Breaking News...Maryland Woman Diagnosed with New Syndrome...Film at 11

New syndrome-yikes! It's PTCWFS or Post Traumatic Casper Wyoming Flashback Syndrome. I'm not trying to trivialize folks in and from wars or folks in Fargo, ND, but I felt this real flashback today when I woke up to 9" new inches of snow and 20-30 mph winds. Okay, I know that I've said that if all I have to complain about is the snow, I am very blessed and it is so true. But I do have some real pathologies that I deal with day to day and this weather has been bugging me and I've been complaining the last couple of weeks and karma bit me in the butt for it today. Perspective? It's not six months out of the year, it's already over, it's probably only going to get better.

I've been making and making and making more in preparation for, hopefully, the DC Big Flea this weekend. I didn't send in my paperwork until last week so have not heard definitely either way back from them. I'm guessing that I'll get in, I certainly hope so because I've "worked" so hard already.

Enough talk of the 9" and counting (it's snowing very heavy right now) I'm distracting myself with t.v., redecorating, and making art. Above is an example of making and redecorating. I got the frame, little shelf, and little frame from...do I have to say it?...The Pink Cabbage. The frame was already the perfect color but I unashamedly painted the gold leaf frame and little shelf a bright fuscia (couldn't get the color exact on here), popped all three on the wall and added the trophy, dressed up, that Nene gave me for Christmas and a large bees keep pin I've had for a while. Voila! I was perked up and so is my bathroom.

And, flipping around the channels, I came across this movie, How to Make An American Quilt. I was instantly, completely taken in by it; it's a fabulous movie. I realized pretty quickly that I'd read the book many years ago but didn't know there was a movie. See it if you can whatever the weather where you are; it's moving, funny, entertaining, and uplifting and not fluffy. However, I would have totally gone with the beautiful guy in the pickup with the strawberries-yowzer!-but that's just me...

Guess where I want to be right now? Hint-it's not Fargo. Exactly a month from today we'll be THERE-yahoooooo!

I got mail!

Here I go ruining my street cred by making this post. Wasn't it just a few days ago that I claimed, right here, that I'm not a constant consumer or "do" retail therapy? Well this is a relative one-off that I wanted to share plus it's not Gucci stuff, it's great starving artist pieces. Above is what came in the mail from Lilla of Vintage Treasures on Etsy...

...and here's the bag that was inside, beautiful right? I also got a package from sparlespunssupply's profile where the little pink bird cages and the plastic embellishments came from.

The third package was from Retro Cafe Art where the frozen Charlottes came from and the fab tiny frozen Charlotte ring. What bootie! Two for me, the rest for creating other things. It's over for now because Lent officially starts tomorrow and I'm giving up buying until I reach Texas. Jesus wants me to shop at Round Top, that's why He's sending me there.

With the wrapping paper from the purse, a sewing pattern, I collaged the above pair of shoes and embellished them and I'm going to call bookends. They are inspired from a pair that Sandra Evertson made for the One World One Heart giveaway. Don't compare them too harshly. She is after all, Sandra Evertson and I'm just me.

Close up of the "toe buckle"-not a great photo but the best I could do in short order. Thanks for looking.

Get off my lawn.

I'm so tired of winter. It seems to have dragged on and on this year. I hate winter anyway but can usually get through it better than this year it seems. I'm sure part of the problem is the New Year's trip I took to Texas where we were wearing short sleeves at times. Anyway on Sunday, after church, all I wanted to do was go to my childhood farm, get in the john boat with my book, and float in the tank in the warm sun reading for hours.

Instead we went to see Grand Torino. Have I ever mentioned (today) that I KISSED CLINT EASTWOOD ON THE LIPS? I think it's been long enough (about a month?) since I last reminded my readers of this event. I found this photo online which would have been taken around the time THE KISS took place, 1979 or so. I kept hearing good reviews about GT but for some reason had been hesitant. When I read Julia's review, I decided to go. We could see it was waining at the movies-only two showings a day in the small theaters, so we jumped. It's great, I highly recommend it. I never saw the Dirty Harry stuff but I know enough to know it's the older version of that character. Lots of growling...real growling. Good movie, great message. See it when you can. Good but hardly a john boat in the tank reading.

Very Nice Outing

We did another one of those touristy things last night that we've never done since we've lived here for over 12 years. Just like attending our first inauguration recently, in the back of my kooky mind I think this is a sign that our time in this area is coming to a close, albeit very slow. Sorry to my dear friends who keep me afloat here, but I still want to live in the cabin on our old farm outside of Bryan (that will almost certainly remain only in my head forever). BUT, to progress here...we went to The Ford's Theater last night to see the above play. Matt and I had never been there. Matt has that innate general interest in history like Paul but I have my own selective interests (like all my long-gone Swedish and otherwise ancestors I visit in Nebraska every November). The theater is one of those things I've wanted to see and it was worth the freezing cold walk from the tube to there in really high heels (RARE but I thought it was an appropriate occasion picturing valet parking not the tube-ha!). Right across the street, in case you're a Texan, or other foreigner like me and didn't know, is the house where Lincoln died. It's all so tragic and yet wonderfully preserved so that we can all get a feel, a touch, a view of the actual place where extreme history occurred-I like the tactile and visual part not the reading part. The theater has just been rehabbed and is beautiful. Of course, as much of what was original is still there but has been, of course, taken care of just as any important historical property. And the box, the box where he was shot, amazing. No one has ever sat in there since. President and Mrs. Obama were there Monday night for the same event; that added a cool vibe to the place also. The play was fabulous, dark, and moving. It's about what, theoretically went through Lincoln's head and dreams or alternately extreme lack of sleep during the Civil War and all the decisions and demons he had to live with during the time following soon after his son's death and leading up but ending before his last trip to the theater. It was amazing. So, all you friends who are way overdue for a trip out here to see your nation's capital and good friends from Texas and California, it's a good time to come...

KUDOS Beth!!!!!

Wow! A full page! Congrats Beth on this in Romantic Homes Magazine. I'm fortunate to know Beth from having worked with her at Bayberry Cove. She's so talented and fun and funny. Check her out at her blog here. I even have one of her fab pin cushions that she gifted to me during the Christmas season we worked together plus a couple of her other wonderful creations from her Etsy store. She's also a writer, really, check her out!

AND she got published in THIS magazine. I didn't know whether to read it or marry it (I've never seen the movie, just know the line). I wanted to lick every page but I was reading it at the shop so I controlled myself...didn't want to mess up the mag anyway. So RUN DON'T WALK (unless you're in a movie theater) to your nearest bookstore and pick it up; it's fab alone and then there's Beth!!!! HURRY!