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Monday, June 30, 2014

Monday, Monday -- Oh, Well, It Happens



After a lovely weekend at home with Howard,
it's Monday morning ... and I am working today.

And while I knock back a second cup of black coffee at my desk in the study 
here at That Old House, I'm knocking out a quick post, just to say "Hello."



Cheating!
Grabbing some flower mosaics from years past,
but from the same time of year as now.


And what is a good flower mosaic, 
without a good looking insect?

Who doesn't love bees?

From last summer: geraniums, coreopsis, rudbeckia,
gladiolus, and ... well, some other stuff.


Today, I'll be flogging antiques and vintage stuff
at the antiques mall where I have a booth.

Wherever you are, I hope your summer is in full swing,
and that it is delightful.
Unless, of course, you are in the southern hemisphere ...
in which case, don't you get headaches from being upside down?
:-)


And ... I'm off, leaving my spaniels in charge of the house.
Eeeek.... Cass

Now go visit Mary at Little Red House, for her Mosaic Monday blog party.
Mary's own images are transcendent ... always.  Today's are of Chinese Dogwood.  Visit!  Click here.



Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Chaos Reigns, And A Happy Anniversary Wish!


I love beautiful, well-tended, orderly, tidy gardens.
Sometimes I go and visit one, just to see what a 
beautiful, well-tended, orderly, tidy garden looks like.


Because here at That Old House, our garden patches are
enthusiastic, but tidy and orderly they are not.

Right behind the sunroom, along the old stone wall . . . this:
As the late Bob Ross might have said, "Happy, happy little flowers . . . . "
(By the way, this is after a bit of weeding.  Primping for the camera.)

My favorite spot to have morning coffee, right in the corner.
 Do you do this?  Get all your stuff planted (thank you, Anne!) and
then realize you've still got some plugs languishing in their flats? Those are white petunias, shriveling up.
Why don't I pop them in the ground?  Why?
Eh, sometimes lazy has no explanation.

Our local supermarket had Knockout Roses dirt cheap (haha . . . 
dirt cheap!) back in May.  I love me some Knockout Roses.
The smaller Knockouts, 5 in this picture, are rather hidden by the big fluffy balls
of bleeding heart foliage.  Doomed foliage.  It won't last till August.

 I know they aren't the breath-taking, showstopping divas of the Rose Universe,
but wow, those babies can bloom.  

The big, arching dark red rosebush on the left, across
from the Grandma Swing, is old.  Old.  Like, really old.
In this non-cropped view, you can see the back of the house; the old rose grows up against it,
right outside the powder room window. and just south of the really ugly air conditioning thingy.
Every year we cut it back.  Ruthlessly.  It comes roaring back.
Definitely likes punishment, that old gal.
But unlike its distant Knockout cousins, it has its first flush of blooming and then it goes on vacation, only sending out a couple of roses, like brief postcards, every few weeks.

 I'm starting to like the look of the picket gate on the steps leading
up to the driveway.  Rather cottage-y, don't you think? 
And a lovely shot of our trash can, up along the driveway.
We are nothing if not classy. 

The tomatoes and peppers were a little late settling in this spring;
I didn't trust the weather after the winter we had.
But they're taking off.  Ripening tomatoes on two out of five plants, 
and the banana pepper has a 5-inch long baby growing fast.
Nothing so far from the slacker eggplants except blossoms.

Not all of the perennials survived the winter, but these did.  Yay.
(The other threadleaf coreopsis on the other side of the door survived, but barely.  It's got one shoot!)

When I look at the crazy quilt of plants here at this
kind of crazy quilt of a house, I'm okay with it.

And I remember late March, when the borders looked like this:
  (Nice.  Thumb in the picture.  Nice.)

What's happening in your garden today?
In ours, Gilda The Red is soaking up the sun.
Dylan DiPoochy doesn't stay still long enough outside
for a good shot, unless he's in someone's lap.
Yes, like that.

Have a lovely Wednesday, whether you are indoors, or out.
-- Cass

Visit other bloggers and their Great Outdoors.
Click here!
Outdoor Wednesday: Click on the picture below to learn more...

And . . . lest I forget, let me wish our daughter Alida and her husband Josh a very happy
Third Wedding Anniversary!
Long time readers of That Old House may remember the frantic weeks leading up to their wedding,
when we were racing the clock to get the house painted, repairs made, landscaping done,
fence installed .... but in the end, all that mattered was that these two got hitched, 
. . . and they're still honeymooning.  :-)



Monday, June 23, 2014

Craigslist And Estate Sales Are My Friends



Yes, indeed they are.

I needed to refresh the stock at my antiques booth,
so a couple of weekends ago, my daughter Anne and I hit up several house sales,
and picked up a washstand, ca. 1870, from a Craigslist posting.
(The washstand in our sunroom, awaiting
its beauty treatment.  The top drawer is out.)

We stuffed the minivan; Anne has excellent packing skills.
But we had to pass up an Eastlake bed.  That was painful.
A very BIG Eastlake bed, it was in excellent, gorgeous condition, 
with rails, and already converted to queen size.  I know!

Why didn't we take it?  
I negotiated the price from $275 to $100 
-- it was the last day of the sale, and I was buying other things -- 
but when I stood next to the bed, and realized that it was taller than I, 
and certainly wider than 48" . . . I knew I couldn't fit it into the minivan.
Dang.

But we got an adorable old cherry one-drawer stand, with uber-patina.
And an antique repair to its top.  
(Please excuse the sneakers, dog toy, and vacuum in the picture.
Real life is messy sometimes.  Or, always.)

Not a very professional fix-it job, and it may win the prize for 
most nails used in any furniture repair ever, but I just love it.
It cracks me up.  It would have given my father fits.

Also in our house sale haul, a wonderful old chestnut drop leaf table, 
with three original leaves.  A rare bird, indeed.

The picking gods were with us that day.  It has not just 3 leaves,
but a holder to keep them protected.  I never saw one of those before.
It's possible I have lead a sheltered life.
Haha ... those are Howard's feet on the left; we were in the parking lot behind the shop, 
delivering these things to the booth this past Sunday.  

I have shrunk my booth down to 1/2 its former size, 
so it was a tight fit to get the new things tucked in.  But we did.

The rustic little one-drawer stand sold today, one day after its arrival.
And someone put a "hold" on the drop leaf table.
Yup, house sales are my friends.
And ... I just noticed my giant handbag on the drop leaf table.  Well, at least I didn't leave it there.

The house sale also netted us a nice sturdy country Windsor chair,
and a sweet pine desk/vanity/hall table that needs a teensy bit of TLC
before it's ready for its closeup, Mr. DeMille.

Sunday was such a lovely day.
Maybe Howard and I should have had lunch al fresco in the parking lot!

Side note:  A couple of days after I got the washstand from a home in Chatham, NJ, I got an email from the owner; she had found the bail of one of the brasses in her garage.  Did I want it?  Yes!  I was ready to hunt for a replacement.  Instead ... this lovely lady mailed it to me.  I know people worry about Craigslist dealings, but so far I have only met the very best people in my Craigslist purchases, or sales.  Even the hermits.  :-)

And it isn't much of a collage/mosaic that I've done, but even so ... 
I'm hitching it to Mary's Mosaic Monday at Little Red House.


Confession:  It's been SO LONG since I've done a blog party linkup that I forgot how.
True.
A mind really is a terrible thing to waste, isn't it?  See you soon! 
-- Cass


Sunday, June 22, 2014

Where've I Been? Right Here!

Happy Summer!


Well ... it's been a long time since I've updated That Old House. 
Since 'way back in February, in fact, when we still had
several feet of snow on the ground, and ice-encrusted windows.
(shudder)

It's a prettier picture now, isn't it?

(Even with all the weeds.)
Confession:  This picture is more than a month old.  The garden is much
advanced since then, but I am too lazy busy to take a new shot.

Mr. Dylan DiPoochy, dog-about-town, is happy
that trips to The Great Outdoors no longer mean a freezing bippy.



Mrs. Gilda-The-Red, pictured in that snowy shot above,
luxuriates on the Grandma swing in the garden.
Gilda is a Great Outdoors kind of gal.
Dylan?  Not so much.
He likes a nice cushy sofa better than
a patch of warm earth.

To each his or her own, eh?

And that's it for today.
Many thanks for the sweet messages I've gotten over the past
few months, for your wonderful kindness,
and I apologize for just disappearing with no explanation.

Because ... honestly? ... there really is no explanation.
I just ran out of steam.
But I think my supply of hot air is bubbling up again.
I'm back.  :-)
See you tomorrow, my friends!
I'm off to re-stock my antiques booth today.  Pictures to follow!

Love and blessings to all; I wish you a wonderful Sunday ... Cass