to the sacrifices we are asking them to make."

And:

"What is truly surprising -- and unsettling -- is this administration's lack of overt diplomatic effort to bring order out of this chaos, in a way that might allow us to dramatically decrease our presence in Iraq and at the same time increase the stability of the region, increase our ability to fight terrorism and allow us to address strategic challenges elsewhere in the world."

I'd call it "freaking scary" as opposed to "unsettling," but...anyway... you can read the transcript of his whole speech here. It's worth reading. I'm glad to have one senator with some amount of integrity anyway--I can't say much about our other Virginia senator, Warner, who axed his own Iraq resolution.

Checking in.

Suddenly, I feel like I'm coming up with a vision of some of the rooms in this house that have eluded me. My scraproom, and the spare bathroom, and the beginnings of a vision of the master bedroom--suddenly I'm looking at all of these spaces and I can SEE how I want them to be. This is huge, as I've been extremely stumped by this house ever since we moved in over a year ago.

Now I just need some large sums of money! Hee!

So I cleaned out the master closet on Sunday, and then pulled everything out of the closet in my study, and started packing stuff back into it, and somewhere in there I pulled my neck/shoulder/arm again, so I've been doing very little constructive work since then. It seems like it takes less and less to totally yank everything out of whack in there...frustrating.

Add in a ripsnorter of a headache (18 hours and counting) and you have my week so far. But at least I have a vision.

My guy.

The Two Peas blog challenge today:

With Valentine's Day right around the corner, what attracted you to your DH/SO?

My DH and I were extremely young when we became friends and fell in love--I was 17 and he was 18. From this vantage point it seems impossible to find a soulmate at that age, but that is what happened. In the 19 years since then, I've never met anyone who could hold a candle to him.

So what attracted me to him? He was--and is--super smart, which I love, and he was--and is--a fantastic listener. Interested in just about everything, optimistic and willing to tackle almost any challenge. And he's a real wiseass, with a dark yet goofy sense of humor. Throw in big brown eyes with long lashes and a round little butt, you've got the perfect guy. For me, anyway. I'm very blessed.