A Story Today and Another One In A Few More Days.

This sciatica has kept me from blogging much lately. I'm on PT three times a week and started going to a chiropractor because the pain is so bad. Hence, not much is happening in my life. I "ice" my hip, left buttock and legs frequently. So see how exciting my life has been for the past 2 months. Wow, can you stand the excitement? Pain pills figure frequently in my life now but I record every single time I take one, even if it's a quarter, half or the full pill. I hate being on them but it is definitely necessary at the moment. The pain from that nerve can be and is debilitating. So here I am tonight thinking of things to blog about. Give me a little sympathy here, please. ;-)

My great granddaughters, featured in some photos below, are pretty funny. I'm relating a few stories today about them.

They love getting mail. We try to mail them something once a week. I'm not doing very well at the once-a-week thing though but they love getting anything in the mail, even a postcard. Sometimes I'll send them Dollar Store items or candy but most times it's a card or note in an envelope.

But the other day I found a doll's comb when cleaning. It looks to be the comb of the character Ariel that she got while she was over here visiting us last Thanksgiving. I put it in an envelope with a note and sent it to her. I had told her mum and her I was sending it so watch for it.

It arrived last Monday with a note from the postman saying that it exceeded its weight so as a courtesy they were leaving it in the mailbox, but they owed the post office a dollar. I was stymied because I have a digital scale for weight and always look up the postage on line even considering if it's thicker than needed, irregular shape, etc. and add additional postage for that. I'm very particular about things like that. But anyway we laughed about it.

But the rest of the story is that Miss C, the oldest to whom I sent it with the note, looked inside, took out the doll comb and hugged the note I sent to her chest. Her mum said she went on and on about her "letter", slept with it, lost it in her bed during the night and her mum had to come in and find it for her! When my granddaughter told me that we laughed ourselves silly. As I said, she loves getting letters, no matter what I say on the card or letter. Sometimes I write, "You [her mum] tell her a story." She doesn't know the difference yet but I'll have to be more careful when she learns to read well. And her father is the best story teller I've ever heard. He keeps ME enthralled with his stories at dinner or evening bedtime stories.

Here's the baby sister, Miss J with the curly dark hair.

She loves being outside and working in the yard.

That antique trunk is one I gave my granddaughter before the girls were born. I'm going to suggest that she paint it white. That will go more with her new decor she's implementing.

In Washington state one day can be like this, dressed in warm clothes...

And the very next day can be warm, dressed in an elegant chapeau. :-)

You can barely see the new chairs and table they have in kitchen nook in their new house. I'm loving that she's decorating similar to mine!!!!

Miss C is either Huck Finn or a bracero with this hat since she's Hispanic. She loves telling people "I'm an Irish Guacamole", since she can't say Guatemalan yet. It's still a tongue twister for her. She's a quick learner though.

This is Miss J with her pony tails. Her hair is so curly it looks short but it's getting long. The white splotches on the wall are different paint colors they're testing. The blue was on the walls of the family room when they moved in but it's gonna go real soon! The whole house will be painted along with all the woodwork trim and cabinets but it'll take them a couple of years I know because of having little munchkins around.

Her favorite color is purple, next is pink.

I saw this colander on the internet, Amazon I think, but I can't justify spending the money just because it's pink. My old one is about 40 years old and still working great.

I love this setting, especially that lovely room divider. The chairs are lovely and the roses just top it off for me.

Isn't this a unique idea for a home outside wall? I like it and think it's adorable. Love the blues also.

Beautiful, but a bit rich looking for me. I am truly a simple girl. Which reminds me of a saying I saw recently and think it is totally accurate:
Be pretty if you can,
Be witty if you must,
But be gracious if it kills you.
I truly try to live by that creed.

I find this kitchen divine. I like how they have an antique rug in the kitchen. I wish more people put rugs in their kitchen. I have rugs over my vinyl to soften my kitchen. It's a small kitchen but adequate for our needs...if we eat out 3 times a week! Notice the doggie bowls are higher than normal so as to help the dog not to have to bend over as much.

I'm going to be looking for something like this that will fit in our small kitchen. Finding the right dimensions at the right price will be my challenge.

This is designer toilet paper! Can you believe that? I'd buy it but I'm sure it costs a lot more than Cottonelle, which I love, and probably not as soft. It is gorgeous and would be fun to have around, but we go through a LOT of toilet paper.

~*~
Linking up with Pink Saturday.  

Reaching My Decision on Dining Chairs

I haven't been blogging as much lately as I'm doing the exercises for sciatica and reading a lot. Today I'm going to go shopping. I need some new tops and hubby complimented me on a new one I bought last week so I'm going to go buy some new ones. At my age I am not a clothes horse anymore. I just wear what covers my body modestly and get on with it. I also bought a new leather chair for our family room as my physical therapist and others say I need a firmer seat than the one I'm in now provides. Okay, buying a new chair isn't a problem for ME! But firmness is essential for back muscles.

I'll try and be more diligent about posting as I love blogging but it isn't my whole life. This is the only thing I could think of to post today and I thought you'd like to see some pretty chairs done up right. :-)
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This was pretty with the large "flowers" tied with a wraparound fabric.

Sweet but not quite what I wanted either.

This was getting more like what I wanted. Remember, I'm a froufrou girl. ;-)

Tying ribbons on for this effect would have taken a lot of ribbon and I was trying for more froufrou than this so it wasn't quite right either.

This is lovely but wouldn't have worked as I wanted to cover most of the chair.

Can't you just see these being stepped on all the time? Of course, I could have made them shorter. Nah, beautiful but not quite right either.

I even considered something like this. This would have been simple and easy to make but I wanted something fancier. This would be great for patio chairs however.

This got me to thinking about 2 separate things for the chair. Something clicked here.

And this also got something clicking.

I used feather boas on some of my lamps and always have a few extra boas around just in case. I'll use a coupon from Joanns to have a small stockpile around. You never know when inspiration will hit and will involve boas and feathers!

This was a real consideration as I like it a lot but I thought on it some more.

This would have been easy also.

This is darling and it would have involved a bit of sewing. Beautiful table and chairs and seat covers. My two new ones are rounded high in the seat like this. But in the end I found some really pretty pink covers at Bed, Bath and Beyond. That involved NO sewing for me and that was a huge plus.

I loved this cover and this chair. The back of my new vintage chairs were not this lovely though. Two of my French chairs have cane on the seat and back, but not the two new craigslist find.

These are gorgeous but I really didn't want to make this many ruffles and sew that much.

So in the end this is what I did to the chairs. You can see the whole blog about redoing the chairs here. A tiny bit of sewing for the tops of the 2 chairs and that was it. Very simple.

~*~
Linking up with Pink Saturday.