I was a wannabe

Have you ever seen something that just really captured your eye, but it's totally not you. Only, you loved it so much you went ahead and tried to make it you? And then it still wasn't?

Like, you found a dress on clearance that you had to have, but it hung in your closet for three years until you gave it to Goodwill because it just wasn't you.

That's kind of what I've been doing lately. I have loved reading some of the decorating blogs I'm hooked on, like Nesting Place, and Lola B's, and Our Suburban Cottage. They all have a very airy, ethereal quality to them and I fell in love with that.

So I tried to convince myself that I was robin's egg blue and white, that I was shabby chic and tassles and trim.

Only, you know what? I'm not robin's egg blue. I'm black and red and yellow. If I look around my house, I see black and red and yellow. I'm not tassles and trim. I'm clean lines and stripes and I'm a little scrapbooky.

So I'm going to stop going against my own grain, or at least dreaming that my grain was robin's egg blue, and I'm going to embrace the black and red and yellow! It's me. And I'm OK with it.

- H

When I'm in a bad mood, Target cheers me up

I don't know what it is about being in a Target store that makes me feel good, but it does. Maybe they pipe something into the air circulator that goes straight to my brain and works on my mood?

I was feeling exceptionally crapbag this morning so I entered my nearest Target and wandered around until I felt better.

On the way, I noticed their genius designers have stocked the shelves with more cute things.

Like these sandals. I was in Dillards a few weeks ago and they had an entire display of sandals with beading on them, at much higher prices than these. Like hundreds of dollars higher. So I bought these at Target and I'm happy. I'm not one to scrimp on shoes, but in this economy... hah! I just had to say that. It seems like the thing to say these days, in this economy.


They are also carrying sandals by Miss Trish of Capri, at a super great Target price. I believe you can't have too many pairs of sandals. Well, I believe you can't have too many pairs of shoes in general, but sandals are so cheap and small and take up almost no space, so why not buy what you like?
And then this pillow? Birds are everywhere. Maybe too many places, but who am I to try to swim upstream against the current of bird motifs everywhere? This pillow is also employing the super trendy, super cute robin's egg blue/chocolate brown theme also found everywhere you look. So for $24.99 you can kill two birds with one pillow. I didn't buy this because I don't have a new house to decorate with a new theme, but I would have if I did.

So if you need a little pick-me-up, and you're as ticked off as I am about the extremely cold weather (high of 38 today), maybe Target would have something to cheer you up, too.

I'm dreaming of white trim

My house has dark trim. The woodwork, the windows, the floors, they're all wood. Medium to dark stained wood. And I want white. White. Clean, bright, light, white.

I see pictures in magazines and catalogs of rooms with white windows and moldings, and I salivate. There is no way on God's green earth I could take a paintbrush to all of the doors and trim in this house. It would be wrong, I know that. It's just another reason I need to get out of this house.

The darkness, it falls down on my head sometimes. Apparently I'm pretty sensitive to my surroundings, because I think about it all the time.

So this is what I want. This is the type of environment I'd like to create in my own home. Maybe someday...

From HGTV's design gallery ~ designer Loretta Willis ~ love the box beam ceiling! Not so much the country decor, but you get the idea - creamy walls and white trim.

From the Wisteria website, I love love love the windows in this kitchen!


These last three pics are from the Pottery Barn website. I love the Marcel mini-sofa! And to be fair, my bathrooms are very light and bright, thanks to remodeling done by moi and my husband.







By the way, my dining room walls are orange [photo to come later today when I can find one]. I've loved the color for five years, but the other day I was sitting on the floor matching socks {don't ask why I do it in the dining room} when I looked up and thought GASP! These walls are way too hot! I need a new color in here, I can't live with this anymore. So if anyone has any suggestions on a wall color for my dining room, shoot them my way. I can use all the help I can get.

Today is Friday, which means Julia over at Hooked on Houses is wondering what you're hooked on? Check it out.

P.S. One edit - I actually LOVE black furniture and black cabinets. My king-sized bed is black. My sofas are black with ticking piping. Love, love, love black! But it needs white to balance it, not dark wood. Thanky.

STUNG

Alas, I did not spend the day on the couch with warm banana bread. It sounded like a great idea at the time, but then things changed.

The sun came out.

So I loaded the back of the pickup truck with mulch from the garden store and proceeded to break my back spreading it in the front beds. It looks so nice, I am so glad I didn't waste the day lounging around. Plus, it's something that the house needs in order to sell it {and in order for me to live here happily ever after}.

As my husband and baby napped, and my neighbor took Cooper to the park down the street with his kids, I pitchforked load after load of mulch into my wheelbarrow and spread it.

It was all going so well. And then I got close to my weeping cherry tree, which is in full bloom right now {JOY} and it was covered with little happy honey bees! So cute, buzzing around in their excitement about the first flowers of spring. It was so nice to see them, seeing as how bees are in a bad place right now and they're disappearing before our very eyes.

One of the sweet little endangered buggers hitched a ride on me back to the pickup truck. He must have hung out on my hair or my shoulder until he decided to climb into the back of my t-shirt. Just as I was making a sharp right turn to pitch my load into the wheelbarrow. This upset him. And he stung me.

There is now one less honeybee in the world. Boo-hoo {not being sarcastic if you can believe it}.

Good God, that hurts! I had no idea I had a bee in my shirt, I never heard or felt a buzz at all.

I will have so much more sympathy for people who get stung from now on. It's been since 'Nam that I've gone without a sting. I was beginning to think it was a myth.

It's no myth.

But on the bright side, my yard looks phenomenal, which makes my soul happy too! Happy Spring! Happy Day! Yay!

Comfort food saves the world

I am making banana bread. If you read my post from yesterday, you know that I just need to stay home this weekend and do homey things and make comfort food.

So I'm staying home today and baking banana bread. My internet friend Melissa gave me this recipe a couple of years ago, and it is so good I will never make another version of banana bread again.

Seriously, it is that good.

It's so good I think Presidents and leaders of countries should have it in their secret stash, so that when international crises occur (and you know they will), they can get on the Red Phone and say "quick, I need a fresh loaf of banana bread, hot out of the oven with butter!" And once the Enemy tasted the yummy goodness, all warm and soft and buttery, they would change their mind and not be the Enemy anymore.

So I'll share it with you, because I like you guys.

Melissa's Unbelievably Good Banana Bread Recipe {I picked the name}

1 stick butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup mashed very ripe bananas
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour

Preheat oven to 350. Butter or spray a loaf pan.

With electric mixer {I actually use my hand blender thingy, I use it for all cooking}, add each ingredient in the order I listed them, mixing well.

Pour mix into pan, and bake for 75 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

You can add 1/2 cup of nuts if you like, but I don't like anything crunchy in foods that are not supposed to be crunchy.

Remove it from the oven, get it out of the pan when it's safe to do so, spread a bunch of butter on the first slice and sink into your couch for a long nap.

I wonder where I can get this bed?

I don't really need a new bed. I have a lovely black king-sized bed in my master bedroom and I sleep on an antique full-sized bed downstairs.

But I recently came across this headboard in the 2009 Country Living House of the Year and I'm in love! I need to know where it came from, or how to buy one. Not that I'm going to buy one.



I just want to know how I could go about doing that if I ever am in need of a new bed again.

I found the resource guides for the house, but they don't include the bedroom!

Anyone know where this lovely piece came from?

The garden, she is calling me

{in honor of Saint Patrick's Day, which is about beer but I'm choosing it to be about things green}

Ahh, spring. Much of this season leaves me melancholy. But not my garden. No, she is my best friend starting yesterday, and we will be BFFs until November.

This happens every year. We break up, we reconcile, we break up...you get the idea.

In case you didn't know what a gigantic geek I am, I will let you in on a little secret. I have a Master Gardener certificate. I took the class at the cooperative extension.

Yes, I am that big of a garden geek.

The funny thing is, there's a lot about plants and growing that I don't know! If it's a subject I don't care about, like for instance, vegetables, then I push it out of my mind.

But if it's flowers? Oh, yeah. Then I'm in.

I've moved a lot in my adult life. I moved ten times in ten years until I bought my current house, where I've been for six years! SIX! That's like eternity in Heather Time. My point in talking about all those moves is to tell you that each time I moved into a new house, decorating the yard was my top priority. And each time my neighbors would watch me quizically and eventually say something like "huh, you really like to garden, don't you?" And then they's inevitably get around to what they really wanted to know. "Um, do you know when it's ok to cut back my mums?"

Mums seem to mystify most home gardeners. I'll tell you why later.

I'm here to share a tidbit of garden information for you. This is for people gardening in zones 5-7. If you're in a hotter climate, I have no clue. If you're colder than this, add an extra month to this time frame.

When you start to see the first green buds of leaves sprouting at the base of your mum plants, you can cut back all of the dead branches from last fall and rake them out very carefully. With spring soils thawing and rains soaking the dirt, they can very easily lift up altogether, and that would not be good.

So be careful, but go ahead and hack away at the deadness now.

Then I usually tamp down the earth around the rootball a little, just for good measure. Not too much, don't want to compact the soil or anything.

Then I move on to all the other plants like mums that need this same treatment. Asters, daisies, Russian sage, salvia, yarrow, hostas. The exception? Lavender. Don't cut the branches of your lavender yet, even if it looks dead as dead can be. It takes a while for lavender to come back and even the most dead branches will surprise you in a few months.

So that's the mum story. Here's the other secret to mums...

They do better when they're planted in the spring. You can buy the most teensy tiny mum for 99 cents now, and by fall it will not only be big and beautiful and bloom like the dickens, it will actually live through the winter!

It drives me nuts, how garden stores only set out mums in full bloom in the fall. That's fine, they're pretty and all. But they don't do well when they're planted in the fall. They don't like to overwinter with wet feet (i.e. a damp, snowy spot that doesn't drain well) and they're liable to die on you.

So if you plant them now, you can save yourself a bunch of money and more work next year. Just a little tip about mums.

Wow. I am a gigantic geek, aren't I?

My new piece of folk art

Hah! Actually, this is folk art. And it was sidewalk garbage.

Some neighbors down the street were clearing out their old garage and putting a bunch of antique furniture on the curb for recycling-and-or-garbage day tomorrow. For once {ironically, considering my confession for this Sunday}, I was the one to dumpster dive. Well, I didn't dive.

But I did pick up this awesome antique pedal car! I'm so excited about it. Neil is going to clean up the rust and get new wheels for it, and I'm going to display it on top of some tall piece of furniture where my hoodlums can't break it. They've already taken turns "riding" in it on the driveway. Gross.

I love folk art. It'll join my other favorites pieces in the house.

The PEACHES sign that is truly double-sided and really did hang from a fruit stand in the country.

The TomBoy grocery store mascot girl. I love her.

And the Rooms for Men sign that I bought the first year I lived in Saint Louis at an antique store. Also double-sided, also the real deal.

I hope the pedal car takes an iconic place in my home like my other finds. We shall see!

{p.s. I also took six big thick ornate table legs, sans table top. I'm going to paint them black and put a big slab o' somethin on top for my new craft room! So excited.}

The last seven days

I recently read an article making fun of blogs that just post their daily schedules and whatnot. Kind of like mine. So, hey. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em right?

This is what I've done in the last seven days. In no particular order.

Used a dangerous tool to pull up all of the old asbestos tiles in my basement laundry area. Shhh, don't tell the guvment.
Cut and laid carpet tiles in laundry area of basement.
Sat on an airplane next to a man who hogged my area with his legs spread and spit dip juice into a clear bottle the whole way.
Consoled a friend who was having drama with another woman who used to be her friend. Listened to another friend's wackadoo story about her married boyfriend's inlaws taking his family to Hawaii without him. Hello, soap opera, it's me, Heather.
Got pinkeye.
Treated pinkeye with antibiotic drops.
Missed an appointment with my therapist (crap).
Heard from an ex-cop. Gulp.
Heard from an attorney.
Flew home from Dallas.
Flew to Chicago. And home. On Southwest.
Stayed at the W hotel.
Met my friend Susan in Dallas for a drink to catch up (so nice).
Lamented the worsening condition of my elbow situation.
Freaked out about my son's loss of hearing.
Made an appointment for my son to have his hearing checked on Friday.
Picked up my mom at the airport (yay).
Let my two year old sleep with me.
Regretted the decision to let my two-year-old sleep with me when he hogged the bed and kicked off the covers all night.
Ordered coolio necklaces from Anthropologie.
Returned yucky necklaces to Anthropologie.
Turned off the furnace in preparation for spraypainting.
Spray painted the basement wetsink cabinet cream.
Worried about the house exploding when I turned the furnace back on. It didn't.
Bought a new suitcase after the handle broke on my other one. Which was also fairly new.
Went to TJMaxx and found tons of cute things from Juicy and Lucky that I didn't buy.
Painted the stairwell going upstairs.
Lamented the current state of the economy and wailed "oh my God, what are we all doing to do?!" and then relaxed about it because what the hell there's nothing I can do but keep on keeping on.
Etched and primed four doors upstairs - bathroom, two bedrooms, and two closets. Wait, that's five doors.
Wrote this post along with a bunch of others.
Inspected my navel too much.
Hugged and kissed my kids a lot. But not enough. It's never enough!

Oh look, shiny balls!

I'm sitting at the airport in Dallas, one of the best spots on earth to watch people. There's a true eclectic mix of cultures, races, and cowboy boots. You've got urban cowboy, rural cowboy, Spanish cowboy, and garish cowboy. I love it.

This brings me to my new love (yes, these stories are actually related, by way of cowboy boots). I am in love with shiny big statement necklaces. I'll tell the story.

Last week I made my morning treck to Bread Company, where I spotted a seriously chic woman. Let me break down her outfit for you so you can see what I'm a talkin about.

The first thing that caught my eye were her kickass cowboy boots. Seriously, they were awesome. Low heel, rounded toe, worn like she actually rides horses or something but you know she doesn't, she owns a boutique. She had on cool jeans, and a light brown fitted wool blazer. Wedged bob haircut, like 95% of the female population right now.

So no big deal, right? Cute, cute, all cute but nothing stunning (except I did lust after those boots a little too much, but whatever).

Then she turned around.

And I was breathless. She had on a white fitted t-shirt under her cutie pie blazer and the most stunning yellow big beaded necklace. So you see??!! That necklace was the clincher! Literally. It made everything else look so perfect I could have puked if I didn't have a fear of puking.

I am in love with big shiny balls. I mean big shiny necklaces. Like this one.
Or this one.
I ordered both of them from Anthropologie. That way, I can wear a white t-shirt and jeans every day (yay!) and if I stick one of these babies on, I'll totally look pulled together.

Love the shiny balls.

Also love the website Sproost that my friend Sara tipped me off to. It's a site that shows you pictures of different rooms and asks your opinion. When you're done, it tells you what your decorating style is. It was totally accurate for me, it said I was French Eclectic mixed with something else (cottage chic maybe?) Wow, it's been five minutes since I took the quiz and I already forgot. Basically, I'm a mixture of Pottery Barn, Ballard Designs, and Wisteria. Take the quiz, see what you think.

I am lusting after craft rooms

I should probably not have started reading all of these great creative blogs and spending much too much time browsing Etsy. Now, I have visions of sugarcraftrooms dancing through my head. I know exactly how I'd like it to be, too.

I want a room with some windows. It can be in a basement as long as the windows aren't those skinny little things near the ceiling. I need light, I'm like a gremlin.

I want a big square farm table in the middle. Big thick chunky legs and a big solid top that looks like it's been worn smooth from years of pie rolling or something. It would be great if the top were natural wood and the legs were a funky color like turquoise. This one is from English Living, an awesome store that has beautiful furniture from England and Europe.



Around the sides of the room I could see built-in cabinets with counter tops {haven't quite figured out the counter tops material yet} and I'd like my sewing machine to be built in to a corner counter top/cabinet thingie. That way I can sit up high and not kill my neck when I sew, and my projects would have plenty of room to spread out.

This (from HGTV again) is a great example of a craft room that organizes fabrics by color ~ brilliant! But I don't like the way they've used a tiny sewing table in the midst of all the storage cubbies. It makes me kind of crazy in the head to see all that exposed stuff.


This picture is by wookiemouse from HGTV's Rate My Space. The center island isn't what I'd go for, but I love the built-ins.

This is from Midwest Living. They call this room a family studio because it includes laundry, homework areas, and hobby space! That's kind of cool. It would really have to be a big room to include all of that.I'd also like a gigantic cork board with a cool frame, like this one from Ballard Designs.

I'd want to have white windows and white trim, and I think I'd paint the walls a vibrant color, like goldenrod or strawberry or something. Come to think of it, I've been lusting after an overstuffed grass green couch with cobalt blue walls, maybe they could be part of my new craft heaven?

This is my dream. It could happen! I've never made a crafting room a priority before, but I have a feeling that's a-gonna change soon.

Julia started my craft-room dreaming at Hooked on Houses today. What are you hooked on?

On a completely different note, my mother-in-law had some emergency surgery today for a blown-out hernia repair, so things are a little nuthouse in the already nutty house. We're approaching tinderbox conditions, which isn't good. Let's all hope nobody lights a match.

Why I haven't hung my new frames

I just read Stephanie's comment on my last post. She said "hang your frames or I'll think you ordered them just to be nice."

That got a good laugh out of me. You know why? Because hanging anything in this house is an enormous ordeal. And you know what else? This just happened to me. Well, it happened to my coat rack in the closet.




I was sitting at my desk when I heard a loud ruckus, and lo and behold the coatrack my husband hung without the special tool had fallen down.



See, this house was built before The Big One. Or wait, before The Second Big One, WWII. She was built in the thirties. You know what they didn't have back then? They didn't have drywall.

Nails really like drywall. Those cute little picture hanging hooks that you nail in on an angle? They love drywall. You know what those things don't like? They don't like plaster over concrete.

That's what we have. We have plaster walls, and the exterior ones are just fused straight onto the concrete that's then somehow attached to the brick exterior. Seriously, to hang a simple picture in this house, I had to buy a hammer drill.

A hammer drill is awesome. It hammers while you're drilling. The only drawback is you need special fasteners because it creates this HUGE HOLE in your wall. It doesn't work with nails.

So I'm just procrastinating on going to Lowe's to buy the special fasteners and digging out the hammer drill from the basement. When I do both of those things, then I'll hang my new pictures.


Oh, wait. I won't hang the red and blue frame because I contacted a photographer in Florida and I'm going to have the boys' pictures taken on the beach when we're there in March! I'm so excited. I really liked her work, and I can just see an adorable beach shot of two cutie pie brothers in the red and blue frame. So that one is still sitting on the desk, waiting for its pitcher to come home.

Holy shiny sterling silver, Batman!

Seriously, Sara needs to be commended for posting the most fabulous silver tarnish removal tip, ever. I read it and thought "ok, yeah, I'll try it."

In an effort to completely procrastinate from my online studying and testing, I dug out some old silver jewelry that I haven't been wearing because A) I don't really wear jewelry, and 2) it was tarnished. And I hate using those tarnish cloths because then my fingers get tarnished.

So here's what you do:

• Get a ceramic bowl, and line it with aluminum foil.


• Get out your old tarnished silver jewelry, and place in bowl.


• Sprinkle a tablespoon of baking soda over the jewelry.


• Boil a cup or two of water (I used a pyrex measuring cup for this) and pour it over the jewelry.

The baking soda/water/aluminum/silver combination literally started fizzing. I carefully plucked each piece out with my tongs, and they were clean!

I could probably do the rings one more time, but they're totally wearable and they won't leave smudges on my hands now.

I'm not a good photographer, but here's a picture of the jewelry after. I wish I had the brain to take one before. It would have been helpful in showing you how tarnished this stuff was. After pictures tend to have more impact when you see before pictures. Duh, Heather.

The opal studded ring, in particular, looks awesome. It has a rough texture surface and these little nibs that would all develop tarnish instantly. Now, it's shining!

Thanks, Sara!

Frames

I ordered some custom picture frames from Stephanie at Mango Tree. [I updated the link since I originally posted this.] They came Monday (thanks, Stephanie!) and they're gorgeous. I have a picture I practically ripped out of its ugly brown frame for one of them (temporarily) and the other one I'm going to have a print made up by our photographer, so I'll take a picture of it in a few weeks when it's hung.

Sooooo pretty! I love pretty things like this. They make me cheery happy, like polka dots are supposed to do. I'm going to hang it on the wall above this chair.

I kicked Binnie out of her seat to take the pics. She was already hating on me because I ordered her a new dog sweater from Etsy. She looks cute in it, though! Hateful, but cute.

APB: Blue blankie is still missing

This is just really weird, the case of the missing Blue Blankie.

Cooper has two favorite blankies. They're aptly named Blue Blankie and Stripe Blankie. I was actually smart and bought two copies of Stripe Blankie because he came from Target. But Blue Blankie was a baby gift from Cooper's aunt and I didn't buy a duplicate. I'm an idiot.

Cooper's routine is fairly set. He sleeps with both Blue and Stripe Blankies every night. He comes down with them in the morning, they lay on the couch unti he comes home from school, and then they go up to bed with him at night again.

Blue Blankie is the favorite. Blue Blankie is the one he needs when he has a fit of crying. This is Blue Blankie going for a belly ride on the skateboard a few weeks ago.

On Wednesday night, Blue Blankie went to bed as usual. Thursday morning, Cooper came downstairs with both Blue Blankie and Stripe Blankie. And by Thursday night, Blue was missing and Stripe was still here. It's soooo strange. We've looked high and lo and no sign of him. It's as if he ran away from home or something.

Cooper is slowly getting over it. I told him Blue Blankie is hiding and I hope he decides to come out soon!

I cleaned my office from top to bottom today. The desk is no more a wasteland. The desk is a wonderland. The closet is even clear to walk in (previously unheard of) and most of the extra computer cables from laptops-of-yore are gone in the garbage! Yay!

This is the "before" picture.

While cleaning, I came across the two sweetest little slips of paper I've ever received.

My Grandpa Gene was widowed about six years ago. My Grandma died of ovarian cancer and left him heartbroken. He passed away in his easy chair eighteen months later of a broken heart.

One weekend, my husband and I drove to Bull Shoals lake to fish. I caught a fish! I think it was a bass. I'll try to scan a pitcher fer ya. Anyhoo, I sent a copy to my Grandpa, I thought he'd get a kick out of it. [This pitcher is actually of a drum I caught on a different trip, but you get the idea.]

About a month later, I got these two slips of paper in the mail. Actually, one slip was in an envelope. That envelope was inside another envelope and the second slip was with it.

I remember reading these and getting kinda teary. The paper he wrote on was that thin kind that comes in a cube and sits on your desk or in their case, kitchen counter. So funny! He wanted to send a nice note to let me know he was still thinking about us grandkids despite Grandma being gone. He wasn't much for talking.

Ah, well. That's my trip down memory lane.

Some weekend photo highlights, and babies don't make good craftsmen

The stairwell is now finished! Can you believe it?! My husband and I agreed that this was the most quick-to-complete project he's ever done on the house. He never lost steam, didn't get distracted by other projects, didn't stop when it was 90% done. He stuck it out and it's done down to the trimwork and the nailholes filled! I love it.

And here's a photo riddle...do you know what this means?

That means I finished nine loads of laundry and put them all away yesterday!!! This is like some sort of Festivus miracle because usually laundry stays on the dining room table (my folding table) until the following week when I just dress the kids right off the table and carry on the vicious cycle.

But not this week! No, this week the clothing is all in its appropriate drawer. Dangit, that's going to make my life harder when I have to dress my monkeys.

Here's another photo riddle...do you know what this means?


This means that you should never leave a toddler unattended while you put away your nine loads of laundry. Griffin was real quiet for a time there, so I went searching for him. Oh, I found him alright. Luckily the toilet in my bathroom is tall and the wastebasket didn't actually touch water. Otherwise I'd have thrown it out, I think.

A lesson to all would-be do-it-yerselfers: BABIES DO NOT MAKE GOOD CARPENTERS. They also don't make good apprentices in painting or changing light bulbs. In all honesty, they're usually in the way if you're doing any sort of project that requires concentration or both hands.

But they're cute, aren't they?