Driving In Snow

Snow has been sugaring our yard the past few days. It does look like a winter wonderland, only I hate driving in snow and ice. I've been doing it a few times these past couple of weeks because I need to be able to do it in an emergency, but I'm driving Love Bunny nuts. We are making a trip over to Washington in a few weeks to visit granddaughter, her hubby and the girls and we knew it'd be snowing somewhere along the way so I had to be prepared. But when we first moved up here, I'd never been in snow to drive; after all, we've lived most of our lives in California.

Well, the first 2 years up here I had 2 accidents in the snow. One was where I was driving Love Bunny's truck and hit a road post and destroyed his passenger side door. You know how well that went over, right? He had broken a couple of ribs a few days before so I had no choice. I needed to go somewhere. I had to drive. Plus I skidded out several times. So I gave it up as we've not had much snow here for a lot of years and it melts pretty fast. It was time, however, to give it a second chance. I probably have a reputation in our city as the slowest driver in snow but at least I'm safe.
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Another beautiful lamp and shade in this vignette.

Wonderful place to stroll.

Cute little vignette.

More eye candy for ya.

Wonderful outdoor living area.

Italy!

Another beautiful area of a lovely room.

Charming old home.

Pretty way to display fabrics—with folded roses sewn together.

I'd love to visit this cute cafe.

Another pretty setting with roses.

French vignette.

How lovely would it be to live here, almost like a castle.

Pretty entry way.

Another beautiful window surrounded by roses and lace curtains inside.

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Tidbit:
In 2006, a London fashion show called "Naked Fragrance" had nude models wearing different brands of perfume, walking in front of a blindfolded audience.
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A Night Out for Dinner

I'm joining in with Claudia's A Favorite Thing linky party tonight and will use this post but put in a favorite thing now to join her at 8 pm EST.

It's hard for me to have just one favorite thing as I could keep this party going well into the 22nd century with my favorite things. Actually, I'll probably depart this earth before I could possibly get through my "favorite things." But today my favorite thing will be this little bucket I painted to match the new decor that I'm striving to get: Romantic/French/Traditional/Connie. ;-) It was purchased at Joanns fabrics and kind of a verdigris color and not very good one at that. I painted it pink and yellow stripes. Turned out even better than I thought it would!

Closer to better see it is yellow. Anyway, while it looks lime-color in these photos, I can assure you it's yellow and I truly do love the colors.

This was taken inside with indoor lighting, but I assure you this is truly pink and yellow, not limey green.

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At a doctor's office recently I was reading an old Reader's Digest. There was an article in it by a podiatrist. She said unequivocally that the best lotion for feet was Amlactin. My own podiatrist recommended it also. It's a bit pricey at about $15.00 for an 8 oz. bottle but it is so true. Even Love Bunny noticed how soft my feet were. And if that man notices anything, it's worthy of note, trust me!

He and I don't see eye-to-eye on portions. Food portions. He'll ask for peas for dinner and would put a half a bag of frozen peas in the pot to cook. That's ridiculous. He says it's the right amount. I put about a third of the bag in the pot to cook. He just has no sense of portion. We argue about this all the time.

Recently, he took me to Sizzler. Now, I'm not that fond of Sizzler but that night the steak was really good. Hotter than blazes though. No child could have eaten it that hot. I mean the platter was smoking and did so for the entire time it took me to eat the steak and potato. If a parent let a child eat it that hot, it would burn their mouths for sure and then we all know what would happen—they'd sue Sizzler. It took me 6-7 minutes before I could even put a forkful of it in my mouth. Truly! He likes his food HOT—from the skillet to his mouth. Our son is the same way. Me? I have to let it cool before I can put it in my mouth. I don't want my mouth burned and it has been. Once scalded; twice cautious...or something like that.

Anyway, I had a small salad bar, the entree and dessert. He had a bigger steak, salad bar heaping on his plate, then went back for cottage cheese, then went back for a PLATE of fruit and then had an ice cream sundae. We're not talking small portions; we're talking big portions. I was sick just eating what I did, but he said he didn't feel full or think he ate too much and defended it. Sigh...as I said, we have totally different views of "portions." But we both agreed that's our last time at Sizzler.
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Is this a cute little cottage or what? No driveway, just a patch of grass with wheel paths leading to the back. But it looks like it's at the end of a road. Charming, no matter where or what it is.

This looks to be in Britain to me. Not many homes in the U.S. are that close together and so charmingly old.

The other day I gathered all my wrapping papers—such as they are—from the hallway coat closet and put them in my office here. They were getting in the way of the coats and vacuum I have in that closet and I didn't want them to get too frayed. So I brought them into this office and am now trying to find a cute bucket, preferably of the tin/metal variety, to put them in and store them "in plain sight" somewhere in the house. Just adding more eye candy for visitors to see. ;-)

Isn't this a gorgeous dreamy coat? I'd love to have it but I'd look like a polar bear in it.

A stunning balcony window with lace curtains. Oooooh, how gorgeous.

A beautiful bathroom, probably done over in rustic vintage decor. The colors are beautiful and serene.

You probably remember when we would have thrown out something that looks this bedraggled. Now we pay dear for such a vintage "ornament."

Just for the gorgeous deep colors have I posted this for you.

I love this little cuff done so fancifully. While I'm more fond of colors, I'd still make a cute little one like this to wear.

While this doesn't look like a particularly popular or sought-after street to live on, I thought the home was worthy of note. It looks huge even before you have the side protuberances. Cute, but too big for this gal.

This is such a place I'd love to have near me to enjoy. Absolutely adorable!

A rustic bench. Very desirable.

This looks like a bunch of fabric before it is ruffled just put together to make a curtain of sorts. Clever.

An Italian doorway looking like a jewel. Notice the mailbox is the same color as the door and the archway.

Darling picnic table cover. Now, this is my next project! LOL

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A Travel Story

This is a story about traveling to another country. Since some of you have read me long enough to know how I feel about traveling, flying, and other countries, this story just may help you understand my feelings. (I hate traveling and flying even though I've been to other countries and refuse to do either anymore.)

My daughter's husband died about 3 years ago now and you can read the blog post about that here. It was a very sad day for all of us. But her in-laws treated her to a Mediterranean cruise 5 months after their son's death. It was a sweet and gracious thing to do. But it got ugly real fast.

My daughter hadn't ever traveled to any place beyond our continental borders, except for Hawaii several times, and wasn't used to the culture shock. And, truthfully, I don't think those countries were ready for her. Before the trip, she had traveled extensively in the U.S. and her choice for the worst drivers in the U.S. and the worst city in the U.S. are recorded forever in my memory. I won't mention which were her choices here on the internet, but if you ask me through an email I'd be happy to share with you. I just don't want rants from people about a city which just may well be their city.

Anyway, after crawling through the pyramids of Egypt (scary and suffocating—her words), trekking through the filth of some of those countries and experiencing the ports of call in that area of the world, she told me her experience in Turkey, which she now says is the worst country for drivers. Their laws for motor vehicles are taken as just a hint, never enforced really. Traffic jam? They just pull on the sidewalk and drive. Now, that alone should be your first clue but I'll elaborate. Second clue is my daughter is very demanding—very. This is important to the story.

A relative is a travel agent (Terry) and sets up all the trips for the family and always travels with the group. This is also important to this story as I don't think most travel agents would go as far as Terry did in helping daughter. They spent a few days in Turkey off the ship.

When time came to return to the ship and they got to the dock to get back on, her passport was missing. She looked through her purse, pockets, everywhere and they couldn't find it. The border agents put her in detention. Terry, travel agent, was beside herself. She couldn't leave her in Turkey but the Turkish government wasn't about to let her go to the ship without a passport. Finally, she thought it could be somewhere in her luggage that went on back to the ship and was on board at that point. (Luggage goes on before you do.) So Terry went on the ship, waited for  ALL the luggage of all the passengers to get on the ship, rummaged through hundreds of suitcases until she found daughter's luggage and finally found the passport. Now, the relevant part here is that took hours. SEVERAL HOURS! Daughter was in tears because she had absolutely no control if they wanted to keep her there. (I'm sure some of you have seen the movie, Midnight Express.) Plus the cruise ship would sail on time, with or without her. They did give her some things to eat and Terry or her in-laws brought her food. She was scared to death when in that detention. She just wanted to come home to California. She said she'll never leave the U.S. again.
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Another cute pink vignette I like. I think I say “love” and “adore” too much, but it is actually how I feel about these photos.

I saw this pool on this high-rise home and just can’t see myself ever swimming in it, not that I’d ever get the chance, but I’d get dizzy just approaching it.

Do you remember these old 1950s dining chairs? I certainly do and it looks like this one had been given a fresh update. Cute!

Beautiful for French, English or any décor actually.

Sweet.

A teapot from Green Gate.

Bedroom with Green Gate accessories in it.

Green Gate tea tin. You’ve really got to visit their website. I’ll be posting more Green Gate items here for you to see though.

A mews in England somewhere. I think mews are very quaint places to have a shop, office or residence. Mews are a row or street of houses or apartments that have been converted from stables or built to look like former stables.

While I doubt this is really pink, I thought it was clever the way the photo turned out sort of pinkish.

Cute way to do some used eggshells, if one can paint! I can’t. Read about that here if you'd like.

A cute little thermos.

Another divine old lawn chair with a cover for the sun.

Fun place to watch the ocean.

I can’t believe this is available somewhere for sale. Surely the owner spray painted it and painted or decaled the BREAD on it.

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Fluffing Up the Living Room

While the hubs' away, the chick will play. Or in this instance I'll redo the living room and family room walls. Yep, Love Bunny is away most of the day, will come home to eat dinner and go up north to teach a class about 3 hrs away from here and be back tomorrow evening. I've been waiting for him to leave to give the house a good cleaning—which in my case means dusting. I hate dusting and don't do it regularly enough to the embarrassment of hubs, but I don't care. Really, I don't. This is a dusty area with all the farms around us so we're gonna get dust!

This morning I was shaking rugs out back and saw this little clump of moss. I hope it grows and fills in around the grapes, but I love moss!

Now, these pictures are for the sky but the little lanterns I made (and are so dirty from the winter!) were hanging there and thought I'd show you our cloudy sky beyond the hanging jars. Cloudy and rain today and tomorrow.

So, one thing leads to another and here I am rearranging some wall decor around the living room. It's times like this I wish more devotees of romantic shabby chic decor lived around here because I've much to give away.

I'll post more pix tomorrow for Pink Saturday to show what it looks like now...if I finish in time. Sigh...

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