Baking Frenzy

Red velvet cake for dessert! =o)

Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Last weekend we were watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and was just entering the wizarding world when S2 start screaming from the other room telling us that something is wrong with the world and to look outside. At this time, we realize that everything inside the house (lights were off because of the movie) had this eerie orange glow. As we rushed outside, we just cannot believe at how orange everything was.....and I truly mean orange. I know the usual colors of everything around the house but if I didnt know any better, I would have really thought that the whole world was orange. I took a video of the under 10 minute event but here were the pictures that I could capture with my camera. These pictures have not been photoshopped or color altered in any way. This was EXACTLY how the world looked around our little area in those few minutes... The time that this happened was a little bit after 5:30 so it was still pretty light outside. Super spoooooooooky, wasn't it???

Cabbage Update

Remember when they first planted the cabbages? here and what it looked after about a week? Well this is what it looks like now 20 days later...


S2's bottom leaves dont look too happy because they have to lift them up every day to water them. T's seem to be faring better.

By the way, T also seeded cucumbers, marigolds, basil and painted daisies. We just repotted her cucumbers last weekend. The others are still growing.

Trayvon Martin Protest

There was a protest for Trayvon Martin at the University with a march that led to one our of institutes before going to the F.B.I. building downtown. I really do hope that some justice would come out of this awful killing. My prayers are for his parents and family.

Puppets

T seems to have taken over the household's creativity production since I've been sickly. She delightfully showed me her wonderful creations when I arrived home from work. She made all these from her arts and crafts class in her after school program.
She made: a Pig and Pikachu (make sure to look at their tails!!! =o))

A bear and a turtle

You've got to see their backs!

She also made a dog (of course!) and a Martian!


Pretty cute, huh? =o)

Lightsabers!!

So I stated that our weekend at Disney started at Animal Kingdom but actually Animal Kingdom was our second stop. Our first stop was at Hollywood Studios where we went to the Star Wars area. We just could not miss that! The highlight of this park was the gift shop where you can make your very own lightsaber.

Right away, the kids fell in line to make their fancy swords...


Part by part they built their own...

Until it was just as they liked them....

But of course we could not leave the place until the biggest kid himself made his own lightsaber too!!!!

St. Patrick's Day at the Animal Kingdom

Thanks to some wonderful friends, we had a wonderful time at the Disney Parks this St. Patrick's Day Weekend!

As usual, we camped at Ft. Wilderness and had an amazing time. With our park hopper tickets, we started at Animal Kingdom. For those of you that have never been there before, March is DEFINITELY the best time of the year to go! Take it from a Floridian! The weather is wonderful and the animals are the most cooperative too! None of them seem to mind all the noise of the safari trucks nor all the eyes and flashbulbs pointing and flashing at them! Here is the first animal who did not even move as we passed within a few feet of his legs!

Then this elephant decided to really give us a good show as we passed by him on the lake.

I LOVE elephants. They are one of my most favorite animals. They are soooo beautiful!

Then this rhinoceros decided to cross the road right there in front of us then turned to look at us!

Even the gorillas decided to come really close to the windows and have us stare at them!

This male gorilla was the funniest of all. He has decided that he liked the look of a backpack. So he grabbed one of the keeper's feeding bags and decided to sport it on his back! He walked around with this on his back and stood there posing with it!

It was a great start to a wonderful saturday!

Still Sick

So I am still under the weather after the long wait for Student Day.. So there's not a whole lot to blog about. However, I did put some dent last week in the ENORMOUS pile of scraps in several bins in my studio room. According to S1, it's not a studio but a "hoarder's" problem. =o/ I guess it was time to start doing something about it. It's just that I hate to just dispose of things when I KNOW that it can be recycled.

So.. with the help of a telephone book, I followed a tutorial from Film in the Fridge of piecing my scraps with the help of paper.

By doing a little every day, (before the kids wake up and after they have fallen asleep) I was able to do 20 or so pieces. I really am able to make a twin size quilt with these but am thinking of at least a queen size. I have a couple of friends that just got engaged and this would make a wonderful wedding present! =o)

Mary Poppins Bag

It seems that no matter how much laundry I do there will ALWAYS be something to launder. My laundry basket, which has now become 3 baskets, are like Mary Poppins bag....it's bottomless!!!! And will you believe it if I tell you that I do the laundry almost every day?

So, I wanted to share with you the room that I am in the most! My laundry room!! This is also the room that you first enter in from the garage. That's the garage door that you see on the left. All of our doors and trims are painted in a brownish/black. It was specially mixed at our neighborhood paint store to get the right color that I had in mind. Not quite black but not quite brown either.

This is the best picture that I could take with the lighting. S1 LOVES energy efficient bulbs that I claim is probably the cause of my eyesight going bad. There's hardly enough light to see in there!

This room is fairly small at approximately 6 feet by 14 feet. I really didnt want it to be any bigger than it needed to be because I wanted the square footage more in the public areas of the house. Why all the fabric draped over the machines? Well, since this room is a main pass-through for us it has also become the junk collector. Shoes, purses, jackets,..just about anything that you have in hand that you drop as soon as you enter. So I had to put something to protect the machines from getting scratched. See the pencil sharpener at the right corner? That pencil sharpener is dated 1900. It was S1's grandmother's sharpener in her classroom when she was a teacher. (I have to confirm this with Mom K since S1 tends to not be completely accurate with things ;oP But the date is correct!)

Here's the junk drawers and the keeper of our keys.

Why the piece of tile on the cabinet? This is S1's catch-all place. All of his coins and whatever is in his pocket gets dumped here. So the tile is to again save the cabinet from any distress.

This is probably the only time that you will see this room this clean! ;oP

Student Piano Day and Spring!

T had her piano day adjudication at the university this past weekend. It was a day of waiting for me as I sat and waited and walked her from her different tests to her piano audition. Her piano teacher emailed us yesterday with her results and we are all so proud of her. Her hard work throughout the year paid off and she has advanced yet again to the next level. I forgot my camera and was not able to take any pictures of her on her day! (Bad Mommy!) =o(

The design of the music building was so that a constant breeze flowed through the hallways and despite my layers of clothing, I was still cold. So I am now sickly with a horrible chest cough and a sore throat. I hope that this does not turn into anything worse. =o(

Because of this, the rest of the weekend was unproductive with alot of chores on my to-do list still left. One of the must-dos was to try to make a dent at trimming the hedges. They have been untouched since last fall and they are all overgrown.

I must say though that the azaleas are quite spectacular this year and the magnolias are doing their fair share in the spotlight. I do wish that the deer would stop munching on them though so that they could show their full potential!

At this time of year, I am extremely happy at the plant choices that I made by planting the bright pink azaleas and the more subtle pinks of the magnolias towering above. They really highlight the greys of the English manor style house well. As the azaleas stop their blooms and their bright green foliage kicks in, the bright fuschia blooms of the crape myrtles take over in the spotlight. So except in the dead of winter, the house is always amidst pink blooms! =o)

Here is my most favorite tree in our whole property. It is a Japanese Plum tree. This tree is truly spectacular. When it awakens in the spring, it gets fully covered with pink blooms. Once the heat of the summer deepens, the blooms turn into reddish-brown leaves and stays that way until the winter. It is in our backyard to the right of our picture window seen from the main formal living room area.

Nichols and Stone

Yesterday has got to be one of my best "thrifting" days! I have been looking for Windsor chairs for my kitchen for like forever. I have entertained the idea of just getting any garage sale chair and refinishing it myself but the thought of trying to do this with all them spindles have erased this idea from my head!

So off I went on my regular Saturday morning jaunt and what do I find on my second stop? Windsor Chairs! A pair of them, in the color I want.....and even better, a couple of antiques made by Nichols and Stone!!!!! These are actually side chairs and I wish that I knew a little more about their history.

For those of you that dont know, Nichols and Stone were among, if not THE leading manufacturers of the American Windsor chair. This pair (worth even more because they are a pair) were made for Centenary College in neighboring New Jersey. I am now the proud owner of a pair of them!! =o)

At auction nowadays with the more reputable auction houses, these chairs would probably fetch a price of no less than $300 a piece!


If I tell you how much I actually spent for these chairs, I absolutely think that you would faint in amazement! =o)

If you are a collector of 19th century pieces, or an antique dealer, or just an avid fan and know-all about Nichols and Stone, Hitchcock or an alumni or history buff about Centenary College and know anything about these chairs, please let me know!!! I'd really love to know their story!!!

Statement Necklace

It's all over the magazines and in the runways... statement necklaces are the in thing. So I decided that I'm going to make myself one. But here's the challenge.... I'm only going to make it out of materials that I already have. So the first thing I see is wire..

Heavy gauge. Probably at least a 16 or maybe even a 14. So I began to cut and to roll.... but still not knowing what the heck I'm really going to do...

But I was able to make 17 pieces out of the heavy gauge wire that I had.
Liking the color, I decided to go with the brown hues. So I pulled all the beads in those hues and started beading.

I dont know what to do next and sat there for a while stumped. I'll put it aside and wait until tomorrow. Maybe something will come to mind.... stay tuned!

A Present from C2

This post is for my sister. There are three of us girls and in highschool, it was easier for us just to go with a short nickname. We have a strict Dad and so we were always stuck together because that was the only way that we could get permission to go out. I am the oldest and I am C1. Our maiden name starts with a C. The middle sister is C2 and the baby is C3.

Anyways, I am lucky to be blessed with 2 sisters that ABSOLUTELY LOVE and I mean LOVE to go shopping. By that I mean clothes shopping....and they give me alot of hand me downs! =o) They know every single brand name that is out there. As usual, I am the odd sheep of the bunch with my style being more Bohemian and vintage. I just love the turn of the century looks and the fashions before the 60s. I adore brocaded fabrics and textiles that have a story of their own. Which explains my passion for sewing and textile artistry.

So back to my sisters, C2 is the one in the trio that is really into shoes. She is a size larger than me. With today's current shoe fad, I am amazed at how they can wear (and balance) these super HIGH heels of today. I just never seemed to have recovered from my pregnancy days and remained at outfitting myself with mostly flat shoes.

Just a couple of weeks ago, my mom gave me a box of shoes from C2. Luckily for me, it didnt fit the friend who she bought them for. When I opened the box, I just stared at the shoes. Because they were not "my typical", I found them fascinating. lol. You guys probably think I'm crazy but I really am used to flat ballerina type shoes. But I love everything about these from their high platforms to their high heels to the super large cute bow. (and I dont like bows!) I put one of those heel backs on them and they fit me just fine. I still don't know to where I would actually wear them but I love knowing that I have them. =o)


So this post is spurred by this new blog that I am following Wendy's Lookbook which you can also find on the right of my page under favorite blogs. Although her blog is absolutely amazing because of her fashion style, what really started me following her was her social justice work on juvenile reform and underprivileged youths....and she has a great scarf tutorial!!!!!

So, this will probably be the ONLY fashion/clothing post that I will ever put on my blog, but know that I am now following Wendy's blog so hopefully this means that I will be inspired to change my Bohemian look somewhat! (Hey, she's got a Bohemian style dress similar to mine where all she did was cinch a belt around it! So I'm not that far away...... lol!

Bonnie Mega Cabbage

Every Year, Bonnie Plants hosts a cabbage contest open only to third graders in the United States. The Bonnie Program is open to any third grade students whose teachers register their class. Only one student per state is considered a winner and each of the 52 students nationwide win a $1000 scholarship. Of course, the twins called their Jaja right away to ask for pointers on how to win this contest. Here they were last month at planting time.


Here are their cabbages taken just last week. S2's on the right is getting quite large, isn't it? These plants are in a 35 gallon pots! It's fun to see them grow!

Ebony and Ivory

Today was T's Spring Piano Recital. She played wonderfully and we were all SO proud of her. Her cousins drove into town just for her recital. As I watched the cousins play together, I thought how neat it was to see the variety in the family. =o)