Week One Check In

So it's been a week and I've got my goals and baby steps outlined. I did, in fact, go to the gym to get my tour of the new facility (since I haven't been there in a loooooong time). I dug out my gym shoes and old workout clothes. Bring on the Pain!

I've inventoried my ButtonsMcD stock and have begun to carve out a schedule. Though, it looks like most of my stuff I'll sell from my blog because the items are too special to me! In realtion to that, I'm throwing a hand crafted brooch into the goodie basket for the Launch. Yay!

I have to share this great find that was right under my nose. My dad, who passed away at Christmas, left lots of stuff at my house. Most of it has gone to the thrift store. Just a few items went to the Ladies' Auxiliary's yard sale. I did keep one thing, though. A vintage travel carry-on bag by Samsonite. It's in my favorite color, light blue. I found it in Chief's bedroom while looking for something else. The more I looked at it, the more I realized I wanted to use it... as my briefcase. First things first though, I had to clean it because it was disgustingly dingy. I tried a wet cloth, then I tried a soapy baby wipe. I could see I was getting nowhere fast so I looked for professional help. I called on Rachel from GetReadySetGo at Etsy. She sells such fantastic vintage luggage for every purpose. Rachel reclaims and renews great pieces and revamps them with fun graphics. Please check out her collection! Armed with Rachel's advice and good-ol' elbow grease, I set out to clean up that bag.

It worked! Just look at the difference from the dirty side to the clean side. But as predicted, it was A LOT of scrubbing and my arm is sore. My hat goes off to Rachel, I can't imagine refurbishing all those bags!
So what was the advice?

The simple but effective 'magic eraser'. Of course there are brand name ones, but I bought the store brand from my local grocery and it worked great!

Time Stand Still

At my house, we're a bunch movie freaks. We have our favorites and have no problem watching them over and over again. If there's one thing that my beloved family knows it's this: When certain movies come on the tv, everything stops and noone should speak to Mommy and actually, noone should speak over the tv. If I'm cooking dinner, it'll have to wait...or Daddy can finish making it. Laundry, phone calls, crafting, and the likes all come to a screeching halt for those flicks which I simply cannot pass up.

They're listed here in no specific order. Some of them are the obvious cinematic masterpieces that demand attention. Others are films that are good but not exactly on the top ten lists of leading critics and others still will make you cringe with embarrasment for me. But they're my favorite flicks and when they're on, the worlds shuts down.

All About Eve (Bette Davis, Anne Baxter)
Margo Channing (Bette Davis) is an aging star of the theatre (pronounced thee-ah-tah) who is befriended and then stabbed in the back by the innocent looking snake in the grass, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). The dialougue is fun, fast and smart. The characters are fabulous and Bette Davis dominates this film. Her voice, her faces, her attitude all drive this movie like a runaway freight train. Fasten your set belts indeed!

RoboCop (Peter Weller, Nancy Allen)
Yes I know, this is one of the "what?!?" films. But come on, it's fun. It was made in 1985 and audiences were still willing to suspend their disbelief in order to have some fun. The characters are real people, no 22 year-old world famous neuro-physicists with 40 years experience under their belts. The film's take on the future is sometimes silly, and sometimes on the mark. And come on...RoboCop. Tell me he's not cool.

12 Angry Men (Henry Fonda, E.G.Marshall, Jack Klugman, Lee J. Cobb, Jack fielder, Ed Begley)
Another classic masterpiece! Henry Fonda is the single voice of dissention in a room of 12 jurors deciding the fate of a young offender. He may be right, he may be wrong, but he stands to convince the jurors that life and death decisions can't be made on a whim. The performances are awesome. It's got its share of 'gotcha' moments. Lee J Cobb's and Joseph Sweeney's characters just might be my favorites.

Gone with the Wind (Vivian Leigh, Clark Gable)
Folks who have never seen this film are missing a great epic story. It follows Scarlett O'Hara, a spoiled rotten, capricious southern belle from her glory days on her father's plantation through the Civil War and it's aftermath. Though coniving and ruthless, she is a true heroine leading friends and family through hardships. Through it all, she obesses over 'the one that got away'. The energy between Leigh and Gable is so great!

Predator (Arnold Schwarzenegger). US mercernaries get more than they ask for when they go looking for a lost squadron in a South American jungle. A strange and dangerous creature is killing them off like a hunter, like a predator. It's 80's machismo at it's best. Guns, muscles, sweat, curse words and hunting.

OverBoard (Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell). Another spoiled rotten rich girl gets her come-uppance in the best way possible. After getting amnesia, Goldie Hawn's aristocrat character is whisked away by Kurt Russell to be his Home-maker. Goldie is as cute as ever and is hilarious as a cold hearted snob.

Idiocracy (Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph) Crude and declasse, this film makes a funny but sad commentary on the current and future state of civilization. Luke Wilson a slacker enlisted man and Maya Rudolph a prostitue are used for a top secret military cryogenic experiment. When they awake well past the 1 year proposed date of the experiment, they find a world in which intellect, morals, culture and decency are quite literally a thing of the past. Wilson is immediately crowned the smartest man in the world and tapped by the President to solve of this society's ills.

There are others to be sure, but these are the ones that make time stand still!

Trash n Treasure

Yesterday, Saturday, was a fun day with the gals. Our Fire Department's Ladies' Auxiliary held a yard sale at Station 1 and it was great! We were looking for a good fundraiser. When our Secretary suggested the yard sale, it was right up everybody's alley and we couldn't make it happen soon enough! So we set the date for this weekend, the first weekend of April.

The hardest part for me was getting up early on a Saturday morning. Our Secretary, however, was eager to get there not-quite-bright and early so she was already there when we started streaming in.

It was still dark out when we set up our tables and our lovely President helped haul boxes of goodies out to the tent. But wait, what are those little orbs in the foreground? Drizzle. DRIZZLE! It looked like we might get bad weather. We pressed on nonetheless with favorable predictions for the day.

We also had some firefighter help!



Finally, Dawn began to break! A couple of ladies brought donuts and breakfast tacos to get us going. We had lots of fun getting the sale off the ground.

See this gal? She got the jump on me with regards to a certain milkglass lamp. See, the night before we all dropped our stuff off at the station. Well after I'd left, but before she did, someone brought in an adorable milkglass lamp. She bought it on the spot!! Arrrgh! But she's so sweet, how can I hold it against her?

And this dear gal was in the original Ladies' Auxiliary 'back in the day'. Now her son is a firefighter and she gives us lots of good food for thought!

As the morning wore on, the customers steadily came in. Our Secretary really brought her game and played Shopkeeper extraordinaire! We also got lots of little visitors and our Firefighters made sure they were well recieved!

The town little league football league was having it's registration day so we were witness to a quick game of b-ball...Wildcats vs Firefighters. Who would win?

Did anyone notice my outfit by the way? I picked something classic with relation to our future logo! Let's see if it looks familiar...

This a great bunch of ladies and I'm so glad to work with them!
Oh, and the milkglass lamp? Well the dear lady GAVE it to me!! What a sweet gesture! Can't wait to find it a happy little spot to show it off!

Hope your weekend was a fun as mine!

Slow Start - part deux

The emotional recoup and the lifting fog have taken a while. But I think that, at last, I'm starting to feel a bit 'normal' again. I even put on makeup today.

So it's the end of March, Spring is here, sunshine is here and the summer will be here before we know it. What will summer bring? Well, I'll tell ya; my 40th birthday. Gawd! 4-0. Well, it doesn't leave much time to lose 20 lbs, reboot a business, relaunch a blog and makeover my house, does it? I may have to make concessions. As usual, I'm late for getting started but since 40 is the new 30, I'm sorta on time. I'm going to set my goals anyway. I call it "Fabulous By Forty" or FabX40 for short. I'm gonna do the fabulous stuff on my fabulous list by my fabulous 40th birthday.

So I have my goals:
Lose 20 lbs; but I think the more realistic goal, would be 15.
Reboot a business; I've negelected my Buttons McD shop on Etsy and still have lots of fun and fab ideas for it.
Relaunch my blogs; this one and The Savvy Fox
Makeover my house; namely, living area, kids' rooms, my bedroom

What I need is a plan of action! I'm gonna take the next few days to mull that over and maybe put it in writing. In a few days, I'll have a list or outline of baby steps to Fabulousity.

New Year, Slow Start

So getting past the holiday season and getting the year started up has been a bit slow for me. My Dad died on Christmas Day. It knocked me down a bit and put me in a fog that's been a bit hard to come out of. Nonetheless, I've been keeping rather busy and have (now looking back) gotten a lot done from mid-December to now.

I rearranged my craft room...again! Cool thing is I scored an Ikea piece for a fraction of the price. Thanks Craigslist! The new piece is a lighter color, and only table height. It's made the craft area look like an entirely new room.

New post test

This i swhat happens when you stay away a long time. test test test.

well it wasn't my NEXT post per se

Today, we're going on a field trip (yay!) to one of my favorite little shops, Bob McDougal's Sewing located in the lovely Houston Heights. McDougal's has been in business for 40 years now. McDougal's is both a dealer and repair shop. They sell machines, repair machines, sell supplies and give lessons.
First, imagine my delight when I drove up and saw this little lovely upon my arrival. Has nothing to do with the field trip, but how could I resist snapping a picture of this bitchin '71 Chevelle? Aaand in the background is my bitchin...um... minivan.
Of course the person greeting me is Fernando. I believe he's been referred to in previous posts as 'the man at the repair shop' or 'the repair shop guy'. He's my guru when my Brother acts up and despite his very serious face, he actually is so helpful and friendly.
So I get there and of course, Fernando is making a sale. I didn't catch this sweet lady's name but she told me she bought her first sewing machine from McDougal's when she was first married. By the way she's the owner of the bitchin Chevy outside. Gimme that hotrod, granny!
McDougal's repairs all kinds of machines and has refurbished machines for sale. There are machines from different manufacturers and eras! I love going to the very back of the store where machines awaiting repair are kept. It's like they're all waiting to be brought back to life. But my favorite machines are the ones in this glass case...beautiful singers from days gone by. I'm not sure why these particular machines are behind the glass, but I love standing at the case and just oggling them. There are even these two little ones, presumably for little girls, that do actually work! How cool is that? McDougal's does have refurbished old Singers for sale. Dang it! Shoulda took pix of those too.
So what I wanted to show you was the latest machine Fernando has refurbished. It's been his pet project, he says, for about 6 months now. It's this oh so cool red Singer. He fixed the machine, refurbished it, even put beautiful new detailing all around the base. He'll be selling it soon and I can assure you, it won't be me buying it. But I HAD to get a picture of this vintage beauty. Kinda like a hotrod huh? But for a nerdy crafting mom....like me.
So I pick the thread and needles I came in for in the first place. I took about 2 more shots of the red machine cuz I'm in love with it. I might have to marry it. Sorry, Mr. McD.