The 99 Cent Store

On the east coast we had dollar stores like the Dollar Tree.  Usually I'd go in there for things like paper plates that I needed for a birthday party or gift bags or paper towels.  When I was trying to get pregnant I stocked up on their ovulation predictors and pregnancy tests because they measure the same thing and worked just as well (and lets face it... I went through them like candy)!   Most merchandise at the Dollar Tree was made like, well, like it cost a dollar, I guess.  I picked up a few fun Halloween decorations there and I also picked up some festive Christmas decorations, but generally, it wasn't a place that I'd normally go for anything other than an odd or end.  I certainly wasn't using its shelves to decorate my home, that's fershure.

In California we have a 99 Cent Store.  This place blows my mind.  Okay, so it is full of the same old crap that the Dollar Tree had.  I am not going to make any claims that the overall quality is something really amazing, but they do tend to have name brands and you can buy things at the 99 Cent Store that you'd pay 3 dollars for at the grocery market.  They even sell produce and groceries (though, this sketches me out just a bit... I mean, WHY is that huge bundle of asparagus 99 cents?)

Today I totally scored this old, metal, vintage "your brain on drugs," sign, which I promptly came home and nailed up to my wall of crazy colors.  For the record, I did not purchase this because of what it says or because I think it's funny.  Last night when I was talking to my husband about it and asked if he liked it, he said, "Yeh.  I guess it's funny.  It has a cartoon chicken on it."   I found this disturbing to a place deep in my core.  I said, "I didn't buy it because of what it said.  I mean, you don't buy a T-SHIRT because of the writing on it."  At which point my husband had a hardy chuckle at my expense, claiming that most people DO, in fact, buy t-shirts based on their catchy slogans and not their color.

So, to set the record straight, this sign could have said a great many things that would not have mattered to me.  What mattered to me were the colors they chose, the effect of kitsch and the contrast of color.

Also, I grabbed jalapeño plants, sweet peppers, yellow squash and green squash plants for my garden!

It doesn't look like much right now, but I'll bet we'll have some awesome little peppers and veggies by the time summer is in full swing.

I found these bright flower prints and put them on the yellow walls in my bedroom. They're so sunny and happy!

And I found these prints and used them to make a succulent grid on the big, open space in my kitchen!

My point is that the 99 Cent store is full of awesome stuff and with a little imagination you can save a bundle while making fun, quirky decorations for my home!

Landscaping

I think that I've bragged enough for you to know how much I truly love our new home.  This is the quietest, prettiest, most established neighborhood that we've ever lived in and my heart sings every time I drive through it.  The houses are cute.  The neighbors are friendly (and normal, which is something of a novelty for us).  In every direction, I feel as if I could stretch my arm out and touch the mountains.  Sincerely, I just love it here.  Concord is definitely the place I love most in Northern California.  Even after flying in the other night, I felt myself really relax when I saw the "Walnut Creek/ Concord" sign from the highway.  

My own little house is landscaped in such a way that I seem to be surprised by something blooming every day.  When we moved in I thought that most things were dead, but at the advice of my favorite farmer Siet, I decided to hold off on plucking too many dead plants from the ground.  Now, what was brown and dead is alive and thriving.  

Most of our front yard is landscaped in rose bushes.  Please, if anyone knows how to care for and shape these, let me in on the secret.  Overnight they have become a little unruly!  

Look at this beautiful bouquet that I made for my table this morning!  

I used an assortment of flowers, including roses, daisies, tiger lilies and even lavender.  

I love the fact that Lila was able to go outside this morning, pick an orange from our tree and eat it.  Previously they were pretty sour and the first batch of juice I made was a disaster!  But, here we are in midApril and the orange are sweet as candy. 

This is the orange tree!  I don't know how tall it is.  My guess is 30 feet, but I'm terrible at discerning size.  We have this giant pole with a claw on the end that helps us reach and pick the oranges, otherwise we couldn't  reach any of them.  That said, it's pretty light and even the kids are able to manage it.  

Here's a little bit of the landscaping in our front yard!  It seems crazy to think that any of this seemed dead just a few weeks ago!

Our trellis has been rebuilt!  We are renting this house and the owner of it makes us never want to buy!  He has been a dream!!!!  We mentioned that we were thinking of having the trellis fixed and before we could blink he had someone here taring it down and building a better one.   I imagine hanging many beautiful baskets of plants out here this summer.  I'm actually sitting under it as I write this. The weather here is beautiful today!

I'm really excited to create a backyard oasis for the kids.  I'd really like to give them some sort of playhouse and a little pool too.  Nothing huge!  Just a way to pass the time on a summer evening . We have a pretty great outdoor fireplace and I imagine setting up a canopy close by with a chaise lounge, comfortable chair and coffee table beneath it.  I imagine Jay and I sitting outside, chit chatting in front of the fire with a bottle of wine on a summer night.  I imagine us grilling our meals and just spending 75% of our time outdoors.  Summer, where are you?  

I have said it before... but I love it here so much.    

Peach Tree

When we moved into our house in February this tree was completely bare and we were told it was a peach tree.  To me, it just looked like a sad, naked trunk that was adorned by many weak, spiky branches pointing upward.  This is not what I have imagined peach trees look like and I never expected it to become anything other than it was in the winter.

Then, in March something interesting happened.  It seemed like overnight this tree went from being completely bare to being covered in tiny, pretty pink and white flowers.  No sooner did it bloom that it lost all of the pretty little flowers and green leaves sprouted throughout the skinny tree.  But rather than appearing frail, suddenly my peach tree looks full of life and transformation.

Today, I noticed that there are little green and red berries that are about the size of large olives covering this tree.  I can't wait to watch it transform.  Will these grow into peaches?  I already feel so spoiled with an outdoor fire place, two lemon trees, orange tree, rose bushes, tiger lilies and fresh herbs everywhere.  Will I be so lucky as to be able to just pluck a peach from a tree in my backyard every time I need a little midday snack?

Landscaping

Our California house is pretty spectacular! The house itself is super-cute, but the real power lies in our yard. We have a gigantic Orange tree, two lemon trees, a peach tree, a peppermint patch, a huge rosemary bush, a lavender bush, roses and tigerlillies galore and those are just what I recognize!

What amazes me is that our lemon tree and orange tree produce gigantic fruit. It's the kind of gigantic that I'd see in a market and pass on because I'd assume it had been shot with meathead fruit steroids.

Check it out!

Lemons!

Oranges!

I really need to learn how to take care of our landscaping. I want the yard to look beautiful, which is hard because I tend to kill pretty much everything I touch. I have been struggling to grow an avocado tree for YEARS and have only gotten it to work once (which Sherbert immediately ruined by eating).

That said, I'm off to do a little weeding!

Bastards and Jerks

You know, every time I snip a negative person out of my life I feel a pound lighter. In those terms, I am anorexic now.

Sincerely, I feel like I live my life pretty honestly and make compromises and exceptions and allowances for other people when need be. I try to be understanding and loving and sincerely try to withhold my judgement of others. But as I get older I am less of a pushover. I am more interested in caring for my family and living my life than I am to pandering to the needs of financial or emotional leaches. I am really tired of being taken advantage of. I have spent too much of my life allowing people to take advantage of me because it was easier than fighting for what I believed to be right and true.

I have to say, today I feel two pounds lighter. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

And I'd like to formally apologize to my husband for being such a magnet for crazy. I really know how to pick em'.

Grout Bully

In a world of stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops (which I have no gripe with) I was sort of charmed by the vintage kitchen in my new house. When we initially looked at this house, the kitchen was the room that really sold me. It is probably original to the house. It has adorable cabinets, tons of storage, ceiling hooks for pots and pans and some decorative tiles and hardware that is fruited and cute as a 1940's button.

On the flip side, it also has WHITE TILE FLOOR, which has become the bane of my existence. I am going to stop myself from complaining about my kitchen floor further because I could honestly go on and on and on about it and I am sure that you don't care.

As charming as my kitchen is, it came with the most disgusting grout that I have ever seen in my life. I immediately vowed to get the grout clean. At the suggestion of my friends I scrubbed and scrubbed and magic erased and steel wooled and much to my dismay... nothing worked. The grout remained filthy and black.

Then, I remembered a tv commercial that I saw, where people effortlessly made their kitchens and bathrooms sparkle with the magic of Grout Bully. It looked like a really fun way to spend an afternoon, so we happily purchased our Grout Bully and waited (and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited) for it to arrive. Around two weeks after recovering from the daily disappointment of a groutbullyless mailbox, I asked my husband to look into it... and just a short 6 weeks later, I received an excited text from my husband saying, "It looks like you'll get your Grout Bully today!!!!" I sat by the window waiting for the mailman all day long, daydreaming about that little cardboard shipping box. Imagining myself transforming that filthy grout with determination and satisfaction. And finally, the moment came. My Grout Bully arrived. I set my children up with their homework and got to work the in the kitchen.

Here were my experiences.

The nastiness of my kitchen counter top before:

Bully!

Applied

Let me take a moment to say that if you do use grout bully do much smaller spaces than this. It had dried so much that getting it off was a huge hassle and gave me a full on upper body work out. So, unless you want to skip your cardio and arms at the gym that day and burn several thousand calories while bullying your grout, I'd recommend doing small sections at a time.

After

In the end, it's not perfect, but it's better.