She shoots, she SCORES!

I'm telling you right off the bat, if you are like me, and you love to stumble upon lovely things at the thrift store, then you'd better prepare yourself. You may even need to get a drink of your choice in preparation. You will for sure need to be sitting down as you may just collapse when you see what I got today.
So...I'm out early this morning on my exercise walk. I was just about to my turn-around spot when, out of the corner of my eye, I see something orange. Now, you know me and orange so I headed on over. Did I mention that it's Bulk Trash Pickup week in my hood? Uh, huh, that's right, freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. What is it, you ask? Hoohaaaaaaaa, here we go...


I'm walking down the street in my hood carrying this big ass lamp in one hand, and the shade in the other when I hear, "OH MY GOD WHAT DID YOU GET?" It's my friend, Laura, and she's out for her morning run when she spots me. Now, Laura is an amazing artist who makes the most beautiful things ever, and purveyor of all thrifty goodness herself, so I was deeelighted to get to jump up and down with someone. I also got a honk and a thumbs up from a lady driving by in her car. I'm tellin' ya...there's a bond among scavengers that is true and strong. Seriously, my heart is still fluttering just looking at this mid-century beauty.
I'm downright gloating at this point, but I've had the Luck o' the Irish the last few days, and I just have to tell someone. If you've not fainted with envy yet, let me show you what I found on Craigslist Saturday!!! I've been looking for two matching twin beds. I really wanted something in wood, and I really hoped to find some with little bookshelves on the headboard. I found something interesting on CL, so I sent the lady an email. She was having an estate sale as her elderly mama was downsizing. She wouldn't give me a firm price, just encouraged me to come over and look. Well, I schlep over there and, lo and behold, and HOLY S*&#T, she's got a pair of Paul McCobb twin beds in that house. I almost passed out right there and then. The only problemo was the mucho priceo. I was seriously bummed because I was looking to spend Craigslist prices, not estate sale prices. I must have looked grief stricken (I was!) because she promised me she'd call if they didn't sell, and told me they would go down 50% the next evening after the sale was over and done! That was damn near the longest 24 hours I've had in forever. But I'll be damned if the phone doesn't ring and she offers them to me for LESS than 50%. She was "kind" enough to throw in the FORTY-year-old mattresses. Hahaha. She was so cute, I just had to act like I was thrilled about that too. And here they are in all their glory....

I'm doing a little patchwork on a couple of the panels, but they'll be good as new soon. If you're not into furniture or mid-century design, these won't mean diddly squat to you, but to me, it's like winning the lottery. I don't know what I did to deserve such goodness, but I hope the thrifting gods keep it coming!
Someday I'll blog about gardening again. I've got a project just getting going that I wanna show you, and I made a stock tank pond thingee that I'm loving. If I can pull myself away from the light of the orange lamp, and drag myself off the McCobb pieces, I just might be able to take some pictures. If you're needing some good thrifting vibes, you might wanna stop by and you can rub my head or something. Can't hurt, right?

Project Time.

Pretty abysmal, no? This is a little patch of hell that I've been struggling with. Our house has a breezeway in it, and the breezeway dumps out into this spot. The wall matches our compound gate and it hides the ugly garbage and recycling cans. I transplanted some horsetail reed into it first, and it took off pretty quickly. Then I added some mystery plants I got from a friend's pond. Any ideas what they are? I was afraid I'd waited too long to plant them, but they're doing great!






I am also apparently in mosquito raising business. I'm not sure why I didn't just make this a little water pond. For some reason I made it a bog instead. What I mean is that I dumped a bunch of dirt in there, added the plants in plastic pots, and then added water to make it all slushy. Now that I see the plants doing so well, I wish I'd just done water and the pots instead of all the dirt. Guess I could just dump it all out and just do water, but the thought of all that gunk being dumped out seems overwhelming to me. I got enough gunk around here naturally without adding to it with my mistakes. All I need is a few mollys (fishys) in there and it will be a sweet little mosquito free pondlette. I also have a yummy idea that I'm gonna try to do tomorrow. Today I'm going to gravel around the whole area. It's too hot and I'm too broke to figure out a plant plan. Someday I'd like to have this all planted with some pretty shade plants to help soften all the metal. This spot gets the sweetest bit of late afternoon sun - just right for a boggy mess, uh, marsh. I'm off to dig in the dirt! It's been raining this morning which means the temperature has dropped. Garden on, dude!

Happy Number Seven.

Garden booty! This kind of meal makes me soooo happy. Veggies, and cheese, and sauces, and bread, and ...

Torpedo IPAs, and thrift store carafes, and home made place mats. It's the little things that thrill me these days. Hope you have a happy, thrilling day.

Merry Solstice!

Merry, Merry, Merry Solstice to you! We'll get over 14 hours of sun today. (Here in Texas, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.) Solstice means holiday around here! We started our family rituals early this morning...

The lighting of the Celebration Ring is one of our favorite things to do on Solstice. For summer we have a sailboat, a sun, a mermaid, and new this year, a chicken - Bock Bock.

Mama always digs out The Beach Boys, Endless Summer, and cranks it up loud! Nothing says summer to me like hearing them croon Surfer Girl (over and over and over). This was the first album I ever bought and I love it still. A double album, no less! My 12-year-old heart just a fluttering as my mom took me down to the Record Rack in Beaumont to buy it.

Last, but not least, we always go swimming on the Summer Solstice. What is summer without a dip in the pool, pond, creek, river?

Later we'll have a summer meal of tomatoes, and corn, and watermelon, and lemonade, and, and, and... yum!

I hope you have the most delicious day filled with lots of summer fun and good vibrations!

The Big Picture.

I am on bended knee in awe of the amazing goodness of my new windows. All windows are now finished!! Hallelujah and praise Allah! (Insert your deity of choice.) ) ("I" before "e" rule does not apply. I love it when that happens.) Good-bye to 59-year-old windows and Hellloooo 2010s.
BEFORE:



AFTER!!! Oh, so, so, so after!! I still have to paint the trim, but I just could not wait to show you! The difference is amazing. I mean, really, truly, getdownwithyourbadself amazing. I had no idea that having windows with no partition thingees (what are those called?) in them could make such a dramatic difference.


This is the one in the back of the house looking in from the patio. I am just beside myself! I was worried that I was going to miss having the triple window thing where the two sides actually opened, but, oh, my...the big picture is sooo beautiful.
Lastly, I gotta pimp my contractor again - David Duarte of Duarte Construct (512.275.6500). He is the best, best, best. You can find him at http://duarteconstruct.com. (I get nothing in exchange for that pimping...just letting you know there's a good guy out there.) If you need me, I'll be here, at home, looking out my windows. Give me a wave as you pass by!

Happy Number Five.

A full fridge on Monday makes me soooo happy.

Hey, who put the cantaloupe in there?

(Sorry, cantaloupe...too many people to invite to the wedding!)

Also, do you use Mrs. Meyer's products? I do, and I looooove them, but never, never have I loved a candle like these that just came out. They come in a great, reusable jar with lid, are reasonably priced at about $7.99, and the smell is TA DIE FOR. I am not really a scent girl, so to speak, but I do love the smell of a quality candle. The lemon verbena is just sublime as is the geranium. They make me happy, happy, happy. Get one and be happy too!

Seeds, succulents, and shite.

Shall we begin with shite? Let us, then, begin with shite. (I've gotten to.ta.lly sucked into watching The Tudors on Netflix. Can you tell?)

Boy, oh, boy when will I ever learn to keep my big mouth shut? (No comments, please.) I've been hooing and hawing about my prolific peach tree to anyone who will listen...even strangers, if truth be told. Now look what I got...peach death everywhere. I was soooo looking forward to a post entitled, "Peachy Galore," (har har) but now it's gonna have to be, "Peachy No More." I mean, there are still a few on the tree. Some. Not many. What. The. Hell? They just got to a certain point then ... nada. Sigh. I'm tempted to try a few of the uh, less green ones. They can't taste any worse the ones in the store right now, right?

On succulents: the new bed is doing well. Perfect amount of sun and shade.

A word to the wise: don't make your succulent bed out of the cement rings that surrounded your 50+ year old oak trees. That's a lot of room for succulents. I think I'll be buying succs for a long, long time. AND, I've got a whole other bed to go! I may have to rethink.

On seeds: look! My Butterfly Weed made seeds! I know you guys that have been doing this a long time won't be too impressed by this, but I am giddy!! I thought some weird Texas bug thing was happening on it. Lo and behold, it just seeded. This is just fascinating to me. All those little potential plants! Right there for the taking! No trip to the nursery required. I got so excited about them that I actually forgot to even plant them. I carried them around in a ziplock bag for days showing everyone. I really like Butterfly Weed, a lot. That's good because one needs a lot of them in the garden so that when you go to bed at night with a lovely yard full of them, then wake in the morning to a lovely yard full of eaten-to-the-ground ones, you will have still have some here and there that survived the night. In reality, this does not bother me at all. The whole reason I garden is to provide home and hearth for critters of all sizes. The caterpillars and butterflies are the most exciting thing in the world to me. I'm gonna tell you all about my all-encompassing pond love someday. The amount of life that is living in and around my tiny pond is staggering. I can sit there for hours (oh, yea, I've got hours to kill around here. Har Har Har.) looking at all the creepy crawlies.

Speaking of...the ubiquitous dragonfly shot. I never, ever, ever ceased to be amazed by the beauty of these guys. That orange/red color is just incredible. I saw a post on one of my homeschooling message boards announcing a "Third Annual Bug Day" at a semi-local farm. Seems like you go out there with your kids and EAT BUGS. E-A-T them. Dude. I'm a vegetarian now, but I was gonna have to just suck it up for this partay cuz you know I'm down with eating bugs. But then I saw this guy and I had second thoughts. Why would I wanna eat him for sport when he is obviously so happy and amazing right where he is. They even suggested bagging June bugs by the gazillion and freezing them for the party. Mmmm, fried June bug. Fortunately FinnigantheCurious was horrified by my suggesting that we go. He gave me the big 6-year-old eye roll and announced that he was not eating a bug and neither was I. Whew, good damn thing someone is in charge around here.