The greatest thing ever

Oh yes, it blows your mind, doesn't it? I got it into my head that I wanted to have some sort of cherry blossom decal in our bedroom, but I couldn't find any that were the right scale for the room. I had the same issue with stencils. Then, I saw a picture in a magazine of a tree painted freehand on a wall and I kept it in the back of my mind as a possibility, but knew I could never pull something like that off myself.

Well, when we had the house painted, we met Kelsey, Cecil's assistant. She is about our age. We got to talking (she is pretty awesome) and it turns out that she dabbles in art in her free time. She was showing me some of her work that she had on her camera and I talked to her about commissioning a painting for the bonus room that I had envisioned. Later, when I was in the car, I remembered that I wanted to do this cherry tree painting in the bedroom and it occurred to me to ask her to try to do it. So I rushed home and we talked about it and she was totally excited. Anyway, she has been at the house for the past two days painting it on the wall. It turned out EXACTLY as I envisioned. She even included some falling petals like I mentioned to her. I am just in love with it. It's even more sweet in person. More pictures of are on my Flickr page.

Canisters

I picked up these nifty Japanese canisters and now I FINALLY(!) have a place to store all my delicious Melty Blend. Andrew and Chad, if you find the raspberry variety, buy me some and send it to me, ok? I miss that one.

(Monday October 29, 2007)

Hot Diggity Dog!

Is there a better name for a restaurant than Hot Diggity Dogs? I think not, my friend. We stopped here for lunch on the way to PLAZA to pick up some art supplies. I love hot dogs. They are such a sinfully delicious dish. Included is a picture of an italian sausage sandwich that Steph consumed with glee.

(Sunday October 28, 2007)

Cryptic Deli Language

We needed to stop somewhere for a really quick lunch before an appointment we had at Vanderbilt, so we ran over to the Sub Stop on 21st Avenue. This is how the cashier wrote out our order. It's like they have their own secret sandwich language!

Ginger Plant Update

Remember when I posted way back in July about how my cutting from our ginger plant had sprouted? Well, look how much progress it made this summer! It has gotten too cold for it to be outside, so I brought it in on Friday. It always reminds me of our neighbor Jen, from Baltimore. I got an e-mail from her today, which was even more exciting. She and her two little boys are living on Long Island now.

(Friday October 26, 2007)

Fire

This evening was chilly enough that it felt appropriate to have a fire. It was our first fire of the year!

These are the logs we use.

Exciting news! The new Whole Foods in Nashville is opening on November 1st. Because I am a complete dork, we are going to the opening preview. I can't resist free samples and a gift bag!

Obsession of the moment...

Right now I am really into birds, but specifically owls. I love how they can seem sage and mysterious, or cute and cuddly. Here are some owls I've recently incorporated into my home. I found this vintage owl ornament at a local antique store. The owl pillow is brand new! I ordered it from Etsy and it arrived today. The artwork is done on a piece of wood and is also an Etsy find, though I purchased that one almost 6 months ago. I see more and more owl pieces out and about. I'd say they are definitely becoming a trend.

Precious!

My iMac arrived today. It is so beautiful. I got a wireless keyboard and mouse, and the keyboard is so cute and tiny! The screen on the computer is huge though, and I got the small one. The picture is so clear. Ooooh, I love Apple.

Rainy days and Mondays...

It's been raining all day and I'm loving it. I've gotten lots of good reading and crafting time in. Everyone in the house is very sleepy though! I caught Louis taking a nap on the couch. He's just too cute for words. We're kind of obsessed with him. Tee hee.

Garlic braid

I got this garlic braid on Saturday at the farmer's market. I've wanted one of these for I can't even tell you how long. I just think they are so cool looking. On Sunday I hung it up in our newly painted kitchen!

(Sunday October 21, 2007)

Farmer's Market

On Saturday, we went to the farmer's market in Franklin. Sadly, there were no apples or pears. Stupid late frost! However, we did get some yummy things. Also, the wool lady had some of her sheep there. They were so adorable. It is one of my dreams to one day have a farm and have some sheep. This is a picture of a bad of wool, fresh from the sheep! It's amazing to actually see the animal from which the wool came. We talked to the wool lady a bit and it seems like a painstaking process. They use totally natural methods. There was this beautiful wool that they had dyed using walnut leaves. Chad, you would have appreciated it.

(Saturday October 20, 2007)

Kitchen paint

Today Cecil finished with painting our house. The kitchen is painted in Bird Egg Blue. I love it! Now the entire house is painted, except for the upstairs bedrooms. Those we will probably do ourselves at some point.

I'll post all my pictures of the house on Flickr later tonight.

Foyer repainted

Yay, the horrible lime green is gone! The accent wall is painted the same color as the dining room.

(Thursday October 18, 2007)

Living Room

Today Cecil painted the living room. The fireplace wall and the stair wall are done in French Roast, and the other walls are painted with Waynesboro Taupe, which is the same color as the walls of my study.

I love a deep brown wall. Also, the alcove walls and ceilings are painted in the same brown.

(Wednesday October 17, 2007)

Dining Room

On Tuesday, Cecil painted the dining room. The color is called "Blackberry". I got the idea for using this color Domino magazine. It turned out very well and I like it quite a bit. I think you can go pretty dark and dramatic in a dining room, because it's a room that's rarely used and dark colors look good in dim lighting.

(Tuesday October 16, 2007)

Sooo bright!

This week we had the house painted. This color for the foyer was chosen by Beverly, a decorator we worked with to pick colors for the house. I had misgivings about it from the start, but I figured I'd take a chance. Anyway, on Monday the painters did the foyer and when I saw it, I totally freaked out. It was waaay too bright. It made the floor look sort of neon and it was especially horrible at night when the lights were on. Icky. So we made them do it again, this time using Benjamin Moore's Horizon Gray (the same color we had in the hallway of our old house).

(Monday October 15, 2007)

Memories

On Saturday, we went to an antique store by our house. I wanted to get out of the house for a bit, but didn't want to drive downtown because I was afraid my back would start bothering me too much. Anyhoo, at the store we spotted this toy. I used to have this exact toy when I was little. In fact, I think I may actually have a picture of me playing with it. I used to love taking my little doggy for a "walk". Ah, the memories.

(Sunday October 14, 2007)

Apple candle

We got this apple candle from Bath & Body Works. I hadn't been in one of their stores for years. The amount of scents they have going on in there is a bit overwhelming. Also, the sales people REALLY push the products. However, this candle was on sale and it smells really good!

(Saturday October 13, 2007)

Drew's Brews

Drew's Brews is the best coffee EVER! I've been looking for it since I first tried it at the Family Wash. Well, we found some at Marche a few weeks ago. It is so delicious. It goes especially well iced, served with a brownie.

(Friday October 12, 2007)

Notebook

This is a neat little notebook I ordered from Three Potato Four a while back. It just came in the mail though, because it had to ship from the UK. I've been using it to write down ideas for decorating and landscaping.

(Thursday October 11, 2007)

Talk to the fake hand!

Today Steph bought me this "Gopher". Here you see me picking up a slipper with it. It is supposed to help me grab things off the floor and such. That way when I drop the phone (which I do about three times a day), I can get it myself without trying to bend over and making my injury worse. Let is be said that I did NOT want this thing. I think it's ridiculous and I feel like I'm an old person picking up nickels at the beach. But it does work. The cats seem to think it's a fun game too.

Andrew and Chad game to my Animal Crossing town tonight. Yay! It was so cool. Nintendo is genius. Of course, my battery died in the middle of it and so I probably lost all the fruit Chad gave me. I hope not though. We'll see when it charges again.

In other technology news, the motherboard on the desktop is dead. So we bought an iMac. I am one step closer to fully switching over to Apple in the house. Oh yeah.

Games!

I am officially hooked on Nintendo DS. Yesterday Steph went to Gamestop and bought me Animal Crossing, NYTimes Crossword Puzzle, and the web browser software, all for my amusement and pleasure. I think also because I've started to get really antsy from being housebound and it's annoying her. Well, I have no problem being shut up with video games!

So far I've only played Animal Crossing. It's so addictive. I miss the dump and the police station and fishing is harder, but there are lots of cool new features that make up for all that.

(Tuesday October 9, 2007)

new toy

Since I am pretty much confined to my sickbed, Steph took pity on me and went to Best Buy and bought me a Nintendo DS-Lite. It is good because it gives me something to do in bed that doesn't require too much concentration. I tried reading a bit, but I'm too drugged to really concentrate. So far I've played Brain Academy and Super Mario World. She also got me Donkey Kong, but I haven't played it yet. I was looking through the Nintendo catalog and I see that they have Animal Crossing for DS. I am going to have to get that one.

Andrew and/or Chad, you should call me or e-mail me and tell me all I need to know about my new toy!

Today has been an improvement over yesterday. It is easier to walk to the bathroom and I also walked to the kitchen today! Go me!

(Monday October 8, 2007)

No photo...sad

I have no photo for Sunday October 7th because I was still unable to walk and I was also too drugged out. Sorry.

The day of the tragic event

Saturday was the day I herniated my disk. Specifically, my L5 disk. It was sudden, terrible, and incredibly frightening. I was alone in the house because Steph was at work. I was in the shower, taking a shower myself and giving Katie a bath. I reached up and around to get the shampoo and all the sudden I felt a terrible stabbing sensation in my back. After that, I was no longer able to walk. I crawled out of the shower and called Steph at work to tell her that I needed her to come home and help me and call me an ambulance. I will spare the readership the gruesome details, but I did manage to eat some pizza in bed later that evening (a new low for me, I must say. I have an absolute rule about not watching TV in bed or eating in bed; of course, as of today (10/8), I have now broken both those rules). While Steph was with me, feeding me pizza, the cats somehow opened up the box and started chowing down. Steph was able to catch them in the act and take their picture for evidence. I told the cats that I am forwarding the picture to Santa and so they will probably not get any Xmas presents this year!

(Saturday October 6, 2007)

Veggie Lasagna

On Friday I made Roasted Eggplant and Zucchini Lasagna. It was delicious. Since we are now back to buying only organic food, I've decided to try to make one or two meals like this a week. That way we can freeze leftovers and/or Steph can take them to work with her for lunch. I got the recipe from Cooks Illustrated.

(Friday October 5, 2007)

Ouchies

I apologize for the lack of posting. I herniated a disk in my spine on Saturday, and so I've been in bed since that time. Photos will resume when I become a bit more mobile again.

Craftiness

Last night I was feeling crafty, so we went to Michael's to get some stuff to make Fall decorations. I made two wreaths. This is one of them. I'm pretty proud of it. Having a glue gun (and I bought it from the Dollar Store, no less!) makes crafting so easy. In addition to this wreath, I also made a paper leaf wreath. Hopefully this weekend I will have time to make a matching paper leaf wreath for the other window. I was just too tired to finish last night.

Additional pictures are posted on my Flickr page.

ACK!

Steph got rear-ended on the way to work this morning. She went to the ER and she is fine other than some head, neck, and back pain, but as you can see, her car was not as lucky. She was able to drive it back home this afternoon (she got the day off), but I think we're going to have to have it towed to the auto body shop. It sounds really loud and the muffler is hanging on by a thread.

Hopefully the guy who hit her has decent insurance and this won't turn into a big debacle. I also hope that we're able to get our stuff out of the trunk before the weekend. We had planned to go camping and so we bought some sleeping bags and other supplies, but we never took them in from her car. That shows what laziness will get you! But the most important thing is that she's safe.

Gourds

Here are some of the cool gourds we got at the farm over the weekend. I'm going to post more Fall decorating pictures on Flickr later today. This picture shows some of the gourds I've arranged on the dining room table.

(Tuesday October 2, 2007)

printer nap

I was looking for Louis the other day and I found him napping in the printer. I guess it's warm there and that's why he likes it so much. Now it's one of his favorite hiding places.

(Monday October 1, 2007)