OK, OK, enough already

Lavenderchick grew weary with my procrastination so I finally decided to rebel against my perfectionism and just take a few pictures of the bar I have been writing about for months now. This is the bar that makes my Modelo so happy.

Here is the top. All these images were cut out of a planner book Mr. Kevin gave me for my birthday about 10 years ago. And then my super new neighbor Lauren had a book of Mexican folk art and advertising images that she sacrificed for the projecto.

It was really fun and easy and so if you'd like to make one of these happy places to sit and solve the problems of the world, here's all you need:

1. Friend who is raising money for a vacation and wants to unload their ugly bar on you, "because I know you can do something cute with it."

2. Motivation to do something fabulous with ugly bar because you'll never hear the end of it from your husband and brother who had to help you move it. And really, it's destroying your chi just sitting around in your garage it's so ugly. See:

3. Smart and creative neighbor who is interested in helping you "create" in a steaming hot garage.

4. At least one bottle of red wine.

5. Maybe a few beers for when you get thirsty.

6. A chance bottle of Modge Podge you don't know why you have.

7. Scissors

8. Leftover paint in fun and funky colors.

9. Palm fronds you just happened to have trimmed off your palm trees that you can rescue from the compost pile. If you don't have any, call me. I have a little more trimming to do.

10. Staple gun, any do-it-yourselfer woman's best friend.

11. Great new lime green spray paint from Home Depot for bar stools. They've sure have come a long way with spray paint colors, havent' they?

12. Briwax or gel stain to age and/or "antique" it all. It needs to look like it's been salvaged from Francisco's Bar in Boquillas.

So there you go. That's the bar I've been raving about. We had such fun putting it together. And the sad part is we haven't had much time since to belly up to it. But we will.

I have been like a woman without a country, a cordless phone without a base.

A month or more ago, my old hand-me-down laptop died. It was helped along by a crazed, my-spacing 13-year-old and two manic monkey four-year-olds, at least according to the 13-year-old, who blamed it all on her younger sisters. Anyway, I was without a computer at home. I contemplated what kind of spiffy new laptop I would order for myself. My darling husband, ever loving and oh-so generous, sent up a trial balloon that he might get a new one for himself and give me his current, burned up laptop. You can imagine how well that idea went over, especially since it was his old broken-down laptop that had up and died on me in the first place. He slinked off to dream up other great ideas, tail tucked between his legs.

And then I didn't have a desk at home. I had moved my home office to the office, before I couldn't take working there anymore and fired myself. So you can imagine how productive I have been and it's been driving productive me crazy.

Tonight all that changed. I couldn't decide what kind of laptop to get so I just brought my computer from the office home. I brought a desk too. And then next week I'm going to go get all my note cards, postage, pens and files. My stuff. So I can be a person. A productive person with stuff.

And did I mention that my oh-so generous hubby did actually buy me a fancy fax/scanner/copy machine? It was new, and he just took it out of the box. My new plan is to learn how to scan.

At this point you must be wondering, what the heck is that hideous looking piece of furniture at the top of the blog. Well, it's the beginnings of the bar that Lauren and I transformed one Sunday afternoon in a manic episode. I've been promising to take pictures of the finished product and share them with the world, but I keep procrastinating because the vignette is not yet complete. I'm busy and I haven't had a desk. And a few other excuses I won't bore you with.

Have you ever seen such hideous pleather? Rest assured it's rotting away in a landfill right now.

In praise of red

Red has always been my favorite color. Sometimes I'll wander away from it, but I always come back. My first room of my own in Minnesota I designed in orange, yellow and green, a combination of stipes and floral wallpapers. I'm sure subsequent homeowners stripped it right off immediately.


Then in Alpine, I went through a blue phase. I'll always remember both my parents helping me with that and allowing me to do my creative thing is planning that room. Then there were the bubblegum pink twin beds I painted for me and Debi's one-bedroom apartment in San Angelo. ("Hey Debi, how's San Angeloooooo?") Just thinking of that place can keep me giggling for days.


Somehow I've never really decorated with red. But get a load of this kitchen.

My only role on this job was trying to fix what had been done by someone else they mistakenly let paint and "antique" the cabinets. The paint scuffed everytime you touched it and they not only have two big teenager kids but also a huge, ferocious dog that barked and growled at me (while I was trying to be in my groove ...)

These cabinets are now luxuriously beautiful if you ask me. My antiquing process sealed in the paint, whatever it was and whatever its problem was. Who could say? That painter flew the coop.

Here the paint looks a little orange, but it's really just my flash washing it out. I love the use of drawers under the stovetop. People just don't usually have enough drawers in a kitchen. Lower cabinets, if they don't have pull-outs, are just a hassle.

The lesson here -- painted cabinets are just cool. And see how much more beautiful and fun they can be when they are red? Mine are the color of cardboard but they have been done with this same technique.

I am helping a builder friend pick some colors for a spec house -- that really cool one on the lake Lavenderchick told you about. I asked about cabinets and they told me: "We'll probably do a stained, oak cabinet ...."

When I got together with the interior decorators they use for selects, we promptly vetoed that bad, bad idea right away. Not in a lake house. Not with travertine. As my daughter Mary would say, "it's just not correct."

Call it a breakdown in communication

There was a terrible breakdown in communication. It's pretty common in our house, but when Paw Paw arrived at the twins' birthday party with a puppy, all I could utter was "Oh noooooo! There's been a terrible breakdown in communication!" My husband shot me that look. You know the one.

"What," Paw Paw asked increduously. "The girls wanted a puppy. You didn't tell me you already got one."

"Well you said you were going to Wal-Mart to get their presents," I exclaimed back. "You always get them gift cards!" I was beginning to freak.

"I was going to Walmart ... to get the dog!" Paw Paw answered heatedly back. There was nothing we could do at that point. We just had to make the best of it. I suppose since I had twins I have to do everything in twos.

So the girls got a little brown chihuahua to name Bambi like they wanted all along, ever since the Puppy Parade when Caroline cried the whole time.

Isn't she seriously cute?

She was about as big as a hamster. Smaller than a guinea pig for sure. Too young to have been sold, straight off the puppy mill. I like to think we rescued her from a horrible life. Technically she is Shih Tsu and Chihuahua. She's what we call a Designer Dog.

Here's Rooster with his baby sister. She makes him look like a Big Boy. He loves her so much. But he does like to pounce on her and roll her around like a bouncy ball.

OK, enough of this. I swear I have fascinating decorative painting pics to share. I haven't given it all up for puppy raising.

Oh and one more thing. Guess what the big lesson was, as I struggled to make it through those first two tragic weeks of puppy crate/potty training?

I do have enough love to go around. My new key word, which I should get tatooed somewhere important, is .... perseverance.