Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Easter treats & 12

Tomorrow my son is having an Easter party at school. I borrowed (ok, maybe I stole) an idea from my sweet & abundantly talented friend Melonie and made some treats for his classmates to enjoy. (I hope you don't mind Mel!)



My 6th grade daughter was quite jealous since parties are a thing of the past for her grade and she so wanted to bring these to school too! Oh well.

Speaking of the 6th grader, I usually try to keep my children from making appearances on my blog, but I couldn't let this day go by without an acknowledgement. It's hard to believe that it was 12 years ago today that she was born.


Happy 12th Birthday my sweet and especially spunky girl! We love you.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Oh where, oh where has my little Spring gone?

I knew we were going to be spoiled. About 3 weeks ago, we had signs of Spring. Like real signs of Spring (for NY anyway). The sun was shining, the temps made it into the high 50s, I was taking nice long walks outdoors, finally able to ditch the boots and down jackets. Ahhh...it was heaven.

And then just like that--it was gone. All just a passing memory. It's been cold and gray ever since. I think it was 9 degrees overnight on Saturday. That darn Spring, it pulled the rug out from under us!

My husband & I had to go to a dinner dance Saturday night and there was no way that the cold was going to get the best of me. I refused to wear a coat over my dress and of course, no pantyhose, even if I did have to freeze my legs off. I would not sacrifice style for the cold. No I most certainly would not. So there, cold! See? I won!



While I'm continuing to search for Spring, I took a detour and ended up at @ etsy. (as though I have nothing else to do). I needed to get myself in the spirit and thought that maybe Spring was hiding out there. Wanna see some pretty Spring things?

How adorable is he? From The Bakers Daughter

Perfectly pretty in pink from JBM Designs

Isn't this lovely? From Eight Seasons Warning: This etsy shop has some seriously beautiful bags! (Don't say I didn't warn you.)

Aren't these great? From Daisy Chestnut

So there you have it--some of my favorite etsy finds.
And hey, if you have found Spring, can you please give it a gentle nudge (or maybe just a big, old, nasty shove) in my direction? Thank you. Happy Monday!

Monday, March 22, 2010

A touch of Easter


Since today is Tuesday, I'm going to do something that I've never done before. I'm joining Marty at A Stroll Thru Life for Tabletop Tuesday. Here is my Easter-inspired coffee table:


What do ya think? Simple but pretty? Now I know I'm taking a HUGE risk with the pedestal filled with jellybeans, but I really like the way it looks. I've already forewarned (or maybe it was threatened?) my curious children (especially that 8 year old) not to pull the cover off the pedestal because there will be a jellybean avalanche. So far so good. I'm just hoping he doesn't one day feel that a jellybean avalanche would be a fun thing.
If you get a chance, pop on over to Marty's and see what other talented bloggers are displaying on their tables. Have a great week!

Friday, March 19, 2010

St. Joseph's Day

Today is the day we celebrate St. Joseph's Day. What is St. Joseph's Day you ask?
Here's the scoop about St. Joseph's Day borrowed from Wikipedia:

In Sicily, where St. Joseph is regarded by many as their Patron Saint, and many Italian-American communities, thanks are given to St. Joseph ("San Giuseppe" in Italian) for preventing a famine in Sicily during the Middle Ages. According to legend, there was a severe drought at the time, and the people prayed for their patron saint to bring them rain. They promised that if he answered their prayers, they would prepare a large feast to honor him. The rain did come, and the people of Sicily prepared a large banquet for their patron saint. The fava bean was the crop which saved the population from starvation, and is a traditional part of St. Joseph's Day altars and traditions. Giving food to the needy is a St. Joseph's Day custom. In some communities it is traditional to wear red clothing and eat a Sicilian pastry known as a Zeppole on St. Joseph's Day.
Upon a typical St. Joseph's Day altar, people place flowers, limes, candles, wine, fava beans, specially prepared cakes, breads, and cookies (as well as other meatless dishes), and zeppole. Foods are traditionally served containing bread crumbs to represent saw dust since St. Joseph was a carpenter. Because the feast occurs during Lent, traditionally no meat was allowed on the celebration table. The altar usually has three tiers, to represent the trinity.


I hardly ever wear green on St. Patrick's Day, but on St. Joseph's Day, you will always find me wearing red. It's been that way in my family for as long as I can remember. And the zeppole they speak of? Oh yeah, here they are:



These are the two different kinds of what we call St. Joseph's Day pastries-zeppole and sfinge. The zeppole has a vanilla custard cream filling and the sfinge has a ricotta cream filling (like a cannoli). Oh my word they are beyond delicious! I had half of each because I had to, right? It is St. Joseph's Day afterall! ;)
Have a happy weekend my friends!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The Magic of Alice in Wonderland

We finally got a chance to see Alice. Wow, we loved it! Sometimes there's nothing like seeing things through the bizarr-o eyes of Tim Burton. And Johnny Depp? Amazing, of course!




You gotta see it!

Friday, March 12, 2010

In need of ideas...

...but first, some background.
When we first bought our home, the room pictured below was actually the dining room. We thought it would make a better living room, so we did just that. Here she is on the day we closed on the house, July 2000:


If this was to be the living room, I knew the wallpaper had to go. (The photos were scanned from one of my scrapbooks, so I apologize if they're not the best quality.)

Two months after moving in, while the hubs was at work, I got busy and started removing the wallpaper. (against his advice of course!) Can you imagine what I found beneath the wallpaper? The plaster on one of the walls was completely destroyed (water damage)! Of course, I wanted to cry but I'm not sure whether it was because of the wall or because I knew my husband was going to be angry. Can you say, "Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do!"

I don't have any photos of the actual "plaster disaster" but here is my husband tearing it all down:

We managed to get the wall taken care of and drywall was installed (which also angered my husband because he hates drywall.)

My sisters and I then took to painting the walls. I went with a color from Home Depot called "Simmering Cider". To be honest, it's orange. It was a shock at first especially because I was coming from an all white-walled home. We immediately loved the color anyway, albeit bold.

Over the years, so much has changed in this room...the sofas, the end tables, coffee tables, entertainment centers, area rugs, etc. I still remained true to my orange walls though. Honestly, I still love them even now. However, the one thing I do not love and have never loved in this room is that one darn paneled wall! You see, after the big "plaster disaster" there was no way my husband was going to let me remove the paneled wall, so I've had to live with it. Believe me when I tell you, I tried and tried and tried to convince him to remove this paneling, but he stood firm, knowing all too well what most likely lies behind it...more trouble.

After almost 10 years, I recently decided I would throw in the towel and paint that darn paneled wall. I never wanted to paint it before because I thought that painting it orange like the rest of the room would make the cream colored fireplace stick out like a sore thumb. The decision was then made that I would rid myself of my favorite orange walls so that I could rid myself of that darn paneling.

Off to Home Depot I went, in search of a paint chips most likely in the beige family. Several days later however, hubs was watching a home improvement show and whoever it was, said if you have paneling and want to get rid of it, do it the right way and take it down, don't paint over it. Oh how I wish I could send that person a letter of thanks because that's all it took. After 10 years of uneventful persuasion, that's all my husband needed was a few sentences from a home improvement guy to get him to waiver. He actually said we can take the paneling down!

So, after this loooooong story, I finally come to my questions. What do you think I should do? Here is the room in its present state:




Now I realize this room doesn't look very cottage-y and I love cottage style, so of course that's sort of a problem. Do you agree that painting the wall orange like the rest will be an eyesore where the fireplace is concerned? Any ideas you'd like to share or thoughts? I appreciate anything you might want to suggest. Thanks!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

30 days until Easter

While glancing at the calendar today, I realized we are just 30 days away from Easter. Hmmmm. Can you guess what I'm thinking?

Time to decorate!

It's hard to think of Easter and Spring when there's still over 2 feet of snow on the ground, but to get myself in the mood I found all this loveliness from my friend Martha...








Ok, ok, I know I'm getting carried away with photos here. I'll stop. I promise.
Wait. Wait. One more. Please?


Darn that Martha!

I'm hoping to begin my decorating this weekend. After all, it is going to hit 40 degrees on Saturday. That'll make it positively Spring-like, a regular heat wave around here.
Tell me, do you decorate for Easter/Spring and if so, when will you start?

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