Things I Like A Lot, and Some Stupid Things

I was supposed to go on a thrifting junket with Emily
today, but the Household Gods had other ideas.

Instead, today I am home watching a mason fix and shore up
our old stone steps and retaining walls behind That Old House.

Below, a picture from a couple of years ago and yes, those little stones

tucked in under the stone steps don't really do a very good job at holding the treads steady.

But now, voila!

A dab of cement here and there, not too intrusive, and our pretty steps are more navigable.

I may miss the thrill of rocking back and forth on the second step from the bottom

-- that was the Fun Ride Step -- but I doubt that our guests will miss it.

I will also miss the surprised and sometimes terrified looks on guests' faces as steps moved beneath their feet.

Ah, good times, good times.

If these steps are a-rockin' . . . call the mason and make him come back.

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Inside That Old House, I am trying to bring order out of chaos,

and by chaos I mean my bazillions of (mostly) decorating magazines.

The enormous old walnut dining room table we bought a couple of months ago to re-sell

has landed in my kitchen.  Temporarily.

I think I am going to keep it, and move it upstairs to use as a big sewing and crafts table.  

 In the meantime, today it is wearing its Organizer Hat.

I am making tidy piles of old magazines that I don't want to recycle; I do go back

and thumb through them. This is not even the tiniest tip of my magazine iceberg, but it is a beginning.

Taking it one pile o'mess at a time.

I am donating old books to make room on my shelves for magazines.

Howard thinks I am donating old books because I am a nice person.

Hahahahahahahaha.  He's so cute.

 I am not a hoarder.

Well, actually, maybe I am.  Of magazines.

Not of old Burger King wrappers or used tissues or chewed-up Chiclets stuck to bits of waxed paper.

I have my standards.

Speaking of standards, Country Living messed up my tidy piles by changing its size last year.

It is both longer and wider, as if it's trying to fool us into thinking it is really House Beautiful.

We are on to you, Country Living.  Pah!  Pick a size and stick to it.

Hoarders have a hard enough time as it is without your magazine shape-shifting.

Yes, in the upper left hand corner of that picture, above, is a can of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.

Upside down -- because the sales lady said that's how to get the pigment distributed.

I think she just didn't have any paint stirrers to give me.

I have heard great things about this paint, and am going to try it one of these days.

In the meantime, it keeps me amused with its charming and clever antics.

"Look Ma!  I'm wearing a sombrero!"

In my pile of oddball one-off magazines is a 1980 Woman's Day 101 Sweaters.

I love my old knitting magazines.  My hoarding began years ago.

I'm pretty sure the kid in the upper right is picking her nose.

It's a time capsule.

Maybe I'll make this one as a surprise for Howard.
Yeah, that's the ticket.

 A time capsule of What-The-Heck-Were-We-Thinking fashions of the early 80s. 

Seriously, Woman's Day.  Seriously?  Do you think anyone actually knitted this giant Geoduck of a garment?
My apologies to any reader who knitted this ...garment ... back in the 80s.
I'd like to hear from you, if they allow email in the asylum.

I actually made the sweater on the right in the picture below.

In red.  For my Mom.

But because I have Knitting ADD and get bored and impatient after I finish the front and the back, 

and then decide that sleeves are kind of optional, I turned it into a vest.

She wore it, my Mom, 'cause that's what Moms do.

Speaking of yarn . . . .

After visiting our cousin in Philadelphia last Friday, my sister Peggy and I detoured to some other place in or near Philly
(hey, she was navigating, I can't remember everything) so she could check out this:

An electronic knitting machine.  It's pretty amazing.  It does all kinds of knitting, and is fast,

which is good because Peggy 's Knitting ADD is worse than mine.

Lace fabric made with knitting machine.
On the right a Tassel making kit, that apparently also can turn you into a crazy-red-haired Wonder Woman.
I'm in.  How about you?

At the yarn shop, I met a gentleman named Tiger.

"Excuse me.  Do I know you?  Give me your lap, but only touch me if you mean it."

 Tiger lives in the knitting shop, which surprises me as I thought cats played with yarn.

Apparently not this one.  He toys with humans.

"I have claimed you as one of my own.  Keep skritching my neck, and I will let you live."

 Naturally I got pictures of some of the yarn, because I love yarn.

Don't you just want to be in that picture, touching the yarn, sniffing it, rubbing up against it . . . .

Okay, that's a little creepy.  Or, I have become a cat.

Back to reality, and my piles of magazines.

I need to get back to work.

Sorting magazines is quite time consuming and labor intensive,
and of course that is not at all because of the reading that goes on while you do it. 

And now for something completely stupid . . . my camera took this picture when I was not looking.

No, really.  It did.  I have no idea how I got this shot of the corner of the walnut cupboard in the kitchen,

 with a box of -- wait for it -- magazines nearby, to be sorted.

Nice nails.  Not the kind you manicure.

It's Outdoor Wednesday over at Susan's A Southern Daydreamer blog.
Go visit, my friends!  -- Cass