Opposites Certainly Do Attract

Just a reminder: 
For those of you who don't know or realize it, I have a Pinterest page with well over 11,000 images. All "eye candy" you would love to see. I post daily or at least very often there. Go visit it. I really don't like tooting my own horn but I will here: In just 6 short months, there are 7,500 followers there, so you know the images are beautiful. Your choice. But if I were you, I wouldn't miss them. ;-)
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Stymies me: 
Why don't I have any tattoos? For the same reason you don't put a bumper sticker on a Ferrari. I see the most beautiful young women, and young men for that matter, who have gorgeous skin—youthful, glowing, smooth, vibrant—and just want to cry. I couldn't put something on my skin that diminishes the skin I was born with.
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Men who leave 10 minutes early to go 1/2 block but wait until 8 minutes to the hour to go 1 and 1/2 miles to pick up a companion to go back the 1 and 1/2 miles to visit another person. Sigh. You know this happened in this household, right?
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The train wreck that recently happened in Spain was caused by the engineer being on his cell phone. Now that hundreds of people are dead because of that, maybe he'll be a bit more careful. Hmmmmm? Sickens me, because I've very nearly been hit by women talking on their cells while driving.
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My hubby and I are both fairly smart, but we're smart in different things. He can talk to someone for hours about different trains, but he can't concentrate on another language enough to learn it. I, on the other hand, know not a thing about trains but I can whip him savagely in learning languages. I'm more of the arts and he's more of the sciences. But as I've said before, we are different in so many ways. Once a man told us while we were together that we were nothing alike. We looked at each other and smiled because we've been married over 52 years. I almost said to the man, "It must be the sex." If I had, I have no doubt he would have been flustered. He's a man that wouldn't say much and would probably blush. But we've made it this far and I expect we'll go out of this world together and spend the rest of eternity together. Opposites can very well do great together with a commitment to love each other to the end of time and beyond and we do.

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A beautiful window. Too bad it has to have iron bars on it. Looks to be in another country though. Actually, I think the bars add interest to the window.

Tulips and narcissus.

Just a simple, beautiful basket of fading roses.

Oh, yum! I love chocolate and coconut together. I'm such a sucker for sweets.

A very cute and open kitchen. Love that look.

Gorgeous camellia.

A sweet vignette in a house. Living here would be relaxing I think.

More gorgeous pillows to drool over. Love these.

A homeowner who loves to sew cute pincushions to look like cookies.

Another relaxing area in a backyard.

I wish I had a space for a couple of these eggs. I'd make them in a minute. They are so cute. Maybe I'll make a few to put in a bowl somewhere in this house.

I saw this and thought it was delightful. How cute it is to place pretty flowerpots on a short ladder like that!

A charming blue and red bedroom.

I'm lovin' this colorful small kitchen and dining room in my favorite colors, pink and red.

And another crafter put her talents to good use. Adorable.

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Tidbits:

Sean "P. Diddy" Combs had his first job at age two when he modeled in an ad for Baskin-Robbins ice cream shops.

Steve Martin once worked at Disneyland selling maps and guidebooks.

Billy Bob Thornton once spent eighteen month working in a Los Angeles pizza parlor. He was so good he work his way up to assistant manager.
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Linking up with Pink Saturday, French Country Cottage, 

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Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie. The Day the Blender Died.

Reminder about my Pinterest page. I now have almost 9,300 images on there that you won't see on here for a long time. Also, a reminder about the giveaway I'm going to have. It'll be on 6/12 so be sure and be here to check it out.
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This is a long post so be prepared.

Some people who read my laundry post emailed me with a homemade detergent recipe. I had read blogs extolling its frugality and effectiveness, but I'm lazy and didn't want to make it. Not all that stuff works well for some of us. Plus I have a year's supply of Tide. But, hey, I'm game to try it out if so many of you see results. So onto the shopping list went Fels Naptha, Washing Soda and 20 Mule Team borax. Hubs wondered why in the world it was on our shopping list and I told him and he remembered his mother using Fels Naptha and I remembered the same about my grandmother slicing it up into her round ringer washer and me helping her with it, so he was game for it. (Any conversation of this sort fondly recalls memories from his childhood and I have to listen to—get the pleasure of hearing him tell me the stories. That should have been my first clue. ;-)

So on one of our twice weekly visits to Wal Mart the items were purchased. I also read the instructions from one particular blogger that said it works really great and it was cheap. Cheap never enters into my shopping decisions. I've been thwarted more than a few times; no, make that more than a lot of times. I simply don't care if something is cheap or not if I want it. I know some of you understand that. Of course, I always watch the circular that a store here in town sends us for Pepsi so I can get 4 cases for the price of 3 cases. Other than that I don't care.

So I pulled out my blender to use as I don't use it much at all anymore. In fact, it's in a closet in our 4th bedroom. I use a food processor now for all things I have to make/cook. This is in lieu of eating out, which I prefer above all. Need I say more? No!

I cut the chunks into small pieces after setting the blender up. I took off the cap in the lid to drop small chunks in. Well, it went flying all over the kitchen. I immediately stopped. If you look very closely at the buttons, between the last white button on the left and the 14 Speed Blender on the right side, you'll still see bits of Fels Naptha. It was a mess, so I had to stop and clean up a bit.

At that point, I'd stop the blender when I dropped a new chunk in, put the cap back on and blended again. We're talking soap here so it was a bit waxy/clingy. That's when the blender started smoking—big time. I thought my kitchen was going up in flames. That brought about the ambivalent feeling of "do I let it happen and eat out for weeks" or "should I try to put out the fire and cook for the rest of my life." I had to stop and think about that one. Saving my house and the embarrassment of explaining to the firemen was the biggest consideration. (I've already had the police here with our security alarm going off and me not remembering the code or contact person. The policeman told me that's one and I only get 3 of these alerts before they start charging me for trips to my home. Sigh. But that's another story that I've probably posted about before on here and can't remember at this point.)

I then poured the 2 cups of the other 2 products into a bowl and emptied the blender stuff into it. I'd forgotten the smell of Fels Naptha from my youth. It isn't bad; it just isn't Tide's smell. I could get used to it I suppose. But it didn't blend as well as the instructions said it would. If I ever do this again—and that's pretty iffy at this point—I'll grate it with my grater that I was afraid I'd thrown out but found later in the day. (Due to the availability of cole slaw already chopped at the stores now, I refuse to grate another cabbage! In fact, most times I'll even buy the salad greens already chopped in their neat little bags. I'm all for someone else doing it for me.)

I'll let you know after a few times of washing how it does. I guess putting in the fabric softener will dull the smell a bit. The nice blogger said she'd gotten used to the smell. I doubt I could because I'm such a fanatic about good smells, especially in my home.
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Now, onto the second item of business here.

When we moved into this new house, there was a large mirror over our double sinks in our bathroom. I thought we needed more shelving over our sinks before we needed a huge mirror. So we took it down, gave it away and put in 2 medicine, or in my case, makeup chests instead. It worked fine but now I thought we needed more shelves in there as my counter was becoming crowded. I then saw this photo on the internet and asked him to make me one. That was a marriage-killer right there, let me tell you.

 My hubby has to get it perfect or try. It is NOT perfect but you'll see the photo down among the flowers below here. He drove me nuts. I wanted 4 shelves but he said he couldn't do it with our ceiling height and the light bar over our sinks. Fine. Adjust it. Then he had to go shopping for special lumber. Heaven forbid, he doesn't have we'll-use-this-sometime-in-the-future-lumber out in the garage or his shed. But off to Home Depot he went.

I wanted bars across it to hold items better. I didn't get them as he said it wasn't high enough between shelves to lift a bottle up and get it out. Then he wanted to spray paint it after he assembled it. I told him it would be easier to paint before assembling but he's his own man and did it his way. Is it perfect? No. But it's definitely better than having 3 mismatched shelves in that space, plus there's more surface to put things on.

I wanted them done in a timely manner. Riiiight. That'll never happen around here as he's involved in too many things. So my makeup and few random items sat on the countertop for several days before I made a deal with him. I offered to do a task for him one night while he installed the shelving. I have to say it's not what I expected but it'll do fine. He's such a good husband that I don't want to burst his bubble. And he is going to do a perfume shelf for me in our bedroom. That will have the cross-bar to keep my plethora of perfumes from falling. I've just about destroyed my dresser top from spilling perfumes and oils on top of it. I'd redo it but I just don't have the energy and it would take a lot to haul it outside to refinish and that's not going to happen—due to the energy problem, mine, not our natural resources.

This is the blender sitting on a small freezer in our garage. I put it there so the garbage can wouldn't catch fire as it was still smoking. He just happened to be walking in as I was taking the blender out to the garage. I told him what happened. He didn't even flinch. He knows me too well.

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This is the first peony of the season. Hubs sure can grow beautiful flowers.

One of our rose bushes. Sorry, he hasn't had time to weed them yet.

Another gorgeous rose. I usually only buy David Austin roses. They're very fragrant smelling and have performed magnificently for us in this hot summer desert.

It's very hard to have a favorite but this one is at the top of the list. Perhaps that's because I love pink and yellow above all other color combinations.

This is the shelf hubs made. Sigh. It actually looks pretty good there between the 2 medicine chests. We could only go so far in the width but lower than the 3 mismatched shelves we had there before. Plus the shelves are deeper so that worked out even better. You can see the birdcage I have hanging over our garden tub also.

Another peony, different day.

This is the little tin that I put the washing detergent in. I'll be sure and let you know how it works after several wash loads.

I'm rather chatty today, but this gorgeous blue in this hydrangea reminds me of a color of Jantzen sweaters that was called French Blue back in the late 50s and early 60s. I longed for a Jantzen sweater that other classmates had before I got mine. I didn't wish for much and rarely bared my feeling to my parents. I don't know why I didn't get one for a long time but when I did, it was a double-breasted cardigan in this color. It was gorgeous. I loved it. When I think about those lustings back in my teenage years, I have to chuckle. I am rarely envious of anything anymore that someone else has. Oh, I see the beauty in some things but I'm just glad I'm this old and alive, have beautiful kids, grandkids and gorgeous great granddaughters. I am truly blessed in this life.

I think this is a gorgeous home. I don't lust for it but I doubt I'd have turned it down when I was younger. Now? Too much yard and too many levels.

A delightful kitchen in aqua and white.

A shop somewhere that I'd love to go visit. I see a couple of things that tweak my interest.

Same with this shop. Notice the beautiful French doors to the entrance and the molding on that doorway. I could probably spend a long while in this shop.

A cheery dining room with a vintage table, chairs and red roses on the curtains. I like this room a lot.

Oooooh, I don't know where to begin on this porch. I want mine to be this pretty and relaxing. I say every year I'm going to do something with ours but I haven't so far. Maybe this will be the year I succumb to those desires and get my bum off the sofa and do something with our large porch. :-)

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Tidbit:
 I've always been interested in English since an early age. I loved English and majored in it in college. But I'm always seeking out the abuses of our language. That's why I find these little tidbits to pass on to you. I'm forever correcting someone's English and grammar, whether written or verbal. Sigh. It's a tough job but someone has to do it. Right, Claudia? ;-)

Just Deserts:
The phrase has its origins in the obsolete word 'desert', meaning that which one deserves. In use since at least the 1300s, it is commonly seen in print as just desserts, as in the sweet final course of a meal. It is pronounced this way, but the spelling is incorrect.
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Linking up with Pink Saturday, NMH
and SSS. 

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Trip To Washington

 On our recent trip over to Washington state to visit our granddaughter, her hubby and their two girls we had to drive 2 vehicles. We were delivering the sofa with the green and white ticking stripe slipcover I had in our family room to her. Their family room hide-a-bed was trashed by th' cats. So hopefully this one lasts longer. I'm running out of sofas!

Anyway, hubs drove his truck and I drove our Camry. We made it through a small part of Idaho, all of Oregon and just inside the Washington state line the tarp ripped. (Now, let me say here that if hubs had followed my advice on wrapping the sofa in a plastic drop cloth before putting on the heavy blue vinyl drop cloth we wouldn't have spent the better part of a day vacuuming and using a lint remover all over the sofa to get the teeny tiny bits blue stuff off.) Snicker, snicker!

Anyway, I was lead car keeping him in my rear view mirror at all times. We would have forgotten to do the same, trust me. When I didn't see him in my rear view mirror I called him on my cell and asked where he was. I was pulled over to the side when I did this. He told me what had happened and tied it again and then caught up with me. He took the lead for a while then.

Soon it started to rip completely off. We finally got to a WM store in Yakima, WA, and I went in and bought another tarp. He tied it even tighter and we made it to their home. Remember, it was raining and a bit of snow in the Blue Mountains so we had to have a cover for it. But let me tell you, that blue polypropylene is a bugger to get out of sofa fabric.

Then it became dark—foggy—as we came within about 50 miles of granddaughter's house. I turned on my lights but they didn't light up on my dashboard. I panicked, phoned hubs in back of me and told him to get in front and see if he could tell if they were on. He said, "They're faint, but on." I made him stay in front so I could see his tail lights. It gets pretty dark on the back woodsy roads of Washington when we got off the freeway. But the lights did come on just before we got there. I think it's a sensor in there that won't turn on until it gets to a certain degree of darkness but let me tell you I was panicking. I don't drive much at night at all so I wasn't really familiar with the lights. But I always fret when we travel. I like being home in my own house. But granddaughter and her family came over several weeks after that so we got to see them again.
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I just thought these pretty blues would delight you.

Though I didn't make this mosaic, I thought it beautiful enough to show you.

I have a pair of cowgirl boots broken in to where I love wearing them. They're slouchy now with a true cowboy heel, which is my favorite type of heel and I love them. I wear them with long dresses to church.

Another place to dream.

We all wish for a place to have inside for our gardening or snow days or just puttering, but few have one as nice as this.

Eye candy.

Yes! A beautiful pink house.

Fruit with flowers always makes a pretty table setting. I once used artichokes as a table setting.

A good way to keep your Popsicle when it's really hot out.

Cute wall sconce.

A place for gardening. Heck, I'd like it for my living room.

Wonder if it's all edible.

Little box covered with sea shells.

I loved the lace cover on this vintage table.

This looks like a showroom, but that bed is really stunning.

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Tidbit:
A Cinnabon study found that the scent of cinnamon causes mall shoppers to be more polite.
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A Few Stories About San Diego

In the mid sixties we lived in San Diego. I loved San Diego. Hubs was a Marine drill instructor at Marine Corps Recruit Depot and used to come home with the weirdest stories. He and our son, who was also a Marine, would sit and tell stories in the later years and we would laugh and laugh together till tears rolled down our cheeks. It's really fun sitting and listening to those two talk about the Marines.

He came home with a story about the new recruits. When they would arrive they had to send every single thing on their body, except a wedding ring and a watch, home to their folks.

Hubs told me about young men arriving there on the bus without shoes even. Some had never even worn them. Some had never worn a belt. They were then immediately taken to have their heads shaved. He said once there was a kid with an open sore/cut on his head full of lice. There were other stories I'll have him tell me and post here again later, but that's the few I remember at this point. We're talking really "green" recruits, first time away from home.

He also came home one day with lice. Yes, lice! I discovered them on me one evening and since we had never had them even as children I didn't know what was crawling on me. Hubs, being a Marine and having been versed on those kinds of things as all military men are, knew immediately what those tiny things were. I was appalled and in shock and couldn't sleep that night. But the next day he went to the base and got medicine for both of us. We also stripped all the beds in the apartment and went to the laundromat that night. We figured he got them from the toilets at the base because we were both faithful to each other and, after checking our two kids, didn't find any on them but they weren't even school age then. He was much more careful after that.

But we lived across from MCRD and near a small Mexican take-out-type restaurant that sold taquitos for ten for a dollar. Actually, at that time we could get tacos at Tico's Tacos ten for a dollar also. But I'd run down there in the next block and buy them for me and the kids all the time.

That small house was backed by a huge hill with a retaining wall that came tumbling down in a terrific roar during some heavy rains one year. If my kids had been out there, they very likely would have been hurt at the least. It also sent a huge wood beam through our bedroom in the back of the house. The landlord lowered the rent for us but we had to find another place relatively soon. So we moved up to a house near Kensington. It was fun living in that house because it was bigger than any place we'd lived in previously in a real neighborhood and was close to Mission Valley, which was great shopping for us then, even if we were too poor to buy much.

One day my cousins and I decided to go downtown San Diego. We just wanted to window shop. We dressed in nice pants but a policeman stopped us downtown and told us pants were inappropriate for downtown! We were floored and embarrassed. San Diego is a tourist town with a Navy base and a Marine base in it. We couldn't believe the policeman. I think he might have been flirting but here I was a mother of two kids and didn't even think about someone flirting with us but it was inconceivable that we weren't dressed "appropriately" for a beach town. I imagine now they go into town in their bikinis with the way things have changed! We're going down there next year for a convention and I can't wait to see how things are. We were down there a few years ago at UC San Diego when our grandson was going to school there.
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This is an antique servants bell. I think it's beautiful.

A beautifully clean street somewhere in western Europe.

Glittery handmade flowers with jewelry in the centers.

Just a bit of froufrou today.

This looks like it was or is a porch by the looks of the walls but it's beautiful just as a living room also.

Cute idea for extra cups around the house.

Italian coastline.

More eye candy but actually real so you can eat it!

Lovely arrangement for a cookie party.

Another darling birdhouse.

I couldn't tell if these were fabric or edible but they're fantastic looking no matter what.

Another beautiful road in Europe somewhere.

I thought this was a decorated bottle but it's a jewel with more jewelry around it. Stunning. Maybe it's a pin.

Wish I had a sign like this for my front porch.

Just some romantic roses and peonies.

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Tidbit:
Conakry, Guinea, in West Africa, is the world's wettest capital city with over 12 feet of rain per year.
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