Home Decorating: 2007 Archives

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.

So I'll be offline for the next week or so. Will be checking email periodically from undisclosed locations.

Also, all service provider companies are teh ebil. DirecTV, Earthlink are especially dumb. I HATE CONTRACTS, they violate my sovereignty.

K, I have this problem... I am pattern blind.

I know there are few people out there that have known me since high school, and know exactly what I'm capable of when feeling "free."

We're preparing to move: which translates to Mr. K packing and me planning curtains and furniture arrangements. Our couch has disintegrated and we need a new one badly. I wanted something nice, an adult couch, but the more I think about it, the more I picture pets and my hair product destroying it. While I don't find them very luxurious, the Ikea couches are washable, and that has a huge draw for me right now. I don't want to destroy an expensive couch. Even the cheap ones are expensive :p... and Ikea has... SLIPCOVERS! In cheerful patterns.

The new house is like a fishbowl, lots of windows all around and no curtains or blinds. We have a few, but they'll need suplementing. Big time. So that is even more new stuff from Ikea.

So I started playing with "swatches" in Photoshop. And stabbing myself in the eye with the results. Gah!

I have light green bookcases and moss green old cotton velvet curtains (if I can find them) and I've been accenting my living room w/ red and green for awhile. And I just bought the red Ikea display cabinet for Mr. K as an anniversary prezzie for his kaiju. Off the bat I really like the b/w floral upholstery. And the red-striped curtains. And then I found these cherry blossom birdcage curtains and a black and white throw rug w/ cherise accents. So we'll throw in the red ottoman (I'd do a red couch but there would be too much cat/dog hair showing. I like to fool myself into not vacuuming every 15 minutes). And then there's this awesome mirrored sidetable at another store, and my big Victrola VV-44. And of course there will be dollies all over everything. And Blythes with their big eyes.

And that is the part where I stab myself in the eye.

I've learned that normally when I hate my designs it is because I make this mistake. Good design sense is buried amid 15,459 clashing prints/colors/stripes. I'm never, ever going to be a minimalist, but I think you can still be an insane collector and have something be pleasing to the eye. If a little frantic. I start to take away things and work towards a little more white space. This always disappears after the first year as the (white) space fills up with art deco chalk dolls and giant junko mizuno roly poly stuffies.

I may still get the mirrored sidetable though... it rocks!

What a week! Last monday this happens. We were home and ran out with the rest of our neighbors to see what happened. So awful!. And now, a week later and we already have a new rental lined up!

We'd been planning to move this year, we need the space, and Butter doesn't have an enclosed yard. I love this neighborhood sooo much but more and more outside elements have been committing evil here over the past few years. The day after the shooting I started looking at craigslist and found the cheapest rental up in the hills, same zip code as current. It has the hugest yard imaginable, with 5 fruit trees and a little path (though in sore need of all kinds of water and care), a bay view with twinkly lights and lots of parks and wilderness for happy dog walking. And is totally affordable. Oh, and a working fireplace.

I will sorely miss the honeymoon cottage. It is nearly four years to the day that we moved in, right after we returned from Vegas getting married. Sigh!

So. Another month of WHERE'S KALLISTI!?!!? We're movin' up!