Hydrangea Heaven

Did some cuttings for around the house. Such a happy flower.) And speaking of happy . . . finished the book last night! Was sorry for it to end. Getting the next in the series, fer sher!)

Where everybody knows your name . . .

Harleigh had a doctor's appointment this morning as she's been dealing with bad headaches, overly sensitive hearing, and vision problems. Lots of tearful calls from school the past couple of weeks as she's been suffering through the day plagued with these pains and trying to wrap up the school year with the pressure of finals. Saw the doctor and was told we had to head to the emergency room for a CAT scan. No problem. She has a full day of driver's ed class and then we can head over to the ER afterwards. No, we were told, later won't work. This has to be done STAT. Well both Harleigh and I have watched enough emergency room and doctor shows to know that when a physician has a serious look and says STAT, it's serious. We didn't panic, but both gave each other this fearful, unkowing look and, CAT scan order in hand, headed to Scottish Rite.

Now you gotta know Harleigh to know that we are no strangers to the Scottish Rite ER. When we enter those doors its like Norm walking into Cheers, when everyone yells a collective "Norm!" We walk in and hear "Harleigh!" We have been there for everything from concussions to questionable broken bones to stomach issues. After checking in at the Triage desk, we were handed a Welcome Packet that walks you through the procedures and layout of the hospital. Harleigh gave me a deadpan look and said "Mom, we don't need this. We could have written it." Enough said.

Turns out the doctor didn't want to do the CAT scan, but thinks that Harleigh is suffering from migraines. Now I've never had a migraine, but know people who have, and I was so disappointed to hear the diagnosis. I hate that she suffers like this, and with the medication prescribed and keeping a strict diary of her headache episodes, what she eats, menstrual schedule, stuff like that, we hope that we can figure out what's causing them and get these to go away for good.

So, Cheers to there being nothing serious. And we just pray that the migraines subside.

Gift Wrapping

I always keep a roll of off-white satin ribbon on hand for wrapping gifts. So many times when buying an item, you get a plain white gift box to go with it. If I'm in a hurry, it's easy to just assemble the white box and tie the ribbon around it. I love bright white and off-white together. I took two gifts to work with me this past Friday, one a birthday gift and one a going-away gift for a co-worker moving to Brighton, England. Here they are on my passenger seat, heading into work. (Just a clue as to how harried I was last week . . . taking blog pictures in the car — but not while moving of course.)

Dawn Who?

OK, this is just not what I intended. When you get the blog bug, you want to post every day, you want to read others' every day. And then when you get so inundated at work and can't, it really sucks. I have been slammed at work, with no time for even doing anything personal at lunch. Getting home at 8:00 where I have a daughter (and a dog) who, rightly so, get my attention, albeit rather tired and borderline cranky attention. Of course, my reading has even suffered and that ticks me off that I can't get this book finished and want to so badly. All in all, I hope work lets up a bit, although next week looks like it might be worse than this week in terms of staying late. So I am so sorry. I know what it's like to go to some of my favorite blogs and read and see the same post for days on end. It's just disappointing. I promise to kick it up a notch this weekend and try to make up for this lameness.

In the meantime, here is a picture of one of my favorite floral paintings in the house. This is one my world-traveling friend, Lisa, brought me back from Russia. I'll take some pictures this weekend of some other floral paintings I have, all of them dear to me and with such fond memories attached to them. (All that work stress just lifted off my shoulders as I typed something other than work-related emails, project calendars and all that other icky stuff that ties me to the computer at the office!)
Love,
Dawn

Blog or Read?

This is sorta like the big question of the day when you're on vacation on the coast . . . "beach or pool?" It's not a weighty decision but a fun one, and either way you win.

The past few evenings I've had my head buried in this book. It's been passed around amongst my daughter and her group of friends. When Harleigh was finished I got the "Mom, you HAVE to read this book." I'd seen it on a few blogs, referenced as a good read, and so I decided to give it a shot. The series is actually geared towards teens, but I find nothing "teen" about it except that the main characters are in high school. Would highly recommend. And, yes, the blogging, both posting and reading, has taken a back seat to coming home and jumping into this.

Happy Mother's Day

Here is the corsage that my stepdad, Fred, has hidden every year, the Friday before Mother's Day, for Harleigh to give me on Mother's Day morning. It started with me not knowing he was doing it, and he would call our house early on Mother's Day and remind her to give it to me. She's 16 now, there's no reminder phone call, and I must admit that I do know about their little secret and we all giggle about how the sweet tradition continues.

And here is one of my favorite pictures of me and Harleigh. She was less than 5 years old (how horrible am I at remembering the age of my only child in pictures!?!?!?). Now that I've posted a picture of myself as a slender mid-30-year-old, it will be really hard to post one of myself now.
It's been a very nice day. Started off with a bad thunderstorm and has turned into a warm, windy and sunny afternoon. Out to lunch with my family and now home to relax before the daunting work week rears its ugly head. Happy Mother's Day to all, as every one of us celebrates moms, be it our own or one we know who inspires us. (I want to wish Melinda a wonderful day; she's one of my favorite moms out there!)

Finally . . . Saturday

Never more happy to call it a weekend than after this week at work. Ugh.

Here are some of my plants, doing well with all the rain we've had. The clematis is only half-bloomed!

Sophomore Year Coming to an End

Only two weeks left of school. Harleigh has been lucky to not have had to ride the bus since a senior friend of hers who lives a few neighborhoods away has her own car and drives to school. They've been enjoying riding to and from school together, stopping every morning for breakfast. But seniors have their last day today and so Harleigh has to not only say hello to riding the bus for the next two weeks, but she has to say goodbye to a dear friend. She got Elise a gas card and these happy sunflowers as a thank you. (Thanks to Manuela of The Feathered Nest for introducing me to the flower shop at Kroger, where all throughout the week flowers are marked down in price. These sunflowers were only $5.99; at this price I should have gotten a bunch for me!)

Not sure if I mentioned, but Harleigh got the summer job she interviewed for! Over 70 kids interviewed for 20 spots, so while I was sure she would get it, she was sweatin' it a little. I'm so proud of her. What a great kid I got.

Honey-Do's (and I'm the Honey around this house)

Here are three things I want to post so that I am held accountable for dealing with them.

The first, embarrassingly so, is the absence of curtains at the windows in my kitchen den (ken). I have had these temporary Home Depot paper thingies up since way before Christmas. Prior to that I had sheer Priscillas (I call them I Love Lucy curtains) at the window. I had them crossing over in the center and they really were charming. But I want something cleaner. I have no idea what I want to do. Privacy isn't really an issue; my neighbors next door are rarely out, and the only thing I do in the ken is watch TV or read, and never naked I might add. (The lamp on the dresser is the one that used to be on my bedroom nightstand.)
The second is giving my potting table a good cleaning and organizing. My parents bought it for me from Target when I first moved in the house and it is a godsend. It stores things — not just of the garden variety — that I put my hands on frequently. I made a curtain out of some vintage fabric and jury-rigged a "rod" by putting two round eye hooks on the front of the table, one at each end. and strung a wire from one to the other with a nail in the middle to keep the wire from drooping. When Harleigh was about 6 she made me the hanger above the table, a piece of wood with nails in it. It says "Have a Good Day."
And the third is this old chandelier. When the ken used to be a dining area, this chandelier hung above the table. It used to be brass but I painted it ivory, covered the shades in a pink floral calico fabric and made a chain cover from some white canvas I had. It did look pretty, especially decorated at Christmastime. But when the room became our ken, the chandelier hung too low and rather than shorten the chain, I just had my electrician take the whole thing down. It has been in my garage in the Yard Sale pile for sometime now. But since I've decided not to do a yard sale ever again, as long as I live, as you are my witness, I think I can make it into something. I'd throw it away, but I just know that I'll regret it.

A Quiet Day at Home

Harleigh is off to driver's ed class (had it Friday and Saturday as well, and goes back in two weeks for another full weekend of class) and so it's been sorta quiet around here. Beautiful weather after yesterday's rainy day, but the rain made for easier digging. Planted two Juddi Viburnum, one in the backyard and one out front in the bed closest to the front door. They're supposed to smell divine and grow rather large (8' x 8'). I need to start filling in the front beds of the house, and large plants like these fill in space, look pretty, smell pretty, and will limit the number of annuals I have to plant to give the house some curb appeal.

My clematis has climbed up the rainspout and I'm training it across the porch by simply putting a line of hooks under the overhang. It's starting to drip with blooms and should be quite the showpiece very soon.










This doll quilt came in the mail a few days ago, an impulse purchase on Ebay, fueled by all the talk of Holly Hobbie. Our rumpus room is sort of a mishmash of girl stuff and so I might do some rearranging on the walls and hang it in there.

New Bedroom Lamp

Reading in bed can be a real challenge. You want great light but you don't want to sacrifice pretty lamps to get it. I've been looking for a bigger nightstand lamp that casts better light. My other lamp was sweet but just didn't cut it. Today, while out looking for a chest of drawers for Harleigh's room, I came across this lamp and fell in love with it. It's the Chris Madden Shenzhen lamp and is discontinued. It's a $300 lamp that was on sale for $99 and the sweet gal at the checkout gave me a 20% discount (from a newspaper flyer that I had no clue about but she pretended that I did and pulled one from under the counter to scan; gotta love retail help with a heart).The first thing Harleigh said when she saw it was "I think it's too big for the table" to which I responded, "but I really love it so who cares." It's a beautiful, serene shade of seaglass blue and it has a crackled finish. The accents are silver, which clash with the gold accents in the room, but . . . then I remember my favorite spread in this month's Country Living, where the homeowner mixes gold and silver, and I think that what I've done is just fine.

Make a Wish

These are two of my favorite things around the house that make my dusting chore a pleasure. Dandelions are such a kid thing; only a child can appreciate blowing them apart in the wind (while we adults just see a yard that needs attention). These paperweights make lovely gifts for birthdays, weddings, getting through tough times . . . anything that warrants a wish come true.

Thanks to my HTML girlfriends!

Ali taught Courtney, then Courtney taught me (or rather did it for me while I looked on with gratefulness) how to change-up my blog with this way cool white runner. I think it reads a lot better and looks super dee-signed, which is something these two gals know oodles about.

A Chair a Day . . . Adironack

This vignette (minus the chair which I just stuck up there for this picture) is on top of our living room armoire. I've had the easel for a long time (always with the intention of taking a plein aire painting class). I found the beach painting in a thrift store. It was in a cheesy drugstore frame and so I took it out and placed it on the easel. Looks like I painted it, eh?

The grass is fake and in a glass trifle bowl filled with shells.

Welcome to Chateau Gahan

We started calling our home Chateau Gahan when my dearest dearest girlfriend Lisa was living in Chicago and traveled to Atlanta on business every other month or so for a few days. She would always stay with us, and we had a room set up for her (alas, she has a different job now that means no trips to Atlanta, so the room has become our rumpus room). She's the type of houseguest who totally understands how to be a good guest. She has a key to our place and so would let herself in, usually arriving on an afternoon flight. Then when I'd get home from work, she'd be there with a glass of wine waiting so that the two of us could relax and catch up. She is, without a doubt, the most low maintenance houseguest you could ever wish for.

Since our place was sorta her Atlanta hotel, we just naturally gave it a name. Have no idea why we landed on this one, but I guarantee it was hatched on one of those evenings with a bottle of wine.

Here's the front door of Chateau Gahan welcoming Spring.