Bean there...

Ate that.  Okay, so I've been known to get in a food rut, or two.  This week it's beans.  Last night I had garbanzo beans for dinner.  Just right out of the can.  I bought them with the idea of making garbanzo bean, tuna and onion salad but after I opened the beans, I realized that I didn't have any tuna.  Or onion, for that matter.  So today, in my mid-day search for lunch in the pantry cupboard, I found a can of red kidney beans which are, among other things, full of iron and fiber.  I had kidney beans for lunch.  Right out of the can.  Didn't even bother to look for tuna.  Or onion.  I will probably be sorry later, but they hit the spot.

Just in case you have tuna to go with your garbanzo beans, here's the recipe:

1 can tuna, drained

1 can garbanzo beans, drained

1 cup chopped sweet onion

1 cup chopped tomatoes

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

lemon juice

For the dressing, combine 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise, 2 tablespoons dijon mustard and 1 cup of plain yogurt with a little bit of lemon zest.  Whisk the dressing ingredients together and combine with the salad ingredients.  Season with salt and pepper.  The salad is best if you prepare it ahead of time and chill it - gives the flavors time to mingle!

The perfect spot...

for my Celestial Seasonings tea rack!  And to think I was going to give it away...  This rack used to hang in the kitchen in my old house and I am quite attached to it, but unfortunately I have zero wall space in this kitchen.  I had stashed it in the pantry and was well on my way to letting go of this treasure, when I suddenly realized that I didn't have to hang it up at all - there was the perfect spot for it on the kitchen counter right next to the teapot and the rest of the tea supplies.  Isn't it great how we sometimes look at something in a different way and find the solution we were looking for all along?  Now if I could only be as perceptive about other problems I need solutions to...

Shoulda made time...

to go and get the baby gate at Target.  Like I would ever really pass up a chance to go to Target and browse...  But, no - I was really trying to get the last of the stuff out of the old office today and I decided that I could get the gate tomorrow.  Coulda, shoulda, woulda - story of my life.  In my infinite wisdom, I had foolishly affixed the handle of Aggie's leash to the knob on the printer cabinet door on my lovely desk.  This temporary fix was working quite well to keep my overly-friendly little cairn from mauling my clients - until today.  Ariela and Marco were carrying boxes inside this afternoon and Aggie saw the open door and ripped the cabinet door open and would have pulled it off the hinges if I hadn't grabbed her by the collar and leash.  As it is, she demolished the door by pulling the hinge side off the center panel - and the desk is solid oak!  Not a pretty sight.  Fortunately, I have clients in the furniture repair business and I am confident that they can make my desk as good as new.  I am definitely going to Target first thing in the morning. 

Gotta stop arranging...

and re-arranging all this stuff trying to get everything perfect.

I have work to do - paying work!

More serious cuteness...

My friend and client, Denise, who owns a consignment shop in Lakewood Ranch, made me this adorable beehive for the center of a patchwork pillow I'm making for my home office.  She's the one who did my work shirts with the beehive logo.  I just love this - it's different than the other logo, but I love the sunflower and the bigger bee!  I have some Mary Engelbreit bee fabric that I am going to incorporate into the pillow, but I haven't decided what other fabric to use just yet.  I am too excited for words!

So much for sleeping late on a Saturday...

I'd forgotten what it's like to have a dog and a cat in the house - particularly a pair that aren't used to each other's company yet!  No more sleeping late on Saturdays for me!  And, to add insult to injury, my head is seriously stuffed up.  Already!  I'd stopped taking the Zyrtec because I was only with Peter in the office during the weekdays - and that was a lot of space for me and a cat who hid in the inner office most of the day.  Now we're in much closer quarters - and my eyes are itching and well, you get the picture. 

Oh well - one of the hazards of pet ownership.

I found this really cute desktop background the other day when I went looking for Gooseberry Patch online to see what was new - only to find that they have ceased to exist as a gift catalog and now only publish and sell their cookbooks!  I loved that store!  It wasn't like I was going to buy anything, but still...  They had such neat stuff and great decorating ideas and I will admit I used to steal borrow craft ideas from them as well.  I loved their country style - and my house used to reflect that - but since I've moved on to my less is more philosophy, my style is more eclectic.  Speaking of - I am going to attempt to hang framed pictures on my living room wall today.  Have hammer, will attempt to drive nails...

Petey is home...

and has decided that the best place for him to sit is on the kitchen counter right next to the breakable coffee mugs.  Thank goodness Aggie can't jump up there, too!  Pete doesn't look very happy, does he?  I picked him up from the Humane Society after his "tutoring" and when we came home, he spent some time in the carrier until the anesthesia wore off.  I put his food and water bowls on the dining room table in an attempt to alleviate any territorial disputes, but Aggie just gave him a little sniff, jumped up on her quilt on the sofa and went to sleep.  What was I worried about?  Now Peter's walking around yelling and Aggie is laying by my feet ignoring the poor guy.  He's probably looking for his lost, um, parts.

Aggie is guarding her own food and water,

just to be on the safe side.

Animal wisdom...

I am sure these photos are in a million emails floating around out there, but these three were so cute I just had to share!

It's sort of like...

Eat...

Drink...

Regret it later.

Doesn't this just...

make you want to take a vacation?

Dependability...

is a virtue.  At least that's how I was raised.  I've gotten myself into a state over having paid someone to do some work for me who seems to be in no hurry to complete it.  We had a small disagreement last week over how much she had been paid (in advance!) and how much of the work had already been completed.  Even after that, she left early that day and didn't complete the whole job.  I mean, honestly, would you clean someone's house all except for the bathroom and then say that you really didn't feel like doing it and that you'd come back another day to finish?  How do I respond to that?  I really shouldn't let it bother me because I've only hired her to work for me in order to help her out - sort of like an offering in action.  But it makes me wonder if she is like this with all of her clients - and if she is, that explains why she is always looking for work and for new clients.  So now, six days later, I have cleaned my own bathroom while waiting for her to clear time on her busy schedule.   Grrrrr!  Richard says I have just got to stop trying to rescue people; my controlling nature just sets me into a tizzy when they don't get their act together and behave the way I think they should.  I know that makes me sound like an uptight bitch, but it is what it is. 

And I am what I am.  I'm just saying.

This working at home...

may just be a good thing.  Not that I spent all day on a raft in the pool - but it's like I don't realize that I'm at work.  I looked up from my computer last night and it was 8:30 pm!  There were times that I'd be sitting at my desk in the office counting the minutes until I could lock the door at five and dash home.  I've also made more progress on putting stuff away - two more bags for Goodwill and three more bags of trash.  I also re-purposed an old metal frame for a new print and worked out a wall arrangement for the living room.  Now I just need to recruit a tall person to assist me with the actual picture hanging...

Busy as a bee...

I have had a really productive day today.  I realized that I haven't done any meaningful work since June 1 when I started packing up the office to move.  Not a good thing - the pile of work didn't get any smaller.  I've been working, working, working since about 6:30 this morning on one thing or another.  I unearthed my little project card holder and updated my to-do list.  Isn't it a cute thing?  I had a new client no-show, but it gave me a chance to do invoices and receivable for another client.  I put away more stuff from the office and filled up two more bags for Goodwill.  And two bags of trash!  I am hoping to finish up tomorrow and be back to my efficient and cheerful self.  Hee hee!

Yesterday, Ariela and Marco came to put the shelves in the lanai storage closet.  Maria and Spikey came, too.  Well, Marco mostly put the shelves up; we visited and laughed at Spikey playing with Aggie and ate chips and dip.  When Marco was finished and Ariela inspected his work, we made turkey & swiss panini sandwiches for lunch.  Then we had birthday cake and ice cream to celebrate Ariela's birthday of last week and watched Shutter Island.  We were all full as ticks and it's a wonder we didn't all fall asleep watching the movie.  It was good, but you really have to pay attention or you miss something crucial.  I think I'll have to watch it again when Aggie isn't being mauled by a three-year-old.  Maria originally wanted to go up to the pool and swim, but after walking up to the clubhouse to check it out, she decided it was too busy and too dang hot out anyway.  Maria was just fourteen in May and she wants to volunteer somewhere this summer, but every place I've checked with says she's too young.  We've decided that she's going to come over one day a week and I'm going to teach her to sew.  She's taking a sewing class at school this coming fall and she wants to be ahead of the game.  She'll probably have a fit when I make her practice sewing straight lines on notebook paper!  I found an easy pattern for pajama pants that I thought would make a good first project.  I know I have some lightweight flannel with coffee cups on it that will be really cute.  Ariela says that will be perfect because Maria loves to lounge and drink coffee.

A new career...

I think I am going to start a therapy practice, or at the very least an advice coulmn for love-worn, I mean lovelorn women.  I have a friend (I tend to adopt stray people) who needs to learn that a woman can be complete without a man.  I knew that before I married my husband and I still know it fifteen years later now that he's taken leave of his senses and called it quits.  On second thought, maybe I'm not one to dole out relationship advice...  Anyhow, my friend is a recovering alcoholic.  She's in her mid-forties and has been sober for ten years.  I think that's a wonderful accomplishment and I'm proud of her.  She hasn't, however, learned to make good choices about men.  Number one, she's not willing to date men her own age or older.  Number two, she thinks the only place to meet men is AA.  I've tried to make suggestions about other acceptable places to meet appropriate men, but so far she's not listening.  About three months ago, she started gushing about this guy she'd met (at AA - where else?) and how she wanted me to see him.  "See him?" I said.  "It's not like you want my opinion on a puppy you want to adopt."  She's very superficial when it comes to men - number one on her list of requirements for a man is "hot and sexy."  Therein lies her problem, which I have told her on many occasions.  I mean, when the initial attraction is gone, doesn't she want to have a conversation?  Apparently not.  So for the past several months, all I've heard is about how hot this guy is, how attracted she is to him, he has tattoos and how she just knows that he is the one for her.  By the way, she's 46 and he's 28.  "You're old enough to be that boy's mama," I said to her.  They've been dating: coffee at Starbucks, sunset walks on the beach, a drive-in movie.  But until the other night, she hadn't introduced him to anyone outside AA.  I asked her why she didn't introduce him to her cousin (she lives with him) and she quickly said, "No!  Jack would freak out."  I should have known right then that in her heart that she knew that this guy was wrong for her.  Her cousin is a nice, normal guy about my age and I thought, uh-oh, if Jack wouldn't like this guy...  So what does she do?  She wants me to meet Mr. Wonderful.  I wasn't too enthused, but she's my friend and well, I will have to say that I was curious about just what kind of guy she is terminally attracted to.  So I suggested that we meet at my client Cari's little restaurant.  Safety in the familiar, right?  After all the hype, I'm expecting Brad Pitt or at the very least a Woody Harrelson type (sorry, Woody - you're just not my kind of guy) but I was completely unprepared for the guy who walked through the door and sat down at our table.  Okay, I am sort of a judgmental person and I admit it, but I am not superficial.  I don't care what anyone looks like as long as they are decent, nice, kind, smart or funny.  But this guy - how can I describe him?  Think Aryan Nation white supremacist meets Deliverance.  Black, rotten teeth and all.  Yes,that about sums it up.  And not smart.  At all.  A walk through the ocean of his soul would scarcely get your feet wet.  But was I speechless?  No.  When I am completely freaked out, my mouth runs a mile a minute.  I looked at Cari and got a What the hell? look and a seriously raised eyebrow.  Dinner was interminably long and I couldn't wait to get out of there.  The worst part was when three of Cari's regulars came in to place a take-out order.  You could feel the tension as this guy crossed his arms and glared at these black gentlemen. I was mortified - and even my friend now seemed uncomfortable.  I got Cari's attention and asked for our checks.  Not only did this guy not thank my friend for dinner, he basically just walked out without saying anything at all.  Which was fine by me - I was all talked out by then anyway.  I waited a few minutes, hoping to avoid witnessing a PDA outside the restaurant and then headed for my car.  Before I could unlock the door, my phone rang.  It was my friend.  Yikes!  The moment of truth had arrived.  "What did you think?" she asked.  Does a true friend answer truthfully?  I hesitated and then said, "You do know that those are prison tats, right?"  She was quiet for a minute and then said, "How did you know?"  I guess she really didn't know the difference between artistic ink and a prison tattoo.  I mean, this guy even had a small spade tattooed under his right eye like a teardrop!  If that alone didn't say prison...  She admitted that she could sense everyone in the room staring at this guy; she hadn't really been out in public with him until that evening.  Not that good people don't sometimes end up in prison for stupid mistakes - or that people who've been incarcerated don't turn their lives around - but this guy had attitude and a scary demeanor.  And that whole freaky white supremacist thing.  Scared the crap out of me, that's for sure.

Isn't it strange...

how satisfying being able to cram a whole bunch of rubber stamping supplies into one small cupboard can be?  This spot is originally where the color laser printer was going until I had an epiphany and passed it along to Richard.  This would have been wasted space - but thanks to these lovely (and cheap inexpensive!) storage boxes of various sizes from Wal-Mart, I have stored patterned paper, card-making supplies, ribbon, envelopes, Cricut cartridges (out with those bulky boxes!) and the stamps I use most in about nine cubic feet.  Now the top of the craft desk, which I will photograph tomorrow, won't be an eyesore right behind my work desk!  I love organizing - too bad I don't really like organizing other people's junk.  I have two more bags of stuff for Goodwill, a box of school supplies and stuff for Ariela's kids and two big bags of trash.  And - I am proud of myself - the boxes Al & Tom brought over from the office yesterday are all empty save one.  I haven't quite figured out where to put my flatbed scanner yet.  It's fairly compact - it stands up - and I like it for scanning photos.  That's another project I am going to undertake this summer: scanning two big boxes of photos so I don't have to keep everything.  I know, I know - I will keep the oldest ones, but Christmas tree pictures and stuff like that I am going to scan and store digitally for posterity.  Not like I have anyone who will care, but still.  Less is more, less is more...

Finally found it...

The elusive camera cable!  Al & Tom picked up my desk chair at the office today, along with several crates of files and other essentials for me.  I spent three hours yesterday morning sitting in a hard oak chair while I gave a QuickBooks lesson - not a good thing.  Anyhow, I've been unpacking and organizing (between phone calls, clients and a quick trip to the office) and there it was - in a box with some other cables that I have not a clue what to do with - the cable for my Canon PowerShot.  Yippee!  I had arranged my collection of Longaberger May baskets on my baker's rack and moved it to the wall beside the entry.  As you can see, I need to chant less is more, less is more just a little bit more.  I actually got sort of used to the spareness of my first apartment; it was very Zen with not much stuff.  Why, it was practically Japanese by my usual clutter standards!  But I digress...  I'm not sure about the lamp; I have to live with it for a few days.  It's the cutest little Mary Engelbreit lamp - an eBay find - but the shade is wrong.  Yes, the cats ate the original shade - story of my life!  I really want to put my candle warmer where the lamp is so that it smells nice when people walk in the front door.  Guess I'll be arranging and re-arranging this weekend! 

Sometimes it's a good thing just to mess with your stuff.

An Occurrence at...

Shanghai Express...  Bet you thought I was going to say Owl Creek Bridge.  Alas, no - I'm sure that movie can be rented somewhere (the story is much better!), but tonight after a dinner of take-out sesame chicken, Aggie and I are going to watch Gregory Peck in Old Gringo, the fictional tale of writer Ambrose Bierce's last days in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution.  It has Jimmy Smits (as General Arroyo) and Jane Fonda (as spinster Harriet Winslow).  Pancho Villa is only a minor character, apparently.  They don't make actors like Gregory Peck anymore, I'll say that.  Now we just have movie stars and publicity hounds for the most part.  Oh, for the days of Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda and John Wayne.  I even miss Steve McQueen.  I wonder if Paul Newman has staged any plays on the great soundstage in the sky...  I know, I know, I can get the DVDs.  After all, a classic is a classic and worthy of watching over and over again.

And...  I just finished indexing the posts on my blog. 

An OCD dream!

If I could find that cable...

I would upload photos of the absolute disaster area that is my new home office at this moment.  However, it would appear that my camera cable is still at the old office in the same box as my LabelWriter and computer speakers.  In an attempt to cram ten pounds of crap into a five pound bag, I mean downsize my 1200-square foot office into this 200-square foot dining room, I am once again reduing the number of things with which I find it absolutely necessary to survive.  I am recycling stuff to other people who will use it more than I will.  My friend Richard got custody of my color laser printer by agreeing to print color stuff for me when I need it - which is very seldom.  He's been using the printer for his real estate flyers anyway.  My living room is just too small for two big chairs and a loveseat, so my client Jonathan inherited the big green chair for his living room.  Now his wife won't have to spend any money on new furniture - they also took the leather sofa from the office off my hands.  Jonathan is really thrilled about the saving money part.  And I have yet another box of stuff piling up for the Salvation Army.  Aggie says she would recycle but she only has four toys.  She does have a wardrobe of collars (right now she's wearing her pink Princess number) but she feels that they are all essential for her to be a well-dressed cairn.  Whatever.

Breaking up is hard to do...

even if it is with just an office space.  Wasn't it pretty?  This was taken shortly after we moved in three years ago - and I made a few changes after that - but I loved it.  Unfortunately, life throws us curve balls and it's time to keep going in the same direction, but with less overhead.  My internet and phone have been transferred to my apartment, so the only thing left in the office is the stuff to go into my storage closet and some of my files.  I am so thankful for my friends who have helped me pack and hauled my junk and really made this move easy for me.  Oh - and we had a great indoor yard sale on Saturday - we sold most of the stuff left in the office and made a decent amount of money - thanks to Ariela's hard work.

I am counting my many blessings!

Friends are like bras...

Close to your heart and all about support.

Why I do not have children...

See this?  Crying, shrieking baby - completely out of control with a mother who is either unable or unwilling to stop the tantrum.  Somewhere outside my office - at least fifty feet away - there is a shrieking child whom I cannot see, but can hear loudly and clearly.  This has been going on for at least fifteen minutes.  I suspect it's someone outside the local gambling establishment (yet another story) sitting with the kids while the friend or significant other is inside gambling away the milk and diaper money.  Probably the same people I see in the grocery store with carts full of beer and junk food who smack their crying children and say, "If you don't shut up, I'll give you something to cry about."  Like that ever works.  My mother used to say that to us.

I'm so cynical today.  Which is probably another reason why God never allowed me to have children - well, that and the fact the I didn't get married until I was 37.  An interesting, and yet somehow confusing, correlation which I have explained to many people, believe me.

It goes like this:

"Do you have children?"

"No - I didn't get married until I was 37."

"Yes, but did you have children before that?"

At which point I want to say, "No, you dumbass - don't you know that marriage comes before children?"

But instead, I just smile and change the subject.  And, of course, now I am thankful that I don't have a teenager with too much make-up and multiple piercings making me nuts during the throes of menopause at the advanced age of 51.  Because I'd have to be a lot nicer and stop using dumbass at the end of every sentence. 

They say wireless is better...

but I am old and not terribly techno-proficient and well, there are just days when I hate the danged internet and everything it attempts to make possible.  My business phone is voice-over IP with my business internet set-up.  I've discovered I can't keep my business phone number if I move my set-up home and get residential service (which is half the price, by the way).  So, I'm moving the business service home, and if I drop my fax line, with the new contract it's $60 cheaper than I'm currently paying, so I guess that's something to be thankful for.  Well, as if in response to my being cheap, getting rid of a seldom-used phone line and scheduling the service move for next week, my VOIP modem died.  Dead. RIP dead.  Graveyard dead.  The service guy had to come out and replace it.  I have also discovered that part of my recent internet difficulties have been my wireless network - the brainchild of my engineer husband.  So, I've bid farewell to wireless once and for all - I've disconnected the router from everything and run one long ethernet cable from my cable modem to my PC.  Voila!  No more difficulties - well, except for the dead VOIP phone thing, but that was a fluke of some kind.  So for the next few days - and when I am finally settled into my home office - we are hard-wired!  No more wireless for me!

A luncheon out...

I had a productive morning, thanks to the help of some wonderful friends.  Ariela helped me move more stuff out of the office and Allen & Tom disassembled my desk and moved it to my new home office.  It took us awhile to decide on the optimum configuration for the desks in my dining room - but it's there and now all I have to do is put everything away!  I'm hoping to get my internet and phone moved on Monday, but that remains to be seen, so my computer is still at the office.  Ariela is gearing up for the indoor yard sale on Saturday - and I am proud of myself for cleaning another eight bags of stuff out of my closet and apartment to sell.  Less is more, less is more...  We went to the Thai Lotus around the corner from my house for lunch.  I've not been a big fan of Thai food, but the guys seem to like it, so we went.  I had Pad Thai with chicken and Ariela had something called Lotus Chicken.  She liked it.  Al had some sort of curry and Tom stuck with his favorite Lotus rice dish.  It was actually quite good - different for a change.  I am so thankful for good friends who are willing to help me out with moving all this stuff.  Tom and Ariela both love to cook, so I foresee a Nicaraguan feast in our near future.  Ariela's husband makes a mean carne asada and she makes this classic Nicaraguan dish called gallo pinto that is really good.  Tom & Al are both from Wisconsin, and while Al is a meat and potatoes guy, Tom is willing to try other things.  Ariela is a food adventurer, too - Marco is stuck on Mexican food.  And well, I will eat just about anything.  As long as it doesn't look like the animal it once was. 

Dancing in space...

Okay, I might sign up for a Mission to Mars if I could dance in space with Tim Robbins.  Gary Sinise is one of my favorite actors but the best part of this whole movie is when you start to hear strains of Van Halen's Dance the Night Away and Connie Nielsen dances her way toward her man.  Earlier in the movie she describes Tim Robbins' dance style as "shuffling his feet and grabbing my butt."  Zero Gs may have improved his overall gracefulness score, but Tim Robbins can shuffle his feet and grab my butt anytime.

Another weird movie...

But then, Steve Zahn (check out Happy, Texas) is in it - so what did I expect?  I'm not even sure how this one made it onto my Netflix queue, but it showed up on Saturday.  Aggie is game to watch just about anything, so this is how we spent our Sunday evening.  Talk about a bunch of oddball characters: Woody Harrelson played a former punk yogurt magnate named Jango and Josh Lucas played a porn star with relationship advice - but his scenes only appeared on the deleted scenes feature and the gag reel.  There was a Chinese-American guy named Al who pretty much stole the show - as well as a Vietnamese Buddhist monk that Steve Zahn kept calling Father.  I finally realized that the monk was The General from The Ladykillers (Tzi Ma) who kept swallowing his cigarette when Mrs. Munson would complain about the smoking in the basement.  Anyhow, it's sort of a cute movie - but I wouldn't classify it as a romantic comedy.  It's more of a screwball independent film - the kind my husband always hated to watch.  I have no idea what's on our agenda for tonight, but I just might dig out my DVD of The Ladykillers or some other crazy Coen Brothers flick...

It's closet day!

And no, this isn't my closet - yet...  Ariela and Marco are stopping by the office on the way to my house to pick up a van-load of stuff to put into my new closet shelves.  We are adding two shelves to the entry closet, with enough room underneath for my rolling carts of rubber stamps and craft supplies.  The rest of the closet will hold my office supplies and bins of seasonal decorations.  Marco is installing two long shelves in my bedroom closet for clothing bins and shoe boxes.  I had the Salvation Army take away my huge dresser, so I'm paring down the clothes I never wear.  I have a bad habit of wearing the same jeans and shirts over and over again because they're the ones in the dryer...  Anyhow, I have sorted out many more bags of stuff at home for our indoor garage sale at the office next week as well as several bags of clothes and shoes for donating to Goodwill.  Next week, Marco is going to move the wire shelves from the back room at the office to the huge storage closet on my lanai, where I will have plenty of room for Christmas decorations and other stuff I don't know what to do with, but can't make myself sell or give away.  I keep chanting: less is more, less is more...  I've even made room for my bins of fabric on the laundry closet shelf.  As I may have said before, I love it when a plan comes together! 

I promise to post actual photos of the finished masterpiece!

Strange, but worth watching...

I was pooped out last night!  Ariela did most of the lugging, but I sorted through boxes and boxes of stuff - and I only went back into the fabric give-away bin once for some denim I had paid good money for.  I'm envisioning tote bags... but I digress.  Ariela arrived at noon with her panini grill and she made turkey, tomato and cheese sandwiches for lunch. With banana peppers, even!  I tell you, I am spoiled!  Then we got to work and we now have a pile of stuff to go home and a pile of stuff for the indoor garage sale.  After work, Ariela's husband, Marco, came and looked at my closets and the shelving supplies to estimate the time it would take to install.  (I went to Home Depot on the way to work this morning to return the wrong parts and get the right ones...)  We're installing the shelves tomorrow morning and then we can just take the stuff home and put it right away!  I love it when a plan comes together.  Aggie and I had taco salad from Taco Bell for dinner and then settled in to watch our Netflix selection of the week.  I cut back to one DVD out at a time when I discovered I could watch most movies right on my computer - and save money, too!  Anyhow, and the point of this post, Passengers was actually pretty good - and I know I would have liked it better had Richard not already spoiled the ending for me when he recommended the movie.  Diane Wiest was in it, too, which was a plus - I have loved her ever since Footloose when she directed her minister husband to a multitude of scriptural references which encourage us to dance.  No dancing in this movie, but it was still worth watching.

Okay, last old photograph post for the week...

My grandmother (left) and my prim and proper great-grandmother are spinning in their respective graves at this moment.  An age-old photograph of them in their bathing costumes, as they called them, is now on the internet for the entire world to see.  My grandmother was a pip, let me tell you.  She didn't inherit one bit of her sainted mother's ladylike demeanor.  As she was fond of saying, she called a spade a spade - but my grandfather would reply, "No you didn't - you called it a g-d-d-amned shovel!"  She had this 1954 Plymouth which she drove like a bat out of hell and she was livid every time a bird left evidence of its presence on her little black car.  "There's bird sh-t on my car again!" she'd shriek.  I started pointing it out to her: "Look, Grandma, a bird sh-t on your car!"  She'd smack me on the bottom and say, "That's bird manure, young lady!"  Grandma invented the doctrine of Do as I say, not as I do.  I was at least ten before I knew that my Grandpa's name was Bill; she either called him Honey or You Son-of-a-B-tch.  Once she arrived alone at our house in Florida; we asked where Grandpa was and she said she had no idea - she had left him somewhere in North Carolina.  The next day he showed up on the bus.  He had, during my mother's childhood, been a raging drunk and once he got sober, Grandma still only put up with so much.  I don't ever remember Grandpa drinking until after my Grandmother died - but she had her limits after many years of putting up with his shenanigans.  I have, however, always thought it was quite funny that my tee-totaling  mother never would have even met my father if my grandfather hadn't been drunk and fallen off the hay wagon on the farm.  My mom went to the hospital to see her dad and my single, handsome father noticed her tight, red pedal pushers as she sashayed down the hallway or so the story goes.  Maybe she was a lot nicer then - I would hope so - and I guess that's where I came from.  Hee hee!

For someone who hates her cell phone...

I sure started out life with the phone glued to my ear!  I'm giving away my age now - but when I was little, you could pick up your phone and have a delightful conversation with the operator.  When we lived on the farm, we had a party line and you could talk to a bunch of other people, too!  I'm stuck on memory lane today, I guess.  Ariela helped me to pack up an enormous pile of stuff bound for my apartment and an even bigger pile for our indoor garage sale next week.  That girl loves having garage sales - I'd just as soon call the Salvation Army and have them come and take it all away, but she has plans for this junk, bless her heart.

A true friend is rare and hard to find, that's for sure!

Sorting stuff...

I've been in the back room at the office all day sorting through boxes of stuff.  Tim is coming to fix my network meltdown again tonight and he says he is going to take his stuff back to Tampa with him so his old boss can ship it up to Pennsylvania for him.  We'll see about that - it's been months since I cleared out the storage unit.  My network died again - it was fine when I left on Friday but when I stopped by on Sunday to pick up some baskets to take home - no internet, no nothing.  I'm just not a techie and repairing a network setup is simply beyond me.  Needless to say, I am finding other work to do that does not require an internet connection.  I found some old pictures and a lot of other crap I just pitched out, but I scanned this picture of me and my dad.  I must have been about four because there's no sign of my sister in the picture.  She showed up when I was almost five and I had to stop telling people that my stuffed monkey, Zippy, was my sister who looked just like my daddy.

I knew I shouldn't have complained...

about the heat yesterday.  Karma - it bites you in the butt every time.  I came into the office this morning and it was eighty-three (count them!) degrees in here.  I had left the air conditioning set at seventy-eight when I left the office yesterday since I am trying to conserve on the electric bill and when I opened the door this morning, it was like a heat wave!  I immediately turned on the big floor fan and went to check the thermostat.  Yikes!  I called my AC guy post haste and he was here within an hour; he diagnosed the problem as most likely being the capacitor - whatever that does (I know Tim replaced the capacitor on the AC unit at our old house on more than one occasion).  He said it would be about $135 - which isn't bad; I knew I was taking a chance when I got the used unit.  In the meantime, Petey isn't speaking to me and I can't blame him.  I'm burning up and I don't have fur and a base body temperature of one-hundred-and two degrees - my poor little gingersnap guy!

Well, thank You, Lord - it was just the capacitor and Jason, the super-hero AC guy, has it up and cooling again already!  He was referred to me by one of my clients and he has been great.  But I am still hot and in my book, that is as good an excuse as any to blow this popstand and do something infinitely more fun that mundane paperwork and sitting here waiting for the phone to ring.  I have pictures to hang at home and a window to measure for a curtain rod.  I put my new pillow covers on my living room pillows, and I took a picture, but I have left my camera at home for the past week.  It might be a Freudian thing because I am completely horrified at how pink floral and green gingham patchwork pillows look on my brown leather sofa.  I am hoping that the matching valance I am going to make will help pull it all together.  If not, well, I'm not out anything but my time because I've had the fabrics I used for about ten years.  Ten years - no kidding.  My name is Dawn and I am a closet fabric-a-holic.  I am powerless over a fabric sale.  I've been known to buy entire bolts of Mary Engelbreit fabric at WalMart when it's marked down to $1 a yard.  I mean, it's such a deal...  And look at the money I saved over the regular price.  It's a disease.

Holy crap, it's hot...

And it's only May!  I didn't feel like doing a lick of work at a snake (or anything else, for that matter) so I took Ray for a little ride and then we went home to have lunch with Miss Aggie.  Well, she hasn't actually met Ray yet, what with her propensity for making a run for it whenever I put her on the leash to go outside.  Thank goodness for her puppy potty and willingness to use it!  I am hoping I can get the lanai barrier put up this weekend so we can move the puppy potty closer to the great outdoors.  Not that it's even remotely cool enough - or breezy - to sit out there!

Yep. It's true...

and I'm going to frame this print as soon as it gets here.  I had an identical framed print that was ruined in my move from my house to the first apartment - and now that I'm finally nesting and embracing my new life, I'm going to re-purpose a black metal frame (reuse & recycle!) and hang this up in my new home office - over the craft space - ah, the luxury of two desks!.  I'm thinking green mat - like the sweater, but I usually listen to the sage advice of my framer friend, Susan.  She is very talented and never steers me wrong on color.  Although green would coordinate very nicely with the big green chair...

Feel good movie...

Aggie and I watched New In Town last night - it was cute!  There were some great characters - and some great character actors (J.K. Simmons, for one) and another take on life in small-town Minnesota.  Sort of like Fargo without the murders.  Ha.  I liked it.  And Harry Connick, Jr. does scruffily sexy really well.

To clip or not to clip...

that is the question.  Okay, Hamlet never subscribed to Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion, but I have lovingly perused, pondered and preserved every issue ever printed and well, my desk drawers are full of them.  I really have nowhere to put these magazines, and in keeping with my new less is more philosophy of life, I am considering looking through them one last time and saving only the articles and photographs that inspire me.  I have a style notebook that I've been saving magazine articles and pictures in for years (thank you, Alexandra Stoddard!) and I think it's time that MEHC went the way of all of the Southern Living and Country Home magazines.

What do you all think?

It's one of those days...

and I feel like a dark cloud has settled over me - everything aches: my neck, my shoulders, my hands, my knees - and I am out of Tylenol!  I took some before I left home this morning and I thought I had some in my bag, but alas, no!  I've been sort of busy today and can't leave because I am waiting for my Friday payroll client to come in.  He cannot write his own checks for one reason or another.  I do direct deposit for most of his employees but he has a couple of people who don't have checking accounts and I have to write checks for them.  So he brings the checkbook and I write out the checks and he signs them.  Oh well - the pay is the same no matter which way I do it.  I just wish he'd hurry up and get here. 

Mind over matter and deep breathing are not helping at all today!

I love Stanley Tucci...

but he was really creepy in this movie.

Churros and losing one's way...

My dear friend Ariela stopped by this morning with a piping hot bag of homemade churros - such a nice surprise and a delicious treat!  She used Paula Deen's recipe with a hint of orange zest and the flavor was excellent.  She said that she made the first batch when the kids were home and Baby ate them as fast as they came out of the fryer.  I can see that - he's a real pill.  I would have been right there with him.  We had a nice visit and a blackened tilapia caesar salad for lunch.  With raspberry vinaigrette - yum!

I know it sounds like I'm food-obsessed - but it's so nice to actually have someone to have a meal with.  Aggie is good company, but not much of a conversationalist over dinner.  And cooking for one and a little dog isn't a whole lot of fun; I end up with a lot of leftovers and by the time I finish them off, I'm sick of whatever it was I made.  I spent four days eating yellow rice last week.

And finally, I think I've really discovered the root of my blue funk of the last several days.  Being upset about my mother-in-law's passing started it, but I realized in looking around my space at home (and the office, to some degree) that I really have lost my way over the past year or so.  Probably longer than that, if I were willing to admit it to myself.  I used to be more together and my home was a real reflection of my creative self - and since moving from my house to the condo, I've never really settled in and made the space my own.  More than once, Ariela and I have talked about how much I miss the way my home used to be; we met after I had essentially given up on trying to be the Martha Stewart magazine-ready version of me.  Part of the problem was that I was living under the assumption that it was merely a stopover on the way to our new home in Pennsylvania, but it's been more than that.  I've stopped doing a lot of the little things I used to do that made me who I am.  I've been remiss in sending birthday cards to family and friends, I have let my sewing and crafting pretty much go by the wayside and I haven't put my personal stamp on my surroundings at all.  Sure, my stuff is there - but I haven't made a point of hanging artwork or making window treatments.  I don't even bake things for people the way I used to.  And I miss those things - I really do.  So I've made myself a list of all those things I want to accomplish over the next couple of weeks - mainly in the time it takes me to get the office moved home.  And the words of a sweet friend encourage me; Ariela simply said, "I will help you." 

And I know she will.

I'm nesting...

now that I have some free time - and getting ready to move even more stuff into my new place - and I have these two great silk plants from the office (that everyone has thought were real for the past three years) to find a spot for.  I had them in these hammered copper pots that I bought for cheap at Target way back when, but they never looked just right.  The other day I got a ceramic pot for the ficus at WalMart and it's perfect in the living room - after I moved the ginkgo tree to the lanai.  I have tried to find a suitable pot for the chinese evergreen, to no avail.  My shopping mantra is now: when looking for just the thing, go to Target.  I browsed the whole store, as I am wont to do, and in the garden shop (where else?) I found a lovely terra cotta pot for $14.00.  My only problem was getting it into the cart from the top shelf.  You can do it, I encouraged myself and prepared for a hernia.  And when I got a good hold on the thing, I realized that it wasn't pottery at all.  The thing sure had me fooled! 

And the best part is that when I got to the checkout, it was only $8.99!

A sense of the familiar...

Okay, this will sound absolutely crazy, but I had the best time this afternoon cutting fabric squares for some quilted pillow covers that I am going to make tomorrow.  I had forgotten the familiar feel of fabric under my hands; it reminds me of the many Saturday afternoons of my youth spent at the blackhead Singer handed down to me by my grandmother.  She taught me to sew by stitching threadless straight lines on notebook paper.  When I could do that to her satisfaction, I made napkins.  Then an apron.  I graduated to making Barbie clothes, which I churned out for years - spring and fall collections made from scraps leftover from whatever Grandma was making.  I made hand-embroidered hippie tunics when I has in high school (yes, I'm old!) and in college, I made wrap skirts to order for extra spending money.  When I went to work in the real world, I had less time to sew but I often made quilted pillows as birthday and Christmas gifts for family and friends.  I detoured to cross-stitching for awhile and took up card-making with rubber stamps and stuff, but I really think that sewing is still my favorite hobby and creative outlet.  My sewing machine and serger were in storage for a year and well, now that I'm not so busy with work...  After spending yesterday afternoon watching a movie sacked out on the sofa with Aggie, I realized how incredibly ugly the green ultrasuede pillows in my living room are.  I had them on the sofa at the office and they migrated to the apartment with the furniture - and I have finally seen that my living room is not at all me.  For inspiration, I went to my bookshelf and grabbed Living a Beautiful Life by Alexandra Stoddard and spent the next couple of hours re-reading her excellent advice.  I envisioned pink and green patchwork pillows to match the quilted throw on my sofa and so first thing this morning, I sorted out some appropriate fabric from my stash in the back room and after lunch, I set about cutting my squares and arranging them for four different pillow covers.  I'm so excited - stay tuned!

Old(er) people...

Gotta love 'em.  One of my oldest clients was just here, along with his new wife, and the entire time she was here, she called me Sandy.  Now how did she get Sandy out of Dawn?  She was a little hard of hearing, so I could see how she might misunderstand and think I said Donna, but Sandy?  (I once knew a lady, years ago in a former life, who thought my name was Doris.  That is ten times worse!)  Oh well, I gave up on correcting her and just smiled at my client, her lovely and kind husband -  who didn't want to correct her either.  Isn't love grand?

Knit two...

and yes, the sequel is almost as good as the first book in the series, The Friday Night Knitting Club.  Aggie and I read the whole thing last night after a dinner of fresh tamales with green bananas for dessert.  I love green bananas - the minute they're yellow, too ripe for me!  I see more banana bread in the near future because when I get home tonight, those four bananas on the kitchen counter will be well on their way to yellow.  But I digress...  Knit Two was good - but didn't have the same flavor as the first.  I still don't like a couple of the characters and not much has really been resolved.  I understand there's a third book...  And now I'm wondering if there's going to be a movie.

More hot tamales...

One of my new bookkeeping clients is a career fireman who owns a tortilleria - his retirement plan when he has his 25 years in - three more years, he says.  He came in today to sign his 2009 tax returns and brought me a dozen steaming, homemade tamales!  Yum!  They are excellent; Tim used to buy tamales at his bakery, but I just met Julio during tax season when another one of my clients recommended me to him.  I've never tried their tortillas, but Ariela says the corn tortillas are great.  I'm more of a flour tortilla fan - so I'll have to try those one day soon.  Free tamales and I got paid for my work.

Life is good.

More Billie Letts...

Last night I read Shoot the Moon, by Billie Letts.  Good book - a little mystery, a little romance, a little murder, or two - or three.  And great down home writing.  Tonight we are reading

and I'll let you know tomorrow how it is. 

The Honk and Holler Opening Soon - just the title made me want to read it!

Shirley Wuest Smith Rubino 1928-2010

My mother-in-law passed away last night.  She would have been 82 in July.  She was diagnosed with Alzheimers in 2008 and had been in a nursing facility in Pennsylvania near her sister's home since early 2009.  About a month ago when I spoke with her, she told me that she had a new boyfriend named Jack.  She sounded like a guilty teenager.  Who know what those little old people get up to after the lights go out...  Anyhow, they had taken her to the hospital on Saturday because she was complaining of stomach and back pain.  Tim talked to her about 8:30 Sunday night and they called him around midnight to tell him that she had died. Shirley, the oldest of three sisters, was born in Pennsylvania and lived there until she retired to Florida in the early 1980s with her husband, Al (Tim's stepdad).  Pop was a gem.  When Shirley was young, she and her sister had a local radio show called Shirley and Curly; they sang "country-western" music, she called it.  She and her first husband had a son named Harry.  When Harry was ten or so, they adopted Tim.  Tim said he was terrorized raised mostly by his grandmother.  After she and Tim's dad divorced, she married a man named Ronald Whose-Last-Name-I-Can't-Remember and they adopted Tim's sister, Kris.  Kris is another story entirely, which I will save for another time.  Apparently, Ronald didn't last long and one day Tim finally got his wish: to have Al as a dad.  Shirley and Pop had been married over twenty-five years when Pop went to his reward.  Shirley was always nice to me; my own mother tried to convince me that there was some unwritten rule about hating your mother-in-law.  I mean, Shirley could be weird; she once gave me a farting teddy bear for my birthday.  But she was never mean.  My own mother had cornered the market on meanness.  Shirley also did and said a LOT of funny stuff - some of which I have written about and other things which I have stored away for future writing, like the mind-controlled Roomba and the time she nearly choked to death in the Mexican restaurant.  When Tim called to tell me, the first thing he said was, "I guess now she knows that Lucky didn't make it."  I had to laugh.  Shirley had this cat named Lucky, which Kris had rescued from Death Row at the shelter.  When she went to the rehab in 2008 with her broken arm, Lucky came to stay with us and our cats.  Well, one day I went home and Lucky was laid out on the kitchen floor.  He was alive, but barely.  I rushed him to the vet who informed me that this old cat was suffering from kidney and liver failure and there was nothing we could do for him.  So I did the humane thing and dispatched Lucky to his heavenly home.  But I couldn't tell my mother-in-law.  She asked me every day, "How's Lucky?" and I would say that he was just fine.  That wasn't really a lie, since Lucky was indeed fine.  So for the better part of the last year and half, every time she asked about Lucky, we would say that he was fine. 

Tim's right; I guess now she knows.