I Love this Chair

I have a love affair with chairs. I simply love chairs-especially old wooden chairs. I imagine that each one has a story, a history, a life of it's own. It is for this reason that I could not decide on one particular style of chair to go with my new dining room table. I opted instead for the fabulous 90's trend of putting an assortment of different chairs around my table. I love the look but I wanted a little continuity from the three chairs with fabric seats.

So what do you think? I added a little animal print.


You love it don't you? Now try all 3. Fabulous!


And put it all together.

Another Installment of Blooming

When flowers grow in my yard I am always a little bit astonished. Considering how I used to pop a single marigold in a pot full of topsoil and wish for the best (they always died). Now I photograph every thing in my yard....

The "death" Hydrangea (from my dad's funeral). It is blooming for a second time this year. I feel terribly obligated to keep it alive-that's the trouble with having living flowers at funerals. Don't get me started on the death Spathiphyllum in my dining room.


Day-Lilies are ubiquitous in here in the burbs. You'd be hard pressed to find a yard without them. They are considered an invasive species which means in layman's terms...a plant that you can not kill-making them the ideal plant for me. These lovlies have 3 layers of petals-so they are particularly pretty.

Hydrangeas

I love Hydrangeas-they are one of my all time favorite flowers. Sadly my yard has no shade and these guys don't really love the all day direct sun that is ubiquitous in my yard. I have managed to grow a few mopheads in planters in the approximately 10 square feet of shade in my yard-well more accurately in my driveway. I had always wanted to change the pH of the soil so I could have a pink Hydrangea. Around these parts the un-assisted hydrangea is blue. So I am pretty excited that by some unknown twist of fate the pH in this planter is increasing -as is evidenced by this pink beauty.


Here is a Lady In Red Hydrangea that lived several very unsuccessful years in my back yard before being transplanted to a pot by the driveway.


And a few more close ups of these beauties


Can you handle the sheer fantastic-ness of these flowers....

Rain

Atlanta has been in a drought for the past 3 summers. Our first summer in GA was rainy (our basement even flooded-but that is another story for another day). There was rain and more rain and then a little bit of rain. Everything was cool and green and mossy-even moldy with rain.

The next summer I took up gardening and the rain stopped. It stopped and it never came back. I spent the last 3 summers trying to keep my yard alive. It was nearly futile. The drought was so bad that eventually, as the lakes ran dry, we weren't allowed to water at all. I used gray water to nurture my plants. I took fewer showers. I used bath water to flush the toilets. If anything, the 3 years of drought taught me to live simply and appreciate the small things in life (like water). I learned to live a more earth friendly existence and I taught my children to nurture the earth and protect it's resources.

But now the rain is back. Oh the glorious rain. At first I though it was a fluke. But it keeps coming. I'll admit that after 2 or 3 hot dry days in a row I get a sick feeling in my stomach-thinking it will never rain again...but then it does...it rains...and boy does it rain....our lakes are full and we can water again-but who needs to with all this rain. I hope I can continue to live with the environment in mind-but I am so thankful that we no longer have to.

Too Many Tables

Or maybe I should call this Consumer Excess or Keeping up with the Jones' if the Jones' shopped at Goodwill or There's another table in the basement-too! Either way, last weekend we ended up with exactly 4 tables in our dining room. A beautiful antique drop leaf table that is too old and delicate and "nice" for our family to actually use. A very old walnut veneer table, that many years ago, was being used as a saw horse in the wood shop at the school where my father taught graphic arts before my father rescued and repaired it for my mother. Derek's table, that he bought for his first post divorce-pre Katherine bachelor pad (he is very attached to this one) and finally the new table I purchased at the thrift shop last weekend. It has carved legs. Carved legs!

OK, it seems more than obvious to even the most casual passerby that we did not need another table. And it became painfully obvious to me at the point I took this photo....we have too many tables. And now, even though we have managed to move two of the tables to other rooms, we still have too many tables and may always have too many tables because we are two very sentimental fools, neither of us willing to part with a single table. Can you say "don't all home offices have dining tables." I know I can.

And perhaps worse of all this new table has no chairs....well it HAS chairs-we have lots of chairs. Actually once I counted all our chairs for a school project and we had about 48 chairs in our house. I love chairs. But the new table (did I mention it has carved legs) needs new chairs because nothing we have-no, not even a single one of the 48 chairs we currently own-"goes with" the new table. As much as I luv this table....I am starting to think I should have left well enough alone and just gotten over myself and my foolish need to have my home look a certain way. After all, the dogs are content to beg at any type of table and the children are not picky as long as they can eventually smear it with gogurt and finger paint.

You can't fake thin

I have learned in my almost 40 years how to fake a lot of things. In academic circles you can quickly learn how to fake intelligence-use a few key buzz words, mention a few good books-and you’re golden. You can fake an accent. You can fake wealth. I live in an affluent area. I know the key to faking wealth (at least in my neck of the woods). You need the right school magnet on your bumper, a fresh pedicure, an expensive tennis outfit, a new car-detailed weekly, throw in expensive haircut, and busy, attractive kids and voila-fake wealth. You can fake who you know. You can fake talent. You can fake love. You can fake success. You can fake almost anything-but you can’t fake thin.

Thus I have decided that where I live-thin is the one true currency for “belonging.” I was thinking about this at a birthday party I attended recently. I felt oddly out of place as I sat amongst the other moms. Although I adore where I live for a variety of reasons, I have never really felt like I fit in. What was it….my hair was cute, shoes (just causal enough to show I didn’t care –but looked great anyway), my toes were freshly pedi-ed, clothes-check, nice car-check, well dressed kid-check, right school-check…..what the heck could it be….I thought some more….then as I crammed another bite of ice-cream cake into my mouth I noticed…not an ounce of cellulite in the room (oh excluding mine). These women were thin-way thinner than the average women. I am not talking size 6 thin-I’m talking if Kate Moss had three kids thin. Then I thought back…yes that is it….nearly everyone in this town is pencil thin. The more expensive the neighborhood-the thinner the women.

We were recently on vacation and it rained for days-in desperation we took the kids to a local indoor kids play area-I was startled by what I saw. The place was full of average and large sized women. I was a little taken aback-until my kids started fighting and I forgot all about it. I don’t get out of town much. My tony suburb is where I spend about 95% of my time. It tends to skew my image of reality. And these women are not reality. I mean good for them. Who wouldn’t want to be a size 2. But sadly I get the distinct feeling they aren’t thin because they are just super health conscious-but because e they too have come to understand that if they want to be a part of the group they must be emaciated. It is a little sad that women have such poor self images that they feel they can’t belong unless they have a great body-and it is a little sad that some days I wish I were just like them.

Sculpture

My mom came this week to teach me sculpture. I have been wanting to learn for a while but I found it to be a maddening process. I am an "instant gratification" sort of gal. Sculpture, even in clay, isn't a fast process. This is what we managed to accomplish in a few days-a few hours a day.

The head is taking shape


The beginnings of a face


Looking more "human"


This is as far as I got