BLACK and WHITE - Mod Mix #5

I LOVE IT !http://www.jhinteriordesign.com/jhid/

WHITE and BLACK

My Blue

WHITE and BLACK

http://www.jhinteriordesign.com/jhid/

and BLACK

My Harry

BLACK and WHITE

http://www.jhinteriordesign.com/jhid/

WHITE

My Ghost

WHITE and BLACK

http://www.jhinteriordesign.com/jhid/

BLACK

My  Little Bug

BLACK and WHITE

http://www.jhinteriordesign.com/jhid/

BLACK and WHITE

My Button

WHITE

http://www.jhinteriordesign.com/jhid/

WHITE

My Horton

WHITE

http://www.jhinteriordesign.com/jhid/

BLACK

My Louie

All of the Interior Designs in the above photos are by Jessica Helgerson.

She is my FAVORITE DESIGNER. If I ever win the lottery, after I buy my dream home, my next call will be to her! For more info go here: http://www.jhinteriordesign.com/jhid/
(It is purely by accident that some of my pets are black and white. I do have others, of other colors!
LOL! Just so you don't think that I color-coordinate my pets!)
I'm sharing over at Nita's http://modvintagelife.blogspot.com/2011/06/mod-mix-monday-5.html

REMEMBERING MY DAD

This is one of my most prized possessions. It is a photograph of my father at about age 5. He was born in 1915. It was the one thing that I told my Dad that I wanted someday. It's dated in pencil on the back.
I have it hanging in my kitchen. I look at it everyday. I get up and make my coffee and I look at my Dad. Even though he's just a little kid in the photo I can still see him clearly in my mind. It's the same eyes and nose and mouth. Sometimes I can see him when I look in the mirror. I have his nose and mouth. Unfortunately I don't have his blue eyes. I used to complain about that, why couldn't I have the same blue eyes. He, of course said that I was lucky because I had my Mother's brown eyes and he loved her eyes.
My Dad has been gone for 17 years now. 17 years and 10 days. Some years on that day, I will briefly think about his passing. I spend a few moments allowing myself to really think about him. Then sometimes, like this year, it all comes soaring back and I feel like someone has reached in my chest and squeezed my heart so tight that I can't breathe.
I supposed it's because it fell on a Wednesday again. I didn't have to work that Wednesday and I didn't have the usually distractions.
17 years.
It doesn't seem like that long. Sure, it wasn't yesterday but maybe 5 or 6 years? I had talked to him the night before. But that wasn't unusual, I talked to him almost daily. But that night I was telling him about a piece of Art work that I had created. I hadn't done any art in years and yet now I had entered in an Exhibition and my piece was hanging in a window of one our downtown shops. I was so proud and I tried to tell him where it was located and he had said not to bother. He probably won't be down to see it. I was so hurt but I kept my feelings to myself. He never understood ART. That was something frivolous. Yet he would praise me about how nice and tidy my kitchen was after I had painted and decorated with towels, curtains and a new rug. Keeping a home clean and tidy, now THAT was important. Sigh.........
We had traveled a very hard and bumpy road together.
He had gone from being a stranger that worked all the time, someone I barely talked to, someone that I dealt mostly with my mother as the interpreter. Then when my Mom passed, my sister and I suddenly had to deal with a strict and old-fashioned private man. Life was not easy.
After I was grown and living on my own, a strange thing happened.
We slowly became friends. It's strange how you can love someone but not really like them. But as time went on we became so close. We would sit and have our talks together and share secrets.
I had gotten my house and he would stop by and work on things. I could see that he wasn't young anymore and I worried about him. I would work side by side along with him in the house and when there was something that required  alot of strength I would pretend to act like I wanted to "try" it. I remember pounding down the plaster ceiling before he could get to it. I told him that I had wanted to work out my "stress" and we laughed. He was from that generation were they have so much pride.
I only had 2 dogs back then. My Golden Retriever "Maddie" and a crazy little mix named "Jack".
My Dad would go to my house everyday and let them out for me. He had said not to ever worry about my dogs, he would take care of them for me.
One day during our talks he told me that I was his best friend and I realized that he was mine too.
We had come so far. And as with all friends, there are always things that you don't agree on. Things they sometimes say that hurt your feelings but you love them.
So... I never said anything that night when he couldn't be bothered to see my Art piece in the window.
And the next day at work as I was about to leave for lunch, my manager called me to her office for a phone call. My Dad's neighbor was on the phone, calling for my Step-Mom. She had come home for lunch and found my Dad. He was gone. He had passed from a heart attack.
I was devastated. It took a very long time for me to work through the grief.
There would be moments when I would start to go to the phone to call him and then remember.
I remember once being out in the backyard in the dark and watching my crazy dog "Jack" running around trying to catch "lightening-bugs" in the night air. I got up to call Dad to tell him how funny Jack was and then remembered...
Tonight I was out in the garden, doing some weeding . Darkness was slowly creeping up and I gathered up my garden supplies to go in the house. I turned around and looked at my yard in the twilight and I suddenly saw the twinkle of the "lightning-bugs" and I smiled.
I miss him still.

FRUGAL FRIDAY #4

Here's my tip for today.Be nice to people.
That's it.
Be nice, be pleasant and smile.

Example: The other night my sister called me about an unadvertised 50% off everything sale at a place where she gets some of her flowers. I stopped out and picked up some nice things and then decided to go back the next day on my day off.
But then I thought I would first run out to the garden center that I usually go to.
The manager there had told the women to mark down and get rid of all the overstock. They were dragging out racks of things. I was laughing and joking with one of the ladies about how I was glad to help them get rid of some it. She helped me wheel up my cart full of $6.00 Arborvitaes to the front.

(I'll be using those to block out my neighbor's yard). I picked up some $1.00 geraniums and couple of $3.00 hanging baskets!
So I got home and surveyed my yard.

I REALLY needed some more geraniums.
So back I went.
As I was milling around, putting geraniums in my cart and moving wilted things around to get to some annuals, the same woman came up to me. She asked if I hadn't been there earlier and I laughed and said YES. So she points at this huge metal cart thing, the type they load lumber on and said - "The manager said to get rid of as much as possible,so he OK'd it that you can load up that cart as full as you can for $30.00!"
I thought I might faint.

So then she said, "Let's grab the most expensive stuff and make it worth your while!"
So I got TWO rose "trees",

Two Hydrangeas, Two little Arborvitaes and a BIG one with the tip top broken off (but easily pruned off) Three hangings baskets,

a Lilac bush, MORE geraniums. TWO pots of annuals and....I might be forgetting something but...............
I was SO HAPPY

that I was almost TREMBLING with EXCITEMENT!
I'll never have to buy another flower or plant again!
(But I probably will!)

But back to my TIP.
There were other people milling around and I noticed that she wasn't telling everyone.
I truly believe it was because I had been pleasant and joked and laughed with her earlier.
So it PAYS to be NICE.

BORN THIS WAY?

Meet Louis Vuitton (pronounced Lou-"E") aka Louie Vomit.

He's been part of my family for more than 2 years but I love him like he's been here forever. He's a toy poodle that I rescued at my work. He had been a shaking little timid thing, prone to nipping when someone would try to pick him up. He and his housemate had boarded with me at my kennel and he would sit and  tremble in the back of the run. After a 10 day stay, I had won his trust and he would run outside with me and come to me to be picked up when he was ready to come in. I always stand outside with my little boarders. The fencing is very secure and there are several series of them before any dog could get loose but I still worry. About that and about hawks.

So.....
One day I was helping out up front in the reception area and I got a phone call from his owner. She wanted to put him to sleep because he had just thrown up on her bedspread. (He was 3 years old). She had said that she had been in several times trying to find out what was wrong with him and she didn't want to spend anymore money on him. (I was sitting at the computer looking at her account while she talked. She had been in ONCE) I listened to her rant and then I told her who I was and that I had cared for him while he had boarded and I asked if maybe she would think about letting me have him instead. I hardly had time for a breath when she said YES! She would be right over. So she was there in 20 minutes and handed him off to me without a good-bye.

I took him home and a day later he vomited in the living room. I reached for him and he cowered and trembled. I held him and stroked my finger up and down the front of his neck and quietly told him "It's OK. you're fine. Calm down Honey, it's OK". He settled down and then I put him on the floor and he looked at me and then ran off to play with some of the other little ones. It happened a few times after that and I came to realize it was always when there was "excitement" in the house. Sometimes the terriers will see someone out the window walking by or hear a dog bark on the TV and they will bark furiously and everyone else will join in. At these times little Louie would start gagging and vomit a little and I would pick him up and comfort him. Now if he gets excited I just say "Calm down Louie, you're ALRIGHT" and he will look at me and stop. Sometimes he runs to me and I will pick him up and hold him against me and give him kisses and tell him "It's OK little one" and then he he gives me little kisses back.
I can never get a good photo of him, partly because he's black but mostly because at first he trembled so much and then later because he's always on the go. 

(Here's me and Louie at Halloween time not too long after I brought him home.)

(SO BLURRY! Sigh....)

So here's a little bit about Louie -

Louie doesn't really walk or gallop or prance. He dances. He likes to throw out his right back leg and then his left back leg, kinda doing a double beat as he goes across the room. I've been intently watching "Dancing with the Stars" and I'm not sure if it's the Cha-Cha. Rumba or the Jive. I'm thinking it's more the Jive. He also loves to run around with toys twice his size and shake them hard and then catapult them up in the air. They will fly over the other little ones heads as they duck. He watches it fly and then he will dance across the room to grab it again. Sometimes one of the terriers will jump off a sofa and run over and take it. He will stop and watch them and then turn and dance to the laundry room and ring the bell on the back door over and over again. I hung it there trying to teach them to ring it when they wanted to go outside....but no one does. It's just Louie's game. Jumping against it like a cat or pulling on the string and RING, RING RING!

(I know that you were looking at Louie in those photos, Right? Not at my ugly baseboards were I just pulled the moulding off and haven't replaced and painted it yet. STOP looking at it. Focus on Louie!)
I will go to the door sometimes and open it for him but he never wants to go outside at those times. He just waits until I close the door and go back to the living room and then he starts "Ring"-"Ring"-"Ring" again, I thought about taking it down but he enjoys it so much and the rest of us just ignore it. I don't think anyone but me even notices it anymore. He is just the HAPPIEST little dog. He loves playing with the other little dogs or if the cats come upstairs he runs after them with glee. He tries to climb up on Dewey and the cat will let him do that for a while and then Dewey rolls over and kinda wrestles him. Dewey will gently wrap his front paws around Louie and nimble on his ears until Louie gives up the wrestle match. Louie can never win because Dewey is double his size!

Then he turns to his toys and or runs to the sofa to be picked up and laid on my lap for a rest.

Not long after I acquired my little guy, the previous owner called me. She wanted him back. All the girls at work told me not to let her have him. I wasn't really worried because I had her sign a release form transferring him over to me. One of the girls who tends to have a very cynical outlook on life said to me that the previous owner probably realized that she could have SOLD him and that was why she wanted him back.

So I took the phone call and listened to her as she told me that she had been on OFF of her medication that day and hadn't been in her right mind or she wouldn't have let him go. So I told her that I didn't want to hurt her feelings but THAT day she had wanted to euthanize him. She wasn't looking for a new adoptable HOME for him at the time and if I hadn't taken him, well...as I told her, there would have been no going back on THAT decision. I also told her that I loved him very much and that he was very happy and I promised to take very good care of him. To this she replied flippantly "Well! I tried!" I hang up feeling that my co-worker was indeed right on this one. She hadn't been upset or cried, she was just very business like.
Who knows what her plans for my Louie were!

So now you know about Louie. And my question is, do you think he was born that way? Dancing and HAPPY, skipping through life and throwing toys or at least always wanting to even when he was scared and trembling and hiding in corners. Or did I make him that way? Getting him cut in Poodle Cuts and Bows in his hair and polish on his toenails?
Personally, I think that he was BORN THAT WAY!

Mod Mix Monday #4 My Kitchen!

OK, I'm lying again!

but I do have the paint, and the tile and the furniture (that needs to be repainted) and the art work etc. to display. I just need some time to do it. And the ENERGY. That's a big one! I have just felt a bit tapped out lately.

Anyway. Here are some photos that I saved on my computer for INSPIRATION!

I'm pretty sure that I "borrowed" them all for LIVING ETC.

I LOVE that magazine!
So many of my favorite's are sadly gone. I would just spend hours studying them. And I was SO HAPPY when I came home and found one in my mailbox!
Sigh...............

I thing most of these are good mix of OLD & NEW.
MOD & Vintage.

I will be linking up my big FIB to Nita's over at http://modvintagelife.blogspot.com/

MY GARDEN WIP

Just a few photos of my front yard. I took these about 10 days ago (and now I'm cutting back all the Daisies as they fade.)

I started with a few 10 cents seed packets from the Dollar General several years ago and now they are out of control!
I've dug some up but they keep multiplying!
I've been weeding and I have more annuals to plant.

I did a few pots...but I will transplant these again when I finish painting my other garden pails...

You can see how small my yard is!

This is a bed that I'm working on that is along my driveway and borders my neighbors yard. I still have alot of work to do. I planted the tree last year and I just put in the Yellow Rose bush. There is one thing growing that I'm not sure if it's a perennial from last year or a weed...so I will wait a little bit and see what it grows to be. I need to mulch the bed still and YES, to the right of the photo you can see the tip of the fender of the neighbors car parked on their front lawn.

My oldest niece, who is 22 now, painted this metal bucket when she was 9. I've had it in the basement and I dragged it out and planted flowers in it.

Yes, my yard is wild and the flowers are going every which way. It's out of control with weeds to be pulled and mulch to be put down. I think my yard is alot like me.
I admire those nice tidy green lawns, trimmed and edged with a nice sensible flower pot by the door.
I yearn to be like that myself but try as I might,
things always seem to get out of hand.