Walking in a Winter Wonderland

I took my hellion sweet puppy dog Alex for a walk to the park Tuesday afternoon. The cold air makes him frisky and he was in desperate need of some exercise!

Apologies in advance for the not as wonderful quality of pictures. I am hoping to upgrade to a Droid or Iphone sometime this year. The pink crackberry is about dead.

The snow had melted on the roads some, but there was still a wonderful blanket of white!

Alex was excited, and kept trying to pull me along. Come on Mom, Come ON!

The slushy mixture on the path meant I had some trouble keeping my balance. Alex was kind enough to show me the benefits of "four paw drive" and had no trouble at all.

It was so pretty all white .

While we were walking, it snowed just a little bit more. It was magical!

It was so quiet, Alex would stop and listen at the slightest sound!

We had a great walk! What fun did you have in the snow?

How NOT to build a bonfire

While I was at Sissy's for Thanksgiving, we I decided we needed a bonfire to roast marshmellows.

Background: Sissy and her boy, Honey-do, have been having "bonfires" in her grill the past few weekends. Once I heard about it, I wanted a burnt marshmellow of my own. I love making smores.. I mean, eating the pieces separately- burnt marshmellows crispy on the outside and gooey inside, melty chocolate pieces, and crispy graham crackers. But primarily the marshmellows.

So Honey-do and I went out into the woods Thursday afternoon and gather up wood to have our bonfire with. 

Friday, it rains all day. But it stopped just as it was getting dark. I'm not about to let a little thing like humidity get in the way of having my marshmellows. Honey-do picks up dry firewood from the store, and off we go.

We used fatwood and newsprint, and at first it looked really good.

Then it burnt down to nothing. So more fatwood and newsprint, and it flares up again. And burns down and is almost out.

So, now out of newspaper, I start tearing up cardboard boxes from the recycle. Honey-do gets the charcoal chimney to hopefully get things going better.

And it looks really promising. Until it burns to nothing.

So, not to be deterred, Mom gets the lighter. And we light my marshmellow on fire with the lighter.

It was crispy and yummy and gooey and I loved every minute of it.

Sissy says on facebook: How to tell a good boyfriend- he builds your sister a bonfire in the rain because she wants one.

Honey do is definitely a keeper!

Lessons learned: Buy Sissy and Honey-do a firepit for Christmas. Don't build a bonfire in the rain. Wet wood doesn't burn well.

Of course, the afternoon after I leave, they have a bonfire and have marshmellows. Without me. Murphy's Law.

What a sweetie

Prince Charming Z and I went to Florida last weekend to meet his extended family. His grandfather's house backs up to a lake/ pond. Since Z's hobby is photography, we went down to the dock around sunset to take some photos.

It was a fun time, being unplugged from the real world, just relaxing and watching the sun set over the water.



This is one of my favorite photos from the evening.

But what melts my heart is the blog post he wrote to go with it:

"Made the long trip down this weekend to see family. I brought a gift with me this time around, my girlfriend. She just may be a keeper after handling all that my family threw at her."



I think he may be a keeper with words like that. Prince Charming indeed.
Check out the rest of the photos here

Front porch improvement

The planter my pumpkins were resting on got moved to actually hold flowers. I know, a concept. But mums were three for $10 at the orange store, which was too good a deal to pass up. And I only had two planters.

So the pumpkins were sitting on the ground, looking a little lonely.

 I have two Cafe chairs that were a gift from an Ex-Prince Charming for my back patio table. They're not really designed for sitting exposed, and are definitely a project for the to-do list. Way down the list. I also have to decide what color to paint them. Maybe something bright and funky.

Anyways, the front porch is covered, so I took one chair and brought it out to the front porch.

My pumpkins now have more drama.

 I needed  a holder for all things gardeny like my watering can and hand trowel to clean up the porch. So while at Ikea on Sunday, I picked up this white pot to put hand tools in.

Then I found a white pumpkin at a yard sale, so I moved things around and now the tools are hidden.

By the river and through the woods

We had a gorgeous weekend here in Atlanta! It was so  nice I tried to spend as much time as possible outside!

Sunday afternoon, I dragged Prospective Prince Charming Z to Ikea for some more boxes for my bookshelf. ( Pictures to come). Since he was such a good sport, we went to Pinkberry for some yummy frozen yogurt.

Then I felt like we needed to work it off. Z lives near the river, and so we decided to walk/ hike on the Chattahoochee nature trails. If you live in Atlanta and haven't been- they're GORGEOUS! 

So off we go. Except, I'm not really dressed for a hike. I've got my cute brown crocodile flats on, not tennis shoes or hiking boots.  Which would not be a problem, except to get to the Chattahoochee trail, we had to go through this other trail. Which was not really a trail at all. So here we are, climbing over rocks and trees,  trying not to fall in the river as we scale this really huge rock that goes almost all the way to the water. Yeah. Spontaneous Adventure.

So, since this trail is not quite a trail, all I can think are two things: One: What if one of us falls and breaks a limb. How am I going to tell EMS where we are?  Two: Snakes!
The EMS thing, I never did figure out. But the snake part I did.

I've always been told snakes don't like noise, so make a lot of it. But we were concentrating on not falling down, not exactly having deep philosophical discussions about the meaning of life. So I made up this little rhyme and kept singing/saying it to make noise

"Snake, Snake Go away, Come out again another day!"

Z found this "cute."

We did eventually find the real trail and have a nice long walk. I made sure to tell Z that marked trails that are reasonably flat, with gravel or mulch or some such covering are more what I was thinking of when I suggested a walk. I think he agreed with me.

But yay for being spontaneous and going on what turned out to be quite the adventure!

Annie update: She's sanded down, and waiting on her primer coat. Work is a bit crazy so I'm having trouble finding time to work on her.

It really is just like riding a bike

Prospective Prince Charming Z is a huge mountain biker. Me, I'm a runner. I haven't been on a bike since I was a kid. In fact, my last bike didn't have gears. Or hand brakes.

But I'm willing to give new things a try. So since he has FOUR bikes, I borrowed one and we went out to the Silver Comet trail for a ride. ( and seriously, why FOUR? You can only ride one at the time. Boys and their toys!)

The Silver Comet trail is this beautiful paved trail that runs from Smyrna all the way to Alabama on abandoned rail lines. It's FLAT, and very scenic. I can totally see this being a great place to run.

I was very apprehensive about this whole experience. Not having been on a bike in years, and being gracefully challenged, I had this image of me, face planted into the dirt, all scraped up. Like a kid who just got the training wheels taken off their bike. Only rainbow band aids are not the cool statement at the office they are in the second grade.

Gladly, it really did come back to me, although I still need a LOT of practice. But we managed to ride for almost an hour and I didn't fall once. Stopping, still an issue. People passing me-eek. But overall, a great experience.

I'm encouraged to try new things more often. I only wish I'd remembered to have a picture taken during the ride to share with you. Maybe next time!

What are you going to try new or get back into?

Mercury Glass Pumpkins...Sorta

I'm trying to work on the curb appeal of my house, making it more inviting and personalized. Not quite so cookie cutter beige box. But living in a condo, I have strict limits on what I can do. No touching the precious vinyl siding. No nails!

I decided to try making mercury glass pumpkins after seeing the idea somewhere (or maybe several somewheres) out in blog-land. If I interpreted your idea, please let me know so I can properly credit you!

I love mercury glass, but it's so expensive!

So I gathered my pumpkins:

First I sprayed them with matte silver spray paint. I used this one:

I sprayed one coat lightly all over the pumpkin, and let it dry. Yes, I am spray painting on a trashbag as a dropcloth. It works, it's cheap, it's disposable. Shush.

I then sprayed them lightly with Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint to add the depth of Mercury glass.
I used my mercury glass candlestick (THANK YOU MOM!) for reference:

End result? Not quite mercury glass, but I like it nonetheless.

Here is the finished product on my front porch.

I have a few more projects for here up my sleeve. For now, I've got mums waiting to be planted!

Outdoor Chairs Before and After

I'm fortunate that my condo has both a front and back door, and feels more like a townhome.

Last year, in an attempt to gain more outdoor living space, I bought two wood lounge chairs at Ikea. After a year being exposed to the elements,they were in rather sad shape.

Mom had just finished staining her deck with a solid color deck stain from Sherwin Williams. I liked the dark charcoaly-green color and she had just a bit left over. Being the helpful daughter I am, I tried to use it up.  Plus it has a five year warranty for decks, so I should not have to do this again for a while.


I wiped down the chairs to get the dirt, pine needles, and other crusty stuff off. If you really want to do it up right, clean with a deck cleaner.

I painted one coat with a foam brush. If I did this over again, I would use a real paintbrush. The foam brushes tore apart midway through the second chair. But cleaning brushes is a huge pain to me, so I'm all about disposable.

I did one thin coat.  A few things I learned about this product: Stir really well to mix the stain as it tends to separate if left standing for a few days. It's a lot runnier than paint, so thin coats and use a dropcloth.

After one coat it looked nice, but the wood still showed through.

And then it rained for four days.

After the downpours stopped, I let the chairs dry out for a few days. Then I painted a thin second coat on and let it dry while I went out of town for work.

When I got back, they look like this:

I'm looking forward to enjoying wine in the evenings and coffee in the mornings on my newly redone patio chairs!

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