Merde Bucket and my pink man cave fiasco

The outside fabric I got at the Rosebowl flea market years ago

finally some place to put my caca clips!

The lining fabric is one of the napkins from Nipper's cousin's wedding last summer

Ok, so you guys know that I hate to brag. But I just made this! Just now tonight! Just sat down and did it! I used the instructions from The Stitchin Chicken. So simple to follow. I made it small with some scraps I had. I didn't make a pattern and didn't make handles because I was desperate to sew something. 


Things have gone off the rails with the pink man cave and I needed something to keep me from tearing every hair out of my head one by one. Last night, Nipper Knapp, our neighbor, and our handy man were on our roof in the dark trying to figure out how to lower a giant cabinet that had to be taken out via the window because the stairwell in our house is too narrow. The cabinet got down only slightly worse for wear, and my marriage is still intact so all in all a successful operation. But the other furniture was not so lucky. 

sure it looks dreamy in the CATALOG

When we got married, almost SIX years ago, we registered for the Bedford collection office furniture from Pottery Barn. We got the whole set, and were so excited to have big people grown up furniture. But it reminds me of this model I worked with once, who was hands down the worst human being I've ever encountered. SOOOOOO pretty, but a giant pain in the ass. One of the file cabinets arrived broken, so the drawers didn't work. Pottery Barn was very nice and sent out a brand new one right away, and even left the old broken one, which Nipper rigged up so that it sort of worked. The finish on the tops of the desks is impossible to clean and looked like hell almost immediately. But they were wedding gifts, and something we never could have afforded to buy ourselves, and I love them, because of that. 


Cut to last night after the roof fiasco, and Nipper text messages me from the garage that one of the drawers just completely fell apart. Sigh... So close, and yet... 


When I went out there to look not only were the cabinets all taken apart with tiny ball bearings all over the floor, but the floor was RUINED. I know I've been terrible and haven't posted any pictures of the room yet. But I had an idea of doing the big unveil, design sponge style. Of course at this rate, we'll all be getting fit for dentures by the time it's finished. I decided to paint the floor white because I'm a masochist. I thought, "I'll put rugs down" and "I won't let anyone wear shoes in there" and "how hard could it be to clean?" Uhm... Maybe I should have started with the first two thoughts DURING the moving in process. It's all chipped, and there are big shoe marks, and It's just all soiled and depressing. 


Tomorrow, I buy a rug, call Pottery Barn to see what they can do about the drawer, and maybe sew 100 tiny little boxes... 

car trouble?

I want to share a series of posts from Smacksy today. A few days ago she recounted a story about her crime fighting volvo. Which lead into this story about her buying a van from her husband (then new boyfriend) for a dollar. Which lead to a story about a mystic mechanic. I love these tale told from both sides. They say so much about boys vs girls, youth, California, sense and sensibilities... being in a band. Love, love, love. 

For the record our non crime fighting new Prius is about to be recalled. I'm pretty sure we'll be taking it to Toyota for fixing, but maybe we could give them the card for the mystic mechanic...

underwater glug glug glug

So it's another ridiculously beautiful day in Los Angeles. The sun is shining. We can see the snow capped mountains through the palm trees that are swaying in the breeze. But yesterday we had a little rain. I know. Boo hoo. There was a brief let up and the sun came out, so Jack and I went for a walk up the hill, where we wandered into an open house. This particular house is 300 square feet larger than ours, and though it probably needs $50,000 in work to make it presentable, it's selling for $200,000 less than ours. Boo hoo for serious this time.

 The same people have been living there since it was built in the 50's and you can tell. The whole place needs a facelift. But as we were entering the kitchen I noticed the tile looked like Franciscan Ware Starburst pattern. I was chasing Jack around in his muddy rain boots, so as escaped through the kitchen door, I snapped a few pictures with my iphone. I had never seen the tile before, but it made sense, the house was a 50's modern built here in California where Franciscan Ware was made.

So I went home and did a little research and sure enough that's what it is! Cool! Replacements.com has four of them with the pale pink background, that would make really nice trivets or coasters with a little felted bottom. Or you could track down more and sprinkle them in the backsplash of your very own mid-century kitchen. Yippee!

My Dad has a full set of the Franciscan Starburst that I think he got from one of his aunts. When we moved in here, our neighbor saw my Jadite, and Fiestaware and said he had something in his garage he thought I'd like. He brought over a set of Franciscan Desert Rose dishes. A set of four, complete with coffee cups and saucers. Great neighbors!

So if you're in LA, and looking to buy a mid-century modern house with original Franciscan Ware tile, that's priced for normal people instead of idiots like me,  in a neighborhood with really nice people, come on up the hill!

Auntie Swing's House

I completely forgot to post this months ago when I finished it. Our good friend Kelly moved to Nashville, abandoning us for pulled pork sandwiches and the ability to shout "Roll Tide" without people staring at her. She bought her first house last year, and I embroidered this to hang up in it. We call her Auntie Swing, for reasons I'm not at liberty to divulge, lest I ruin her good standing as a "lady". Ant-tee-swings-house.  Get it? Nerds Unite!

Bonjour les enfants!

Jack and I started mommy and me French class with Mademoiselle Amina, at the Alliance Francaise in Pasadena this morning. He said  "lapin", "merci" and "au revoir". My work is done here...

smidgebox

Look at these adorable fabric buckets in Smidgbox's etsy shop! I want giant ones to hold bits of fabric and yarn and embroidery floss in my pink man cave. (pictures coming soon)

With my new zig zag stitch sewing skills, I really should make them myself, but then who's going to paint the bathroom and feed the family?

I don't want to brag, but...

I had so much fun at sewing class last night, and perhaps so much pinot noir and sant agur that I dreamt OPRAH wanted to feature my blog on her show. Yeah, that's how good sewing class was. Never mind that less than 100 people read this thing regularly. I was in such a state of post craft giddiness, that I dreamt she sent one of her minion to tell me that she thought the way that I was always sandbagging everyone was really hilarious (and SO thought provoking) and then she showed me how she was going to cut the piece together. The segment for some reason involved a small African child getting what looked like a paraffin wrap at a spa, and some crafty Pippi Longstocking lookalike tweens in Belgium, who wore hats, that were commenting on my blog. I guess you have to be sort of megalomaniacal in order to be an actor, but I had no idea that my subconscious was this naive. Kind of refreshing really. Most nights my dreams have to do with people making snide comments about my muffin top, and unintelligible scenarios, where I'm in my old high school, but it's NOT my high school. You know the drill.

So sewing class... My friend Betty, who is the uber talented owner of this etsy shop and this etsy shop, mentioned that she was teaching some little girls to sew. My inner dictator burst out of it's shell, and started telling random people all about it, before I asked Betty if she was A)wanting to B) willing to C)wondering if I'm an insane person who will one day leap from my roof shouting I AM A GOLDEN GOD. SO after I had a whole gaggle of ladies on board, I contacted Betty and thankfully she said yes to a big girls sewing class with wine and everything. YAY.

We descended on her house last night and besides learning how to using use the zig zag stitch, and make a pattern, I learned about saint agur cheese. My new/old friend Geri, who I hadn't seen since, I don't know, 1989 (when I was 3, no really...) came bearing the most incredible assortment of cheeses and cookies, and one of them was this saint agur, which I'm sorry I keep talking about in the middle of a post about sewing but holy shit, I DEMAND that you all go out an get some and then get back to me, because I don't know how I made it 35 24 years without it. Of course, now I'm going to have to be extracted from my house by Dick Gregory, but who cares, you only live once.

Ok, so we made tote bags, and even though I hated my fabric when I got there, and thought it looked very Mrs Roper-ish, once it was all sewed together, I actually think it looks kind of jcrew-ish. This is the bag I'd take if I was wearing all white and going to a clambake. I'm also wondering when I became such honky.

Happy Friday!

Share the wealth episode 5 (6?)

I was given a tip from another delightful blogstress about this project, and I think it's great. I think I have some crafty ladies who read the blog. So hopefully some of you can participate, or can pass this along to others who might. Unfortunately my knitting skills rank as a federally mandated disaster. I just can't make my fingers do what they are supposed to do. This might have something to do with me holding my pen like a cro-mag. My teachers tried to help me in school by giving me those little rubber triangles to put on my pencil, which are supposed to force you to hold it with your finger tips, but I would take them off and chew on them. UNTEACHABLE! I can knit scarves, just a straight line, but I'm pretty sure I'm doing it backwards, and I just keep going and going, because I never learned how to knit off the needle. I have several 8 foot scarves still on the needles in a basket somewhere. Again, this might be a call for me to be medicated. 

Ok, so back to spreading the good word. It's called the Mother Bear Project. You can order the pattern from them, and then knit or crochet a teddy bear that will be given to a child affected by HIV/AIDS in emerging nations. How sweet and cute is that idea? If you, like me, are knitting inept, you can also donate or sponsor a bear or purchase some of their Mother Bear Project swag. Here is a bit from their website:

The simple gift of a hand-knit bear with a tag signed by the knitter has touched children who have nearly nothing in the world with the message that they are loved by someone halfway around the world.

For those of you who are knitters and not shut-ins like yours truly, there are knitting groups in the Minneapolis area or you could start your own. This might be a fun project for a girls scout troupe. Anyhow, spread the word peeps. Imagine the sweetness of knowing that something you made was going to be loved by a child in need. Cue Sally Struthers tears...

http://www.motherbearproject.org/

will you be my valentine?

I don't think I need to say anything about this do I? Words are completely unnecessary with something as perfect as this. Oh and btw it's called the mens oyster perpetual air king pink in case you are my husband and/or a wealthy stalker and were thinking "she's been SO good this year, what the heck!" Go ahead spend Jack's pre-school tuition on it. It'll teach him that life isn't fair, and when mommy is happy she's more willing to take you to the zoo. 

How to conjugate an irregular verb en Francais...

Is is just me or are the days getting shorter? Or am I getting older? DON'T answer that. I can remember time passing like molasses when I was kid. OH MY GOD I'M SO BORED! Then my mother, channeling all mothers would say "only boring people are bored". Which I think is true for grownups, but I'm sure plenty of very interesting kids are bored out of their minds daily. Nipper's mother would tell him to "go run around the block". I took this advice to heart as a teenager, but really it was just an excuse to go to the other side of the block to sneak cigarettes. Charming.


Last week I bought a cute new hamper at the container store, that I didn't realize held TEN times the amount of dirty clothes as our old one. We've just been throwing our filth down the rabbit hole all week, and it never seemed to get full. When I finally hauled it downstairs this morning, because Nipper was threatening to dress Jack in some of my boyshorts and camisoles because of lack of clean laundry it weighed so much I'm pretty sure I sprained something.

I've been wanting to take a picture of and write about these flashlights since December but haven't been able to carve out the 7 minutes required to do so. They're made of beechwood, and they are so pretty! Meema and I found them in the sale room at Anthropologie. I think they were $7 down from $40. Yay!  Never mind that Jack loves flashlights because they are yet another thing he can "shoot" us with. Mother of the year... These I don't mind sitting out on the table because they're so pretty. I tracked down a website where you can buy them. It's called Areaware, and I found a million other pretty little things there.

For instance, who doesn't want a French conjugation chart on their wall? I'd love to put this up in the office once it's done, but I'm not sure if it'll fit. I'll need to find 4 minutes including the time it will take me to track down the tape measure in the heap that is now our back hallway. The remaining contents of the garage, and the entire contents of my sizable fabric/embroidery/wrapping/knitting/sewing/crafting/timesucking collection is either in the back hallway or stacked up in the breezeway outside the kitchen door. It looks like Sanford and Son moved in over the weekend. I only need about 20 minutes to finish painting. But now that I've started doing the laundry that I've been putting off all week, painting the floor around the washer is not really the most efficient use of my time. Although it would give me a good excuse to not finish the laundry and start thinking about how to remedy the still unpainted bathroom.


Ritalin anyone?

Madame Pappas taught us to sing this to the tune of "Hi Ho" from Snow White, but if you had junior high French this should jog your memory...