2 a.m. terror

Sorry for the poor quality photo and dirty window. Do you see this little monster? Last night as I was getting ready for bed after a long night of sanding kitchen cabinets, I realized a BAT was circling around the inside of my house. A bat! Maybe some of you have had this happen, but it's new to me and that was the most frightening night of my life. I threw on a coat with a hood and tried not to scream every time it swooped past me, but my inevitable screams woke up Julia. After realizing I couldn't get rid of it myself, I had to call Julia's dad and wake him from a dead sleep to come help me. We finally got him trapped in my bedroom window, where he remains this very minute. I had better never see another one of these in my house ever again, because I was THIS close to having a heart attack. Ugh!!

P.S. I kept picturing myself as Meredith from The Office and thinking somehow I was going to end up with a bat in a bag over my head.

**UPDATE: animal control just left with Monsterface (we named him Monsterface). They took him out of the window with tongs and put him in a folgers can. High-tech! :D

Beautiful day

It is so beautiful outside right now that I decided to go snap some pictures and show you. The sun is perfect and it's 79 degrees. Don't mind the fact that I have some landscaping work to do. Oh, you see the fan in the upstairs window? That's my bedroom, and, yep, I have no air conditioning!

I love the big fluffy peony bushes in the backyard. They are gorgeous right now!


Kitterson is wondering why I'm outside taking pictures of him staring at me through the door:

I hope your weather is just as beautiful!

P.S. I'm loving your food responses to the post below. Keep 'em coming! :)

Foods I've never tried and everyone else has.

I came across this photo on foodgawker- which is the best site, by the way. There are all these wonderful photos of food (anyone can submit a photo) and you click on them and are led to the recipes. Anyway, I saw this photo of Baked Eggs with Garlic Sauteed Chard and Polenta. Looks good, doesn't it? It got me thinking about how I've never tried polenta. It also got me making a list of foods I've never tried but I'm sure everyone else has. Here are some foods from the list:

1. polenta
2. sushi (it's true!)
3. curry
4. gnocchi
5. I finally tried lobster for the first time about a year ago and BARF (I guess this shouldn't be on the list).
6. mussels
7. nutella- there is a chance I tried a dab of this at my mom's house a while back since I remember seeing it there and talking about how I'd never tried it, but I have no recollection of tasting it.
8. beer

How about you? Is there anything you've never tried and have no desire to do so?

P.S. Find the recipe photographed above here.

I want this.

Oh, yes I do! I love the old-fashioned typewriter look, and it even makes the old clicky noise. Love it! Found here.

So. Good.

Have I told you that my new house came with an established rhubarb patch? Well it did! I just made my SECOND strawberry rhubarb crisp because the first one was so good (and I've never made anything with rhubarb in my life!). I was looking for a recipe that wouldn't make too much since it's just two of us now, and only me half the time. This is great- you have to make it! See the recipe here. Mmmmm!

LOVE.

Would someone please lend me $1500.00 dollars so I can own this amazing chair from Jonathan Adler? No? Ok. I will never in my life be able to afford this chair, but I love it! It's called the Mrs. Godfrey chair. Isn't that a perfect name?

Also, many thanks for all the paint color comments yesterday! I'm 99% sure I am going to go with a pale aqua. I found this pic online which best shows the color palette I'll be trying to achieve:

P.S. It was a tough call between pale aqua and gray!

Color advice needed

Ok. It has come the time to tackle the enormous project that is my 100 year old kitchen. It turns out the kitchen paper cannot be removed due to the condition of the plaster walls beneath it. I will be using this type of thick, textured wallpaper to cover the existing paper:

I'm not set on the actual design yet (there are many styles), but I just wanted to give you an idea of the type of paper. It comes white, and it is meant to be painted. This paper hides a multitude of imperfections. Here is a refresher of the state of the kitchen the way it was when I bought the house:

(All the accessories in this photo belonged to the seller). It is hard to tell, but the wallpaper is red, blue and yellow plaid. Yikes! I'm painting the cabinets white. The yellow may not look that bad in the photo, but they painted everything in this room yellow- the doors, every bit of trim, EVERYTHING. I like yellow but it is way too much yellow. So, since I'm going to have white cabinets, what color should I paint the textured wallpaper? This room will be right next to my pale olive green room. Help!

**Keep in mind that this 70 year old floor will be changing, as well!

Thrift store score!

It's been a long time since I did one of these posts, huh?! Well it's about time I did another! I found some great stuff recently... take a peek!

I don't know what to do with this little wooden embroidered dollhouse-looking thing but I just couldn't pass it up. It's so cute, and nicely sized at over a foot tall.

I LOVE this vintage wrapping paper, and it's still in its original packaging. I don't think I'll ever want to actually use it!

This little footstool is great. I'm going to recover it in a fabric that matches my decor. I have a great chartreuse floral that will work perfectly.

Then I got this vintage spool rack, which I really needed since all the spools on it in this photo were in a pile on my table. Can you see the wallpaper in the background under the table?? UGH, I can't wait to not look at that anymore (it's my bedroom!):

..and now to my favorite new find! I found this yesterday on my lunch break:

It's a vintage twin-size quilt, and it's completely hand-quilted! Somebody spent a LONG time on this. I should've realized before I took the following photo that the quilt was upside-down. Just picture it the right-side up and look at all the pretty baskets:

It has a ton of great, dainty florals and is soft and in great condition! There are a couple of tiny tears that could use mending, and mild yellowing in one spot, but nothing serious. Even the binding was sewn by hand. The best part? It was $5.00!

Things I'm loving (and wanting) right now.

Adorable vintage rack from trix0120.

Gorgeous treehouse pillow from jennarosehandmade.

Sweet matryoshka doll tee from pepperhem.

Willow branches original watercolor painting by GollyBard.

Stay tuned- I have a 'thrift store score' post coming soon! :)

Lovely

I found these pics in this really great photostream on flickr. That first room is so cozy! I want to take a nap there this very minute. The second photo was snapped through a window of the Orchard House, home of Louisa May Alcott. Just perfect.

Shakespeare and Company, Paris

Would you just look at this place? This is my dream bookstore- tons of cozy nooks and tunnels and I just love how it has a kind of 'secret room' feel to it. Unfortunately I don't live anywhere near Paris. Have any of you been here? Take a look at these great photos:

They even have nooks with cozy beds. One day I WILL get there!

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