Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Spring Means Hope- My Foyer Decor

HAPPY, HAPPY SPRING Y'all!

I have only just started putting out the decor. 

The postcards are from 1901-1910 and I got a whole lot of them (130 cards--Spring, V-Day, Christmas, etc...) at Salvation Army for $6.






The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.  
~Bern Williams



Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Journal Notes: I Still See Children


My younger (home-schooled) daughter and I were at the dentist, which was in the vicinity of the college where my older daughter is a freshman.
We decided to stop by Furman University and have lunch with her.
As we turned the corner by the lake towards her dorm building, she was walking down the sidewalk towards us with camellias (and some white weeds--she wouldn't call them weeds-- for filler) in her hands.
In that moment, I remembered all the times when she was a very little girl who would inspect and then perhaps pick the flowers, wherever we happened to be.
And then hand them to me as a sweet token of love.
I saw her once again today as a two-year old watching a ladybug on a rose, and trying to count her dots (yes! She could count!)
It reminded me of a poem I wrote many years ago in my journal, knowing the day would come that they would be no longer girls, but young ladies.

I STILL SEE CHILDREN
by Mary Mason

Awhile ago, my little ones
were playing at my feet
with tiny hands clasped firm in mine,
my joy became complete.

I didn't ever realize how fast
those carefree days would go.
I seldom paused to think-
back then, I could not know.

I saw them only yesterday
at play upon the floor.
Today they're grown; and silence marks
the closing of the door.

Now two grown girls have claimed the place
two small girls once shared.
But sometimes in a word or look
I still see children there.

If you are reading this and have wee ones: cherish each day and treat them as the gifts to you that they are.
They won't be little forever.

How about going outside together to look for flowers?





Whole Foods vs. Amazing Savings (Episode 1)


I have a secret to tell you: we eat well.
This doesn't mean we eat a lot.
It means that through the years we have learned to eat foods that are natural and organic.
This used to come with a hefty price tag.
Well, not anymore!

We are so blessed to have a store called Amazing Savings in our area.
I save HUNDREDS of dollars a month shopping there!
The shopping trip you are about to see is just a sampling 
(a teeny, teeny sampling) of the 1,000's of foods/items they carry, 
and a teeny sampling of the assortment of items I find.

They don't take coupons, but trust me, sister, 
the prices are better than any coupon deal I would EVER find at Whole Foods. 
So, now I don't even have to fiddle with coupons.
I went through Whole Foods and priced all the items below, 
WHEW, 
so you (and my hubby) could see the deals I get!
So, let's get on with it, and I'll show you what I am talking about:


Whole Foods price combined total of below: $24.23


Whole Foods price combined total of below: $13.96


Whole Foods price combined total of below: $21.45


Whole Foods price combined total of below: $12.66


Whole Foods price combined total of below: $16.67


Whole Foods price combined total of below: $17.76


Whole Foods price combined total of below: $34.09


Whole Foods price combined total of below: $11.07


Whole Foods price combined total of below: $10.57


Whole Foods price combined total of below: $35.40


Not shown in a picture, 
but shown as the last 5 items on the receipt are 
a whole chicken and 4 pkgs. grass-fed beef (cube steaks).
Meats are 1/4 the price of Whole Foods, too.

Total cost at Whole Foods including meat would have been: $227.72.

Wanna take a guess before looking at the receipt as to what I paid?





















Yep.
Amazing Savings.

Gossip Queen Janice Min Lists Loft


SELLER: Janice Min
LOCATION: Lafayette Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $7,395,000
SIZE: 3,795 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama plans to spend most of today watching the cacti grow but before we find a shady spot in the yard to plant our fat ass we thought we'd piggy back on Gawker's recent discussion of gossip queen Janice Min listing her loft in New York City's SoHo neighborhood at a ear piercing asking price of $7,395,000.

Miz Min, for those who may not recognize her name, was the editor-in-chief of Us Weekly. She's the ladee responsible for promoting every move, mistake an fart of folks like Paris Hilton, the octo-mom, Kate Gosselin and that sad, washed up Lindsay Lohan gurl who is so desperate to protect her, ahem, good name that she's resorted to suing ETrade for $100,000,000 because they named one of the talking babies in one of their boob-toob commercials Lindsay the "milkaholic." Anyhoo, Miz Min resigned her post as the King of the Gossip Queens last year and it's rumored and reported that she may move on to producing a celebrity-mom based website for butchy butch media tycoon Barry Diller. We can't imagine anything more inane or pretentious than a website on which celebrity mommies give parenting advice to regular, sleep deprived and nanny-free mommies.

Property records show that Miz Min and her schoolteacher huzband paid $4,050,000 for their loft in late October of 2005. It doesn't take much manipulating of the well worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus to see that Miz Min and her schoolteacher huzband are hoping to just about double their money on the 3,795 square foot loft space.

Listing information shows the corner loft is located in a pre-war full-service condo buildings and that a keyed elevator opens directly into the L-shaped dining/living/kitchen/media/den space that has 14 windows, 5 columns, delicious caramel colored hardwood floors, rough hewn oak beams from the 1890s and stretches a staggering 68-feet long from end to end.

Your Mama is not fond of loft living–we prefer actual rooms that provide some intimacy but still flow nicely into each other–and we're a little non-plussed with the rather generic day-core but we are covetous of the multi-colored striped rugs in the dining and living rooms. The gore-may kitchen is fitted with Italian cabinetry in a taupe-y gray color, arctic white counter tops, and a slew of high grade stainless steel appliances that, according to listing information, include "two Miele dishwashers, a 4 burner Viking range with grill, a French door SubZero refrigerator with 4 freezer drawers, a Miele espresso maker, warming tray and combination microwave convection oven."

There are two bedrooms and 2.5 poopers including a gigantic master bedroom with a sitting/exercise area, two standard-sized closets, a third walk-in closet, and a five-piece marble lined pooper that includes a steam shower. Your Mama would have preferred to see slab marble in the pooper rather than the smaller cut pieces that make for an interesting visual grid but also compete with the natural vein of the marble. What we do like in there is the black tile in the back of the shower which makes a nice counter point to all the white marble tile work.

Other residents of Miz Min's high-profile building include David Bowie and his long-necked model wife Iman and boo-teek hotelier Ian Schrager whose 3,990 square foot doo-plex penthouse was listed last year with an asking price of $12,500,000 and is now, according to StreetEasy, in contract.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Oh, Goodwill, How do I Love Thee? (2)

Let me count the ways:

1. Vintage framed floral print, $5.00

2. Pair of brushed nickel candlesticks, $4.00

3. Six ironstone plates (3 above each twin guest bed), $3.00

4. Trio of LARGE (2' & 18" tall) candlesticks, $8.00

5. Two vintage glass pitchers, $3.00 each.

6. Vintage gilded mirror, $20.00

Hanging in our basement cafe':

7. Pearly Urn, $4.50.

Stop by your local Goodwill(s), help the recycling cause and show some love, too!





Chachi Arcola Lists Encino House

SELLER: Scott Baio
LOCATION: Encino, CA
PRICE: $2,895,000
SIZE: 4,403 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen chickens, Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter decided to take a last minute vacation so we're phoning this in while sitting next to the swimming pool of a lovely Albert Frey designed house in Palm Springs. That's right. Palms Springs where it's all greys, gays, grey gays most of whom look like gym toned strips of bacon with diamond earrings and pedicures. Anyhoo, being on a much needed and earned vacation, we're gonna keep things as brief as we can without leaving the children with a complete case of the celebrity real estate withdrawls.

Thanks to several sources who have contacted us by way of covert communique over the last few days, we've learned that Scott Baio, better known perhaps as Chachi Arcola from the 1970 and 80s situation comedy Happy Days, recently listed his house in Encino, CA with an asking price of $2,895,000.

Mister Chachi first appeared on the silver screen with ladee lasagna Jodie Foster in the fierce Alan Parker version of Bugsy Malone in 1976. If any of you children haven't seen it, run out and rent it or NetFlix it or whatever it is you kids do nowadays. He then went on to his seminal role on Happy Days that lead, of course, to an unfortunate spin-off called Joanie Loves Chachi. That program ran one season–and one season too long–before it was canceled and Mister Chachi to the greener television pasture of Charles In Charge, which, frankly, was of no better quality but none the less ran a shocking 126 episodes according to the Internet Movie Data Base.

The next 15 years were celebrity purgatory for Mister Baio. He did appear in a number of situation comedies we've never heard of during those years but he was a unquestionably better known in Tinseltown as cocksman of epic proportions dating–or screwing–everyone from Beverly D'AngeloBrooke Shields, tErin Moran, Heather Locklear, Mogan Fairchild, Nicolette Sheridan, Lesley Ann Warren, Pamela Anderson, Liza Minelli, and Denise Richards, just to name of few of the bigger name females he's seen in the nood. He even dated Kristy McNichol and Jodie Foster. Make of that what you will children. In 2005 Mister Chachi appeared in a 4 episode arc on the brilliant but canceled Arrested Development and then, in 2007, he popped up with a reality program titled Scott Baio is 45...and Single. Your Mama, who will watch any damn reality program at least one time, found the show to be utterly pointless other than as a vehicle to restart a career that had all but died. Plus, he wasn't single, he had a ladee friend named Renee to whom he is now married and making babies with.

Anyhoo, property records show that Mister Baio bought his house in Encino way back in 1994 paying $1,385,000 for the single story residence located on the same street that sinking star Ashlee Simpson used to live on before she got too big for her britches and moved to Beverly Hills.

Both property records and listing information indicate the 4,403 square foot residence, situated at the tail end of a gated driveway, sits on just over an acre and includes 4 bedrooms, each with a private pooper, plus an additional half pooper for guests.

From the looks of things, the interior spaces were done up in a not very successfull Kelly Wearstler-lite meets 1995 sort of style with dark hardwood floors, tur-qwaze and swimming pool blue walls in the living and dining rooms, white tufted leather sofas and dining room chairs and at least one Arne Jacobson Egg Chair in white leather that we'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly are imitations and not the real thing. It's all rather theatrical and oddly feminine and looks like it's trying (and not succeeding) to look like the lobby of a trend boo-teek hotel. This is not a good look puppies. Despite the off-center fireplace in the living room, it's not the bones of the house that are the real problem, but the suspicious day-fore. Fortunately that will go with the Mister and Missus Chachi when they decamp to their next home.

Just off the formal living room is the family room with it's leopard print carpeting and Z Gallerie brown micro-suede sectional sofa. The kitchen, all 1990s white glossy cabinetry, gray speckled granite counter tops and chunky stainless steel appliances, has an adjacent, glassy breakfast room outfitted with a cool on the footsies flagstone floor, a circular rug from Ikea, a round glass topped table and a couple of hanging paper lantern lights that were a decorative mistake from the get go. The children will note Mister and Missus Chachi's wee Pomeranian puppy tucked into its little dog bed in the corner.

Much of the back of the house opens to the back yard through floor to ceiling sliding glass doors. The grounds consist of a couple of terraces near the house, expansive lawns, planted gardens, an elevated swimming pool, built-in barbecue area, tennis court, koi pond and a gazebo all done up with a projector and flat screen tee-vees.

There were loads of rumors and reports in early 2008, including right here on Your Mama's little online endeavor, that Mister and Missus Chachi had gone and purchased an ass-uglee architectural atrocity in Encino. It seems that on his reality program he and the missus visited a hideous 5 bedroom and 5.5 pooper property on Strawberry Drive and during the visit Mister Chachi moaned and groaned about the mortgage payments. However, Your Mama can find no evidence Mister and Missus Chachi actually bought or moved into the house. They were, quite simply, making "reality" tee-vee.

It seems now, given that their house in on the open market, Mister and Missus Chachi have finally gotten serious about moving. Will Mister Scott Baio remain a valley boy or will Missus Scott Baio encourage a move to Brentwood or one of the other more swish zip codes on the other side of the hills?

source: Ewing / Sotheby's International Realty via Redfin

The Blue Vanity



In my daughter's room sits a lovely piece of furniture.
It found us one day at an estate sale and it has made its place in her room.
It is very old and through the years, I suppose many young or not-so-young ladies have peered into its mirror.


What did they see there?
Blemishes or Beauty?
Insignificance or Importance?
A mess or a masterpiece?
What the world sees? Or what God sees?


For many years, I felt ugly, unloved and forgettable.
When I looked in the mirror, all I saw was shame.
Sin and its choices had ruined me.
Unforgiveness and anger and self-pity were what I saw when I looked at my image.


I thought makeup and concealer would help.
It didn't.
I thought a new hairstyle, or maybe a new hair color would help.
It didn't.
New clothes couldn't even hide the loathsomeness I felt about myself.



Then I took a closer look at myself one day- I mean, really peered deeply into my reflection.
Do you know what I heard?
I heard Jesus gently speaking to me.
Do you know what he said?
He said, "You are beautiful."
He told me that he could make me a totally new creation.
And He has.
That is not to say that there hasn't been a lot of pain involved when I finally saw the truth about myself.
But, I am no longer the person I used to see in the mirror.





I know now that my beauty is not on the outside (that is ever so slowly fading away).
True beauty comes from knowing by Whom I'm treasured.



What do you hear when you look at yourself in the mirror?
I am praying that you hear: "You are beautiful."
Because you truly are.



My Zimbio
My Ping in TotalPing.com