Please don't pet the dust bunnies

The state of my kitchen window has been reprehensible for many months. When I cleaned the rest of the kitchen, I shied away from anything above the blue and grey tiles.

It may have had something to do with the accumulation of dead crane flies and other assorted bugs that had drifted to a state of permanent repose in the corners of the window sill.

Or the windows that were disgustingly covered with a layer of soapy water spots.

Or the otherwise-charming collection of miniature critters that were bedecked with old spider webs and a layer of kitchen grease.

Or the state of the wood itself, that suffered condensation damage in years past and wears a sadly cracked and deteriorated coat of varnish.

Are you grossed out yet?

Then you understand my reticence.

Whenever we invited people to dinner, I always hoped they will be so astounded at the quality of victuals and conversation that they wouldn't notice the kitchen window. 

So far, it seems to have worked. At least, no one has ever said, Susan, your kitchen window is so abominable!

Yesterday morning, I decided that I was going to swallow my abhorrence and clean the darn thing. 

I made an offhand comment to Jeff.

Maybe you should refinish the window sill today.

Well. 

Hours later, two trips to Bi-Mart, and a layer of dust over the whole kitchen, the darling man presented me with this.

Is that a satiny-smooth shiny patina of gorgeousness or what?

Now my little turtles rock the view.

There was the added bonus of my getting in the mood to wash sheers and clean windows all over the house. The amount of dust in the lacy sheers was quite scary. I suppose I had better give spring-cleaning a try this year. If you're in the mood for a similar sort of venture yourself, there is a handy little spring cleaning worksheet at Vocalpoint that will work for any room. Go here for the download.

I mentioned to hubby darling, oh-so casually, that the kitchen window looks so good, maybe he could gradually work on the rest of the window trim in the house. 

Only this time, perhaps he should remove the wood and take it outside to sand.

My lungs and microfibre dust rag will thank him.

The year's at the spring

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hillside's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in His heaven-

All's right with the world!

~Robert Browning

HAPPY SPRING lovely readers. 

Happy Saint Paddy's Day

Somewhere on my Bucket List is a trip to the Emerald Isle. 

It keeps losing its place on the list to other travels, but every March 17th I wistfully consider nudging it back into prominence.

If you want to be Irishly inspired, I can't really improve on my post of two years ago, so go here if you missed it.

And do yourself a favour. Watch the Irish Rovers singing their famous Lilly the Pink. 

The synching is off, but their energy in a live concert is hard to beat.

Have a happy leprechaun day tomorrow.

Keep close watch over your lovelies.

The ones I'm missing

Nope, I'm not talking about brain cells.

I'm talking about those little darlings in North Carolina.

I'm working on a photo book of my grandkids, so Annie sent a stash of photos by email. 

So I got to drool over the feisty one...

...who really likes her bananas...

...and the sweet one, upon whose little chubbly cheeks I just want to smooch and nibble.

Elsie seems to enjoy being the boss of little Gabe.  We'll see how that plays out in a couple of years!

And speaking of missing someone, there is a certain someone whose return to the fold is imminent. The countdown is almost in single digits. 

Loose lips sink ships. 

So that is all I can say, but go ahead and hit the Like button if you know of whom I speak.

My life in five panels or less

The cold has taken hold with a vengeance. This week has consisted of daily struggles to pull my body out of bed and take care of business. Some days I succeeded better than others.

Yesterday morning, I croaking my way through an hour of preschool music groups with the enthusiastic help of my practicum student. After running various and sundry errands, I popped into Grocery Outlet and found a felicitous find.

Cadbury's Crunchie bars.

Three for a dollar.

I snatched up a dozen or so and enjoyed one as soon as I got home.

Then I noticed that they were made in England, which it totally ridiculous because how could you expect to find such scrum-diddly-umptiously authentic English Cadbury chocolate for 33.3334 cents a piece? I don't think that puny price even covers what it costs to make them.

Which explains why, after lying in bed for a couple of hours this morning, feeling like death warmed over, thinking about those Crunchie bars and wondering why I didn't just buy the whole bloomin' lot, I dragged myself out of my sick bed and directly to Grocery Outlet.

Which would explain this box of Crunchie bars sitting on my unsanitized kitchen counter.

When I got home, I started catching up on my perusal of the week's newspapers. Monday's paper was full of comic strips that related so closely to my life that I had to share. 

First, the weather of late.

The state of my health...

...and subsequent plans for revenge.

My motivation today.

My shopping habit.

And a couple that just spoke to me.

Happy weekend everyone. 

And now, back to bed.

Book three of The Hunger Games is awaiting my snifflycroakysneezy self..

Just because...

...the crocuses are in bloom and I rediscovered the "macro" setting on my camera as I was slogging through the manual.

Oops. This was my practice shot. Maybe I need to clean my keyboard.

I love how the colours are hybridizing as the bulbs self-propagate.

Happy Spring!

The list

Hey, are you ready for this, are you sitting on the edge of your seat?

Guess who is the proud new owner of a Saks Fifth Avenue credit card?

Let me back up a minute.

First thing this morning (well, I say "first thing", but it was more like nine o'clock, which is as "first thing" as I generally like to get on a Saturday) Jeff discovered that our lovely back flowerbed had been ravaged by a gopher.

If you look closely, you can see the line of broken dirt of the tunnel that parallels the back fence. It follows the whole fence line and is interspersed with whopping great mounds of loose dirt.

Jeff and I had planned a day of shopping anyway, so at our first stop, Ace Hardware, we picked up not only a free quart of paint for Bethany, but $19 worth of gopher-murder.

One down.

I love our local Ace Hardware. It always has what we need in the way of home repair supplies and is full of employees who will not only help you to find what you need but will instruct you on how to use it.

We drove to REI, on the prowl for some minimalist running shoes. After trying on some Vibram FiveFingers, Jeff's attitude quickly morphed from suspicion to discipleship. We stayed true to our purpose, however, and drove across the street to Bridgeport Village without succumbing to the siren song of the Vibrams. We hit pay dirt at the New Balance store, where we both found some minimalist (as opposed to barefoot) shoes for $59 a pair. The Vibrams will have to wait and see how we adjust to this first step. 

Another one bites the dust!

As we headed back to the car, I remembered that I had seen a Saks Fifth Avenue store as we drove in. On a whim, we walked over to it. Jeff has a very expensive Zegna suit that we purchased at Saks about fifteen years ago and the pants have worn out in a sensitive area. I thought there was a slim chance that we might be able to buy some matching pants. No such luck, but we did find some very nice Saks suits on sale that are made of Zegna fabric and are very nicely tailored. Jeff obliged me by trying on four suits. We bought two of them. By the time we got all of the discounts, plus an extra 10% for applying for a credit card (apparently, the one we got when we bought the first suit got canceled when we didn't use it again), we got $2,400 worth of suits for $755. And the name of a tailor who can fix the original suit.

I felt pretty satisfied.

Hmmm, that one wasn't on the list. We are dangerous when we shop aimlessly.

We were ravenous, so we stopped at Arby's for lunch.

Using coupons, of course.

Making up for the Saks thing.

Two cheese, two plain, a large curly fries and two iced waters.

Jeff was in heaven.

He kept saying Mmm, I love this.

He almost choked on his sandwich, laughing so hard because of all the photos I was taking.

That boy needs a haircut.

He shall have one tonight, if I can fit it in between hemming and altering new suit pants.

Then we went to Costco and spent frivolously with the annual reward from my AmEx card. We got more money back than we spent.

And another one's down, another one's down, another one bites the dust!

Then Jeff decided he needed a nap.

So we drove home.

He had his nap.

Now.

Let the war on gophers begin!

A serendipitous turn of events

Today started in a sort of ominous way. I looked out the bedroom window at about 4 o'clock this morning (it was that kind of a night) to ascertain the source of the abnormal glow that seeped into our room. It was snow-reflected moonlight, a not-totally-unanticipated occurrence. That, combined with the scratchy-throat-dry-cough thing I've been fighting all week, caused me to skip my morning yoga class and cling to my memory-foam mattress until the last possible moment. I figured I could forge my way through the morning's preschool music group and afternoon's piano lessons and lie, pining, on the couch for the rest of the day.

Well.
After the music group, which went fantastically well and put me in a frame of mind to deviate from my plan of pining, I popped into the senior citizens' centre on the way home. It is my habit to pick up a free bread item when I am passing (Jeff said one day, Aren't those for old people? and I replied, For 50 and older, my dear) and check in with the desk on the buzz for the singing group I am starting in April. As I walked down the hall, I noticed a room full of old people, sitting on chairs in a circle. Some of them had their shoes off and feet propped up on cushions, with needles sticking out of their legs and feet. Some of them had needles in other body parts. I was reminded that a local acupuncturist does $10 acupuncture on Thursdays, which I had been meaning to give a try.

I picked up some artisan rolls (with which I made delicious pulled chicken sandwiches for dinner with leftover chicken)

and took them out to my car, whereupon I thought to myself, Self, you should go sign yourself up for a session.
So I went back inside and signed up for an appointment in two weeks and returned again to the car.
A little voice whispered in my head, Self, what about trying for a spot next week? You could use a little toe and wrist relief, the sooner the better.
Back inside I went and, after further waffling and walking up and down the hallway, I got myself in right away.
Wouldn't you know it, today the price went up to $15?

But first, I searched the bookshelves and found a good novel to read while being stuck with pins needles.

An hour later, my arthritic wrist was pain-free (not much improvement on the toe) and I was on the road again.

Back home, I discovered my new Keen socks on the doorstep, ordered at a deep discount from 6pm.com. They label your socks in case you forget which is your right foot and which is your left.

Then, while mildly pining on the couch and eating my Jose Ole tacquito lunch, I ran across a couple of good things on my new favourite bargain website, FrugalLivingNW. I scored two free tickets to see the movie Blue Like Jazz later this month and also five sample-sized powders and brushes from Bare Escentuals for a dollar.

And then, my piano students were all particularly delightful.

So, what started of to be a phooey kind of a day turned out to be pretty magnificent.
In a lackadaisical kind of a way.