The weekend in review or How’d I do?

The list:

-Buy a pumpkin
-Sleep in
-Turn on the heat in the house/bleed the radiators
-Wash a lot of things - clothes, kitchen towels, dishes (do other things need to be washed, of course, but let’s not be excessive here...)
-Put the downstairs furniture back to its pre-party configuration
-Finish edging the garden beds
-Weed, mow, plant bulbs, general garden clean-up
-Straighten my tree (thanks, Bob!!)
-Make at least one thank-you card
-Scottish dance
-Watch the Mad Men DVDs before they are overdue at the library
-Attend the Piffaro concert
-Restore my office to some semblance of sanity

Well, the list doesn’t look as bad as it could...

On Friday I washed dishes and did laundry between Mad Men episodes.

Saturday was garden day. I bought Seymour, my pumpkin and a few too many bulbs first thing, and proceeded to spend about 4 hours outside between mowing and bricks and tree and weeding. I had this moment of horror when I thought I’d incorrectly estimated the number of bricks I’d need to complete my edging project, but math won the day, and I had exactly the right number. I know you’ll find this shocking, but I got a trifle carried away with the bulbs. I started out really only wanting snowdrops but got drawn in by the prospect of dark purple tulips and hyacinths, miniature daffodils and cream-colored crocuses with a hint of red. If even half of them come up, I’ll be happy, but my expectations are not that high. And I’m happy to report that my lovely tree in front is now upright like the others on the block. My neighbor brought his own power tools and helped me anchor the tree to the base of the front porch. Hopefully in a couple of years the tree will stand straight without the wire support.

I did move my furniture back on Saturday, and go to the dance on Saturday night (I wasn’t yet sore from the yard work. That didn’t kick in until Sunday afternoon). Sunday was perfect. I slept in a bit, had a lazy breakfast, washed more dishes, took a walk to a little local flea market, and finally went downtown for the Piffaro concert, which was fabulous. I can still hear the ringing of the final notes of the choir just hanging in the air.

What didn’t get done...

-Heat and radiators - the temperature soared back up to the 70s, but I think it was the last gasp. I’m slotting in Tuesday as radiator day...
-Crafts - I spent more time getting my hands dirty with dirt, so there was less time available to get my hands dirty with ink. But I must make time!
-Office - well that was a bit farfetched, right? But it does still need to be done. In a big way. Maybe the next weekend that I’m home...

And as for this weekend...

...No ambitions - I’m out of town.

Today's fun topic - ordering a new cell phone...

So, apparently my cell phone has reached that magic age when some of the buttons stop functioning. I've been here before. And luckily, as my cell phone needs are limited (Not giving in to the now ubiquitous need for a fancy phone with email and apps. Nope. Okay, almost. But, no...), I’ve developed a technique for dealing with it.

1. Look on the AT&T website to see which phones are free or cheap with a contract extension

2. Go to the AT&T store and ask a staff member which of the free phones is the best

3. Get the new phone. Get the staff to transfer my address book. Leave happy.

4. Eventually learn how to use the new phone

My goal was to take care of this Monday after work. I trot on over to the store. They point me to the cheap phones in the dark corner where they assume no one will want to shop. I consult with a staff member and learn that they no longer carry the inexpensive/free phones in the store. You can only order them online (no doubt to try and force you to buy something snazzy for instant gratification). But I have the internet, so I have my 5 second consultation and run to catch my train.

Today, I went back to the website to buy my phone. Both of the recommended phones in my category have terrible reviews from users on the website, mostly about scratches and covers falling off, and battery life. But I figure, I am mostly only using this thing as a phone. I am not trying to make it be something it’s not, though doubtless I will drop it several times. So I read a few more reviews, and make my choice. And boy, oh boy, the phone I want comes in RED. Why not? Let’s branch out a little from the basic black (oh, excuse me, graphite...). I make my choice. I start the check-out process... ...only to learn that the red phone requires you to fork over $50 at the check-out and send away for your rebate, while the black phone is just plain free from the start. This seems akin to the myth that red cars are more expensive to insure than others, but this one appears to be true! They are counting on people (like me) not bothering/forgetting to send for the rebate. Such a racket!

So I picked black. It will match all of my shoes.

Seize the Weekend!

I would be lying if I said the craziness of October kind of crept up on me. I knew it was happening. I keep a calendar. I said yes to all of those calling dates AND planned my party for one of those at home weekends. So here I am, about to embark on my one free October weekend, and I’m caught between desires: sleep, be lazy, watch Mad Men DVDs, or, be productive, garden, do laundry, generally de-clutter the house, attack the craziness that is my office. I know! Don’t choose, do both!

Proposed important things for the weekend:

-Buy a pumpkin
-Sleep in
-Turn on the heat in the house/bleed the radiators
-Wash a lot of things - clothes, kitchen towels, dishes (do other things need to be washed, of course, but let’s not be excessive here...)
-Put the downstairs furniture back to its pre-party configuration
-Finish edging the garden beds
-Weed, mow, plant bulbs, general garden clean-up
-Straighten my tree (thanks, Bob!!)
-Make at least one thank-you card
-Scottish dance
-Watch the Mad Men DVDs before they are overdue at the library
-Attend the Piffaro concert
-Restore my office to some semblance of sanity

Will I get to everything on this list? Doubtful. Check back next week for the progress report...

Musically inclined...

I’m a late adopter of most technological things: CDs, cell phones, DVDs. I don’t have cable TV. I don’t really understand the wireless networking in my house. And I’ve already reported about my fun with printers this summer. So you know who you’re dealing with here. Musical devices are no different for me.

After everyone else had one, back in the dark ages, I finally got a CD player and started purchasing CDs. All was well. In my room first, and then in my own apartment, I had a stereo which carried sound throughout my allotted space. When the CD player on my (big, now 15-year-old) stereo died, I replaced that with a little boom box, and kept right on having accompaniment to crafting sessions, dish washing, etc. Finally, frustrated with the sound quality of my little $30 from Target solution, I bought a CD component via Craig’s List. I was so proud when I was able to hook it up to my stereo system without supervision (go me for still knowing where the instructions were!) But now that I have a house, and seven bedrooms in addition to the main living room, dining room, etc., a single, static sound solution doesn’t work. So the solution was to rarely listen to music.

Then along came the I-pod. Yes, it was a modern Walkman with the power of a music database behind it. It’s your CD collection in one box, and basically the cause of record store demise. But it’s so compact. And portable. And then there was the Ipod Nano, which was cute, and came in purple. But like all things electronic and modern, this was only for other people.

But then after I got the house, it made me think: I want music in different rooms in the house at different times. Yes, I could move my laptop around, and have, but it’s clunky and has bad sound quality. If only I had an Ipod and a set of speakers, wouldn’t that just be great. My parties could have a soundtrack!

Finally, after two years of thinking about this and considering how many CDs I have, how much digital space they would take up, how much physical space they currently take up, and how much time it would take me to download all of that music, with some of my summer earnings, I took the plunge and bought an Ipod.

Now mind you, you go into the Apple Store, and at once are tempted to get an Iphone, an Ipad, or at least an Ipod Touch. I felt the urge, believe me. But it’s me, so I stuck to the Classic, which has a ton of space, few gizmos, but I think everything I need (I don’t need a pedometer on my Ipod. I don’t!)

I love it already.

As of this writing, I have over 100 CDs loaded on it already. It’s not organized. I have no playlists set up. I haven’t purchased anything through Itunes. But I bought an adapter for the car and took it on its first outing this weekend - perfect. Speakers are next, in time for my soiree, and then I should be set.

And of course I needed a carrying case protector thingy. It came in the mail today. It’s purple...

Going green...

...the dining room, that is!

In what seemed like a fast decision, some time in May I made the bold leap of having the dining room painted. As I've never painted a room even one color, much less two, nor installed a chair rail, I forked over the big bucks for someone who had availability (i.e., needed the money right then) and knew what he was doing. Here are some pictures I took of the event:



Brian moved the furniture away from the walls, covered it over and got to work patching the old plaster, making surfaces event, etc.



He discovered cracks in the plaster I had no idea were there and made them disappear.



Please note the thermostat on the wall with the open cover. This will be important later...



More covering and patching.



At last - a chair rail! Brian and I had a bit of a miscommunication about the chair rail. We had agreed that it wouldn't go on every little corner, nor on the angled bits of the bay window. He took that to mean that it shouldn't go to the ends of the wall everywhere. Luckily I asked about it and he was able to patch it before he finished painting. It's not perfect, and it did require another trip to Home Depot, but at least it's much closer to what I had in mind to begin with.



I came home one day and the walls were green! Amazing!



Brian worked over Memorial Day weekend and finished that Monday. It was great to get the furniture uncovered and back in place. Here you see the chairs against the wall which were the catalyst for the chair rail in the first place and how we knew exactly what height to make it. The marks on the wall made that so simple.



I was upstairs at one point when I heard Brian calling for me. As he started to move the breakfront back, it became unbalanced and the top part threatened to come crashing down (this happened once long ago, early in its life with my family, when it did crash and all of the glassware within broke). The top was securely bracketed to the bottom, but the top part became separated from its base. Brian and I got it back against the wall and left it at that for a while.



In my eagerness to really finish getting the dining room back into usable condition, every so often I would open the upper doors to the breakfront in hopes I could refill it with the glassware decorating my living room. But every time, the situation was the same: I opened the door, the top part began to tumble towards me. A few weeks and another trip to Home Depot later, I came home with some brackets that a friend help me install. The breakfront is now more stable than ever, and once again full of breakables.



Notice how the back of the chairs are just the height of the chair rail. It's so beautiful. The picture also shows the chairs in all of their ripped, orange glory. This is a project I hope to tackle later this week. Stay tuned for more about their transformation...



It was several weeks before I discovered the final point of humour to getting the dining room painted. It seems the cover to the thermostat was flipped open at just the wrong moment. Brian, who is extremely careful in his work, missed a crucial bit. For now, I can simply keep the thermostat cover open, but I think it's time to drag the rest of the green paint up from the basement and finish the job.

Getting back in the swing of things...

Or not.

How is it possible that I have posted nothing in two months. What have I been doing with my time? Endings, beginnings, regrouping, planning, and not enough weeding. Some selected highlights of the past bit, listed without benefit of my calendar, so omissions are to be expected, before forging ahead:

-My dining room is green!
-Ten years at one job are concluded. Let's hope for ten years at the next one, which starts 8/23
-Two camp gigs down, two to go, starting on 7/31
-Of my list of 14 summer projects, so manageable, I thought, I've made some headway on exactly one of them. Well, maybe 1.5. It's already the end of July
-My garden is not dead. I have the hollyhocks I've been admiring at St. Mark's church for some years (thank you, Geoffrey). I still have some mystery plants.
-Although I didn't think of it that way before it happened, I just had a lovely New England vacation. This followed the realization that I will be driving to various New England locations at least four times this fall, including driving to VT two weekends in a row. Yes, I am crazy.

I know more things happened, but onward.

Plans for this week:

-Finalize all camp plans
-Make covers for new sofa pillows
-Attempt chair re-covering
-Pack

Can she get it all done?

I have to stop buying plants...

...I just have to. It occurred to me yesterday as I was planting some of my started seedlings that I'm just about out of room for plants with not all of the seedlings in the ground. Did that stop me from buying two small-ish pots of Lantana today at Lowe's? Nope, of course not. But I think, I hope, I'd better be done garden shopping for the season.

So, a tour. I've gone a little picture happy, so this will be the long post about the backyard. Pictures of the front garden will follow shortly - maybe after I trim the grass again, and plant one of the lantanas.

Picture yourself walking in my back gate. The house in on your right. We will proceed around the perimeter clockwise.

1. White lilac - Susie bought this one for me from Monticello. Last year it had no blooms; This year, one. I have high hopes for next year. Right beside it is a baby lilac, also from Monticello, procured by George. I suspect it is exactly the same variety, but I'll know in a couple of years when it's big enough to bloom.



2. Pink Azalea - one of the extremely cheap plants I bought at the end of last summer. I had no idea what color it would be, but it was a great pop of pink in the back corner of the yard.



3. Rose Campion - from Peter. These were bright and fun last year. I can't wait for the flowers.



4. Blue Forget-Me-Nots - I was worried about these and not sure they would make it, but they're larger and happier-looking than last year.



5. Apothecary Rose - also from Susie, also from Monticello. This picture was taken this afternoon, and as you can see, the first blooms got a bit beaten down by the rain, but there are a lot more to come. I bought a small trellis today to get the bush off of the ground. I wish I had room for more roses. I'd love a peach variety, and a pale pink. Maybe next year...



6. Yellow Poppy Celandine - this plant is amazing! And huge! I think this came from Liz's garden. I must've planted it and forgotten about it that first spring in the house. Now in it's second year it is thriving. There is something growing next to it which is a real plant, but without flowers, I have no idea what it is. I hope I find out soon.



7. White Azalea - also from Liz. This plant is in ground a little to marshy for comfort, but it's hanging in there. In the photo, the blooms look white, but they are really tinged with some pale purple.



8. Pink Forget-Me-Nots - these look pinker in person. I found these at Waterloo Gardens - a truly dangerous place. I love the delicate flower stalks.



9. Mystery Plant - this photo is from a couple of weeks ago. Now that the plant has grown a bit more, I suspect it's a butterfly bush, and if so, likely a cutting from George and Paul. Stay tuned...



10. Hosta - I was sure I had killed this one. I am so ignorant about gardening that I didn't know they died back to the ground and then re-emerged in the spring. It's a happy plant. No flowers, but maybe they will come.



11. Bleeding Hearts - one of my purchases at the Chestnut Hill Garden Days on May Day weekend. It's a small plant, as yet, but today I discovered two flowers!!!



12. Wisteria - this picture is also from a couple of weeks ago, just after I bought the trellis. Looking at the plant now, you can see how well it's adapting the the structure, sending runners upward that intertwine around the wire supports. I can't wait for flowers!



13. Hydrangea - also from two weeks ago. The plant is bigger now with the blooms just starting to open. I wonder what color they will be! There is another, smaller hydrangea in the back, and one in front. The other one in back, between the lilacs and the pink azalea, is too small for blooms this year.



14. Paeony - this picture is quite enlarged, but shows that I may yet have paeonies in my garden! And yesterday when I was planting my ranunculas next to the site of my other paeony, which I was sure had bitten the dust, you can tell, if you look carefully, that something is alive down there. Yet another instance of wait until next year. This seems to be a theme in my young garden.



15. Day lilies - also from Peter. They are dark red and will bloom later in the summer.



16. Lantana - today's purchase, still sitting in it's pot on the back steps. This one will go right at the entrance to the garden. The other will go in the front of the house. I debated keeping them in pots so I could take them in in the winter in hopes they might survive, but I decided to take my chances this year. If they don't last, I will try for pots next year.



The landscaping plan: What I really want to do in the back is build a brick patio with 2' - 3' beds on the perimeter. But as that is pretty far down on the list of house projects, I decided that I would begin edging (and clearing, and weeding) the beds a bit at a time. Patios are expensive, but bricks are cheap. I bought a couple dozen and set them out. Today I bought a dozen more that are not yet out. We'll see how far along the side that gets me. The top picture is from a couple of weeks ago.



This picture is from today. If you squint and look between the wisteria and the hydrangea, you can see some of my planted seedlings. In that corner, a row of hollyhocks against the fence, and sweet peas in front (do sweet peas need supports?). I hope they take! Elsewhere in the garden are a bed of rannculas, and some other seedlings which may be violas and dame's rocket (phlox) but may also be poppies and alyssum. Someone forgot to label her seedlings. I guess I will just like surprises!



So, if I had just a bit more space, I would plant a viburnum, which smell heavenly, and American beauty berry, which has incredibly purple berries in the fall. And more roses, as mentioned above. I do want some snow drops for the front yard, but I think I will manage to find a place for those. Maybe...

Looking for shelf space...

As a lover of books I can find it way too easy to acquire them. As a result, bookshelf space in my house is always scarce. For this reason, I am a huge fan of the public library; you borrow books, and then you give them back! And it's free (yes, my taxes at work, but still...). But from time to time, I can't resist the lure of the book store, Amazon, etc., and/or present time comes around, and books just seem to be a natural choice for me. So here I sit, surrounded by 13 new books! And I don't have to give them back!

Tea Books - Some chance finds from Borders, and gifts that, by chance, I didn't already have!

The Perfect Afternoon Tea Book byAntony Wild

Crumpets and Scones by Iris Ihde Frey - a gift upon completion of the semester at Swarthmore

Tastefully Small Finger Sandwiches by Kim Hendrickson

The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook by Mary Lou and Robert J. Heiss

The World in Your Teacup by Lisa Boalt Richardson

A Passion for Tea by Hattie Ellis

Other Food/Entertaining type books - all purchased from used book dealers through Amazon. I believe the shipping for each of these cost more than the actual book did...

Supermarket Confidential by Joanna Pruess - I wanted this one especially because it gives you tips on how to navigate the jungle that is your grocery store

Simple Flower Style by Paige Gilchrist - because someday I will have the money to have fresh flowers at all times, and the time to go fetch them.

The Epicurean Collector by Patrick Dunne - to help me learn the difference between a teaspoon and a coffee spoon

Other Books

Serendipity - Fried de Metz Herman's last collection of dances

Good Mail Day by Jennie Hinchcliff - a book about mail art, a craft I love

Tiaras Past and Present by Geoffrey Munn - not my only book about tiaras, I'll have you know

...and finally

Extraordinary Chickens by Stephen Green-Armytage - a gift from Susie, of course. And they are!!!

What were your recent book purchases you couldn't resist??

Changes afoot...

One exterior, one interior...

In the apocolyptic storms of last weekend, the backyard went from essentially this:



to this:



and then finally to this:



The section nearest the house comes down this weekend, once I figure out how to get it unbolter from the decaying fence that's sort of still on my neighbor's side. If nothing else, at least I'll have a little bit more sun for a while. And while a new fence wasn't in the plan for the immediate future, this forces me into thinking about what kind of yard surround I really want back there. At least until the folly goes in. Maybe something like this:



And now for what's new in the house. I have a small list of purchases I want to make for inside the house (well, okay, I have a gigantic list, but only a few that a even remotely realistic in the near term). I made the first of them yesterday - a cabinet for the dining room. I need just a little more storage space for bottles of wine and other serving pieces I don't want sitting out collecting dust and/or on a bookshelf in the living room that could be otherwise holding books! So I troll Craigslist and ebay waiting for just the right thing. I wanted a piece made of solid wood, but one that wasn't heavy in volume, something made of cherry, or at least a wood of similar coloring to the dining room set, and a piece small enough to fit along a wall no wider than 50". Here's what I found...

What was there:



What is there now:



Now to clean and fill it! I'm guessing the latter won't be difficult...

Just another quiet weekend...

This past weekend, Valentine’s weekend, President’s weekend, I wasn’t planning on going to NY State for the Dance Flurry, nor NYC for the Sword Ale, but in the opposite direction, to VA to visit my friend Susie. But Mother Nature played her part, with the City of Philadelphia right beside, and I decided that it was a better idea, and safer to stay put. My car was clear, but still pretty stuck, and the streets in my neighborhood don’t get plowed. It would be folly to attempt it.

Last Friday it was finally back to work after the storm. I mailed off my valentines and started planning the now free weekend. Friday I would treat myself, run over to Borders after work, and then catch a movie at the Ritz. If I caught the 8:30 train home, fine, if I had to wait for an hour, I would run up to Chinatown for a quick dinner first. Sounds like a plan...

But no. I sprinted out of the movie, not even catching the ending credits, and onto the subway so I could make the train. And I likely would have made it. Had the trains been running. But due to the ever-mysterious signal problems, not only were the trains not running on schedule, there was no notion of how often and when they would be running. And the Septa employees either didn’t know, or weren’t allowed to say. So I waited. I had a book, so I was okay. And waited. Did I mention that I was standing up the whole time? And waited. Finally after more than an hour of waiting and watching trains that were not the Chestnut Hill trains come and go, I decided to expand my horizons: I would take the bus. The 23 goes into Chestnut Hill and stops on 11th street, right outside Market East Station. Armed with a schedule and a supposed 5-minute wait time, I head outside. And wait.

A clump of us are on the corner, waiting for the bus, when a woman bustles across the street, small child in tow (it’s now 10PM), and tells us that the bus has been rerouted and is now running up Broad Street. I’m annoyed about not knowing, but fine; Broad Street is really only a few blocks west. Off I go.

Now, I don’t take buses very often. I grew to hate them back when I lived in a 2-fare zone in NYC and spent what felt like half a lifetime waiting for the Q13. But apparently, there are rules about buses in Philadelphia that I don’t understand. Like when a bus runs along Broad Street, even if it’s been rerouted there, not every bus stops at every stop. So there I am, waiting for the bus at the first bus stop on Broad Street. It’s late and dark and cold. But, the bus comes! I’m excited! The driver sees me. It’s a red light. And he won’t stop and open the door to let me in. He goes on. I give chase. At the next light, I catch up with the bus and knock on the door. The driver won’t let me in. Finally, at the next light, two women see me and stand in the doorway of the bus so it won’t leave me behind while I catch up and run around the snow bank and finally achieve a way home.

Starting out at 8:30, I made it home by 11:45pm. And this is only Friday night!

Saturday seemed more promising. I met a friend for breakfast, and he not only generously took me to the grocery store afterwards, but then helped me free my car from the grips of the snow. So while I still wasn’t going anywhere by car because of the condition of my street, it was nice to be free. My plan for the rest of the day included a lovely concert downtown, followed by a dinner out. I had to take a chance that Septa would get me there and back, but I made sure to bring a book against the inevitable waiting times.

All started well. I got downtown. The concert and the dinner were lovely. I walked across the river to 30th Street to wait for the train, happy that I hadn’t missed the last train home. I grabbed a coffee and sat down to wait. At one minute to train time, I went up to the platform. The group of us up there watched the train come into the station, and pass us by, stopping only at the very end of the platform, as if it missed. A few folks went down to investigate, but that wasn’t our train apparently. Our train was, in fact, no longer listed on the schedule, as if it had come and gone, but yet we were all still waiting. Did I mention that was the last train home?

So we troop down to the Septa desk, where the slightly belligerent employee does make a call to find out what happened. She tells us to go back to the platform (again, late and cold) or we will miss the train. She will not answer my question about when the train is due. We go up. No train, no train posted. Finally, the train makes an appearance on the schedule as 20 minutes late. And then 14 minutes late. Finally more than 14 minutes late, it comes, and I get home. It’s 12:45am.

Sunday. Valentine’s Day. A day I love. The day my car and I will escape Mt. Airy. And I do! I get the car out, manage to get down my street and Devon Street, which are both covered in snow and ice, and pitted and uneven and horrible drives. I drive out, eager to go anywhere. I go to Lowe’s to buy a boot tray for the entry and leave with $20 in peonies, ranunculus and lilies of the valley bulbs. All is once again right with the world. I am free!

I get into Mt. Airy at about 4pm, tea time. I avoid Durham Street, not wanting to push my luck, make it up the slight incline of Devon, turn around in the train station lot and aim to park in the lovely clear spot on the corner of Devon and Durham, which is luckily not full of trash cans or lawn chairs. Failure. I can’t get in. I get stuck. I attempt to remain calm.

I run back to the house for the shovel and the salt and start digging. I examine the situation, make a new plan, get back in the car. And get stuck again. Repeat. I am no longer calm. I am frustrated, sore, and embarrassed by my lack of snow-conquering abilities. Over an hour later, after several rounds of shoveling and moving the car by inches, I get out. And look for another spot. There really aren’t any unguarded. Finally, I spy something, not remotely close to the house, but off a corner, mostly legal, that I think I can get into and out of. I snag it and make my way home.

For me the weekend is officially over. I go home and get into bed at about 5:30pm and stay there.

And there’s more snow predicted for today and tomorrow. Wake me when it’s April.

A scary amount of rubber stamp geekiness...

This past weekend as I was preparing for this year's valentine-making party (that never got off the ground due to the 700 inches of snow that fell this weekend) and puttering around in the craft room, I decided to find space for the new stamps I'd acquired over the last year. As I began fitting stamps into the new sets of drawers seen in the photo below I pondered a stamp organization problem...



Fitting the stamps in drawers and then noting down in my catalog which stamps are in which drawer is great, but occasions like the valentine party present another challenge: what happens when a drawerful of stamps gets dumped out, and the same stamps just won't fit neatly in the drawer again. The puzzle has become undone.

Enter the digital camera! It suddenly hit me that I can now photograph the contents of each drawer, print the photos, and not only have a catalogue of stamp images, but also a record of how precisely they are stored.

Photographing all of the drawers, which each have 2 or three layers of stamps, will take forever, but here are my first shots:




Drawer 5 - Valentine stamps, mostly



Drawer 31, Layer 1 - Moose



Drawer 31 - Layer 2 - more moose

Can you guess what my valentines look like??

On another spree...

One of my winter break projects was going through the mountains of paper that accumulate in my house. As a result, I finally got around to hanging more things on the walls. This is along the same lines as never does the kitchen floor need scrubbing more than when there's a chore you least want to do.

Here are some highlights of the new decor:



A million years ago there was a candle store at the King of Prussia mall called Illuminations. It was my favorite thing to go there just after a major holiday and sccop up all kinds of stuff on sale. Alas, they went out of business, but not before I bought these two wall sconces, which have been boxed up. I had an inspiration and finally hung the mirror on the wall in the entry, instead of keeping it propped, and hung the sconces on either side. They look great with candles going.



Next up, the dining room closet, now complete with two tiles by Wendy Costa and a fairy-dancer-type figure. While coming up with this arrangement was easy, hanging it up was not. I don't know what they put in the door when they took the glass out, but it does not want to take nails of any kind. It will be great when I can restore the glass here and in the corner cabinet.

Below are the tiles in situ:



The last wall project involves my new greatest love - picture ledges. These are available, of course, at Ikea. I hit upon the idea of using them after laying out all of the items I wanted to hang up. Among these are a collection of tiles, the Wendy Costa tiles above, Motawi tiles, Suzanne Crane tiles, and tiles from the Moravian Tile Works in Doylestown. Rather than hanging them, I thought a ledge might be the perfect solution to my fear of their falling (I'm missing a tile - did it fall and break some time? I can't remember.).





Now I see picture ledges, at least this kind, which are fairly wide for picture ledges, as the solution to everything. I want to hand some to display my posy vases annd other vases. I want to hang more in the office to hold my candle holders. The two that I hund don't hold all of my tiles, so more to come!

The other things I hung up don't photograph as well at night, so stay tuned for the next installment: Window Dressing...