Winter Cozy Living Room 2019

Hola!

The weather has been atrocious here, complete with rounds of seemingly endless snow and Polar Vortex cold.  February has been SNOW MONTH 2019 here in southeast Wisconsin, Geez Louise!  We're already close to if not above our "normal" seasonal average (30-40") just in February alone, with possibly another half a foot expected tomorrow.

Looking to the southwest from my front door.  My driveway entrance is plugged solid with snow.  Plows came through at 1 a.m. this morning and plugged up the small walkway that I had laboriously shoveled out for myself yesterday to get into the road without climbing over a snowbank or going down somebody else's driveway.  You can barely see where it used to be!  Means more shovelling once peak temperature arrives about 2 p.m. later day, but since I don't need the driveway (no car) I just do a small pathway for myself from the driveway into the road. 

Looking northwest from my front door.  Hard to tell how tall and how thick  those snow banks actually are! Bright sunshine yesterday and today are helping evaporate some of the ice and left over snow now quite removed from sidewalks.

View out my front door, looking across the street nearly due west.  Those snowbanks are GIGANTIC!  You can sort of tell by looking at my sidewalk entrance into the road - at the peak  the bank on the right is about 4 feet tall from the ground, about 4 inches taller from the road side because of the curb.

Spring seems very far away at this point.  I want the feeling of and actual warmth, lots of afghan and throw options and cushy pillows to cuddle into close by the fireplace.  So, for the time being, I've kept most of the red decorative accents that I introduced during the just past Christmas season.  I also kept my old red and black "oriental" style wool rug that I put down for Christmas.  It adds an extra layer of luxury and cushy softness underneath my stocking covered feet!  

The red throw with faux fur rim is so soft and cushy!  Two more throws on the ottoman guarantee more warmth when needed, the black faux fur which is luxuriously soft and a larger plaid wool blend that is extra warm.  

The view toward the front door.  That's my new slide under the sofa all purpose table with the lantern on top of it- great for holding my computer when I work in the room in the evenings when I want a fire going and snuggle on the sofa.  When not in use by the sofa, it serves as a convenient catch-all table at the front door.  The lantern holds a timer set battery operated candle and normally hangs outside when snow isn't expected.  That atrocious green accent wall behind my hutch is going to disappear this year, I swear!  I've been meaning to paint it ever since I moved in - in July 2014!  The rest of the room is painted in a soft and neutral light greyish-green color, soothing and warm during this time of year but cool enough for the bright summer sunshine that floods in through the west-facing picture window in the summertime.  It was the color on the walls when I bought the house, and I like it so much I'm not changing it.  I had a gallon of paint made up to match!

The decor and the furniture arangement will change once (if) spring actually arrives and decides to stay :)

A New Year and a New Christmas Tree for 2019

Hola everyone and Happy New Year!  May all of us have a wonderful healthy and prosperous New Year.

I swear, this has to be the earliest I have ever had my tree down after Christmas, wowsers!  I started deconstructing it on January 2nd and took off all of the decorations over 2 days, just dawdling along.  Isn't it amazing how quickly you can strip a tree down, when it takes so long to dress it?

Today, after sitting there naked for several days (the white sheers are once again closed so the tree's modesty is preserved), the tree itself came down. 

Classic Fraser Fir from Tree Classics (online vendor).

I have been hemming and hawing this season over whether to buy a new artificial Christmas tree.  After experiencing a couple more rows of lights dying on my 6.5' 10-11 year old pre-lit tree, and then running out to try and find "warm white" lights to thread into an already decorated tree so I wouldn't have huge dark spots at the top, middle and bottom of the tree (yes - it's ridiculous - all of a sudden most of the original lights decided to just go out this year, all at different times!), I decided maybe it's time (1) to get a new tree and (2) downsize to a smaller tree.

The idea of a smaller tree has been kicking around in my head for some time.  After struggling this year to haul the old artificial tree up the basement stairs, smaller and lighter has become very appealing.  My buddy Ann mentioned a few years ago that she downsized to a table top tree.  I'm not as strong as I used to be but I figured a shorter, lighter tree (not pre-lit!) that I can place on a stand about 12" tall and then cover the tree base plus stand would work very well in front of my large picture window, and will be easier to get up and down the basement stairs.

I'd heard of Balsam Hill and looked at their trees online.  Gorgeous - and very very expensive!  Too expensive for my budget even on sale.  But most (maybe all) of their trees are formed using PE (not PVC) in injection molds that result in very soft, flexible and extremely realistic needles, and that appealed to me a lot.  They really are gorgeous trees, full and luxurious looking, but just too expensive for my pocketbook.

So, I've been hunting around online for a "PE artificial Christmas tree," hoping to score a super bargain on sale or clearance.  Several vendors try to pass off their trees as PE, but when you read the specs, they're PVC and not PE!  I found some trees that are blended trees of both PE and PVC needles, but not one that I liked enough to consider buying (they are a lower price point because they are not 100% PE "real feel"[TM]). 

But today I did find one tree at Tree Classics online that I liked.  Its tips are made of PE (injection molded) and other needles are made of PVC to fill out the branches.  It's a blended tree, and so a compromise from the 100% PE trees I can't afford, but I liked the tree style and color and the height is perfect at 4.5'.  It's also a space saver, which I wanted.  On sale at $129.99 (just call it 130 bucks and be done with it, geez) with free FedEx Ground shipping.  It is also not pre-wired, which was important to me.  After having lights burning out in large sections of my old tree last year and this year, I much prefer to put short strings of lights on and off myself so that trying to hunt down bad bulbs and/or fuses is easier in the future.

So I ordered it, and now we'll see.  I know I'll have to open it up and check it when it arrives and now wait until December 2019 - not looking forward to that but it must be done.  Imagine not opening it but letting it sit for 10 months and then opening it, only to find it's defective in some way or even the wrong tree!  EEK!  So I will just have to do what most rational people do and open the box to check to make sure it's the right model and all is in order.  UGH! 

Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Hola!

How quickly time has flown by, wow.  Tomorrow is Christmas.  I have some baking to do and a bit of cleaning, and then I'll settle in and watch my favorite and sentimental movies for the rest of the day and night, and later I'll "make" a fire in my gel fuel fireplace -- that consists of opening cans of gel fuel once I peel off the outside paper wrap and lighting them.  Voila!  Real flames, real crackling and real warmth, as I sit in the living room admiring how pretty the tree looks at night.

Here are a few photos of Christmas trees that a friend and one of my sisters sent to me, as well one I took at a local well known watering-hole and long-time dining establishment.  Enjoy!  HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE.

The tree above is my sister Darlene's.  It's beautiful.  Tall (12 feet?), looks like it's decorated with blue and clear (or silver?) ornaments and icicles, with cascading wide gold metallic ribbon.  There are classic all white lights and an angel on top.  Wowsers.  What a lot of work to decorate a tree that large!

This is my friend Ann standing in front of a tree that had overgrown her front yard, that she donated to the City of West Allis.  The tree was removed by the City and ended up inside a reconstructed log cabin representing a typical home of southeastern Wisconsin settlers in the very early days of the 1800s.  The tree was decorated with home-made ornaments by local students from a grade school.  Isn't it gorgeous!   Looking at the decorations brings back memories of childhood.  How well I remember now making paper chain garland and stringing pop corn!

The piece de resistance is Kegel's annual Christmas tree.  Kegel's is a long-time family owned (the current operator is a nephew of the third generation of family owners) bar and restaurant in the heart of the South Side of metro Milwaukee - but I believe the bar's address is actually West Allis.  Every year they come up with a new decorating scheme for giant size trees that anchor the corner of the bar area, divided from part of the dining area by a half-wall.  Here is the 2018 version:

Sorry for the not so great photo, sometimes my hands shake a little. As you can see, it's one of those crazy upside-down trees, LOL!  And decorated gorgeously in all white glittered ornaments.  It's spectacular!  It also rotates!  Oops!  I see one red (red and gold?) ornament on it.  Hmmmm, wonder what the story is behind THAT?  This is the first time I'm noticing it, wowsers!  My friend Ann and I had dinner there the night I took this photo, I'll ask her if she knows what that's all about, if she even noticed it herself!

The Living Room Is Decorated For Christmas

Happy Holidays to everyone!

It seemed to take me forever this year to get the tree together.  It seemed harder than ever this year to drag it upstairs from its basement storage and when I got it upstairs and unwrapped from its duvet cover, I realized I only had 2 of the 3 parts in the wrap!  And it was still so dang heavy??? 

Anyway, I couldn't remember where I put the very top part of the tree, eek!  After digging around for what seemed forever but was probably less than 5 minutes, I found it stuffed into a large box right next to where the rest of the tree had rested for a year.  Makes sense, right?  Even THAT little thing not even 2 feet tall seemed heavier this year.

But the tree was duly assembled and the plugs were plugged together.  The lights didn't work.  After diddling around I managed to get most of the sections of lights lit, but I have to face the fact that the tree is old and some of the sections of lights have burned out.  And darned if I'm going to try and figure out which light(s) are bad ones - I just do NOT have that kind of patience!

 I wanted to do a theme with red this year.  I haven't had any red on my Christmas tree and in my living room decor for years.  I started decorating and got to a point pretty far along - and didn't like  how the tree looked.  ARRGGGGHHHHH!  Off came everything. It wasn't working.  The cure was relatively simple, though.  I added more matching red plaid French ribbon to the part of a roll that I still had from a few years ago I'd used for other things - lucked out and found it at Walgreens, dug out some REALLY old boxes of ornaments and found a stash of red bulbs and other colors, and just started throwing about everything up on the tree.  The eventual result, after putzing with it for at least a week, off and on, is this:

In the areas where the tree lights did not light I tried to weave in strings of new lights.  I did that with one 40 string of lights last year, and this year I added a 100 year string of lights to the top and lower middle sections of the trees when, after about a week of use, the lights in those areas suddenly decided to go dark on me, too.  I also added several strings of battery operated lights.  None of the light colors or sizes match although they're all identified as "warm white."  If I squint, it looks okay, LOL!  Have you ever tried weaving lights in and out of branches on a tree that's already been decorated?  Geez Louise!

Of course I keep tweaking the poor tree (and have added more lights).  I sit in the living room at night watching my streaming shows and there she is, all beautiful, and I get up and I move 2 ornaments around.  And then 2 more; and then 2 more.  It's like an addiction or something...

The tree "skirt" is a synthetic silk sheet I thought I had given away in a charity box years ago - turns out it was still stashed in the linen closet, along with matching pillow cases, so I used the pillow cases to wrap the white lumber cushions on the wing chairs:

I hauled up my traditional patterned red and black wool rug and plopped it over the flame stitch black and cream area rug.  And on the sofa, which normally sits in front of the picture window with a sofa table and 2 lamps behind it:

I added two red cushion covers from Bed, Bath & Beyond ($14.99 each), a $30 chunky knit throw with faux fur trim from Steinart and covered the center pillow with the white and gold starred cushion cover purchased some Christmases ago from Ikea.  At night I snuggle under the afghans if I don't have a fire going in the fireplace (gel fuel).

The mantel is decorated.  It's nothing too fancy this year:

I used my three faux metal deer from Walgreens, my mercury glass votives purchased several years ago from TJMaxx, a string of battery operated white lights, a battery operated lantern, and two topiaries that my niece Godchild purchased for me years ago when Bombay Company was still in business.  They have since been wrapped in warm white LED lights to add some extra light to the mantel at night when I don't have the votives lit (I use real candles, I find that battery operated votives don't generate enough light to give a good display). 

So, that's it for this year - I'm done decorating!  I love the look of the tree even with the hodge podge of ornaments and lights on it, or maybe because of that!  It's not perfect but I gave up trying for perfect years ago, LOL!

I wish everyone a wonderful and blessed holiday season and new year in 2019.

Planning for Red for Christmas this Year

I will be rearranging the living room soon in preparation for bringing up the Christmas tree from basement storage after Thanksgiving.

One of my close friends has a birthday on November 23rd and I always treat her - and myself - yearly to a night out to see a show at one of our local theatre venues and have a nice dinner.  And then we go to Candy Cane Lane and join in a parade of cars driving slowly through about a 6 square block area of a local neighborhood where the neighbors decorate their houses for Christmas to raise funds for the MACC Fund (Milwaukee Area Childrens' Cancer Fund).  They have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past many years.  That's how I kick off my Christmas season.  This year we're going to see the stage play "Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley" at the Pabst Theatre downtown.  I love all things related to Jane Austen, including off-shoots by other authors from her work. I am really looking forward to seeing this play!  It's gotten good reviews and who can resist a story about one of the most neglected of the Bennet sisters - Mary!

Not sure why, but for some time now I've been stewing on the idea of using some red in my living room decor for the first time.  I have used my red cardinals and red/black/green plaid ribbons, of course, in my kitchen and dining area for decor, but the living room and tree have been decorated primarily in gold, silver, sparkles and glass.

So, I made some modest purchases -- two rich red colored throw cushion covers for the sofa and a chunky knit faux-fur trimmed throw blanket to add to the room for snuggling before the fireplace.

Here is one of the throw pillow covers I scored online from Bed Bath & Beyond Manhattan Square Throw Pillow Cover in red ($14.99).  It's soft and silky feeling with a nice sheen to it.

The second throw pillow, also from Bed Bath & Beyond and also $14.99,is a red velvet with a gold quilted diamond pattern, plush, lush, soft, lux:

Here is the Nina Campbell throw blanket I scored at Steinmart for 50% off:

I am loving this throw!  It is super-soft and chunky and warm!  It is a deep red but not burgundy, called "Chili Pepper."

Speaking of the fireplace, I had my first fire of the season yesterday.  It was raining, super-windy, damp and dark out all day and I felt chilly in the house although the heat was kicking in on a regular basis.  So I had a 2-can gel fuel fire and it was glorious! It lasted for 2 and 1/2 hours as I sat in one of the wing chairs in the living room with my feet up enjoying the flames and and crackling - because it's actual fire burning in the fireplace behind the faux logs and the real fire screen, and the room warms up.  Lovely! 

Back to the red - I have my nearly 30 year old red and black "Oriental" pattern wool rug to bring up from basement storage for the holiday which this year will be layered over the black and cream chevron pattern area rug in the living room.  The red/black Oriental traditional pattern is a 5 x 7 and much smaller than the 10 x 12 black and cream, so there will certainly be some contrast there!  But I think it will work, and if it doesn't I won't care, as to me decorating is intensely personal and not about appealing to an audience.  I've used the rug in this retirement version of Maison Newton before - in the dining area.  No photos of it on this computer, it will be a "surprise."

I'll probably add some red plaid French ribbon to the Christmas tree decor this year, too for some red color on the tree. I can get it at the Family Dollar for $5 for a large roll.  I do believe I even have a few (a very few) red ornaments but I'll have to unbury them from boxes of Christmas decorations in the basement!

Stay tuned. 

November Already???

Holy Hathor people!  Where did my summer go?  And tomorrow is election day, wow.

I have updates, but haven't kept up posting anything.  I was busy doing political stuff all summer though, decided to get off my butt and get involved.  I will take a short break after the election tomorrow and then jump back in.  If I were younger, I would seriously consider running for office myself.  It's not that I feel "old" at 67, but I certainly don't have the energy I used to have either, and I don't want to upset the apple cart with what health issues I have, which substantially improved since I retired from my extremely stressful job in early 2015.  But, like many other women all across the country since the start of 2017, I have been motivated to get involved in local politics like I never was motivated before.

But now I'm settling in for winter.  We had a stretch of hot weather in early October, but since then it's been below normal temperatures and lots of rain.  We have more than an inch above average last month along with wind storms that seemed to come every few days!

Even with the sudden turn here in temperatures, though, the leaves took their time turning this year, or so it seemed to me.  It was only within the last couple of days of strong winds once again that there are now more bare trees than leafed trees.  I will have to rake again. And if it doesn't rain again tonight or tomorrow I will pull out the lawnmower and give everything a last mow-over for the season.

And then - it's countdown to Thanksgiving and to Christmas! 

I had a good turn out for trick or treaters this year.  It seems, sadly, that every year fewer of the neighbors participate in our neighborhood trick or treat night.  Every year a flyer arrives on my front door handle from one of the neighbors announcing the date for our neighborhood night time trick or treat (official city trick or treat is held during the daylight hours of 1 and 4 p.m.)  Personally, I enjoy seeing the kids in their costumes, some of them were very clever again this year and of course the young moms bringing out their toddlers for their first-ever trick or treat is one of the things I greatly enjoy!  It reminds me of when I was a kid in the 50s and early 60s when everyone went trick or treating at night and our costumes were masks, usually home-made and our treat holders were shopping bags with handles!  Since it's only once a year, I don't mind spending a little money to make sure I have enough snack size candy bars on hand and a large variety so the kids can take what they most like out of the treat bucket.  Surprisingly to me this year, Hersheys regular chocolate bars and Kit Kat were the most popular, outscoring Snickers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  I also buy Mounds and Almond Joy (I love them both) and some non-chocolate treats.  I usually have some left-overs of them, which I then snack on for a few weeks after the holiday :)

I didn't take any photos of the house decorated for Halloween, probably should have although I don't do things up the way a lot of people do!  I string up orange lights in my two living room windows and put battery-operated candle lanterns out on the front stoop, a couple of "spooky" decorations and put an orange porch light in.  It's 2 hours out of my life each year having fun and saying hi to parents (most of whom accompany their kids for the nighttime trick or treating) whom I rarely otherwise see except as they drive by and beep if I'm out cutting the grass or sweeping the gutters out.  Yeah, that sweeping the gutters out is an old Polish lady thing, har :)

Fourth of July (Hooray for the USA, Happy Birthday!), Heat Wave Continues, Trellis for Front Yard

Hola!  First and foremost, I wish everyone a Happy 4th of July.  Depending upon whether you date Lady Liberty's age from 1776 (Declaration of Independence), in which case today we are celebrating the 242nd year of our country's birth, or from 1781 (Articles of Confederation forming the United States signed by the original 13 states) if she's fudging on her age a bit, and is a frisky 237 years young today!  Whoop whoop!

It's hot as Hades here again today.  No relief for the wicked?  Maybe we're all being punished these days, certainly feels like it in this neck of the woods.  Unrelenting heat wave after heat wave, each worse than the last.  The air is so thick and still this morning you can literally see it slicing if you swipe a butter knife through it!  'truth!  So thick, it's hard to breathe, even standing still.  I delayed cutting the front lawn until 7 p.m. last night, hoping to catch some marginally cooler air as the Sun started its descent in the western sky.  Didn't work.  After 45 minutes of cutting I was sweating like a stuck pig and covered in yechy!  It took me 15 minutes to scrub myself down in the shower, it was so thick.  It seems no matter how much liquid I drink, the sweat gets thicker and ickier the hotter it gets.  There was no breeze to speak of last evening, nothing to even pretend you're cooling off! 

This morning I was out by 6:30 a.m. to sweep up the grass clippings from last night and contemplate whether I should trim or not.  I really should trim, but it's not going to happen in this weather.  The Sun is full up now above the house and the front will be drenched in sunlight until around 7:30 p.m. this evening.  I didn't want to pull out my grass trimmer this morning at 6:30, taking my neighbors into consideration!  I limited myself to sweeping, a silent activity.  I worked for about 40 minutes and gave up.  I had to come in and take another shower.  Geez, and I can't even use the waste water to wet down the garden beds, that's the worst of it, sigh. 

Now it's 10:30 a.m. and I'm hearing some brave soul out there (on the 4th of July???) cutting their lawn.  IN THIS HEAT AND HUMIDITY.  That person is mad, I tell you, mad.  Or under 20 years of age. 

I may have mentioned somewhere in my last few posts that I was thinking about buying something, possibly a trellis, to add some "pop" to the large blank space.  I spent some pleasurable time window shopping online, and I actually bought one!  It came in pieces, and I assembled it recently in my living room:

All the parts, spread out in my living room.

Assembly in progress.

All assembled and ready for outside!  You can catch glimpses of my egg collection
and my collection of pink elephants inside the china hutch - tons of storage below, too.

It's 75" tall and 28" wide, so it will give me some much-needed vertical interest on that side of the house, and the white will show up well against the siding above the lower stone veneer on the house.  It was purchased from Home Depot, the Wellington PVC trellis.  The total cost was $57.27 including tax.  Shipping was free. 

Keeping a running total, the cost of my outside curb appear updates is now $359.67.

The trellis is now outside in place, but I'm not going to show any photographs of it until the great and final "reveal" of this summer's curb appeal project.  Because of a hiccup that I'll write about in my next post, I won't be able to wrap things up until the 3rd week of July as it now stands. Darn it all, $%&^@%^*!.  Yes yes, I know - patience is a virtue...