True Confessions

Confession time - I’ve gotten hooked on Instagram reels. Up til now, I’ve ignored reels on every platform. You want my attention? Put it in writing, I’d rather read about it. But Insta’s how-to reels roped me right in. 

First it was quilts… then plants… wood furniture finishing (fascinating to watch but I don’t want to actually do it)… and now it’s… silver polishing. 

Comparison halfway thru cleaning

Over the years, hubby has brought home a collection of mostly* silver-plated items from flea markets, swap meets and such. I remember silver cleaning as very labor intensive, so wasn’t real keen on fixing them up.

Until I saw a couple of reels that made it look easy! and fun!

This was in rough shape

According to experts, the easy and fun method was more likely to damage the silver than clean it, but by then I was hooked. 

Trademark ‘Chippendale’ ‘6364’

A couple of evenings, a bit of elbow grease (ok, a lot of elbow grease) and voila! Look how pretty and shiny they are!

My favorite is this Chippendale Silent Butler, circa 1980. 

But a close second is the filigree on this tray. So pretty. Now I’m hoping he finds more silver treasure to bring home.

* I say ‘mostly’ because 2 serving spoons in his collection turned out to be sterling silver. Score!

Things I Learned Today

The Yum, the Yuck and the Beautiful - 

Yummmm - I’m a sucker for stories that promise “try this for the best <insert fav baked goods> ever!” But occasionally one pans out (see what I did there?) and today was that day. 

From a chef on Instagram: make the chocolate chip cookie recipe that's on the chip bag but stir in a handful of well-crushed potato chips at the end. And sprinkle a little kosher salt on the baking sheet before scooping on the dough. I did it for a laugh - and the grandgirls laughed at me when I told them the new recipe - but it really did give the cookies more depth of flavor. Who knew?!

Before…

Yuck - replacing our home network modem/router/wifi equipment hasn’t gotten any easier or more fun. Our internet provider offers ‘self-install’ but promised ‘easy, thorough, step-by-step instructions.’ Riiiiiiiight. 

 After. Biggest difference is more hanging wires…

It took me all afternoon and half the evening to get it done. I’d probably still be at it but I got frustrated, said “f*** it”, plugged everything together where I wanted, and dared it not to work. Bonus - I got my steps in going up and down the ladder 50 bazillion times. 

 Lush Anthurium 

Beautiful - Hubby came back from his second home (Home Depot) with a couple more pretty plants. 

This one was labeled as a bromeliad but the internet says it’s a Pink Quill air-plant, Latin name Tillandsia cyanea or Wallisia cyanea (new classification). They often have a pink spike with little purple blossoms but I like the red just as well.  

The last time I tried growing a bromeliad it became Lily Kitty’s favorite chew toy. Hoping to have better luck with this one. 

Chop Chop

Our internet went out last night about 8 and I thought we (meaning me since hubby doesn’t do tech…) were going to have to buy and install a new router/modem since ours looked like a big, dark brick. 

 Good use for odd cups

Fortunately, it came back alive about noon today. So happy to not have that headache on my to-do list. But we’ll be keeping - just in case - the new hardware our internet provider shipped out today. Having it ready means we’ll never need it, right??!?

Before all that, I took the shears to my two money trees. I love the braids, the leaves, the thick trunks - basically everything about these things. Doesn’t mean I’m very good at growing them. Thanks to YouTube vids, they’re getting some long overdue maintenance.

I’ve had this big one since 2013. Lily Kitty looooved chewing on it, to the point I had to put stakes around it to keep her out. 

 Lily-proof spikes

It’s been sitting in the front bay window, neglected, looking scraggly but hanging on! for a couple of years. 

The wire holding this braid together should have been cut a long time ago. Poor tree.

Turns out they like neglect and that’s what probably kept it alive. Who knew??

Chopped the suckers off the base and then cropped everything back to just above the woody part of the stems. 

Put it under its own grow light - no more baking in the front window - and we’ll see what happens. 

The second tree is much smaller - I’ve had it since 2017 - and two of the three stems in the braid rotted and died last year. Too much watering, not enough neglect. 

I chopped the one lonely branch back to just above the last node on the stem (red circle above). It looks so sad!

 Soil is too wet but the trunk still looks good

The main plant guy I’ve been watching said he’s never had any luck propagating these, but I couldn’t bring myself to toss the top section sooooo… 

cut off the bottom leaf brackets and plopped them in a jar of fertilized water. Then wrapped the main stem in a wet paper towel covered in aluminum foil (old school!) Not holding my breath but it would be exciting if this worked. 

More grow lights are coming tomorrow… I’ve been pricing a second shelving system… there’s an orchid show in Santa Barbara in March (we both love orchids)… I may have found a new hobby to fill my grandkid-less time. 😁

Holiday Buffet

We’ve had this buffet* for… 30 years? more? 

For all that time, the bottom drawer has been a craft catch-all. Need beads, elastic, thread, packaged binding, glue, wooden things to paint for a project? The drawer will have it. 

It’s been a life project saver and a source of sparkly crafty joy for the grand girls. Of course the clutter spread, until most of this cabinet was filled with odd bits of crafty stuff.

I’d always used my mom’s hutch to store small seasonal decorations, so when Matt took that to SC last week (here), Plan B became clearing the buffet. 

Clear bins from the Container Store’s closing sale are now filled and labeled by holiday, with enough room in front of them to store our rotating collection of antique glass. Drawers hold flat-ish coasters, trays, trinkets and some table covers.

Out of all that, I kept half a grocery bag of useful stuff; filled 2 bags and a box with donations; and another 2 bags with trash. And left one drawer for junk odds and ends for old times sake.

* Funny story - Leia told me a couple of months ago that she never knew the buffet’s drawers/doors open. She thought they were just decorative and she was shocked when she saw me open one. It’s been here her entire life!! 😂

Containment

We don’t shop at the Container Store very often - it is to us like Costco is to other people: must buy all the things! 

The two stores near us are both closing (see: we don’t shop there often…) so we went “just to see what’s there”. It was pretty picked over but we still managed to fill a shopping cart with treasures, mostly for the kitchen.

I didn’t have time to finish two cabinets during December’s pre-Christmas cleaning spree, 

so tonight I took everything out of my ‘baking’ cabinet, cleaned it, organized it into the pretty new bins and put it all back. 

Probably nobody but me would notice the difference but… it’s so pretty. Pantry is up next. That’s going to be a chore.

Disaster Averted

Bad news: My faithful hand mixer died yesterday, with one week left til Christmas, and me with 12 different recipes (maybe more…) I want to bake starting this weekend. 

Good news: K0hl’s had a newer model of the same mixer in stock and the out-the-door cost, with the sale price, K0hl’s cash and a discount code,  was…. drum roll… $8.07. For a $40+ mixer. I love K0hl’s holiday sales.

 Bright pink poinsettia from Matt & Mary

Bad news: My car’s check engine light came on, and stayed on. Hubby is making at least one run to LAX on Monday to pick up kids and grandkids, it’s 7-ish days before Christmas and we have important grandkid things to do this week. 

Old, cute pic from when we first got the car

Good news: service guy says, “Great timing!” They just got the software fix for the recalled back-up camera and they can do that, the 10,000 mile maintenance, fix the check engine problem and get it back to us the same afternoon. For free-ish since we have a maintenance contract. Whoop!

Bad news: it’s fridge cleaning time. I always do it at Christmas because then I can remember when I did it last. Doesn’t matter when I do it in the middle of the year because, come December, I’m doing it again. Good news: it’s done, was less of a hassle than expected and looks so pretty!

Good news: my ‘full-fat real cheese is its own food group’ diet is healthy! At least right now and according to this study. Who knows what it will be in 6 months. But I’ll take it! 

Fixed It

The kingfisher is done - it took longer to rip out yesterday’s upside down piece than it did to resew that and finish the block. I only made one color mistake this month - the shrimp had 3 tails rather than 2 - so I’m getting better at that (or I just got lucky on this one… 😅)

The leg still looks wonky to me but it’s exactly like the design photo 🤷🏼‍♀️

Also finished three more fall palms, my monthly FPP project, for a total of 15 blocks. Which means I’m only one month behind on both Birdwatcher Project and palms! I thought the new bird pattern came out tomorrow but it happens on the second Thursday, so I have a whole week to do the giant heron from last month. I may get caught up after all!

Tomorrow is also pickup day for all the stuff we’ve cleaned out of upstairs and our closets.

I’m sad to see Jac’s makeup table go. She loved playing with it but decided she didn’t want to take it to Idaho. Hope it finds its way to another little girl who will love it.   

So nice to have all this gone. Now back to sewing.

Not Forgotten

Hubby: “Weren’t you working on a bird quilt…”

Kingfisher in-progress.

Why yes, I was, but it got pushed aside by Halloween must-makes (still using - and loving - my Ghost Party quilt, even if Halloween is over) and the remodel/rebuild/remove-more-stuff project.

Hubby finished clearing out the second bedroom/storage room, 

and I have an entire closet to hang quilts and wallhangings, with a shelf for photo albums and scrapbooking supplies. (Poor Gary. This closet was filled with his stuff - and it’s now taking up space in his garage. 😂)

All the sewing/quilting stuff that was upstairs is now in this section, along with the yarn and crochet/knitting supplies I’m still holding on to. (Cyrus is coming! And she loves to crochet and wants to learn to knit and weave.)

Foosball table is in front of this wall.

Weaving/spinning supplies are in this section with the earthquake supplies. Some shelves are still empty til I figure out if this layout works or not. 

Bobbin lace (someday I’ll get back to it, I hope!), yarn tools, odd pieces of batting and kid art supplies are on these shelves, with ice chests and two suitcases stacked and covered beside them. 

I still need to sort these art/Legos/kinetic sand supplies… some day. 

Best thing about sorting and moving was finding things I’d forgotten about or lost. This thread stand was still in its original packaging, from a quilt store that’s been gone for 10+ years. Now I don’t have to use a coffee cup and swear every time the thread flips out onto the floor. Progress!