Happy Halloween!

Ok...I realize it's not Halloween at all. However, since I live in an area of Massachusetts that celebrates Halloween for about 2 months (not even kidding), it is a big deal here. For the other 10 months of the year, we try to get people to notice the rich maritime history and the incredible natural resources here like our seashore and wildlife.

Alas, most people still equate Salem with the very short part of our history that included the witch trials. It was just a flash compared to the rest of the history here...For instance, I bet you didn't know that Salem was the center of commerce for the entire United States for quite a long time. They even modeled Nantucket after Salem when Nantucket became a very important whaling port!

We have some of the most incredible museums, National Historic Landmarks and other sites, and just oodles of historic homes! We live in one of those such homes! It's pretty awesome to find the name of the man who built and lived in your house in history books! We have really cool features in this house, including chimneys built from bricks used as ballast in the trade ships, timber pieces three feet wide by eight feet long that were likely cut from the sides of ships, original pine flooring from 1800, and walls made from the original wood strapping over 200 years old now! It's a great place to live.

Now, back to the original subject at hand - Halloween! Of course, living here, you either HATE Halloween, or you give in and join the celebration! It's much easier to just give in and have a bit of fun with it, so here is what I did for Halloween 2009...I took these photos on Halloween day. Our Chamber of Commerce estimates that we had about 100,000 visitors on that day alone!

This is our skeleton who, obviously, has flair! I love his orange and black boa with pumpkins on it!



This is the side of the house, facing the main drag in Salem...We constantly catch people taking picture of the house on this side! It's particularly festive looking at night, when all the lights are on. The pumpkins and ghosty lights look really cute!

This is the the main street in Salem...It was a mob scene this year even during the day! At night, they close the streets to cars - it's a mob scene of humans all in costume! Crazy! Over on the right, there? Is "Ye Olde Pepper Companie" which is the oldest candy factory in the United States! Pretty cool, no?

I will leave you with best wishes for your weekend...9 days until our vacation! Wooo HOOOO!

Would you just LOOK at this?

Good heavens. Have you ever seen such a thing?


Her teefies are missing in the front, so that's why her tongue sticks out in that ridiculously cute way like that when she's relaxed! Whenever she falls asleep, BLOOP, out comes the tongue. It's absolutely adorable!

In other news, I'm sure you've seen the coverage of the whole NBC Conan O'Brien/Jay Leno debacle. Conan made a deal with NBC for 32 million dollars to NOT WORK. Now, in the scheme of things, that, my friends, is a REALLY GOOD DEAL! In fact, you could give me 1/10th of that and I PROMISE I would never, ever work again. Or say anything bad about NBC. Or Jay. Or ANYONE, for that matter!

Everyone has their differing opinions on what's funny and who's best at whatever, but I have to say...I will really miss Conan. I think he's really hilarious, really hip and has such a lovely, sweet charm about him. Jay is funny. Dave Letterman is just plain goofy and weird (I love him, too!), but given the choice between all three, I'd choose Conan every time. That's just my two cents' worth.

Lastly, the countdown is getting here quickly. We leave for our trip in 10 days. 10 days to lose 20 pounds. That's reasonable, right?!!! Hee!!! My husband has already lost 10 pounds. I have lost somewhere around 7 or so...Would love to rid myself of another 10, but I don't see that happening in 10 days. Damn female, mid-forties metabolism!

I will leave you today with another picture of Frick and Frack. Or, as I call them, "My little black and white babies!"

Summer of 2008

This blog, I realize, has absolutely no rhyme or reason to it. It sort of reflects my life - one thing one day, and then the next, something entirely different.

Yesterday did the whole giving-of-blood for my physical blood workup. Drove all over God's green Earth for different things, most notably, took the dogs to the beach in a neighboring town which was fun!

Today had lunch with a friend, then went to the optometrist or is it the opthamologist? What's the difference again? I dunno. Anywho, I got fitted with contact lenses for the first time ever. Boy, do they feel strange! I got them at my husband's request, as he says I look older with my glasses on. I don't know. I just know they feel very odd.

Instead of blogging about anything else health-related, let's look at some flowers, shall we? This is such a tough time of year for me - no planting, no digging, no getting my hands dirty. I miss gardening terribly at this time of year. I don't miss weeding, however. I do not like weeding one little bit.

These are the flower boxes I did for our house in 2008. This is what I came up with after the romaine lettuce was done lettuce-ing in the spring of 2008. I don't know what came over me this particular year, but I could not get enough purple and orange! I planted orange and purple EVERYTHING I could get my hands on! I have no idea why!




These were very pretty, I think. I love the papyrus and the pony-tail grass. Also in there are the mini-licorice plants that I'm so crazy about, angelonia, brachysciome, osteospermum, asparagus fern, euphorbia and million bells. I really like to pack the plants in there for a full look!

This is one of the garden beds by our back door.

These had all the same plants, with the addition of icicle plants (related to dusty miller, which I do not like!) and lantana. My mom, who lives in Florida, has a lantana plant in her yard that is a perennial, and has grown up well over 6 feet! SO cool! We can only use it as an annual here in Massachusetts.

Well, it's 4:30pm here and the sun is getting ready to set (ugh!), so I'm off to walk the doggies.

Happy Thursday, all!

Cut flowers revisited

After a couple of tangents on our dogs and then the Golden Globes, let's get back to fleurs, shall we?

A couple of nights ago we had dinner with some friends for their anniversary. They also invited another couple that we really like, who I will call Norm and Flo. Of course, these are not their real names...I will not be using anyone's real name on this here blog!

Annnnyway, Flo is the one who hired me to do her flowers for Thanksgiving in 2008 and 2009. She also hired me to do flowers for the baby shower she hosted a while back...

Well, I finally found the pictures from the arrangement I did for her for Thanksgiving 2008! I know you're excited! Ha!

Norm and Flo's house is a Victorian style from the mid 1800s, I believe. Great colors - their dining room is a reddish/maroon color, so this arrangement looked really beautiful in the room.


I also did up two smaller arrangements for each end of the dining room table:


She also hired me to do a smaller arrangement for their living room table:


Coming up soon I promise to do another cut flower arrangement, and per my mother's request, I will try to take photos every single step along the way. I get so caught up in doing the flowers, that I forget to take photos most times!

On an entirely different subject, I'm already nervous about tomorrow morning...I have to drive up the to lab where my doctor's office is and give blood. Not for anything noble, unfortunately! I am giving blood so that my doctor can determine my fasting blood work as part of my physical next week. EEEEEEEK! I have not had a physical in many, many a year, and as I am approaching the mid-40 number, this is now a scary proposition! Wish me luck!

Golden Globes, in more way than one.

Did you get a load of Mariah Carey's dress? Gave a whole new meaning to Golden Globes! Good heavens, woman. Put those things away! Maybe 10 years ago you could have gotten away with that dress, but PLEASE! Spare us! We do NOT need to see your ta-tas. Not a good look for the almost-40-something woman!

I watched the awards show with my Mother-in-Law, which, most of you would probably think, "Ohhh, that's too bad!" But, really? She and I have a great time together! I really love her AND we both LOVE the awards shows and have pretty much the same taste in high fashion, so we generally agree on the thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the whole dress thing, which makes it fun!

Obviously we are no experts, but decided that our favorite fashions of the evening were worn by:
Sofia Vergara (gorgeous),


Jennifer Garner, Reese Witherspoon, Kate Winslet and Toni Collette.
Honorable mentions were Julie Bowen, Glenn Close, Marion Cotillard, Helen Mirren, Penelope Cruz (who could wear a paper bag and look glamorous!) Mo'nique, Emily Blunt and Sandra Bullock. I was not thrilled with Ms. Bullock's dress, but the MIL loved it, so it deserves a mention!


In the "What were they thinking?" category were: Maggie Gyllenhaal (too bad they couldn't afford bigger pieces of fabric), Nicole Kidman (would you PLEASE go out in the sun for like 5 minutes?), Mariah Carey (see above), Drew Barrymore (what were those little animals that crawled onto her shoulder and hip and died?).

Juliana Marguiles (great actress, bad dress), Chloe Sevigny (I think the guy that stepped on the dress and ripped it did you a favor), Anna Paquin (ugh), Tina Fey (square-dancing, anyone?), Julianne Moore (can you say Gunny Sack?), Sigourney Weaver, Julia Roberts (really? Is that what you came up with for a fancy awards show?), and Felicity Huffman (love you, girl, but the fancy seat-belt dress is not a good look!).

And finally? The dress that wore Kate Hudson. She looked like she was wearing a wedding cake. Does she qualify for that funny blog, Cake Wrecks?

Anniversary Dinner

In Massachusetts, any person can apply, once per year, to be a "Minister-For-the-Day." So, in 2009, my husband applied for this designation and married a couple of friends of our who I will cleverly call, Mr. and Mrs. X.

The background on this is actually pretty funny, as it was during a poker game that my husband jokingly informed Mr. X that he would be the one that performed the ceremony! Well, Mr. X thought this was a pretty amusing prospect, and they continued to joke about it...Then, when Mr. X got home and told the soon-to-be Mrs. X what my husband had said, she said, "Yes! Absolutely! I want him to be our officiant!"

So, that's how my husband became the person to perform the ceremony for Mr. and Mrs. X!

It was a lovely, small event with just the parents of the bride and groom, my husband and me! The bride and groom also asked if I'd do their flowers, so I readily agreed! This was the second of three weddings for whom I've done flowers. This was an easy one, as it was just a simple bouquet for the bride and a boutonniere for the groom.

The bride requested pale pink tulips - something that was cheerful and springy looking. My favorite combinations, so this is what I came up with! (Just so you know, you can click on any image on this blog to see a much larger version of said image!)


Here is a photo showing the pretty bottom of the bouquet all wrapped in off-white ribbon. I secured the ribbon at the top with three pearl-top corsage pins. It was really nice looking, if I do say so myself!


Here's the boutonierre. The groom is sort of a no-nonsense guy, so I wanted to do something simple, but matching.


They were really happy with the flowers and even happier with the nice ceremony my husband performed!

Fast forward one year later? We had an anniversary dinner last night with Mr. and Mrs. X in their brand new house AND she's 8 1/2 months pregnant! So much can happen in a year! Mr. X is a great cook and made us a lovely dinner of Cornish game hens, roasted brussel sprouts, steamed broccoli & cauliflower, twice-baked potatoes & bread (which we sadly could not eat!). It was a lovely evening.

Tonight are the Golden Globe awards - love the award shows, so I will be reporting back tomorrow with my impressions of the winners, losers and of course, the dresses!

Have a good Sunday, all!