Not Necessarily Blooming

Today I was pondering the messiness of my house, how to weed through the crap, when it dawned on me for a very long time I have not been blooming where I'm planted. I've kind of been spreading crap across my universe much like weeds in a flowerbed.

That thought, that I was the weed instead of the flower in my world, well, it woke me up. I have been thinking a lot recently about changes that need to be made to make the home life better, the bank account more balanced, my body for that matter more balanced and thanks to the on set of perimenupause, something has to be done to be sure that I do not allow the crazy to wrap it's arms around me too tightly. Lately I have felt that a dive into complete and total crazy was no farther away than to step through a doorway.

I guess knowing that the crazy is right there ringing the doorbell is a good thing but with this whole perimenupause thing it comes over me like a rogue wave. One moment I'm calm, doing something completely normal and the next thing I know, I'm in the fetal position in the middle of the living room floor sobbing like there's no tomorrow. I've been having a lot of days where I just want to stick my head in the oven and call it good.

So that's where I've been, how's things in all y'all's worlds?

A R.O.A.K.

The other day I came home from schlepping people here and there and what did I see but a package on my doorstep. I hadn't ordered anything that I could recall, and then I recognised the return address on the package and wondered what in the world this stitching friend had sent me. I opened the package to find what you see pictured below:

I so heart the pink skull and crossbones. The chart is By the Bay's Santa at the Seashore, there's a bright skull and crossbones notebook for making lists of all those projects I never seem to finish and some Sugar & Cream cotton for knitting some handy dandy warshrags. Thank you so much Jeanne! With all you have going on in your life, to think of me, well it just left me verklempt.

Speaking of projects, I did finally manage to finish something:

A Haunting Mermaid

Carriage House Samplings

36ct Flax(I think)

DMC

I have no idea why it took me so long to get around to stitching this piece. I love her and the colors are perfect to hang with my Mairmaid's Song and Sirens of the Sea(also CHS). I will admit to one very sad moment, I had twittered that the piece was finished, only to realize a few hours later that I had forgotten all the background stitching on the three bands. I was devastated. I was so ready to have this DONE. But I finally sucked it up, did a stitching marathon, got to love Peter Jackson for making the Lord of the Rings trilogy the single longest movie marathon in the history of the world.

Remember that pile of letters from a previous post? Well this is what I did with them:

I was inspired by this post:

things I've made: Redecorating my old room

I have always loved the saying, "Always Kiss Me Goodnight" and had planned to buy a sign to hang over the closet door but then I saw Floresita's Feliz and thought what a neat idea. So I spent a day or so tracing and cutting out letters, no fancy Cricut here, then I sewed the letters to the felt and then decided the words "kiss me" needed something so then I did some lips. The ribbon is red with white polka dots. Yeah, it's kind of artsy craftsy even kindergartenish but seeing it makes me smile.

And when I say kindergartenish I'm pretty sure any kindergartener on the planet could have done a better job than me. I hated school projects! Still do!

This reminded me very much of a school project or teacher bulletin board project while I was doing all that cutting.

Know all those jokes about "How to Bath a Cat"?

No kittens were harmed in the taking of these pictures!


How about the dishwasher? I had just emptied the dishwahser when I noticed Mittens and Katie jumping around inside.

Inventory

Blocks left to crochet for afghan-1 1/2

Simply Live-need to stitch letters R-Z numbers 1-0, a bit of border and a few minor motifs.

Quilt-squares cut(months ago), still not sewn together. Just do it already. Plan to lame out and tie it instead of quilting it but I need a cover for my bed, period. Tying(tieing?) is just fine with me thank you very much.

Rearrange bedroom, give it a studio apartment feel. Sleep on one side, create on the other. Paint, make it look nice yet functional. Turn it into a chick cave because I need my own space. Spousal unit just sleeps there anyway. He doesn't care what it looks like as long as his side of the bed is sleepable.

Paint chili pepper red dresser white, acquire cubes with baskets to place on top and store various stash related stuff. Find new drawer pulls or knobs-something funky and cool if budget allows.

Move work table from living room to bedroom, look for prettier work table in the future or at least one that might fold out for sewing, fold up desk like for soldering, laptop, other desk related functions--maybe one of those sewing tables at JoAnn's. Hmmmm.....

Clean out closet, find mini dresser to fit inside closet to store underwear, pjs, tshirts.

Get some under the bed boxes for stash. Space that is completely unused and wasted, make it functional.

Find some wood, paint "Always Kiss Me Goodnight" on it(or maybe just order one premade from etsy or ebay), hang above the other closet door, viewable from the new bed position. Maybe crackle it. Try to ignore the fact that penmanship sucks(see "maybe order one").

Going to be busy around here for the next week.

Wild Thursday

Due to these pictures in the September/October 2007 issue of Blueprint magazine I'm obsessing over red and white. I want my bedroom to be red and white and I'd like it now, instead of the three months it will take for me to get it anywhere close to this. My scanner didn't want to cooperate so the scans are about as bad as my photography.

I'm not a quilter by any stretch of the imagination, I play at it. Now I must make a red and white quilt. I have to. I am going to obsess over this for weeks. I can already feel the obsession taking over.

Pictures seen here:

Patère noster - Tempus fugit

Also add to my red and white obsession. I want to buy hundreds of these peg boards or coat hangers or whatever they are called and fill all the spots usually holding mirrors with stitching. I want them everywhere but most importantly I want one in my currently nonexistent red and white bedroom.

Thanks to everyone for the compliments on 13th Colony Bay and Donna--I would be honored if you posted my finished piece on your website. I really hope to finish it soon--before the end of the year. Thanks for designing such a wonderful scenic design. It really takes me away when I'm stitching it.

Mary-Navarre is home but I don't live on the beach. We're about four miles from the Gulf. I freaked out when you mentioned Navarre in the comments no one knows about Navarre! Pensacola, Ft Walton Beach, even Destin, but Navarre? Very cool!

Sad State of My Walls

This post is a bit image heavy but here's a bit of a peek at my walls. Below you see L'Ete and Le Printemps. This is the wall behind my front door. You can see the way the ceiling angles up. I'm thinking about adding one of those big iron looking clocks to this wall, something. Lots of empty space. I would have taken a better picture but then you would have been privy to the Sunday newspapers and Pirates of the Carribean chess set piled on the couch. This is the wall directly across the room from "The Girls". From left to right you see, The Mermaid-CHS, below that Mairmaid's Song also CHS, then Mermaid and the Sea-Examplars from the Heart. Next to that on top, Northern Lights-EftH, and below that Sirens of the Sea-CHS and then on the end Good Things-BOAF. I'm pretty happy with the arrangement of these particular pieces, they need to be moved about a foot to the left because we rearranged the living room and they are now not exactly centered like they were before. The couch below it is covered in an Esprit quilt until I can make new covers for the cushions because it's pretty ugly. It was a junk store find a year or two ago and was in another part of the living room, now it's a priority to get it covered.

This little grouping is by the front door as you can tell. I should say that when I get HOHRH framed it will be on this wall. I'll then have to find something else to do with these pictures. "The Girls" are on the wall to the left of this picture. What you see in this group is Peace-BOAF, Halloween House-DT and Time has Wings-Sheepish Designs.

Now for the kitchen. Here's my Scarlet Macaw-Pegasus Orginals. It's hanging in the kitchen by the laundry room door above my orange hutch. We just hung it on an existing nail about six months ago and have been too lazy to actually center it above the hutch or find something to hang with it in this spot. I didn't take a picture from another angle because then you would see the laundry piled up on the kitchen table.

This wall is opposite the dining table. That's Lizzie Kate's Summer and to the right is a tea towel I have hanging from dowel, my friend Val in England sent it to me. It says "Many people have eaten in this kitchen and gone on to live healthy lives." Do you see how much wall space I have here? I plan to hang 13th Colony Bay on this wall when it's finished. The color of this wall is much fresher than the picture implies. It looks a bit like split pea soup in this picture and really is a bright zesty lime. Despite my issues with wall space and laundry on the table, I love this area of the house the most. When it's fixed up it's a very happy place. I plan to hang Midsummer Night Designs, Monkey Sampler near the table but until the laundry is moved you won't see a picture of that corner.

Here's the wall next to the coffee pot. I have Bent Creek's Rise & Shine hanging there and that white blob to the right is my kitchen cabinet. I will more than likely hang LHN Coffee Menu above Rise & Shine. Now I have Dragon Dreams Coffee is Magic in the Morning in progress and want to hang it somewhere in the kitchen but how does one make a coffee loving wizard work with Rise & Shine and Coffee Menu? See what I'm talking about here? I guess I could make Magic in the Morning into a pillow for the bed. It's one thought I'm tossing about. Just because it's a coffee design, I'm not limited to hanging it in the kitchen, but I don't want to fall into that "this doesn't work" mindset. I'm searching for some whimsy too.

Below you see my decorating conundrum. The beam. What to do with it? It's just there, this big empty spot between the living room and the desk/computer area which is more than likely supposed to be a dining area but the kitchen has room for a table so we did something else with this spot, but once again, what can one do with this spot? It's a barren wasteland of emptiness, so full of potential, so freaking hard to dust. Don't even ask about the layers of dust up there.

The needlework in the far right corner that you see is Barbara & Cheryl's South Battery View. I know that the needlework pictures aren't well done but that's not really the point, the point is what to do to make the walls talk? Of course right now the walls are saying to each other, "Can you believe she's got the nerve to put these pictures out there?"