Rambling 1/21/2014

Have you given any thought lately to how hard it is to keep up with technology? I have and it's difficult. Every month or so there's something new to learn about phones, computers, iPads, etc. When will it give us a break?
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I was washing my face the other morning and asked hubs if I was that fresh-faced girl he had married. He said, "The one that drools [on the pillow I suppose]. I told him he didn't need to say that.
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I saw a bumper sticker the other day that made me chuckle. It said, "If God were my co-pilot, I'd be going 120 MPH."
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Some politicians worst enemy is a functioning conscience.
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Only a grandma would spend $2.24 to send a package of 68¢ M&Ms to her great granddaughters.
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There is no such thing as "open marriage"; it's called adultery.
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I also am a firm believer that a charmed, happy life is when you actually want everything you do have. I am one of those persons.
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I adore this beautiful casual room. Lots of white and a lot of color thrown in also. Wonderful for a large family.

This is a Pierre Deux fabric on this pillow. I was in one of their shops in Carmel, California, once and bought several small journals with their fabric on it. Their fabrics are really gorgeous.

Another room I could live in comfortably. Sofas plumped for sitting with lots of pillows and an ottoman for my feet. Cozy! Yummm.

This looks almost like an English living room made up for the holidays. I like everything about it also.

If it's white with bright pink or blue doors you know you're in Greece. What a gorgeous entry this is though.

An adorable little drum-like hanging lantern done up very froufrou. It makes my heart drum enthusiastically!

And the always popular white ethereal rooms for the lovers of Shabby Chic, of which I am one of the lovers of SC.

A small sweet bouquet of roses hanging on an old door in a garden. Magnificent!

A beautiful spot, but all that ivy growing on the patio cover and house will eventually deteriorate it. Beautiful but isn't a good thing to do.

If I wore necklaces, this would be the kind I'd wear. I love the way someone crafted it.

Pink soap and pink roses. Doesn't get much better than this for "eye candy." :-)

Another beautiful living room with a lovely fireplace.

More of the Shabby Chic look. I especially like the square ottoman with a white ruffled cover. Darling.

Another great idea putting two sofas together with a high table between them.

The kind of kitchen most of us grew up in. I can definitely relate to this kitchen and dining area with the Wilendur tablecloth.

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Linking up with Pink Saturday.

Another Christmas Story

I've another story to tell you about the Christmas holidays. But first a word from Caroline's great grandmother: ME! She's a very auditory child as stated by her school. That means she rarely forgets things to which we—her family members—can attest. Here's a small video of her and her mummy coming home from school as her mummy is recording her. Bare in mind that this story is made up as they go along. Mummy will say something and Caroline adds to it and then back to mummy and again Caroline adds her part. We think it's hilarious but I am, after all, her great grandma. It's my blog and I can post her video here if I want. You, however, have the option to not view it. ;-) Fair enough!

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The night before Christmas eve I chomped down on a candy cane and immediately broke a molar, the last on on the top right side. I hastily stuck my index finger in there to see if it was the candy or tooth as I couldn't tell immediately. I cut my finger big time. So what do I do then? I stuck my left index finger in and immediately cut that but not quite as bad. Hubs tried to get the bleeding to stop on my finger and finally put two bandages on the right and then one on the left. It was late so I took some gauze and wrapped it around the back of my mouth from front to back on that tooth. I finally called my dentist but everyone was on vacation and I didn't get an immediate call back so I called my friend whose hubby is a dentist and asked if he was working this Christmas Eve and she said he'd fix me up immediately. So I met them up at his office, just 2 blocks from our house and he fixed it to get me by the holiday. I've got a temporary crown on it now but let me tell you, the inside of my cheek was raw from that tooth. It was a crown anyway and that substance is hard and very sharp when broken. So I'll spend the next several months paying for this iMac and the new crown. My regular dentist will be surprised when he sees it next month for my regular 6 months cleaning. I love my dentist but the other guy is great also and closer when there's an emergency.
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I've fallen in love with little pincushions I've found on the internet.

This one in particular is a dazzler. Red velvet and a gorgeous rhinestone pin to top it off.

My favorite color combo—red and yellow. Nice to know someone else likes it.

Of course this room steals my heart with the pink and white striped sofas and the red toile on that chair. Red touches in the table and a vintage rug just top it off!

Yep, another favorite fabric of mine, red stripes. Actually I love that chair and ottoman. I'm going to purchase another chair later this year. Other things are coming first as you can see from my above story.

I'm on a "red streak" today I think. I love the coziness of this setting with the hearth and the bay window that echoes an inglenook.

What can I say about this room?! I love it. It's gorgeous and I truly love how they have a lot of white paint on the trim and wainscoting. One of the prettiest rooms I've ever seen.

This could be a Charles Faudree room. It looks like something he'd do for an entry room or a mud room.

I'm always enthralled with ribbon work as I love doing it even though I haven't for a long time. But it's one of those heirlooms I like to pass down to my kids and granddaughter. The boy grands couldn't care less about such things though. ;-)

Isn't this beautiful? It's not practical where we live though, too much dust from our farmers swirl around here. I'd be forever cleaning it off and we all know how I feel about work!

Adorable idea for a centerpiece for a dinner or buffet.

Just gorgeous pink eye candy for you.

This is a blogger's craft/sewing room. I'd love to have this much space but I don't do near what this woman does.

An absolutely adorable idea for a birdcage light.

Just because I love pink. This looks like a setting for a wedding or birthday cake.

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Linking up with Pink Saturday.  

Holidays Aren't for Wimps!

I'm again recommending that you go to my Pinterest page where a total of 23,910 followers on all the boards and over 13,600 photos are there for your perusal. I think you'll find a lot of images you like. The imagery is absolutely gorgeous for you and I have absolutely nothing to gain by sending you there. :-)
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Well, the holidays have come and gone and I am grateful they're over. Ooooh, no, I'm not a Scrooge but just the regular grocery shopping is brutal at that time of year. But hubs and I spent a very quiet week at home...well, let me rephrase that. We spent a NOT so quiet week at home. My iMac started giving me some problems. Let me tell you the story.

It just didn't seem right for a while. We all know when our computers are doing things that aren't normal, right? Well, I could tell something was amiss. And let me say here and now that I'm a big advocate of external hard drives. We have 3 of them for our Macs. Those have saved our tushes a couple of times, especially when I inadvertently "trash" something and then empty the trash, realizing a week later I need that "something" badly. Easy peasy with an external HD.

Then I called the Apple store in Boise for an appointment. After leaving it with them for a week doing exhaustive tests on my RAM, they decided that was the problem—bad RAM. Go figure. Anyway, that was replaced.

In the mean time, I'd been lusting for a 27" iMac for a couple of years now. I decided to go ahead and get a new one since we weren't too sure the 21" iMac would make it. So after putting it in the Apple store for repairs, I ordered one online from Apple—the 27" iMac, which was to be delivered Dec. 24th before 8 pm. It didn't arrive then. But the online FedEx support person told me we could pick it up in Boise at their facility between 9 am and 1 pm Christmas day. Getting out of bed and driving there wasn't much of a problem, but when we got there they said it was put on a truck to be delivered Christmas day. We hurried home. The delivery guy got there about an hour later with it and I actually gave him a kiss and a big tip for working the holiday. I treat tradespeople very well. They're the lifeblood of online shoppers.

So we go pick up the 21" iMac at Apple in Boise, bring it home and it's worse than before. I couldn't even empty the trash or even drag anything to the trash. Nothing on my desktop would open. It would then just quit unexpectedly. It's very unusual to experience problems with Macs and they're known for that and their tech support. We take it back in and after a few little tests, they rebooted it in the latest OS, which is Maverick, and even threw in an updated version of iLife free, a $49 savings. Can it get any better?! I have to say here and now that we have converted several friends to Apple and they love their Macs for the beauty of the OS and the support. It is by far superior to any other company in the world! And I do NOT say that lightly.

I also vowed to eat out as many meals during the holiday week as I could. We even ate Christmas dinner at a local restaurant and there was a waiting list when we got there. They told us that Thanksgiving was worse than Christmas. I figure more wives are opting to take a break and be treated to a dinner out! We've eaten breakfast, some lunches and most dinners out this past week. I'm at this moment cooking oriental chicken for hubs for being such a great sport and babying me.

And we didn't shop for any presents for anybody other than the grandsons under 18 and great granddaughters, even ourselves and we're all just fine for that. We had a very blessed and Merry Christmas and were in bed by 11 pm on New Year's Eve. One of the happiest Christmases I've ever had! I told you I was an easy chick! Okay, forget the iMac. It was needed and essential for the running of this household. ;-)

A stunning cake plate of mosaics.

I'd love to have a little cart like this but I don't walk to any grocery store. I remember as a kid going on my bike to the grocery store and buying a six pack of Pepsi or Coke in one of those carry-type cardboard packs I could put on my bicycle handles. It cost 30 cents! And I don't remember a charge for returning bottles either.

A beautiful living room in the yellow I like with pink. I love the sunny bright yellow.

Dream on, sisters! Beautiful patio.

Yeah, a beautiful place in Italy to visit.

Beautiful bathroom but I'd want 2 sinks in there. The rug is what drew my attention though.

I remember being in Ireland in the rain and the Irish actually washing their windows, business as usual. And they all had gorgeous lace on their windows. That's my style to this day.

Love this beautiful flower-y pillow.

A brave man lives in a house this pink, but my hubby would do it if I wanted. Just gorgeous.

What a sweet small breakfast room this is.

Love this dining room also. I'm still looking for chairs like these for our dining area.

A cute little rest area in a garden.

Now, this is what I'd like our dining/kitchen area to look like—a bit formal but not too formal and near the kitchen. I love this style.

Gorgeous roses and lamps in this vignette.

Can we say we like this area also?! Sigh...

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Linking up with Pink Saturday.

Sofas, Pillows and Redone Lamps

A reminder again to visit my pinterest page for more than 13,438 photos and 10,248 followers. All the photos I post on here are on there, actually many, many more that I'll never get on here. It's a real treat to have so many beautiful photos on one spot to just ogle over. I know you'll love seeing them. I search the internet diligently finding them to post.

Two things I've come to realize lately:
1. A best friend is one who will listen to your potty habits and lament with you.
2. Also, only a great grandmother will spend $2.28 to send her great grand daughters a 68¢ package of M&Ms!
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Since I post a lot of other homes and rooms, I thought I'd post my living room again today. It's a relatively small house at 1800 sq. ft., but even small houses can be made to look lovely and somewhat elegant—not saying mine is at all though, but pretty and comfy, to us anyway. I've switched the furniture from our family room back to the living room as I love this sofa more than any other. I made those side pillows out of some of the leftover fabric in which I had some chairs reupholstered many years ago. I had so much I eventually gave it to a friend as I doubted I'd ever make anything else out of that gorgeous fabric. The pillow in the middle I just made out of some drop cloth canvas, added a ruffle in a mini-rose fabric and added a little crown key chain sent to me by a member of an eBay group I had several years ago. I took it off the key ring and sewed it onto the pillow in the center. I rarely let anything go to waste around here if I can reuse it glamorously!

I stenciled a fleur-de-lis on two of the corners.

And here's a closeup of the little key chain crown. Easily sewn on and proudly announces that I am the Queen of this home! Just ask th' hubs and he'll agree posthaste. ;-)

I switch lamps around in this house frequently. This is one I redid with a new shade and added feathers, some Christmas beads in clear, white and red and a red ribbon flower I made many years ago. I reuse a lot of stuff around here. I usually try to get the other decorations off with a heat gun but I was afraid I'd set the ribbons on fire this time so I bought a new lamp shade at Wal-Mart. I have taken things off with a heat gun but I'd never try it with feathers. They'd catch fire for sure.

Here's a closeup of it. You can see on the bottom left I still have the rubber bands on the garland till I can find a way to keep them from unraveling (low on my priority list at the moment).

Here's a close-up of the shade. It's a $15.00 bell-shaped shade and a bargain at that price. I'll sometimes find lampshades at the thrift stores I can redo. I find a lot of lamps at the thrift stores also and bring them home, paint them white and voilà, like new. No matter what they looked like underneath—and some of them were pretty ugly—I can make them beautiful. An avocado ceramic one is now in our bedroom in white with decals on it. This one was metal and I painted it white and look how good it looks. Amazing what you can do "on th' cheap"!

An absolutely stunning elegant room, out of my price range, but I love the arrangement of furniture in it. I'd have pink on the walls of course. Pink just makes me feel good. I just love the color and I look good in pink. ;-)

A Charles Faudree room again, French style of course. He's one of the masters at doing French decor. Also, notice the mix of patterns he uses. I'm all for that. I love having different patterns in a room. Those flowered chairs especially appeal to me.

Mario Buatta. Another showcase home. I love his use of vivid colors and chintz.

Just an elegant, yet basically simple, room designed in a French style.

While the colors may be a bit wild, I get excited when some homeowner is as brave as I am with color. Love this room!

Mark Hampton is another favorite of mine. I guess you could say I tend more towards the traditional homey style.

Another French style room that is truly gorgeous while being in the range for most of us.

Anthony Baratta. I cannot say enough about his clean, fresh, bright rooms. He is just fantastic with his designs. They always touch my heart. I absolutely love this room and would live in it without a second thought.

A gorgeous very unpretentious room. The stone fireplace is a beauty and I love sofa tables behind sofas. My living room doesn't have enough room so my sofa table is on an opposite wall holding treasures of mine.

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Linking up with Pink Saturday.