Thanksgiving.
That pretty much says it all. It was tasty. It was fun. It was over.

The cook. Her sister.Her neice. The kids...kind of. Tom, Brenda, Winnie. Lots more people. Lots more pictures of fuzz. Someone should just take my camera away and make everyones life easier.

Dot turns 70!

It was an elegant backyard affair. The weather was perfect and someone her sons managed to pull off a surprise party. This is Steve and one of the grandbabies.


There is another son named Keith and a wonderful daughter in law named Meagan (she goes with Steve).

Celebrating friends celebrated included...

Then it was time for the Friday night girls.

They arrived with pansys


and rosemary.


And the 'garden' clock.

For some reason I had been in a champagne buying mood that day so tho' we were a small group we were mighty with T-day leftovers, my Granny's Paradise Torte and the bubbly. Happy housewarming to me.

Lampshades and lamps.

I spotted two lampshades atop the trash pile in a neighbors yard. They looked good so I backed up and rescued them. Clean, well made and quite totally useless to me. I grabbed them anyway. For the record I did leave a third one that was huge, ugly and grubby. For the record.
The next night a friend said she had two lamps she was getting rid of. How DID she know? She said I might not like them. She was wrong. I think they are groovy in an Austin Powers sort of way.

The finished product.

I need to rewire but that can wait for the weekend. I LOVE them. And they look perfect; one in each bedroom.

Bird feeder extraordinaire.
A few Mardi Gras trinkets, a can of paint, an old dining room fixture and VOILA!

Geocaching vs Waymarking.Fam and friends are already bored to death with this but for those not in the know visit geocaching.com. One of the recent changes was to eliminate what used to be called virtual caching for something called Waymarking. Yesterday Morticiaand I drove to St. Augustine for a 'how-to'. We visited with old caching friends, learned new stuff, and came home re-energized to cache and waymark. Here's Mrs. Federation. It was the first outing with a new camera so Mr. Federation didn't come out too well. Suffice it to say they are a pair with kids and grands and really, in my eyes, Greg (Mr. Fed) is the father of caching for our neck of the woods.

Here are a couple other shots of participants,

the carousel,


and the cleverly disguised trash cans in the park where we lunched.

Recycling genius.

Is it her gum?

Or is it her iPod?

We'll leave the light on for you.

Me and the little black dog that is. Here are directions to TCF and a map of the grounds. I'm in 432. After you turn in, continue to the stop sign and veer left. Follow that road all the way and you dead end into my front yard. Driveway is to the right.

Feng Shui girlfriends.

What to do on a perfectly good Veterans Day off work? Hmmm, let's get the Feng Shui girlfriends to do their thing. Actually they were sort of a cross between Feng Shui and the Decorating Cents redesign segment. The only pictures I had hung was because there were already nails in the walls. Everything else was sort of propped around the house. These two went into full on mode and by the time we killed the Black Bean/Corn Salsa and Mojitos my house was looking 'shui-ed'.

Even the old ceiling tiles got hung. One of them anyway. There is another one but no one, me included is quite certain what to do with it.
Close up.
Closer up.
When I found them they were covered in layers of paint various colored paint. I stripped them, painted them, then glazed them. I think they are rather spectacular.

Lamps, lamps, lamps - many days and many more lamps than are shown here

My sister wanted to yard sale this old pitted, rusted, brass lamp that was my moms. I decided to keep it and rip the globe out to use for something else. Maybe to dangle in a tree or from the ceiling. Then Thomas told me about this paint than is sprayed right over all the crud. No sanding or anything. OK. Worth a try. It comes in black and brown. Since the lamp was already brass and because Edward says every room needs a touch of black that was my decision. Here it is all painted up. After many tries ended up with a shade from TJMaxx.
Thomas had said get a drum shade. I found a cheesy one in a thrift store for two bucks. First I covered it was fabric. Didn't like it. Next try, old lace curtains. Cute but not practical. Painted...not too cool. Back on the hunt and I found this beautiful handmade silk shade in prefect condition. It worked OK on the family lamp but
looked even better on another thrift store find now in my bedroom.