Frank!

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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!