thrifted finds ~ and lots of news around here

I needed some groceries at Trader Joes today, so I ran into the nearby Goodwill

 and Savers. Found some cool stuff, including a MFK Fisher book (not shown).

 Anyone familiar with this awesome writer? She was an unsurpassed American

 food writer.

Up first is a set of vintage Godinger spoons and a set of new buttercream placemats

 from Kohls. 

{Speaking of Kohls, they have a great selection of table linens. They have given

me a code to pass along to my blogging friends through May 10. Just use

BLOGS10 when shopping online and you will receive a 10% discount!}

 Next is a vintage rolling pin (love the red handles!), a trio of frosted glass rabbit
 candle holders, and a tiny pitchfork that will be perfect in the fairy garden that
 I plan on creating once the weather warms up.

Couldn't resist this charming, vintage bunny with a fluffy tail.

Just need to get out the Goo Gone and remove the sticker residue off its body. 

Lastly, a pretty Fitz and Floyd butterfly candle trinket box...
 

 Well, I'm sure a lot of you have seen the news of all the floodings in

the Chicago area. And, as you know from my April 12th post, my basement

had flooded. You're not going to believe this, but Brian woke me up at 4:30 a.m.

again today, telling me that water was now pouring in through one of our window wells.

He was outside in the dark, scooping water, dead leaves, and debris from the window

well, while I was inside trying to sop up all the water with every towel in the house.

Long story short, the drain in the window well got clogged (another lesson learned the

hard way ~ clean out the window wells in the fall AND get new window well

covers), thus wasn't draining the water. We then used the wet/dry vac to suck up

all the rest of the water and set up fans. Thank God, we got it under control and

were able to clean up the water ourselves this time. Here's what my back yard

looked like this morning....

And here's a field down the road from me; this is what it looks like in all the low-lying land around here.

 On top of everything this past week, Tim's car has been nothing but trouble and

money - which, as a college student who delivers pizzas part-time, he doesn't have.

And we are only able to help him out financially so much. After shelling out another

$250 for repairs yesterday, his car was smoking today. Found out it's now the heater

core, which is very expensive. Since the car isn't worth that kind of expense,

the mechanic is just going to bypass the heater core, which will be a minimal

expense. Tim really needs a "new" car, but how? He doesn't have the money for

even a used car, and neither do we. I hate these dilemmas. 

I DO have some positive news. Brian, Tim, and I spent the entire day yesterday at

the college that Tim will attending in the fall. Tim had orientation and signed up

for his classes, and Brian and I attended the parent sessions. We then checked

out the house that my cousin's daughter rents with some other roommates.

They have an opening for another roommate and since this house is less than

1/2 mile down the street from the university, it would be a perfect place for

Tim to live. The house is old and a little dumpy ~ definitely has that "young people

live here" look! But it was clean(ish), has a big kitchen, original hardwood floors,

a big back yard - and a sweet dog named MoJo. My cousin's daughter said MoJo

loves to get in bed with someone in the morning and snuggle. Tim liked that,

as he will miss our three kitties. He's an animal lover like me. Sooo...if all goes

well with all this, Tim will be moving out July 1st. Brian and I will be empty nesters!

Big changes for all of us.

a collection of blue and white ~ and home disaster update

 One of my favorite color combinations is blue and white.

I have quite the collection going on a bookshelf in my office.

All are pieces I've collected at Goodwill, Savers, and other thrift stores.

The only pieces that are marked on the bottom are the pitcher in back

(hand painted in Portugal) and the little Dutch shoes in front (Delft).

It sure was a busy morning. The new springs for the garage door were installed

at 8 a.m. The old water softener was hauled away and the new one installed

at 9. And the restoration crew was here at 10 to take away all the fans

and industrial dehumidifier in the basement. Basement is all dried out now

and all it needs is all new baseboards installed. Not bad - could've been

a ton worse. Good thing we caught the water just in time (it was only about 2"

deep) and that the restoration company was able to come out right away to

start clean up. Now my days will be spent going through the tons of stuff

that we had stored down there and either putting in bags for donation (I already

have huge piles ready to go!) or re-organizing on shelves or in plastic storage

boxes. Gotta get all that stuff out of the garage as soon as possible so we can

park our cars back in there. 

I leave for my yoga class in about 40 minutes. I know I say it every Monday,

but I really need it tonight. All that breath work and stretching feels so

 good and quiets the mind.

 

april showers bring home disasters

It happened again.

The basement flooded.

Some of you will remember this happened to us exactly three years ago.

For us, April showers don't bring May flowers. It brings a flooded basement.

It was another freak happening: Brian woke up to find water in the 

basement and the sump pump not working. He discovered in the main circuit

breaker box, that the switch for the sump pump had tripped to "off". It

was the only switch that had done so. And why? No one seems to know.

So, here we go again with a restoration company and drying out the basement.

The owners of the restoration company - a family of 7 - worked their

tails off, carting load after load of  years of stuff that somehow accumulates

in basements, and stacking it all neatly in our garage.

 

 Some of the major furniture items were able to stay in the basement, like the

 couch, the table, and treadmill. The couch got a little bit of water on the bottom,

 but it's being dried out. All my bookcases were ruined though, and had to be

thrown out. Some books were ruined, too. The restoration people took our area

rugs and are treating them and drying them out in their warehouse. Hopefully,

they can be salvaged.

Not only is our garage filled, but the top of the bar has things piled

all over it, too. It's amazing how much "stuff" one accumulates after living

 in the same place almost 23 years.

They ran out of room to pile all my books, so some are piled in the living room.

Even the poor kitties are discombobulated. Normally, their cat boxes are

downstairs, so we had to bring them upstairs. I didn't exactly want a cat box

 in my living room, a bathroom, or our bedroom, so they went into the spare

 room/office.

Believe it or not, that's not even all the stuff we had in the basement.

There's also the unfinished part of the basement, AKA, the dungeon.

Huge Sterilite containers of out-of-season clothes, the cat tree, baby toys...

Shelves full of paint cans, tools, home repair stuff; a couple of

garment racks full of coats and sweaters due to lack of closet space.

Egads, how to start all over and clean all this stuff out and put it back together?

We sure have out work cut out for us.

But, that's not all. On top of the stove breaking the other day and having

to get a new one - which will be delivered on Tuesday - and now our

basement flooding, Brian went to open the garage door, and one of the

main springs broke. The garage door guy will be here Monday morning.

And if that's not enough, when the restoration man was here today to

check the humidity levels in the basement, he asked me if I knew that my

water softener was leaking from the bottom! I told him, no. He told me I'd

better call the water softener company immediately, as it could actually

explode if it malfunctioned. Talk about a high anxiety level! A serviceman from

the water softener company came out and looked at the softener and released

the pressure valve and turned the whole machine off. They will be installing

a new water softener on Monday.

Trying to keep a smile on my face and breathe. I know things could

be worse. We shall get through this. We somehow always do.

a new wall arrangement ~ and soon to be new range

 You might remember that one of my kitchen walls looked like this

(minus the white stool; now a black table is in its place)...

 I never felt like the left side was balanced, so then I tried adding

the two flowered trays ~ and didn't like that look either.

So, yesterday I decided to take everything down and move the "share a moment" 

picture to the left and add something new to the right. A little better so far?

I'll show you in a moment what I did with the smaller coffee print and the red

metal coffee sign.

What do you think if I then added two plates - one blue, one red - to the

 side of the white shelf? (That's Brian, helping me out.)

Or, two red plates? I think I like the blue and red better.

 As for the smaller coffee print and the red metal coffee

sign, I put them on the wall by the coffee maker.

 Speaking of kitchen stuff, we have to get a new range. Our 15-year old 

Hotpoint gave up the ghost. The serviceman told us it was the circuit board. 

With the price of parts and labor, it wasn't worth repairing. So I spent a lot

 of time online last night and today, researching different brands, prices,

 and reviews. When every dollar counts, you gotta do your homework!

 

monday morning

 It's gray and gloomy out there today.

And yes ~ that's my tiny back yard. Those big houses are right on top of us

and I hate it. When we moved in here 22 years ago, it was all woods behind

our house. I'm so glad that Brian and Phil planted a row of arborvitaes 

ten years ago. They offer a little bit of privacy.

I love grapefruit. I eat one just about every day.

 The t-shirt I'm wearing today. Isn't this awesome?

I found it at Anderson's Bookshop.

Speaking of books, I finished two this weekend.

This is the one that's next on my reading list. I'm on GoodReads,

if you want to add me as a "friend". 

 

Guess it's no surprise that I love word puzzles. The only newspaper we get

is the Sunday Chicago Tribune. I always work the Jumble.

I love snoozing kitties all over the house...

 

 Zippo almost makes a complete circle!

 

In constant motion...this and the washer and dryer. I think the dishes

and laundry multiply faster than rabbits in my house.

Loving the bright colors against the gray wall in the main bathroom. 

Found this new towel at TJ Maxx.

 Now it's off the the grocery store to pick up a few things before

my yoga class later this evening. How's your Monday going?

fun: adjective ~ amusing, entertaining, or enjoyable

A new rooster joined the flock on top of the refrigerator.

Say hello to Mr. Blue with White Polka Dots.

I found him at HomeGoods, and bonus ~ on clearance!

 Another fun thing and total last-minute impulse buy near the checkout:

Cool paper straws. Makes drinking water a little more exciting.

That's my son's mustache glass, by the way. 

Much more exciting though, is meeting a blogger friend in person!

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of meeting Jane from Blondie's Journals.

We'd been emailing back and forth for quite awhile and finally decided to meet

for lunch. We had a gabfest over our meals at The Cheesecake Factory.

Jane is so lovely and sweet. It's funny how you can meet someone in person

and feel like you already know them because you're familiar with their blog.

Hope you've had some fun in your life this week!

 

quiet easter ~ and new living room drapes

 Easter was a rather quiet holiday. It was the three of us, plus my mom, father-in-law,

and two of my sisters-in-law. We kept it casual. Instead of having a fancy ham dinner,

we decided to do ham sandwiches with sides. I baked a spiral ham and put out rye

bread, rolls, onions, tomatoes, and romaine. Sides were homemade coleslaw and

potato salad, fruit salad, and baked beans. Dessert was lemon bars (I do make mean

lemon bars, if I do say so myself!) and my mom's homemade pecan pie.

I only took a few pictures yesterday, like these cute little peat pots with

wheat grass that Penny made. I put them on top of my microwave with
bunnies peeking out.

My mom brought her sweet, little dog ~ LuLu.

Who doesn't like a man that does dishes?!

And, now on to the drapes...these are the ones I bought at IKEA.

I had them hemmed, we hung them up, and I really like them! I think

they soften up the living room. However, the panel on the right is driving

me batty. See how the inside part doesn't hang exactly right? It turns

in in the middle, then juts out at the bottom. The left panel hangs perfectly!

Any ideas how I can "train" a curtain to hang properly?!

I also put the console table back by the front door, underneath the mirror.

I think it looks best here. I had moved it into our bedroom and it was just "OK".

This is going to be its permanent spot. (Pinky swear.)

 

I like how the curtains soften up the starkness of the fireplace wall, too.

Thanks so much for visiting ~ I love my blogger friends and all your comments!

Just FYI, I always reply after every comment directly on this blog.

Linking up to Tweak it Tuesday