My Childhood Bookshelf

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island."  Walt Disney

Who doesn't love the books of their youth? 

I've always been a ferocious reader.  I was an early reader and in fact my reading skills kept me from being held back in 1st grade, or so I was told numerous times by my mother over the years. 

Some of my fondest memories of my childhood is me curled up somewhere, inside or outside with a book and usually a crisp apple.  Books are by far my favorite gift to receive and my favorite gift to give if I know the recipient is a reader.

Over the years I've collected my favorite books from my childhood and re-read them when the mood strikes me.

From Dr. Seuss and Laura Ingalls Wilder and Carolyn Keene to Beverly Cleary, Catherine Wooley, Betty Cavana and Rosemary DuJardin. The characters in all of these books were some of my best friends growing up and it's been a blast locating them and re-reading them over the years.

Yes, that is a picture of me as a four year old girl sitting on top of that stack of books.  

I would be hard pressed to name a favorite among them, but if someone gave me a million dollars to answer, then I would have to go with - 

I was 10 years old the year this book was published and I read it as soon as I could get my hands on it from the  library and begged my parents to let me buy a copy through Scholastic books (they were usually pretty good about my book habit).  Unfortunately, I lost my original copy long ago but happy that it's still popular enough to get a copy.

As a child growing up in small city Midwestern America, we used to have one of these come into our neighborhood every week, a bookmobile that was hosted by our public library system.  I can still remember the smell of those buses, the good and musty library book smell and how the driver would stamp the date due on the card and slip it back inside the pocket inside the book jacket.  I wanted one of those date stamps!  😁  Little did I know that decades later I'd have several of those to use in my scrapbooking.  

I also remember how excited I would be for that bundle of books that I would sometimes request that I knew would be waiting for me the next visit. 

I couldn't argue with anyone that says that books have held a very special place in my life.  I can't imagine life without a book or reading material of some sort at my side.  💓

Do you have a library of your favorite books?  and what is your favorite?

One Project Leads to Another

Last fall I published a post about a long time project regarding our master closet had finally come to fruition that you can read about here.  Since then I still get a bit of a thrill when I go into our closet, we've kept it neat and organized, but that's easy when the space works for your needs.

The one thing we hadn't done at that point was new carpeting for our master suite which also includes the closet.  We still had the old cheap contractor grade carpet in there.

It took me a few weeks to find a carpet I liked and then find a carpet installer, but finally in late October we replaced the 13 year old cheap carpeting with some beautiful griege Mohawk carpeting with a premium pad underneath.

Well, once that beautiful new carpet was installed, I could see how badly the room needed a coat of paint.  We had only painted the wall behind the bed as an accent wall in the 14 years we've been here, but the rest was the same contractor white; SW Dover White.  Our challenge in painting this room is we need at least a 10 foot ladder to get to the peaks of the bedroom and we don't own one that tall, so we had to rent one (little did we know that a very good friend had one that we could have borrowed.)

I decided to stay with the griege that I've painted the majority of the house with; Sherwin Williams Repose Gray.  Because of the woodwork, a gray with hints of beige works well in this house.

So, the painting project took up another weekend while we were still sleeping in the queen sized guest room bed and maneuvering around bedroom furniture and stuff stowed in the hallway and that guest room for at least a week.

Once we were able to put things back into the room, I needed to find a new headboard.  Our bedroom furniture is very heavy solid wood pieces and I wanted to lighten it up a bit with a wrought iron look plus it would match the black wrought iron drawer pulls on the furniture.  After a long search, I found this one at Birch Lane.

We also needed to lighten up our linens.  I stayed with the same gray and plum that we both like but found a new comforter set at Bed, Bath & Beyond for a really reasonable price.  I don't like to spend a lot of money on our bedding because our pets sleep with us and well....pet hair.  😀

I found the windows and clock above the bed at Gordman's and those bendable lights at each end of the headboard are clip on reading lights from IKEA.

The lamp on my night stand is also from IKEA as is the paper ball lantern hanging above one of my book shelves.  Funny story about that "book case".....15 years ago we used it for a pantry in the bungalow we lived in and when we moved here I took the door off and have used it as a book case ever since.

Here's the entry door to the room on the left and on the right is our master closet (we took the door off and are storing it in our basement), we like it better without.  It you look beyond the entry door, you get a peek at my craft room.

This is my dresser and on the top is where the jewelry I wear the most is stored.  I have four different jewelry hangers, a beautiful gilded one that looks like a tree branch with a small bird in the middle one I got on clearance at Pier 1, another tree branch hanger I found at Urban Outfitters, a small tree branch style that sits in a saucer I use for my most worn earrings.  I found that one at Target and behind that door is a hanging armoire for my costume jewelry I don't wear that often nut not quite ready to get rid of.

Here's the view from the entry door where you can see the bay windows, window seat and high beamed ceilings.  That ceiling fan is never leaving, we upgraded it years ago but it's a necessity for me during summer time and even some times in the winter if the air is stuffy.  The beams are lighted and look really nice at night.  

I really didn't want to buy new pillows for our window seat because they can get pricey and I still liked the ones we have, so when hunting for new bedding, I kept those pillows in mind.  They all came from either Pier 1 or Target and they did work perfect with the new bedding.

Here's another photo of this view that you can see the tall book shelf I purchased at IKEA last fall.  I also bought a nightstand for the spouse to use.  They are part of the HEMNES series and I chose a gray washed finish to again break up all the natural wood.  The spouse's lamp came from Target.

This is my nightstand.  There is just enough room for a cat to sleep on it, like our Tucker does sometimes.

We both love the way it turned out and how cozy it feels both in the daylight and at night.

Thanks for stopping by and on to the next project, but that one is outside.........

Boob Lights

Ha!  Thought it was going to be something else didn't you?

No, this is the tale of the final three light fixtures in our home that needed updating and I called them our "boob lights" in cheap gold no less.

Do not ask me why it took us 14 years to replace these.  We've replaced every light fixture in our home but these and one in our son's bathroom aka the.place.we.do.not.enter.  These are just as awful as the cheap three round bulb fixtures over the bathroom vanity lights the builder installed that we replaced.

Thankfully lighting doesn't have to be pricey.  It certainly can be, some of the most beautiful fixtures I've seen run in the hundreds to thousands of dollars.  We don't have that kind of budget plus part of the thrill for me is the hunt to find what I want for as less as I can.

I found our new ones at Wayfair and I think there a BIG improvement over those awful "boob" light fixtures.

Like other things that we replace, I took the boob lights to our local Habitat for Humanity Resale Store.  One person's trash is another person's treasure.  I hope they find their forever home.

What I'm Reading = Bread

I just finished a delightful book called "Sourdough" by Robin Sloan and you guessed it, it's a book about making Sourdough bread, well, the book is so much more than that, but reading about the process of making bread made ME want to make some bread too.

I have a bread making machine that my grandmother re-gifted to me because she never used it and we have used it in the past and it works great but I've also read and been told that we can bake a loaf of bread in a cast iron French oven and I just happen to have a few of those also, plus I can then use my experience as a marketing tool at my part time job selling French cookware.

There are a lot of bread recipes out there if you're going to use a French oven to bake.  Most of the information I was reading stated that it's better to use no knead dough for French oven baking.   My first foray was using the first recipe I found using Chef Google.  Four simple ingredients; flour, yeast, salt and warm water.

I wish I could say that my first try was a completely successful, but I can't.  It's wasn't a complete failure, but I think I know where I went wrong and I will correct those things the next time I try which will probably be in the next couple of days because the aroma in the house alone was worth it.

As you can see, it looked beautiful coming out of the oven but I messed up and cut into it too soon (how can you resist with the smell?) AND after all that, I realized I forgot the salt.  lol

So, the next time, I have a recipe from King Arthur Flour - No Knead Crusty White Bread and I've read the following article on their website; Bread Baking in a Dutch Oven and I'm going to give it another whirl........this time I may try the cold Dutch Oven method they suggest also; Bread Baking in a cold Dutch oven

I'm keep you posted...the upside of all this experimentation is how good our house smells.

döstädning

A few posts ago, I talked about finally downloading this book after reading an article about it last year.  It was a short book (71 pages and I can't believe what I paid for only 71 pages) but I'm not feeling that bad because, well.....it's a book.

These are the kinds of books that I pick up and put down regardless of how compelling they may be.  I like reading these in small doses and then apply what I learned to something.  I usually have two or three books in various stages of reading at one time anyway.

All that said, I really enjoyed reading this.  The author is witty and charming in her teaching and even though the title might be off putting, this is a great book for anyone over the age of 50 to read.

Even if you aren't over 50, there are lessons to be learned with what you accumulate over the years.

First thing, she advises is not to go through photographs and paper first.  Our photos are pretty much organized due to the fact that I scrapbook, and I already have two archival boxes that hold things like newspapers, magazines or ephemera of historical significance so her last step in döstädning, I'm already done with.  These boxes are labeled and organized neatly in a spare closet.

Here's my takeaways on the things that pertained to us:

• Clothing - Probably the easiest thing to tackle so the author suggests starting there.

I purged a great deal of professional clothes after I retired early from my government job, but I could still stand to part with some more things.  That goes for my husband too, especially now that his work attire is t-shirts and jeans.  We'll work on this step within the next month when we start to switch out some of our clothing from our master bedroom closet.  I've been donating our things to a couple places locally that provide clothing to disadvantaged men and women for job interviews.

Funny story in the book...the author received some help from another senior in her community in organizing the disorder of her computer files.  She said he looked at the screen and said: "This is like putting your toilet in the kitchen" 😀

• Do your döstädning while you can

The author makes a great point when she says "Aging is certainly not for weaklings.  That is why you should not wait too long to start your downsizing.  Sooner or later you will have your own infirmities, and then it is damn nice to be able to enjoy the things you can still mange to do without the burden of too many things to look after and too many messes to organize."

• Books - this one is tough for me.

The next time I tackle our books I'm going to take the author's advise and only keep books that I still haven't read or books that I keep returning to.   I shouldn't feel bad when I do purge our books because I donate them all to Planned Parenthood for them to sell at their twice yearly book sale that is a huge fund raiser for them and an event where I volunteer.

• Things, Things, and more Things - how I love my things

For me, what makes a home are things.  Things are pictures, framed photographs, mementos and any décor that makes you happy or tells a story.  I'm still working on reducing our things but as my style changes so do our things, except for the items that have special meaning.

I have actually made an appointment at a local home furniture and décor consignment store in early May and have already started getting things together to take.  I'm pretty jazzed that I'm getting rid of some things that have been hiding out in the basement and a couple closets and may even make some cash consigning them.

• Collections

Over our many years of marriage, we have collected things, both separately and together, but must say that we don't seem to have a problem getting rid of our collections when we tire of them.  At one time, we collected the cutest bubble fairies but sold them years later, my husband was into rocketry for a while but once he lost interest in the hobby, he sold what he had.  Other than a couple of Christmas collections and craft supplies, the only thing we collect currently is Rae Dunn pottery, it's cheap, we both like it and I can see us hanging on to it for a while.  As long as you are still enjoying whatever it is you collect, then now is not the time to get rid of it.

• In the Garden

This is where I need to concentrate this year.  My gardening area of our garage is out of hand and I need to make a serious purge.

• The Garage

If you are like us and live in a winter climate like we do, you'll know what a mess the garage can get over winter, so every spring we have to schedule a "garage clean up" day that usually takes us at least 4-6 hours.  This year my husband is being "encouraged" to take a hard look at what we have been hanging on to in his area of the garage while I'm going the same with my gardening supplies.

So, I'm hoping in the time between now while living in this home and when we finally make the decision to downsize our home, we'll "death clean" to where the next move will be easy and we won't be leaving a bunch of stuff that our son will need to deal with after we're gone.

Let's Get Crafty - Whatchamacallits

Book Marks or Page Markers (whatever you want to call them)

A little back story first.  😀
I've got no problem admitting that I like getting crafty and I like lots of different mediums.  I think I was born with crafty DNA.  My mother was artsy/crafty, her cross stitch (which I've shared on my blog) and her quilts are works of art and at one time she even ran a small ceramic shop out of our house part time, mostly for all the ladies that lived in the housing development we lived in.  Even my father had a artsy/crafty side to him, I remember him painting a humongous Bonsai tree in our dining room back in the 60's.  Granted it was paint by number but still a painstaking project and at one time he owned along with my step mom a plaster shop out in Nevada, so I'm not surprised I inherited the crafty chip.

I've stuck with scrapbooking and paper crafts the longest, this year marks 22 years I've scrapbooked, but I've always dabbled in other stuff too.  Everything from calligraphy, stained glass, cross stitch, ceramics, pottery, batik and when I was still in high school sewed a lot of my own clothes.

One thing that I love is when I stumble upon something really fun to make that is for something else I love, in this case, books and it's even better when I already have all the supplies.  This project takes just two things; letter size envelopes and washi tape.  You will need a ruler, pencil and scissors too.

With the collection of washi tape I have, I have carte blanche in which tapes I'm going to use in making my page markers and I usually have a stack of letter size envelopes laying around.  If you don't, go to your closest dollar store and buy thee a box.

First step - with a ruler, mark off both corners of the envelope.  These will be the page markers. Make your angles as small or as large as you want.  I experimented with different sizes.

Next, cut those babies off the envelope.

Once you have the number of page markers you want to make, get out your favorite washi tape and position the tape on the page marker where you want it and snip off the ends.

Easy Peasy!

You want to make sure that you cut off a long enough piece of tape to go completely across the triangle or position where it will.  You can use as many piece of tape as you want.  It's up to you if you want to do the back side of the marker.  I did a couple each way, just one side and both sides.

Here's one where I use a two different designs of washi tape and how it fits on the page of my bullet journal.

Ta Da!  That's how easy it is to make these fun book or page markers.  You can even get fancier and use colored paper to make the triangles, but I find the envelopes make it just as fun.  It's also an easy, fun craft for kids or even fun to make as gifts for all your book loving friends.

Enjoy!  and thanks for stopping by.......

Nostalgia and Letting Go

Late last year, I came across an article about a book called "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter".

I am all about organizational books, I've read Peter Walsh and Marie Kondo (although I think she might be a bit over the top, I'm not going to thank my purses for doing their jobs), but the philosophy behind this book seemed to resonated with me from the article I read, so I finally downloaded it a week or so ago to see what the author has to say.  It's only 71 pages so it should take me long.  I'll report back on that once I've finished.

I'm not concerned about clutter, I run a pretty tight ship in that respect, I'm talking about things I'm hanging on to that I really need to let go.

I'm entering a phase in my life that I feel the need to really purge and downsize.   Even my spouse has an area of our garage that really needs a some purging.  We're not downsizing our space at this time, but I'm currently downsizing some of our "things".

I'm always going to have "things" in my home.  I love to decorate and I love to be surrounded by pictures and décor that makes me happy, brings back memories or tells a story, but we owe it to our son not to saddle him with having to get rid of a bunch of stuff he doesn't want, so.........

The obstacles that I'm running into are all nostalgic and who it belonged to originally.  I have things of both my mothers and grandmothers but some of it just sits in drawers, closets or the basement.  I have to learn to let go.  I'll never get rid of the beautiful quilts and cross stitch pieces that my mother made me, but I have fabric of hers I need to let go.   I'll also never get rid of the cobalt blue juice glasses that were my grandmother's that one of us uses everyday, but I have silver pieces of hers that I need to let go.  I could go on and on.

Since retiring from my full time career, I've completely gone through every stitch of clothing we own and what we have left in the house are the things we wear, there's no more hanging on to any professional clothes I had or things neither of us were wearing anymore.  Several non-profits that provide clothing for men and women for job interviews benefited from our castoffs and our clothing is now manageable.  That also includes shoes and purses that I no longer wore.

I've also purged our seasonal decorations a couple years ago, but we still have quite a bit.  Thankfully it's all nicely packed away in totes that are labeled, easy to store and move.

So, stay tuned for a future post on what I learned from the book.......

Slow Cooker Lazy - Jambalaya

I run hot and cold with cooking.  Sometimes I want to cook all the time and then I go through phases where I don't want to cook at all.  I'm glad I have some of the time saving appliances I do, my slow cooker, my instant pot and our air fryer for those times when cooking isn't my thing or I've decided to subsist on Naan bread and tomatoes with balsamic vinegar for days and my family has to be YOYO (Your On Your Own).

I'm not someone who can create recipes herself, I'm not that talented with food, but I'm a champ at finding recipes that I want to try and cooking the things my family has enjoyed all of these years.

Recently, I had a craving for Jambalaya but I didn't want to go the Zatarain's route (which we've tried before and it's not horrible) so I went on the lookout for an easy recipe.

My google skills took me to this recipe of Easy Slow Cooker Jambalaya and I gathered all the ingredients together to try it out.

The title of the recipe isn't lying, it was easy.  Literally dump everything in your slow cooker until the last 1/2 hour when the rice and shrimp go in.  I'm sure you could do this in the instant pot also, but I was in no hurry the day I made it, so I used our tried and true slow cooker.  The after Jambalaya review was a Thumbs Up!  It makes 8 very hearty servings and since this really isn't a good recipe for the freezer, we had it for dinner than night and each had a leftover portion for our next day's lunch and a good friend was gifted with a container to keep him fed.

The only change I made was I reduced the amount of chicken to one large boneless skinless chicken breast rather than 2 pounds of chicken thighs.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Resurrection of Sorts

I knew I had let my blog languish for a few months and when I checked, yep...September was the last time I posted anything.

With that discovered, one of my challenges this year as it has been in the years since I retired from my U.S. Court career is to have more of a routine through out my week, so I'm going to add posting to my blog on my "Things to make a habit" list.   I am a creature of routine and habit.

I like being a bit accountable to it, I like sharing things I'm doing and even if nobody reads it, I feel like I'm leaving a living, breathing diary/journal for our son and any future grandchildren I may have after I'm gone. 

I'm not big on starting new things at New Year's, to me it's a little cliche but probably more about the fact I'm never mentally prepared at the first of the year to make changes. 

Some of the things I'm challenging myself to incorporate into my weekly routine and make a habit are:

• Yoga
• Blogging
• Crafting
• Reading
• Meditation
• Walking or biking (once I get permission from my foot doctor)

I need to incorporate each of those things several times during my week.  I always read at bed time but depending on how tired I am, I might only read one or two chapters before I get sleepy.  I'd like to increase the time I reach for a book.  I enjoy my time online but it needs to be balanced more with the things I enjoy in real life.  Gardening will be added to that list once our gardening season is here.

I got creative and made myself a "cheat sheet" that I laminated and can slide in my planner to act as a reminder and my cheat sheet coordinates with my journal I'm keeping to track my progress.  More on that journal in future posts.

Last October, I also took a part time job as a sales associate for Le Creuset at the new outlet mall in my burb, it's only 10-15  hours a week, so I have plenty of time to do the other things I enjoy.  The part time job adds some routine that I clearly crave PLUS a very generous employee discount to enjoy on their brand of products and a little extra money every week.

I'm also going to be redoing my blog so I can incorporate my small home based art and crafts business Serendipity Home Art & Crafts.  It a fun project of mine that allows me to be creative and make a little bit of money.  You can find my Facebook page here and I'll be updating it soon with some new stuff.

So, welcome to my blog if you've made it this far and I hope you'll visit again.