Welcome to Jasmine's Rat Cafe...

Since I am home during the day, one would think I might take that opportunity to attack and clean my 16-yr. old daughter's room.  And 'attack' is definitely the word.  Somewhere along the way, I must have failed to convey the meaning of the word 'clean,' because she has never, ever been able to accomplish this task.  Over the years, I have had numerous cleaning frenzies that took all day and several bags of garbage plus several more bags for the Goodwill.  And yet, her room would go right back to looking like this within about 2 hours:

Nice...oh, and does she really serve rats at this Rat Cafe??  Yeah, they belly right up to the bar when no one's looking, because Jasmine provides the tastiest leftovers from countless meals, snacks and leftover Halloween candy.  I've never actually seen them, but they're fools if they can't find their way to this permanent buffet.  A nice fat rat could live for months up there...she even provides table service for them.  Whenever I look around my kitchen and wonder, "Where are all the spoons?? (glasses, plates, etc. etc.)"  I know just where to look.  There's a spread with service for twelve upstairs and to the right...

We have another room across the hall which Jasmine has managed to commandeer for herself as well.  It was intended to be a game room or family room, but Jasmine has always called it "the rec room" for some reason.  I didn't know she even knew that old term.  Or maybe she means "the wreck room," because it now looks like this:

And this is right after I cleaned it.  She says it's clean--"it's FINE, Mom!!!"  Where did I go wrong, you ask??  I know I'M asking that anyway.  Maybe she comes by it honestly though.  My 25-yr. old son just gave me a sweet little wooden plaque as a gift because he thought it was wildly amusing and appropriate:  "Ha, ha."  I said.  He gave it to me at my daughter's birthday party a week or two ago.  Embarrassed me in front of my whole extended family.  Funny...none of them seemed the least bit surprised.

Although nobody will ever be eating off my floors (I will provide real plates just as soon as Jasmine brings them down to the kitchen for their monthly washing), at least we're happy.  And my crafting time never suffers!  I think I've got my priorities ordered nicely, thank you very much.  Now where are those rat traps........

Love all of you, slobs included,
Cheryl

Lazy Sunday

Have you seen this magazine yet?  It's so beautiful, really more of a soft-cover book than a mag, although you'll find it on the magazine racks.  I enjoy reading about my fellow bloggers, especially the ones that I discovered on my own long ago.  It can be rather intimidating because these women create such beautiful posts with gorgeous pictures.  Makes one feel like a preschooler in the school of blogging, but really we just need to be ourselves and share whatever we feel like sharing.  Everyone's different, so every blog is different--not better, just different.  That's about all the philosophical wisdom I have to offer today.  Now on to the pretty pictures.


Welcome to my kitchen!  Make yourself a cup of tea and sit down.  We'll find something to chat about...
As you can see, I'm a thrift store freak, just like the rest of you.  I cannot resist second-hand treasures, and I have to have them all--as you can see, every nook and cranny in
my kitchen is occupied.  By stuff that I ought to be
dusting, but who has THAT much time??  So don't
look too closely...

Oh, here's the tea--tucked in the gravy boat in my favorite little pink shelf.  And artificial sweetener, too.  How come we always have to ask for it in a restaurant??  If 90% of women use it, it oughta be on the table...






Oh, back to the thrift store talk.  Old aprons like Grandma used to wear...   I had a million of these, now I'm down to just half a million.  No more room, you see.











And I love this napkin holder--straight from the 50's.  I don't use it, or the crocheted one in the next picture, because we aren't civilized enough at our house to even use paper napkins.  We just grab a paper towel.  Pitiful, isn't it?  Of course, if it's a holiday (a BIG holiday), we'll drag out the cloth ones.  Really.  We will.  Just for you.                                    

Pretty little pictures, painted by who knows, then relegated to the Goodwill.  If it's flowers in pretty colors, it'll find a home in my house.

And just to change the subject briefly, I turned these...







into this, for my dear friend, Cindy's, birthday.  She's 29 this week, same as she has been for the last two decades or so.  Her cottage condo is done in pinks and greens, so sweet and shabby and romantic.  She's easy to create for because her decorating tastes are identical to mine.  We were separated at birth, I think.  We have the same initials, we love the same artsy-fartsy things, and she even dated my husband back in high school.  Yikes!  Maybe she's my evil twin...but probably the other way around, because I'm much more evil than she is.  Whoa!! I got off on a tangent there!!!  Time to shut up before I bore y'all to death.  Until next time!

Love, Cheryl

Warm Inside, Cold Outside!

It's so good to be in my warm kitchen on a frosty day like today.  Since it's a holiday my family is home with me, everybody doing their own thing...I have no plans for dinner yet, as usual.  Wish I had a lovely picture of some fabulous recipe that I was going to magically throw together, but not today.  I've spent the day adding some new items to my Etsy Shoppe, and working on a special project in my studio.  Can't show it to you yet, but it involves pretty little roses...

I have the prettiest piece of flowered cotton to cover this kitchen lampshade with.  Must get around to it.  You can see just a bit of the floral curtain that hangs in my pantry doorway.  I just love Jane's English country style that she shares with us on her blog, Posy.  Delicious...I like to steal her decorating ideas!

If an object holds still, I will mosaic it.  This old metal teapot was very beat up and in need of a new lease on life.  Now it holds one of my ivy plants.







More ivy in the kitchen...











And still more.











And even tiny cream pitchers (Jane would call them "cream jugs") with ivy on them.  I just love ivy.  So cottage-y.  I would love to have ivy growing over the outside of my whole house, like some secret little cottage in the woods, but my husband would belly-ache about it growing up under the siding, etc. etc. etc...the magic sort of goes out of it when I share it with him...

Well, time to get going on those dinner plans.  Can't eat at Red Robin every night!  Or can I???.......

Thinking About My House Today...

A man just came to my door, handed me his business card and told me that our chimney is really falling apart.  Huh?  I said, because it was repaired when we got our new roof just 2 or 3 years ago.  No, it's really falling apart, he said, because this house is really old.  Yes, I know that--1905, to be exact.  There was nothing on his card except his name and phone number, and of course, he won't be in this area very long because he's from Olympia and he's been over here about 4 months but he lives here now.  (!!!!!????)  I didn't follow that one at all, but I said I would tell my husband about it.  Thanks!

I love my old house.  It's a true turn-of-the-century house, with all the foibles that go along with old houses.  Luckily when we moved in here about 15 years ago, the plumbing and electricity had all been updated by the previous owners, so, YAY!  That's usually the worst problem.  Most of our "problems" are simply cosmetic, which I think is kind of fun because I get to make those cosmetic decisions.  Unfortunately, I am great at planning household projects but not so great at finishing them.  Thus, we have numerous rooms that are nearly painted but not quite, and so on.  Oops.

This snowy pic was taken many, many years ago, when the house was "way out in the country."  Now the city extends many miles beyond...  I love the corn field in this picture.  I can see a barn out behind that is no longer there.  This house sat on top of Nob Hill, on Grandview Avenue, with acres of property surrounding it--mostly apple, pear and cherry orchards.  The first owner was the Daniel Webster family, (great, great....grandson of the famous American statesman, Daniel Webster!)  The Webster family lived here for several decades, passing it on to their descendants until sometime in the 70's I think.  We are the fourth owners.  And we feel privileged to live in a somewhat "famous" person's beloved home. 

The old parlour is pictured above, but I'm not sure when that was taken because there was once a woodstove where you see the piano, providing the two-story house's only heat source.  (Thus, the so-called crumbling chimney).  This room is now our dining room, with a mirrored oak fireplace surround where the piano was.  Wish there was a fireplace!
This house is built on two city lots.  The Webster's sold off the remaining land many years ago for sub-division and the neighborhood elementary school right around the corner on Webster Avenue. 

We found the remains of an old cistern out back when we moved in, but we got down into it and smashed it up, filling it with dirt--it kept settling, and new holes would appear, holes that you could lose a small child in...

There was an old back staircase in the kitchen originally, but it was taken out and the heat ducting was run through that space instead.  I was SO disappointed when I found that out--I love the original designs of old spaces, not the new "updates."  One day we drilled a hole in the wall to see if we could see anything of the old stairs, and we just missed a copper pipe by a hair's breadth...oops.  No stairs, just a near-miss that would have cost to repair.  We also took out a big section of the kitchen ceiling, thinking we were going to restore it to it's original 9' height, when I suggested that we get a flashlight and look up there to see what we were getting into.  Oh, okay.  The original 9' ceiling was still there, but the space was filled with plumbing for the upstairs bathroom (that used to be the maid's quarters!).  And, oops again.  We patched that back up...

Well, I could blather on all evening about my house, because we learned a lot about it from a woman who was very adept at researching such things and volunteered to do it for us.  We have a whole notebook full of old clippings, records, etc.  Such fun, old houses.... now--- which wall shall I bust into next to look for old love letters, hmmmm?.........

Until next time,
Cheryl

New In The Shoppe

I've put four items in my Etsy Shoppe, with more to follow very soon.  Drop in and take a look!  (click on the words 'cherylmillermosaic' to go straight to my shop).


We're all getting ready for the holidays, and Etsy is a great place to start your shopping, support your fellow crafters, and  buy eco-friendly at the same time.  Can't beat that!

Tea For Three, anyone?  This was such fun to create because I love my teacup collection, but don't want to completely smash them to pieces.  I think you lose their beauty that way, so why not cut them in half?  I LOVE my wet tile saw!



This little mirror belongs in a romantic cottage bathroom or young girl's room, dontch think?

Here's a happy little display stand.  If I had room for it in my house, I would fill it with four ivy plants-- my favorite cottage greenery.

I will be snapping pics like crazy in the next few days to get many more pieces out here for all of you.  My studio is in a shambles, as I am trying to clear out everything that isn't mosaic related so I'll have room for more projects.  This is just the tip of the iceberg, believe me.  When I'm interested in anything, I go absolutely berserk hunting down all the materials I can find for that particular passion.  I am a hopeless crafty addict, I fear...

Some of my favorite things in the studio right now besides the mosaics I'm working on are these little Paint Pods.  I buy them at Ace Hardware, although other stores sell similar items.  In the store they are displayed so beautifully, with every imaginable color gradation--I want one in every shade, please...

I tend towards the soft, powdery pastels with my cottage style projects, but I plan to get a little bolder with my color selections with some new and different creations.  It's funny--my personality would suggest bright colors with lots of pizazz, but these soft shades just make my little heart sing.  What a contradiction...

I will be back soon, with new thoughts on the "art" of blogging...
Til then, --Cheryl

It's Autumn Here

The leaves are falling, I can hear my husband out back using the leaf blower, and my toes are cold.  Those who know me well, know that I wear flip-flops for most of the year until I just can't take it any more.  I think I'm just about there... It's definitely fall in the Northwest.

My yard is looking a little brown and my beautiful flowers are gone.  This old apricot tree is already bare.

Beautiful, blue sky days, but not so many anymore.  Instead we get a lot of those dark, gray days that feel so short since the time change.

I must admit, it is lovely here, although Fall is not my favorite season.  I much prefer spring and summer, with green everywhere and colorful flowers.  We have over 30+ rosebushes and almost as many rhodedendrons, and I really miss them when they're gone...  time to put away the pots...don't want them to suffer when everything freezes solid.

I do love the warm glow inside, though, when it's warm and cozy, while the outdoors grows colder.  It's very nice to be indoors....


Must be time to bake a cake...




Hope you're enjoying Autumn in your neck of the woods!

Til next time--Cheryl

"Musings From The Treadmill"

Probably the most important part of my days right now is the 1+ hour I spend on the treadmill.  Almost every day I pound out at least 4 miles.  If I'm really in the zone, I'll do 5, but I don't like spending that much time on it.  I started in June, and I've melted off almost 40 lbs. so far.  Over the last 10-15 years, I kept gaining just a few more pounds each year until I was rolling around here like a beached Orca.  (We have those up here in the Northwest, so maybe I didn't stand out THAT much...)  Here you see a picture of the instrument of torture:

Got my Nalgene bottle, my iPod & headphones, my reading glasses (so I can see the iPod) and my sweat rag (disgusting necessity).  Oh, and that's my gum, stuck on in the upper  left-hand corner.  I was absent-mindedly popping bubbles while I walked and scared the dog.  What a baby.

So, I just slap on the headphones, put it in 'Drive,' and fly like a banshee.  I couldn't do it without my music full blast.  I've been a pop/rock-type singer forever, so my ears are totally blown.  After four months I'm completely caught up on the current pop/rock scene as well as contemporary country and Christian rock, which my daughter routinely funnels my way.  I could go on "Name That Tune!"  I'd win for sure.  Today's pulse-pounding session was accompanied by about 600 repetitions of Adam Lambert's new single, "For Your Entertainment."  Although the pounding pulse was probably due to the song lyrics rather than the exercise...

One thing I've discovered about the treadmill.  That calorie- counter- thingy only takes into account what your legs are doing.  How's that going to give me an accurate reading of calories burned?? For all it knows I could be walking with my hands crammed in my pockets or I could be frantically flagging in a week's worth of jetliners with a big flashlight in each hand.  Same difference, same calorie count.  I think I'll go with the hands crammed in my pockets.

Another thing I've learned--if I'm getting tired toward the end, or bored, I can even walk with my eyes closed!  Fear not.  I hang on tight, especially after two near-misses and one really EPIC crash & burn.  That time, I was gawking over my shoulder at something my husband was doing for me on the computer (yes, it was Adam-related, and, yes, he WILL be the death of me)...well, you know how these things go, it happened so fast that I don't know what really happened, but apparently I took a mis-step, because I began stumbling wildly, still hanging on to the treadmill while me legs were dragging on the rubber surface--I was gonna get myself back up, come heck or high water!  If I had been smart I would've just let go and that little magnet-thing that was hooked to my shirt for just that reason would've shut the machine off, but NO!!  I could DO THIS!!!  Well, I couldn't, and when it finally got the best of me, I let go and tumbled off the end of the stupid thing.  There was mayhem, blood and destruction, and after inventorying my parts to see if I was intact, there was side-splitting laughter from both my husband and myself.  Good times, good times...

There's always that niggling little thought in the back of my mind--what if I drop dead from all this exercise and my family finds me in a sweaty, crumpled-up heap at the foot of the treadmill...Hmmmm... Well, give me a few more months, Lord...that way if I do graduate early from this life while walking, at least I'll leave behind a bangin' bod! (Or maybe a "banged-UP" bod, whichever the case may be).

Til next time,--Cheryl