Keeping Busy

Because I haven't enough to do, what with chasing fishes and cabinetmaking class and working a bazillion and a half hours a week, I needed a little something to fill the empty hours of my quiet little life. Sooooo, after having the hideous behemoth radiator ripped out (wasn't THAT fun?)and painting walls, and then having carpet laid, I selected new colors for upholstery...

And then I ripped into the sofa like nobody's business! Can I just mention here how very much I HATED that old upholstery? I love the shape and size and scope of this sofa... but the medium blue that went with nothing and always looked dirty. Blech.



I'm liking this black and white check. The idea for black and white check came from a ribbon poppy pin I made once. The ribbon poppy, pretty enough, needed something... a background...

See, the black and white just goes...


And it goes with everything... and green, the color of leaves, goes with everything too ... hmmmm, a Decor Is Born, almost.


And there it is, awaiting drapes and pillows and pictures, behold, the sofa, because I just didn't quite have enough to do (but truly because I could not stand that dirty medium blue that didn't go with anything another minute.) Up next... something purple. Who doesn't like purple?

Got 'im

It was a fight to the finish -- could'a been anybody's game, but I was brave and determined, with single-minded focus, and only one wet shoe -- I am the winner. And so's the fishy!



Isn't he pretty? You can see that this gold fish isn't so much gold... he's rather bronze. Against the black liner of the pond he disapears entirely and is known as The Great Invisible Fishy. (We're given to hyperbole here.)



Whatever his color, I am much relieved to have them all together. For a while there I was worried.

And look, Bailey like's him too.



She likes them all.

The Fugitives... or How I Spent a Long Cold Weekend

This is the continuing saga of the pond, which I love.... however. When I dug the pond in June I did not think ahead, as is my wont, to autumn, when it turns cold and the leaves will fall and fall and fall. (How's that for a run-on sentence?) A dear neighbor gave me fishies for my pond -- how sweet, but a frightful mishap of construction killed them. So I got more. I got three little fresh fishies to replace the three little dead fishies. They were feeder fish. If I had not bought them they'd have been somebody's dinner.

Over the summer they had the loveliest time, flitting and frolicking in my dear little pond. But then summer ended and it did turn cold, and I worried about my three sweet fishies. They would shiver. They would freeze. The dirty dish fountain had to come in for the season as it is too delicate for the weight of frozen water -- so there would be no airation (did I spell that right?).




Oh... my fishies... But I checked with fish people at fish stores and I checked with fish people at pet stores and I checked with fish people at pond stores. Everybody told me the same thing, "The fishies will be fine. They will swim to the bottom where it is warmer. They will winter over beautifully." Finally I believed them... exept no one said beans about leaves in the pond. I am in the middle of Freakin' Sherwood Forest here. Much as I tried to keep ahead of the leaves.... the leaves got ahead of me. They floated onto the pond while I was at work and then when I wasn't looking the leaves sunk to the bottom of the pond where I could not see them... and every school child knows that rotting leaves emit carbon dioxide. Not good for fishies. Not good at all.

When the fishies paddled to the surface, gasping for air I was horrified. Fishies gasping for air at the surface can not swim to the bottom where it is warmer, where4 they will winter over beautifully.... if I did not do something soon I would be an accessory to fishicide (is that ichthyicide? just guessing).

So I spent $50 on an aquarium and $13 on gravel and $7 on food... to save $4 in fish... but of saving the fish is not about $$$$... it's about my heart breaking if I do not save the fish. (But still $70 to save $4 in fish seems unbalanced to me.)

And this is how I spent the weekend... fishing, as it were. And they didn't want to be caught, I tell ya. They weren't coming out alive... It's a fairly big pond. I was risking life and limb, or at least wet sneakers and soggy pants... so I emptied most of the water, all the easier to catch elusive fish.

It isn't pretty saving lives... down right ugly... but then... Oh, they ARE lovely. I have managed to catch two of them.



I also managed to get one sneaker very wet and very cold, but I caught these two. It's hard to tell from the photos, but they are very big -- 4" long and at least 2" top to bottom. I am breathing easier having caught these two... and yet one fishy remains in that shallow brackish water. I am going back in. Cross everything for him -- he doesn't know how nice it is getting caught and all.

Just a Little Housekeeping

I have these cabinets, see. It seemed like a good idea at the time -- "Install cabinets in the dining room, to store fabric, because who uses a dining room? If there's fabric in there then it's a sewing room."

Molly thought it was a swell idea.

All those cabinets were packed full of fabric. (We won't discuss the closet across the way.) And it was a fine idea as far as it went, but frankly I took it too far. My dining room was always a mess... and so the only solution was to clean it up.




I emptied the cabinets


And took them out...

And I emptied and removed the shelves...
And painted the wall. The carpet people will be here Wednesday. At this point it may not look like much.... but I'm pooped.

I don't dare turn the camera in the other direction -- all that mess had to go somewhere. It is now a toss up between Trash Day or a Goodwill run. (But if you've wondered at all where I have been, what I have been doing... wonder no more -- I've been buried under piles of my own debris.)

UPDATE: The cabinets will not be returning -- I sold them on CraigsList -- God LOVE CraigsList. My sewing/art room has moved upstairs. My plan is to make this space into a proper dining room -- an odd idea, but I am going to try it.

Blankets and Sweaters and PotPie, Oh My

Finally, autumn is upon us -- frost is on the pumpkin and it's about time. Toward the end of August... and this year it was all through September and then all through October, I was so looking forward to selecting sweaters...

"Hmmm, the peach, no the green, the yellow... oh, purple, where's purple?"

snuggling into blankets...

(I have kind of a blanket thing... can you tell? I see them at auctions and flea markets and think.... "I will cut that up into pillows," or "I will upholster a chair," but then I never do, so here they are for the snuggling. )

...and dishing up PotPie. (The recipe for this, in as much as I can follow a recipe, I got from MaryAnne .) Gotta say, it was delish.

Ahhhhhh, Autumn... it almost makes wilting through the doggiest days of summer worth it... almost.

What's your favorite part of Autumn?