On Order in Our Homes

For those of you who don't know or realize it, I have a Pinterest page with over 10,400 images. All "eye candy" you would love to see. I post often there. Go visit it. I don't really like tooting my own horn but I will here: In just 6 short months, there are over 6,600 followers there so you know the images are beautiful. Your choice. But if I were you, I wouldn't miss them. ;-)
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As Alexandra Stoddard says: Everything in our surroundings speaks for us, and if we accept living with a vulgar design we must pay for it. Caring about aesthetics increases your sensitivity. The more we care about the small details, the more in tune to beauty we become, and the more we realize how seemingly insignificant items affect us. You discover that by taking care of every inch of your surroundings you let your eyes wander and not be caught short. We're free to open up to all there is in our surroundings. I get enormous pleasure and comfort from orderly, harmonious, attractive surroundings, and I feel unhappy and disturbed when things are out of place, out of scale or in bad taste. Let your eye be the judge. Train yourself to see things with caring perception. [This is me in a nutshell as I'm obsessive and compulsive about order.]
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I've been buying sparkly lemonade in pretty bottles simply to have the bottles and the stoppers that come with them. I love pretty bottles to put in fizzy lemonade to drink out of stemmed glasses. We drink out of our stemware/crystal glasses a lot. It gives me a feeling of elegance that I love, plus hubby is the first one to grab the glasses so I know he likes the romantic, elegant feeling also. Men do have that side of them, ya know. ;-)
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She who leaves a trail of glitter is never forgotten.
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Just a yummy room for a photo shoot but I'd have to paint those walls for sure!

Huge lovely old home .

Lots of plant elements here. Maybe it's a store but I sure do like the wall hangers and tables.

A dreamy bedroom that is very close to my own.

Wouldn't you just love this on your front porch?!

Bouquets of gorgeous pink roses and tulips.

There are times when I love the quaintness of old kitchens and this is one I definitely like.

Perfection.

Beautiful brick-paved walkway and a bench among garden flowers.

This looks like such a fun room!

Pretty cobbled street in a foreign country. Love how their hydrangeas are growing on the street.

I can't resist pretty table settings with lace and flowers.

A crafter's room? Lovely.

A store with a gorgeous headboard for sale.

This woman is definitely bold with her home. Lovin' the blue stripes and the candy colors of the room.

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Tidbit:

The world's windiest place is Commonwealth Bay, Antarctica. Winds regularly exceed 150 miles per hour.
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Living Rooms

Lately, while viewing average American homes, I realized the living rooms are small. Our living room is. I'd like a little larger room but it is what it is and since this is our retirement home and we're in our 70s, it fits this season of our lives just fine . We spend most of our time in the family room, but we have guests in the living room mostly. While it's just fine for us, I wonder about the people with very large living rooms. Do they keep it for just show?

Reading one of Alexandra Stoddard's book many years ago, she said most people decorate only the public places in a home and that accounts for about five percent of a house, living room. They tend to not decorate the private areas. Why? We spend most of our time in the private places. I want my whole house to be beautiful...well, as beautiful as I can make it on a limited budget. Our house suits us just fine. How about you?
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A lovely Victorian home.

Love the pink in this room and also the 2 kinds of drapes on a window like I have on my living room window.

A pretty vintage chair done over in beautiful fabric. Love the pink inside those cups.

A feast for the eyes and tummy. Looks beautiful and delicious.

An old chandelier dripping with glittery crystals.

One of the best shots of a rose I've ever seen.

A little bit boho gypsy here.

I think having a church made over into a home would be one of the most fantastic things to do ever. I wouldn't want to do the work, but sure would like living in it.

An organized closet is the sign of a demented woman. Trust me!

Cute cans papered in gorgeous red, pink and flowers.

Yes, I love it because of the pink walls.

Beautiful entrance to an old home.

I've always loved the look of a bathroom like this.

This would be a wonderful room to live in. Lots of light. Pretty views. A stove for warmth on cold days. Love furniture in white slipcovers.

If I had to camp, this would be my ideal camper. Lots of windows, pillows and flowers. A bunting. But then I'd have to camp and we all know how I feel about going off into the wilds of Idaho. NO!

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Tidbit:

 In ancient Greece, an adulterous male was sometimes punished by the removal of his lower hair and the insertion of a large radish into another body part. (You know what I mean, but I refuse to be vulgar.)
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Eating with the Family and Just A Thought

Recently during my break from blogging I gave some very, very serious thought about giving up my blog. It takes a lot of time for one thing but there were several other things I considered also. I don't have a great following like some do. But some who have thousands of followers are rather quite boring in my opinion, i.e. there are some who rarely blog even with several thousand bloggers and when they do it's maybe once a week or they don't give much thought to their blogs just posting the same "event" over and over and over each week without any thought as to the people reading it, or something like that. I truly don't waste my time following them and only occasionally look at their blogs when I'm at another blog and they recommend going to that blog for something interesting. But it's their blog and they can do with it as they wish and I'd never discourage that. Mine is probably boring to a lot of people also. Of course, there are those blogs that do nothing but whine about their lives. I've stopped reading those as I can't stand whiners. Your life is what you make it! Grow up.

I'm enjoying Pinterest and pinning there, so I thought I'd do that instead of blogging. It takes much less time to pin an image and since I've only been doing it for 6 months and have over 6,200 followers to see the 10,000 images I've already posted there and post several more each day that would be a lot easier to maintain as beautiful images are what I love the most as they are truly candy for my eyes. I'm very visual.

Then, as I was giving it a lot of thought on quitting blogging, I remembered that I love it. I miss it when I take a break. I enjoy reminiscing about things in my life and that hit me mostly because of my daughter's visit this past weekend and how we laughed and talked about some old memories, not many, but a few. Her hubby laughed at the dynamics of this family and just kept shaking his head. We're a very interesting family with a very interesting dynamic that intensifies when at least 2 of us are together. (Drives the hubbies to distraction but who cares.) I wish some of you could be around when that happens as you'd just stare at us in awe—look up the true meaning of that word; it isn't what most people think it is and use it inappropriately 90% of the time. (I learned that in 10th grade English class by a very wise teacher.) We yell at each other in a loving way. We're boisterous (look up that word also as it definitely applies to us in the proper way of using it). We are absolutely funny. But we're also a loving family although we don't exhibit it as much as some families. There was also an event that just about tore us apart, but it will be rectified in the coming days. But that's the way families are.

So my decision is to keep it up for as long as I feel it's appropriate for me. Yes, I absolute LOVE blogging and I sincerely hope I bring pleasure, a bit of humor and interesting family stories to all of you.
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A dinner with friends a while back brought up the subject of bars for eating, the counter top kind, I mean. They said that's where they eat all the time. I told them we took out the original bar in our house and had it walled in separating the kitchen from our living room. I wanted the extra wall space and don't like people entering our house to see into our kitchen, plus the smells of cooking permeate easier. I like it much better. They were abhorred at that. I told them that people sitting at a bar can't converse well and the stools would have been in our living room. Ain't happening in this house! How in the world can a family sit side-by-side like that when eating? Conversation would be stilted as you couldn't see the person unless you looked over the other person.

There was a General Conference talk years ago at our church about the decisions that are made in a family are generally made around the proverbial "kitchen table". What has happened to our families who eat in a straight line without chatting about the days activities across from each other? I just don't get that concept. I want my family around the old-fashioned kitchen table looking and talking to each other. I think the kitchen table is extremely important to our society.
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I love this tablecloth and think I'll make one someday. Adorable.

A stunning small living room made gorgeous with its colors.

This gentleman must love gardening...and he has his own well. Beautiful garden.

Susan Rios is absolutely my favorite artist. Her paintings appeal and speak to my heart. She's a kind person also and her granddaughter, Rosie, the subject of some of her paintings, is a U.S. Marine. Need I say more!

Loving the stripes and flowers together in this room.

An arbor we all wish we had. I could have one, but then the smell of territorial bloom of testosterone from hubby talking about how HE would make it for me would quench the desire quickly, and since he does enough for me, I don't have the heart to ask him to do this.

An ideal afternoon party with cool fruit, cakes and beverages in lovely bottles. I love beverages in glass bottles as they are colder than the one in cans.

A very clever way to store extra bath items.

A long stool in a gorgeous pattern provides extra seating without the cost of extra chairs.

All of my clothespins are decorated. I think this is washi tape, which is adorable on the clothespins.

Another gorgeous way to decorate a small dining area in a kitchen.

Gorgeous roses.

Another room typifying American cottage style.

A beautiful decanter.

This dramatic living room is actually very simple but packs a lot of pizzazz with only color. Gorgeous!

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Tidbit:
A homing pigeon became a star after completing a 3,321 mile journey across the Atlantic.
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Talking Mushrooms

Near the end of last year, our great granddaughter started talking about 
"talking mushrooms." She told her mummy and Santa Claus that she wanted mushrooms for Christmas. None of us—she absolutely stumped Santa—could figure out what she meant. My granddaughter asked the teachers at her daycare/pre-school if they had read a story or mentioned talking mushrooms at all to Caroline. They said, "No."

Then one day while they were eating breakfast out at a restaurant, a little boy heard her talking about talking mushrooms and said he loved them too, more than the current "hero" to that age group. So he grabbed Caroline's hand and off they went in the restaurant, their own little world.

So I went online and googled talking mushrooms and came up with a book and the old Mario-type movies of talking mushrooms. We asked her if this was what she was talking about but she said no. I bought the book to the tune of $25 and sent it to her and she loved it anyway, but in her 2 year-old mind she couldn't explain exactly what she meant.

Then one day at Michaels they had some candy called talking mushrooms so I bought that for her and she was fine—candy cures everything, ya know. But we've never been able to figure out what exactly talking mushrooms are. So if anyone out there knows, we'd be grateful for the information. We're still stymied.
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Isn't this exquisite? I don't think I'd like to clean it but it is beautiful.

See, flowers can make anything look gorgeous.

While it looks like it's crumbling, it still has a lot of character with its verdigris shutters.

Just beautiful plates.

Even grunge can look pretty if done correctly. ;-)

I like the red and white checks on this chair.

Those verdigris shutters again on a different house, but notice the gorgeous roses also.

I cant quite figure this out except that it's a kitchen somewhere but the banner looks like a medieval joust is about to take place.

I love this little vignette of pink and white striped candles, roses, pink ribbon and pink candy.

Such a pretty solitary place to sit, shaded with an arbor and clematis.

I believe this is a section of a store with all that stuff around but it is none-the-less gorgeous. I see some things I'd like for my home.

How cute are these red and white checked shoes!!

Regular old jars done up pretty for a party. Take a hint for your next party.

Just because I love roses...

I like what they've done with the lawn chairs but the setting is quite striking also.

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Tidbit:

The average person in the UK drinks as much tea as 23 Italians.
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