One Thing I Never Do

I never leave our home with an appliance running. There are 2 reasons for this.

One is when we lived in Yuma, Arizona, in base housing on the USMC air base there, we lived in a townhouse with 4 units. We were thrilled to get that apartment because it had 4 bedrooms and with just 1 girl and 1 boy we only rated a 3 bedroom apartment. Prior to that we only had 2 bedroom apartments. But it was the only one available so they offered it to us and we gladly took it. The fourth bedroom was an ironing room for me.

Our neighbor on one side had several kids and a portable dishwasher. Dishwashers were not included in base housing. But with that many kids I think they needed it and bought one to put in the kitchen.

One night they started the dishwasher and went to bed. It didn't work properly and almost set fire to the apartment, which would have spread easily to ours next door. We were grateful they caught it in time. I'd never have gone to bed with anything like that going.

The second reason is a friend of ours was going away on a week vacation to their cabin up in the mountains of Idaho a couple of hours away. As they were leaving she turned on their dishwasher and they left right then. After 2 days, her husband needed to come back down from the mountains because of work I think or to get something. But anyway, he came home and their house was flooded. The main area was upstairs and they had a daylight basement on bottom as they lived on a hill. The dishwasher malfunctioned...for 2 whole days water just kept pumping into the dishwasher and down the floor and walls. They had to completely gut most of their walls and flooring and replace the whole kitchen cabinets. It was a mess. If he hadn't had to come back to town, it would have been even worse probably even having to just demolish the whole thing.

So I never, ever take the chance of an electrical appliance going awry. I turn it off or wait until it finishes. BTW, the neighbor who lived in the same unit two houses down on the other end owned a skunk. And, yes, it stunk. You had skunk odor in the air all the time. I don't know how they stood it in the house. I hope to never, ever again have a neighbor with a skunk for a pet. Ugh!!
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A very cute pink and apple green bedroom. I really like these colors together also.

Oh my! How cute for a girl's bedroom. Lovin' the pink stripes on the wall.

Light filled room. Crown and drapes over the bed are adorable also.

This reminds me of an old English jousting tournament with the flags and heavy embroideries around the room. No, I don't like this room but had to show you.

Pretty, small pillow and vivid colors.

I like all these colors together.

A shop in Carmel.

Another small hidden hideaway to have a lunch with a friend.

Another Carmel cottage.

Adorable living room in shades of green.

Looks like a patio on the back of a small house. Doesn't look large and expensive to me, which just goes to show you how a beautiful patio doesn't have to be on a huge, expensive home.

Love. These. Colors!

While I've always loved Dutch doors, I'd never feel safe with just part of the door closed. Anyone could just walk in. But this is beautiful.

These tulips made a grand statement.

Another sweet stone-washed cottage with red shutters.

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Day Dreaming 1/30/2012

Good morning.

Let's dream some more...and maybe face some realities. Oh pleeeease, tell me it ain't so! Yesssss.....read on.

I love blogging as I've said many times. I also like reading other blogger's posts. But I have to comment on a couple of things.

I try my best to keep my sidebar to a minimum but to have nothing on there would be boring. (Actually, I've gone through my sidebar and eliminated several things in the past few days to keep it even more simple. I think most people don't even read sidebars. How sad. I'm very picky about what I put on there. Try reading my sidebar once in a while. I change it infrequently but if you've been a follower and are perceptive, you would know I do change it a bit. I admit to being a bit OCD and being distracted by so much "fluff" on the sides that I can barely read some posts. But when it's a three column blog and blinkies, music, advertisements and other stuff are so distracting, I'm keeping my blog surfing to a minimum. I do not mean to offend anyone. Please, think about your blog and what it might look like to other people. I doubt I reach very many of you but I mean to reach as many as I can. That does not mean I'll not read blogs that have that but it does mean I'm going to have to love that blog.

There are times on this blog I have much to say and times I don't. I love seeing pictures on blogs. In my opinion, it would be a very dry, boring blog post if there were no pictures. I've surfed the internet and uploaded over 700 photos to share with you—photos you may have seen and some you've definitely not seen. While I personally would find it boring to just look at photos or just read a post, some of you may not. I like both. I'm going to try and be better at posting because, well, simply put, I love blogging. So I'll be sharing many photos with you and also writing some comments to keep it not so boring. (Let's face it, I've shown you just about everything in this house including the toilets. There isn't much you haven't seen except maybe hubby's shelves in the garage with the motor oil on it. But that may be coming so don't discount it.) But I have no intention of not showing you more photos of my house. When I do I'll make sure you know it's my house and not take credit for the other photos. I simply do not want to bore you. Yes, I leave random thoughts sometimes. I doubt I'm too boring though. So to sum it up—there will be a lot of photos.

My purpose is to bring visual pleasure to your life through pictures and a few comments. While we live in reality, we can also dream a bit during the day. While I love the title Day Dreaming, I doubt I'll keep it and just put a different date on it. But I'll always put Day Dreaming as a label so others can find it if they want to day dream. So my blog will keep to my original concept, just adding a bit more fun to it. Life is always about change, isn't it?
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Pedaling a pink bicycle with a basketful of tulips may seem like a wonderful thing to do but how many times do we actually see someone riding a bike carrying flowers. My guess is not many times if any, but it happens frequently in European countries. For all that, I'd still rather live exactly where I am at the moment: a medium size town in Idaho.

Breads are my downfall. Oh, I don't eat regular sandwich type breads much at all, but french bread? Ooolala. I have no control over it. Just put some butter on it and I'm happy. My second favorite bread is a croissant. With my wonderful chicken salad on it. As a matter of fact, let me share my recipe with you here.

Cook some chicken breasts in the oven with Mrs. Dash, salt and pepper until they are golden. Take them out and cool them and then with a chef's knife chop them up into small bites.
Add celery, maybe one stalk ( I rarely measure most things, just go by the seat of my pants.)
Add chopped finely pecans. Yes, PECANS! They are a "sweet" nut and make a big difference in my opinion.
Then add mayonnaise.
Then add a bit of sour cream.

That's it, very easy. When I make this for friends they just love it and rave about it. Also, I love putting a bit of cream cheese on the bread/croissant with it. It tastes like heaven should taste if heaven were a sandwich. I think you'll like it. Roasting the chicken makes a big difference from boiling chicken. Yuk, who in the world would want to boil a chicken with that horrible smell? I've never, ever in my life boiled a chicken, just roasted them.

I love stemware also. Whenever we can, we use our crystal. It makes even hamburger gravy seem elegant. : -) And strawberries are a staple in my refrigerator. I don't care what they cost but usually they're not expensive at all.

I think this bright magenta pink pillow just screams elegance in this room. Try something shocking like this and see how it makes you feel.

I truly love white curtains. I think they are elegant—lace, twill—doesn't matter, love any white curtains. I have a set I made but I needed a bit more color in the living room so I switched them out for some pink ones I made. I like changing things once in a while to get a different look or feel. It just makes me feel good to do this sometimes.

This is a photo of my living room before I put in the pink striped curtains. I change them often.

Now, look. Who in the world would have thought in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s or even 80s that this old beaten up, worn farm table would be costlier and more desired than an elegant polished table from Thomasville or Ethan Allen? My home is anything but elegant, but I wanted a fancy chandelier and I got it. Yes, hubs grumbled about it looking out of place and then grumbled about hanging it. But you know what? After it was hung, he actually said it looked beautiful. We have no formal dining room—no need for it for just the two of us— just an area off the kitchen, but I wanted it to feel elegant to me.

This is the chandelier in my home.

I wrapped yards and yards of pink tulle around it, securing it with pink organza ribbon and then just stuck little paper roses in the tulle.

I think this is an elegant purse. No, I didn't make it but I do make those kinds of roses for my jackets to jazz them up when wearing them to church. But I also LOVE making those roses. Just relaxing to me to make something beautiful.

Absolutely nothing costly here, but it still has quite an elegant, feel good look to it. And if you're new to my blog, you'll soon learn I do a lot of eye candy.

If you were lucky to find such a piece of gorgeous grill work cheaply, you would indeed be blessed. I just quite simply love the look of this vignette.

Shabby, yet elegant. Surely, you can peruse your neighborhood and find someone throwing away an old door. It may not be this exact kind but consider the possibilities of any door.

Slipcovered ottoman and chair mixed with 2 elegant chairs. Consider your possibilities!

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Also, I would like to point out that on my sidebar, just below Miss Caroline as she comes first, is a blogging tip on an alternative to Blogger Followers. It refers to a post I did a few weeks ago. It's what I use so my sidebar doesn't go off into infinity. You can use Google Reader instead; I do and I love it much more than the Blogger Follower. Just because you don't see me on your Followers list does not mean I don't follow you; I just do it this way instead. Just click on the tulip logo and it will take you directly there. You might want to tell your friends about this also.
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That's all for today. However, be forewarned—there will be lots of beautiful and dreamy places, vignettes, homes, yards, flowers and just scenes to make you daydream. While I don't want to live a lifestyle any different than I am at this very moment, I do love to daydream.

Also, I encourage you to go and lift someone higher than they thought possible, even if it's yourself.
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Froufrou Friday #5 9/3/2010

Have you ever seen a more exquisite tulip than this one? I haven't. It's called an Ice Cream tulip and you cannot find it just anywhere. I saw this recently while perusing the internet for some new tulips to plant next year. I'm smitten. Exquisite!

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