Legally Blonde's Proceedings

After the Christmas tree came down, I decided to do a little sprucing up in the living room (and subsequently the breakfast room as I've already talked about).  In the corner of the living room, where the big Christmas tree goes,  I have always had a big fake ficus tree.  It was a really nice fake ficus tree when I got it back in 2003, but 11 years later, it had seen better days.  It was literally falling apart. While I would have loved to have found a large fiddle leaf fig to replace the ficus, they are (1) hard to find, (2) expensive, (3) take more light that I could give it, and (4) I would probably kill it ASAP.  But it would have been pretty... Image from pinterest, but I couldn't find original source After researching into, and looking for a fiddle leaf fig, I decided to change course and look for a chair.  I couldn't kill a chair.  I found a nice chair for a good price at Homegoods, and then one thing led to another and I was doing a...

A woman who is dedicated, assertive, tough, or persuasive = a woman who is bossy, pushy, shrill, or bitchy. I've been the recipient of this kind of thinking, but I must confess I've been the purveyor of this sentiment as well.  The  Ban Bossy  movement that has come about this week thanks to Sheryl Sandberg, Condoleeza Rice, and Ana Marie Chavez, is one of my favorite things in a long time.  LOVE IT!   It's something that women, in addition to not earning equal pay for equal work in this country, have to deal with.  It's something that I deal with.  It's also something that has been on my mind for a while.  I won't even start on the situation here in Texas, but I will say that I find it hard to stomach the fact that the Republican candidate for Governor, Greg Abbott, does not appear to support the Texas Equal Pay Act. But sometimes, you see things, that give you a glimmer of hope that times may be changing.  I saw this tweet by Ad...

I've had the same valances in my kitchen and breakfast room since 2004, and after 10 years, I've grown tired of them.  I have actually been looking for new options for a couple of years now.  I just haven't found any that were the right fit... none that I loved, and if there were some I even liked, well then I didn't like them well enough to justify the price. I thought I had looked everywhere... the internet, bed bath & beyond, lowe's, home depot, all over the place really. Then last week, it hit me... I hadn't looked into buying valances that went with a bedding set.  I was so into looking at places that sold "kitchen" valances, I just hadn't thought outside of the box! Dillards had been having a great sale on some of their bedding (65% off).  Then they ran an additional 40% off sale, which basically meant if you could find something, it was going to be about 80% off of the original retail price. I hit the jackpot and found some Rose ...

I have been tempted more times than I can count, to have a portrait painted of Lola.  Usually, it is the price that puts me off the temptation.  Several weeks ago, I saw some cool images on instagram that were pictures that had somehow been turned into "paintings". These were done with an app called Waterlogue.   I can't remember what the app cost, but I'm thinking it was $2.99.  Now that is usually more than I want to spend on an app (I'm cheap like that), but I decided it was worth it. I took some good photos of Lola on her birthday.  I took them with my camera, then emailed them to myself, saved them on my phone, and then used Waterlogue to "paint them".  Then a few days later, I noticed that another blogger had done the same, but she had ordered a canvas print of the "painting". So I couldn't resist doing the same.  I got the canvas in the mail this week and I'm so happy with the result! Here is the original picture I took....