What's Been Happening the Last Several Months

Since the first of the year I've had sciatica. Then I went into physical therapy for it. After 4 months I'm somewhat better but still a burning hurt in my hamstrings. I'm now under the care of a massage therapist who is doing myofascial release for that area of my body. I am uncomfortable much of the time, but I have faith I'll be much better soon.

But during all this I had a meltdown because of being in PT and Chiropractic also. I'm getting better with the crying but I'm still a bit weepy at least every day or two. I'm also very, very tired. I have some women who are a great support for me.

We were planning a trip to California, where hubby would go to Fresno to a model RR train convention and I would stay with our daughter. I decided to stay here in our home. It's an 11 hour trip to the SF Bay area where hubs would leave me with our daughter for 10 days. Then he would travel to Fresno and pick me up on the way back. Just about everyone had me convinced to go so I wouldn't be alone. At the last moment, I sat my hubby down and told him I'd changed my mind. I wanted to stay in my home, my comfort zone. This was terribly important to me.

He left early Monday morning. When he got to Reno he called me and told me he cried pulling away from our home. He was sad leaving me alone. I appreciated his sentiments more than you could ever, ever imagine but I felt good about my decision. I assured him I was fine and he called every day to see how I was doing. I suppose this happens when you're in the twilight years of your life. Sure I cry each day for missing the love of my life for a solid 9 days and pray that we're both well and have no problems. I told him on the phone tonight this is the last time we're apart. No more conventions, only going to visit kids, grandkids and great grandgirls. That's it. It is so much easier being in my own comfort zone, cry alone, go to a local restaurant if I want to and sleep in my own luxurious bed here at home. And I can clean my house and do some projects that have been put on hold for so long. But I'm getting much better and have friends who actually love me very much. I'll be fine. But, yes, it definitely took a lot out of me. I am getting my groove back though, trust me!
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If you love red, white and blue kitchens this will get your heart pumping. I think it's fabulous!

And an exotic bedroom on a step-up level is pretty enticing also.

If only I had this large a space to work in! But I don't do a whole lot of crafting anymore.

I've always loved this look on steps and those plants, which the name escapes me at the moment. ;-)

I love this chair—color, tufted back and on wheels also.

This actually looks quite like a shop with its tall wall but it could be a home. Gorgeous idea no matter what.

I very much like vignettes like this.

I actually have one of these little cages in my living room but it has roses in it. Easy way to add pizzazz to a room.

Beautiful Old World gardens.

Clever way to show off your dishes and store them at the same time.

My friend, Rhea, paints these little birdhouses. I am the recipient of one of these, plus a few other painted things she's sent me through the years. They are displayed in various rooms of my home. I love the way she paints. She's very clever and very "neat" in what she does. She's been very sick for a long time and just lost her young hubby to a medical error when he had an appendectomy. I've talked to her on the phone and want to try and keep it up as she's very special to me.

I love the colors of this room, yellow and pink. That is my favorite color combo. Those colors are stunning together.

A very tidy and lovely office and craft room from all the fabrics behind the doors in the dark cabinet. Just beautiful.

Clever and gorgeous way to store trims.

Another idea for a birdcage.

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Time for an Official Break

It's been a long 10 months for me. I've decided to make it official by telling you what's been going on and telling you I am taking a long break. I don't know for how long but since I love blogging so much and haven't been consistent with it for a while I thought I'd just make it official: I am taking a break and not sure when I'll be back.

It started with the sciatica in my left leg and hip in the early part of this year. That took me a long time to figure out why so much pain. But then after months of exercising and chiropractic and massage something else happened.

I was getting out of bed one night to go to the bathroom and as I arose from the bed and turned I felt a "snap" or "pull" as I thought about it later on. It was intensely painful. This went on for a couple of weeks before I went in to the emergency room one night. (I already had some pain pills from the sciatica so I wasn't in any big hurry until things got worse.) I thought I had pulled a groin muscle. That's where the pain was, groin, around the upper part of the left leg. After 4 visits and 4 shots of the "heavy duty stuff" in about 2 weeks, I finally got a doctor who thought it was something else and ordered an MRI.

She scheduled it immediately and found out there were lots of things going on: "arthritic changes" (whatever that means), disk bulges, spinal stenosis (abnormal narrowing), referral to spinal surgeon who does the "minimally invasive" of this kind of surgery and more PT when that's done. Can't you tell I'm just thrilled?! I've spent the last 5 months doing physical therapy every single day to a minimum of help and now I get to do more? Well, it is what it is. So I just won't have the physical or mental capacity to blog a lot at all so I'm just not making any plans to do it for some time. I may drop in once in a while but my focus at the moment is to get rid of the pain. My nerve endings are just shooting pain down my legs horribly and pretty much consistently. It's mostly affecting my left side but there is a little pain in both legs sometimes. I'm pretty much on pain killers most of the time. I don't drive much at all, don't get out much at all either. I'm frustrated and feeling sorry for myself on a pretty regular basis. But I am a very strong woman and will do what I have to do to get better. Prayers are always appreciated and I pray for others also. So that's it for a while. I'll still do Pinterest though as that doesn't require a lot of time and I'm not consistent on my pinning as I've got over 16,000 pins up now. But mostly I want to thank those of you who visit here and especially the few who leave comments. It's encouraging to know some people care enough to do that. Thank you! And I'm leaving you with just a few of some of my favorite rooms to view.
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I especially love the windows, the pink sofa and the fresh flowers around this room.

I don't usually like high windows or ceilings but this house just speaks to my soul with the beautiful rooms open to each other. And I don't especially like rooms open to each other but with such large rooms flowing beautifully into each other this is definitely on my list of favorite rooms. Not saying I'd buy it even if I could afford it, just saying I like it a lot.

This has a coziness I like as well as an unusual staircase in such a small house.

This is one of my all-time favorites room. Just like the red and yellow together.

And again, the red draws me in. A cozy room to chat in.

I also love this room, especially since it is designed by Charles Faudree, one of my favorite designers. It is genuinely homey without being too exaggerated. Lush sofas, ottomans and cozy, comfortable chairs. The floor would be easy to clean. Windows admit a lot of light.

Cute is what I'd call this room. Ottomans are a big part of my decor because I truly want my guests to put their feet up if they prefer. I always, always have an ottoman in front of my chair and an extra two sitting around for guests. Essential in my home.

A bit more sophisticated than usual but I still like the decor. It's not an elegant room, just elegantly appointed. Groupings in which to chat are essential to me because hubby can chat with a guest about which I have no interest and I can chat with someone who shares my interests.

I'd call this a family-friendly room  and I like its accessibility to the kitchen for a family room. Again, all the essentials I love: colors, coziness and foot/leg comfort with ottomans.

A bit more elegant than usual but I do love the room with its two sofas and furniture placement. That's very, very important to me.

Elegant and gorgeous is all I have to say about this room.

Shades of pink and lavender drew me to this lovely room.

A very traditional room to which I am always drawn but updated traditional.

Again, all the essentials for me in a lovely room.

I love the French look about this room. I could live in this room very easily but I'd have to have some pink in it. Beautiful!

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Redoing Some Rooms In The House

As I've said before, we're "down sizing" the house a bit. Through the years my hubby has put up with me buying lots of froufrou for this house. We're now getting rid of a lot of it. I recently had a woman in our church ward and her two oldest girls come over and help me get rid of a lot of stuff in the craft room. Having 4 bedrooms in this house only one has a bed in it—ours. The rest were used for offices and craft/sewing rooms. In this stage of our lives the time has come to scale down and redo the rooms. We need at least one bed in one of the other rooms. So that's happening now. When our granddaughter and her family come, our daughter comes or our son comes with his boys we need at least one bed.

I attacked the plant shelves, cleaned them up and put less back up there. Put a few things on craigslist also. Now the time has come to actually take stuff to the thrift stores. A huge desk and credenza, books, etc. I buy very little for this house anymore as it's decorated pretty much as I like and the furniture I buy is Ethan Allen and that lasts a long time.

I'm not one that has to change frequently. When I achieve the look I want and love, why change it? I keep it fresh by moving things around in the rooms or from room to room for a fresh look. I cannot tell you the number of times someone has come to our home after many times before and said, "Oh, I've never seen that before." Well, one reason is because I change things around and two, there is so much "fluff" in this house they don't catch it all at once.
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Hubs and I went to see the movie "American Sniper" and absolutely loved it. In fact, it was showing on all 14 screens of each of the 2 huge cinema complexes in our city and one hour apart. We still had to wait in line to see it. I think it was about one hero's insight into his job. And he was a hero in my book. He was ready to defend my country from evil. When it finished with scenes from his funeral and memorial in a huge stadium in Texas and highway over ramps lined with thousands of people and the freeways lined with thousands of people you could not help but cry. When the movie was over there wasn't a dry eye in that theater and silence was overwhelming. It just caught you in the throat. I've never seen our complex so crowded with people. My heart swelled at the love those people have for our country. So if Hollywood would make more "hero" movies they might make more money as I keep seeing where "American Sniper" is on its way to be an all-time highest grossing war movie. My congratulations to Clint Eastwood and the hero, Chris Kyle. War sure is hell but someone has to protect our country and the Marines, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard and our policemen do a bang up job! My heart will always be with our fighting men.
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Loving this porch.

I visited Pierre Deux in Carmel once and it was a feast for the eyes with all the fabrics they had. This is one of my favorites.

I'm not so sure that sofa would be comfortable to sit on but I love looking at it.

And yes, I love this room.

A bit of purple eye candy.

Those pretty bowls on the middle bottom shelf are what caught my eye.

Don't you just love quaintness in these small towns?

If I ever redo some of my lamps I'm definitely doing this on one of them.

Another one of "my kinda room"!

Beautiful table, setting and seating.

Love these potholders but I never see them anywhere around where I live.

See what you can do with a plain old stool, pink paint, ribbon and upholstery tacks. Voilà.

This is in England, another quaint shop that the British do so well.

Elegance combined with Farmhouse style.

I love this setting but especially the bougainvillea draping over.

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Just Rambling Today

Okay, I’ve been a bit lazy lately.I woke up last Monday in an absolutely euphoric mood. It was odd but I got a lot done with my hubby. Getting back on track is a slow process but it’s happening. What have I been doing? Well, for the most part I’m being a slug watching trashy videos on Netflix on my iPad. I love not having commercials but since we gave up television 20 years ago it’s not something in my life but it truly is great watching old things without any commercials.

I especially like Poirot and Foyle’s War, two British series taking place in the early 40s. The costumes are so much more modest than the modern day movies. I got hooked on Burn Notice. There is so much action and comedy in it I wish there were more to watch. Great series. But Sherlock is absolutely the best series I’ve ever seen. Everything about that series went well, the cinema effects, actors getting along with each other so well, action, the main character being very talented playing a high functioning psycho. Just delightful.
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Then of course the grand girls being here for Thanksgiving and having them be so funny with their antics and sayings was a true delight.

Miss C told her mother that her baby sister is a little nutcracker in the moonlight of her heart. (Where does she come up with this things?!)

Then her mummy saw her crying out in the yard because a bee was chasing her and told her mum that she forgot how to survive.

One day her mum was telling her about dinosaurs because she was interested after I sent her a link for a diorama of the NY museum on dinosaurs. She was fascinated with dinosaurs then so her mum was trying to tell her anything she could about them. I think it got a bit quirky because Miss C then told her mom to “get a grip, Mum. This isn’t funny. It’s about dinosaurs.” She comes up with the strangest things.

Her mum was telling us in her preschool the teachers were telling her that Miss C knew a lot of words. Miss C said, “No, mummy, I have a large vocabulary.” This kid will never have a self esteem problem! :-)

Lately she’s been punctuating her sentences with “don’t you know” every time she tells us something. Sigh…..

Anyway, she’s a delight to us but I think she’s gonna be a handful as a teenager.
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I've been a bit nostalgic lately since we're scaling down the "junk" in our house.

I'm seriously thinking of Ethan Allen and another new chair for our family room.

I've always liked pink and green together, but my favorite color combo is pink and a beautiful shade of yellow such as the yellow in the French settee in the photo above.

One of my best friends would love this room. She's more into traditional decorating.

For being so small I like this kitchen a lot. Perhaps it's the open door to the patio and the pink accessories.

See, eye candy can be real candy also! I'm been chowing down on Mounds bars a lot lately. I have an uncontrollable sweet tooth lately!

I truly like this elevated dining room. The rest of the house must be gorgeous also.

I am ALL about froufrou and netting!!

Another room my friend would like also. Her hubby loves when they go to the woods and rent a cabin. It's the only time he gets rest being the manager of a large store.

I've always had a fondness for this color of blue. Back in the 50s and 60s we called this French Blue.

This looks as if it could be an English home. Comfy and pretty.

What can I say about this beautiful nook in a kitchen? I love the color and the window treatment.

Okay, ladies, it's a gorgeous home but would you really want to clean it or replace the roof when needed?

I have 3 of these tiny birdcages in my home and put flowers in them. One hangs over our garden tub in our bathroom, one in our bedroom and one in our family room hanging in a corner.

I love the colors in that chair and the blue of the leather sofa. I do like to have a leather chair in our home also.

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