Richard Strickland and the Florida Highwaymen

Before I post a ton of pictures from our vacation to Alligator Point, FL, where we stayed in a house called Tucked Away ON THE BEACH (VRBO listing #556188), I want to share a story from our trip. The painting below hangs in Tucked Away, and I fell in love with it. The colors. The scene. The mood. And that it mirrored our view of the ocean from the house . . . I was smitten. Here is the painting —

I contemplated calling the owners and asking if I could buy it from them. I googled the artist, Richard Strickland, and didn't come up with much I could go on. In a last ditch effort, I took the painting off the wall to see if there was anything on the back, and lo and behold, adhered with tape were a typed blurb about the artist and one of his business cards. I emailed him and heard back that same day! He replied that he was flattered I'd contacted him and that he mainly sells his work at art shows. He and his wife live close to the house we were renting, and he offered-up me coming over to his house/studio to see his work, some of it for sale. His wife and I texted back and forth, and I opted to drive over there on the morning of our last day in Florida.

They live nestled in the pines in a secluded area near Lake Ellen in Medart. In fact, Connie, Rick's wife, met me at the library on the main highway leading to their home, explaining that the drive to their place was a bit of a windy trek. Given that we were strangers, she punctuated the conversation by saying that even though they live off the beaten path, there ARE people around. We laughed about this later. I had given her my blog address earlier to check me out; I could have been a serial killer for all they knew! (Obviously we were both excited about the idea of getting together but all too aware of the fact that strangers meeting could lead to an episode on TV's 60 Minutes.)

When we drove up, Rick came out on the front porch to greet me, beaming. He and Connie gave me a tour of their home, including his sunny studio on the second floor. He told me his story. Here is an excerpt from his public Facebook page —

Artist Rick Strickland began collecting paintings by The Florida Highwaymen several years ago. 

He loved the way The Highwaymen captured the look and feel of old Florida.

Rick was inspired by their story and began to paint. 

Soon painting became a very important part of his life. 

He learned style and techniques by studying the art that he loved, 

and soon developed them into a style of his own. 

The aim of his art is to capture and evoke a feeling of nostalgia for the "Old Florida."

Rick collects Florida Highwaymen paintings. Their home is colorful and happy, with stunning artwork in every room (I wish I had taken pictures). He shared some of his own work from what he calls his "blue period." While I loved that work (and you'll see in posts coming up that it was uncanny that the whole vacation was all about "blue"), it was the one below (now hanging in my living room), that I instantly felt a connection with similar to how I felt about the one hanging in Tucked Away.

I had such a wonderful visit, not just because his artwork is spectacular, but in large part because Rick and Connie are two of the nicest people I've ever met. Hugs were shared, a Rick Strickland original was carefully packed in my trunk for the long ride home, dear Connie convoyed me back to the main highway, and a vacation memory was catalogued for future reminiscing and sharing. I love that my painting has such a story behind it. These are my favorite possessions in life.

I've texted Connie since my return home, and here's a new twist to what is already a pretty doggone epic story. I signed the guest book at Tucked Away and included this story for future guests. The narrative didn't include my visit and purchase, since I penned it before going to see Rick and Connie. The people who rented the house after us read my entry and contacted Rick and purchased two of his paintings!! 

Thank you, Rick and Connie, for your hospitality, and not getting creeped out by a stranger calling and accepting an invitation to your home. And Rick, the Florida beach scene you lovingly and beautifully painted in that sunny studio of yours is now sunshine in my home. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for a reminder every day of the most relaxing week of my life and connecting to you, my own Florida Highwayman.

Heathy Stuf

I've written before about my obsession with grocery lists left in grocery carts.

While pumping gas at QuickTrip the other day, I went to throw away

something and saw this at the top of the trash can.

I couldn't resist taking it. 

Makes me smile every time I read it.

Heathy Stuf

I love my mommy

and I love trees

because they need

water, sun, air.

And all of us

need air, water, sun.

And we need water

every day.

And sunlight.

And we need

food for us.

And we need

heathy drinks.

And we need

air because

if we don't

have air

we will die. 

And we need

water. If 

we don't

have water we will

die.

Neighborhood Grocery = Glass Finds

Here in Peachtree Corners, GA, we have so many options for good grocery shopping. Within a 5-mile radius of Chateau Gahan there's a Trader Joe's, Sprouts, Earth Fare, Whole Foods, Publix, Kroger, Ingles, Super H Mart, and Walmart Neighborhood Market. And there's The Fresh Market about 8 miles from our house. We are super fans of Sprouts for most of our shopping (and hit up Ingles, a short walk from our place, for paper and household products).

Harleigh was shopping in Sprouts a few weeks ago and came across organic apple juice in this beautiful bottle. She got the juice for herself, the bottle for me. Once emptied, I cleaned it up and put it on the mantle (along with a glass bowl of shells and a glass vase of cotton bolls). For now it holds a fake flowering branch, but soon it will hold something real, fresh and Springy.

My go-to process for getting labels off glass —

I use Goo Gone Spray Gel. Love it for taking off stuck-on labels and cleaning muck off glass in general. I like the spray better than the straight liquid; easier to saturate the paper.  I first give the label a generous spray of the Goo Gone; let it set for about 15 minutes. Then I take a scraper (the  kind that holds a one-sided razor blade) and begin scraping along the top edge. I then give another spray of the Goo Gone along the frayed top of the label so that it soaks between the glass and label. I let it set for a few minutes. By this time, the balance of the label comes off very quickly. Always remember to scrap away from you. There's usually stray glue left once all the paper comes off. By holding the glass under running water, you can easily see where the glue is left, then give it a swipe with the scraper or piece of cloth.

What's Up With Me and Halloween?

Like I said in an earlier post, I'm not a big fan of Halloween. But this year, gotta say, I've really gotten into decorating. It's been spurred on by visits to Dollar Tree who, hands down, has THE best Halloween decorations on the cheap. At the rate I'm going, maybe I will be handing out candy this year. Heck, I've got enough spooky holiday momentum, I might even dress up for the little ones.

Saw this in Better Homes & Gardens. Now granted, their welcome mat wasn't all janky and greeting guests with "lcome" like mine is. With five Dollar Tree snakes, this doormat is saying anything but Welcome.

Rubber spiders that can weather the elements are attacking my pumpkins. 

Simply punched a straight pin into their bodies and through to the pumpkin. 

I think I might pin down their legs to make them look more real.

Dollar Tree had a bunch of different designs of these mirror decals. How cool is this?

I also picked up a packet of spider cut-outs 

and adhered them to both front windows with double-sided tape. 

Chateau Gahan's a real house of horrors.

[Here's the BH&G version of the snake doormat.]

When Friends See "Trash" and Think of You

Ali spied this huge window at the curbside and, if I'm not mistaken, ran home to talk her husband into coming back to help load it into the car . .  and all for little ol' me. I've held onto it for probably a good two years, knowing that I'd put it to good use one day. And that day came on May 10. Friend and co-worker, Julie, had asked me to style her wedding. This lucky find was turned into the perfect table assignment chart. I cleaned her up real good and gave the wood a coat of fresh white paint. I keyed the guest list into Word and then chose the script font she had used on her wedding invitations. I printed out the panels — black type on white paper — and then taped them to the back of the window panes. With a white liquid chalk marker, I simply traced the names onto the front of the window panes, removed the white sheets from the back, and then taped black paper onto the back of the panes that had writing on them (for some reason, in the picture the black looks like rippling fabric, but it was a nice solid matte black). Topped it off with a ribbon, flower, twig and bird (she had a bird theme for the wedding). From dumpster to diva!

SOLD!

Sometimes on the weekend when I'm taking a break from nesting and chores, I log onto Zillow and escape into the world of house hunting, and always pretending that money is no object. Well, I found my house. It's everything I want. On the beach. Sanibel Island, FL. Lots of light and white. Homey and comfortable. Not too big. I'm going to ask the owners if they'll sell it to me furnished. I think I will be very, very happy here :-)

Escape

This weekend it really hit me just how much social media and the digital world

have taken over my life. Sorta made me sad.

On Sunday afternoon, after a full weekend, I escaped to the back patio with Gideon

TO

SIMPLY

SIT.

When was the last time I did that?

Without a phone or a laptop.

Or a camera.

I sat in my cheap, plastic Adirondack chair,

my hands, palms up, on the arms of the chair,

my head resting on the chair back,

the serenity and warmth 

causing my eyelids to drop and my 

whole being

TO

BASK

IN

CALM.

The house was in shambles.

The garden in need of weeding.

Dustbunnies everywhere.

Laundry done and folded but in piles on my bed.

Everywhere I looked, I saw work to be done.

My usual escape is to play a game of solitaire on my phone.

Catch up on Pinterest.

Post and peruse Instagram.

Watch the newest episode of Housewives of NYC on my laptop.

Listen to music.

Watch TV.

As I sat in the chair on my patio, 

a peace came over me that I've not felt in quite some time. 

Escaping without an outlet, a keypad, a screen.

What a novel idea.

Instead, I was plugged into the sounds of birds chirping and kids playing, 

the smells of cut grass and my neighbors grilling,

the feel of a warm breeze stroking my face and of Gideon's fluffy head beneath my hand.

And so, I vow to enjoy more of these escapes.

Have them happen more than just during vacations.

Share them with my daughter.

Schedule them. Spontaneously do 'em. 

Simply perfect.

In my quest to simplify, I don't go to thrift stores anymore. 

But at the antique mall where I have my booth, 

I chanced upon a huge stack of these salesman button sample cards, and I couldn't pass them up.

I bought four and plan on hanging them "as is" on the wall in my craft room.

[Excuse the IG image; will take a better picture once I hang them.]

A little Easter color

I like trying new ways of dying Easter Eggs. With Pinterest (and a house no longer filled with a little girl who was quite enamored with the Paas box with the punch-out holes and fizzing tablets), there's a whole new world out there. In the past, I've done these Asian-inspired eggs, and then there were the silk-tie eggs (who would have ever thought?!?! wish I'd have done more). Natural dyes. And robin eggs. This year I tried the Hawaiian Punch eggs. Didn't have nearly the luck I'd seen online (not quite a fail, but not a home run either). I may have used too much water. But regardless, the eggs formed a film of color that rinsed off to reveal a much lighter, mottled color below. The blue egg was made using blue food coloring (the blue Hawaiian Punch packet was not a blue color powder, as I'd expected). I kept the eggs in the color for about an hour and a half. The colors may not have turned out as I'd have wanted, BUT the kitchen smelled wonderful. Sorta like a cotton candy/funnel cake stand at the fair.

 

Here is one that turned out especially pretty. I think the flavor was grape.

But look at the tiffany blue highlights.

Here are just some of the treasures I found on the beach at 

Saint Helena Island.

The foam buoy is covered in barnacles.

The purple coral.

Shells. Drift wood.

And this bleached stick wrapped in a lovely, gauzy 

robin's egg blue piece of cloth.

A pretty sea foam green piece of sea glass.

A horseshoe crab shell.

The Puzzle is Purchased and The Joys of Simplification

It's now single-digit counting-down days to our beach trip. Gideon and I will be heading to St. Helena Island, SC, a 5-hour drive with Harleigh's dear friend Christina, who's joining us for the week. For Harleigh, only an hour drive, so she'll meet us there. Check-in time for our beach house is 10AM, so I plan on an early start to assure our arrival by as close to 10 as possible. Want to savor EVERY minute I have of this trip. 

On my lunch break today, bought the vacation-must-have 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle (see above), because, honestly, who has time to do a jigsaw puzzle except when on vacation. Also made a trip to the library for a stack of good beach reads. This gal is more than ready to do nothing, and do it well.

Speaking of doing things well — 

Over the past few years, I've felt burdened. Not consistently. But in overwhelming chunks. My life is good. I accomplish a great deal. I have a healthy balance of work and play. I'm truly blessed. But there was always something gnawing at me, keeping me from feeling the peace I knew was attainable. A combination of reading blogs and opening my booth at the antique mall created the big Aha moment for me: I was long overdue to simplify my life. 

A number of bloggers have written about this. I'd read their stories and thought there was truth in what they were saying, but for reelz, could getting rid of possessions and streamlining my processes and approaches truly make life better? It wasn't until I rented my booth space back in September of 2013 that I enjoyed the result of simplifying. I began to clean the house, purging myself of things that I didn't need. I told Harleigh, if you want to keep it, better put a sticker on it, 'cause Momma's getting rid of stuff. It wasn't nearly as hard as I'd thought it would be. Not nearly as sad. Objects I'd surrounded myself with for years moved seamlessly from Chateau Gahan to my booth, staged lovingly. As items were sold, the antique mall employees would tell me stories about who bought them and why. It warmed my heart. 

I continue to curate the rooms of Chateau Gahan, limited only by the square footage of my booth and how quickly items sell. It's been fun and freeing. My big fear of the house looking empty and cold was unfounded. If anything, there's more focus on the things that I've kept. Plus, there's less to dust. I approached my purging of possessions in this way: If I had to move tomorrow and were faced with the horrendous chore of boxing up everything I own, what would I take with me? Seems harsh, but this new mindset has taken my contentment to a whole new level. AND, I made another huge advance this weekend — I pulled a bunch of items out of my booth that haven't sold since September, and boxed them up to take to the thrift store. I know!!!! Who am I???!?!?!??!?!?

Once I had a taste of how good it felt to whittle down my possessions, I turned to other areas of my life in need of simplifying. I take great pride in being organized and detail-oriented, but upon closer inspection, my method of organizing was in MAJOR need of an overhaul. I used my iPhone Notes sporadically to keep track of tasks / to dos. I used a 5 x 7" three-ring day planner for my calendar. And I was in a dysfunctional, five-plus-year love affair with ruled notebook paper to keep lists. This all had to end. And so I went on a search for the perfect day planner. One that would 1) be smaller, 2) have a section devoted to monthly calendar pages, 3) have a page devoted to each day of the year, and 4) not have pockets and sleeves galore (which I tend to fill with "stuff").  Well, it took me a "trip" to Korea to find perfection. This Smiley Diary, purchased on Amazon, is the bomb diggity. I adore everything about it. Since it came from Korea, I had to fill-in all the holidays in the calendar section, but if this was the only down side, who cares. It has changed my life. No more iPhone Notes (at least for tasks and to dos). No more stray sheets of paper. This day planner makes me Smiley indeed.

Hungry for more simplification, I took an entire afternoon one Saturday and cleaned out my personal files (house records, billing records, etc.) and shed a good 100 pounds of paper.

I cleaned out the contents of my purse, giving the wallet a good once-over and weaning myself of a make-up case of items I hardly ever used. And I bought a new purse that's less satchel (which always felt like a catch-all, bottomless tote) and graduated to a messenger bag, flatter and more suited to everything having its place. 

And as far as the literal cleaning of my home, I now tackle cleaning in little snippets, rather than devoting an entire, seemingly endless, weekend day facing a mess (and then feeling resentful because I'd lost a day of my precious weekend).

Here's to the simple life!