Life In Color

You Should See the Other Guy

Awe poor grandpa, he took quit the fall on Sunday afternoon. Luckily Bj was there, though he is beating himself up over not being able to catch him in time. And grandpa was starting to feel so much better. Sciarrino said, "Man you and Bj just can't catch a break" And sometimes I feel like that. The past two Friday's I've had funerals to attend. One a classmate from high school who died as a result of a crash with a drunk driver. The other a wonderful family man who hired Bj when he worked at the builder's supply all those summers. All I want is happiness, I look for it everywhere. So I'm just going to say that I think the fall may actually turn out to be a blessing. It turns out he fell after feeling dizzy. Well when they hooked him up to the heart monitor they noticed that his heart would start to beat really slowly at times (like 30 beats a minuet), that probably caused him to get dizzy, which caused him to fall. Grandpa had a pig valve put in to replace one of his own 12 years ago and has been on meds ever since. So they adjusted some of those to see if that would change the heart rate. If it doesn't he'll probably get a pacemaker. But either way they'll figure out the heart rate thing, and hopefully that will make him feel lots better. And the staff at the hospital has talked grandpa into getting a walker, which is huge, because he hasn't wanted to "waste his money on it." When I came in this morning he was all smiley and feeling better, and told me, "guess what? I ordered a GREEN walker." Hehehe, he did that just for me, that's so cute. Then later the nurse came in and said, "Oh are you the grand-daughter in-law?" I said yes, and she said, "So you're the one who loves green, I know all about you." See, he says he's a big grouch, but it's just a show, he really can be quite sweet. So I'm counting my blessings. That he lives so close, that we live so close to the hospital, everything. And thank god for military insurance, seriously!

Best quote from grandpa about the whole thing so far was when Sciarrino and I came to visit him last night. He was trying something from a little cup. I read his reciept and said, "oh it's ice cream." He said, "If this is ice cream my last name is Swartz." Sciarrino and I were laughing, like, what? What does that even mean? LOL!

I have been working on cool things around here, and I really would like to blog about the lighter side of things so hopefully I'll get to that tonight.

I was scared of the internet

Okay so I just finished reading Harry Potter, and no I'm not going to talk about it. I know some of you might still be reading, including Sciarrino! So I didn't want to go online until I had finished it because I was so afraid I might accidentally find out what had happened. I planned on reading it fairly quickly, after all I'm quite a fast reader, but things got in the way. First of all we didn't get out of the bookstore until 2:30am because we were so far down in the line. Then on Saturday I had Sciarrino and I went thrifting which, for reasons you'll see below, took most of the day. I also had a dinner to go to up in Portland, and then the next day a mother daughter tea at the estate of a friend. I also had to work, and a few projects cropped up that I needed to get done (you'll see in a bit). Which meant that I really didn't start reading it until Monday, and then only a for a half hour here and there. So that put me about half way through. Tuesday I read for two hours, and then last night I read for one, and this morning I knew I wouldn't get anything productive done until I had finished it so I laid in bed for three hours and devoured the rest.

So that leaves me with a little bit of time to make up. First up today: thrifting! On Saturday Sciarrino and I headed to the Brownsville city-wide sale, almost an hour south (we had thought it was closer in the initial planning stages). Angela was the one who sent me the link, but I don't know if see was able to get down there (by the way Angela I DO want to learn rug hooking some day...). Anyway so if you recall from the long rambling paragraph above, Sciarrino and I were up very late the night before. How late you ask? Well it turns out they DO sell McDonald's breakfast at three A.M. Ew I know, but I was craving a sausage biscuit. So anyway I had told Sciarrino she could be in charge of waking up when ever she wanted to, just call me and I'd be ready to go in 10 minuets. We were thinking about nine.

So Sciarrino wakes up hella early and can only hold off until a little after eight to call me (the sale started at nine, and it takes a while to get there). I fall out of bed, put some clothes on and we head down there. First stop? Junk. Second stop? Junk. Third stop? One pillowcase. Yeah, things were not working out in our favor. Stuff that shouldn't even go to Goodwill, ew, ew, ew. I pulled out my iPhone and looked up some more classifieds and we found some estate sales in Lebanon, which is in between here and Brownsville. So we decided to cut our loses and head there. Two really dirty, gag inducing estate sales later and we were back on I-5 headed north. I can't remember the exact time, but it was probably about 11:30, so most of the prime thrifting time had gone.

But we were not deterred. This is why we make such a great team. We laugh at the super bad sales (when Sciarrino's not dry heaving) and we move on. I think many would give up after such a dire morning, BUT NOT US! And boy did it pay off:

The first place was one of those that you dream about (well at least I dream about stuff like this). Hundreds of jars (I've been having a serious shortage that has been really scaring me), chairs, giant piles of craft stuff with one price, odd kitchen gadgets, etc. When I walked up Sciarrino looked at me and I looked at her, and we had this unspoken thing like: "you go there, I go here, just grab stuff!" The best part of it all was the two middle-aged men running the show. Hilarious. Constantly poking fun at each other, it was awesome.

We left there and knew we had to stop at one more, how could we not? Our mojo was HOT! So we head out to this one sort of in the country. We made it through the kitchen, by then I had picked up those awesome little traveling bags up there, and the pyrex. I was in the garage with Sciarrino when an old lady fell right in front of me. There was a step she didn't see. I rushed over to her, and told her not to move. Another lady came over and prayed over her, it was all very surreal. She started mumbling about Memphis and Mason, her two GREAT grand-kids that were with her. I went to go find them in the kitchen where they looked a bit bewildered. Luckily there were some encyclopedias for sale in there so I pulled out the M-Me and showed Memphis that her name was the same name as a city (okay side note, how has know one told her this before?!?!). Meanwhile paramedics were called, she couldn't get up on her own and everyone was afraid she had broken a hip. While all of this was going on... hardly any one stopped shopping, even when the paramedics arrived! Since the 76 year old was laying in the doorway, they were like, "um should we step over her head, or?" LOL Seriously some people are so hard core. I told the paramedics about the kids, he asked them to point out grandma's car so that he could get the car seats out and told them they might have to ride in the ambulance, which was okay with them.  Crazy.

By then it had gotten late, and we were starving, not having eaten all day. We ate, then went home and didn't have time to sort through the bags of crafty stuff we got for a few days, because this is only half of it (dude Sciarrino get on the blog bus!!!). At dinner that night a friend asked me what I did with all this stuff. I think Bj questions my sanity when I bring it all home. And I didn't even show you the drool-worthy furniture I picked up (thanks again Brent for letting us borrow your truck)! I plan on tackling that question in the next few days. Up next, projects not for the faint of heart...

Oh and if you want to see something really cool I have to give a shout out to Sarah and her new Etsy store. She is selling the most darling button bouquets, done all modern and cute, you really must check them out!

Imitation

Is the sincerest form of flattery don't you think? I do! Rexanne emailed me a bit ago to ask the color of my kitchen cabinets (Peacock Feather from Sherwin Williams) because she had tried to match the color going off my pictures and couldn't quite get it right. Well I told her the color and that it was discontinued (as will all the colors I chose last year, they no long carry Martha Stewart Signature colors) but that they should be able to make it for her. Well she went in there to get it and they said, oh no, we can't make that. So she pulled out my email that she had printed off and they whipped her up a batch!

Looks fab I think. The brighter blue is the original color (when she was trying to match just going off the blog) happy accident because it looks awesome in the pantry! Very excited I could be of inspiration.

Now just you wait and see what I've been cooking up in the studio... Wa hahhaha (evil laugh).

Twilight Time

This evening Bj and I walked over to Brent and Sciarrino's (remember they only live a few blocks away) to see their new paved driveway. Their yard is looking beyond wonderful with little hanging lanterns in the big tree, water toppling out of a large rock my brother bore a hole into, and all lengths of grasses. Jealous, that's what I am. The front of our house makes it look like it is still a rental. Coming back to it I decided to keep walking instead of heading inside. I did a few loops around the little streets by myself. Not something I normally do as I'm a big wimp. No I'm not scared of gangsters, or running into a dead man in a car, like they found last year around here. It's cats that I hate. That's it. Now you all know I don't like cats that go out side, kill birds and fight with each other very loudly at all hours of the night, they freak me out.

But none the less I did walk around by myself tonight. Just before it got inky black, when my white skirt sort of glimmered in the light. I flip-flopped my way around houses and jumped up and down off the curbs as we have a weird assortment of sidewalks/no sidewalks around here. I saw a fat middle aged man with a scruffy beard watching some kind of space invader show on the television and heard a few woman laughing loudly in the back of that house. I saw little children's toys lined up on a the window sill of a powder blue room. I smelled delicious flowers mixed with herbs mixed with turned soil as people stood out watering. I passed big Victorian style houses and tiny little cottages I hadn't noticed before.

I paid attention and I loved it. Just being by myself, letting thoughts swirl around in my head. It was wonderful and I suggest to everyone to take a walk around the block tomorrow and see  what you find.

Thrifting the big city

I got up super early for the second day in a row, why? To thrift of course. Sciarrino and I headed up to Portland to hit up some sales, not something we usually do, in fact I've only been garage/estate/church sale shopping up there a few times before. It's so hard to figure out which ones to hit, where to go to get to the next one, everything seems to be so spread out. But we stuck to one corner of the city this time and had some luck. Also I know I keep going on and on about it, but the iPhone really made things easier with it's map function. We just put in the first sale, and then after that put in the next one leaving from the one we were at. Easy directions! My finds:

I didn't think I got that much, a few things here and there but we hit a record number of sales, I think like 10 or so and a Goodwill, so the things added up. My favorite thing might be the free thing, that chair. It actually looks nice in the picture, but it is in pretty bad shape, but still sturdy. I'm going to paint it up and put that outdoor fabric (not thrifted, we stopped at Mill End) on it. I want to paint the chair frame green, Bj says black. Thoughts? A set of four juice glasses and ten more snack trays (that exactly match my bubble ones minus the glasses) for a total of $9.95 at Goodwill. I know have five sets of snack trays, I must  stop buying them, or at least have a nice girly party to justify having so many. They are in a basket that I pulled out of a freezer. I could have like fifty of these baskets, love them. That's a pair of Seven For All Mankind jeans.  Seven dollars, nice and worn. There is a rip and while at Mill End I got some denim patches, but I couldn't' get the dang things to stick when I ironed it on (in the inside). I'm going to try and wash the jeans with out softener and see if that helps, any other tricks?

I don't know what came over me at this one estate sale but I saw this little dog figurine and had to get it. It's probably not even worth the six dollars I paid for it, but I love it. I want to be little again and play pretend with it. Also picked up some Monet glass beaded jewelry, a turquoise bangle I wore all day, some photo negative sleeves and another set of index dividers, now that I've come up with something to do with them (see Violet's birthday card). Speaking of cards, this stamp might work out for one:

I used it for Sciarrino's sister's graduation card. It is totally sick ill cool, big fun letters and numbers, it was 50 cents. I have no idea what it was for. It has three types of dials, one is number/fraction combo, number/punctuation combo, and letters. It has a strange pattern too. From the left: number/fraction, number/punctuation, number/fraction, letters A-M, letters N-Z, number/punctuation, number/punctuation, number/fraction. I can not figure out what the heck it was used for, any ideas? So it was a very fun day, with my crazy friend:

And her ridiculous small frosty. 

Wendy's guy (clerk?): "What kind of drink would you like with that?"
Sciarrino: "Can I get the smallest frosty instead of a pop?"
Clerk: "How small?"
Sciarrino: "What is the smallest?"
Clerk: "We have these mini junior ones."
Sciarrino: "That's what I want."

It's the shot glass size frosty! Obviously Sciarrino is slightly mental, so she must need her own blog. Plus don't you want to see what she finds at these sales? Hmm, don't you?

To the Extreme

Well the biggest thing to happen around here lately was the Extreme Makeover: The Home Edition coming to Corvallis, a town 20 miles south where I went to school. The reveal was today, and luckily I heard about the whole thing by reading Sarah's blog. I emailed her as soon as I read they were here with a "what what? details!" to which she thankfully replied in great detail. We found out you could go to a nearby church and park and then take a shuttle in to the site. I was thinking it was going to be crazy with people, but we went last night (after the furniture had already been moved in) and there were probably what like 150 people watching Sciarrino? Including the world's biggest Extreme Makeover fan, who was standing right next to us. The house is beautiful:

And really fits in well with the surroundings I think. By the way here is a press release where they talk about the family, and here is the little girl's blog. It's really weird because like Sarah said, if all the people with blue shirts weren't walking around you would just be staring at another house being built. I didn't know this, but I guess they do two houses back to back and they over lap a little bit, so yesterday Ty was actually in Idaho doing demo on another house with a separate set of designers. We did get to see one of the designers, Micheal. A bunch of girls started chanting, "Micheal, Micheal!"

He was all, "I'll be back out in a five minuets." And he did come back out and was very kind taking pictures and signing things. My first famous person siting ever!

Hey we were both really sweaty so I did us a favor and put us in black and white! It was fun to hang out there with Sciarrino and check it all out. I think we'll drive by again in a few weeks and see what they do to the neighbor's yard, because it was full of tents and production vehicles, front and back.  We decided not to go to the reveal today because it would have been an all day thing with how early you had to get there. So if any of you went to it, details!

Happy Birthday V!

My god daughter is one, I friggin can't believe it.

And apparently neither can V. This last year has gone by so super fast, it's craziness.  Michele requested no presents, and I swear I wasn't going to but, then last weekend I found something that she has actually been looking for, so I had to get it, so NOT MY FAULT!

A wooden doll house with all this awesome simple wooden furniture. Total score. It was the sale last weekend that I had to get up crazy early for to get a number, but obviously worth it. It also came with a wooden train. V seemed to like it, it's huge compared to her. So since I got her a gift I had to do cute wrapping and a card.  Of course I had no blank cards that I liked. So I improvised.

This is two envelopes stuck together. It worked great because then I could slip a little tabbed index card in there. The front was pretty cute too:

I used these ridiculously cheap vocabulary cards I got at a sale last year that say "big" and "girl" and the big one just happens to say "are" in the corner because that's the word on the opposite side, so the card says, "you are a big girl." And the best part:

I made her a hat! That I used as a bow! I feel like a genius okay, I seriously love this. The KI Memories icicle says "first".  When I got up there this evening I did a little photo shoot for her first birthday, I took way too many photos, here are some of my favorites:

This expression is just so Violet.

Lucky lady those eyelashes rock.

She kept launching herself at me so I restrained her with toe tickling.

I pointed out that she had a belly button, which she seemed pretty surprised about.

Little one dollar chair I picked up last year. Totally been painted like a million times, has sharp edges and is very wobbly, good thing mom is just out of picture.  Oh and that hat?

Not the biggest fan!

The Funnies

So I was scanning the classifieds today for sales tomorrow and there were quite a few strange ones:

7-Family Yard Sale Friday & Saturday 9-Late
Deals Made ~ lives changed!

MOVING SALE
Quality merch. No junk
or clothes.

SELLING THE FARM &
IT'S CONTENT'S
(I liked that one because you pay by the character, and since the apostrophe is unnecessary they basically paid extra to make a grammatical error - what do you think about that Luke?)

And my favorite:

Fri 8-5 & Sat 8-?
7 never worn wedding
gowns, furniture, car,
misc antiques &
more!

Uh... 7? Really?

Overheard

Just got back from the Harry Potter premier, quite excellent. Makes me want to be magical, or at least British, despite your horrid weather Kay (which does look really nasty). I was shocked when Sciarrino and I showed up almost two hours early and the lines were wrapped all the way around the building made up of hundreds of people. A big even for Salem. The air conditioning was great, but the best might have been the overheard conversation of two guys in cloaks:

First guy: "She made me feel bad about where I am in my life."

Second guy: "You're the manager of a comic book store, it doesn't get any better than that."

So good I had to take it down right away so I could remember the wording exactly. Now I'm back at home. It's 2:50 in the morning and still 80 degrees in here, and 75 outside (!) so it's a slow go on the cooling off inside. I'm off to stick my feet in ice water.

I'm melting, I'm melting!

I've been checking in on the weather for the past week, as it hasn't rained and the mercury has only continued to creep up and up and up. And today is the day that has been looming ahead... the one that had 104 degrees on the horizon. Now we don't have air conditioning, which is common in these old neighborhoods, but we do have big beautiful trees and windows and doors we can open to get cool air in. The problem is around ninety that really stops being all that effective. Case and point? It was 75 in the house this morning, and at 10:30 I finally had to cave and close all the windows and doors when the temp went up to 76 in here. And now at 11:30 it's 83 outside already. WHOA! Once the house is locked down all you can do is wait and keep adjusting window coverings trying your best to be one step ahead of the sun.  Luckily for me I have 1) a basement and 2) tickets to the midnight showing of Harry Potter!!! I will update temps as the day goes on:

11:30 am 76 (in) 83 (out)

12:41 pm 78 (in) 91 (out)

1:45 pm 79 (in) 95 (out) I went out the last hour to water my plants and DAMN is it hot.

2:19 pm 80 (in) 98 (out)

3:24 pm 81 (in) 101 (out) okay time to bring the candles down to the basement.

9:45 pm 84 (in) 90 (out) I had to get out of the house for a while, and my mom's swimming pool was just the place to be!

p.s. I would like to say I'm not being a wimp here, it feels a lot hotter in Oregon when temperatures are in the 100s than a dry desert climate.