Frecklewonder

mixed bag

it's very windy here today, and i keep imagining the roof blowing off as i sit here at the desk printing shipping labels. paypal is acting like a bad child, giving error messages, causing me to log out and log back in, and generally just crawling through my simple tasks. if only i could give paypal a little time on the naughty chair or something.

in other news, i fell last week. being 30 weeks pregnant with that clumsy-ness that seems to occur around this time doesn't really mix well first thing in the morning with icy outdoor steps and trying to walk and talk on the phone simultaneously. not a good combo, i tell you. my maternal wits were with me, however, as it seems my body did everything possible to *not* fall flat on my mid-section, but rather, i landed on both knees, an elbow and my palm, with my butt up in the air. kind of looking a bit like bambi when he is just learning how to walk and all fours are sort of sprawled out all funny. that was me, sort of. but probably not as cute. i got a nice, black bruise on my knee and managed to freak my boys out big time. it was a fairly rattling experience, but i am happy to report that no significant damage was done. my little lady girl in there is a-ok, just had a check up yesterday, in fact. heartbeat is great, movements are great, we're healthy all around.

had a parent-teacher conference last night and wow, she had such nice things to say about my little henry. nothing that i didn't already know, i suppose, but it sure is nice to hear, and i am so proud of him, i could pop. afterwards, we came home and had noodles + ice cream cause, you know, that's how we roll sometimes.

so despite today's arctic winds, i can feel the season changing. we spent a few hours in our back yard on saturday (as it was 60 degrees and impossible to resist), clearing out the beds and getting them all ready for the spring blooms. i noticed buds on trees and little new sprouts coming up from the ground. daffodils and tulips, and lots of other things are on the way. i can't wait.

5 quick things!

1. my feet are way too ticklish to ever be able to indulge in a pedicure.
2. swedish fish are one of my favorite candies ever.
3. i hate uggs, but i secretly wear them as slippers around the house.
4. we are settled on a name for the baby. (i think. at least, i am.)
5. i had cereal for lunch today

fyi- these are peanut butter bumpers, the healthier, organic version of captain crunch. *wink*

blog break

hey folks. some unexpected personal bits have come up and as a result, i am taking a few days to myself. i will resume with the shop update asap, i am sorry to have paused it mid-way through. all current orders have been shipped and should be arriving by the end of this week, so if you are currently waiting on something, keep your eyes on the look-out on friday. lots of love! jenny

tidbits

my lunch today. edamame and a coke. is that unhealthy? i have already had a bunch of water today after my cup of coffee this morning (okay, i had two) and a nice, crispy cold coke sounded pretty good to me. fyi, i am highly addicted to edamame.

so, i played bingo the other night with my mom, my aunt and my grandma. it was seriously one of the best times. i love bingo! what a rush! my grandma won a hundred bucks 10 minutes after we walked into the door. i am SO going to bingo again. who cares if i was about 50 years younger than everyone else in the room (mom and aunt excluded). bingo is my kind of fun. something so great about those round bingo stampers in all the fun colors... and did you know that real-deal bingo players bring all their bingo stampers in specially crafted totes? well, now you do!

today i am working furiously to edit images for the next BIG shop update, coming at'cha on monday. i'm so excited about this one! some super cute stuff for fall-- fun, fun dresses, blazers, little cardigans and a whole buncha vintage totes (plus some handmade ones too).

ten quick things! (1) my favorite cartoon as a kid was TOM & JERRY. (2) my favorite kind of laundry to do is WHITES. (3) i am frightened by EXTREME WEATHER. (4) i prefer my coffee thick and dark from the FRENCH PRESS with just a little bit of brown sugar and creme. (5) i have best friends that i might not talk to very often, but we can always pick right back up LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY. (6) i am both a NIGHT OWL and an EARLY BIRD. i have a hard time choosing between the two. (7) i could watch DIRTY DANCING any time and love it like it was the first time i ever saw it. (8) i had my first kiss in 7th grade while on a date at the movies. i think we both had gum in our mouths. it was very sweet, and totally scary all at once. (9) THREES COMPANY is one of my all-time favorite shows EVER. (10) in an hour, i am going to walk down the street to henry's school to pick him up and i think that is really cool.

have mercy

i wasn't kidding. the weather, it just ain't pretty. what's it like in your neck of the world today?

thursday::black, brown, white

a black and white photgraph of my mom and my grandmother that sits on a table in my living room:

a little thrifted wooden dish and some brown trinkets that sit on the same coffee table in my living room:

some black + white shoes,  a score from my adventures today:

a little wall hanging, also found today:

my eyes. they're not blue, like a lot of redheads eyes are. they're brown.

and finally, my cats. doing their thing. that's lucy (top) and lola (bottom).

***

sorry to be so late with this post, but it was an amazing, great, busy day. more on that later! tomorrow, i'll be here with ORANGE. one of my favorites.

wednesday::green

the upside down tomatoes are doing very well:

and we are picking cucumbers daily now:

we also have a cherry tree in our back yard, here's how it looked in early june:

i scored this box of wooden letters on a recent thrift run: (you might notice that they were used for the new logo on the shop page?)

a little drawing henry did a while back: (kid art happens to be one of my favorite things on the planet.)

and finally, our cat lola, just chillin' in the hood of matt's sweatshirt. something she did a whole lot of last winter, in fact.

tuesday::blue

a picture from last summer's trip out west. this photo was taken in the badlands of south dakota, some 1300 miles into our journey.

a few very goofy pictures of me from a couple years ago, fresh after a new haircut. these photos make me miss a bob, just a little bit. (and also that fab 60s dress with the big bow, darn.)

some favorite vintage apple fabric, i've used this one rather sparingly, cause i never had much of it to start.

and finally, one of my favorite pictures of henry. here he is last spring, after we thrifted this fabulous vintage child sized schwinn ($3.95!) and shined it up real nice. this summer he is actually tall enough to ride it.

monday::yellow (late start)

I wanted to participate in Andrea's color week postings, though, I'm a day, ok two days late. What can I say: I was completely consumed by this most recent Summer Shop Update.

I can catch up, I think.

So, Monday was YELLOW:

some work in progress on my sewing table:

a page from a favorite vintage kid's book:

my breakfast one day over last week's vacation:

and a little lunch/thrift mission with my buddy, henry last week. we often hit this diner for milkshakes, pre-goodwill:

tomorrow I will catch up with blue and greens.

cheers!

 

i have a dream

and it is to own one of these old ice cream trucks from the 60s and have a little summer business.

maybe it's that old feeling i get when i see an ice cream truck, of being a little girl with sunburned cheeks and sand in my hair with my sweaty change clenched tightly in my fist, just waiting for the moment when the ice cream truck finally stops on my corner so i can purchase my strawberry shortcake.

maybe it's the wacky entrepreneur in me that doesn't ever want to get a "real" job.

maybe the heat has just gone to my head today.

who knows, but today, i really, really want to be an ice cream lady!!!

an update::heavy on the green

lunch with henry today on the patio. it's our first official day of summer vacation!

last friday was his graduation from kindergarten. i was sentimental for days beforehand, and i'm sure he was probably wondering what the heck was up with me. i couldn't help myself, really. 3 years at an amazing montessori school that we've always felt so happy + fortunate to be a part of, and to say goodbye to friends and teachers after watching my little man perform in his first play. oy. i could have easily been a weepy mess. of course i did shed some tears, i won't lie. so proud of that little guy, and so grateful for the experience. it was a day to remember.

after graduation, henry requested a family lunch at a favorite 50s diner close to our house. he had his mind set on a banana split all week, but when it came down to it, he went with the butterscotch shake. go figure!

later on, i guess the sentimental, nostalgic feeling took over with the boys too, cause we ended up watching old family movies until almost 11pm that night. pretty amazing, the things that can happen in a mere 6 years.

and now for an update on the tomatoes:

i've received a surprising number of comments and emails from you guys letting me know that you're trying this method too, which is pretty cool. you'll have to let me know how things go on your end, too.

as you can see, we have tomatoes! there are already little romas, probably about 1.5" or so, and a whole bunch of itty bitty cherry tomatoes... i wonder how long it'll be until we see our first ripe ones. i'm salivating just thinking about it.

we've also finished getting the rest of our garden stuff in the ground: a few varieties of basil, cucumber, green bell peppers, super chilis, watermelon, corn, onions, parsley, sage, and i think that's it. oh, and green cabbage too. this is the biggest garden that we've ever done, i hope we can keep a handle on things once things get really hot. matt also picked up a blueberry bush + raspberry bush a couple weekends ago, and those are happily planted and already producing fruit! and did i mention that we have a gigantic cherry tree in the back yard and that it's FILLED with cherries?! ya'll will have to come over for some cherry cobbler!

ok. enough with the green thumb talk. i'll be getting back into the blogging rhythm this week. (i hope)

there's a shop update taking place today, and more to come throughout the week! later, gators.

friday 5

1. i do not like the grateful dead. never have, and i think it's safe to say, never will.

2. i have watched the entire season of the bachelor and i've loved every minute of it. i'm routin' for tessa. how bout you?

3. the other day, i was at a stoplight, and i looked over at the car to my right to see a woman tweezing her chin. odd, i thought. but also frightening, no? i mean, i've never had to tweeze my chin, but i have tweezed my brows, and i know it requires a bit of concentration. so to bust out the tweezers behind the wheel... i dunno.

4. i love foods that are tart, pickled and spicy. home made cole slaw, green olives, pickles, peppers. yum.

5. i cannot get down with the "ear bud". i see these people walking around the grocery store, or down the sidewalk, with their HANDS FREE, talking aloud, looking very, very strange (and crazy) as if they are talking to themselves. i just don't understand.

happy weekend, folks. we've got rain here today, but hopefully it'll clear up by tomorrow. we're hoping to do a little fishing in the morning!

the week in pictures

in no particular order, here are some highlights from the last week or so, since i've last written in this here blog.

matt and henry made the world's most amazing coffee cake. ever. it was almost not a good thing, how good that coffee cake tasted. and the SMELL that came out of the oven. oh, boy:

i finally replaced the old butterfly chair covers for our patio, and i am so happy with the colors:

matt and i attended a friends wedding, and it was lovely. so-much-fun. and we had the best time on the dance floor:

 

henry stayed home sick (not a highlight) from school for two days. BUT, between you and me, he wasn't really sick the second day, we really just kinda played hookie and hung out. it was so nice:

and finally, i thrifted this vintage owl art for .95 from the goodwill. it's created a new collection of vintage needlepoint/embroidery art:

imagine that, another collection!

upside down

it all started sometime last summer, when matt and i found ourselves in a tangled mess of tomato plants in our garden, desperately trying to prop them up and keep them secured inside their cages. it seems that no matter what, tomato plants love to just go crazy, and by the time the plant is full-on producing fruit, you're battling it's size and the weight of all the tomatoes, and you're risking damaging the plant when you're really just trying to prop the sucker up and keep it from breaking.

so check it out: we are growing our tomatoes upside down this year. 

a quick trip to lowes for some supplies:

and the rest is pretty simple. you just need some large buckets, and a spot in your yard that gets a nice, full day's worth of sunshine. of course you'll have to figure out how you're going to hang them... i've seen people use a laundry line pole, or even just hang them from a hook on the deck. matt pulled out all the stops and built an official upside-down-tomato-grower's-structure of sorts... but really, you can keep it simple if you're limited on space or tools or whathaveyou. anyhow, you just want to cut some holes in the bottom of the buckets to plant the tomatoes:

and hang them in your sunny spot! the rain will water the tomatoes from the top of the bucket, and you can easily water them yourself if the weather is not cooperating.

so not only do you save on the cost of tomato cages/stakes and the time spent tying + propping up the plant, you're practically eliminating the issue of ants + slugs coming along and snacking on your plants. from all the pictures i've seen online, the plants seem to love it. the plant produces a TON of tomatoes and they ripen so nicely. i don't know about you, but in my world, there's nothing better tasting than a home grown tomato. i'm just thinking of all the fresh salsa i'm going to make, all the yummy slices sprinkled with salt that i'll be snacking on, all the mozzarella, basil, tomato salads i'm going to eat. YUM. hello summer!

tossing and turning

i couldn't sleep at all last night! the wind was howling, and all i could think about was a damn tree blowing onto my house or car. and i was so tired that i would start to have the thoughts, then stop myself, for fear of making it happen cause i was actually thinking it was going to happen. make sense? no, not much to me either. i am really tired today, that's my excuse and i'm sticking to it.

so i was driving across the mountain earlier, lady white knuckles at the wheel, feeling like i was going to get blown into the side of an 18 wheeler. oy, vey! first we had days of straight rain, now all this gusty wind, and supposedly more rain is on the way.

is it too much to just want some lovely 75 degree days, filled with sunshine and a light breeze? i feel like i have blogging way too much about the weather these days.

spring break recap

spring break was really nice. the first half of the week was filled with good stuff. lots of relaxing with little house + yard projects mixed in. we gardened, we picnicked, and even enjoyed an amazing nap outside under the sun. we put a fresh coat of paint in henry's room. we lounged around and snuggled our kitties and read some more chapters in mrs. piggle wiggle.

by wednesday though, the lovely 80 degree temps had dropped to 50, and by saturday, it was in the 30s. i woke up that morning to find an inch of snow on the ground. huh? yeah, i felt like i had those funny slinky-eyed glasses on... you know the ones that the eyeballs come bouncing down? that was me early saturday morning when i found myself looking out to that snow covered landscape. what happened to all that green, and all that color?!?!? and what about my tulips!?!

thankfully, by mid-day, all the snow had melted. and by sunday, it was in the 50s again, and nice enough for us to enjoy a little easter lunch-egg hunt.

i also managed to finish a project that had been on the back burner for a while. it's a big wall in the kitchen that i had painted apple green right after we moved in last fall. i liked the green ok, but it never really "wowed" me. now, some of you might not be color-on-the-walls kind of people but those of you who are, might know just how difficult it is to actually go in a choose a shade. you make your way to the paint store all confident and ready to grab that color swatch and march on up to the counter to have it mixed. because in your mind, you know exactly what color you want. well, try matching that color in your mind to a paint swatch underneath that awful florescent light they've got going on in there. talk about stressssssss-ville-central!

after i had it mixed, i went home and cautiously rolled on the first few rows. and, hooooo boy. it was wrong. and it wasn't just wrong cause i was looking at it next to the apple green. it was just WRONG. so what to do? i took it back & asked if they wouldn't mind tweaking it- because, after all,  i didn't go in there looking for electric salmon, but i sure did walk out with it. and they were happy to acommodate. i had it tweaked. and tweaked. and tweaked a final time. the paint mixing duo behind the counter was surely looking at me like i was a certified nutball color FREAK. were we going for red-orange or orangey-red? was it tomato-orange? mandarin orange? 60s orange? eh, i was ready to cry. in the end though, i got just what i wanted. and it was worth all that hullabalooo that i went through to get there.

so now the wall is finished and it's proudly displaying some of my favorite vintage advertisements from my collection of 1950s + 60s magazines. and i am happy every time i look at it. the bonus with this little kitchen gallery is that i can easily change-up the artwork whenever i want. i will certainly change it to feature some of henry's best art works down the road, and maybe even do all family photos. the frames were only $5 a piece from the craft store, so it's a great, inexpensive way to add some fun color and freshness to your world.

anyhow. happy tuesday, all. i'm happy to report that i am feeling much better than i was last week. less stress, more spunk. refreshed and ready to take on that next shop update. cross your fingers for an official warm-up this week. it is still chilly here in central virginia, only warming up to the low 50s today. come on, weather! it sure would be nice to take some photos outside, you know?!

happy spring!

it's official. welcome, spring!

we've got 70 degrees and sunshine here in central virginia, and it's so nice. great to drive around with the windows down and the sun on your skin. i could deal with weather like this every day, no problem.

so, for those curious few: the JT show was great. i don't really want to gush about him too much, cause i start feeling a bit like a teenager, so i'll just say this: the whole thing was an amazingly choreographed event, with 10 dancers and a huge band, and whether or not you actually *like* JT and his music, you probably would have still been impressed by the show itself. i'm not sure if it was a somewhat special thing this time, but timbaland was there... JT mentioned that he was a virginia boy, and it seemed like it was a bit of a surprise when he surfaced on stage. he did a whole dj thing in the middle of the show.
i attempted to take some photos with my cell, but i'm pretty sure they fall into the category of the world's worst pictures ever...? i gave up after taking about 5 pics, cause it just seemed like a lost cause. anyhow, justin timberlake is one talented hottie, and i'll leave it at that.

in other news, i got an email a couple weeks ago from nicole, who just so happens to be an actress on guiding light!!! she delivered me some pretty bad news:(  my favorite soap *ever* has been canceled, with it's final episode airing in early september. huh? seems that nbc is making room for a 4th hour of the today show. do we really need FOUR hours of the today show? i haven't even watched it since katie left. color me confused! i have tuned in to passions for years now--- not EVERY day, mind you--- but sometimes as often as once or twice a week, sometimes maybe just once a month. and it never really matters cause the stories drag on for ever. you passions watchers know what i'm talking about---> teresa has been after ethan for 5 years (6 maybe?) and only now are they finally (seeming) to get together. i am guessing that the stories will accelerate here in the 11th hour. and there seems to be an effort to get the show picked up somewhere else. how can you not like a show that has witches and wacky supernatural stuff on top of all the normal soap opera stuff?!? hmph!

nicole: i will check you out on guiding light, i promise.

and  while i'm on the topic of tv, i'll go ahead and confess that i watched dancing with the stars last night. i always have to give myself a couch project when i sit down for these things, otherwise i kind of feel like... like... like, surely i could find something better to do with my time. i make myself feel a little less guilty with some hand sewing or flipping through old magazines looking for interesting papers to use in magnets or something like that... anyhow. anyone else watching? any predictions for this season's winner? did anyone feel like kym calling joey fatone "joey FAT ONE" was kind of awful and totally humiliating!??!?

that's all i got. i have to get myself back to work now. the rest of the afternoon involves a trip to the post, a little bit of thrifting, and house cleaning. i switched around some rooms in my house this weekend and i didn't get it finished, and now, there is a gigantic pile of clothing right in the middle of the living room floor just staring me down, and kind of mocking me that it'll be the end of the week before i actually get it all put away. i wish there were more hours in a day.