why do people look like people?

to whom they aren't related?

check this out:

think this is angie harmon? no! it's the lovely ali mcgraw.

also rocking the angie harmon, but it's the tragically lovely nicole simpson brown

ah! here she is! the lovely angie harmon.

and her/their doppleganger, Ali Lohan, lil sis of La Lohan.

adventures in painting

I'm painting the kitchen.

This is the kitchen as it was when we moved in.


It's lovely. Loads of room, great floor, cabinets and countertops were brand new and high quality. The fridge and stove were old and yellow, but whatever, they were clean and worked.

So what's the problem?

I hate the wallpaper. It's a green/blue mixture that's 1) boring and 2) boring. And the paint on the walls is some hideous color probably called Mint Breeze.


So began the great paint hunt.

I started off with Sweet Midori.


I loved the color - a bright appley neon green, so I bought three gallons, which I figured would be enough for the kitchen. It's a big kitchen, right?


Too dark! It reflected on the floor and gave the floor and the stove a gastly green cast.

Fortunately, I only painted one wall, and I learned a valuable lesson: buy paint in the quart size, not the gallon. Go home, paint a wall, and if you like it, then go buy more paint.

Anyone want three gallons of Sweet Midori?

So back to the Home Depot I went.


I decided since the green was so awful, I'd go in the yellow direction.


So I chose Mellow Yellow, which is a lovely orange yellow color that I thought would look great with the blonde cabinets.


Good lord! Also too dark! How can yellow be too dark? But there it was. Too dark and too close in color to the cabinets. The details of the room disappeared.


Back to the store.

Since the yellow was too close in color to the cabinets, I decided to choose a light appley green.

Do you know how hard that is? There are loads of moss greens, and loads of mint greens. There are greens with grey tones and greens with blue tones and greens with white tones. But to find a green with an appley, yellow neon tone that isn't too dark? Well.

I thought I'd found it in Cabbage Green.


I painted that color on and lo and behold:


What the hell color is that? It looked like a sickly neon yellow with a green cast.

Wrong!


Back to the store with me, and I decided to look at paints other than Behr.

I moved over to the Disney paints and found there the perfect color: Tinkerbell! It was a green in between Sweet Midori and Cabbage Green! It might be Disney and it might be more expensive, but there it was!


Turns out Disney paints are Behr paints and cost exactly the same as the other paints.

Also turns out that Tinkerbell reads as mint on my walls. No photo, sorry, because at this point, as you can imagine, I was getting a bit pissed off.

So what's a pissed off girl with three gallons of Sweet Midori, one quart of Mellow Yellow, one quart of Green Cabbage, and one quart of Tinkerbell to do?


That's right -- mix my own damn paint.

I'd love to say that I poured them all into a bucket, mixed them up, and out came the exact right color. But that's only almost exactly what happened.

I mixed a couple of tablespoons of each color together and painted it on the wall, and guess what: exactly.the.right.color.


Problem is, what was the recipe? What if I run out of paint and need more? So I did the smart thing -- I took a sample of the color back to the Home Depot and had them match it for me.

So yesterday morning, the paint guy and I sat for about an hour, and he mixed paint for me. I read all the labels of the paint cans I used to make my magical color, and we did math, with fractions and adding and guessing (like most math I do).

The first color came out too light and the second color came out too weird, and the third color needed three extra shots of green to get it close, and then voila, there it was: the paint color I wanted.


I learned a very valuable lesson. First, buy only quarts of paint at a time, until you are sure of the color. Second, and perhaps most importantly, if you buy a color at Home Depot and don't like it, take it back and they will add more color to it until you get the color you like! I had no idea.


You have to start light, though, and move to darker colors.

I love my kitchen!


I'm still in the middle of painting, but it's only a couple of hours away from being done, and I am thrilled. Thrilled!


(Notice how I also removed the window between the livingroom and the kitchen. I'm so proud of myself! And I'm painting the livingroom Mellow Yellow and I'm going to hang a plant right there. Big plans!)

vacation!

My husband was home for a little visit, so we went on vacation.



The hotel is right on the Gulf of Mexico.



Our room was luxurious.



The carpeting throughout the entire hotel was lovely.



Of course I played the slots.



And won!



Dear IRS: not that much. Just enough to buy us dinner at the fancy casino restaurant.



After the casino, we went to our condo on the beach. The condo is about seven stories high, and is surrounded by two and three story beach houses, painted in the most excellent beachy colors.



Our condo was sadly lacking by comparison, so I thought we'd jazz it up with some tangerine and some yellow.



And a shark.

google your stats

So I've decided to play a new game.

Apparently one who is a blogger and smart and coordinated is also able to check one's stats through various nifty programs such as Google Analytics and My Blog Log. One of the most fun info tibbits is what search string brings people to one's website.

WendyB does it. Anything WendyB does is a-okay for me. Almost anything.

Daddy Likey also checks out her stats and uses her new-found information to play a fun little game called "Inadvertantly Ask Daddy Likey".

Alas, I'm not nearly as clever as these blogging powerhouses. Plus I don't really care who googles what to get to my site. I'm far more interested in going to their sites.

So here's my new game:

I type in wackado search strings and see which of my blogger friends I can find.

Here we go:

"What kind of cereal is made of latex?"

brought me to The Sneeze. Funny blog. His "Steve Don't Eat It" series is hilarious!

Bah! "hotpants dog whip"



got me to Manolo's Shoe Blog.

OMG. "spank my bottom coworker"



took me to Pioneer Woman's blog. You need a plateful of delicious? Check out her recipies. You need your bottom spanked by a coworker? I'm pretty sure this isn't the site for that.

Oh. "totally asinine game"

took me to this site.

oh snap!

I've been looking at patterns for dresses I want to make.

Like these two dresses, for instance:



I even have the fabric picked out:



There are a couple of other dresses I want to make, as well:



and



So yesterday, I went to the Vogue Patterns website and tossed all six patterns into my shopping cart. What the heck, they were only $5.99 each, right? But then I got the brilliant idea of checking at Hobby Lobby and Joann's to see if the patterns happened to be on sale.

They weren't.

So I decided to wait until they came on sale there, then buy them.

Today I went to look at the dresses again at the Vogue website, and they are $15.99.

$5.99 was the sale price! Yesterday! When I had them all in in my shopping cart!



In other news, these are the only shoes I'd consider spending $1,400 on:

food

So I have a problem with food.



I have been an overeater my whole life. My particular food of choice was sugar, and I'd eat it until I was crying. I used to go to parties and stand next to the buffet, eating everything (well, not the celery. or the bean salad) instead of talking to anyone.



For me, the party was over when the food was taken away.

So several years ago, I found an anonymous program that has helped me and I've been off sugar now for two years and ten months.

Yay me, right? Well, yes and no.

At first, being off sugar was easy. And actually, being off sugar is still easy. I don't eat anything that's dessert or dessert-related, to include sugar-free foods. I'll eat ketchup (catsup?) on a burger, for instance, which is made with sugar but is a savory condiment.



But I won't chew sugar-free gum, which to me is eating candy.



Anyhow, the sugar part, no problem. It's the other part -- now what do I eat? -- that's got me on the ropes.

Normally I wouldn't write about any of this in a blog, since I do practice an anonymous program, but I don't know where else to turn.

So, what do I eat? In Baltimore, I had a great support community, and we'd go eat together. I'd make lovely food at home but I was also eating out a lot, with other people like me, so good choices were easy.

I could have fish



or chicken



or steak



or pork



with vegetables



and roasted sweet potatoes with other roasted vegetables.



Then I moved to Alabama.

Let me first say, I *love* Alabama. This state is 1) pretty. There is a bend in the road that, when I come around it, presents what is hands down the loveliest roll of valley and clutch of trees I've ever seen in my life. In addition to that, I see pecan groves and fields of cows and OMG lovely homes and plant nurseries and fields of cotton and a cheese farm and chickens on the side of the road and dogs EVERYWHERE and water, sweet sweet water, as far as the eye can see, and low-flying airplanes as neighbors learn to pilot their small craft, and a banana boat playing the most lovely music I've ever heard, sung by a voice that belongs to a woman I picture as shapely, chocolate brown and gorgeous in a French/Asian kind of way.

The state is also 2) friendly and 3) full of things to do. I could go on, but this post is about food, not Alabama.

Or, rather, about food and the food that's available in Alabama.

In Alabama, I could have fish



or chicken



or steak



or pork



with vegetables



and sweet potatoes



or pasta



or some corn



Beginning to see a trend? (The corn, by the way, is grits. Cheese grits. Made with corn. And cheese. And butter.)

Funny, I started this out as a serious post, but I've been having so much fun finding the right pictures that I'm in full-on laughter mode now. Kind of ruins the whole point of the post, you think?

Anyhow, the food down here is bad. Fried and full of cheese and full of butter and OHMIGOD so so delicious.

My food, needless to say, has gotten wackado. See, getting into smartass mode doesn't work with this post, because this shit is serious. I've been crying over my food. It's so out of wack that for lunch yesterady I had Cheese Doodles. Followed by a bag of nut and raisin trail mix.

Not good.

I'm scared, ya'll. I'm afraid that while I have the sugar out of my system, that the food will just overwhelm me. In Baltimore, I had a great support system, but here in Alabama, the recovery community is very small and meetings are few.

And my level of unwillingness is higher than it's been in a long time.

I don't want to cook my own food.

I don't want to go for walks in the evening.

I don't want to write in my journal, or make phone calls, or volunteer my time to help other people.

I am afraid I am losing my program. I am afraid that I am headed down the slippery slope into relapse.

So last night, I decided to be willing, just for today, to do the following: go for a walk. I did.

Make dinner. And I did:



Spinach salad. Green beans (without bacon). Sweet potato (without brown sugar and marshmallows). Grilled chicken.

Guys, it was delicious, as it always is. And I felt so grateful that I was willing to follow my food program even if it was just for the night.

And today I decided to blog about it. I know it's an anonymous program but I need to reach out and ask for help, and this is a tool I have at my disposal, so I'm using it.

I feel so much better already.

things I've been doing lately

Working out complex puzzles.

Preparing for next Wednesday's meeting.

Contemplating my future.

Blogs

I must say, I love reading Mrs. G's blog. She's always talking about something that is on my mind. Just this morning, as I was driving into work, I was thinking "I wonder where Bossy is?" then when I flipped on the Mrs. G channel, there she was. So that was a nice piece of serindipity.

I don't use RSS feeds. First of all, they require a special website -- I have to click onto *another* page to find the feeds, and that feels like an extra step for me. Second of all, I like clicking onto people's websites and finding out whether or not they've posted. It's like Christmas, frankly, or better, a surprise birthday party. For me.

So anyway, I don't use RSS feeds so I keep all of my links on my Wists page. However, my Wist page is full of all kinds of links, not just blogs. So I think I am going to go old school and put all my blogs on a blogroll right here on this page. No kidding, that's what I am going to do.

Also, just a shout out to WendyB. And Pistols. If I had no other reasons to live anymore, reading their posts would be reason enough.

Some day I am going to own a WendyB. piece of jewelry. In the meantime I'm going to continue enjoying The Tudors.

Things I hate: websites that are so loaded with scripts that when you click on the website, instead of getting the website you get an icon with a little clock telling you how close you are to getting to the actual website. I hate this particular web feature more than any other. Many times if I go to a website and I encounter this feature, I click away immediately. I will click on "skip this intro" if given the option.

So today I've decided is the day to start stealing pictures* from other people's blogs. The graphics used to illustrate this post are all stolen. If you have a problem with that, leave a comment! I'll just interpret it as hugging up on me.

Feel the love!

* Does it count as stealing when it's clearly a screen shot? I say no! You and your fancy lawyers are welcome to correct me. Warning, I charge $100 an hour to listen to other people. I've just now decided that if people want my time, I am going to charge for every.single.minute.

where has the time flown?

time was, I used to keep up with this blog.

People read it and left messages (thanks!).

Then I moved and got all nervous about posting at work.

Now I'm four months into work (where has the time flown) and much more relaxed, so I think I will be posting more regularly now.

Mary Ann -- thank you for sending me the buttons! I will also thank you properly 1) on your blog and 2) by mailing you a gift.

My craft room has been the site of construction for a while -- I made two dresses. Both turned out with issues, of course, because I'm making the pattern up as I go along and I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

The bodice turns out great. The skirt turns out great. Sew them together and the whole thing becomes blah. I don't know what the problem is so I don't know what the cure is. The dress is drooping in the waistline -- droopy in the front and droopy in the back.

I've been reading a vintage dressmaking book on-line, and the author talks about concepts I can't picture, so there's a lot I don't understand. But I will read and reread and see what I can make of it.

I've also been having fun here on the Gulf Shore. I'm an avid card player and there are loads of snowbirds here from Michigan and Ohio and Wisconsin and Illinois, so I've been playing euchre with them. Or had been, as they all flew home at the end of March. See you next year my new friends! They are all retired senior citizens and I'm about half their age, so I'm grateful they let me play without too much ass-whooping going on.

Weather's lovely, the craft room is calling, I have Cheetos and American Idol and a big television, so life is good.

See you soon peeps.

gift and craft room

Here's a gift I just finished making for my stepdaughter's boyfriend:

I know it's totally smudgy but I think it's excellent! He just turned 30 and he's a big Nintendo player. I hope he likes it.

I really need to wash that glass. I will do it before I give him the gift.

I'd love to take credit for the idea, but I shamelessly ripped it off from Craftster, this post.


I love Craftster so much.



I've been working in / on my craft room. Here are some shots:


Before:


Same angle, after I've moved a bunch of stuff in:




Opposite corner:


Of course I've moved all my stuff in before I've painted. I want to paint the walls a pinkish-redish-salmon that's actually a very lovely color. But I couldn't wait so I moved all my stuff in.


I'm really happy with it, though!