They're Everywhere!

My new favorite coffee mug is the yellow one with the Great Wall of China. My husband admitted, they were an impulse buy on his way out of China at the airport. Is there anyplace in the world that doesn't have a Starbucks Coffee? According to the site finder on the Starbucks website there are 64 Starbucks in Beijing alone. Who knew?

The mugs also became an instant history lesson for the girls about the wall, why it was built and the Huns. Gotta love a gift that keeps on giving.

Autumn Musings

My daughter's class took a field trip to a local farm. It was a lot of fun. A hayride followed by the children digging up potatoes. Wait - what's this?
Oh - see all the other children (primarily the boys) in the background? They're gathering the potatoes. My daughter. She has a snake. Not one potato was picked by her. And - the majority of the girls were hovering around her. Each asking to take a turn to hold the snake. Yup. Just another day with Lucy.


And, this is for Lori. I do own some Halloween decorations - they're just outdoor decorations. This witch has been around for at least three years.

And this witch - she glows in the dark. I think we've had her for five years.

Ironically, I do own Thanksgiving decorations (well, maybe just one or two). I put the one out on November 1st. I know, you're all going to wait with bated breath to see what it is.

Nesting

Remember, I talked about wasps awhile ago. Well, I guess they think our house is really a good spot to live because they made a nice big nest right on one of our bedroom windows. The window by my side of the bed. And it's big. Like, football sized. I guess those screens we kept meaning to replace and never did will be bought post haste now - if I can find them at Home Depot or Lowe's. Really, the wasps usually keep their nests to the underside of our skylights. The nests are easy to see and easy for me or my husband to take care in that location. This - well - I guess it goes to show we don't often visit this side of the house.

old front door

The only reason I noticed it is because we are having work done on our house. A new front and back door. The company installing the door also put a diverter up. I was trying to figure out where the diverter was when wasps frequently buzzing around by the upper half of the house caught my eye. I guess it was a good thing we had some work done or I might be blogging about a watermelon sized wasp nest.

new front door

Pottery Barn & BTRS Swap

I love Pottery Barn. I wish my house could be decorated by Pottery Barn. Of course, since my kids took a sharpie to our cheap couch I'm kind-of happy it isn't from Pottery Barn.

I saw the Metal Flatware Silhouettes (featured above in my kitchen - the wall color is a prettier yellow than in the picture) in the catalog and was secretly hoping they would go on sale - I only buy items on sale from Pottery Barn. They did! As soon as they arrived I took the kid artwork off the wall, used an entire Magic Eraser to get the wall clean & got out my husband's power tools to hang the art. Please, don't look behind the silhouettes - it's not a pretty picture (no pun intended). If we ever move there will be lots of hole filling to be done.

This is the before I cleaned-up the island and table shot. Not quite as catalog ready.

I have started cutting out the place mats for my BTRS swap. It took me a long time to find fabric I liked - I bought four other patterns before I found this. I love it! My partner said her kitchen was black, blue & yellow and this is the only fabric that I have found that has all three colors (the stems may actually be more chocolate than black but I'm calling it black). I'm hoping this will be okay for her. I actually like this Alexander Henry print so much that I am going to make myself the same set of place mats - minus the napkins. I don't have enough fabric for the napkins for me too.

I Heart My Dishwasher

As of July 13 we will have lived in our current house seven years. When we purchased our house all the appliances were three years old. This winter our dishwasher kicked the bucket. It actually started to make the dishes dirtier when used. Being that it was 9 1/2 years old it was not worth repairing. My problem - I didn't want a dishwasher delivered in winter. The steps in the front of our house never see the sun. Therefore, after a snowfall or a freeze / thaw the steps are treacherous. We only ever enter and exit our house via the garage during the winter so for us it's not a problem. For delivery folk I thought they might take issue with it. Being that snowstorms are scarce in New England in June our new dishwasher was delivered on Friday.

Only Delivered.

Not Installed.

Home Depot only has their people deliver and take away - they don't install. I guess we could have asked about installing it but my husband said he could take care of it. Between Saturday and Sunday we were at two different Home Depot's and a Lowe's. We had one piece we needed - to attach the hose to the water pipe - and none of the pieces that came with the installation kit ($19.95 extra) worked. In the end, my husband went back out alone on Sunday afternoon and found the one piece he needed.

Now, listen - do you hear that? No. Good. That's the dishwasher. Do you hear how quiet it is. So nice. So nice to not stand in front of the sink after dinner washing dishes. Instead, I did laundry.