Another call for help…good folks…

‘Cause you guys are the bestest! Ok…I have a funky kitchen…ok I admit to having even a weird kitchen. It is scattered with the color red.

Toaster…clock…Hood vent. SCREEEEECH. Yep hood vent.

Tired of red... time for a change. To what though?

It is a metal (think industrial aluminum) hood over an island. It was white (ish) when we bought the house...omg.

Then I painted it fire engine red. Why? I dunno. maybe to go with my red toaster.

so today…I tried to bring it back to it’s industrial roots tried is the operative word…with a silver/aluminum/zinc...ish...kinda look

and It doesn’t quite hit the mark. she humbly admits.

What do you think??? Maybe darker….But will it look hokey with the little cross hatches?

Back to white…Or even try and add a wood veneer over and paint white…kinda like Joan’s stunning kitchen recently featured in Renovation Magazine…homina homina…

What is a girl to do who doesn't want to spend any clams

HELP….PLEASE…..I’ll give you a dollar if you help.

I will.

Kids bath in Kitchen and Bath Magazine…

In the newstands I found mine waiting in line in Publix grocery store Is the newest edition

of Better Homes and Gardens Kitchen and Bath magazine

One of the features is our kids bathroom.

However…now it is decidedly a HIS bathroom…as the lone girl (willing to no longer share with three brothers) claimed a powder room as hers

Call me crazy, but I always wanted to put a urinal in a kids bath…3 boys…c’mon. Keeping it real.

Huge thank you to Becky the stylist and writer extraordinaire …and to Meredith Magazines for giving two of our bathrooms a little place in print!

Out to look for urinals…seriously.

All in a day’s work…

Do Y'all (you all)

have that area of your garden you tend to ignore?

We do

we most certainly do

But not anymore.

This area used to be no man’s land…

the end of the highway…

where the backyard ended.

…and other not such niceties

gifts from the sea...gotta love em.

But with a little screw it a lot of sweat equity

some planting, some moving…

It now has a purpose.

sit with a cold corona with a lime kinda purpose…but a purpose just the same.

{maybe you pretend those plastic chairs are a cool retro bamboo version…that’s what I do. pretend.}

We extended the gravel path added some pathway rocks, and looped it around the

Big and Happy Travelers Palm

Did you know they are called travelers palm’s because if one was travelling and perhaps lost, you could cut off a limb and it would contain a canteen full of water. Who knew?

I knew…now YOU do to. We’ll call it Trivia Sunday.

Then we moved some plants around cheap….rolled a big giant pot over and stuck a bamboo drip fountain in it...

A handful of water plants…and maybe a big fake water lily. just being honest.

Not bad for a day or two’s work….

...and some dirt under the nails, eh?

and may I remind you it was over 100 with the humidity...Bow...applause...bow

Thanks to some kidlets and a Grandma B that were pretty good rock and pebble haulers.

Grandma’s got some biceps.

I am remembering…

Ten years ago… My four kids and I were visiting friends

A sister friend...that everso important person who has been with you through college, and kids and life...one who is a *sister*...when you never had a true sister.

in New York…

The morning of the 11th…we packed up the car us two mothers with seven kids…and went apple picking.

And then we tried to donate blood.

because we didn’t know what to do.

We were in Albany. 2 hours from NYC.

I remember sleeping in a top bunk that night with my arms around my 9 year old. who would shake and cry every time a plane flew over. Jets circled and protected the area all night long.

I slept holding him for 4 nights.

We were scheduled to see my brother that week…and should have been In the city/NJ on the 11th. But I stole more time with my friend in Albany.

As we drove down toward the City two days later…The intensity of emotion was palpable the closer we got. Flags adorned cars, makeshift flags made of bed sheets were being held from the overpasses. Held by NY youth chanting USA.

It was eerie. It was beautiful. It was surreal.

My brother was on Wall Street that morning, ten years ago.

He was able to walk out of the smoking city…but he lost many friends and colleagues.

I remember his steeled jaw, as we stood on a grassy bank in his town, looking across the Hudson River, at the smoldering embers of where he once worked…where so many were lost. He was numb.

I remember the flyers strewn across his small town asking for donations of many things ...including dog food and dog boots for the rescue dogs.

I remember the silence of a whole town who lost so many.

It was a long and quiet drive back to Florida the next week.

The world had changed while we were gone.

I humbly bow my head in remembrance.

From ashes to hope…

9/11/2011