What’s Going On?!

Hello? Does anybody still read this thing? We had a pretty eventful summer, and I honestly just didn’t feel like writing anything. But for the last couple of days I have. So here’s what’s been happening. Most definitely NOT listed in order of importance.

It’s Monday. I haven’t had a soda since Saturday evening. I don’t have a headache (yet), and I don’t want to kill anyone (yet).

Mr. Bingley has decided that maybe he won’t eat. He looks so skinny and pitiful. For the last two weeks his highness had deigned to eat hamburger and honey nut Cheerios. But starting yesterday, not.

My wonderful Grandma died in June. It was great for her, she was ready. And I know she’s with God and Grandpa and so happy. I’m still sad.

I told the husband yesterday that we weren’t going to eat out for 30 days. To his credit, he nearly kept a straight face. And he didn’t fall on the floor, and roll around in hysterical laughter.

Speaking of the husband, the DMV made him get a new picture on his license. I’m quite sure he will be getting frisked much more often at the airport. He looks like a serial killer. I’m not kidding. They had him take off his glasses, which somehow caused him to look at the camera with those runaway bride crazy eyes!

We went to Branson for vacation this summer with the husband’s side of our family. We had a great time. One caution: you might want to rethink Branson as a destination if you are a foodie. I’m not, but I was continuously disappointed with the food. The rest of the family thinks I’m nuts.

Shortly after Branson, my beloved father in law died. He had lung cancer and it spread. To be very frank and extremely crass, cancer sucks donkey balls.

Buddy had radiation treatments for his two cancers. We found out last week that he now has lung cancer. 6-12 months. Please refer to my thoughts on cancer above.

We had my mother in law and my fourteen year old nephew stay with us for 10 days. We really had a great time. My nephew is also our God child and it was lovely to spend some time with him.

My mother in law came to visit again with her sister and mother. Also a great time. They had never been to this house before and we loved having them. My mother in law is a very easy house guest, and so were her sister and mother.

Have you ever had your house guests show up while the cleaning people were still cleaning? Just wondering…

Yesterday was the first time in my entire life that I drank almost an entire cup of coffee! I should also add that there was no cream or sugar of any kind. Does this mean I’m all grown up?

I really want a Coke. I love Coca Cola so much that I would marry it and have it’s babies. Except that I’m already married, and I apparently can’t have babies, and you can’t marry soda pop (yet). 😉

Speaking of babies, one of my dearest friends gave birth to a long awaited baby girl. Abby is in the NICU, and improving. Please include baby Abby in your prayers.

Speaking of babies and cancer. Remember when one of my little sister’s ovaries was obliterated by a tumor earlier this year? Well, the other one works! She’s expecting! Take that cancer!!!

My brother’s wife is about to give birth to baby number 8! And it’s a girl. I love buying girl clothes! This will be the fifth girl. I keep trying to convince my brother that he needs a house with more bathrooms and a very large wedding fund. He thinks he needs port a potties and a convent. 😉

The stupid radio station that used to carry the Dave Ramsey show live here in Dallas changed formats and dropped Ramsey for Mike Huckabee. So annoying. So stupid. I’m talking about the station, not Huckabee. I don’t know about him. I don’t listen.

Mr. Bingley will be 13 years old at the end of November (if he will just eat!). So, he might actually outlive Buddy, who is 4 or 5 years his junior. And he has already outlived Mr. Darcy, who was 1 year younger. I sometimes imagine that somewhere in his tiny, stubborn brain Mr. Bingley is thinking, “That’s right biaatch, you keep trying to get me friends that I don’t want, and I’m going to outlive them all!”

I have done almost no gardening for the past two summers. For some reason funerals and cancer and drought do not inspire me.

I have also done almost no home improvement projects this entire summer. But I’m getting the itch again, so I’ll take that as a good sign. Now if I just had all that money back that I spent on radiation, I’d be set.

To all three people who might read this: What have you been up to? Thanks for reading!

Finally!

Finally refers to a lot of things. I am finally updating my blog after three weeks of silence. I am finally done with a project to show you. And I finally have a progress report (of sorts) on Buddy.

First, Buddy: Buddy has healed very nicely from his surgery. It turns out that he has not one, but two different types of cancer. The one on his elbow was misdiagnosed at first and was actually an osteosarcoma. They say they got it with narrow margins. He also had a bump on one of his back paws that I never mentioned before. Everyone thought it was a harmless fatty tumor. But it is a level 2 mast cell tumor. And they couldn’t get it all out. After much waiting and an appointment cancellation (not by me!), he finally has an appointment with a vet who is a radiologist oncologist. Who knew there was such a thing?!

I have finally completed (probably 🙂 a decor project. I’m going to post the pictures below. I apologize for my camera work and the fact that I really need a wide angle lense. My green guest room and pink bathroom are finally done. Complete with blue ceilings! Welcome to the fifties in my guest suite! 😉

Recent updates pictured above are the new window shades, pillow in the chair, shams on the bed and the bed skirt. The window fabric was found by me and comes from Lauren Liess Textiles. Beautiful fabric. The shams were made out of the former shower curtain from the attached bath. Bed skirt fabric and checked fabric on the decorative pillow selected by Mario and Bill of MBP Associates Interior Design Workroom Services. All installations done by Bill and Mario. And of course, MBP is the workroom used for all of the sewing. Great work, and I love working with them. They also did the new shower curtain for the attached bath, pictured below:

I must point out that I am not happy with the decorative pillow on the bed. It’s an old one that I’ve had forever. I ordered a new one yesterday, but it won’t be here for a while.

Source List
Paint:
bedroom walls: Valspar, Laura Ashley, Green Apple (3 or 4, I can’t remember)
Bathroom walls: Martha Stewart at HD, Magnolia Grandiflora
Bed & bath ceilings: Martha Stewart at HD, Love In The Mist ****I realized when everything was installed that I should have used MArtha Stewart Salt Glaze. I’m telling myself that I’m the only one who notices. We’ll see how long that lasts. ;)****
Trim: Benjamin Moore Cloud White

Wall decal: Leen the Graphics Queen
Bed: PB
Duvet cover: PB
Shams (former Shower curtain): PB
Red Lamp: PB
Pink lamp: Shades of Light
trunk: hand me down from a friend
White bedside table: Bassett
wicker chair and red table: Pier One
bookcase: Ikea Billy Bookcase
marble bookends: vintage from High Street Market

Before and after:

Hope everybody has a great rest of the week! Thanks so much for checking on Buddy.

Mr. Buddy Boy

He actually had all 3 toys in his mouth just seconds before I snapped this photo!

Buddy is officially our dog now! He’s very sweet and we love him. He also happens to have cancer. It’s a tumor on his right elbow called a spindle cell tumor. He’s at a specialty vet clinic right now awaiting surgery to remove it. If there is anything good about this cancer, it’s that it doesn’t tend to metastasize. The best case scenario is that they get it all with no problems. The worst case is that they can’t get it all and it comes back pretty swiftly. The middle road is that they get most of it and some radiation is needed. So, please say a little prayer for Buddy and for me. I love having dogs, but I hate this sick stuff!

Overheard

I haven’t been blogging a lot lately. I seem to have lost my motivation. I have no idea why. It’s been running through my head for several days that I have lots of short, funny snipets of life floating around in my head. So if you were a fly on the wall at our house, here is some of what you might have heard:

Me to the husband as he’s trying to swat at a bug at the top of our two story foyer: Darwin award, Darwin award! You are seriously going to die and get a Darwin award!

Me: Where did I put our old radio, boom box thing?
The husband: I have no idea where you stash things. You’re like a squirell. (said with very attractive facial expressions supposedly mimicking my squirrelness)
Me: You suck! (said without heat)
The husband: No, you suck! (said back in the same manner)

Me to anonymous: You may never eat the Drunken Master ever again.
Anonymous: Hey! That’s not nice!
Me: It’s not me that’s not nice. It’s the smell!

Me to the husband over the phone: Buddy has a malignant tumor, called a spindle cell tumor on his leg.
The husband: What the hell is with all the cancer?!

Me to the husband via text message on Tornado Tuesday: Thunder shook our house and rang our doorbell. We have no TV/phone/Internet service. I think we may have been hit by lightning.
The husband: You’ll be fine. Go put on your bike helmet.

AT&T technical support phone person: It says here that the technician went to your home at 6:38 PM and you were unavailable. Also he called two numbers and got no answer.
Me: Did he call our home number? It doesn’t work, that’s part of the reason he’s was called out! What? That’s not my cell number! I don’t know who’s number that is! I was here from 4 to 8, no one came!
AT&T: Well he says he did. And also, you should know that they can show up and hour later or an hour earlier than their official window.
Me: YOU HAVE TO KNOW THAT THIS CRAP IS WHY PEOPLE HATE THIS COMPANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me to the supervisor: I live in a gated neighborhood and they keep track of who goes in and out and what time. He never even came in the neighborhood. Just Fed Ex me a new modem. I don’t want that liar in my house. Thank you.

Me to Mr. Bingley: Mr. Bingley, you have to calm down and stop trying to hump everything (mostly Buddy and dog beds)! I’m going to start calling you “Humpy”.
Me to the husband: Mr. Bingley’s new found energy reminds me of those stories you hear about old men walking around nursing homes, showing everyone their junk!
The husband: laughs

I think I’ll stop here. If you actually made it to the end, you probably can’t take anymore. 😉

My Precious

Hi! Sorry, I have been MIA. I don’t really have a good reason. I wanted to show everyone my new dining room chandelier. I am having a bit of an obsessive, Lord Of The Rings, love affair with it. I sit and stare at it all day long.

My precious from far.

My precious up close.

And since everyone likes a good before and after, here is the before:

Before my Precious.

Have a great weekend!

I Had A Very Serious Talk With Myself Today

About spending. Then the doorbell rang…

I guess it’s lucky for my feet that I didn’t have that talk last week. 😉

Skimpy Curtain Disease

I don’t recall if I have mentioned this before, but this house is the my first foray into curtains. I’ve learned a lot through reading and observation since I first installed curtains a few years ago. One thing that I have learned about myself is that I have skimpy curtain disease. And I’m not the only one, the blogosphere is rife with this affliction. I’m not going to name names. I wouldn’t want to start some sort of drapery McCarthyism. 😉

One of the small home improvements I have been doing is to try and eradicate skimpy curtain disease. Here is my progress so far:

family room before & the late great Mr. Darcy

family room after

master bedroom before

master bedroom after

What do you think? I still have a ways to go, but I think I have skimpy curtain disease on the run. Do you have skimpy curtain disease? Do your friends and relatives? Does it drive you nuts?

News

Hello! I hope everyone is having a blessed Lent so far. I’ve been back in town for a couple of days, but busy. Thanks so much to everyone who has been praying for my sister, Katie. Her surgery went very well. We initially thought the tumor was benign. We got the full pathology report today. It turns out that somewhere in the tumor they did find cancer cells. The good news is that they are called borderline. This apparently means that they usually don’t spread and they haven’t. They will have to keep a close watch over the next several years. But no chemo or radiation! So please keep praying for her healing and continued good health.

In house news, I am currently awaiting the first part of many projects I am using a workroom for. Right now they are doing 2 roman shades, 2 slip covers and 1 pillow. Can’t wait to see the results!

I also replaced a nightstand in the green guest room, and got a new lamp. It’s funny how sometimes you can look at the same room and day after day and not notice stuff that is off. That was the case with this situation. The original nightstand was purchased for our former house. And for some reason it has taken me over three years to see that it was too small in this house. ***Please ignore the horrible short curtains. Hopefully, they will be gone in a couple of months!***

Before

After

a closer look

The nightstand is from the Southport collection from Bassett Furniture. The lamp is from Shades of Light.

Attention, Mr. Gus Sertoli

Please leave the building! What the H E double hockey sticks am I talking about? One week ago, my beautiful little sister found out that she has a giant tumor in her abdomen. She’s trying to have a sense of humor about this, so she named him Gus. It’s a sertoli tumor, so I made that his last name.

Katie & Matt just a few months ago on their wedding day.

Katie is having surgery on Monday to evict Gus. Please pray for her, her husband Matt and her doctors and nurses. And please pray that Gus is as benign as his name sounds. Katie is one of those people who makes everyone’s life better just by being her. We really need her to be okay. Thanks in advance for your many prayers.

Nichole

Friday Update

Buddy
Thanks everyone for your comments about Buddy Monster. Things have settled down a bit over the last couple of days. And there haven’t been any problems at all between Bingley and Buddy.

Nap time!

Buddy is still cracking us up with his craziness. And you can tell that Mr. Bingley is like “What the heck is the matter with that thing?”! Last night after we had gone to bed, Buddy started howling and crying. When the husband went downstairs to see what the deal was, he found Mr. Bingley peeking around the doorway of the room where he sleeps, looking very perturbed. 🙂 Also yesterday, quite by accident, I found where several toys had disappeared to. The Buddy Monster had buried them in the garden!

House Suff
I had some new window treatments installed yesterday in the master bedroom and in the navy blue room. They replace white faux wood blinds that are original to the house (1995). Also, I got the very nice gift of two new lamp shades from Julia Sugarbaker. They look great on my old black candlestick lamps. She tried to pass those shades on to me a couple of months ago and I was sure I didn’t have any use for them. When I finally realized they might work on those lamps, she brought them over within 5 minutes. Thanks, Julia!

this was the best "before" photo I could find to show the old blinds and lamp shades

at some point the walls will be painted a gray and the curtains will be white

Same as the shades in the master. Still need art, rug, etc...

Fashion Advice
So I’m wondering how many people have the same feelings and issues that I have about this. I guess I am also wondering if I am being a whiny biatch (which is a definite possibility). There are lots of fashion blogs on the internet. I check a few of them regularly, and I have been able to glean a few useful and helpful tips from them. But I find myself getting really irritated with the ones who are helping others dress. I stopped reading one almost entirely because I realized that she has issues with seeing body types other than her own. For instance, she had a client of hers with a large chest buy a blouse with horizontal stripes. Seriously? I don’t have a large chest, but even I know that 99.9 times out of 100, that is not going to be flattering. This week I bought an ebook that is supposed to simplify dressing. While the book does have some good tips and advice, I found myself becoming extremely annoyed. Possibly, irrationally so. This skinny author seems to be under the impression that black skinny jeans, as long as you find the correct fit are universally flattering and a must have. This makes me want to take one of my short, stocky legs, and beat her with it! I’m kidding – sort of. And BTW, I’m not PMSing. 🙂 And while she does mention that we shouldn’t get hung up on her particular choices of key pieces, it was very hard not to notice that she gravitates towards many things that are not universally flattering: cropped pants, horizontal stripes, mid length skirts. So I guess the question is: Am I just being a jealous chick who is mad that I can’t wear that stuff, or do I have a legitimate beef with these advice givers? I guess I thought the examples in a book would trend towards things that are wearable for more people. Of course, there is always the standard answer, I don’t need to take their advice if I don’t like it. And that is completely true. Maybe I need to quit complaining, and put together outfits for short, chunky girls. What say you?

I hope everyone has a great weekend!