Watercolor Painting

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Recently I celebrated another birthday. Now, I've admitted the only thing I ever ask for is my dinner out. I'm not good at remembering or celebrating my birthdays and have even been known to forget our anniversary or kids'/grandkids' birthdays. Birthdays are just not high on my list of priorities—mine or anyone else's. So that being said, I have this little story to tell you.

As you may know since I've mentioned it before, I've had an eBay group for over 4 years now. We chat about our lives and decorating and crafting and we've all grown very close and on occasions some of the group have met each other in person. But they treat me royally. I truly do love each of those women.

But a few days after my birthday I received an email from a member who quit—although we still keep in touch via emails—asking me if I checked my mail that day. I confirmed that I had, thinking she meant email, and thanked her for the e-card she sent. She emailed back quickly saying it wasn't email/e-card, but the regular postal service. I had grabbed the mail from the box on my way in from a bit of shopping and told her that yes, I had in fact checked my mail box. She quickly emailed back that she sent something and her confirmation slip said it arrived today. All of a sudden I looked up at my video cam that monitors my front porch and saw a package out there that must have been left while I was out and I had forgotten to check the front porch. Our mail lady leaves packages on the porch for me.

So I quickly ran to the door and opened the package and this is what I found inside—this gorgeous watercolor painting from her! I gasped and was so astounded that she would be so kind as to gift me with such a lovely watercolor. And she even matted it for me. I don't have a frame that it will fit snugly in, but I love using old frames I have painted. I just can't throw them away and mats are so expensive, I have to be creative so this is what I've done.


Isn't it just beautiful? I truly and thrilled and in awe of her talent.

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Lunch with the Chicks at Cafe de Coco #3

A few close ups for you. I love that little wire pot holder.

And this antique wire egg basket.

This is beside that little dressing table in the entry that looks very Parisienne, but it says "I love New York"........hmmmmm, kinda strange I think.

But wait! Aaaaah, here's the french one!!

Another dress form above my budget limit! Sigh........

This picture of a shoe reminds me of Gail McCormack's new paintings. Hers are definitely prettier though. And we all KNOW how I feel about birdhouses.

The ceiling was very dramatic in the main area of the shop. They draped lovely fabric over the lights there to soften the effect. Really pretty.

Darling little hand towel with a froufrou kinda dress.

And this bench?!?! Ooooh, how I would love that for my front porch. You do realize the front porch is NOT finished, right? More on that down the line though.

Another dining area. They had 4 or 5 different small private dining areas there and I quite like that. There was a place in Oakland, California, that a friend and I usually dined at called The Pewter House and each dining table was secluded with walls around it. Lunch would usually take us 3 hours because we just sat and talked while we ate.

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Musing on Passions Today

Doubt??? What's that?! Has anyone ever had doubts? Me??? Nuuuuuuu, never a one. I'm simply the poster girl for doubt on some things. For instance, painting a rose. I've tried for a couple of years to paint a rose and have finally arrived at the point where I realized I could embarrass myself only so much by posting my paintings. I don't sell any, just do them for friends and myself. But recently I started having self-doubt again. Oh, not just about rose painting, but something else. It has almost paralyzed me. That's how bad it was. Here's the story.

I've seen some gorgeous aprons on the blogs and thought "I can do that" because it's one of my favorite things to do—make aprons. So I made one and think I've displayed it on one of my blogs (memory isn't what it used to be, chicks!) and thought I'd submit it in a sort of contest to see if it can get into a magazine. I made it months ago but still have not submitted it. Fear of rejection is alive and well and breeding in my mind. :-) Well, I finally contacted a blogger who had one of hers published and asked what the process was. She told me and I said to myself to "go for it" because you can't realize a dream if you don't reach beyond your comfort zone. (Hmmmm, can you tell I'm still talking myself into this?) So I've decided that I'll get it into the next day's mail. What have I got to lose? Nothing but the fear of rejection but I'll never know if I don't try. I think most of us have that fear—rejection. But I won't know if I don't try. I'll let you know if they laugh at me. Nuuuuuuu, you'll hear the earth shake with my cries if it isn't published.
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Now, here's what I've been working on lately. It takes a lot of fortitude to display to the world my private world of painting. But I'll never know joy if I don't show them.

These are little plaques that had paper on them. When I hung them outside on the back of the house the paper faded and peeled off. So I painted them white and they've sat in my craft room for almost a year waiting for me to do something with them. This is the day I've decided to do one with a little bird nest and one with just little roses on them. I'll hang them on my front porch when I finish them. PROUDLY!!!! As I'm "conquering" this particular fear!

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Random Thought:

Don't let the voice of critics paralyze you.

My Gazebo and Bedroom Wall

Love Bunny is putting up the gazebo here. He's 6'2" tall so you can see how tall the gazebo is. Squeeeeeeeeal!! I'm so excited about this. It was at a local craft store on here in the west called Craft Warehouse on sale for $200.00 and I grabbed it. I plan on moving it out further from the house but since we have a typical "western" small lot it won't be moved too much farther. Just in front of the quaking aspens I think. I may plant some roses around it. I just don't know. Any suggestions??? I'm open, chicks, to any advice.

The dome has a huge hook that can hold lanterns and a huge finial up there. This is a metal gazebo and very sturdy. I plan on hanging sheers down 4 sides of it. I'll post back when I get that done.

Our apple tree is finally producing some fruit that doesn't have bugs in it......I think. But this is the farthest it's gotten so far after 3 summers. We planted it in 2005 and it was small. I'm so thrilled that something I planted is not dying!

Okay, so one apple has something on the skin. Could be a bruise. I hope it's not a worm. Hubs has sprayed that tree 3 times this year to protect it.

I thought instead of adding spanish moss to these coconut husks I'd paint them instead. So I picked up a can of green "foliage" spray paint and took them out back and sprayed them green. It helped with the smell of the coconut husks and also looks better than the brown husk color.

I contacted a man the other day about painting our bedroom, master bath and walk-in closet. But I received a painting from Gail in Australia (it's gorgeous, btw!) and decided that it would look best over the bed since it's a painting of a bedroom. When I saw the painting I knew it was mine. How sweet of her to sell it to me! I just love the softness of it over my bed. I needed something bigger to frame it though so I set off for Michaels and purchased a huge frame at 50% off and then got another 40% off with a coupon. Squeeeeeeeeal and score!! My kinda deal, chicks. It was black so I had to spray paint it white but no big deal except that there's a rectangle in my back yard that has dark green, pink AND white paint. It'll grow and be cut in the next week so no big deal for Love Bunny. Now I need for the painter to come and paint it and then I'll start hanging stuff back up there. Needs more than that frame and picture.

Gail was kind enough to include a tag and some little prints of her paintings. I think I'll frame them also and include them in the larger frame also. We'll see how inspired I can get.

Decorating the Living Room

I seem to be making some headway in this house the last 2 days. But wouldn't ya know it; I had to stop and resuscitate the mouse!! She's been giving me a fit lately and I usually just dust her off - her belly button, ya know, that scroll wheel. But she's been sucking some serious dust around here so it's been a miracle that I can revive the little darling. *Sigh*.........................

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This was 2 days ago. I was so tired I didn't know whether to climb the ladder to paint/hang pix or get on my knees and put stuff back that was to be "lower"! My feet are killing me from standing on that ladder, chicks.

Do you realize that I "shopped" right outta this house??? Yep, old things placed in different places seem new again. Besides, hubs said to keep it to a minimum. They're just no fun when it comes to remodeling and redecorating. Actually, this whole remodel was his idea. Ya woulda expected me to say nuuuuuuuu?!?! Get a grip, chicks, this was decorating and spending money here. It's our lot in liiiiIIIIiiiiiffffffffee. (When I type the words that way you'll know I'm RAISING my voice and lowering it. Hah...No matter.......on with the show.)

Anyway, today shows a marked improvement.....in the living room. The family room??? Pfffffffffttttt. It's trashed! Now, I'm not so proud that I wouldn't show you but there's nothing to show in there at the moment. I've pretty much stripped the pix off the walls and brought them into living room.

Notice the french wire baskets. I don't know where to put them! I'll have hubs help me decide tonight. He's actually pretty good at noticing things and recommending things when I'm stymied. You all have been a big help with your email suggestions also. Thank you!

Clock was moved last night but moving a grandfather clock is a delicate matter. We had to almost disassemble it to move it - take out the weights and pendulum. But it's there. I've added 2 pix above it and some pretty little boxes on the overhead. Being from California I'm squeamish about putting things "UP" when they could "FALL" on your head! These are light however and not a problem.

The print on the left of the photo is 1 of 3 of my favorites. It's a Susan Rios print. The one in the middle below the painting of the girl (more on that in a moment) is my absolutely favorite of all times. When we lived in California I had a huge family room and had slipcovers made for a sofa I had. It was a wide pink and white stripe. That thing cost me a fortune! That was over 20 years ago and cost me $800.00. I could actually have bought a new sofa for less at that time. I loved it though.

One day when I was at the Valley Fair Mall in San Jose I went into the Martin Lawrence Gallery there and found this print. I immediately bought it because I absolutely adored it and it looked a great deal like my home with that sofa and the lace curtains. My heart was stolen, little sweets. But when we moved up here and then to this new house 3 years ago we didn't have room for it. I sold it for $100.00 and included 2 outdoor wrought iron chairs. Pathetic.

Anyway, the limited edition on the far right with a white frame is another of Susan's prints. So I grouped them all together.

Now, about that painting. I purchased it recently at Goodwill for a couple of dollars because it touched my heart and it has pink roses on her hat. BUT the thing is Susan Rios did a self-portrait once and that is a lot like her portrait. I have a book of her painting and prints in it and that portrait is in there. Except for the hat it could almost be her. It is truly amazing. So I hung it with her paintings. I've also included her self-portrait for you to see the similarities - the pose, the hair, the white blouse, the direction in which she's looking. You'll have to enlarge the pix of living room to see that portrait better.

My new sink!!!!!! I love it. I like stainless steel and it's not as deep as the old porcelain one. I did put one pix over the sink that I can look at. Still much more to do there but I had to get some of them off the floor and hung! I'll get Love Bunny to put a shelf in there - I have no "shortage" of shelves or I'll hang that little french country shelf for miscellany.

This is a mosaic my daughter and granddaughter made me. She never got a photo of it 3 years ago and is updating her portfolio of mosaics. So I had to photograph it for her. If you want to see some of her pieces for sale go visit Nan. This is a hobby for her. She's like me and CANNOT do nothing!

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Now I want to share with you a special gift that Katie recently sent me! She just started a selling blog. But I have to tell you also that she recently has taken up silk ribbon embroidery. (We've created a monster!! Aaaack!) AND she's recently had her first grandchild, Syllah May, which was a terrific thrill for her. We followed the journey with her from the announcement of her daughter's pregnancy to the delivery of Miss Syllah. She's a beauty also, but has the most extensive wardrobe of any new chick I've ever seen!! Anyway, Katie made this quilted tote for me and it's lovely. You have got to go to her blog and see her exquisite silk ribbon embroidery! That new baby had the most exquisite first wardrobe I've ever seen. Goooooo! Ooooh and why the tote???? I guess she just "loves" me for some crazy reason! :-)~*~

*UPDATE at 10:15 pm TONIGHT!*
I composed this post tonight at 6 pm or so after working all day (but I wanted you to view the "latest" of the kitchen) and adding to the draft of this post and scheduling it to come on line at midnight, but hubs put up a couple of shelves for me tonight so it's 10:15 pm and I've been up for 20 hours now and still going strong............ Hah! If you believe that you're nuts because you can tell by the run on sentence!!!!! I'm about to keel over. BUT I'll just post this and go because hubs is tired.*Fini* Bon nuit!

My Trellis Room Divider

I want to show you my special room divider. It's a trellis I bought many years ago from a store going out of business and I just had to have it! You know the feeling!! ;-)

Anyway, I got it for a song and it has served we well for photo shoots and now as a divider between living room and dining area. On it hangs gifts, paintings of roses special women have given me, snippets of things I just love looking at, hankies, pieces of vintage lace I've found over the years and not known what to do with because there isn't much left of it, cards, tags, special little ornaments that have been given to me or I've bought for their beauty and "eye candy", lovely little envelopes, scrap paper, a fan, hearts, pretty little note cards, paper roses, seed packets (YES! seed packets that I considered beautiful enough to hang), a decoupaged sign I made many years ago for hubby and me, even some lovely business cards from people I buy from, a little gorgeous beaded lampshade I don't have a lamp for - yet, a picture of the cheese factory in Pleasanton, Ca. where we used to go for lunch sometimes, ribbons and just about anything I consider too beautiful to throw away.

I love beautiful things as you've probably heard me say before. My eyes feast upon them on a daily basis and it makes my heart sing and to be happy. I'm a happy and positive person but I am happier when I can view lovely things. They don't have to be expensive; indeed, most of the things I have on the trellis or in my home aren't expensive but ohhhh the joy they bring me!!!! Just too much for the heart to describe.

So enjoy looking at these things and I hope they make your heart sing today. Try your own "trellis", whatever that may actually be! Celebrate the blessings of your life!!

There are many pictures of this and I hope you enlarge each one to fully view everything.