A VERY Few Thoughts on Homes

First of all, let me say one other thing since you know I'm always saying: First of all...

I have so many photos that I have caught myself not only posting them twice but actually posting in draft form the same template/photos just waiting for me to add a story or the text to the photos. Being human, I'll probably do this and not catch it at some point. If so, be sure and tell me. I always want to know how demented I am. Just rub it in. I'll probably laugh right along with you. I'm saying this because just today I found two drafts of the same template/photos. Sigh.

I'm not really into showing off gorgeous homes on my blog; although, I do occasionally. I know you want to see the celebrities homes, but they're truly not the norm in our country. There are more average-looking homes than multi-million dollar ones. I'll do it for you once in a while but not often. I prefer homes with rooms like those below. That's what the majority of homeowners have. And I'll admit to looking inside windows at night when walking by. I'm just as curious as most people wondering how women decorate their homes. ;-) Doors and entrances have also fascinated me for a long time, ever since I  heard and understood the term "curb appeal." I sure hope you all enjoy seeing the photos I post. I simply do not lead that interesting a life to be able to post photos of my own life or home or adventures all the time. Hubs would definitely disagree with you, as would all my acquaintances and friends, but they're wrong. Okay, okay, for the most part I don't lead a terribly exciting life. I'm an old lady, ya know!
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I love rooms like this. Cozy, lots of color and fabric and very inviting.

Another sweet room.

A beautiful bedroom. Love the shelf behind the bed.

Beautiful laces.

Probably one of the most beautiful ports you'll ever see with that wysteria

And roses for you!

Gorgeous embroidered pillow.

An old compartment on a train. I absolutely love traveling on trains. How would you like to take your supper in this little spot? :-)

Favorite color combo.

Isn't this adorable?

Try this with a thrift store lamp shade.

A delightful and colorful living room.

A darling little cupboard vignette

A lovely bed.

Try these colors of blue. Gorgeous.

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Caramel Apples and Fake Nails

Hubs and I went to the store the other day and on a whim I bought some caramel dip. I was amazed how many apples I ate that day! Do you know how many apples it takes to consume the entire container of caramel dip? So far I've eaten 4 apples and still have some left. Maybe 5 or 6 apples? Hmmmm.
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Getting my hair cut recently, I noticed a couple of women coming in for fake nails. There is no way possible those women do work of any kind! I have to file my nails at least once a week to be able to type/keyboard on this computer. Those women had them about 1-1/2 long. And that reminded me of an incident 30 years ago.

Back in the early 1980s, I had them put on for a USMC ball in November of that year. They looked gorgeous. But that night as I was trying to get my contacts out of my eyes I couldn't get my fingers into my eyes. I was in tears wondering how to get them out so I could get to bed that night. (I don't wear contacts anymore at all.) Hubs was absolutely no help because he's got men's fingers and they were too big. (He has gorgeous long beautiful fingers though.) So I had to cut them off that night. I only had them on one day. At the time it was $25 or $30 and that was a lot in 1980 dollars. Then, if  you try to pick your nose, you almost rip your eyeballs out! Never again. These hands work, chick, WORK!
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I thought this was a lovely house set out on a bit of acreage you might enjoy seeing. I love the blue metal roof. I wanted one several years ago, but since our roof required over 4,000 s.f., the cost was prohibitive. We settled for shingles.

You will forever see roses on this blog. Forever!!!!

Another sweet respite on a porch.

This is what I've been doing a lot of lately—using pins on making ribbon roses and a ruffled tablecloth.

A very simple, yet lovely, vignette. Why don't you try it?

A lovely picnic or they could be camping. (Shudderrrrr!)

Lovely linens and bottles in purple and lavender.

Now, it looks like the curtains are billowing in a breeze but, for the life of me, I cannot figure out how such a window could be opened. But what a view to wake up to each morning.

I just loved the illumination on this photo from the lights in the house, on the porch and fire in the pit.

Talk about quaint, vintage and rustic, this is it.

A cute radio and a space by the ocean.

Love this tiny space for a crafter.

Darling coin purse. Looks like a crafter made it.

A street in Europe somewhere. Can't see the writing on the canopy well enough to tell if it's in France or Italy though.

And I leave you today with this absolutely stunning roses cake. ;-)

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New Shabby Ruffled Quilt Debut

As I've mentioned in this post a few days ago, I've made a few of the photos bigger when you click to enlarge than others. I'll tell you which ones in the text at the top. Again, I love large photos to be able to see them well. I see some on blogs that are so tiny one can barely make out the photo. I think it's a case of when they add them, they're not clicking the "Original size" below the picture. Too bad, because they just don't show well when they are so small. I do a lot of editing with mine in my iPhoto and Photoshop to make them as good as I can for your viewing pleasure. You cannot get the flavor of the quilt, or other things for that matter, with tiny photos. Sometimes I just want to scream.

The quilt arrived all scrunched up. It took me all day to iron the 11 ruffles. I ironed, stopped, did some sewing, ironed, stopped, ate, ironed, stopped, went to WM, ironed...well, you get the idea. I hope to not have to wash it very often!

This is the top of the quilt.

This is the underside. I think for us romantic, shabby chic gals this would have been the best fabric to present on the top side. While the little daisies are cute, this side is more in line with the look we want.

Here it is on the bed.
Click to enlarge this one. Oh, and if you see my bra somewhere in these pictures, ignore it. ;-) It was early when I did these photos.

Click to enlarge this one.

 Click to enlarge this one.

Click to enlarge this one.

Close up of those darling ruffles.

Even closer up of ruffles. All the fabrics they've chosen for this are really, really cute.

The quilt is a full/queen size. When I put it on our queen size bed, 3 of the ruffles are on top. I think that's the way it was designed because their website has the ruffles on top of the bed. That leaves it not reaching the floor. I knew this before though so I was planning on buying another ruffled bed skirt. But a situation arose.

Hubs and I put a blanket on the bed a few days ago and we both just about died from the heat of the foam-y type blanket. We decided to give it away as we're both too hot to sleep with it. We both love our bedroom cool or even cold. We sleep cold even in the winter. So, being that we have no lighter blankets and since we couldn't find one this time of year, we are keeping the matelasse cover I bought from Soft Surroundings several years ago. The cover cost me a couple hundred dollars back then and I've had people tell me if I ever want to sell it, to let them know. Well, that's pretty much all we sleep under in the summer, and in winter we keep a blanket at the bottom of the bed in case it gets too chilly for us—a rare occasion. So, what I'm doing is just keeping the matelasse cover on the bed and putting the new quilt over it. Plus the long bed skirt on the matelasse cover is perfect for covering up under the bed. (See photos 4, 5, 6 and 7 above.) While it's dragging on the carpet, I don't mind. I'd rather have it too long than too short and if I want to hem it at some point, I can; though, I doubt I shall. Two pluses: cover for warmth and bed skirt for bed. I don't have to go buy another bed skirt if I don't want to. And trust me, I've spent a lot of money recently!

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This cottage looks like it could be on the back of someone's property.

Isn't this handbag lovely?

Gorgeous close up of a flower.

Beautiful french soaps.

Lovely duvet cover and pillows.

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Linking with Create with Joy
and SSS WOW 
and At The Picket Fence.

A Night Out for Dinner

I'm joining in with Claudia's A Favorite Thing linky party tonight and will use this post but put in a favorite thing now to join her at 8 pm EST.

It's hard for me to have just one favorite thing as I could keep this party going well into the 22nd century with my favorite things. Actually, I'll probably depart this earth before I could possibly get through my "favorite things." But today my favorite thing will be this little bucket I painted to match the new decor that I'm striving to get: Romantic/French/Traditional/Connie. ;-) It was purchased at Joanns fabrics and kind of a verdigris color and not very good one at that. I painted it pink and yellow stripes. Turned out even better than I thought it would!

Closer to better see it is yellow. Anyway, while it looks lime-color in these photos, I can assure you it's yellow and I truly do love the colors.

This was taken inside with indoor lighting, but I assure you this is truly pink and yellow, not limey green.

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At a doctor's office recently I was reading an old Reader's Digest. There was an article in it by a podiatrist. She said unequivocally that the best lotion for feet was Amlactin. My own podiatrist recommended it also. It's a bit pricey at about $15.00 for an 8 oz. bottle but it is so true. Even Love Bunny noticed how soft my feet were. And if that man notices anything, it's worthy of note, trust me!

He and I don't see eye-to-eye on portions. Food portions. He'll ask for peas for dinner and would put a half a bag of frozen peas in the pot to cook. That's ridiculous. He says it's the right amount. I put about a third of the bag in the pot to cook. He just has no sense of portion. We argue about this all the time.

Recently, he took me to Sizzler. Now, I'm not that fond of Sizzler but that night the steak was really good. Hotter than blazes though. No child could have eaten it that hot. I mean the platter was smoking and did so for the entire time it took me to eat the steak and potato. If a parent let a child eat it that hot, it would burn their mouths for sure and then we all know what would happen—they'd sue Sizzler. It took me 6-7 minutes before I could even put a forkful of it in my mouth. Truly! He likes his food HOT—from the skillet to his mouth. Our son is the same way. Me? I have to let it cool before I can put it in my mouth. I don't want my mouth burned and it has been. Once scalded; twice cautious...or something like that.

Anyway, I had a small salad bar, the entree and dessert. He had a bigger steak, salad bar heaping on his plate, then went back for cottage cheese, then went back for a PLATE of fruit and then had an ice cream sundae. We're not talking small portions; we're talking big portions. I was sick just eating what I did, but he said he didn't feel full or think he ate too much and defended it. Sigh...as I said, we have totally different views of "portions." But we both agreed that's our last time at Sizzler.
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Is this a cute little cottage or what? No driveway, just a patch of grass with wheel paths leading to the back. But it looks like it's at the end of a road. Charming, no matter where or what it is.

This looks to be in Britain to me. Not many homes in the U.S. are that close together and so charmingly old.

The other day I gathered all my wrapping papers—such as they are—from the hallway coat closet and put them in my office here. They were getting in the way of the coats and vacuum I have in that closet and I didn't want them to get too frayed. So I brought them into this office and am now trying to find a cute bucket, preferably of the tin/metal variety, to put them in and store them "in plain sight" somewhere in the house. Just adding more eye candy for visitors to see. ;-)

Isn't this a gorgeous dreamy coat? I'd love to have it but I'd look like a polar bear in it.

A stunning balcony window with lace curtains. Oooooh, how gorgeous.

A beautiful bathroom, probably done over in rustic vintage decor. The colors are beautiful and serene.

You probably remember when we would have thrown out something that looks this bedraggled. Now we pay dear for such a vintage "ornament."

Just for the gorgeous deep colors have I posted this for you.

I love this little cuff done so fancifully. While I'm more fond of colors, I'd still make a cute little one like this to wear.

While this doesn't look like a particularly popular or sought-after street to live on, I thought the home was worthy of note. It looks huge even before you have the side protuberances. Cute, but too big for this gal.

This is such a place I'd love to have near me to enjoy. Absolutely adorable!

A rustic bench. Very desirable.

This looks like a bunch of fabric before it is ruffled just put together to make a curtain of sorts. Clever.

An Italian doorway looking like a jewel. Notice the mailbox is the same color as the door and the archway.

Darling picnic table cover. Now, this is my next project! LOL

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