Monthly Archives: August 2010

HGTV, Tears and Drama

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The past couple of weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to spend many hours at home with my beloved HGTV.

There is a bright side to harboring the biggest, worstest (yes, I am making that a word) monster bug I’ve had to deal with in a long time. Over two weeks now people, who knew bronchitis could hang on for that long!!

Anywho, enough of my whining, like I was saying, during my time at home battling the monster bug of the year, I had great fun watching hours upon hours of HGTV. I got to rediscover old favorites like “Design on a Dime” and “Designed to Sell”.

But also discovered some new shows, that were surprisingly interesting, like “Color Splash” and “Holmes on Homes”, those gentleman could come fix up my casa anytime!

(Come on, you know those overalls are sexy)

But I digress, during my hours upon hours of HGTV viewing, I found that there seems to be a trend that even design networks are falling into, reality competition. Even the great Debbie Travis has joined the band wagon with her “From the Ground Up” series.

Since the Big Giant Head behind the HGTV network seems to be releasing more and more of these “reality competition” shows,  I seem to be one of the few viewers who really doesn’t care if the token Emotional Girl beats out the token Mean Girl. I noticed one of my new favorites, Mike Holmes, is partaking in the newest addition, “Handy All-Star”. I will probably watch it, only because I like Mike Holmes(again, it’s got to be those overalls!), and I may learn some handy tricks. But the competition part of it, I could do without. I miss the old HGTV, that gave it’s viewers more Home and Garden and less Tears and Drama.

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Coolio

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I’ve got some home related posts in the works I promise. With the onset of a particularly bad case of bronchitis and the “lazies” ,projects around the casa have been few and far between. But you have my girl scouts honor that soon there will be some actual projects that have been completed by an occupant of the yellow casa. And I don’t mean any of Annie dog’s projects.

Yes, there has been a lot of this going on with the non-dog occupants of the yellow casa. But honest, I’m working on small home improvement projects that I’m just itching to post about.

Speaking of home improvement projects, our cooler has been making very loud squealing noises. So, the sweetie climbed a ladder to see what was the matter. Upon further inspection he noticed that our cooler has a giant hole in it and happens to be leaking water on our roof. So, we are on the look out for a new cooler. For those of you who are not from an arid climate I will provide you with a definition I found on wiki:

“An evaporative cooler (also swamp cooler, desert cooler, and wet air cooler) is a device that cools air through the simple evaporation of water. Evaporative cooling differs from air conditioning by refrigeration and absorptive refrigeration, which use vapor-compression or absorption refrigeration cycles.”

Here’s a picture of the casa, you can see the very top of a large metal box on the roof. That’s our cooler that needs to be replaced because of the large leaking hole and loud squealing noises coming from said metal box.

Off to Home Depot we go! Hopefully, I can squeeze in some paint sample shopping while we are there!

On a dark and stormy night…

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On a dark and stormy night a girl, her sweetheart and their dog went on a drive and took some blurry pictures. Actually, it was a dark and stormy night, just right for a dramatic drive around town. Annie who is dog loves car rides especially when there are storms a brewin’.

Even sweetie likes our little evening drives, or in this case an evening park. New Mexico rarely gets rain, but when it happens everyone seems to freeze on the road, as New Mexicans seem to have difficulty operating a vehicle on a slightly damp road. But give us strong winds and icey roads and we’re good to go.

Here’s some blurry shots of the sky:

I had to include sweetie enjoying his evening drive. Just as Annie who is dog enjoys a good evening outing, we do as well.

But alas, the clouds have parted to reveal our beautiful New Mexico sky once again. Hopefully soon, we’ll have another dramatic stormy night to capture, with less fuzzy pictures.

My Sleeping Beauties…

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It’s a sleepy Sunday today, after church and after lunch everyone just seems to be a bit drowsy. So, we all lay down for a little nap. Even Annie dog…

It should be noted that little dogs do not enjoy their naps being interrupted for photo ops. Shortly after this photo was taken Annie dog gave me a very cold and icy stare and promptly turned her back to me. I am officially being shunned by my dog. But I am sure the shunning will end as soon as I give her a doggie cookie.

Even my sweetie is taking a nap, I have pictures of him dreaming away, but I fear the wrath of sweetie if I post those photos here. I’ll save them for blackmail later.

As for me I am lounging on the sofa watching copious amounts of HGTV, and fighting a bad bout of bronchitis. Believe me, being home all week and watching nearly non-stop HGTV has given me plenty of time to gather inspiration for my little casa. Let’s see if anything comes of it…

While I was sleeping away yesterday morning, the sweetie and Annie Dog went on estate sale-ing adventures. Here are some of the treasures they came home with:

A 1960’s version of Monopoly. Apparently, Monopoly was not a board game in the 60’s, it was Real Estate Trading Game Equipment. But it was only $3 and seems to have come with all of the pieces.

And my personal favorite, a WWII version of The Joy of Cooking. It is copywrited 1943! And was picked up for a $1! Double score!

There are no illustrations included, but the instructions are pretty well explained. The sweetie and I noticed that some of the wording was slightly different from what is used today. For instance, for one recipe, it is suggested that you use one pony of flour. And you wouldn’t use crushed pecans, you would use crushed pecan meat. It’s an interesting find, and makes a great addition to our vintage and antique cookbook collection.

Well, I’m off for now to take a nap and to dream sweet dreams of a house that cleans and remodels itself. Happy Sunday everyone!

What do flowers pray for?

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This evening I noticed my sunflowers have come to a point where their heads are too heavy for their little stems to hold them up, so they droop. But to me, they look like they are enjoying a prayerful moment with heads bowed. It got me to wondering what flowers pray for. Do they pray for the same things that we pray for? Do they pray for help in those dark times? Do they praise God in those bright and happy times? Or do they pray for more flower appropriate things like rain and less bugs? Do they hope for the day that they will be plucked and used in a beautiful arrangement? Much like we hope that God will pluck us and use us in one of His arrangements.  Or  do they find hope and peace like we  find in the Lord, when our heads seem too heavy for our stems to hold us up.

This reminds me of a verse that was a favorite of my fathers it’s got nothing to do with flowers specifically, but I find it appropriate for times when it seems that we cannot hold our heavy sunflower heads up by ourselves:

“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

Isaiah 40:31

So, just like these little sunflowers wait upon the Lord and show complete and utter dependence on God, we should do the same when life seems to make our heads too heavy for our little stems to hold us up.

So many kitchens…

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I haven’t really been doing a lot of doing recently. Actually, I’ve been doing a lot of planning and a lot of shopping, but again, not a lot of doing. So, there really aren’t any dramatic afters to show off, or any durings for that mater. But today I thought I would share some pretty pictures that inspire. I find lots of inspirational images, but rarely do they cause me to get off my blogging bootie and do. Hopefully, these will do the trick, here are some very attractive kitchens:

I LOVE yellow, therefore, I LOVE this kitchen! I really like the small appliance garage in the corner. What a great use of space.

The island in this kitchen is GINORMOUS! But, can’t you imagine preparing Thanksgiving dinner in here??

I usually don’t like galley kitchens, but this one is growing on me. It’s done up so pretty, I love love LOVE the high ceilings and lighting.

Aren’t the blue cabinets just lovely? And I don’t mean “just lovely”, in the sense that my grandmother would  say “Oh, bless her little heart!”. I mean they really are lovely. I love the hardware they used for the pulls as well.

Well, I’m off to see what projects I can mark of my to-do list!

All images courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens.

Don’t get your feathers ruffled…

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As I feather my nest, I love to see how others are feathering theirs. So, I am constantly looking through shelter mags, design blogs, and home and garden websites. There’s just a wealth of knowledge and inspiration out there. Especially when it comes to bedrooms! I’ve been thinking of  re-doing my bedroom into something that is more functional and relaxing than the mess it is at the moment. I say “re-do” what I really mean is “do” because I haven’t really done anything with my bedroom since painting it a couple years ago. I’m hoping to catch some inspiration from some of these beauties:

When you think about it, your bedroom is the first and last thing you see when you start and end your day. It should be a place that calms and relaxes, and serves as a place to escape the days stress. With that said, I’m off to make my bedroom into a place that relieves stress instead of a place that causes it! Happy feathering!

All images courtesy of Country Living.

The Salt Garden

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I know in my last post I was all gung-ho about cleaning my closet and organizing my clothes, shoes, and of course my 185, 467 accessories.  But instead, Saturday, I shopped with my mother, which is always fun! Who doesn’t enjoy spending 4 hours at Lowe’s? And I’m being sincere, I really did enjoy my 4 hours exploring the wonders of Lowe’s! Then Sunday rolled around, I woke up ready to tackle my closet and finally put an end to the ever so frustrating drama of finding that certain pair of pants or that perfect shirt. But I took at look at my nightstand and found this:

I started reading “The Salt Garden”, in January over a quick weekend trip the sweetie and I took down to Corpus Christi, Texas. A nice warm weekend at the beach, ended up being a blistering cold weekend spent indoors bundled up and wishing we were back home in our nice dry climate.  But it did give me a chance to start a good read. However, the trip wasn’t quite long enough for me to finish it. So, when we got home, I laid it on my night stand by my bed with every intention of finishing it. There it sat, from late January until Sunday when I picked it up and started  procrastinating reading. And couldn’t put it down.

It’s one of those books you buy, and think it’ll be a nice light read, but not something you’ll get into. I was mistaken, when I started reading it back in January it started out slow, which is probably why I didn’t pick it up again until this past weekend.

This Christian novel tells the story of two women in a small town that was deeply changed by a shipwreck that occurred some 80 years prior to the present time in the book. Here’s the plot, according to the authors website:

Claire O’Rourke is a San Francisco reporter recently returned to her small hometown of Harper’s Bay for a short visit, but a contrived plot device leaves her back home for good and looking for work at The Tidal Post, a local newspaper. Her path soon intersects with that of Sophia Fleming, a 70-something reclusive author whom Claire has admired since childhood. When a salt-damaged book washes ashore, some long-buried secrets are illuminated through the journal entries of Josephine Vanderook, a passenger on an ill-fated ship.

It’s got mystery, intrigue, romance, adventure, and more importantly, it speaks of the wonders of God. And how His hand is in all that we do, even the things that don’t make sense to us at the time.

If you would like more information about this author or other works by Ms. Martinusen please visit her site.

The comments above are purely mine, and mine alone, I have not been paid to promote the author or any of her works. I enjoyed reading this book, and simply wanted to share the joy!