this is the book i never read....

I always have stacks of books and magazines around my bed. I start one...see a new one around, start that one...before too long I have a dozen half-read books piled up...I envy people who can read a book start to finish before moving onto the next one. I used to be able to do that. Can you?

Day 13

I had an unusual night...woke around 4 so hot and sweaty that I couldn't sleep. I came downstairs for a cool shower, then went back to bed, but still couldn't sleep...so lay in my bed and took pictures in the very earliest morning light....it was rainy and grey (my favorite weather!)...

still awake...

what's on your bedside table??

I did eventually fall asleep and slept til 9:30, so now my day is all off!

Day 11

Here's a little corner of my dining room, going from the living room to the kitchen. I think The Dining Room is my favorite room - and I think it's a shame that "open living" and "eat-in kitchens" sort of did-away with them. I love all the accoutrements of The Dining Room - dishes, and serving pieces, and china cabinets.

The Little White Table (yes, that is it's name - "Katie, where did you put the mail?" "On The Little White Table" "Do we have any batteries?" "Yes, look in The Little White Table") is inherited from my mother and her garage sale days. I never thought it was anything significant, besides a cute little simple table, but everytime I have an indoor tag sale, the furniture people all ask me what I want for it. I say it's not for sale, but their interest leads me to believe there must be something worthwhile about it, beyond its being Little and White.

That top picture, of the fruit, is needlepoint.

Another non-functioning lamp. I love the orange luster of this one, and the butterfly finial with dangly the blue-cabachon thing

I don't know what that item actually is, but it's been a great key and leash holder

I stick cards and interesting things that come in the mail, in that white planter - part of my matte-white pottery collection. I do have a nice collection of brown transferware - this is just part of it. I love transferware and collect brown, red, and black - though lost most of my black collection in The Great Black Transferware Crash of 200mumblemumblesomething. It's a sad sad story. I'm sure I have pictures somewhere. That's for another day.

I got this little bee skep charm/pendant in a box lot of jewelry at an auction. I set it on the picture just so it wouldn't get mixed in with stuff to sell, never dreaming it would stay there for like the next five years. Now the picture looks naked without it.

Day 2

This little vignette on top of a bookcase right inside the front door. I collect vintage aqua american pottery, so this lamp was a real find for me! I especially love the molded roses and leaves spilling down the front. Doesn't matter that I've never replaced the wiring, nor that I can't find a shade to suit the old harp. I don't need it to work. I just need it to look nice.

The painting of the woman in the grey dress, walking along some coastal hills...ahh, from the 1930s (so I'm told), and I think she just looks like she has so much joy. I want to be her some day. She reminds of a character from "Enchanted April" - a delightful, must-see movie.

The picture of the two sweet little bridesmaids in the gilt frame - my daughter and cousin (my cousin's grand-daughter, I never remember how cousins are "removed"). Baseball player Orel Hershiser took the picture at a family wedding (he's not family, but friends of).

The large floral - now that's a historic piece! I was newly separated in 1997, had never heard of ebay (sigh, can you imagine??), but a girlfriend was buying a lot of jewelry there, and it got me hooked. I started buying little things - a $2 vintage red glass heart brooch for my daughter for Valentine's Day...a brown transferware plate for my collection...small things. But I started spending a little more and a little more...on a meager salary, a now-single parent. The day that painting arrived in the mail - I'd paid $75 for it, and it's...average-ness...brought me back to reality, and I was like, whoa, what am I DOING?? I couldn't afford luxuries like that! But I realized I had stuff in my OWN basement that I could probably sell on ebay. My mother had been a real garage sale hound/hoarder, and I had saved so many of her things after she died in 1990. Anyway, I decided if I wanted to continue BUYING on ebay, that I'd need to SELL on ebay to subsidize the habit. And so I did. I became an ebay seller, and 10 years later, I'm still an ebay seller! All thanks to that painting!