skirting the issue

Last year, I retired the big tree I used for the glass menagerie I put up in the front room. I acquired a new tree last week, the first big fancy tree I’ve bought new at full price, I think, in forever. After the big bead garland caper of 2020, this big over-the-top tree needs […]

solar chandelier reveal

Five weeks ago, I brought home a thrift store chandelier because seven weeks ago I saw a DIY garden project on Tiktok. This is it: The project is to strip, paint and convert the fixture to solar lights for use as a garden chandelier. I known I wanted to use multiple colors, so I dismantled […]

additional spice of life

My collecting grows in spurts. I like to browse online and regularly check thrift stores, but there are inevitably moments where availability of things I collect simply opens the floodgates, and maybe I over-indulge my obsessions. Maybe. Recently, I decided I wanted to expand our CorningWare Spice of Life collection into the milkglass Gemco pieces. […]

sock it to me!

Seven hundred and some pairs of socks ago, I had an aversion to licensed characters on my hosiery. I felt they were too much commitment when I only wanted festive socks that supported my clothes. Well, today’s a new day, it would seem… The biggest haul in awhile now. I mean, the Fairly Odd Parents […]

thrifty christmas in july

I’ve been avoiding thrift stores as much as everything else through the pandemic, having gone only a handful of times in the past year and a half. Today, I cleared out some boxes from our front room and carted them off to Goodwill. And if I’m already there… I might miss a rare Wexford find. […]

hobbit house hot cocoa

If anything, this is a hobby and/or lifestyle blog. Although it sometimes includes recipes, I don’t consider it a cooking or food blog. That said, I offer this promise to all of you: you will not have to read through any horrifically long, drawn-out event or memory of my life before you find our recipes. […]

the final invasion

The temperature climbed just enough. The snow is packable again! The frozen cephalopod broke through the surface of the crisp peaceful snow, laying siege to the ship on the surface, but the snow-crew was not caught unprepared. They learned from their mates’ demises in the previous attack those two years back. The harpoons were kept […]

xmas, xmas, burning bright

It is Christmas Day, and we are burning down every battery-operated LED in the place… Also, my husband and I aren’t much about big piles of gifts on Christmas, as just typically buy what we want or need when we first have the opportunity to do so. That said, we realized early on exactly how […]

the big, big tree topper

The topper for The Big, Big Tree is my all time favorite holiday thing found on deep post-holiday clearance. I don’t remember exactly when I found it, but it was at least fifteen years or so. I found it at a K-mart, ninety percent off on the last tiny little table of Christmas decorations. I […]

light it up: final chapter?

Today got into the upper sixties, so I picked up a couple more multi-outlet plugs to complete our outdoor display. I wasn’t happy with how the garden lighting looked separate from the house, I think, stemming from the natural cedar tone of the fence. I also split outlets to finally let me light the forsythia […]