Dollar Stores and Tulip Town

No one should deprive themselves of the joy of color because color choices, unlike most choices, aren't a matter of money. You are free to select colors that put a smile on your face and edit out the rest. Living with refreshing, life-enhancing color in your room, in the clothes you wear as well as the paraphernalia in your handbag and the accessories on your desk can do wonders to your spirit. Color to me is one of the gifts of grace that is ours to select and a tool to help us live beautifully. Alexandra Stoddard.

Make your office or wherever you work colorful. I do. Actually, I do it to my whole house. My husband is a manly man, a retired Marine, and he lives in this froufrou pink house and loves it. Your hubbies probably want you to be happy, so go with the color that you love best. Beige is sooooo boring and depressing. Simply tint a white with a tiny bit of a beautiful color/pigment instead of brown. I'll never use beige again.
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 I've decided to have a giveaway soon. Just stay tuned because I'm not exactly sure when but very soon. I'll give you plenty of notice. I have ordered a couple more of her books to give away and there will be other stuff also. Just so you know. Truly, you don't want to miss my giveaways. You really don't!
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I have to file my nails every week because of keyboarding so much. They grow so fast since my doctor told me to take more calcium. I've never had great nails but since I chew 2 calcium chews a day they've been growing like crazy. AND it's very hard to type with long nails!
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He's still at it, hubs, I mean. We went to the Dollar stores the other day looking for a certain kind of pen that the man at our bookstore uses and I liked a lot. Flows easily with gel and is clickable. They're called WOW. Couldn't find them but I'll keep checking. They were wonderful to sign my name to the receipt with and I asked him about them. I've told you I'm a fanatic about certain things!

Anyway, we were looking for them and hubs went looking for cheap candy...again. I've told him and told him that Dollar Store cheap candy is just that—CHEAP! He bought some cheese popcorn. I tasted it later at home. He did also. He admitted it wasn't so good. (Need I say more?) Well, I'm gonna...say more that is. I don't buy cheap food at the Dollar Store. It isn't worth it. They get it because no one else will buy it at the regular markets. [Did you know that Dollar Stores have the biggest mark-up on their merchandise than anyone? Yes, this is true.] Anyway, the jelly beans he bought were atrocious also. I got nauseous from their smell even. When I'm dead, he can buy anything he wants, but for now I don't buy cheap food!
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My granddaughter posted on her Facebook a trip to Tulip Town in Mt. Vernon, Washington, they took in April. The most gorgeous tulips in all colors were there. I thought we might go over next year to see them. But it reminded me of a trip they took a year or so ago to the raspberry farms to pick raspberries. Caroline is three years old now so she was just a wee toddler then, but she could pick and eat the raspberries. Granddaughter apologized to the farmer, but they said it was fine that kids will do that. She was eating faster than they could fill baskets. Needless to say, she had the most poopy diapers ever for a couple of days. They thought she'd never stop pooping! We laughed so hard at that, we cried. Here she and our newest great granddaughter are and a picture of the pink tulips, my favorite ones.

I think she looks a bit geeky in this photo but she really is so, what can I say. But as her grandmother I think she's gorgeous and I'm not one bit prejudiced...no, really, I'm not. ;-) Okay, she is kinda cute and Juliette is also.

This is her last year before she got pregnant with the little doll she is holding above, her second daughter. When she's not being a computer geek at Microsoft, she's a cutie. But she is very smart.

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Yes, I still would love to have an outdoor shower.

A gorgeous shade of blue. Actually, I love this little kitchen.

Another pretty patio/picnic area.

A cute quaint neighborhood in England.

Look at this tiny chair. Maybe it was meant for a doll house. Even has its own tiny pillow.

Where do people find these little treasures? An old farm wagon dressed up in pink and blue.

Just some lovely froufrou items.

And yet another bird cage for you to see.

A staged photograph for sure but I think it's adorable. An outdoor, under-the-trees room.

Another countryside pathway. Sort of narrow for cars though.

A cute bedroom with lots of color.

Another stone sink.

Respite from work done cute!

Sigh. How adorable is this room! Look at those curtains and that pillow, rug and settee.

Have a coconut cupcake, but you might want to wait or rethink that after reading the tidbit today.

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Tidbit:

To cure hangovers, people in the Middle Ages would down a plate of bitter almonds and dried eel after drinking. In Outer Mongolia, they slurped down pickled sheep eyeballs in tomato juice. [Ooooh, yuck!!]
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Linking up with NMH Party and Pink Saturday.

Rambling 11/18/2012

Americans have nothing to fear from Europe on food. This comes from a sampling of friends, relatives and hubs and me from traveling. I'm also partial to the California cuisine. I believe nobody does food as good as Californians.
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 Some relatives and friends who have been to Russia have noted some things while there. Russians still want communism; they lament the change! They don't know how to fend for themselves. I hope that never happens in our country. There are specific instances but I'm not going to cite them here. Just horrible when a people can't take care of themselves and have no such wish.
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We've hosted a few exchange students while living in Idaho and I must say I doubt I'd do it again. Some were wonderful; some were horrid. One, Rafael from Spain, was very good and we loved having him. One day he asked me why I had my name all over my Tupperware. I told him because when there's a church dinner or luncheon, there's so many Tupperware bowls we have to put our names on our own or someone would inadvertently take home the wrong bowl. Hence, my name is on every single bowl I have. He thought that was funny. I didn't; I'm still missing some pieces and some metal bowls that have never surfaced!
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Recently during the Presidential campaign, Cher weighed in on Mitt Romney's underwear, calling it "Magic" underwear. Well, I wear the garments also. It's a requirement for being temple worthy. It's a form of modesty. How silly can anyone be for making fun of someone's underwear?! And Cher, of all people?!!! At least, we wear underwear.
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Okay, more postal rules for other countries:

Britain: no horror comics can be mailed to them.

Venezuela: no credit cards can be mailed to them.

Russia: color copiers, honey pollen, wax or honeycombs. Hmmm. Wonder why? It's not as if they have a glut of copier companies in Russia.

Philippines: coffee, lottery tickets.

Nepal: bearings of all kinds, cameras, cardamon, cinnamon, cloves, photographic paper, watches or spare parts.

Guatemala: gardenia plants or seeds, police whistles, powder of all kinds.
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If you've ever given someone good/excellent advice and they say it's totally impractical for their lifestyle but love the advice, then you should tell them to change their lifestyle. It's just that simple. Why wallow in a lifestyle that's detrimental to you? Boggles th' mind.
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A sweet girl's bedroom.

The requisite posies in a lovely tin can. ;-)

Think about wrapping your Christmas gifts in white paper with scraps of fabric for bows and a pink, white or silver ball instead of the usual red and green.

Can we say caaauuuute?!

Another pink ruffled pillow. I just love the ruffled ones.

Now here are cups with roses that I think even the hubs would like. If that's a tractor, then I know he'd love it. He also has this "thing" about tractors. Just start talking and he can tell you more than you'd absolutely want to know. He's knowledgeable about trains and tractors. My man is just a jock!

A serene room with splashes of color on the wall and floor.

I've wondered what these are. Could they be rings? Whatever they are, they're beautiful.

I'd have no problem having this chair in my home. 

Another gypsy caravan. This one looks really nice though. Love the bed covers and pillows. Not as gaudy as some I've seen.

 

I didn't know cupcakes grew in clay pots!!

A bunch of petit fours.

Beautiful pink walls with fuchsia flowers and a white curtain blowing in the breeze.

Ooooooh, is this ever so cute!

Just another idea for an old rustic bucket.

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Linking up with Create with Joy.

A Bit of Elegance and Simplicity

The other day I was trying to access a blog and it was taking forever to come up. Now, there is a website where you can find out how long it takes for your blog or website to come up. So I thought I'd test my blog and a few others to just see what the time is for several different types of blogs. Just a few examples for you:

Several blogs were 5.xx seconds range.
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One was 17 seconds.
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Another one was 11.5 seconds
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Another popular one with over 30,000 viewers was 31.2 seconds.
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Costco was 2.4 seconds
*Funny but Walmart wouldn't let me time it but it was instantaneous, which means they probably have a T-line and a fantastic IT person. :-)
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Amazon was 1.8 seconds.
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A news site was 4.1 seconds
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Etsy was 1.1 seconds, even with all the photos!
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My Photobucket was 3.2 seconds with almost 10,000 photos on it.
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The main Photobucket was 1.1 seconds.
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eBay was 2.29 seconds!
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One "celebrity" blogger, who has a LOT of stuff on her blog is 10.8 seconds.
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Another very popular blogger was 15.2 seconds
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Another "celebrity" blogger was 1.32 MINUTES.
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One blogger who I follow and like is 7.9 seconds
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One of my favorites is 7.3 seconds
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One popular blogger was 2.9 MINUTES to load! I'll never go back to that blog.
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Mine was 1.9 seconds, but I Photoshop all my photos to make them smaller in terms of jpg size. This shows that it definitely helps. Also, blogs with pngs are very, very slow.
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Apple's was 1.4, so they're one—along with etsy and Photobucket—who was faster than my blog. I find that incredible though.
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This is not scientific data, just fun.
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Haven't we all dreamed of having a little cottage shed in our backyard for either storage or just a place for ourselves? I have. I'll never have one but I daydream about it. Daydreams are alive and well in this home! I'm just too frugal and too old to get one.

This looks like a style that seems to be gathering steam as a new provocative style. Personally, I don't care for it but I'm sure a lot of Berkeley students are decorating as we speak. ;-)

Pink is all that needs to be said about this room.

I don't know where this is but from the architecture it looks like something on the East Coast rather than West Coast. I just wonder if those wood planks on the window open and close. It's a beautiful and extraordinary window.

For those of you who wish for spiral staircases. I don't think I'd want one simply because I don't like stairs at all, but this one is gorgeous.

Look how cute this pendant light made of canning jars looks. Perfect for a farmhouse look.

Well-worn and -used copper pots.

This is a restaurant in the Phillipines, where my daughter-in-law is from. Our son and his wife travel over there about every 5 years to visit her family. This is one of the cities they've visited. The water goes under the tables so you'd better be shoeless. I'm sure the kids love it!

I truly do love white with dark blue piping. I think I'd like it with pink piping much better though.

And yes, I'd love this chair also, exactly like it is with those stripes. Gorgeous!

Aren't the walls of this kitchen exquisite?

This is a shawl pin I saw on the internet. It actually keeps your knitted shawl or scarf together. Go visit Claudia and see her exquisite handmade scarves.

And this chair? This is the chair in my living room. It's the photo Thomasville sent me when the chair was made and ready for delivery. It's one of the most beautiful chairs I've ever seen and I just love having it in my home.*

I've always wanted to make a ding in the universe; I doubt I will, but I have no doubt I'll put a ding in a very minute portion of it.
Connie
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All photos courtesy of pinterest and tumblr.