Old Green Shutters Redone!

I've been busy, chicks. Just take a look at what can happen when your hubby takes you out into the country to look at the trailer he will eventually buy! Yessssssss, a yard sale with the most wonderful old shutters for $4.00 for the both of them. Squeeeeeealing with delight again! I think next time he'll leave me home........but I can sure hide in the back of his Montero, can't I?!?!?!

My Kitchen Thrill

Love Bunny had a 7 am church meeting sunday morning and got home about 9 am. I had on clothes from previous day since I hadn't showered yet prior to church. He was in the kitchen and I walked in and went up to give him a smoochie and hug (Smoochies are what my youngest grandsons and my son call them, just in case ya ever wanted to know. ;-) I end every single call to them with "smoochies for the boys"!), and he took my t-shirt bottom and started pulling it up! Faaaast!! Maaaaaaaan, was that a surprise, but let me continue. He pulled it up to my neck and I gasped! In that split second I wondered what in the heck he was doing while he was still in a suit. Well, he bent over and then kissed me and I looked at him in wonderment and he said "your shirt." I looked down and had forgotten that saturday night I had a Weight Watcher's chocolate cake and while ripping off the plastic sheet on the top I lost control (It WAS chocolate, after all!!) and narrowly missed dropping it on the floor. It landed on my "chest"! But I'm setting ya straight, chicks, that I would've been on my knees.......licking the chocolate cake off the floor if my "chest" hadn't stopped its further descent!!! To prove my story the shirt is pictured below and it ain't pretty:

My Hubs, the Scouter

Yesterday I was reading a blog post about a hubby and kids building a fire in a pit to roast some hot dogs. It brought back a memory of Love Bunny and the day he.........well, let me start from the beginning.

We had moved to Idaho a few years before and our neighbors to our rear were an elderly couple named F and G, for the sake of anonymity. They were in their 70s when we moved here and they were never blessed with any children. They took us under their wings and thought of us as the youngsters they never had. Actually, she fell in love with Hubs and I was gettin' a bit concerned there for a while. When she had her teeth in she was pretty enticing, let me tell ya!

I'm including some pictures for you to visualize this. Our house was on a small street and on a corner where there was a private drive and there were 2 houses "behind" us. Our driveway was HUGE - enough that a Mayflower moving van could turn around in it without backing up once. So the back of our house looked into the front of those 2 neighbors. (See pix #1.)

Pix #1 Front and Back of house with "side" street and back driveway and garage.

In front of their house, but to the back of our house, was a blacktop driveway with a "garden" between. F & G put it in themselves so as to give them a prettier view and had some evergreen bushes in there. (See pix #2.)

Pix #2 That is their house through one of our back bedroom windows as seen on pix #1 bottom pix. Please enlarge to see what I'm talking about. Okay, now that I've thoroughly confused you, on with the story! It doesn't get much clearer, trust me!)

It was technically on our property. Actually, their blacktop driveway was technically on our property but just before we sold it and left that town we gave an easement to the owner that bought it after F & G died - a couple of years previously.

Anyway, the story continues.......

Love Bunny has been a life long scouter - Boy Scouts - and he's more knowledgeable than any man I know about "scouting" - and one day he wanted to go out in the yard and "control" the weeds. It starts getting frightening about this part of the story so you may want to plug your ears and cover your eyes, chicks!

He had just gotten a "weed burner" a little while before and was burning the little weeds out back. Around that "garden of evergreens" were some "weeds" so he proceeded to burn them Weellllllll, before you knew it the whole shebang was blazing! Hubs tried to put it out with the water hose out there but it would have NONE of that. The other neighbor was the town doctor and his wife started yelling and asking if he wanted her to call the fire department. (See pix #3. Her house is the one on the right with the truck parked. F & G's house is on the left behind the infamous "bushes".)

Pix #3

Okay, just GUESSSSS what hubs said......hmmmmmm?? Of course, nuuuuuu, he could put it out himself he says. Well, luckily, R - again for the sake of anonymity - the doctor's wife who ALSO adopted us(!) - called and the FD came with their BIG hoses and it was out posthaste. Hubs was worrying he'd be the one that killed F & G and just wanted to put it out before it reached their home - a very short distance from the blaze now consuming all the oxygen within a mile radius!! He was MIGHTILY embarrassed about the whole affair and his scout troop never did let him forget it. (Hmmmm, upon reflection, do I REALLY want him to take me "camping" Labor day?!??!) After the fire, Fern put in plastic, YES - PLASTIC, flowers!!! They stayed there until she died; I then ripped them out. Loved that old couple and they were a "HOOT"! I may blog more about the "Misadventures of F & G" someday. ;-)

I had more for this blog but I think that's about all you chicks can take for one day about the adventures of this family!

On second thought I have a captive audience of you so might as well continue with more "things"............
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I decided to keep that little towel holder I bought at a thrift store in Calif. last month and here it it in my guest bathroom. I'm so glad I decided to keep it. Looks great in there!

But now what in the heck do I do with all that stuff that I took down from the trellis?? I don't know. This may require a redo of my craft room AGAIN! Actually, I KNOW it is going to require it!!
My sweet blogging chicks, do you know how far behind I am on surfing blogs?!?!?! I had 80+ to catch up on and was goin' real good at it and then all of a sudden when I was down to ONLY 2, my Google Reader clicked in and said I was 30+ MORE to read. I may not post every day after this. I HAVE GOT to read other's blogs!!!

More Rooms from the 1990s

Remember I told you I'd post more pictures from that catalog of rooms from the 1990s? Here is the first of many room settings. Also remember that I'm photographing them because scanning that many photos is a lengthy process and some of the photos were huge - much bigger than the scanning surface.

Anyway, this is what was called American Country. Personally, I love American decorating. It encompasses so many cultures - American, English, French, West Coast Californian, Tropical, Southwest, Northwest, Formal, Elegant, Contemporary, Modern, Shabby, Romantic.......all of them! Even sloppy teenage decorating. ;-)

So here is the living room that I absolutely love because of the pink/red and yellow combination. It's my favorite color combo. Then you'll see the bedroom and dining room. I LOVE this style, but my favorite is still the living room from Pink Saturday.

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This is my family room in another disarray! As hubs said today (as I was suggesting places and looking for a corner to put it in), "There aren't any more corners in the house to put it; you've got something in every one of them, Connie." It is currently holding just about anything and everything that doesn't have a place yet. I didn't have anywhere to put this trellis but behind the sofa. I plan on "doing something" with it but I'm a bit tired from nailing more holes in the wall today that I'll have to think on it a bit. I'm a tad dangerous with the hammer and screwdriver at this point, chickees!

Pink Saturday

I'm truly sorry but these last few weeks with the remodel has left me without a pink item to show except for the pink in this room. I'm getting the house back in order and today I mopped the floors and it felt sooooo good to walk across the vinyl in the baths and kitchen without something jabbing me in the foot (I did step on a tacky strip where we peeled back the carpet and it BLED!) Do I hear some "ooooh, ouch, chickie"?! Maybe you could send me some chocolate! That might help......sob....sniffle. Oooooo, yeah, definitely chocolate!!! ;-)<----- smirky wink!

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you my all-time favorite room. In 1997 when I was looking to buy a new sofa (Yes, it's the one in my living room now and looks as good as when I had it delivered.) I journeyed to Ethan Allen in Boise. The sales lady gave me one of their catalogs. I perused it when I got home to help me decide and came across this room. I almost expired on the spot!! Truly, I don't think there is another room that captured my heart so much as this one. I counted 10 different fabrics in use in that room and just fell in love with everything about it. The tufted white sofa, the drapes and mix of different pillows and one with the family crest perhaps(?), the white wrought iron tables juxtaposed with the french country coffee table, the old vintage books lying about on the table, the mullioned windows, the fresh bouquet of roses, the portraits of ancestors perhaps, the requisite globe, the lovely carpet, the throw to warm you in the cool evenings, the staffordshire lamp, the comfy chairs, the kilim fabric on the footstool by the fireplace grate (mostly "hinted at" in this photo as the observer cannot see it, but surely there is one there!), the old wood paneling, the window seat where you can wile away the snowy winter afternoons and the look of the room - as if it had been collected over a lifetime of the owners. That's the look I'd like to capture in my home. Of course, our "stuff" has been collected over our 47+ years but it certainly isn't as elegant as this room. But my home is my home: a mixture of old, new, shabby, english, country with a shadow or hint of formality, romantic, flowery, roses, pink and ME - Connie. That look I have down "pat"!! :-) AND you MUST enlarge the pix to view it properly!!!!!! And I'll show you another room from that catalog sunday. I think you'll like that one also. :-)