Words to Live By

If the shoe fits - buy them in every color.

Take life with a pinch of salt.... A wedge of lime, and a shot of tequila.

In need of a support group? - Cocktail hour with the girls!
(or blog)

Go on the 30 day diet. (I'm on it and so far I've lost 15 days).

When life gets you down - just put on your big girl panties and deal with it.

I know I'm in my own little world, but it's ok. They know me here.

Lead me not into temptation, I can find it myself.

Don't get your knickers in a knot; it solves nothing and makes you walk funny.

Remember yesterday, dream about tomorrow, but live for today.

*(picture from the Ferragamo Museum in Florence Italy)

Candy Hearts

Candy Hearts anyone?
I think these are so cool - they bring back such good memories of being a kid.

Valentine's Day was an "important" holiday as it probably still is to any child. Remember the Valentines Day parties at school - making that special mailbox for all of the Valentines, getting all those Valentines, and then feasting on candy and cake instead of school work - it was the best day of the year!

New Curtains

Here is what our new living room curtains will look like. I love the contrast of the black with the "Pale Bamboo" paint. We have some black furniture that the curtains will compliment so well. As I mentioned before, one reason I chose the paint color is because it looks so great with black and red. I have not had new curtains in 20 years so I'm sure excited to have something new and different.
The dining room is done and the living room almost finished. We stripped off wallpaper tonight on the big wall in the hallway. Things are moving right along!

Creative Friends, Gypsies and Fortunes!

Last night was another fun night with my creative friends. There were some great "crystal" creations but the night itself was so wonderful, it almost made us forget about the crafting inspirations.
The hostess, Peggy, asked us all to dress-up for the event as a Bohemian or Gypsy! Arriving "dressed" for the party was a new twist and fun, but at one point Peggy disappeared and came back as "Madame Margaret", sat down with her crystal ball and candles, and the fun began. She requested all our full given birth names and birthdays beforehand and did research on us all and shared the results like a fortune teller would have. It was such fun! Of course I forgot my camera! Darn - what's wrong with me!?

The first part of our analysis was a result of our given name, the amount of numbers in it, the total of the numbers, and the number of consonants and vowels.

My number was 11 (the highest)- the first of the master of numbers associated with idealistic concepts and spiritual issues. I have an inborn inner strength, with a very strong intuition, and a sense deeply concerned and supportive of art, music and beauty in any form. It stated I would make an excellent teacher, social worker or advisor and, strangely enough, I was a social worker at one time right out of college! On the negative side, I tend to want to spread the illumination of my knowledge to others irrespective of their desire or need.

My soul urge number is 3 - which has a strong desire for personal expression, with an upbeat attitude and a good mental and emotional balance. (On the negative side I am too easy going and too optimistic).

Next was our birthday sign and I am a Leo. I think we all know the general characteristics associated with zodiac signs, but in a nutshell, I'm masterful, like authority, aspire towards an ideal, like to give advice, I'm honest, frank, loyal, open and sincere. On the negative, I'm proud, vain and arrogant!

It was amazing how many of the traits were really right on for a lot of us.
A truly fun evening! No one will be able to "top" that evening.

Not the Way I Planned it!

The only good news today was I could see our paint in the daylight before leaving for work and thought it looked great.....I was happy the sun was shinning!

I got to work and was bomb-barded and got stuck with a project - my boss was traveling and emailed me to get something done which will need to be presented to the Chairman when he is back in the office on Friday. I'm still so new I don't understand the business but am quickly learning my boss delegates a lot to me (which is over my head more times than not).
Thankfully I found someone to help me with the project but it meant putting other work aside. I finished the project at 4:30 PM and then needed to get some other work done - I got what I "had" to get done by 6 PM. All this knowing I had a basketball game to go to.
I could not go :-(

I "won" the tickets for tonight and was really looking forward to going but called George at 4:45 PM to say I could not go, so he asked Brian to go. I know they will have a great night, with incredible seats at a good game, but it is not the way it was supposed to be!
So here I sit alone, eating my scrambled eggs for dinner, with a bottle of beer! I think I deserve this cold refreshing beer!
I work my butt off at this job and it was so annoying the way the day turned out.
Thanks for letting me vent. Thanks for listening!!!

Paint in Daylight

I was able to get a quick pic before work. A good part of the walls are done and George put one coat on the mantle just to show the contrast - I love it! I can't wait till it's done. Doing all the trim and windows will be time consuming but it will look so great when it's done.
We're going to a basketball game tonight, and my Creative Friends party is tomorrow night so I won't be checking in for a couple of days.
Hope you all have a wonderful couple of days.....anxious to catch up with you all on Friday.
The sun is shinning here - life is good!

Creative Friends Challenge

Our "Creatives Friends" group is gathering Thursday night and our challenge since our last get together is to create with a crystal.
My creation is a glizty glittered cone decoration!

One of my personal "rules" in these challenges is not to buy any thing. I created the cone out of an old manilla file folder, covered it with glue and glitter added silver ribbons as the "holder" and added some glittery mesh I gathered, and ribbon, finished off with an old barrete, and suspended my crystal from the bottom! I added some dried roses and my creation is complete!


George did some painting after work today and I love the color. I could not capture any pictures with the bad light but maybe before I leave for work tomorrow.

Finally Getting Around to Painting

Well, the upside of being just the 2 of us again is we are able to tackle a project we have been putting off. We live in a split level and the main level of the house is in dire need of painting - it's been years!
We finally decided on a color - of course it was the color I chose a week ago and both George and Katie nixed it and chose other colors. George likes Home Depot and he went there to get paint samples - I think it is pretty cool that you can get inexpensive samples - a great test in my opinion. Anyway, the colors they chose (a gray and taupe) just didn't do it. After the sample paint went on we just kept looking at the choices with questioning looks, so he decided to go back and get one more sample - the first color I originally liked! The second it went on the wall we both looked at each other and said yes!

(it is the color on the bottom with some green in it)

Now, why didn't they trust me before? One reason I like the color is I think it goes with our furnishings - we have a lot of wood painted black and a lot of red in the upholstery. When we had just the taupe and gray samples painted on we kept bringing furniture over etc. and nothing seemed to look right. It's that tone of green that brings it all together.

As I said it has been a while since we've painted as you can see by my dated stenciling, which I hate to paint over but, it is dated, and it is time to move on.


We got most of the furniture, paintings, dishes, etc. out today. Being a split level unfortunately all the rooms kind of connect together without defined spaces. I think we are going to paint the main hall wall and connecting upstairs hall-way a complimenting color - what color, I don't know - that decision will come another day!

Escape to the Movies

I know we are all overwhelmed by the tragedy in Haiti - the haunting images and stories make us feel helpless and thankful for the wonderful and safe lives we have. I feel the need to try to escape reality for the moment to get recharged and what better way than with a good movie (or at least thinking about a good movie). Fantasy can be an elixir.

The Golden Globes are tomorrow night which means the Academy Awards will be coming up shortly too. I always try to see a few movies at this time each year that are nominated. I really have not heard much hype this year about nominations but here are a couple of movies I would really like to see (in no particular order) -
Crazy Heart, Up in the Air, The Young Victoria and Invictus

Over the last couple of weeks Katie and I went to the movies and we saw, It's Complicated (which I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend), Leap Year, and The Blind Side, otherwise my movie watching has been pretty lacking.

What are some of the movies you've seen or recommend?

Missing my Girl

Kind of sad today - my Katie left for the semester. She won't be home again until the middle of May. Things just feel empty or vacant at the moment. I know it will pass quickly.

The two of us went to the movies last night and saw a sweet movie, Leap Year, and then today I took the morning off to spend with her. I finished her laundry, we all went out to breakfast and spent the last hour together before George drove her to the airport and I left for work.
I miss my baby.

Why Did I Wait so Long?

(that's me, bottom row, 3rd from the right in the hot pink jacket with the sunglasses)

Why did I wait so long????
I had the best time skiing! I'm so glad I went - it was so much fun and brought back a flood of incredible memories.

I do know why I waited so long - I never had anyone to ski with! When George and I started dating he tried it and hated it. That was the end of it for me.
When my company announced they were starting an annual ski trip, I signed up. I was hesitant about about it but my daughter said she would like to try it and her boyfriend was going to be here at the time of the trip and he wanted to go too since he is a snow-boarder. I'm so thankful and know that if were not for Katie and Corey, I probably would not have gone.

It was a cold but beautiful day -15 degrees and windy, just all part of the experience!
As it turned out, Katie took a lesson and did not like it at all and thought it was really hard and something she did not think she'd ever be able to do. I was secretly disappointed. Oh well, she was glad however that she went and was happy that Corey and I had such a good time. She did say she would try snowboarding and would consider going next year - yeah!
Believe it or not, I was not that sore either. I was thinking I would be so sore I would not be able to move, however just the backs of my legs were tight, and of course where my boots hit my lower shins.

We did not bring a camera cause we were all scared we would fall and ruin our cameras so sorry to disappoint with no pictures!

I can't wait for next year!

Call me Crazy

Call me crazy but I'm going skiing! I have not skied in 30 years but I'm going Saturday! I'm so excited - nervous but excited.

At work they are trying to start a ski club. I decided to sign up. I've wanted to ski again for SO long and I figured what am I waiting for, so I'm doing it. On one hand I'm thinking I'm 53 years old I must be nuts, but why shouldn't I give it a go?

Being in Pennsylvania the skiing is not great - the Pocono Mountains are disappointing compared to New England (where I used to ski all the time) or out west, however for my purposes it will do just fine.
Can you see me grinning???

My Tree Skirt

I am inspired by my friend Tommye at I'd rather be stitching. Tommye blogged about the lovely tree skirt she made and the great process and memories which brought it all together. Stop by Tommye's blog and see her beautiful stitching on her lovely tree skirt.

After putting away my decorations yesterday I got nostalgic and I've decided to share my own tree skit with you. I got the best compliment a couple of weeks ago when my daughter asked me if I would hook one for her one day for when she has her own place or gets married!


(click on the picture for a better view of the entire rug)

Over 10 years ago I decided after running out of wall space and floor space in my small house that I should hook a tree skirt. What an undertaking it was and I have to laugh and say since completing it I went in the totally opposite direction and only hook small things like ornaments and pillows!

My creation and pattern came together easily with thoughts of Christmas and seasonal objects dancing in my head. The year of blood, sweat and tears which followed came with my level of frustration and much wasted time and lots and lots of hooking. I spent a lot of time obsessing over a decision on a background color. Nothing seemed to work and I realized my problem was focusing on using traditional colors. Once I could get beyond that concept something clicked. I chose a shade of red, almost a fuchsia, that I think ended up looking so wonderful.





The background of the rug, quite an arduous task due to the size of the rug, could have been very tedious, however it turned into a little creative magic and I actually had a tremendous amount of fun hooking the background. The background was a combination of 4 different textures of wool. With the help of my children we all drew different designs throughout the background to make it more fun for me to hook. If you look closely at it you can see these designs.
I would hook these drawn-in designs and then go back and hook around them combining the other textures of wool. I also decided to make it “snowing” throughout the rug adding white dots for my snow flakes making the background really come alive. I love the background – it’s my favorite part of the rug!
I completed the rug in 2000, and it is 43 x 46 inches.

Post Holiday

I love the after holiday bargains. I did a little shopping the last couple of days and one of my purchases were kitchen glasses from Pier 1. I love that store! We really needed glasses and I saw these glasses marked down from $7 each to under $2 each so I grabbed them. I love the colors of the glass with the amber and blue shadding. The glass is thick and they are beautifully crafted and they are nice and tall too. I was happy and felt good about this purchase. I also got a wonderful citrus candle that was a bargain too.

Besides some good shopping I put away all the Christmas decorations today - I hate that chore so it was nice to have the shopping as a reward.
Another reward was a large package of chocolates!

Just when we've survived the cookie avalanche, we were given a large container of chocolates yesterday! I wish I could share these with you all!
:-)