Under a Blue Moon

Coming off the chocolate…

That was a really cranky post yesterday. Sorry about that. I ate my weight in chocolate yesterday and it was playing havoc with my good nature.

I love the January issues magazines. They all have a fresh, let’s get organized and look forward to Spring air about them. I love curling up on my love seat with a pile of new magazines and planning out my garden, or noting tips for decluttering, destressing, detoxing after the holidays.

I just bought the Martha Stewart Living January issue and it has an article on shelf brackets and the above picture made me catch my breath. It is just so lovely. I want that space. I need that space. I love everything about that space. Especially the gentle curve of the desktop and all that painted white woodwork.

I don’t have a dedicated work area (says the person that actually works from home…). I have wireless so I can spread out at the kitchen table or the dining room table but it looks a mess and if I want to use said table I have to put everything away. It’s just not very conducive to being productive and organized.

My under utilized dining room is painted almost that exact shade of green. I think I might have to appropriate the space and turn it into an office/project room. And to make things simpler the dining room is where my craft closet is! I’m practically moved in already. I’ve had this idea for some time now and that picture is just going to push me over the edge.

Not quite there yet…

In fact I’m having a kind of Grinchy day. It would appear that everyone has lost their good sense and their goodwill toward man today. Rushing about trying to get their last minute errands done (like I was). I was hampered by people that were just kind of oblivious to anyone else around them. To each of you I bestow a tight-lipped smile and a broken candy cane:

The lady at the drive up mailbox that turned off her car, rummaged around her car for an eternity looking for those darn Christmas cards…where did the heck did they go to…, got out of her car to deposit them into the mailbox then got back into her car and took another eternity to buckle back up, pull out her to do list to see what was next on her list and then finally, when postage rates certainly had increased she was there so long, pulled out so the 53 cars behind her could throw their cards into the mailbox with the hopes that they would at least arrive by Easter.

The guy at the grocery store helping me find french cut green beans in the freezer section that had to read of each and every bag of vegetables….hmmm, let’s see…okra..nope that’s not it…broccoli florets…no…creamed spinach (looks at me hopefully. No – french. cut. green. beans.)…snow peas – hey would that work?…

The woman that pulled her huge Mercedes and blocked the only ramp off the sidewalk to the parking lot and then explained to me that she wanted to fill up her water jug and didn’t seem to understand me when I said there was no way for anyone to get their carts to parking lot with her car parked there and why didn’t she park in the parking space ten feet away that was designated for water getting people. She was apologetic which I appreciate but what she needed to do was just hop in her car and move it five feet so I didn’t have to wait for her 20 gallon water bottle to fill up.

The woman that was pan handling by car. Seriously – I understand that poverty is a terrible and very real problem but if you are driving a newer car than I am do not pull up to me as I’m loading groceries into my trunk, roll down your window and ask me if I can spare a few bucks then drive over to the next person and ask them the same thing.

Okay glad I got that off my chest. What happened to my resolve to slow down, simplify and most importantly, enjoy myself.

I’ve made a decision that I am going to take all of next December off. I have the vacation time accumulated and I rarely take a real vacation. Next year I am not going to have the squeezing of skull feeling I get every year about this time as I am dashing about trying to finish last minute things. I’ve actually managed what little spare time I do have pretty well.

Well except for yesterday evening when I got totally and hopelessly lost leaving a shopping mall. They had half the exits blocked off so I ended up exiting out a back way I wasn’t familiar with and within minutes I was completely lost and not in a particularly helpful looking part of town. I had to call Rick, who was 165 miles away and have him look up intersections on Mapquest as I passed them so he could direct me back to California. By the time I finally got to a freeway I recognized 45 minutes had passed and I was about 10 miles south of where I should have been. I have a terrible sense of direction.

I did manage to cross off almost all of the rest of my to do list today so from here on out it’s going to be calm and bright. Tomorrow I’ll be Cindy Lou of Whoville.

Oops

I accidentally bought the world’s ugliest teapot. It’s so ugly that I feel sorry for it and now I’m going to have to buy or make it a new wardrobe.

A few years ago, when Martha still had her online shop, I fell in love with a teapot with a metal cozy. It was gorgeous in its simplicity and functionality. It was white and the metal cozy was a silver metal (aluminum I suppose). Oh how I coveted that teapot but it was a bit pricey and at the time I was being frugal. I don’t know how many times I’ve passed on something because its price was just a little above my comfort zone only to think incessantly about the object for ever more. I should learn. Just buy it and economize elsewhere.

I keep thinking one will show up on eBay one of these days and last week when I was doing a search I found a Hall coverlet teapot in yellow that was very similar to my beloved Martha Stewart model. Only it was yellow. But I like yellow – I can make it work. And as luck would have it no one had bid on it yet. So I placed a bid and won the darn thing. When the package arrived I tore into it only to be totally disappointed to find that the coverlet part is a urine yellow brushed aluminum. You should have seen the dismay on my sad little face. I knew the pot was yellow but I thought the cover was going to be silver. I actually went back and looked at the listing and sure enough even there it looks slightly yellow. But then all my pictures have a golden glow so I figured the seller had the same crappy camera I do.

So I think I’m going to have to ditch the metal cozy and make a pretty, embroidered one for it. I’ve been looking online and haven’t found one I like so I’m going to have to make one. I’m picturing white linen with pale yellow flowers embroidered on it.

I bought a book a couple of weeks ago (no danger being a spendthrift here – it was only $3.50) that has hundreds of floral designs and initials. So I think I’ll monogram my little cozy.

Tree, part two

I thought it was funny how many posts I read yesterday had the title of "All is Calm.." with the unspoken "whew" and wiping of brow, I’m sure.

We got our main tree up and decorated today. Rick and I have this little tradition of seeing how fast we can get to the tree lot, pick out a tree and get back home. This year we did it in about 12 minutes.

My Dad is here, supervising the decorating. He sat by the fire and looked up from his book now and then and told me where I was being skimpy with the decorations.

I’m not quite ready to have a ‘all is calm’ post just yet. But I’m getting there ~ almost there.

Added 12/17:

I’ve always loved the look of real tinsel on a tree. When we were growing up we would each be given a handful to carefully place, strand by strand on the tree. This would last about two minutes and then as soon as my mother left the room we would begin flinging it on in fistfuls or wadding it up into hard little balls and throw them at each other.

Then the powers that be decided it wasn’t such a swift idea to have lead based decorations so easily and charmingly accessible to small children (or anyone for that matter) so they switched to plasticky tinsel. Which just doesn’t wad up as satisfactorily.

It’s been a sad, tinsel-less existence for us all these years until now. I found an online resource for old fashioned tinsel only made out of pewter rather than lead. I’m too late for this year but I’m going to order some for next year.

And finally ~ I cannot take a picture of the tree to save my life. I just can’t capture the colored lights properly. Flash just washes everything out and you can’t see the lights at all or without a flash it ends up looking all nether worldly. I swear it’s just a normal, green Noble Fir:

Pomp and Circumstance

Yesterday my nephew finished his final exam, turned in his final papers and pretty much aced the GRE and is now the proud recipient of a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science. Go Ahren!!

He drove down from school with his truck loaded up with books, electronic equipment, dirty laundry and all the other detritus one collects while away at school. He made a stop over at my Dad’s house and we had a celebratory dinner of cracked crab, salad, crusty french bread and a rich chocolate cake for dessert. No more rice or pot pies for a while.

What a fabulous feeling to reach a really big goal and then have the world just wide open to you to start anything new that you want. A new day, a fresh start. Oh how I envy him. To quote Theodor Geisel:

You have brains in your head
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
Any direction you choose

Congratulations to a very brainy, footsy guy!

Swamped….

More flickr favorites.

I am just flat out swamped with work these days – it never fails that I have some project I’m working on that has to be done by Christmas. I think I’m going to block of the entire month of December next year and take it as vacation.

I am feeling really behind on my Christmas shopping. I hate that feeling like I’m just throwing things willy nilly into my cart just to be able to cross something off my list. I’ve tried really hard to simplify things this year and stick to a reasonable budget. If I panic I know I’ll throw my budget out the window.

So bear with me gentle readers ~ posting may be sporadic and dull for the next week or so.

One thing I do want to spend some thoughtful consideration on is my 2007 goals. Resolutions has such a defeatist air about it – mine are always doomed from the start and they tend to be along the lines of deprivation (less food, less wine, less procrastination, less spending…) so this year I am going to give myself some goals around learning new things. Like a language, crocheting and, just maybe, learning how to smock. Isn’t that dress above adorable? I would love to learn how to do that. I have an online friend, Melissa, that does smocking and her work is very inspiring.

I tend to go off into fantasy land when I think about learning new thing and how it is going to change my entire life. Right now I’m envisioning myself starting a little cottage industry of smocked dresses and how in demand they will be and how I’ll be able to quit my job and devote myself to this new endeavor. Hmmm, what should I call this new business….

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