A Mid-Summer's Lunch

On a recent hot & steamy afternoon, I was at my sweet friend’s home for a delightful lunch. I found myself surrounded by colors as cool & calming as the Sanibel seashore on a hazy morning when the sun is just starting to rise and everything looks painted in strokes of watercolor pastels.
She has impeccable taste and style when it comes to decorating and entertaining, as well as the innate ability to make most anything she touches more beautiful. She is drawn to colors such as robin’s egg blue, seashell pink, seafoam green, and fresh white. And although this is just her (& her husband’s) “temporary” home right now, she has transformed it into a lovely, tranquil, and cozy little “nest”. Wouldn’t you agree?

Odds & Ends...

From the weekend…in pictures…less words. One thing I’m trying to work on is using fewer words. Saying things more succinctly. I’m a very wordy, descriptive sort of person who really likes to get my thoughts across and doesn’t hold much back…so this is my challenge (for today!). Here goes…

{Berry Picking}

{Fuzzy Antlers}

{Morning Coffee}

{Flower Bed (literally…as seen on bike ride) }

{Large Agate (as found on bike ride) }

{Unexpected Package*}

*thanks again, mum…so sweet of you!

Etsy Front Page!

This afternoon I discovered that one of my items (my cuckoo clock votive) was on the Front Page of Etsy...in what is called a "treasury". Treasuries are groupings of artwork put together by other Etsy users and Etsy admin. I'm a little uncertain as to how the specific treasuries are then chosen to be on the homepage of Etsy, but I believe Admin does the selection of which treasuries will make it to the front page. I was SO excited to see this today as it was my very first "treasury" experience ever! And to make it to the front page too! Wowee!

I didn't get to actually SEE it on the front page (shoot!) as I believe it occurred sometime this morning...probably as we were rushing to church, no doubt. Although this particular treasury is no longer on the front page, it is still "active" in Etsy's treasury link until sometime tomorrow. Here's a link to the treasury...if you want to see it before it expires! :)

Relative-ly Speaking...

I was delighted last night to find that 2 inspiring people (who I’m so proud to be related to) have recently opened up “shop” on Etsy. They are both extremely talented artists and I just had to share their new shops with you here...

~Sparkflight : Features wonderful wire sculptures…I’ve seen them up close, in person and they truly are awe-inspiring, amazing works of art. This sculpture here is a favorite of mine. I'm amazed at how lifelike it looks...and I love it's bushy tail too! And this one here makes me smile because of the subject matter, but the form is fun to look at too.

~Trev27 : Features prints of his pen and ink drawings…the details in his work are astounding and the fresh perspective he brings to common things like this one here is really fascinating.

Hope you enjoy looking at their work as much as I do!

Anthro Finds & Zumbro Eats

1 part Anthro & 1 part Zumbro…a recipe for a lovely afternoon!

{The Details...}

Last week while down in the Cities, Mum and I took a jaunt across town to visit a favorite spot, Anthropologie. I still had a gift card from my birthday (thank you Mother-in-Law!) just waiting patiently to be used. But since I live so far from one now, it is a little harder to get there. I could shop online…but perusing the store in person is so much more pleasurable.

We had such a fun time there together…spending a good couple of hours looking, touching, smelling, trying on... I really made it worth my while too and picked up some fun things for myself and some gifts for others. Its really hard for me to have restraint in this store, so I guess it’s a good thing I don’t get here often! (And all this just on the heels of my recent posts about getting rid of things and having less stuff! Oh this place makes it hard!)

A couple of my finds…

{The “Dollhouse Coverlet Hoodie.” Oh so soft and cozy!}

{Sweet plates I fell in love with…the “Aurora Dessert Plates”…featuring 3 bluebirds, butterflies, & daisy chains. I love the shape of these plates as well as the bright, cheery colors. I think they’ll look sweet underneath my yellow teacups & saucers that I got from here awhile ago. I can't wait to have a proper tea party with these!}

After our Anthropologie shopping spree, we headed over to the nearby Linden Hills area…a sweet little community with, I think, a bit of a Parisian-like feel to it…full of cute gift stores, flower shops, a bakery, and a great little spot we found to revive ourselves with lunch…the Zumbro Café.

Mum had a "Bacon & Havarti Frittata" while I had a "Roasted Tomato/Caramelized Onion/Basil Pesto Sandwich" on grilled ciabatta. If I were going to make my ideal sandwich, this would be it precisely!

Our only regret…not having enough time to peruse all that is Linden Hills. Next time! There’s always next time, we say!

Yard Sale Recap

There’s a certain kind of clarity that comes when you are preparing for a big move. A clarity regarding all of the things, knick-knacks, and other stuff you’ve obtained, hoarded, and held onto for various sentimental or silly reasons. When we were getting ready for our major move last summer, we had less time to be emotional and sentimental about things. So under pressure and time constraints, we were more realistic about things...wondering why we would waste time packing, moving, and unpacking some things that we never use or need? Because of this focus, bags upon bags of our “stuff” were given away before the big move.

However, upon moving into our new home, an even finer sort of clarity came to me. As I was unpacking boxes, deciding what things would go where, there was even more “stuff” that I realized I really didn't need or want anymore…like the ten million picture frames I have that I can only have so many out at a time and there’s even less that I really like. So after moving into our home, those things that I unpacked and knew I didn’t want to take up precious space or even be relegated to a dark closet corner to be quickly forgotten about again were put into an enormous storage container down in the utility room.

When we first moved here last summer, our neighbor had a garage sale and I was stunned at the amount of people showing up. I discovered that people around here really like their garage sales! So I decided then that I would have one too. My first ever little Yard Sale-ing venture of sorts. I don’t typically like garage/yard/rummage sales and digging through other people’s stuff. I figure my chances of finding anything I’d want are pretty slim so why bother. Plus I’m a bit of a germ-freak and they just always appear so dirty and disorganized.

So to counter my stereotypes of yard sales, I wanted to make mine the opposite of every mish-mash, dirty junk sale I’d ever stopped at (or been dragged along to with my Mum as a little girl). I decided that I would try to have everything be nice & cleaned up, with fun little tags describing some of the things (not everything…I’m not that crazy!). But for instance, on the tag of some very old wooden beads that are a Christmas Tree garland decoration I wrote: “Nifty Vintage Christmas Garland ~ 4 strands”. (I recently came to realize this trick of describing things on the tag at one of my favorite little antique shops I discovered when we moved up here. The owner puts a little description on the tags and possibly an idea for how to use it and suddenly a “Sugar Bowl” became far more desirable when the tag said “Sweet Ironstone Sugar Bowl ~ perfect for a pretty bar of soap.” Now I realize that this entirely takes much more time that just slapping a little sticker on something and writing 25 cents (and believe me, I did do this for many, many things too)…but doesn’t it make shopping/yard sale-ing a little more enjoyable? Many of our “customers” seemed to think so and we often heard, “Wow, what an organized yard sale!”
We had a very steady stream of people all day on Friday. But Saturday, surprisingly, was a little bit slower. I realized Hubby was just humoring me (very sweetly though) all along with all this Yard Sale stuff…he even took the day off on Friday to help…when he said to me after our busy, successful day on Friday “Well, you did it! I didn’t think it would go so well and it went WAY better than I thought!” (I think he’s really just happy that we sold our BIG, boxy flat-screen TV that weighed at least a ton, which means we can maybe get a skinny flat-screen TV sometime in the near future with our yard sale profits perhaps.)

But I think Hub was also kind of enjoying it too…talking it up with all the "customers." At one point, as I was heading into the house, I overheard a conversation Hub was having with a new “customer”…a cute, little old farmer-like man, who walked up our driveway all alone. He asked Hub what size the clothing was. And Hub (I think perhaps reverting back to his days working at Dayton’s in Mens Wear) said, “Well, what size are ya looking for?” When I came back out of the house I saw this old man who lives nearby walking back down the driveway carrying a shirt that Hub helped him find. I smile when I think of this cute old country man wearing a very preppy, button-up Gap shirt of Hub’s.

So in addition to selling “stuff”, we had a fun time chatting with neighbors and meeting new ones. We even had one neighbor kindly offer us a couple of his tables to use for our sale the night before when we were setting up. So indeed, a Yard Sale is a lot of work, but it seems to encourage neighborly affection in addition to earning a few extra bucks and getting rid of things we no longer need. The rest of the things that didn't sell are now boxed up and ready to be taken to the Goodwill!

P.S. We even had this little “visitor” come to check out our sale. The weasel didn’t find anything he liked though.

Old Ships & New Technology

"Lens Error, Restart Camera"...

Oh yes…This was the message beeping at me on my little silver camera’s screen. I brought it with last night when Hub and I went down to look at the “Tall Ships” among all the millions of tourists…or rather, to go to the “Maritime Festival” to see 3 replicas of vintage Great Lakes shipping schooners. We had finally picked up from our Yard Sale and we were ready to get out a bit and walk by the lake. While we were driving down there I turned on my camera, which has been like my right arm since we bought it last November. (We have a much bigger camera that takes really good close-ups, but this camera is great because of how tiny it is and it takes pretty good pics too.) So I was quite disappointed and no amount of turning it on and off made it tell me anything different. Since I was unable to take any pics of the ships, here are some from the local newspaper. According to them, this event may be Duluth’s largest-ever tourist draw, ahead of even Grandma’s Marathon, in recent history.

When we got home last night, Hub did some googling to find many others online who had received this same error message. It sounded like sending it back for repairs was deemed worthless and expensive, and the common resounding message across the board was to give the camera a good smack on its bottom. Seriously. So, I was a little hesitant about this, but as we kept reading all over the place online that giving the camera a good swift hit was really the only hope of getting it to function again, I started gently tapping the bottom and continued to do it a little more forcefully until I realized that indeed it was working. In my excitement, and Hub’s too, I then dropped the camera on the floor, but it was still working!!!

Up until this very night, I have taken such great care of this camera...never hitting it, never dropping it. I even knit it the softest little cabled pouch (below) with velvety lining to rest in. But now it has been hit and dropped and works again. Go figure.

This morning, Hub turned on the little flat-screen TV in our bedroom armoire to see the weather, except it wouldn’t turn on. So what did he do? He gave the power box a good swift smack and that got it working.

I can’t see this being good for these technological items in the long run, all this hitting and smacking, but in the short run, it is getting things going again. Strange, huh?


(photos courtesy of DuluthNewsTribune.com)

Friday to Friday

From last Friday (packing & leaving for the Cabin) to this Friday (the start of our Yard Sale, it has been one week of frenzied fun & craziness all smushed in between. I have so much to share, both in pictures & words...and am very excited about my upcoming posts...but until I get a chance to breathe after our Yard Sale ends tomorrow and I catch up on the basics of life (laundry, eating, sleeping)...I just wanted to share one neat thing that has happened in the midst of all this wonderfulness called "life"...

I got my very first Etsy order today (yay!) which I discovered just after closing down our very successful, busy first day of the Yard Sale. I rushed around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to figure out what I was doing, rushing to the Post Office to get there before they closed, but first rushing into Target to get packaging tape...and then finally entering in to the craziness that is Cub on a late Friday afternoon because our fridge is almost emptied of all the basics and we were so hungry for dinner...and all this after going on very little sleep lately, too...sleeping 3 out of the past 7 nights in different beds in 2 different places...driving roughly 540 miles in the past 7 days...first heading West then East, the next time heading South then back North to home...so needless to say life has been a bit nuts lately...but in a very good sort of nutty way...and I said to Hub tonight as we were finally preparing dinner, "I wonder if this is how life always feels for people that have children?"...and he said "I was wondering the exact same thing today"...we both feel worn out...like we've been running in different directions...and we're ready for life to slow down a bit now, back to the pace we are used to. We don't like to live crazy busy hurried lives. And for some reason I just found it odd how we both had the same thought that maybe this is how it always feels for people with kids and that you just maybe get used to the pace? Or maybe we're totally off base here. Either way, we're ready for a break! More soon! ~xo

P.S. Here's a little peak at my "very first Etsy package"...getting it ready to be sent out to its recipient. So, so fun!!! :)
P.P.S...Here's the craziest-looking caterpillar I've ever seen. Hub discovered it crawling along a box at our Yard Sale. Have you ever seen anything like this???