Rambling Again 8/21/2012

I want to tell you about a book I read recently called Three Against Hitler. It's a very good book loaned to me by a friend. It's thought provoking and will make you cry though. You can find it here on Amazon if interested.
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Hubby wanted salad the other night with tuna on top. I didn't want that much so told him to make a tuna sandwich for me instead. (Pain killers have dulled my appetite significantly, but heaven forbid I should lose any weight!) It was the most delicious tuna salad sandwich he's ever made me. I don't know why but it just tasted so dang good to me. Here's an example of a salad he made me a couple of weeks ago. It was delicious also. He does delicious salads. I crumbled up some toasted Asiago/garlic baguettes into it also. Yummmmm.

Ooooh, I also told him he's losing kitchen cooking privileges until he cleans up after himself. Seriously.
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For those of you lusting after yachts, I saw a photo of the biggest yacht just built for some mega-millionaire, probably in the middle east somewhere. It's like a cruise ship! Huge. Bigger than 2 football fields if I'm remembering correctly, which is somewhat in question as I had to get back on pain killers after 3 days without them. Anyway, just wanted to let you know that to fill their gas tanks would cost $100,000. Plus they can't dock at just any port. See, the rich do have their problems. No way would I want to spend that much on gasoline even if I was rich.
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I'm a bit frugal on some things but extravagant on other things. For instance, I won't buy any meat that isn't Angus to bring home to cook. I'm not a big meat eater and not particularly fond of meat but I do love steaks. I even like the Angus burgers at Jack-In-The-Box, which they do superior to any other chain fast food restaurant. Grilled onions just tops it off as the best. Once you taste it, you won't go back. It's the best!
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I saw a woman recently that had on a T-shirt that could have provided shelter for  a VietNam family of eight. I sincerely do take pity on her as she's as much loved by God as I am, maybe even more as I'm such a rebellious woman sometimes. Very sad for her, however. And I truly mean that.
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A quaint cottage with just some unusual features I thought you'd like to see.

Main Street, America, house.

A perfect sun room or enclosed porch to daydream.

My next lamp redo will look similar to this. Beautiful! (Update:Actually, I created this post and decided several days later to redo the lamp that looks almost like this one. You can see it here. It's in the very first photo. I redid my Page My Home recently to make it look better. I used a template to make sure all the photos were evenly spaced. I don't think Blogger has yet fixed it to where we can do it correctly without using a template.)

Here it is.

Pink eye candy.

More pinks to drool over.

Lace and roses. Can it get much better than this? ;-)

Lazy afternoon in the shade, a respite from the sun and heat.

Somewhere in the world. I wonder where. But life continues even if it is on the top of a tall, narrow building. Life will continue.

Love the curtains billowing in the breeze. Colorful pinks and serene blues and whites. Gorgeous.

Daydream living in this old French home.

Cute setting for an afternoon tête-à-tête.

Gorgeous floor lamp and table lamp.

I like what the homeowner did with this paper hanging lamp. Quite easily done and what a statement it makes.

I'd love to have a chalkboard with this rose decal on it. She has some of the most gorgeous roses paintings I've seen. Just stunning.

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A Story About the Life of a Marine's Wife

 This is a mosaic of my laundry room.

I've updated my tutorial on the new blogger interface here. This one is about blogger wanting you to upgrade for more storage space and telling you that some photos and/or posts will be deleted because you're using too much space. You really need to read this tutorial. Go to the bottom of the tutorial for a bit of advice on what other options you have.
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As I've stated before, my hubby is a retired Marine. We've lived in the Western part of the U.S. most of our lives and I can't imagine living anywhere else. When he had to go overseas twice in our years in the Marine Corps, it separated us for a whole year. He was on unaccompanied tours, which means that our kids and I had to stay stateside. Since he was in nuclear weapons, he wasn't allowed into Vietnam or any war zones for which we were grateful. But it was very difficult being without a hubby for a whole year and only communicating by letters and through short wave radio contact. By that I mean, I'd go through a local ham radio operator via a phone connection here in the U.S. and hubs would go through a ham radio operator where he was. That way of communicating left us with no privacy; the ham radio operators heard everything we had to say and we'd both have to say "Over" when we were through talking so the other person could talk. So you cell phone users have no clue how it used to be. Very inconvenient to talk personally about situations at home if need be. "Love you. Over" doesn't quite convey its message! Personal things took weeks to resolve if a situation at home had to be addressed through letters. Yes, letters. There was no instantaneous email at that time. And with 2 kids there was always something.

Anyway, the first time he went to Asia, I stayed with my parents in San Jose. The second time he went overseas I decided to go back east to Pennsylvania to be near his family so they could become better acquainted with their grandchildren. Our kids were their first grandchildren. Hubs has 7 sisters and 1 brother. Hubs is the second oldest. With all those kids you'd think they'd have scads of grandkids. Not true. There are only 15 and that's kind of small for such a large family.

Anyway, we settled into the town next to them, just about 15-20 minutes apart but I didn't see them but 3 or 4 times that year. It was a small town, at that time probably 11,000 people and today the population is at about 13,000 people so it's not had a lot of growth in 40+ years. It was difficult for me because it was a place where people were born, lived and died in that same town, sometimes never leaving its local boundaries. We were newcomers, Californians and well-traveled besides. You had to be just a few certain ethnicities or you didn't fit in, very different from California where there is such a glut of just about any ethnicity you can find. My kids struggled. And if not for one of their teachers being an ex-Army man I doubt they would have survived. He went out of the way to help them fit in. I don't remember his name but he was very kind to them—the new, strange Californian arrivals. We were viewed very differently, especially when we talked.

Now, Californians for the most part don't have a regional accent. But that part of the country has a very, very specific accent. It's a tri-state accent I can pick out of a crowd anywhere. I can tell if you're from that part of the country. A sort of SE Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey tri-state area accent. Very distinguishable for us from the Western part of the U.S. Hubs sounds nothing like his brother or his sisters! I have no clue how he didn't develop that accent but he hasn't. The only things he pronounces funny—to me anyway—is saw and water. Saw sounds like sol and water sounds like wooder. I've kidded him about it for 51 years!

This is getting kind of long and I have another story to tell concerning this but I'll leave it for another time, but I shall reference this in that blog so you can read both if you miss this one.
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An easy-to-make outdoor shower. I think I’ll try to get Love Bunny to make one in our backyard just for fun.

A cute quaint stucco cottage with a couple of pretty espaliers against the front entrance.

Beautiful shades of blue, especially that bowl on the table.

Smile. Just some pretty papers in a pretty pink bucket to delight your little peepers.

What a bedroom this would be to have!

Looks to be a beautiful residence in a large city. I love that they fly the American flag. I thought the other flag might be a Texas flag, but it isn’t. Probably their “heritage” country flag.

Go ahead and sigh; I know you’re loving this home.

This almost looks like a beach house but I have no idea where it is. Pretty though.

What a beautiful entrance to both houses this is. I’d take the lower one though because I hate climbing steps now. But I’d sure love to have those others for my neighbors though. ☺

Beautiful pool and spa.

This looks to be in another country. Notice they didn’t go buy an expensive umbrella; they just tied up a tablecloth or sheet to each other’s houses to shield them from the sun in their common area. Peaceful co-existence.

A pretty little garden with roses to greet you at the entrance, tipping their little heads with delight as they drink in the sunshine. Grand performance!

A sweet vintage cabinet someone adapted to their bathroom needs.

Now, I want you to notice the tiny dimensions of this bathroom. A typical bathroom in a typical sub-division house hallway. BUT with a tile floor adding the biggest pizzazz I’ve ever seen to it! Stunning!

Another example of tile adding pizzazz to a bathroom.

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Linking with Savvy Southern Style

Different Fences and Patios for Pink Saturday 2/11/2012

Welcome to this Pink Saturday. Just click to go to Beverly's Blog to visit all the pink participants.
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We moved to the Idaho town we're in now at the same time as our neighbor, who had just moved here from California, because he bought the house a few doors down from us and that was our original pick. As fate would have it, we're now glad he did because we like having 4 bedrooms and his is only 3 bedrooms, much smaller and he paid a higher price than we did. While we were also from California we had lived in deserts several more years than he had and we were well acquainted with the effects the elements would have on things.

But when we put in our vinyl fence, he said he didn't want it because he wanted the wood fence. His is falling down now, discolored from the irrigation water in the canals we use and dried out from the divergent weather we get in the high desert—very cold to very hot. Some people don't like the vinyl but at our age we want low maintenance and durability and the vinyl offers both. Plus it still looks great after 6 years, a definite plus for us.

Then we asked us what kind of patio cover we were going to put on. We told him a special metal one that looked like wood and covered the porch. He said he wanted to put on a wood one with lattice slats to let the sun shine through. Okay by us!

Then when the first winter came he complained about the snow falling onto his patio. Can we say: We warned ya?! But choices are what life is all about. His back yard is absolutely smashing even if his fence looks horrible. We've lived in the deserts long enough to know the disadvantages of certain choices.
I love this home somewhere in Europe with its lovely garden,

I like these morning glories growing in abundance by the door.

This little two story home looks like it belongs south of the border.

Lovely pink wallpaper with a pink vignette.

Red lacquer Chinese chairs surrounding a round white table and a red lacquer lantern over the table.

A simple display of lace with roses to add softness to a window.

Texans aren't afraid to draw roses on their cars. My kinda people, I tell ya.

Looks like windows in hotels in Mexico where we spent many years vacationing.

Sweet fabric rags curled around big spools for saving them neatly and displayed so they can be eye candy for a work shop.

Just start every day with a smile and get it over with.
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I know I'm a sap for Miss Caroline, but this video had me laughing so hard because she is trying her best to tell her mummy something but just can't seem to get through to her. You'll see her exuberance, which she definitely gets from me! Please don't think: Oh, just another great grandma posting about her progeny. I am! But it just makes me laugh so to view this. You don't have to click for it to start if you do not want to view it. Just stop reading and go blog surfing some more. (By the way, when we were there recently, our son few up with 2 of his boys to visit and play golf. He said my granddaughter and I sound exactly alike. This was also noted by a friend in Texas who viewed this video. So if you listen to this you'll be able to hear what I sound like even though I'm 40 years older than my granddaughter. Really weird to hear someone tell me that.)

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Pink Saturday 11/20/2010

Happy Pink Saturday. Go visit the participants and be delighted with all the pinkness your heart can bear!

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I'm healing nicely from the fall/flip I took at the end of August and am through with the physical therapy. Well, not really through exercising, but insurance would only pay for 8 weeks so hubby and I spent the afternoon shopping at the local sports store, and I picked up a couple of things to help me PT here at home.

And speaking of home, I want to show you some of my absolute favorite rooms. These are rooms I love and will love until the day I die.

I love French and English elements in decorating, but I love shabby romantic roses mostly. Throw in a bit of French and I'm in heaven. I like this living room.

I was into country about 25 years ago, but not so much now. But this living room is one I could live it. It's very romantic with the roses sofa and y'all know my favorite color combination is red/pink and yellow. That sofa is my sofa, just with different fabric.

This bedroom just appeals to me also even though it has elements of country. It's still very much romantic and kind of shabby.

Another one of my favorites. Any shade of red appeals to my senses like no other color.

Oh, squeal, squeal, squeeeeeeeeal!!! I love this bedroom also.

But THIS is my all time favorite living room. When I saw this in the Ethan Allen magazine about 17 years ago, my heart did flip flops. If I could achieve this look, I know I'd be in heaven. I cannot tell you how much I love and adore this room. To me it is just warm, snugly, homey and comfortable.

This is the dining room that goes with the above living room. Do you see what I mean? Is it not gorgeous? Oooh, how I love to look at these pictures and dream about being in that living room and dining room

Lastly, I've had this fabric for several years and have never used it. I've given up making pillows to sell so if anyone is interested in it, it's on eBay and it's 2 full yards at a very good price. I love it but I know I'll never use it or make anything with it. So with the Christmas season coming up, I thought I'd let you know in case you're interested. Here is the URL for it:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350415016392&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

Be of good cheer, my chicks. I think I'll be trying to post more very soon. I've missed not surfing the blogs and I haven't because I know once I get started, I'll not be able to move my backside from this chair and that is NOT a GOOD thing!
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