Joanna.com

Tea party!

2012-01-24T13:27:00.006-05:00

After many false starts, Jennifer and I threw our first small tea party on a snowy Saturday. Jennifer provided the sweets; I contributed the savouries and scones. It was a great chance to use some of my hidden, stored, and packed away tableware, some of it for the first time!

The tea table at a glance:

Even though there were only six of us and an extra leaf in the table, there was not an extra inch of room for anything! The teapots were on the breakfront.

I used a mix of china, which is not the norm for me - a set of cups and saucers that are a favorite gift from my college friends, a sugar and creamer set that matched the tea plates, and a honey pot from another set altogether.

The savouries included three kinds of sandwiches and a board of Manchego cheese served with homemade quince jam and paté served with sliced baguette. Yum! And check out those cinnamon chip scones. I served those with Devonshire cream.

And every tea has its princess! Joy fit the bill nicely. She even brought her own tiara!

I hope this tea is only the first of many. See all of you for tea in the Spring??

Stories from the corner cabinet...

2012-01-20T11:20:00.004-05:00

So Jennifer and I are throwing a tea party tomorrow. I've wanted to do this for a long time, and it's finally happening. We're doing it at my house, because I have all of the things!!

So, I knew it was finally time to unpack my floral teacups that Mom so carefully packed up for me when I moved out of my apartment (almost 4 years ago!!!!!!!!) I got the box out of the corner cabinet on Wednesday and unpacked it last night...

I love to go to flea markets when I can and look for china things - serving pieces. A bunch of years ago, at a flea market in Fitler Square, downtown in Phila, I bought the sugar and creamer for $6. This set off my little sugar and creamer set obsession, but that's another story... It turns out that when this set of china was produced, the sugar and creamer sat on a little tray (as pictured).

It became my mission to find the tray, and so I trolled Ebay, and about a year or so ago, I found the tray and bought it.

By this time, of course, I had lost track of the sugar and creamer. I knew I had them in the house and I was sure I put them away in frustration when I couldn't find the tray. Ever since I bought the tray, I have been searching all of my cabinets for the place I stashed the sugar and creamer. They were gone. My biggest fear was that I somehow decided to give up on the tray, and to give the sugar and creamer away. It didn't sound like me, but you never know...

Fast forward to last night and the great teacup unpacking moment...

I had forgotten that when Mom packed up the teacups, there were other things in that box. It was like unpacking a treasure chest. The teacups and saucers were there, all intact. There were also some loose pieces of the Japanese tableware I like (See this post...). One of those small bowls was broken - split in half - but I think I can carefully glue it back together and all will be well. And, guess what was also in the box???

Yes, there they were, the Adderley sugar and creamer, all wrapped up and undisturbed. Apparently, it was only an illusion of mine that they had ever been loose in the house, but it was never true until now. Today they sit, clean and beautiful, on their tray in the dining room, waiting for their first tea party in years!!!!

Autumn holiday decor...

2011-11-22T23:29:00.003-05:00

From the better late than never school of thought...

This year the Halloween candle-holders migrated to the dining room table from the livingroom mantel...

Spooky!

From top to bottom: Luther, Hesperus, Fritzie, Mitzie, and Maud. Alas, now the squirrels are now enjoying my little friends a bit more than I am...

A collection from recent years...

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Moose Day!!!!

As seen in the garden...

2011-10-02T18:01:00.004-04:00

1. A million weeds, but a million fewer than at the beginning of the afternoon

2. My downed wisteria, which toppled two trellises under its weight and with the constant rain. In spite of it all, it seems quite healthy. Let's hope it remains that way after its haircut next weekend

3. A bank of bright orangey-yellow lantana and hiding underneath some weeds near the roses, some variegated lantana that may bloom at last (in October!)

4. Beetles and earthworms and two piles of what must be earthworm eggs

5. A crazy amount of shards of glass. Where do they all come from? I swear they grow back there. Also bits of colored plastic

6. Two types of asters in two shades of purple. The brighter-colored shrub variety bloomed like crazy even though all of its stalks are, a la the wisteria, all over the ground instead of standing tall

7. An odd, crazy hook sticking into the ground in the middle of the yard. How the heck did it get there? How did I miss it all this time? If I pull hard enough, will I unearth a time capsule? An escape hatch? A door to the direct route to China? Some vital piece of the infrastructure to my house?

8. Cats. Lots of them (well, 5-6. Or maybe 7. Or 8). But especially Junior, who spent quality time guarding my back door so she could run in in case it opened, and who actually crawled into my lap when I was sitting on the back steps.

Here she is on my front steps last week, refusing to smile for the camera:

9. Daisies! Last year, instead of flowers for the holiday, I bought cheap potted daisy plants from Produce Junction, one white, one orange. After the holiday, I planted them both, and much to my surprise, one of them made it. But in typical fashion, I didn't note which color was planted where, and so had no idea what color would come up this year. Hurrah - the white! Who thought orange anything would make a good centerpiece anyway??

10. The demise of my American Beauty Berry. I was so excited to find one at Bartram's Garden this spring, and it seemed like it was doing fine. But now it just seems gone and unlikely to return

Next weekend's garden chores include finishing my back garden weeding odyssey, getting that wisteria back into some semblence of order, and maybe even planting some spring bulbs. Any suggestions???

Science has shown...

2011-08-11T13:23:00.003-04:00

...that I'm one of the easiest people in the world to shop for. Everyone I know tells me this. But just in case you are ever stumped, this will be fine, thank you.

Source: http://eriebasin.com/a_3garnetdiamring.html

And then there were...

2011-08-02T23:32:00.004-04:00

Curtains!!

On the hottest weekend of the summer so far, I finally decided to take my fancy, tea-dyed fabric and do something with it. I set up shop on the marginally cooler first floor of the house, reminded myself how to use the sewing machine, and got to work.

There are no pictures of me sweating and schlepping back and forth between the iron and the sewing machine. But simply imagine the swearing as the bobbin runs out of thread. Again.

Just as almost every house project requires a trip to Home Depot, this one was no different. I took a heat and sewing break to run to Bed, Bath and Beyond for curtain hardware.

Finally on Saturday morning, the panels were done. With the help of a friend, the rod went up and the first panel was hung to test the length. Good news: the pattern of the fabric is running straight across!

I knew the hardest part would be to get the two panels perfectly aligned. I knew it would bother me if both weren't straight, and if the writing wasn't continuous from one panel to the other. I measured and hemmed, and for some reason, it worked!

The good news is that you can't see the bottom hems because they are behind the sofa.

I like them! I'm thrilled they worked out. They give the room a warm feeling without being dark or heavy.

Next up, trimming the sofa hems and a windowseat cushion...

Tea-dyed and gone to heaven...

2011-07-20T23:58:00.006-04:00

One of my summer projects is to make curtains for the large window in front of the house. Over the years I've played with various curtains for that window - black velvet, an old shower curtain in a floral pattern, and most recently, a heavy, white cotton job making use of binder clips to keep it from dragging on the floor. But finally, I hit on some great fabric at Ikea (of course).

Just one problem. It's so very white. I thought it would be too stark of a contrast with the more neutral and burgundy living room palette. I wasn't up for regular dying, but tea-dying seemed just the thing. I just wanted to take the edge off the white, and I just happened to have a ton of extra tea bags in the house.

Theorhetically you can use a pot on the stove filled with boiling water to do the job, but I wanted to do all of my fabric at once to keep the color even. So there was only one possible place - the bathtub.

In go the teabags!

When the tea was fully steeped, it was time for the fabric to take a bath. In it goes...

I made use of a random, wooden kitchen implement to submerge it.

I sat in the bathroom for over an hour swirling the stuff about so that it colored evenly with no mottled affect.

The color is getting close...

Out of the the dryer...

...and onto the ironing board!

Done!

Next, to turn long pieces of fabric into curtains...

Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment...

Reasons to celebrate...

2011-07-05T15:27:00.001-04:00

The other day I received an email asking me how I felt about July 4th and whether it was a holiday I actually observed in any way other than getting a day off from work. To me, these days, July 4th is a session at dance camp - a wonderful weekend of dancing and music and hanging out with friends. It may or may not contain the date 7/4. It’s also a way to avoid crowds that swarm downtown Philadelphia and displays of fireworks. (Yes, fireworks are pretty and I love the visual part, but just go to the movies with me sometime and you’ll soon see how I feel about loud, sudden noises. I am regularly mocked for this.)

This exchange led to a discussion of what holidays or annual events we celebrate every year. Are they set or movable days? Are they mere observances noted on your calendar, or do they require certain activities?

My personal list of holidays is kind of short:

January: Twelfth Night, the Birthday of The King
February: the Day of Strange Luck, Valentine’s Day
March: March 4th (the only day of the year that is also a command to go forward), Purim/Lesser Moose Day, Passover (which might be in April)
April: Passover (see above)
May: May Day, Cinco de Mayo/Much Lesser Moose Day, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day (as the start of summer)
June: My birthday!!
September: Labor Day (as the end of summer), Rosh Hashannah (which could be in October), Yom Kippur (ditto)
October: Halloween (I will be home to give out candy one of these years!)
November: Thanksgiving, Greater Moose Day
December: Philadelphia Playford Ball (It’s an event, but it might as well be a holiday), Chanukah, New Year’s/Hogmanay

I could go on to list all of the events I go to every year, birthdays I celebrate, etc., but sticking to holidays, what am I missing? What days are on your personal list of holidays?

Summer Projects 2011

2011-06-15T14:24:00.000-04:00

Okay, I’m embarrassed to even put these to paper for fear most of these projects were on my list for Summer 2010, when I wasn’t working and ostensibly had free time.

Here are things I would like to get accomplished this summer, in no particular order:

-Create a dance caller web page - just something simple with a schedule and a bio
-Put window film on the side living room windows that you can look right into from the street
-Inventory the corner cabinet in the dining room
-Put non-skid drawer liner stuff in the kitchen drawers
-Re-hang the pictures in the dining room
-Get estimates for and have the back section of the roof replaced
-Replace the window that faces the backyard in the laundry room/auxiliary serving area (if there’s money left after roof repair)
-Continue the progress on my stamp catalogue
-Tea-dye the fabric and make curtains for the front living room window
-Hang a curtain in the kitchen window (see living room side windows, above)
-Create a master list of phone numbers for easy reference
-Get the washer repaired so that hot-water washes are once again possible before the warrenty runs out
-Paint and hang wooden shelves in the craft room
-Make a cushion for the window seat downstairs
-Dispose of the sections of my former back fence (anyone feeling destructive???)
-Install a dimmer switch in the dining room

There are sixteen things on this list. Last summer’s list contained fourteen. Notice a flaw??

And of course this list doesn’t take into account the never-ending dishes to wash, laundry, cleaning, de-cluttering, weeding, dance program planning, taking-out-the-trash-type of chores that are always present.

Let me know if you have time to lend your company or expertise for any of the list above. Small cakes and pastries provided...

Keeping track...

2011-06-06T17:15:00.003-04:00

In some part of my mind, I’ve always wanted to keep a journal - record my history, thoughts, feelings, general goings-on. I think really I just like blank books with pretty covers. In the end though, I’m too busy living life and then going on to the next thing to record every detail, or even a summary of it or a haiku about it. In fact the only time I successfully kept a journal was when I worked at Pinewoods, and even then, it was only the first summer I was there, and half of the journal consists of copies of letters I wrote to Susie. But to this day, there’s a part of me that still wants to record things.

And then it finally occurred to me that I actually DO keep a journal. I just have to adjust my definition of the idea...

I’m an inveterate list-maker. I need to write things down so I don't forget them. Finally, a number of years ago it occurred to me to buy a notebook and keep that as the central repository for all information and a replacement for all of the tiny pieces of paper that held my lists and then disappeared. Suddenly, I had a journal.

Because I am a creature of habit, I am particular about the notebook I use. I’ve settled on:

-spiral-bound
-5 x 7
-lined white paper, perforated so it can tear out neatly
-plastic covers (front and back, if I can find it, but at least front) to keep it from getting wet.
-80-100 pages
-pockets to hold the random pieces of paper that still persist

I start a new notebook every year, on or about September 1st (yes, still on the academic calendar), and go on the odyssey every year in August when school supplies come out to find just the right one. For some reason, Walmart (not Staples, CVS, Target, or any other place) has exactly what I want, and last year I bought four books with covers in different colors to keep me going for a while.

A quick scan of the books contains my life:

-Dance lists and dance programs
-Packing lists for weekends away
-Recipes copied out of books and magazines
-Gift ideas/holiday shopping lists
-Party menus
-Books to read
-Music to purchase
-Plants to buy for the garden
-Class plans
-Sketches and plans for cards to make
-Etc.

and of course

-To-do lists

Stay tuned for the latest journal excerpt - Summer Projects. Which will be compiled right after I get through the latest to-do list...

Fence-be-Gone!

2011-05-10T19:45:00.006-04:00

A million years ago, my backyard looked like this:

And then I bought the house...

A year ago March, while I was away from home, a storm swept through and took part of the fence with it:

I removed the leaning panel on the right, and left the panel closest to the corner of the yard. It seemed stable and was surrounding an old tree stump.

On the other side of the leaning panel above was part of an old chain link fence against my neighbor's porch. It seemed to have no function:

Over the course of this past year, both the chain link and the remaining wooden panel developped more and more of a lean.

Notice the fence trying to win against the aster!

Tonight, it was time for the fence to go!

First I pulled out the chain link, which was mostly held up by creeper vine and some sticks in the right places. Now it looks like this:

I suspect the clean-up of the trash and glass and other debris from my neighbor's yard will be constant, but at least the evil creeper will have to work harder to reach my wisteria.

Then Paul came over to help me with the other fence panel which was mostly held up by ivy and luck. We thought we would have to saw it apart, but actually some whacks with a hammer in strategic places and some sheer brute force was all it took...

Notice the impressive stump that was hiding under there!

And here's my new vista:

Where shall I put the folly???

Spring comes to Durham Street...

2011-03-15T13:09:00.004-04:00

...in small doses.

The one good thing to come out of the time change was a whole half hour of light after I got home from work yesterday. That could only mean one thing: time to get back into the garden!

At the Flower Show last week, I bought two plants: a bright yellow rannuncula, destined for the front yard, and a magenta paeony for the back. I love both kinds of plants, and attempted to plant both last year with neither appearing. But I will not be deterred!

I started my gardening time with a tour around the grounds. I discovered:

A lovely clump of crocuses in back that I did not plant last fall. Where did they come from???

One lone snowdrop in front. Will there be more to follow???

I also found assorted other green shoots that I hope will grow into some of the 50 bulbs I planted last year, early leaves on the lilacs and hyacinths, a rose bush in desperate need of pruning, and some leafy action on the cheap daisies I bought from Produce Junction and then stuck in the ground, just in case.

And....

...just where I planted one of the failed paeonies from last year....

...some red shoots sticking up from the ground!!!!!!!!!

Stay tuned for news and more photos taken with a real camera in actual daylight!

Deaccessioning...

2011-02-21T16:09:00.003-05:00

Maybe it's something to do with my longing for spring that's brought about this urge to clean house. Not scrubbing, mind you. Though I do that from time to time, I never have the longing to...

In my never ending process of de-cluttering and actually putting things away from the places where I've dropped them, I will suddenly come across an object I no longer want or need. Without hesitating (lest I have second thoughts) I try and put the items in one particular place - my outbox, to borrow a term from Apartment Therapy. They sit there until the next chance I have for a thrift store run. And almost always, once they are in the outbox, I really never think of them again.

This weekend, I had a chance to get several bags of stuff out of my house, including:

-clothes I was given but couldn't use
-clothes I never wore
-VCR tapes I replaced with DVDs
-some CDs I listened to and hated
-4-5 random mugs
-some fuzzy critters from my distant youth or not so distant past (it's tough, but slowly I am able to let go of ~5 per year)
-rubber stamps (gasp! But not that many - maybe 10 - I will hardly notice...)
-plastic bags taken to recycling in the grocery store (I know, how could I. But not to worry, I still have more than enough.)

And, of course, I had no sooner returned home when I found, in my kitchen cabinets, the next pile of things to get rid of. Thus the cycle starts again...

Twenty years of valentines...

2011-02-16T19:21:00.004-05:00

I realized this year that I had been making valentines for some time now. My earliest efforts as an adult were cut-up sections of wrapping paper, always with a valentine-esque quote on the inside (I remember that my first quote was part of the very brief love scene at the end of Henry V, indicative of my complete crush on Kenneth Brannagh. Swoon!).

Once rubber stamping came into my life after my senior year in college, there was no going back. I realized this year that the interior quotes moved first to the outside of the cards, and then disappeared entirely.

Part of that was a time crunch - if it wasn't part of the process of making the card itself, it wasn't going in. It was too labour-intensive to do all of that writing!

But I missed the words, which are faithfully part of so many of my creations, even if you can't read them. This year's offering returns the quote to the interior:

"One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life; that word is love." -Sophocles

Happy Valentine's Day!

Work weekend...

2011-01-07T13:16:00.003-05:00

Next weekend I have the great fortune of having friends come up to help me with some of those house projects that I never quite get to on my own. My list of things, is of course, endless, but I need to focus on small things that are do-able in a weekend time frame (i.e., not painting the kitchen cabinets), not too expensive (i.e., not blowing in insulation), in our skill-set (i.e., not fixing the heat), and slightly glamorous/satisfying (i.e., not cleaning the refrigerator).

Here are some of my ideas:

-put window film on the living room windows
-tea-dye, sew and hang living room curtains
-hang pictures in the dining room
-re-line the kitchen drawers with non-skid stuff
-fix the sofa hems so they don't show beneath the slipcovers

Other more-remote possibilities

-inventory the corner cabinet in the dining room
-start stripping paint off of the corner cabiner (a project you can start and stop)

Oh you who have been in my house (all 2-3 readers who have not given up on this blog), what should I add to the lists??

The weekend in review or How’d I do?

2010-10-28T09:27:00.003-04:00

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...

2010-10-27T12:48:00.000-04:00

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!

2010-10-22T13:14:00.000-04:00

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...

2010-09-29T00:50:00.003-04:00

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...

2010-07-27T11:08:00.006-04:00

...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...

2010-07-23T09:57:00.003-04:00

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...

2010-05-23T23:54:00.008-04:00

...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...

2010-05-17T19:47:00.003-04:00

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...

2010-03-18T23:36:00.008-04:00

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...

2010-02-15T12:35:00.000-05:00

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...

2010-02-08T23:48:00.004-05:00

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...

2010-01-11T23:22:00.003-05:00

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...

Some day it may come to this...

2009-12-23T23:24:00.003-05:00

Isn't this amazing:

This image comes from Just Be Splendid via Teaspoon and Petals. And yes, I really love the purple one with polka-dots...

Craftiness...

2009-12-21T23:06:00.004-05:00

It never fails. Every time I undertake a large-scale craft project, say, making holiday cards, I look around my craft room, shake my head at the sheer volume of stuff there, and vow that for this project, I will use only what I have and not buy anything new. Good theory, no? Somehow it never quite works that way. Take this year's cards, for example (just finished tonight! hooray!):

I knew I wanted to do something with an embossed element. I had no ideas beyond that. Then in looking for something else a week or so ago, I came across these tags I've had since who-knows-when. The design sprang from that. I played with it, selected some stamps, made a prototype, made a plan, and I was good to go.

I tend toward dark blue or green card stock for a base. I had a bunch of navy duplex stock (a different color on each side, lue and white in this case) that was no longer flat despite laying flat continuously. Sure enough, I didn't have enough. No problem - I had some red to use up as well. Next supply: tags. I ended up having only half as many as I needed. This led to the first trip to the store, a package of 100 tags, and now as many, if not more left over than I had to start with!

I'd overlooked the fact that the tags I already had had no string or ribbon on them. But I have a drawer full of ribbon. No issues, right? Wrong. I never have enough of the right color or quality. But I had almost enough of the white organza ribbon I wanted so I was content to improvise on the last five or so. Luckily all of the new tags come complete with string already attached.

Inks are always a dicey proposition for me. I have a ton of them, but they don't, in fact, last forever. I never know which ink pads will be extant when I sit down. Luckily, though not all of the inks worked out as I had hoped, I was able to regroup and not purchase anything new.

Last element - the sentiment. I tend to be minimalist in the sentiment on my cards at holiday time, not wanting them to be Christmas cards, but more generic. This year's sentiment is very brief: Joy. I tried creating the word with alphabet stamps, but none I had were the right font and size. Then in looking through my word stamps, I came across a quote that included the word. I was in business - stamp out the quote, cut out the word. Alas, that left me with a small bit of paper to adhere to the card - difficult, but not impossible, though possibly time consuming.

I'm a fan of dry adhesives, preferring them to the messy and not quick enough to dry glues out there. Double-face tape is my friend and constant companion in the craft room. But no tape I own is narrow enough for these tiny pieces of paper. Last year I had a similar issue and used a product called Glue Dots, which were perfect for sticking small pieces of paper to each other, etc. And, I had some left! But of course, the dots I had were too big for my one brief word. Another trip to the store, this time the dangerous craft store, for, yes, micro glue dots! (That's all I bought. Really.) They were perfect.

Finally, tonight, all supplies in place, all elements complete, all address labels printed and postage stamps purchased, all that is left is to write a million notes and pop them in the mail!

Tea Room Review - Arium

2009-11-15T10:18:00.002-05:00

The sun is finally shining here this morning! Not so yesterday in NYC when our lovely outing day was plagued by intermittant showers. But the rain did not deter from theater, tea and dancing, i.e., a pefect combination of events!

After seeing Love, Loss, and What I Wore at the Westside Theater, we headed down to Arium for afternoon tea. In our family, we have a tradition of having real, official, afternoon tea on the day after Thanksgiving. While it hasn't really worked to have tea on that day in the past several year, it's not working to have tea that weekend at all this year. So yesterday was substitute.

Finding the perfect place for tea can be a challenge. We like trying new places, if we can. We like the full, three-course, sandwiches, scones, and sweets tea without excessive cutesy floral romance, but with a certain formality that marks a difference from coffee and a small cake or pastry at a cafe.

Deb was on the case, and found seemingly the perfect place: Arium, down in the revamped, now trendy meat packing district, on a street with one of the best names ever: Little West 12th.

Arium was lovely in many respects. The atmosphere was nice - good furniture, formal serviceware, but simple. The food was good, though I prefer my scones a little less cake-y and more biscuit-like. The service was good. We were served quickly and not rushed. The tea selections were great, far beyond the usual one type of green, a darjeeling, an earl grey, and maybe an oolong for variety, with a list of trendy non-teas. I had two of my favorite Yunan types to choose from. I selected an Emperor's Red from Fujian Province.

But here's the kicker - there were no other people in the place. And not just the tea part of the place. This so-called design studio is really an upscale hair salon. It used to have a gallery, but that has been replaced by headshots of models with interesting hair. And though the place serves lunch, dinner and tea and is in a trendy location, it was empty but for us.

My overwhelming thought when we left was that Arium wouldn't be around for long. I'm glad we caught it in its brief moment of existence.

A spate of home improvement...

2009-11-13T18:13:00.005-05:00

Almost all at once it seems, I'm trying to take on some very small house projects.

First, in a spate of frivolity, the halloween mantle:

The first image, though clearer, does not convey the lovely light emitted when all of the candles were lit. The second image, though blurry, gives a sense of that warmth. I felt so Martha using the leftover berry spray from my autumn wreath revitalization project as an added bonus. I'm finally about to put all of the halloween candle holders away, but I'm still finishing burning the orange and black mini pillars I'd been holding onto for several years...

On my one free weekend in October, I made great strides in some closet re-organization. I went through a bunch of clothes in preparation for a Salvation Army run, and in the process, realized that I didn't have to repossess the "closet" in the little room on the 2nd floor, soon to be my office. Instead, I banished the final clothes rack that was in my craft room to the basement, hung all of those clothes in the wardrobe in the office (which is normal closet depth - amazing!). And the office closet will become, wait for it, a linen closet! Small it seems, but this excites me no end.

Once I had decided for the linen closet, I didn't want to lose momentum. Last month I just happened to meet a handyman who does a bunch of work in Mt. Airy, and decided to take a chance. I've been building a list of small projects - painting things, hanging things, adjusting things. - things I lack the time and/or the expertise to do. I called him up, and last weekend he came to look at my projects and give me an estimate. The good news is that he said he can do the three small things I gave him. The even better news is that he goes to California once the weather gets cold (Thanksgiving), but he can fit my projects in before he leaves! Now if he actually calls back, I'll be in business. But I know his mother, so the chances are good...

As the last item in this series, I bought a bed last weekend. For several years I've been lusting after the Crate and Barrel Porto Bed. Finally it came up on E-bay for about 1/3 of the list price, and shockingly, I won it. The good part is that it was a pick-up item, so no shipping costs. The other good part is that it previously lived in NJ, which means, driving distance. So last weekend, a friend with a big car and I picked it up, put it together, and suddenly, a big-girl bed!

I'm still not used to seeing it because I don't think of myself as a person with major pieces of furniture I acquire myself, but I'm pleased. And just think of how nice it will look once I actually paint the room a lovely blue-grey. Maybe in the Spring...

Every time it rains, it rains...

2009-10-26T23:46:00.004-04:00

As my version of the stuff-it-in-the-mattress savings plan, I've been saving all of my loose change for the better part of a year. I guess it started when the fabric wall of the change pocket of my wallet tore, and I started keeping any change I got during the course of the day in my pocket. From there, I would unload it into a glass jar every night. I wasn't attempting to not spend it during the day, just putting aside the remainders to feed my dreams of colored walls and warm rooms, and maybe even a linen closet.

I counted the coins at some point over the summer and had about $75. After my gigantic craft room re-organization, I found a bag full of pennies (why I had them, I'll never know), and added them to the growing number of jars on my bookshelf.

For some reason, this past weekend became the moment to do a big counting. I armed myself with coin rolls, settled myself in the glow of the Halloween tableau on my mantle (which the camera could not capture, you'll just have to come visit), and got to work.

The verdict: over $160, including enough pennies that I had to buy a second bag of assorted coin rolls to package them up.

And now comes the fun of pondering what to do with that cash... I fear it will go into something unromantic like columns to support the sagging kitchen walls, but what all of those pennies brought to mind is the image I posted way back in January...

http://festiveyettasteful.blogspot.com/2009/01/flooring-of-future.html

So, what do you think I should do with my change?

What she looked like during the day...

2009-10-10T16:04:00.002-04:00

Please notice that the curls artfully hide the burn mark on my forehead from a curling iron mishap...

The dreaded short hair problem...

2009-10-07T18:36:00.002-04:00

Well, the moment has almost arrived, the moment I've been growing my hair for for almost a year - the JASNA conference, at which I am teaching several dance workshops and leading the grand ball on Saturday night. Thanks to the skills of a certain Princess, I have a big, floofy purple ball gown and a Jane Austen-y day dress, re-fashioned out of one of my existing dresses. I have white tights. I have gloves. I have dance shoes. What I don't have is the appropriate hair for this event.

My hair is so medium at the moment. It's neither long nor short, blonde nor brown, straight nor curly. In short, impossible. But as it's easier to pretend to be JA with the current length than the usual length, onward I go.

Tomorrow morning, armed with hair clips, bobby pins, hair net, hair spray, and a curling iron, I will attempt to affect an artfully arranged mass of something that stays out of my face, yet looks at home to the masses of people attending the conference who are sure to know the difference.

Note to self: bring camera.

If the results are positive, you may even see them...

Tea time accoutremonts...

2009-09-18T00:24:00.002-04:00

From one of today's Design*Sponge posts:

From the tea accessories collection by Bodo Sperlien for Yauatcha Atelier. I don't even want to know what they cost...

No, really, I do need this...

2009-09-15T23:47:00.003-04:00

Think of the Jello Jigglers this would make...

From Sillycone Inc. via Kim Vallee.

A map of the best new way to get to camp:

From Transit Authority Figures. We just have to get them to publish the light rail map of camp...

Wooden lace...

2009-08-25T00:13:00.003-04:00

Okay, I have to figure out how to work one of these into my home decor:

Apartment Therapy featured a post on Indian screens last week. I immediately thought of blackwork patterns in cross stitch and love the combination of openness and pivacy the screens afford.

Maybe I can incorporate this into my backyard folly somehow...

Treasured tines...

2009-08-24T23:43:00.004-04:00

For some reason, probably having to do with my lifelong love of my mother's Spode dessert set, which we only dusted, but never used, I am attracted to tableware of all sorts, and especially tea accoutrements and interesting flatware. Several years ago now the Cooper Hewitt in New York ran a fabulous exhibit called, "Feeding Desire," which traced the history of eating utensils from 1500 to the present.

The exhibit was illuminating and reinforced my love of naturalistic silverware - Susie's twig utensils, and others like the piece pictured on the cover of the exhibit catalog, and the huge, Victorian sets where one place setting could possibly contain 50-100 pieces.

Then just last week Design*Sponge contained a post about forks! It reiterated much of what was in the Cooper Hewitt exhibit, but was a fun read.

The image above is from the post, a drawing by Julia Rothman that shows all of the forks you should have in your silver service.

I now have the urge to go to flea markets and antique stores and rummage for treasures in silver. And yes, in fact, I do want strawberry forks and bonbon spoons.

Pencils as art...

2009-08-11T23:23:00.003-04:00

Now this would be overkill, even for me:

Image from Social Designer, Goods for the Greater Good

Did you know...

2009-08-11T23:07:00.004-04:00

That Ikea was around in 1965!?!

Images from Enter My Fantasy:

A dose of a different culture...

2009-08-05T23:29:00.004-04:00

Last week a friend and I made an expedition to H Mart, a big Asian grocery chain with a Korean bent and a store not far from here. It's the kind of place that is simply overwhelming to the uninitiated, like me, who are not looking for anything in particular, but going more for the experience of it.

We began with produce, where things were mostly recognizable. At last, a source for baby bok choy! From there we wandered through the fish section, over to meat, and then up and down the grocery aisles. There were rows of noodles of all kinds, teas, standard western fare, which looked out of place, household items, and on and on. There was not one kind of sesame oil to choose from as there is in the local Pathmark, which makes shopping for it fast and eay, but a choice between brands and dark sesame oil, and black sesame oil and wild sesame oil. And then the section of dried seaweed, dried plants that I hoped were not for eating, but I think were, freeze-dried squid strips, etc. I had no idea how to choose between the varieties of noodles, so I chose none.

We came at last to the frozen food section where I was determined to take home some dumplings. But there again was the issue. I could read no list of ingredients and had a hard time choosing between one kind of meat dumpling and another. In the end I chose a few packages where I understood the preparation instructions and enjoyed them when I tasted them.

In the end I left H-Mart almost as overwhelmed as I walked in. I'm glad I went with a friend as we gave each other courage to try some things we otherwise never would have.

Would I go again? In a heartbeat. Now that I know what they have and what to expect, I can pretend to be a slightly more educated consumer.

And then there is that sesame candy that's been haunting my thoughts for a week now...

The complete lack of moose...

2009-07-27T23:39:00.003-04:00

So I go to Maine, almost desperate to see a real, live moose, and what did I see, a million moose items in tourist shops. What did I buy, none of it. I think all of the moose must be summering in northern Ontario.

But here's what every house needs - a living room moose:

Image: Apartment Therapy

It's been a while...

2009-07-27T22:58:00.004-04:00

Wow, it really has been a bit since I wrote anything. But I will merely pretend that it's been a day or two or five. Stick with me here.

My main distraction (or my Maine distraction):

Behold the view from the porch of the cabin off Indian Point in Maine. This was my home for a brief jaunt with the boys from the neighborhood. And yes, that is the ocean right outside the back door. It was amazing just to be there.

In many ways, going to Maine was like going to camp: bring your own linens, deal with mosquitoes, cool nights, forever-damp towels. I knew just what to pack, minus the zillion dance dresses. But it was so different being on a non-dance vacation without that structure of classes to go to (or to skip), meals served at specific times, and over a hundred people who want to do just what you want to do, when you want to do it. Is this what other people do all the time when they travel? Have to plan their days, meals, naps?

I would go back in a heartbeat, if my schedule permitted, and if I'm invited back. It will be better next time, as most things are, now that I know what to expect, where to go, and what it's like being with a different and small group for days.

Plan the trip around the local dances. It's the only way...

Bits & Pieces from the Blogs...

2009-07-09T00:06:00.004-04:00

Just a few images that struck me from the catch-up blog-reading that built up while I was at camp...

Via the Martha Stewart blog, the Crafts Dept., this image reminded me of another favorite artist, Donald Evans, who also used rubber stamp postmarks over his images:

This tea set is ingenius! It's from Jason Neufeld, and I can't quite figure out where it's available.

If you can read the fine print beneath the picture, the dishes provide areas for honey and jam, and a raised surface to rest your toas on so it doesn't become soggy. And what's more, the cups are double-walled and have a hexagonal bottom so they fit perfectly onto the plate.

And finally, and image from Apartment Therapy:

A shelf like this one would be perfect for my kitchen window that looks, not out at the backyard, but out on the laundry room and its window on the backyard. It would be perfect to keep a teapot always handy...

July 4th Weekend in the Woods...

2009-07-08T23:55:00.002-04:00

Nothing can convey the sheer joy of a session at Pinewoods!

Photo by David Cornelius

We danced Morpeth Rant on Saturday night, and Corn Rigs on Sunday, and others here and there. Doing these traditional dances in this space with fabulous dancers all around reminded me of the first time I experienced what a great swing and change felt like, the first time we all danced Softly Good Tummas at E&A, lo these many years ago when the room went wild, the beauty of that many stars over the pond as seen from the water after the dance.

Camp is always a magical place. I can't wait to get back there.

Birthday presents for myself...

2009-06-22T23:33:00.004-04:00

This weekend I indulged in some shopping. My excuse? Well, my birthday!

Here's what I came away with:

Not exactly en route, but as I was driving from Lynn to Amherst this weekend, I took a side journey to greater downtown Topsfield, MA, home of Absolutely Everything, a rubber stamp and scrapbooking store. I think that their selection was wide and fabulous, but it's a bit hard to know as we no longer have independent craft stores in this little village of Philadelphia. I indulged in some stamps from my favorite company, Stamper's Anonymous, a few other bits and pieces and especially, some acryllic blocks to use with unmounted, cling stamps. Yes, she's finally joining the modern era of stampers. Maybe it's good that I don't live near this shop...

My next stop was Brattleboro, VT, home to many cute shops including Dragonfly Drygoods, one of the few even remotely local distributors of Emma Bridgewater pottery. I do want everything in the Black Toast line, but I settled for the pieces above.

Okay, not related to my birthday or to recent shopping, but still undocumented purchases, these pieces are from the very retired Dansk Floating Leaves line. Ebay is my friend. The plate is one of a set of four dessert plates. Now will she dive in and get the sugar bowl??? I wonder if there's a teapot? Maybe these are things I don't need to know...

Life in the big city, part whatever...

2009-06-17T18:26:00.003-04:00

In which Joanna renews her driver's license...

In Pennsylvania you are required to renew your driver's license every four years, and unlike in some other states you have to get a new picture taken for your license each time. There is a two step process for the renewal: 1) When you get the renewal notice, pay your fee, and receive a camera card back in the mail, and, 2) Go have your picture taken at a PennDOT center to have the actual card issued. And in Pennsylvania your license expires the day after your birthday in the given year.

I received my renewal in April and had long since paid my money and gotten my camera card in the mail. And since the last time I went to get my picture taken for my license, it was all of a five minute procedure at a suburban office - literally, no waiting - I wasn't worried or in a hurry. Then suddenly it was the middle of June and time to get off the stick.

Four years ago, I got my licensed renewed and picture taken in Rosemont, where I was the only customer and where two clerks were arguing and vying to see who could take a better picture of me. I went out on a Wednesday night before the dance and I tought I would do the same thing this time. But being sensible, I decided to check on PennDOT's website to make sure the Rosemont office was still open late on Wednesdays. After 10-15 minutes of searching the website and trying, mostly failing, to find the simple list of PennDOT offices and their hours, I finally found the PDF in a non-intuitive section of the site and discovered that evening hours had been severely curtailed, not only in Rosemont, but at all of the offices, and that the only night any center was open late was Thursday. Guess who has plans this Thursday. And guess who will have an expired license if she waits until next Thursday. So, for better or for worse, I decided to brave a Center City office and rationalized this decision by telling myself it was relatively close to my office, I take a late lunch so the big crowds will have dissipated (incidentally, this theory never holds true at the post office either), and that it's just a picture, which should be a quick thing. Right.

I leave my office on 15th and Walnut just before 1:30pm, headed for the PennDOT office on 11th and Market. As I approach the address, things don't look promising. Buildings look vacant. Not good. Finally, I notice a small sign in one of the windows saying that this PennDOT location closed on May 30th and all business will now be conducted at the next closest office, some 5-ish blocks away on 8th and Arch. Now the clock is ticking.

I make it to 8th and Arch at about 1:45pm to discover a long line out the door. Figuring that the line is for people waiting to take a learner's permit test, I walk up to the door and peer in, but everyone I ask says there's just one line. While I figure it never occured to anyone else to ask if it was otherwise, I get in line and start calculating how long I can wait before I have to cry off so I can get back to work in time.

The line is the typical downtown scene: many younger folks getting permits now that school is out, mothers with small children in tow. Behind me a young woman waiting to submit a change-of-address form gets uppity when an elderly woman who has trouble walking is helped inside ahead of others (likely to sit down), even after two people tell her she can submit her address change online at any computer with internet access and not have to wait here at all. Still she remains on line, yelling about how unfair it all is.

Finally, really only a few minutes later, an employee comes outside and issues numbers to the three of us on the long line with camera cards. I rush in and am taken right away, answer three questions, and am allowed to select the best of three pictures. A minute later I'm back out the door, in plenty of time to walk back to work and hopefully forget about PennDOT for four more years.

I made it happen...

2009-06-16T23:03:00.004-04:00

After all, it's nothing a trip to Ikea can't take care of...

Once upon a time you could walk into Ikea and buy these sturdy sets of drawers ready to go. Now you have to put them together, and they are not quite big enough and they are never quite square when you are finished, but they are, nevertheless, perfect in this setting. I now have a place for the miscellaneous things that need gathering, and a raised surface for the things I always need to hand - wipes for stamp cleaning, double-sided tape, exacto knife, without sacrificing usable desk surface. I love it already, only a day after final assembly. (And inevitably, stamps will end up in a decent portion of those drawers I'm guessing...)

And yes, the craft room will never be finished, but it's slowly getting into shape!

Someone else's story...

2009-06-09T23:04:00.004-04:00

Sometimes I think the real purpose of many of the blogs I follow is to spread news around, not to post new and original ideas. This post will emulate that line of thinking...

Image: Kriss's Color Stripes. This image reminded me that I have a couple of shelves to put up in my craft room but haven't gotten around to doing so. I love this idea of an instant shelf/hutch that incorporates storage for small items. I could probably make this happen with some of my sets of stamp drawers from Ikea...

Next find: Are you ever in a cafe, trying to keep track of the time so that you don't over-steep your tea, but in danger of being distracted by whatever else is happening on your laptop? Well, now there's a website just for you (this thought from Teaspoon & Petals).

Well, two unoriginal ideas will have to suffice. Perhaps more to come from my house, garden, life when the miasma of this cold and current streak of weather lifts...

The strangeness of shoes...

2009-06-03T23:04:00.003-04:00

Okay, this post is totally random...

In my bedroom tonight, I noticed 4 pairs of black shoes.

This in and of itself is not unusual. Clearly I wore them all in the not to distant past and kicked them off and didn't put the back where they live in an orderly way. This is also not unsusal.

Have you noticed something in common about each pair of shoes?

Yes, in every case, the left shoe was upright an the right shoe is over on its side. I'm sure this is full of meaning.

Discuss.

Bits and Pieces

2009-06-01T23:19:00.004-04:00

A few images from the last week:

In my opinion, the picture doesn't do this birthday card justice. It's simple, but cute, and I stole the idea fair and square from a magazine. It satisfies my love of grid patterns and embossed papers (embossed by my very own self).

I finally sorted through all of my fabric scraps, and discarded the two by nothing bits that weren't good for a thing. The remainders just fit into the eight bins I bought (from the Container Store, of course) which fit neatly on my top two shelves. It's hard to imagine how one that hardly sews can end up with fabric to fill eight bins, but there it is. And yes, there is more fabric in my trunk, but I'm afraid to look...

And finally, my rose bloomed over the weekend! I first thought it would be red, but the picture barely does justice to the dark fushia/pink. Dare I cut any blooms to adorn my house?? I need a cutting garden. Maybe next year...

Frank!

2009-05-26T23:24:00.003-04:00

Last week, Apartment Therapy posted a must-have item:

What could be more perfect? Lego and Falling Water. There's also a Guggenheim set. Where's Robie House. I'm sure that's next.

And one more...

2009-05-26T23:15:00.002-04:00

Crazy! Yet another tea book - this one focusing on tea and tea-related customs in Europe (read, Western Europe), fittingly called:

The two that got away and the four that didn't...

2009-05-18T23:29:00.009-04:00

Somehow this weekend was a banner weekend for finding new tea books!

On Saturday I journeyed up to Doylestown to go to the Tile Festival at the Moravian Tileworks. Since the last time I spent any quality time in Doylestown, the persistant rain prevented any significant amount of strolling through town, after my tour of the festival, I parked the car and wandered for a while. Of course, it being me, I parked right in front of the independent book store in town, the Doylestown Bookshop, where I found three tea books:

Tea by Sarina Jacobson

Tea for You by Tracy Stern

Tea; the Essential Companion

Today after work, I spent some quality time in Border's and found yet another tea book: The True History of Tea by Victor B . Mair and Erling Hoh

Despite the riches listed above, at two shops I found two additional tea books, but did not purchase them because I was convinced I had them already. Time to update the tea book database. Time to figure out how to carry that list around without resorting to excess electronics (not possible, I imagine). And time to retrace my steps to find those books again, or simply look forward to the thrill of coming across them in some completely unexpected place.

On the shelf...

2009-05-13T23:47:00.004-04:00

This idea from Design*Sponge struck my fancy today:

Simple and elegant, combining the best of my grandfather's shelf of screws and nuts and bolts with tea. But where can I put it?

Not dead...

2009-05-11T23:18:00.003-04:00

That's me, and my garden...

Summer begins this week as far as I'm concerned. Free evenings to fill (okay, free evenings that are already filled), time to work on projects, crafts, house, social evenings... Time to marvel at the fact that I didn't kill all of the plants in my garden. In fact, some of them seem quite happy!

Last Thursday evening, after about 75 straight years of rain, the sun came out, and with it my camera to document what was there. The images below were taken then and this evening.

Last summer the City came and planted trees along my street. Since then, I've wondered what kind I have. Now that the tree is in leaf and in flower, I know! It's a crabapple. The blossoms just now are white and lovely. I think at some point, maybe in the fall, I will move the tree to the center of my lawn, and move the lilac that's there to the back (though I hate to hide it).

Isn't it beautiful! It's even more beautiful than the picture let's on. This past weekend I was in Ann Arbor, MI, where it was prime lilac time. And we're not just talking bushes here, but groves of stunning purple flowers that you could just bury your head in and inhale. Mine will be like that soon (once it's a little taller).

I have a second lilac that was quite happy in a pot over the winter. I hope it will be just as happy in the backyard where I planted it. This one is a white lilac variety from Monticello. If it blooms, I'll post a picture.

Last year, Liz gave me a whole bunch of cuttings from things in her garden. The one I know made it is the azalea above. The one thing I didn't know until today was what color it was. As the photo doesn't quite show, it's a pale purple, with large flowers. I'm hoping it will grow and spread to fill that back corner of the yard. And finally...

Susie send me some renegade bulbs from the Netherlands that were specially treated to bloom this year. And what do you know, two of them did. This picture cannot do justice to the beautiful, dark purple blooms. I hope more of them come up next year!

But wait! There's still more. I have a Monticello Apothecary Rose in and leafing nicely. No idea what the bloom will look like, but stay tuned. And today, hidin under a clump of weeds, a hosta.

If I have time this weekend, I may find a few more things to pop in the ground. High on my list at the moment are these flowering shrubs: hydrangea, peonies, viburnum, lantana, and more roses!

Happy Spring!

Aftermath...

2009-04-27T23:19:00.003-04:00

One of the things about going to dance camps and weekends and festivals is that it's impossible to explain to anyone who wasn't there and who's never experienced it before what it was like - the intensity, whirlwind madness of it all, the non-stop reunions, the adrenylene highs that keep you going in spite of sleeplessness, inadequate caffiene and food intake, and aches in places you never knew you had.

This past weekend was Neffa, a fabulous festival in Mansfield, MA. It was all of the above and more.

(Picture by Robin Reid)

Today was a true day-after, similar to coming back to civilization after a week at dance camp. It feels odd that I didn't recognize people on the street and in the elevator like I did in the hallways of the school where Neffa happens. I wanted nothing more than to look at pictures of the festival, relive and rehash all of the moments, share stories, think about next year.

Reality will sink in after a few days, though I fear the next few home dances will fall a little flat in comparison. I will wash all of the dresses, finish unpacking before I repack it all for next weekend's adventure, and who knows, maybe even catch up on a little sleep.

Craft Room progress report

2009-04-20T23:29:00.003-04:00

Warning - this post contains about a million pictures!

This past weekend I finally got some quality time at home, the last such weekend for about a month. I used the time to make progress on my craft room reorganization.

On Satruday morning, after a quick run to Cherry Hill to pick up the last piece of my shelving system from the container store, I got to work making the craft room ready. I moved bookcases, crates, filing cabinets, etc. A bunch of things took up temporary residence in the hallway.

By early afternoon, the future shelving area was clear and ready for what I thought would be the simple job of hanging the single track that all of the shelving hangs from. Silly me...

Because I don't have a lot of experience hanging things that need to be really level unsupervised. I asked a friend to come and help me with that bit. While I waited for his arrival, I put together the drawer frames. One of the beauties of this Elfa system is that it goes together easily. What I like even more though is that the instuctions included with each component are very explicit and easy to follow.

Well, the drawere frames were the easy part of the day... I chose to hang the shelves on an outer wall of my house. No problem, said the nice lady from the Container Store who sold me the screws and anchors for plaster walls (which seemed really strong and sturdy). Problem. The screws are 3". The gap between the plaster and the outside brick is about 2". So, off we went to the hardware store to find shorter screws. Then we couldn't get the fancy anchors all the way in. So we tried different anchors I had in the house. Almost, but now they're not as happy or secure with the screws. We try a few more things. In the end, I made a second trip to Cherry Hill and purchased the screws and anchors meant for dry wall. They're still as strong, but shorter, and therefore, perfect. By about 10:30pm, the top track was up!

I had this notion that I would go to bed as soon as the top track was up, but no, not possible. I started putting up the brackets...

...and the shelves. I liked this spacing, but discovered I didn't leave enough room for the drawer units to fit below. I waited until Sunday to reconfigure.

I spent quality time on the ladder Sunday morning working on shelf spacing. This is what I settled on.

Next, I completed the drawer units and put them in place. As an added bonus, the drawer legs fit neatly over the radiator pipe and don't interfere with the phone jack that's near the floor.

Almost immediately I began filling the drawers. It's so great to have the space to be organized!!!

By the time I stopped working on it tonight, the upper shelves were filled with my fabric (greatly in need of sorting and perhaps storage in bins), and most of the drawers were filled. Imagine, I have a drawer full of nothing else but ribbon! I took advantage of one of the extra shelf brackets to hang ebroidery hoops from (where did I get that many hoops?)

Over the next many days, I hope to keep working on this. Even if I only unpack a few things at a time, that will be enough to keep the momentum going. Stay tuned for more posts as the sorting/rediscovery of stuff I'd forgotten about process continues!

It's going to get worse before it gets better...

2009-04-10T23:46:00.007-04:00

One of the many things I love about my house is the craft room. I am astounded by the amount of stuff I have that's craft related: rubber stamps, package upon package of fabric, paper, beads, yarn, stuff! The picture below is indicative of my current storage technique:

You'll notice the unit under the windows, the two tall wooden shelves, the stack of crates, and the small drawer unit. And this is only one side of the room. There's more like that. And every piece is full.

So in an attempt to create order out of chaos and take advantage of my 9' ceilings, thanks to the Container Store, their sale on Elfa shelving, and the generosity of my mother, we have a plan!

This whole wall between the windows will become shelves and drawers. I have all of the materials except for one shelf which I can pick up next week. The whole thing requires assembly, of course, but the only thing that requres skill and power tools is hanging the strip just below the ceiling that all of the shelves will hang from. After that, the shelves and drawer units will go up quickly.

It will look something like this, minus the green wall, and taking into account the radiator that juts out inconveniently into the space:

But of course it's not really that easy. The room is full of stuff, and the wall of future shelves has that charming array of pieces already there. I've created only the rudiments of a master plan to deal with this all.

The first step for me was dismantling my old desk in the corner, the file cabinets and desk top I've had since junior high, and pushing the table that was in the center of the room into the corner. The file cabinets have to go. They're bent and have drawers that hate to open. Their contents will go in the new unit. I'll save the desk top and possibly get some new legs for it (from Ikea?) to use as an extra work space/cutting table when needed. Here's the desk on its way to not existing:

I did not photograph the pile of fabric bags that were under the desk, though you can see some of them above. The next step is to move the tall wooden shelves that are currently against the key wall elsewhere, and to get help hanging that top track. Stay tuned for progress updates. and let me know if you feel like constructing drawers some time!

The renewed crafting bug...

2009-04-06T00:02:00.006-04:00

Because I am a big fool, I stole some time on Saturday morning to run up to a rubber stamp show in Allentown (only an hour away!). I'm sure I've posted about these shows in the past, and this one was no exception. But still, as there are no good, independent craft stores nearby, I feel compelled to go to any show that's reasonably close and on a day when I'm free.

I thought I was going to escape mostly unscathed from this one. A few little stamps called to me. I gave in and bought a few sets of Inkadinkado clear stamps you use with acrylic blocks.

These bridge the gap between mounted and unmounted stampsd for me. They are cheaper and easier to store than wood-mouned stamps, and cling easily to acrylic blocks (which I just happened to alread own a few of). I can't wait to try these!

All of the booths at the show also feature demonstrations of new ideas and techniques you can try with the products being sold there. While I was waiting on line to pay for the clear stamps, the demonstrator was showing how to emboss paper quickly and easily using embossing dies and brass stencils and a machine called a CuttleBug. It was amazing!!!

I've played around with paper embossing in a number of ways: with brass stencils and Fiskars texture plates, but they all have the same problem - they're too time consuming, and I don't have that much time. But with this machine, it takes seconds to make a beautiful background paper.

Oh, I could go on and gush, but I won't. Needless to say, I went to Michaels today and bought one and have already tested it out. And yes, I love it.

Much depends on the dies you have, and I have next to none at the moment. I have many brass stencils though, and as soon as I get the right layer to use so they don't kill the machine, I'm golden. Here are a few examples of the patterns I'm longing for:

And of course, the first one I bought:

It's almost garden party season...

2009-04-05T23:49:00.004-04:00

Here's an amazing, and amazingly doable idea from Decor8.

I think I have a few lanterns in the house I could possibly use for this...

The one that got away...

2009-04-05T23:41:00.003-04:00

As luck would have it, one of the blogs I follow, House Obsession, follows the adventures of a Philadelphia homeowner who bought one of the houses I looked at last year, liked, but rejected because of the amount of work it needed. From reading her blog, it looks like she's doing a great job of working on the house, especially the transformation of her kitchen which was featured on ApartmentTherapy.

(Those Before cabinets were amazing!) I'm so jealous! Someday...

This would have been perfect...

2009-04-05T23:38:00.003-04:00

...if only the person who posted this on Craig's List had responded...

Look!

2009-03-24T23:39:00.003-04:00

I found this site on The Paris Apartment blog today: http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/colors.php

I downloaded this picture:

And got back the photoshop palette which includes colors called trout, dawn, eagle, scorpion, and brown derby.

Hours of fun!!! If only I could download the resulting swatches...

This could take cookie-making to a whole new level...

2009-03-23T23:38:00.002-04:00

From Sur La Table, a very dangerous place...

Breaking the habit...

2009-03-19T23:36:00.002-04:00

My relationship with AOL started after I graduated from college. I had a fabulous Macintosh courtesy of my mom, and a brand new modem courtesy of my sister, and a shiny AOL floppy disk free-for-nothing. We’re going back a few years here. Time passed and AOL grew to be perceived as part of the evil empire, but still, I’d had that email address since 1995 and didn’t see a huge need for change.

But after a while, I wanted to break away, be one of the cool kids with a cooler email address (or five - why does everyone have a million email addresses - me included - and how do I know which to use??). So, I formulated a plan. Wireless Philadelphia had a greater coverage area than previous and was cheap, so I signed up with them and at the same time got myself a universal forwarding address from Bryn Mawr. After I was sure it would work, AOL would be out. Good thing I waited.

After being very specific with Wireless Philly/Earthlink representatives on the phone that I lived in a first floor rear apartment with no natural light and no direct access to the outside world, and after being assured that my personal signal was very strong, when I got the equipment and set it up, no dice (This took 45 minutes on the phone and a huge amount of connecting and reconnecting the modem. My favorite set-up had me and the modem and the laptop outside in the courtyard. I still couldn’t get a signal and the person on the phone just brushed passed the idea that I wouldn’t be able to use the equipment outside in the rain, snow, cold.).

Speedy connection, or lack thereof aside, a couple of years ago, I got myself a gmail address, and learned how to use that system, which I still do and love. But the spectre of AOL still looms (including those friends and contacts who persist in using the AOL address for me, despite numerous reminders...). My work forwards all of our emails to a personal email account (because the email interface for work is horrific and only to be used as absolutely necessary, in my humble opinion). This is still the AOL address for me, as I don’t want the gmail account to be in any way connected with work. Nor do I want the forwarding address from Bryn Mawr (which forwards to gmail) to be it because I don’t even want to see those work emails in that inbox. But finally, a new solution is ahead.

A few months ago, I finally gave in and purchased a high(er) speed internet connection for home. With this came a bright, shiny new email address! This one can become the work forwarding address. And with this new connection at home, I no longer need the AOL software to act as my ISP. So the plan is that by the end of the month, be rid of AOL.

One of the lingering things about AOL that I used was my list of bookmarks that I've amassed these many years, including my list of blogs. I've saved that list so I can reconstruct it someplace else, but I knew I needed a plan for the blogs. And sure enough, google has one for me: Google Reader. (Yes, I know all of you knew about this already, and are savvy about RSS feeds, etc., but bear with me while I continue my crawl into the 21st century). Last week I put all of my sites with feeds into the Reader and so far, love using it. It's not cumbersome. It cuts down on the ads without minmizing content. And I'm logged in already any time I'm using gmail.

Go, technology! I'm getting there.

Getting greener...

2009-03-16T23:30:00.002-04:00

Spring is still not quite a week off, but it's so close, you can taste it. The snowdrops are up down the street, and all over people are saying that their bulbs are popping up. But I hadn't seen hide nor hair of mine, leading me to the conclusion that they must have been eaten by squirrels. But no! As I was walking to the train this morning, I noticed that their are several things popping up. Thus far, none look to be flowering, but you never know. I also noticed that not only is my potted lilac leafing out great guns, the one in the ground is showing signs of green! Yay!!!

Yesterday, Peter gave me some daffodils (which squirrels don't like, apparently) and daylillies. This evening I planted them in the back yard and noticed there that my azalea from Liz is still alive, and one of the roses that Susie gave me from Monticello made it through! I also noticed something else with a varigated leaf that looks vaguely hosta-like that I may have planted on purpose coming up near the back fence. I can't wait to see what it looks like in a few weeks.

I'm still not a gardener, but it was fun playing in the dirt today.

What was she wearing??

2009-03-12T18:14:00.003-04:00

Arthur Fergusson snapped this some time during the first half of this year's Boston Ball (I took the gloves off for the second half). It's a good view of the dress, the current length of the hair (just assume the vast amount of chemicals it took to get my hair to stay that way), and a smattering of the 78 rosettes that seemed to have survived their second washing...

Sure signs of Spring...

2009-03-12T17:51:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, as I was walking into Merion Friends for longsword, I spied the first daffodill of Spring, early even for this area. I was so excited that I ran back for my cell phone to capture these images in the now-lighter early evening.

2009-03-05T23:35:00.005-05:00

While March is still in its lion phase, I need a bit of cheering. These three images help qite a bit.

There was a post on the ECD list today and a link to this image of one of Magda's Cake Creations. Yes, it's an edible page from John Playford's Dancing Master open to Gathering Peascods. We need one of these for the next demo team potluck.

I have a folder of electronic pictures called House Ideas. The most recent addition from Kim Vallee's blog is below. This image is the tenth example showing open kitchen shelves that I've saved. It's a sign. Yes, I fear grease and dirt and dust, but I am compelled. There will be open shelves in my kitchen. I feel a spring project coming on. Maybe one of these days I'll go crazy and paint the kitchen cabinets too.

This last is my favorite one, as featured on Oh Joy. Every crafty bone in my body now yearns for masking tape in all of these colors. I have no idea what I would do with them, but it doesn't matter. I want them all!

Snow Day!

2009-03-02T17:19:00.006-05:00

Whenever I have periods of free time at home, although I have a vast to-do list, it's amazing how some things always fall to the bottom of the list, like cleaning, taxes, sorting through the mounds of paper that have accumulated to decide what to shred and what to keep, etc. But on this snow day, not only have I managed to shovel, cactch up on dishes and actually relax over a pot of tea, I've also managed to make serious progress in my efforts to hang up pictures on the second floor.

In a previous post I mentioned the picture wall I was creating in my upstairs parlour. Today, the wall is complete, pending additions. Here's a chronicle of the progress:

Where it all started:

A few more added:

And more:

All along the way I was moving and tweaking. The beauty of working with frames all the same size is that as long as the image has the same orientation, it will always fit in the same space. Another thing I began doing was adding small images for filler to make sure that as few of the framed pieces were line up as possible. Here's the final result:

The pictures can't do it justice, so you'll just have to come over and see it yourself.

I hung some additional things in the parlour and below are a few shots of some of the things I hung in the bedroom:

I still have a pile of family pictures to hang. I have my eye on the hallway for those. And the craft room is still a blank slate, but it has more floor space than ever, and those grandiose plans I alluded to earlier.

Maybe I'd better hurry up and do my taxes to see what that refund will really be like...

It's magic!

2009-02-26T23:47:00.003-05:00

Today I found myself thinking about Magic Squares. I've long been drawn to these in part because they are puzzles, which I love, but moreso because of the patterns hidden within.

I was given a book about magic squares when I was younger, and shortly after I learned to construct the odd numbered squares by following a simple method, the math became too complex to hold my interest. But one of the key things I remembered is that if you follow the number pattern with line segments, you get endless varieties of designs, some of which are reproduced here (scroll down): http://mathworld.wolfram.com/MagicSquare.html. It's these patterns that appear in my doodling and which I think would make great artwork elements. I am not entirely alone in this:

Magic Squares as Visual Designs on Pots

The Atomic Art of Magic Squares

Botanical Gardens of Leipzig

Clearly this is an untapped area of design, and one I should take advantage of. I can see it now - rubber stamps, cross-stitch and black work patterns, fine china designs, etched crystal...

Inspiration!

2009-02-23T21:55:00.004-05:00

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I know what I need to do in my craft room to make it a much more useful space. And yes, this will necessitate a trip to the Container Store. Or more than one. And a free day/weekend to make it all happen. Which means by about May, I should be golden.

If I'm really together, I will take pictures of the progress. For the moment, here's some Container Store inspiration...

Creating a picture wall...

2009-02-19T23:56:00.005-05:00

In my never-ending task to actually decorate my house, I am embracing my love of small prints even though I have vast expanses of wall. I've been inspired by yet another ApartmentTherapy post (though there are so many on this topic there and elsewhere).

Here's the status update:

I started with only the calendar on the wall. I then added the Anna Hess shell painting and the Love postcard below. Just this week I added the moonlit trees and the Sargeant postcard.

What's next?

I have this rough layout on the floor of how I want things to look. This will change on the fly as I hang things, which at the moment is at the rate of 1-2 items per week. Let's not rush this.

I love the idea of this being an on-going collage of images. As I mostly frame things in the same size Ikea clippy frames, I always have the option of moving images around and swapping things on and off the wall as the whim strikes me (though I fear Ikea is discontinuing this essential 5 x 7 clippy frame size - but not to worry, I still have about a dozen hoarded).

Stay tuned for wall updates...

The perfect furniture...

2009-02-19T23:50:00.003-05:00

Browsing through Apartment Therapy the other day, I found the perfect rug for me. I can't wait to find out who makes it (though I bet I can wait to find out the cost...):

The whole post was the perfect Joanna post. It was called Scripted Furnishings. But it's really all about the rug...

Look what's blooming...

2009-02-19T23:34:00.004-05:00

As part of my housewarming gift, George gave me a cutting from his purple passion plant. Recently, it started blooming! The picture can't do the fuzzy yellow flowers justice.

More to come...

Girly nostalgia...

2009-02-16T23:01:00.007-05:00

Growing up I always loved paper dolls, and just about any thing you could pop out of a book. The tooth fairy once brought me a memorable village to be popped out and assembled. Hot stuff!

With Valentine's just past, I came across a set of Joan Walsh Anglund paper dolls here.
Anglund is best known for ultra cute children with no discernible mouth - better seen than heard. But I always found them charming.

I had this vague memory of another set of paper dolls I liked, and sure enough, thank to the internet, I found them. Does anyone else remember the Gingham Girls?

They had many outfits and different personalities and Katie even had an ice cream shop (but I'm sure it was a shoppe).

Do girls still play with paper dolls? Is it all Barbie and stuff from cartoons or are there others out there from books or from some other source? Or has paper given way to electrons in this instance as well?

The perfect storage solution...

2009-02-10T23:33:00.007-05:00

I've been dreaming of more shelving for my craft room of late and recently came across this must-have dresser:

Color Stripes...

2009-02-08T00:14:00.007-05:00

Some time ago, I posted about my first Etsy purchase, a calendar from Kris's Color Stripes. I've just now bookmarked Kris's blog of the same name. Kris takes images and parses them out by color, like the one below:

I love this idea, have used it in some of the cards I make, and mean to do more of it. Sara Midda, one of my favorite watercolorist, uses this technique in her South of France book:

I love the idea of thinking about the color palette of an image, a wardrobe, a space. Mine would be black and purple and red/burgundy with occasional forays elsewhere.

Food in the forecast...

2009-02-05T23:56:00.003-05:00

Making a list just now, I realized that this is going to be a weekend of dancing, of course, but also of baking, with a little cooking thrown in for good measure. I found myself just now finding that recipe for cinnamon scones I want to try that will be perfect for the Jane Austen tea dance, and reviewing previous cocktail party menus for something to repeat, and of course, contemplating the ubiquitous red velvet cuppycakes, so appropriate for the impending valentine-making party.

Why remark on this at all? It's so unusual that I do any kind of baking/cooking extravaganza that's not for a holiday dinner or a party I'm throwing. Time is always too short to bake something for a tea item. It's always easier to run to the store. And while I keep a pretty full pantry, I always end up shopping before I bake to make sure I have everything I need for all of the recipes.

But time is built-in this weekend. The water department is coming any time between 7am and noon this weekend to change my meter. What better way to fill the time than creating warm and wonderful yummy goodness. Perhaps directly after the first cup of coffee...

Okay, enough with the weather...

2009-02-03T23:46:00.003-05:00

Don't get me wrong. I think snow is pretty and all, but I've about had it. I don't want to shovel it, I don't want to clear it off my car, and I don't want to drive in it. This is Philadelphia. This is practically the southland. We are not supposed to have this kind of weather here. What gives?

Tonight it was predicted that the snow would end at about 9pm and we would have about 1"-3" of snow on the ground. I got home from work and had just enough time to clear and salt the steps and sidewalk, then clear off the car and head to Swarthmore. It's a little slippy on the local roads, but fine. Class, clear off car, go to longsword. Rehearsal, clear lots of snow off of the car, and proceed to begin the drive home. It is after 9pm. It's still snowing. A lot. So much for the weather report.

The Blue Route is a big mess, made worse by the spray of big truck, but we make it off and I start looking for gas stations, as the idiot light has just come on on the dash. The station that was open had no regular gas, so now to add to the fun of the drive, we have the potential drama of running out of gas. But we creep along Germantown Avenue, slipping but maintaining control for the most part. Until a car randomly stops dead. Deep breath.

We pass that car, finally, although the car hates changing lanes, pass the car further down the road also stopped, and creep into Chestnut Hill. All of the gas stations are closed, but we slide down the hill, trying to forget that there are slippery, unpredictable trolley tracks underneath.

Home stretch. Turn onto Boyer. I fear the parking situation. But then, a spot close to the house. Unheard of at this hour.

I'll shovel in the morning.

Warm hearts, warm groundhogs...

2009-02-02T22:40:00.003-05:00

(Jenny once led the GCD First Saturday dance in February under the title Warm Hearts. But it fell on February 2nd, and so...)

Phil saw his shadow. Again. Big shock. The take poor Phil from his nice home in the town library, shove him in a cold, dark place, surround him with strangers and flash bulbs. Heck, you'd turn the other way too, shadow or no.

But Phil is likely back home among the books, warm and happy to be left alone for another year.

Office decor...

2009-01-28T23:54:00.006-05:00

So it turns out that my decorating style, at least as far as hanging images on the wall, is remarkably consistent. This is yet another instance of a collection of small things, in this case, collected on my brand new bulletin board in my brand new (well, as of November) office. You'll notice that there still some space to fill up, but not much...

Notice one of my new calendars - my first and only Etsy purchase, and the essential Milton card.

Here's Patience, one of the New York Public Library lions, as well as a postcard of my favorite postage stamp ever.

I hang up postcards, magnets, fortune cookie fortunes...

I use old calendar images like the Lilac Fairy and the Motawi fish tile.

Ten points if you can guess what dance they're doing in the old Pinewoods image...

And of course, my plants!

Stop by and visit sometime!

So many books, part eleventy-two...

2009-01-26T23:28:00.002-05:00

Somehow with the new year, the new semester and a new season of dance events comes a whole new host of books to read. My list is getting really long, and the library can't get in those new releases fast enough (or enough copies of them) for me.

Here's a sample of the list, most of them guilty pleasures of no literary merit...

Jane Austen take-offs:

-Impulse & Initiative by Abigail Reynolds
-Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Pattillo
-The Pemberly Chronicles by Rebecca Ann Collins

Two from two different Rhys Bowen series

-In a Gilded Cage
-Royal Flush

The inevitable next one in various mystery series written by women with female leads:

-Murder on Waverly Place by Victoria Thompson
-Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear
-Face at the Window by Sarah Graves
-Oolong Dead by Laura Childs
-Temptation of the Night Jasmine by Lauren Willig

And others:

-Roanoke by Margaret Lawrence
-Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce
-Rumours by Anna Godbersen
-Envy by Anna Godbersen
-Deception's Daughter by Cordelia Frances Biddle
-Cast in Fury by Michelle Sagara
-Cast in Secret by Michelle Sagara
-The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones
-Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
-The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

Plus all of the ones I've forgotten, and all of the ones I pick up on impulse at the library...

It's me!

2009-01-17T17:17:00.005-05:00

I'm a fond reader of Apartment Therapy. I like the window into other people's lives, the celebration of Ikea, and the sharing of ideas about design and small space living. But in truth, the predominant style of the site - midcenutry modern - is not me. I tend toward rounder edges and traditional and classic lines, moldings and subtle graphics. At last, this week, I found the house tour for me, an Edwardian in Boston:

The mantle of my future in my living room? I love the simple decoration.

I also love the mirror above and the simple brickwork. The grey on the walls appeals, but I'll probably go with a tawny cream on the first floor.

I've been thinking about a table behind my sofa, or at least some kind of shelf to more clearly define the living room space from the entry/passage to the back of the house.

And of course, the droolworthy built-ins. I need a butler's pantry. I just need one. And cabinets with glass doors or no doors. It is my destiny...

An encounter with art...

2009-01-17T17:10:00.003-05:00

This picture can't even begin to do justice to the sculpture/chandelier/art installation spied downtown today in the Philadelphia building over coffee at the Naked Chocolate Cafe. It's the work of Warren Muller. I love the spirals and scrollwork and the variey of glassware he used - he kinds of items you have at home, or remember from your parents and grandparents houses.

FiddleMoose

2009-01-15T23:57:00.004-05:00

Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers would not only be a great name for a kids book, it's also a great band. I heard them tonight at the contra dance. They were fun and energetic, if a little too old-timey and a-rhythmic for my tastes, but the dances were good, and once I got past the initial horrible Glenside partnering thing, I had good partners. And there were moose! Like this one:

Savoring the last days of freedom...

2009-01-13T23:59:00.003-05:00

That's what this week feels like in some ways.

This week is the last week of Swarthmore's winter break. It's been a lovely month of free(r) evenings, more flexible scheduling, and even the occasional contra dance. Starting next week, and almost without exception through early May, I'm out at least three nights a week, and often closer to four, or five, or six.

Every year at the start of winter break, or the start of summer, I make lists of projects I want to do with all of these copious free evenings: decluttering the house, going through and shredding, where applicable, the mounds of papers, organizing/inventory projects, solid amounts of craft time, the inevitable dance program writing, and on, and on... And we know what happens to the finest of lists. First of all, the holidays happen, along with parties to throw and attend, and other related events. Then I'll be about to start a project when George will call and invite me over, and I'll go intending to stay just for a bit. Right.

But things have gotten done. Or begun. Or thought about. Windows have plastic on them. Holiday cards were made and mailed. The pile of things to go to the Salvation Army is slowly growing, even if it won't get there until February. Cheatsheets were constructed, and as of the last post, there are more things hanging on the walls than before.

And the list is still long, and will grow. But hey, there's always Spring Break!

Picture this...

2009-01-12T23:18:00.008-05:00

This past weekend I went to visit Susie in Charlottesville. Aside from all of the things we did, it was great to see Susie's apartment again. I came home inspired to resume decorating in the house, and especially, to hang pictures on the walls.

One of the things I've been struggling with is the challenge of decorating in a large space with high ceilings. In my apartment downtown, there were not many options for where to hang things, and it felt, in some ways, as if the arrangements were easy to come up with.

Here in the house, there is nothing but wall to fill, and it seems to cry out for large pieces, rather than the small framed prints and postcard I love. Here's my first attempt at some arrangements on the first floor:

A print by the front door possibly to be joined by a few other small things.

Three framed images to the right of the doorway.

My favorite (so far!) grouping below a dining room window.

A group by the stairway. You'll notice the clear gap where one image is missing. In this one spot, the wall rejected the screw. However, the wall did accept spackle, and I will try again.

Comments? Suggestions?

Flooring of the future??

2009-01-11T23:23:00.004-05:00

A reason to break open those piggy banks courtesy of Apartment Therapy on 1/7:

But what you don't know about this post...

2009-01-05T11:59:00.002-05:00

...is that, though I'm posting from home, I'm doing it via my own personal, almost super-speedy DSL line. Yes, Joanna is slowly attaining modern technology. It's amazing! It's exciting! Maybe I'll even go crazy and hook up a printer one of these years.

This, however, does not explain why my phone doesn't work, but if that hasn't sorted itself out by tomorrow, I'll be back on the phone to Verizon.

Is this what all of you have been doing all along? Not reading a book while your pictures download or anything?

This could be the coolest thing ever!

In with the new...

2009-01-04T23:44:00.003-05:00

2009 hasn't quite sunk in yet, but maybe tomorrow, as I pick up the daily threads of life, it will - flipping the calendar pages, writing the first check of the year, etc...

Dance-wise, I always think that the holiday season begins with the Philadelphia Playford Ball and ends with GCD's Twelfth Night. And it's often a whirlwind month. This year's highlights included:

-A fabulous Ball weekend
-Crowfoot contra and other end-of-semester dance festivities
-A full weekend at home, complete with sleeping in!
-Neffa!!!!!!!
-A mantle full of cards from friends
-The first Chanukah party at my new house - 20 lbs of potatoes - a record high
-Making and mailing all of my holiday cards before Christmas
-Catching up on DVDs and library books
-Getting a gig in Ann Arbor in May
-Parties to go to on Christmas and Boxing Day
-Finally getting to holiday shopping the weekend after Christmas
-Hogmanay, complete with house guests, sore legs, 28 out of 29 dances, the Recovery party, etc.
-Spending quality time with Emily and Dirk!
-A fabulous Twelfth Night and a smooth longsword demo (!)

January starts calmly with a few more weeks before the semester starts and events pick up. The winter months bring a new round of events and travel:

-Elm City Assembly in New Haven
-English Scottish party in Boston
-English Scottish Ball at Swarthmore
-February Fling in Trenton
-Boston Playford Ball
-A wedding in MA
-True North ECD weekend in London, Ontario

That should keep me out of trouble for a while...

Down the digital memory lane...

2008-12-29T23:41:00.004-05:00

For Chanukah, Deb and Eileen gave Mom a digital picture frame (full disclosure, the holiday is over, Mom has already received the gift, so I am giving nothing away). At first I was unsure of this idea, but to make it instantly useful, Deb scanned in a bunch of family pictures, including some I haven't seen in ages. She slipped a copy of the files in with my present. I offer one of the beauties below:

Here we all are in 1986, the day of my bat mitzvah. I look classic in this photo, with my eyes shut. You can see my dance proclivities foreshadowed in the big, floofy, pink (!) ball gown of a dress I wore (a steal at the now defunct Alexander's). (This dress still exists in my mother's closet somewhere. I think it would fit, but would be very frightening, except for maybe a ceilidh skit. But in 1986, when balls and ball gowns were all about fantasy for me, and not yet a part of my regular life, I adored this dress.)

Deb, I love the pictures! I love that they're electronic, and I can look at them easily at any time, fascinating chronicle of fashion, hair and eyeglass styles though they are. Arlene just sent me two boxes of family photos. Maybe we'll have to have a scanning party...

Taking the day...

2008-12-25T13:50:00.003-05:00

Maybe people in the neighborhood are longing for a white Christmas, but I, for one needed this first truly sunny day we've had in forever.

Christmas day, and moreso Christmas Eve used to be very hard for me as a differently religious person. I always have this notion that the whole world, or the whole of my immediate world anyway, are off somewhere having a grand time with trees and presents and the romantic vision shown in movies and books. But maybe as life seems to get more hectic, I need Christmas day as a day of rest, a day free of obligation, when the only outings are to and with friends because everthing else is closed. And here and there I get the sense that for some, Christmas is no different than my holidays with family traditions and to-do, cooking, and company. It's just that more people I know are doing it all at once.

Last night I finished a book and was well into my second DVD when George called to say he had skipped out on Christmas Eve family things and he was done making cookies, so I should come over, which I did. This morning I slept in, did a laundry, continued the process of scrubbing the kitchen to de-oil it, puttered. And now there's a turkey in my oven for the Christmas dinner I'm going to later on, and hazelnuts to toast, oh, and maybe another movie to watch... Oh, and parties on the weekend to look forward to, and hopefully sunny days, and a peaceful 2009 to come.

An excerpt from my favorite poem for this time of year:

"As promise wakens in the sleeping land
They carol, feast, and dearly love their friends.
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year."

-Susan Cooper, The Shortest Day

Be merry and bright, and to quote another song title, "Happy Whatever You're Having."

In my copious free time...

2008-12-25T13:41:00.002-05:00

...I'm going to take up paper quilling. These images come from artist Yulia Brodskaya via one of my favorite design blogs, Oh Joy. Amazing stuff!

Buried treasure...

2008-12-21T23:54:00.003-05:00

After my Aunt Evelyn died six years ago, the task of clearing out her apartment fell largely on my mom. I remember being there to help out at least one day and sorting through books and fabric and slippers. Mom pressed us to take what we wanted, and while there were some things that I wanted, I knew there was no room for them in the one-bedroom apartment I lived in. So mom and I worked it out - I would take whatever we could pack into Aunt Evelyn's under-bed storage boxes, and someday I would have more space to enjoy what we salted away. And there the boxes stayed, safe under my bed, until they got moved to the house this year, still intact in my dining room cabinet.

Today I finally unpacked the boxes. It was like finding buried treasure.

My memory of the contents was bits and pieces of crystal, wine glasses, a set of china, and a few other things. I didn't remember that the set of china was a service for 12 with only one small dessert bowl missing. I didn't remember the cut-glass sugar and creamer set, nor the lone piece of Wedgewood Jasperware.

Today I had an afternoon with Aunt Evelyn for the first time in a while, and appreciate her gifts, bot tangible and intangible.

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning"

2008-12-17T23:47:00.002-05:00

Biblical, I think, but I know the quote from L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Avonlea. I think of that line often but it's seemed especially applicable for the past few days.

Yesterday was a horrid day, fueled by bad news and too little sleep and fear of my reveiw at work. But 'round about the evening the wind changed and what followed, through today, was a series of near misses:

-A phone conversation that could have gone badly didn't
-I slipped getting out of the shower this morning and somehow caught myself, not injuring my head or any other vital part
-My local commuter train, reported to be running 20 minutes late didn't, enabling me to be on time, nay, early for my 9am conference call
-For better or worse, my job is intact for another year
-My GCD evening was the predictably small week-after-ice-cream-night let down, but not as small as I feared it would be

Now all I need is a string of sunny days, but that may be just too much to ask for...

The stove of my future

2008-12-17T23:42:00.002-05:00

Courtesy of my sister (who's going to buy this for me, I know she is!), and Williams Sonoma...

Work in Progress?

2008-12-14T22:39:00.003-05:00

As I was walking downtown this afternoon, this door caught my attention...

Playford Aftermath, Part 2

2008-12-09T23:51:00.004-05:00

Tonight was our last Swarthmore class of the semester. I'm so proud of my gang this year - lots of good dancing and the promise of more in the future. A whole bunch came to the Playford ball, including a few who started dancing this semester. Here we all are (Photo: Leonard Lu):

This is a photo of current students, alums, and assorted hangers-on, of which I am one. Guilt by association I suppose...

Rachel Winslow sent me the picture below last night.

This one shows my dress from the back in full length. While the whole dress is great, and oh so purple, it's really the back that makes it. You can clearly see the silver ribbon trim, but not any of the 78 little ribbon roses around the neckline and hem. (Yes, 78. Ronnie, my dressmaker extrordinaire counted).

What's next, now that the ball is over:

-Holiday card-making
-Holiday shopping
-The inevitable dance program writing
-Chanukah party prep!!!

I love the prospect of having some time to do all of the above, and maybe even solve my (lack of) heating problem, and do some house stuff.

Let me know if you want to come play!