But Dahling,

What do you mean I don't live in a 1940's movie?  Even as a kid I had trouble with this, and in third grade had a teacher ask me to tone down my wardrobe, or in her words, "Please don't wear, -----to school anymore." Apparently my stylish ways were distracting to the other kids.  I've been going through my clothes some more and my wardrobe of wearable items is down to almost nothing as I part with impractical shoes and clothes. I have one pair of jeans, a skirt, and a pair of shorts, a few shirts and three little black dresses that have never been worn.  I bought three new dresses for the summer when we first moved here and now they are to big, and the two pairs of shoes I bought before leaving Florida will never get worn here. I need to change my style and start buying practical items for the life I actually lead .

Simple Pleasures.

Carrying Oliver down the steps in the morning while he hugs me tight,
Making coffee.
Opening a bottle of wine.
(I enjoy doing both those things weather I am partaking or not.)
Looking through the new Pottery Barn catalog
People watching.
Turning back the covers and getting into a well made bed.
Mail!
 Thank you Hope, for this day brightening package. Megan is trying to claim the rose...I may let her borrow it.

Our New Old Table

I was really thankful the previous owners left the kitchen table here when we moved in, because I had nothing that would work in the area. After our first month here we all agreed we needed something smaller as the table was so big that it was hard to get around, and made the kitchen seem unbalanced. It got to the point where we were eating dinner on the sofa every night. Saturday while we were at consignment stores looking at furniture for Brewiers office, I spied a table that had just been unloaded from the truck. A vintage iron and marble beauty dream table. It's a perfect fit for our kitchen.

House of Shame.

I love houses, decorating and making a home. As I kid, I devoured my moms interior decorating magazines, and would spend afternoons in our backyard among the tree roots creating multi-level homes and crafting furnishings from nature. I have always, for as long as I can remember, critiqued and redecorated homes that I walk into. I can't help it. Living in a rental makes decorating  hard, mostly because I know we will be in this home for only 9 more months and I'm already overwhelmed by the thought of making and moving yet again.  Did I mention I unpacked EVERYTHING?  I'd really like to decorate and make this house, "us," but don't want to spend money on things that won't work in our next, and most likely much smaller house. Here are some photos of our home. I haven't decorated...  I didn't even make the bed or tidy the house before taking them...I think I may be a bit depressed.



Today I ordered some blackout curtains for my bedroom. I was torn between cream and grey. I went ever so bold and chose grey. Almost immediately I regretted it..  I'm an oatmeal and milk colored person.
Our new purchase. The most expensive bed in the world.  It's in the worlds smallest bedroom airing out, because latex is very smelly.



The queen size bed takes up the entire room.



Our empty dining room with moving boxes still in the corner.



The sun room with our porch furniture in it.





The butlers pantry. Everyone should have one of these.





As large as this house is, we only really use the living room and kitchen, which is sad because there are so many beautiful rooms. We just really like hanging out together.

"Does Anyone Blog Anymore?"

My mom asked that question of me when I was visiting her this past weekend.
I've been thinking/reminiscing, about when I first started blogging over ten years ago. Back then blogs were personal, you really felt like you knew the person writing. Stories were told, meaningful pictures of that persons life were posted, lives were shared. It was an intimate thing. Nowadays so many blogs are started and written for the sole purpose of advertising and business promotion. There are a few blogs I started reading 8-10 years ago that are still around, but have become so popular that the content is now generic, and the bloggers are being more closed about their life. yeah, I miss the old days. I'm not so fond of change.

Here is whats going on with me today.

I need a new sewing machine or a serious overhaul on my existing one. I bought it 33 years ago when I was planing on going into fashion design. It is an all metal, heavy duty machine and even with the school discount, it was $200. I tried sewing on it yesterday and it was like someone poured honey inside of it, the thing could hardly move. It was serviced back in 2007 and hasn't run properly since. the machine smells like car motor oil was used to lubricate it.

Megan and I have been on a serious Cheeto kick...as in we've been making special trips to the store just to get them. I weigh two pounds more today than I did yesterday.

We found out Brewier has a defective gene that prevents his body from absorbing  vitamin B. This would explain why he has always been so tired. The solution; take a methylated B. It's like he's a new person.

We're convinced Oliver is a genius.

I still haven't any friends here.

Jessica and Ray will be married 11 years on the 18th. Unbelievable!

Jessica turns 30 on June 18. I was going to throw her a, "Thirty, Flirty and Thriving," party, but then I moved. I hope her friends do something special for her since I'm not there.

Mothers Day For Real.

It was more of a mothers day weekend. Saturday morning Brewier and I drove to KY for a visit with my mom and Dick. Megan and Oliver stayed in Asheville. It was kind of weird not having them with us, but the break from each other was nice. Our first stop when we reached Danville, was the farmers market for some homemade picked beets and maple syrup. It's still too early for the razzleberry jelly I love, but I was told it would be made later in the season. After saying our hellos to mom and Dick, we all went to Bluegrass pizza, our favorite place to eat.



After lunch we stopped by my brothers house and Gavin showed us one of his chickens. All three of my brothers have chickens.



After lunch the guys napped while mom and I went to the Liquor Barn. Along with wine and spirits, it has gourmet foods, cheeses and party supplies, as well as an entire wall of bourbon and a case of bourbon candies. I bought a tin of bourbon smoked sea salt, which smells great, but pretty much tastes like regular sea salt.





And that is where my picture taking stopped. I can't believe I only have a handfull of photos from the entire weekend. That evening my mom made me my favorite meal, (I believe it is also the favorite of my 3 brothers,) porcupine balls, mashed potatoes and corn. True comfort food.

Sunday we hung out at the house, then around 3 Brewier and I got in the car and headed home. A very subdued weekend, but nice :)

Mothers Day

I was going to blog about it...but I'm just to tired, so I'll just post a picture of Oliver in has snazzy new outfit.
He LOVES wearing it and even insisted on wearing his bow tie while he napped.

One Can Dream.

While our entire home is pretty fabulous, my favorite thing in it is the kitchen and pantry. It's so fun and easy to cook when everything from bakeware to ingredients are organized and easy to see. I peruse Pintrest and see such pretty organized pantries, but I have to wonder, are they as functional as they are attractive?

The dream:



The reality:

Random Fact Wednesday.

Before I sent my computer off t be fixed, I updated my thrift blog; the first time in nearly two years. All because of a comment left on a post about how much the reader enjoyed my blog.
Despite having an ipad and an iphone, both of which I can blog from, I tend to mostly play bejeweled, candy crush and sudoku on them...or watch Netflix. I did use my phone to take some pictures while I was computerless, and discovered a tutorial for using your iphone for all your picture taking needs. Did you know you can buy lenses for your phone? I'm all about stream lining, and using only my phone for pics holds great appeal.

Here are the geraniums we bought for the front planters.





Yes, they are still in their pots. Its been so rainy I haven't been able to get them planted.

The view from my front door. Everything is so green and lush. I wish I'd thought to take a picture weekly. After 27 years of eternal summer, I'm amazed at the ever changing landscape.



All this rainy weather calls for many pots of coffee throughout the day. Oliver loves to help and can just about make a pot entirely on his own. All I do is fill the carafe with water, and measure out the coffee beans. He pours the water in, grinds the beans , puts the filter in, dumps the coffee in and turns the pot on. I figure in a month or so we'll have our own barista at our beck and call.

You Know You Want It.

But what I want to know who owned this telephone and where it is from. I came across it on my last trek to the Tobacco Barn. I've never seen anything like it.



The body is brass with a bamboo motif...kind of Asian, though the shape of it looks a bit middle eastern.



On the center of the dial is what looks like Neuschwanstein castle, because that make so much sense.



The real deal.



The phone is SO unusual and weird...that I knd of like it.

Its Spring.

Or so they say. It was 48, grey and ferociously windy today. The same is expected tomorrow, so the Big Love Fest Megan was supposed to be in has been postponed. I'm kind of glad because although she has sand bags to weight down her tent, I had visions of her prints flying through the air.
Brewier and I went to a local nursery today to get geraniums to put in our front planters.



While Brewier was paying for our flowers I wandered and found this broken pot landscape.



Its a miniature woodland and I fell in love with it.




Because of the weather, Oliver was inside and going a bit stir crazy,entertaining himself by standing in the empty dining room and shouting as loud as he could, just to hear the slight echo, and to see how long it would take for me to go crazy. Brewier intervened by playing golf with him in the hallway.



Something else he's had great fun with are these fabric squares I ordered off Etsy. He spent over an hour laying them out and the rearranging them.

Random fact Wednesday.

This one is hard to explain. Sometimes I have trouble verbalizing. Not so much in organizing my thoughts though that does happen, but in that someone will say something to me, or compliment me on something, and in my head I'll be thinking of what I want to say, but I don't say it. Recently this happened when Renee was visiting. She said she liked the urn I kept my kitchen utensils in. I immediately thought, "I've been keeping them in that for over a year...maybe she hadn't seen it yet...oh! Thank you." Unfortunately, none of this made it out of my mouth, and I have no idea why. Megan says I have this problem in other areas too. So, Thank you Renee, and any other friend who encounters this with me, call me on it and maybe I'll be able to speak.
Want to read what it is like for my friends and family to live with me? Read this article, Friends over Fragrance. Yes, my friends are saints.

Our Day in Pictures

Teaching Oliver to how to chocolate dip bananas. He did a really good job!






Pink petals snow down from the trees and cover everything!



As do these pollen bombs from our black walnut tree.



Why yes, we did go to the Biltmore again today. Oliver was very excited, thinking he was going to see Eva there, and was terribly sad realizing she was not. This is a huge wisteria vine. It should be gorgeous in bloom.





The view from the terrace.



Relaxing with George.

Oops.

I did this last month when we were in Ky for my brother Kens' birthday. I had been visiting a friend, and upon leaving and backing out of the drive way I somehow didn't notice that the driveway curved. Crunch went my car into the brick mail box, (which was unscathed.)



This weekend was rainy and grey...quite lovely, and we spent it lounging around the house relaxing. Which reminds me, tonight after his bath, as I was putting on his pajamas, Oliver said to me, "Wanna watch *George and relax.
He's a funny kid.

*Curious George