Recently in Home Decorating Category

For my as yet confirmed spring vacation to an undisclosed location (yes, including new collar for the Butter girl). Shopping spree at OldNavy.com Women's Plus. Neutrals for this season are still greys and navys. Yeah!!!! Jersey dresses with schlubby sneakers are perfect vacation/weekend wear.

And finally found a shower curtain I love at UrbanOutfitters.com. And a couple gothic cottage bathroom accessories.

Gothic Cottage Style: something I made up to describe stuff I like. Rustic vintagey apothecary with Gothic Revival elements. Gothic Revival sans the Vampire Chic of modern gothic decor. Neutrals are off-white and soft greys with slashes of dark grey and black and bright colors.

And for Valentines Day I got the Red Queen "Alice in Wonderland" hoodie from Torrid store. I think they've sold out from the websites. So, go me! Ima goob.

We are organizing and cataloging our "library" and couldn't bear to part with these: two well loved novels I read, and re-read, and re-read in my teens & 20's. They are tattered, doggeared and coffee stained. Beautiful.

Mists of Avalon & Illuminatus!

The Littlest House of Blastmilk Inductee! Elfdoll Hana Devil...

Having the best Solstice, Saturnalia, Holiday, Christmas! No work + Volks FCS Extras order + New SLR Camera (thanks Bro!!!) + Chibi Unoa + Small Dog + Kitties + Hunky Husband...

Check out flickr link below for Blastmilky House of Christmas Fun!

The heater is on, the rain is around the corner and the tomato plants are drying up. Its Halloween!

We've also had a new addition to the family, Elfdoll Hana Devil... mew! She was a surprise from Mr. Kallisti who bought her from an online friend in need. (Hugs to Leah! Hana Devil is in loving hands!) Little imp doesn't have a name, and she wants to be a girl but she needs some pigtails or sumfin. But I've been pining for this tiny since it was released, and I'm just floored with the gorgeous delicacy of the faceups on all four faceplates. Wowie.

Pottery Barn's Apothecary Bath Collection. Mrwowr.

I've never had such a deep winter slumber. We had a marvelously wet and early spring, the above was taken in February. A miniature daffodil hill sprung up in the middle of the garden. While only a few flowers bloomed, there are dozens of the plants in an ancient raised bed surrounded by a stone circle. We've since weeded and now wait to see if any more blooms will happen or whether we'll need to unearth the bulbs come fall to put the daffy back in the daffodil.

We've started an absinthe garden and sprinkled the earth will drifts of california wildflower seeds. The herb bed I planted in the old stone pond has exploded, yay!

Apologies to those near and far for the silence. My inbox is a wasteland and I'll be touching base with all of you soon.

*stretch!*

P.S. Oh, see the new site design? I'm still sweeping up, more to come!

I actually caught Mr. Kallisti off-guard yesterday. I had repainted Miette last week, and did her up properly last night with a new frock from Volks and new wig from Leeke (both the girls are wearing the new "champagne pink" color). I told him she was my NEW DOLL. Knowing that I'd gotten a box from Volks that day (which was really just the outfit and art supplies), and then I kicked him for not recognizing her.  Not fair really.  :p

Anyway, some new pix of Astræa and Miette in the garden. Not good for showing off Miette's new face-up, or anything other than my sucking at the chiaroscuro with a camera :p But you can see Astræa's new dress that I somehow whipped up between hell & high water this summer. It is made out of three different scraps of embroidered edwardian batiste, over tea dyed seersucker. I luvs it.

And here, my lovelies, are my first plants planted.

We get coastal fog and are much breezier than most of California, but our yard is on a sun facing hillside and gets the full blast all day. So I'm going full-on mediterranean. Not intentional at first, originally just a matter of taste, until I started reading up on it and how all the hot, dry, low water plants (aside from native) that I've chosen are common med varieties. Just starting with the fragrant shrubs that I can eat: lavender, rosemary, with oregano and thyme in the tiny herb patch we're putting in what was once an oval pond!  About ten by three feet, there are still traces of blue paint. This was entirely covered over with dirt when we arrived, only much scraping has revealed it. I put in a little bird bath in the corner. We hadn't even gotten the lavender and rosemary in the ground before the bees and butterflies were fluttering. This garden is amazing. So many birds. We have four hummingbirds that hang out at our feeder, Mr. Kallisti (and Biscuit) can tell them all apart!

Yeah, so I'm a famous plant killer. One of the reasons I really need shrubs etc that thrive well naturally. I'm going to try to baby them to get them started. I love the smells already! Gah! It is a start anyhow, we'll be getting more top soil to pretty up the surfaces soon. Our nursery was out. Meh!?!?

And on that note, I'm cooking pasta with fresh garden vegetables given to us as a welcome to the neighborhood prezzie from one of our lovely neighbors.  We're the only couple under 85 on our block, and most of them have been here since just after WWII.  It is really lovely up here! Sigh...

Something weird, aside from myself, going on with my blog. For some reason ImageMagick and NetPBM aren't being recognized on my server so the MT software can't process images into thumbnails etc. I also upgraded to MT4, but it is barfing on my old templates. So I've moved to a slightly modified default for now and will be cleaning it up as I time allows! I hate doing things in stages this way, but it was brokey. *whine*

Also, what eeediot (me) thought it was a good idea to have a tooth extracted and then move the day after? This was my first bit o' tooth surgery, I guess I've been lucky... but holy crap! That was horrible. How come I only got nitrous during the needle part, and not the pulling, smashing, banging and stitching??? I've never taken so many pain killers in my life. My face ballooned up very unattractively, and I had to stumble around directing my 70+ year old parents in moving token boxes up the hill to the new place (they insisted on helping, it was very sweet ♥).

I get my stitches out this morning... dude, I have stitches IN MY MOUTH o_0

Any way, welcome to the worst month of my life. Seriously. This entire year (except for that whole trip to Europe fabulousness) has bit the big donkey schlong.

But this morning on the way to work, as I was turning down Moeser and confronted with the AMAZING view of the bay from the end of our block, I felt the first glimmer of optimism since that poor man was murdered on our lawn.

It is not over, but there's hope. And orphaned hedgehogs and a brush.

I still have to cancel DirecTV and eat the $175 contract cancellation fee they tricked me into 6 months ago for ordering their useless DVR that I returned anyway and ate the $99 non-refundable fee on already. As well as the preliminary AND final walk-through with our previous evil landlord and hope he doesn't try to withhold our deposit beyond reason. Oh, and we have to eat another $150 contract fee from Earthlink because they don't offer DSL at the new location. WTF, indeed.

I did manage to snag 5 pairs of shoes from the Haute Doll MA collection. Rawr. The dollies are still packed. I'm going through withdrawal. And my mother-in-law arrives on the 6th for a holiday!

meh.

*cough*

Going offline again tomorrow for an undisclosed amount of time. We're moving for real this weekend. There was just too much stuff that had to be dealt with in the new place to occupy it last week.

In the mean-time... here's another swatch! Bwahahahaha!

I don't actually have the pink bookcase or the pink polky dot rug... yet.