New Year Resolutions

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Do you make New Year Resolutions? Last year mine was to make my bedroom more luxurious. Amazingly it was a New Years resolution I kept! I not only repainted my bedroom furniture but I bought myself a memory foam mattress pad (best thing I ever bought) and a down comforter. I've now had a year of very comfortable sleeping. This year I'm taking it one step further. I'm going to try to relax more and allow myself more leisure time. This is not going to be that easy because I usually get up on Saturday mornings, have my coffee and get busy cleaning house, doing laundry, grocery shopping, gardening, cooking meals, working on whatever current project I have going on and the next thing I know it's Sunday evening and I'm exhausted. I'm going to try to take more time to have breakfast in bed, read out on the patio or just take a walk once in awhile. Doesn't that sound like a good resolution. Much better than the "I'm going to lose weight" one.

The camellias in front of my apartment are blooming already. Isn't that shade of pink beautiful! (click on the photo above to smell them....just kidding but you can see them better if you click on the photo)

More Blue and White Plates!

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All of these beautiful plates are gifts from Mary ~Little Red House.
Thank you Mary! I love every single one of them!

I hope every one had a very Merry Christmas. I've already taken down my tree and all my decorations. Once Christmas is over, I'm so tired of it all. It always looks so clean when all the decorations are gone!

Merry Christmas

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I want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas!

I may not be posting every day over the next week or so. I'm off of work for two weeks and will be busy painting furniture and my kitchen!

It's a frosty morning in Northern California

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Frosty photos from some of my favorites, originally uploaded by Romantic Home.

It 's a cold, frosty morning here. It was down to the mid 30s last night. I just hope it didn't kill some of my plants last night. I meant to cover my azaleas and gardenias and I forgot!

The frosty photos above are from other Flickr members. Aren't these photos gorgeous!

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee!

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If you are a Gilmore Girls fan, the title of this post may ring a bell. I (like Lorelai Gilmore) am a huge coffee lover! The little espresso cup above is new. Last week my group at work went out for our annual department Christmas lunch. After lunch we ordered coffee and one of my coworkers ordered espresso and it came in this adorable blue and white cup. I bet you're thinking I stole this aren't you? No, I didn't..I would never do that! My coworker suggested that I tell the waiter I love this cup and he will probably give it to me. He said his father-in-law does it all the time and he's always getting free things from restaurants. I'm not that bold! At all! So, my boss asks the waiter if I could have it! What a nice boss, huh? The waiter goes to ask his manager and comes back and says we can have it for $16. No thank you! I like it, but not for $16! but before I could even get that out, my boss tells him to wrap it up. This little cup and saucer was a gift from my boss.

The cappuccino cup above is from the Macy's Martha Stewart collection. I just bought one and figured I would go get a few more...I still need to do that. I usually drink my coffee black but every once in awhile I like a good cappuccino. I used to have a coffee maker that had a regular coffee pot and an espresso maker. The problem was the machine would run out of steam before I could get the milk foamed. I recently found a much better (and less expensive) way to make cappuccinos...
A stovetop espresso pot and a aerolatte battery-operated milk frother. I heat my milk in the microwave and froth it with this handy little device. You can't believe the amount of foam you can get with this thing....so much better than my old espresso maker! I usually like Peet's Italian Roast Coffee but this Trader Joe's is pretty good and a lot less expensive.

21 years ago

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21 years ago a very special person came into this world.

Happy birthday Vince...I love you!

My New Free Dining Room Chairs

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click photo to enlarge

About a week ago, my daughter and I were coming home from shopping and noticed these chairs sitting out on the curb in front of someones home with sign that said "FREE". I slowed down to look at them and once I saw how dirty they were I almost left without even getting out of my car. I decided if they were painted white they would be better than what I had so I threw them in the car. This past weekend I primed them and recovered the cushions. I still need to paint them but I wanted to share the transformation with you. I didn't want to spend any money of fabric so I used a fabric shower curtain that I had bought awhile ago and never used. It was just large enough to cover the 4 chairs. Are you ready to see the "Before" picture....

Wow, Lucky Me!

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I'm always amazed at the wonderful friends I've made through blogging! I really wish we could all live closer together in a wonderful neighborhood. Can you imagine how much fun that would be! Anyway, I wanted to share some of the wonderful things I've received from some friends I've made through my blog and through Flickr. The beautiful napkins above came from Angela ~Cottage Magpie. She saw my post I did about losing out on some lace napkins on eBay. She had bought these at a thrift store and wasn't using them so she sent them to me. About the same time I finally won a bid on eBay and they are almost identical to these. Now if I have a big party I'll have plenty of matching lace napkins!
Yesterday I received a package from Debbie (also known as "Debbie without a blog"). You remember Debbie...I showed you lots of pictures of her BEAUTIFUL home, here, here, here and here. Well, now Fifi is going to Debbie's home soon to photograph it for Romantic Country Magazine! I'm so happy for Debbie. She sent me these beautiful vintage Christmas ornaments above and they came with the big giant peppermint bark candy bar below. The candy bar was tucked into this adorable fabric envelope and that was put into the beautiful red bag.

I met Sue through Flickr. We did a teacup gift swap with each other a couple months ago. It was so much fun that we decided to do an Christmas ornament swap. Below are the ornaments she sent me. They are so beautiful!
Below is another gift I received. This one was to me, from me. This is my early Christmas gift to myself. I figure since I don't have an husband or boyfriend I need to make sure I spoil myself once in awhile (okay...I probably do this a little too often.) The best part of NOT being married is that I don't have to justify my purchases to my husband...that is THE ONE thing I hated most about being married! If I want it, and I can afford it, I buy it! I really didn't NEED this chafing dish. I actually have one that has never been out of the box but it's not nearly as beautiful as this one. I saw this at Marshall's last month and I put it on layaway and I finally picked it up yesterday.
I'm in a supper club and we are meeting at my home on Saturday. We're doing appetizers and a cookie exchange. I'm going to make Swedish Meatballs so I can use my chafing dish!

Karla's What do you Love about your Holiday Home Party

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I'm joining in Karla's Party today. For those of you who read my blog regularly, I'm sorry to say you have seen most of these pictures of my Christmas decorations already. I did add a couple new ones though.
I love the warm glow of the Christmas lights on my bed.
On the other side of the room I have a small tree and Santa...a pink Santa!

The warm glow from my chandelier draped with pine and ribbon.
These was the first Christmas decorating I did before we got our tree. I've since changed things a bit on the coffee table.
I painted my miniature pumpkins white and added glitter. Now they look more like Christmas and less like harvest time decorations.
I have a new love...vintage ornaments. I've filled this large glass jar with some that I found this year at a thrift store.

My staircase is draped with pine garland, lights, poinsettias and ribbon.

I love blown glass ornaments. I buy my kids a special ornament every Christmas. This cupcake is my 15 year old daughters.
Below are some more vintage Christmas balls mixed in with some new red ones.

Here is my dining room all decorated for Christmas...

My little Christmas village. This was a gift to my son when he was little. Someday he will have this in his own home. I don't think his college roommates would appreciate it now.

A little bit of red and green in the corner of the living room.

Our Christmas Tree...


A Victorian kissing ball in the kitchen...

I hope you all enjoyed coming to my little apartment for the party! Thank you Karla for hosting this!

Groupings

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I put some faux sugared fruit under my cloche and put it on top of my favorite cake stand. I just hope no one lifts that cloche up...there will be fruit rolling everywhere! I also bought some meringue cookies for my large glass candy dish.

(Click each photo to enlarge)

I like the glass jars all grouped together. Now that I'm looking at this I should probably add another jar because the design rules say you should have odd numbers! Or does that tureen make it an odd number? I'm sure that's not the only design rule I've broke, I think my home is full of design no no's. I just decorate with what I like.

Do you ever watch that show on HGTV, "Designed to Sell"? The mother/daughter real estate experts, Donna and Shannon Freeman crack me up! I'm sure if they walked in my place they would be saying...OH NO, YOU HAVE WAY TOO MUCH STUFF GOING ON IN HERE!

Kitchen Plates

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I still haven't painted the kitchen but I think I have the color picked out. It a soft gray-blue and I'm going to paint the cabinets white. They're a beige color now and they just look drab and I'm going for fresh and clean! I'm off work for 2 weeks at Christmas so I plan to paint it then. Around the soffit area I'm going to hang blue and white plates. Here's what I have so far. I still need about 7 or 8 more so the hunt is on!

Above is a Victorian Kissing Ball that I made last Christmas. I put it on my blog then but my camera was not working very well so you could barely see it. I used a styrofoam ball that I covered with moss and then pushed in some red and green faux hydrangeas and attached some ribbons. I have it hanging in my kitchen this year.

My Baby Girl is 15 today!

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Lauren, my precious little girl who I love so much, I wish you the best birthday ever!
Love, Mom