Art!

I've never really done a post about art, probably because it's taken us a while to build up our collection.

We have a little bit of everything, some originals, some prints, some very random items....I'll just share a few pieces here.

An original painting:

From World Market (I love circles):

A print of my favorite painting from the Art Institute of Chicago:

A card from Etsy with a quote from my favorite movie:

And a wooden movie poster of my favorite movie (of course):

A card from Paris:

A Super Girl print signed by the artist who painted it:

Quite the variety, right?  The comic stuff and movie stuff we hang in the office.  The rest is throughout the house, mostly the living room and the bedroom.

My whole point of this post though is that we recently got 3 new pieces of art that I wanted to share.  The first one is the anniversary gift that I got from my husband in April:

I had seen something like this in Chicago when we were there last July and I mentioned how cool it was.  He remembered and got me one!  You can pick the letters you want (they have a variety of each letter).  And each letter he picked has a special meaning.  The 'S' is for the path we're on together, the 'P' reminded him of a 'p' on a parking garage in Lincoln, Nebraska (where we first met a long time ago), the train tracks because we love traveling together, etc.  I love it!  (It spells out our last name by the way).

We hung it over the buffet in the dining room:

The next piece is really cool...unfortunately though it didn't get to stay here at home.  It now lives at my husband's office.

My husband is a huge Daredevil fan.  He likes all Marvel characters, but especially Daredevil.  Daredevil is an attorney who fights crime.  My husband is a prosecuting attorney who puts bad guys in jail.  See?  It makes sense.

He got the original artwork from a Daredevil comic book which was the pencil drawing and the inking.  It is of Matt Murdock (a.k.a. Daredevil) falling off a building.  He is clearly in his attorney get-up, but as he's falling, you can see his Daredevil suit underneath.

Sorry for the poor picture....I didn't want to take the wrapping off of the frame because he was transporting it to work.  Pencil is on the left, ink on the right (although I'm sure you could have figured that out.

Cool, huh?  He's hanging it in his office at work.

The last piece is something we got at an art fair last year while my family was here visiting.  It's my lovebirds!

This photo does it no justice at all...the coloring is so much more vibrant in 'real life'!  I hung it up in my entryway.

So that's it.  We finally got around to framing them, which was a good feeling!

I'm no art expert or anything...I just like what I like.  Whether it be Super Girl, an Eiffel Tower from Paris, or a love birds painting.  There's always something to look at our house!

The Newest Member of Our Family

Ok, so maybe it's our extended family.  This is Bella.  Well...her name is not 100% yet, but I have a feeling that will be her name.  We adopted her from the shelter for my mother-in-law.  She's wanted a dog for quite a while and when we seen this one we got that feeling.  She was the one.  

She's been at my mother-in-laws since 3:30 this afternoon.  She's been cuddled, received hundreds of kisses, eaten dinner, played outside, and inspected her new home.  She seems to like it.  She has her own bed, playpen, and many toys.

She is so loved already!!  We are glad to have another fur baby in the family.

How to Make Little Tiny Bear Beds Out of Altoid Tins for Your 4-Year-Old Niece

How's that for a long blog title?

So a few weeks back, I was perusing the many blogs that I read on a daily basis, and one of them had a link to the most adorable little bed made out of an Altoid tin.

It had a little 'sheet' attached to the bottom, a pillow, a blanket, and a bear.  Only it was all hand sewn and felt.

I don't sew.  Not even little stuff like that.  But I loved the idea so much that I became determined to re-create it somehow for my niece.

Once I had brainstormed,  I went to Hobby Lobby and headed straight for the dollhouse section.  Baby bears!  Little tiny ones!  And even tinier ones!  Then I found a little package of flour and sugar sacks...pillows!

Then I hit up the fabric section.  I went to the end of one of the aisles which is known as the 'remnant' section:  the miscellaneous scraps that are, well, remnants.  I picked out 4 different kinds and was then finished. (I highly suggest this....the remnants were perfect, and were priced between .47 - 5.00.)

Here's my supplies all laid out and ready to go:

The first thing I did was make a template to use for the 'sheet' on the bottom of the tin.  Simple...I just traced the bottom of the tin on paper and then pinned it to the fabric and cut it out.  It is very important to have good fabric sheers.  Mine are Fiskars....I love them!

I cut one one sheet, and adhered it to the bottom of the large Altoid tin with adhesive called 'Liquid Stitch' (also found in the fabric area at Hobby Lobby).  At first I wasn't sure it would work, because it's made to adhere fabric to fabric, not fabric to metal.  But it worked perfectly!

I decided to do two layers of sheets though.  One just seemed too thin and some parts were a little blotchy because of the adhesive.  But two sheets worked well.

Then it was time for the pillow placement.

I looked at my assortment of flour and sugar sacks, and picked the smallest one.

Hmm.

Houston, we have a problem.  The pillow worked fine when the tin was open, but it was too fluffy that I couldn't get the lid closed.

Fortunately, the pillows had a teeny tiny hole on one end where they had sewn the corners, so I got out my tweezers and took about 3/4 of the stuffing out.  So the bears' pillow wasn't quite as fluffy now, but at least they didn't get their heads smashed in when the tin closed.

Now it was time for the blanket.  I didn't get many pictures of this process, unfortunately I only got a picture of the final product:

There's not really an easy way to do this...I pretty much just eyeballed how much I would need, and then started cutting, folding, and using the Liquid Stitch to 'hem' the blanket.

Then it was time to tuck them in:

Awwwww!!

I pretty much did the same thing for the little tiny baby bear bed.

Except he didn't get a pillow.  His bed was just too small.  Babies aren't supposed to have pillows anyways.

"I want a blanket"

Okay.

His blanket is flannel.

Done!

I loved how they turned out.  Sure, they aren't hand sewn, but I think they're better!  The 'fancy' one that I found online was cute, but everything was attached.  The pillow, the blanket.  What fun is that?  The only thing that is attached on mine is the bottom sheet.  The pillow, blanket, and bears are all removable.  (if my niece loses them, I will gladly make more.  I have extra pillows and loads of extra material!)  That's half the fun!  I used to hate it when things were attached on my toys.  (like a baby attached to the mama, etc.)

Hopefully my niece will have as much fun playing with them as I had making them.  They are boxed up and I'm sending them out tomorrow!

Rosa

We have a cleaning lady named Rosa.

She comes every Tuesday.  I know this is a luxury.  I know I am very, very fortunate.  She has changed my life, and I know that sounds cheesy and corny and dramatic, but it is true.

I'm a pretty low maintenance gal.  I don't get my hair done regularly.  I don't get my nails done.  I don't get pedicures but once or twice a year.  I don't buy expensive clothes.

Instead, I write out Rosa a check every week, and in turn she makes me a sane, relaxed woman.

We have five animals.  FIVE.  That are indoors 100% of the time.  If we didn't have animals, I would not need Rosa.  But we do.  So I need Rosa.

Rosa is a wonderful, wonderful lady.  I don't speak with her often (her English is not the greatest).  She and her husband come faithfully every Tuesday and clean my house from top to bottom.  And when I say top to bottom...I mean it.  Which brings me to the whole point of this post.

Every Tuesday I come home from work and spend about 10 minutes putting everything back in place.  It makes me smile.  They move furniture.  They mop underneath our bed EVERY WEEK.  They dust the top of bookshelves.  The top of the fridge.  They even dust the top of the kitchen cabinets (you know that weird space between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling?).

So everything is a bit 'off' when I come home on Tuesdays.  And I love it.  I love pushing the couch a few inches back.  I love letting down my bedroom curtains (they knot them up when they are mopping).  I love straightening the pictures that have moved when they are dusting them.

Rosa has some quirks too, which I also love.  For example, I was storing all of my fall boots underneath the bed.  That was the only thing under there.  Nope, Rosa wasn't having it.  For about three Tuesdays, she had removed them stacked them neatly in the closet.  She won.  They now have a home in the garage during the summer.

She is a lifesaver.  Before her, I wasn't able to relax.  I was constantly cleaning.  Constantly picking up messes and figuring out which room to focus on that evening.  I couldn't even sit down and watch tv for 30 minutes without feeling guilty because the house wasn't clean.

We still do chores, but it's every day stuff:  laundry, cleaning the cat box, dishwasher, etc.  My stress level has gone from high to almost non-existent.  It really has been a blessing.

Even with the quirks:

Random Thoughts

I have much to blog about, in fact, I have a whole list in the little notebook I keep with me, but it's in my purse and I am too lazy to get it out, sort the pictures, etc.  Yep, I'm THAT lazy, ha ha.

So here's my random thoughts for the day.

*I'm glad it's the weekend.  I worked all day and we just got home from a grand opening event where I ate too many appetizers.  There was this amazing chocolate mousse dessert in a tiny cup with a tiny spoon that had hot fudge in the bottom of it.  Oh my.  I had two of those.

*Tomorrow we have a busy day.  Service until noon, then a few errands to run, then we are heading to Santa Fe for a French meeting at 4:00.

*Sunday is a 'free' day.  I plan to blog again and get organized around the house a little bit more.  And maybe watch a movie.

*We went to Colorado last weekend and had a great time.  I miss our friends there already.  They are totally the type of friends that I could take a vacation with.  We have a lot of fun with them.

*I just finished Lauren Graham's book, 'Someday Someday Maybe'.  I really, really liked it.  It's not like a 'deep' read or anything, and I would definitely categorize it as 'fluff', but I love fluff!  It was the perfect book for me to read right now.  And I actually laughed out loud at least 10 times.  She is a good writer, and a good comedian.  The main character in the book (Franny Banks) was so believable and likable and so....imperfect.  She was great!  I hope Lauren writes more books.

I thought this paragraph was interesting, ha ha (Franny lives in Brooklyn):

*Music.  I've been listening to a lot of Pink lately.  And Coldplay.  And Simon & Garfunkel (don't judge).  And Phillip Phillips.  And Birdy.  And Judy Garland.  And The Lumineers.  And Elton John.  And The Killers.

My tastes in music are varied, if you couldn't tell.

*Work is nuts.  If I never had to look at an audit again in my life, I would be totally okay with that.  Oh, and my boss just told me today 'work all the overtime you want'.  Want?  I don't WANT to work any.  But I can work some here and there if I NEED to.  Maybe.  If I want to.  Ha.

*I'm tired, can you tell?

*What did we ever do before we could pay bills online?  Seriously.  I think online bill pay is the best thing about the internet.

*The next best thing on the internet is Amazon.  And Etsy.

*Have you seen that new (or maybe it's not that new) aisle in Target that's like 'Gifts on the Go' or something like that?  It's by all the gift wrap and gift bags.  Anyways, they have really cute stuff there.

*Did you know that counting from 1-69 in French is very easy, but once you hit 70, you actually have to do math in your head?  Like 70 in French is 60+10 (soixante-dix).  80 is 4x20 (quatre vingts).  90 is even more confusing.  4x20+whatever number is next - 11 - 19.  Seriously.  So 99 is quatre-vingts-dix-neuf (4x20+19).

Thankfully, unless we're in the book of Psalms, we don't have to worry about the higher numbers too much.  I'm to the point now that when I hear a number in French, I don't have to translate it into English in my head...I just turn to the chapter and verse.   Unless it's 70 or over.  And then I have to do the math.  It's so dumb!

I think that's it for now.  This was just a very random brain dump!  And because this is a random post, here are two more random photos:

Lola, my pretty car.

And best friends (not really, but they really do like each other most of the time):

I don't know why the picture came out kind of squished.  But if I'm too lazy to go get my blog list, I'm definitely too lazy to fix the picture.

Have a good weekend!

On Loss & Retail Therapy

I had a rough day today.  Sometimes I will go for days (even weeks) without having a rough day, and then other days (like today), they just knock the wind out of me.  It takes me a while to recover.

I lost my best friend.  Hopefully it’s only temporary.  Hopefully I will get her back soon.

Some days I do pretty good with it (or as my French friend Michele would say ‘pretty and good’….she thought this was the expression instead of ‘pretty good’…so cute!).  But other days, it knocks me flat off my feet.  I wake up angry.  And sad.  But mostly angry.

I hope that with time my anger begins to fade.  I hope that someday things will get back to the way they used to be.  I hope.

Usually some retail therapy helps me on these rough days.  I think it’s because it’s a distraction.  But I can’t just go anywhere….it has to be like a bookstore, or a store like Anthropologie or Francesca’s.

Today over my lunch break I hit two out of the three.  I dropped into Francesca’s to look at their handbags.  I have been looking for months for a new one.  And I can ALWAYS find a bag I love at Francesca’s.  Always. 

Today was no different:

It’s not me (I don’t usually do ‘shiny’), but I love the springy color and the shape and the size, and yes, even the shiny.

After that, I headed to Barnes and Noble to pick up the brand new fiction (although semi-autobiography) book by one of my favorite actresses:

Lauren Graham.  She’s amazing.  I love her in everything.  She said in an interview that Diane Keaton told her she should write a book, so she did.  Ha ha.  I hope it’s good.

I hope that my little day of retail therapy will help.  I hope my rough days become farther apart.  Time does amazing things….I hope it will work its magic on me.

Getaway

This past weekend, my husband and I took a nice weekend trip to Phoenix.  Because sometimes, you just gotta get the heck out of town!

It was much needed.  We've both been extremely busy and stressed out with life in general, so it was WONDERFUL to take a step back and get away for a couple of days.

We took our new car...mine was about to die, so it was time to trade it in:

We left on Friday after work, and got to Phoenix around midnight.  The sky was really beautiful on the way there.  We even got rained on a little bit!  Which is a miracle in the southwest.

We stayed at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown. It was within walking distance to many restaurants and the ballpark.  It was a nice hotel.   Nice rooms, nice lobby, nice everything.  And fairly inexpensive too!  We booked last minute, maybe that’s why?  They only had a couple of rooms left, so maybe they were trying to fill them up?  Who knows.

I loved this cool lighting feature in the lobby:

 Saturday morning, we slept in a little bit and then went to Scratch French Café for a late breakfast.  The service was poor, but the food was good.  I liked the atmosphere too…slightly quirky and eclectic.  Right downtown, just a couple of blocks from our hotel.

 After our breakfast, we picked up our car from the hotel parking garage and drove to Tempe to Ikea.  Ikea is a ‘must stop’ when visiting any city that has one.

 We (I) didn’t go too nuts.  We purchased some new silverware, which we really needed, along with some new silverware holders.  Some bookends, both for home and for my husband’s office at work.  A fake plant (don’t judge…we have cats that eat plants).  Some travel bags that I fell in love with and little travel bottles.  Two large clay pots for outside.  A vertical TV stand for our bedroom (a steal at only $14.99).  Some cute little Hannah-sized dishes for her food.  Etc, etc.

We managed to get through the whole store and have a snack at the cafeteria in about 2 hours.

Then we headed back downtown, parked our car at the hotel, and walked to Chase Field to catch a Diamondbacks vs. Phillies baseball game. 

My husband found a good deal online for club seats that were four rows behind home plate. 

I am not a huge baseball fan, but going to real games is SO MUCH FUN.  Especially in club seats.  J  Good drinks, good food, good baseball.  

See this guy?

It's Ryan Howard.  He was on an episode of The Office a couple of weeks ago.  Hilarious.

After 6:00 when it had cooled off a bit, they opened the roof:

The Diamondbacks lost unfortunately (bummer), but it was a good game.  Here we are.  Trying to get my husband to act normal in a picture is not an easy task.  The last one was the best I could do.

Sunday morning we packed up our car and left it in the parking lot while we walked to another little café for breakfast.  We had a leisurely breakfast, and then walked across the street for the 10:00 a.m. showing of Iron Man 3.  Good movie!

 After that we picked up our car for the final time and started the drive back home, stopping a few times along the way.  We drove a different way home, the more scenic route.  It did not disappoint!  It took a bit longer, but it was very pretty.

It was SUCH a nice weekend.  So nice to get away, even for just a couple of days. 

And, we got to add some more pins to our 'places traveled together' map:

P.S. - our car did really well....it's a good road trip car!

Another P.S. – our animals were in good hands while we were gone.  Our cats were being watched by our house sitter and the dogs spent the weekend at Grandma’s house, where they got hamburgers for dinner, got walked 3 times per day and had free reign of the couch.  I’m pretty sure they didn’t want to come home!