Stick Horse Cowgirls

My soon-to-be-ex husband has fairly poor taste (in all but first wives, mind you). Let me give you some examples: When we were into our marriage about two years, we lived in an apartment owned by my father, so we felt at liberty in “decorating.” I indulged his whim by allowing him to follow his dream and paint the kitchen cabinets cobalt blue with lemon yellow doors. The effect was horrifying—like something out of “Yellow Submarine.” Something like this: This color scheme did not last long. He struck again when we built this house. He made the arrangements for gutters to be installed. On the day of the installation, I got a concerned call from the installers. Could I come out there, please? My husband had specified “chocolate brown” for the guttering (unbeknownst to me), and the installers wanted me to be certain before installing. When I arrived, the Hispanic installer explained in very broken English, very pronounced Hispanic accent that if he installed it, the gutters wo...

I feel very much like I am in a countdown to Thanksgiving. It is Sunday evening, and I have three full days of work at the office ahead of me. But the turkey is in the fridge, thawing, and the ham is down at MIL's because my refrigerator is bursting at the seams. There is an undercurrent of bustle that is surpassed only by that before Christmas...soon on the heels of this bustle! No wonder I'm exhausted by New Year's. This year my mother will spend Wednesday night with me, as will my niece Ellie and any other nieces who want to join in. We will spend Wednesday evening baking pies a nd getting everything ready for the "real" cooking on Thursday morning. We will, of course have pumpkin pie (obligatory)and Ellie and I have a new dessert recipe to try out--may be reporting to you all on that outcome. Though I like that whole-berry-orange fancy cranberry sauce, my entire family insists on the jellied sauce as well. My mother's specialty is cornbread dressing t...

You will never see my home in the decorating magazines. I am just not that "together." Still, like everyone, I have my own "style," which could be called (if you are being generous) "eclectic." If I like it, it's there. I don't spend a lot of thinking about what looks good together. My house is just a collection of my whimsy. And there is no more whimsical room in my house than my powder room. It is so covered with quotes and sayings that some of my family laugh and call it "the reading room," because as you are tending to business, there is much to read! I wanted to share this room with you and, impatient being that I am, cannot wait until someone better at photography can help, so bear with me... The top photo is of the wall and corner directly across from the toilet--right in the line of view, as it were. The three prints are by Brian Andreas , one of my favorite artists. His work is called "story people," and indeed,...

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodders in the shock... When the "frost is on the punkin" is when I get in the mood to bake breads and desserts and cook savory broth-based soups and stews. Winter settles heavily on my spirit with the chill in the air and lack of sunlight, so these last days of autumn when the leaves have already fallen from the trees is when I begin gather in to hibernate. If I didn't have to get up and go to work, I could stay in my nightgown all day, sipping my favorite English Breakfast tea, reading, cooking and perhaps a little needlework. To compensate for the lack of sunshine, I light candles and oil lamps to help dispel the gloom of long dreary days. I do love my fireplace, and this season is when we begin to light a fire every night and on Saturday mornings. Thank heavens for our woodburning fireplace--it's truly the heart of our home! In the ten years we've lived in this country house, we've never had to purchase firewood. ...

I know that the book of Genesis has dubbed the serpent/snake as our “anathema,” but for me it’s always been spiders. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to load up on boa constrictors as pets or anything, but snakes do not send me into screaming meemies, just respectful avoidance. Spiders, on the other hand, just freak me completely out. Really, it makes no sense…look how much bigger I am, and not one spider has ever actually hurt anyone I know. What gives on this? But, as much as I dread them, I cannot bear the thought of stomping on them. Basically, I just choose to give them the right-of-way. Last Sunday I was sitting in church when I had a spider moment. The church has concrete floors scored into sections. They are a rich brown color, smooth as glass and shiny. I was sitting there on the aisle during the sermon (yes, I was listening, I swear!), when my spider radar went off. My eyes shifted to the aisle floor, where a small spider (less than dime size) was making his way tow...

V and I had planned to get her granddaughter, Julia, and my youngest niece, Ellie, together to make Christmas gifts and do a little baking...oh, we had big plans! We set the date and began gathering materials/ingredients. As I look back, I laugh at our ambition! We gathered enough for three days work, let alone a day with two little girls! Our group grew. My mother, never one to be left out where her children are grandchildren are concerned, came over Friday night to spend the night with Ellie and me. Mother-in-law joined us as well, and Julia's mother came to witness the festivities. So we had a nice little inter-generational group! Friends, all, who were also eager to catch up with each other's news and exchange a little innocuous gossip. I put a pot of beef barley soup on the stove and dragged out the panini machine so we could enjoy soup and gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. V, the girls and I went to work. The rest of the women sipped coffee, offered a...

Let me just say this right up front: I am no housekeeper. I’ve said it before, but you have no idea how much it needs to be restated. I am only hoping that all those beautiful pictures of my blogging friends’ houses are staged, at least to some degree. In the interests of full disclosure, you need to know that if you see a “tablescape” or floral arrangement from my home, it most likely will never be done with any kind of wide-angle. Believe me; I can only manage “neat-and-tidy” in the smallest of areas, tenuously-contained against the happy chaos of the rest of my home. Let’s put it this way: I’ve often envisioned what would happen if I just up and disappeared….police would, naturally, be called. They’d look around for clues and immediately conclude that there are signs of a struggle. My friends, however, would solemnly shake their heads and reply, “ No, officer, no clue there—this is just the way she lived… ” I could make excuses, I suppose, but I have long since decided that I...

Last week I got a beautiful vase full of long-stemmed roses from a client. I must admit that I don’t get all the credit. It was to both my senior partner and to me. Our client’s sweet card said, “ Just something to show how much I appreciate all your help in my dilemma .” This client pays us for our service, and we expect nothing more. But it is the sheer unexpectedness of it that makes this kind of gift such a pleasure to receive. He is a wonderful older man who is, indeed, in a dilemma. We are working hard for him but certainly he did not have to do this. Just look at them! Although it is not typical for me to get gifts above my fee, neither is it rare. In our business, many times there is a personal bond forged as we steer folks through some very trying problems. It makes me feel like I’ve done a job well when a client feels moved to give me something more personal. Just last month I received this necklace. It is hand-made by a client and came in a little jewelry box with...

The other night MIL and I were watching some tube together when I realized I had forgotten to bring her the mail I had gathered as I came home. I drove back down the driveway (dogs chasing along as they always do), and the dogs and I ran into the house to grab the mail. As we came back out, Chili spotted something off the porch--in the pitch blackness. Off he went. As you can see from this photo taken from my front porch in the morning daylight, I am surrounded by woods. There is a small meadow between me and the forest edge. At night the light from my porch does nothing to penetrate the dark even five feet outward. I could not see what Chili was doing; but before long I heard...the unmistakable sounds of a dog fight. There is little that raises my blood pressure more. I had no flashlight and I had no way of knowing who was getting the best of whom. After a few seconds (seemed much longer), here came Chili running back at top speed. As he cleared the steps to come on the porch beside m...

Before I get back on the holiday theme from last post, let me share with you what I saw when I stepped out on my back porch to feed my kitty this morning about 6 a.m. It was just coming light. As I look at these pictures, what I now see is a yard covered with leaves that need raking (YOU are charged with being non-judgmental about those, if you please.) I know these don't compare with the beautiful fall photos on other bloggs. What I was doing when I snapped these was trying to capture just a bit of the peaceful solitude I felt this morning as I went out there. I love where I live. As you can see, I am surrounded by forest (there's a tale coming next post about the woods!). Do you think that mysterious circle in the bottom one could be one of those supernatural orbs??? (How exciting!). Enough digression; back to holidays. Joolzmac of Simply Joolz commented on my previous holiday post, saying that in Australia they have fewer holidays and, hence, fewer times of gathering wi...

After Halloween, I always feel like I am in some kind of "home stretch," with the race culminating at Christmas. For some reason, New Year's Eve/Day are a bit anti-climactic. We hustle and bustle for Thanksgiving, picking up speed for Christmas, and then New Year's is a sort of time of rest after the holiday frenzy. This year is going to be different for me, and I am so looking forward to it. I don't mean to imply that I did not like my Holidays Past. To the contrary, I loved them. We have strong holiday traditions which I may write about in another post. But the last "normal" holiday season we had was in 2007, before my husband took a powder. The past two have been tinged heavily with the flavor of a family in distress. I'm thinking this year will be the first "good" season in several years for my son and me; I can just feel it. My home was the gathering spot for a lot of my family at Thanksgiving, and I kept my two ovens humming ...

A couple weeks ago we had a real girlfriends’ night out. My mother, mother-in-law, sister, niece, V and V's two daughters and daughter-in-law (have I left anyone out???) went to see Julie and Julia . I liked the movie because for me it was a “double whammy.” I love blogging and I am a foodie/cook, although not of the Julia Child caliber. Although I enjoyed the humor and the victory of the movie, the most prominent thing I took away from it was the image of Julia’s kitchen with her husband marking a peg board to outline where each and every pot should hang. Man! That image would not leave my mind. My son and I are NOT (let me repeat, NOT) housekeepers. When we put pots away, they are generally “chunked” into the space beneath my range. No careful placing of the pots for us! What that means, of course, is that space turns into a nightmare. Nothing can be found without getting down and digging through pot upon pot, and things topple over and out of the cabinet with alarming ...