A blog about jewelry, life, dogs, food and everything else

I have been missing in action from the blog because I’m busy prepping the house for the steady stream of visitors this month. The weather isn’t being very cooperative but we’re making the best of it. Austin is starting to appreciate the backyard and sits out there all day long. Her favorite thing to do is find a stick, throw it around and roll all over the place. I bought her a kiddie pool but she has yet to go near it. We’ll see what happens in the weeks to come when the weather gets hotter.

I have been busy unpacking and decorating, in between boxes, but I’ve completely finished one room, the bedroom.  I decided to make the bedroom just that, a room for my bed. My office is huge and has a ton of closet space so the bedroom is very minimal and peaceful. The original colors of the room were mustard yellow with green trim. I couldn’t deal with the mustard so it had to change. The major dilemma I had was which room would get my favorite painting by Richard Kimball. When I had my cafe many moons ago, I had a showing of all his work and I fell in love with the painting that was hanging right in front on the register. My mom bought it for me for my birthday. The bedroom won out and got the painting.  I love the way it turned out.

before

Aussie couldn’t leave my side when we first moved in so she’s in most of the before photos

please note the door to nowhere behind the ladder. I have no idea what is in there and I don’t think I ever will.

after

I love that depending on the angle, the green color changes shade. I love both so it doesn’t matter which is the actual color :)

I have to admit that I haven’t been in love with chocolate for quite some time. I am a vanilla girl and if I have the choice, I always pick vanilla.

There is a local company called SoCo Creamery that makes delicious ice cream. There is a shop in town that I have been to a few times, before I moved here, but again usually wind up with something in the vanilla family. Most of the stores in the area carry their ice cream. I was at the local farm store yesterday and wound up in front of the ice cream freezer. There was a limited selection of Soco ice cream available in the freezer but two flavors caught my eye. One was Dirty Chocolate and the other was Mexican Chocolate. The packaging has no information other than the ingredients. I was really hoping for a description but I guess it keeps the imagination alive. I picked Dirty Chocolate and oh my god, I’m converted. The ice cream is thick, rich chocolaty, chocolate goodness. There are no chunks or nuts or anything, just chocolate. It’s heavenly.

I was very excited about making garden markers for the veggie patch. Over the past few years, I’ve spent way too much money at Michael’s stocking up on items that I know someday will come in handy. Today was one of those days. I decided to make my garden markers out of shrinky dinks. They are plastic so the rain won’t destroy them and I also had a bunch of bamboo skewers on hand to glue them on. I love any excuse to pull out the glue gun! I used shrinky dinks that you can print off the computer but I neglected to actually read the directions and just popped them in the toaster oven. As you can see by the photos below, I didn’t exactly do it correctly. I kind of liked the way they looked so I didn’t do them over. It’s my art project for the day.

These are some of the beauties blooming in the garden.

I’m all moved in! What a weekend it was. I moved, pulled a load of weeds, planted two gardens and mowed the lawn. I’m a little tired. My friend helped me and for certain, I couldn’t have done it all without her.

We tackled the first vegetable patch on Sunday. It was fairly easy yet time consuming. We had to pull all the weeds but the soil proved to be in good shape and after soil turning, it was ready for planting. The majority of the patch is populated with cherry and grape tomatoes and the rest is loaded with many different veggies. There is swiss chard, eggplant, garlic, lettuce, scallions, cucumbers and some other stuff and I can’t remember right now. They are all seeds so there are no pictures of them.

Below are some before and after photos. The hard part now is waiting for everything to grow. I’m a big fan of instant gratification but that is so not the case here.

before - loaded with weeds

weeds gone, soil turned, rhubarb in the corner

tomatoes!

I have paint commitment issues. I stood in front of the paint chip wall for about an hour before committing to my colors. Behr has a great website where you can view the colors in sample rooms. They have the same kiosk at Home Depot so I got to test out all the colors. I finally made a decision and now I’m a little scared. I LOVE the paint color I chose for the bedroom but I’m a little nervous about the office. I was heading in the orange direction but I somehow wound up swimming with coral and salmon. I fell in love with this color called Guava Jam and when he showed it to me in the can, all I could say was “it will dry darker, right?” I was a little scared but I think it will be great. I need to embrace the color and not be frightened by it.

The two photos below are sample rooms with all the colors I chose for the main walls as well as the trim. In my actual rooms there isn’t nearly as much trim so the darker brown won’t really be that pronounced. I bought extra of the light beige, which is the main wall color, in case I feel like painting some other rooms.

the bedroom

the office

I went to the museum today to see the Sol Lewitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective exhibit. The works are massive, take up 3 floors and about an acre of wall space . I didn’t know much about the exhibit other than the opening was a huge event and unfortunately I missed it. The museum is literally 5 minutes away from my house so it was kind of silly not to go before I moved.

I’ve never thought of myself as artsy. I rarely go to museums or galleries but I love creating and crafting. Art is hit or miss for me. Much to the horror of most people I tell, I went through the Louvre in about half an hour. I didn’t know what to expect from this exhibit and upon first glance, the drawings/paintings look like something I could recreate with a 10 foot level and some paint. Then I learned that each panel has precise instructions and calculations and it became a little more interesting. There are no ropes up so you can observe the panels up close and see the amount of detail that goes into them. Turns out, I’d need a whole lot more than a level and a dream to do this kind of work.

It took 6 months of drafting and painting by a team of 65 artists and art students to finish this exhibit. Each drawing begins with a set of instructions or a simple diagram to be followed. The most impressive drawings in my opinion, were the squiggle series. You can’t fully appreciate the work that went into this without seeing it up close. It’s amazing.

The exhibit will be up till 2033! If you find yourself in the Berkshires within the next 25 years, definitely go see it.