Sunday Updates - a list, the garden, a new iguana...

Yep, you read that right. We are back to being a 3 iguana household - maybe short term, maybe for the rest of this little dude's life. Someone not far from our house found him in their yard and no one has claimed him...her...it. Not sure yet. LOL This person didn't know anything about lizards, so we're fostering...hopefully someone misses him (her) and will be looking. Then again, people in FL like to turn them loose because they can survive in the wild here. There are actually breeding colonies in South and West Florida. They are not native to FL and the can be somewhat pesty...ask my mom - before Smirnoff and I moved out, her ficus tree on the porch never had leaves on it....Smirnoff likes ficus leaves. The girls also eat most of the flowers off my hibiscus...just sayin'...they're not for everyone. So those of you reading that are local - Midori (that's what i'm calling it)  was found near The Bird Store (Michigan and Bumby) in the Conway / Delaney Park / SODO ish area of Orlando - if you know someone who lost their iggy, send them to me! We will be happy to return Midori (whatever his/her real name is) to their owner.

Next week I'll probably take Midori in to see Dr. Bruce and get a clean bill of health. Heck, maybe he'll recognize Midori.

Midori has a pretty bad (but healing) gash across his nose and is bruised up around the mouth (the black marks)  but other than that, seems to be in fine shape for a stray. He is very friendly and totally socialized. Doesn't mind being handled at all, didn't mind having his nails trimmed and filed (heck Jose Cuervo doesn't even like that), didn't flip out when put in the shower for misting / soaking. Obviously he was a pet - and as tame as he is, one would think a well cared for pet...it doesn't take a long time for an unhandled iguana to revert into NOT wanting to be handled. 

So there you go - Welcome to the Paisley Cottage Midori - enjoy your stay here, no matter how long that turns out to be! You're welcome here any time :-)

Onward to the weekly Garden Update! It's week 11 and the Florida heat is...well causing the expected decline. Such is life in Florida...it's been in the low to mid 90s with heat index between 100 and 103. It's hot. 

The tropical Hibiscus of course is loving the heat and humidity...and the iguanas are loving their daily red flower snack. Smirnoff will actually pick out the red ones to eat first if she's given and assortment. She likes them best...

The Begonias are doing well...

As are the tropical banana trees - especially since they froze back to the ground with the cold winter we had...

Notice it's the tropical stuff that's doing well...

Hello sad petunia...yep like OVERNIGHT it totally crapped out.

Followed by sad cucumber...it's still flowering, so it might last a little longer...

The acorn squash is looking a little flat...

So is the rest of the squash...

Still have some summer and crookneck squash growing - I harvested two fairly large ones today (not these...but bigger)

This is the other sad petunia...

The poinsettia - just a few red petals left now. I still need to get in there and prune the dead stuff from the freeze...and yes, I still need to pull out the dead snake plant behind it.

The ferns are spreading in the tree line - I need to pull a lot of them out before they take over.

The Yellow Alamanda shrubs are still scraggly but they're blooming!

And the palm tree is now in seed mode...stay tuned for the orange nut photos...it won't be long now...oh joy!

Now for the list that i'm totally stealing from CindiAnn - cause I love her :-) Oh and because my 37th birthday is this week. ACK!

This is a list of 37 things I want to do before my 38th birthday....

1. Make myself a priority (i've already started that, but still needs work)
2. Lose 30 pounds (it's a start)
3. Learn to use PSE 8 (since I only learned a little about 4 and I just bought 8)
4. Make my own blog template from scratch (I like the one i'm using from ShabbyBlogs.com, but...)
5. Whiten my teeth
6. Walk regularly (for exercise...obviously I do WALK every day, but more is better)
7. Get my Etsy shop back up and running
8. Add $5,000 to my savings account

9. Vacation in London
10. Have at least 3 girls weekends at the cabin  UPX crew, Kimberley, CindiAnn)
11. Organize my office - like ACTUALLY organize it
12. Use the Kitcheaid Mixer at least once a month to bake something wonderful
13. Paint the living room
14. Learn to make slipcovers for the furniture
15. Refinish the floors at the cabin
16. Get the front end of my car repainted
17. Pay off the credit card
18. Do more things in a GREEN way
19. Go to Sea World 10 times before my annual passes expire
20. Get rockin' seats again for Monster Jam
21. Blog daily (so far so good)
22. Clean and purge - less is more
23. Make low-carb a habit
24. Make appointments for all my way over due doctor visits
25. Learn to say no
26. Crochet something other than a scarf

27. Read the rest of the House of Night books

28. Buy a new laptop

29. Buy a new scanner

30. Figure out what I need to hook my ipod up to my imac (this is on my last nerve because it plugged right in to my old PC, but the ports are different on the imac...go figure)

31. Convert my VHS tapes to DVD

32. File, label and scan all my "pre-digital" photos

33. Shred half of what is in the filing cabinet

34. Re-frame the Rockwells

35. Journal at least 3x a week

36. Try one new recipe each week

37. Use my craft stash rather than buying new items - mostly

What's going on at the Paisley Cottage today?

For me it's cleaning, with a quick craft thrown in. I'm wading my way thru our guest room. It's basically a storage area for us since we don't have a garage. We closed the door to that room for the party last weekend. I'd sooner stab myself in the eye with a butter knife than let anyone in there. Not to mention it's RIGHT next to the bathroom that was redone...so everything in there is coated with 3/4" of drywall dust. I was in there for 5 minutes this morning before I had to take Zyrtec and go take a shower to get the dust off me. Good times.

Mr. Paisley was up and at 'em this morning and headed off to the U Pull & Pay - a local junk yard. We like them. They're cheap and they know what they have...AND they have all the vehicles listed on their website...which they keep current (hello great business plan guys!). It's $2 to go there. Yep, they have a cover charge LOL. Sometimes they do scratch off tickets where you can get free admission for you and a friend or a discount on what you buy or whatever. Anywho - they have 4 Fox body Mustangs right now. 3 are convertibles. We have a Fox body convertible. Mr. Paisley re-painted it last year (yep, genius redneck electrician and autobody / paint work - how lucky can I be?) It got put off for awhile and of course now he can't find some of the parts he took of it (they're here...somewhere...maybe in the guest room obscured by drywall dust). So he ran down there this morning to grab some parts. I don't know what all he got but for the parts and cover charge it was $9. One of the parts he snagged is a dimmer switch. I guess the one for the dash lights? Anywho - a replacement from the parts catalog is $99. So if it works, he saved $90 AND got some other junk parts for the car too.

I ran down to the Community Thrift Store - my little $5 table was gone (of course, no surprise there). The iron bed is still there (for the bargain price of $424 I can't imagine why). The other door that I only noticed in the photo was gone - or moved and I didn't see it. I picked up a lavender glass with Goofy on it for a friend of mine that collects Goofy. It was $2.04 after tax. I even managed to dig up enough change so they didn't have to break a $20 for me. 

Here are a couple of things I picked up at the Dollar Tree on Friday. Nothing special - 2 glass candle sticks and 2 glass cylinder vases.  I saw this on another blog awhile back so don't give me mad props for this one...i'm just a copy cat! Here's the blog 320 Sycamore she was inspired by an email from Williams Sonoma and their $80 hurricanes.

Note how the two pieces are stacked...well actually DRYING. Yep, glued together with some Gorilla Glue.

Oh look - Pottery Barn...theirs is silver-plate of course (and $59). I suppose one could hold out for a silver or wrought iron or wood or... candle stick for cheap at the thrift store...but i'm a Gen X-er...I want instant satisfaction - it was bad enough that I forgot about had to wait till today to whip out my Gorilla Glue and get to work (yea...cause it took me like a minute to do each one) on these. I might add the candles later on - and I might look for larger vases to use in the future...I mean for $2.14 and all...

So here's my final project. They've been drying for a few hours and they seem pretty solid. I think the Gorilla Glue said 30-60 minutes. As you can see, mine are filled with...ummm bowl filler. Natural looking things. Wicker balls, dried nuts, some bundled sticks, and weird seed pods. I found bags of them in the candle section next to the potpourri (this stuff isn't scented) at Dollar Tree.

Not bad for less than $7 eh? And I won't be devastated if one gets broken. Fabulous!






http://thepersimmonperch.blogspot.com/

 

Random extra post!

I mentioned swimsuit shopping - every woman's favoritest ever thing to do . I dragged Mr. Paisley to Beall's Outlet - this particular "outlet" is not like the others. It's more like their department stores, but whatever...they can call it whatever they want I guess.  Found a couple of tankinis that I liked there. Reasonably priced at $29.99 and $39.99. Took them in the dressing room only to find out they were "so expensive" that they put security tags on them. Wait, not ON them...but THRU them. Through all four layers of the two pieces. Thus making them impossible to try on. So off to the cashier...where I had to wait in line (they have the rat maze where you all stand in one line and the register number lights up and a random voice from above tells the next person in line where to go). So I wait. And wait. And it gets to be my turn. Hey...I'd like to try these on since they can't be returned...but they have this big honky security tag right thru the middle so ummm can you remove them so I can try them on? "No." Excuse me? "Nope." Ummm so I can try on the one piece suits...but not the two piece suits. "I guess" she says. So...if I want to try on the two piece I have to buy it...so you'll take the tags off...but if it doesn't fit, I can't return it. "Right" she says. Are you out of your mind? So I said ok, well here you go, i'm out. And Mr. Paisley and I walked out of the store leaving said swimsuits on the counter for Ms. Personality to return to their rack. Ridiculous.

So I thought I'd check out Target - wow, they had a whole lotta nuthin'. ONE one piece suit and a few tankinis. Not interested...

Onward....let's see what Walmart has - popped onto their website and holy heck - summer is on clearance already and it's not even here  yet! Ordered 2 bikini tops that have brown in them to go with some brown bottoms I already have and a cute floral print once piece. The floral print is white, tan, aqua, red, brown...the style of the print makes me think Hawaii and Tiki...sort of geometric flowers if that makes any sense.  $16 for the one piece, $8 each for the tops. $.97 shipping - it would cost me more in gas to drive there. LOVE.

Being Friday - I get out of work an hour and 15 minutes earlier than the rest of the week (woot!) and generally I stop by the Goodwill and another Beall's Outlet, sometimes Dollar Tree and Ross. I had a project in mind for this weekend, so Dollar Tree was on the list. Might as well see what they have at Ross...it's right next door. Hello more swimmies on clearance. $7.49 for a tankini top (a stray...the bottoms had wandered off somewhere) It's black and white, already have black bottoms and $14.99 for another tankini - top AND bottom. Same style top, but a red, white and black print and yes, more black bottoms. Fabulous. Also snapped up a black cotton/spandex cami with scalloped trim and beads along the neckline for a whopping $3.49. Love a good layering piece...especially a really cheap one. I was actually wearing the same tank in another color without the beading when I bought this one. Yep, I wear them pretty much daily. I left Beall's and Goodwill empty handed. 

I think i'm good on "hot tub wear" for this summer...that was too easy.

Recent thrifty finds...

I popped into the Goodwill more or less near work last week and picked up this small birdcage and stand for $4.99. The "dead bird" will go into the craft stash (might find something to do with the feathers at some point), the cage and stand will spend a few quality minutes with my can of Heirloom White spray paint and then i'll take a sanding sponge to it. 

 Earlier this week I bopped on over to the Target near work (much closer than the Goodwill) to look for a swimsuit (not impressed, didn't buy one there), but since I was there I had to make the rounds. Woo hoo because this particular Target is redoing their store inside - moving the departments around, switching to the lower height shelves, etc and thus have a ton of crap awesome stuff on clearance. I exercised self control...but left with a dozen assorted drawer pulls. They had three baskets full of knobs and pulls for $.32-$1.98. I only picked up two that were more than $1. These are an awesome addition to my stash. I might see if they still have some next week and add a few more...I pulled one of each type out of the baggies for the second photo. The "crystal" ones are a misty green and amber. The one on the far left makes for a good tray handle hint hint.

Monday I was off work for Memorial Day, so after going to breakfast, I conned Mr. Paisley into swimsuit shopping (but after one store I was over it - lucky him) and instead got him to stop by the Community Thrift Store. I don't get to go there too often because they open after I leave for work and they close before I get home and generally i'm too busy on Saturdays to run down there. They have someone in the back who is smoking crack while pricing. I took photos of some awesome stuff they had and the ridiculous prices. A beautiful old iron bed - headboard / footboard - over $400! ($424 and some change to be more-or-less exact)

They had three large milk cans - which I LOVE. Two had their lids. 

They were $50 each (seriously, I got my blue one at Goodwill about a year ago for $13). I do love love love that 3rd one (the one without a lid). 

They had a large vintage Pyrex bowl - light blue with white Dutch looking figures and whatnot. $20. 



Two small silverplate cups $24 each. Needless to say I didn't buy any of it. 

 
What I did pick up was a pair of doors for $1.91 each (you don't need a picture of each one right? They're exactly the same I promise).


I have a plan for these. It involves power tools. You'll see it here when I get to it. They also had a small, solid wood, round, butcher block, drop leaf (how's that for adjective use?) table for $4.94 and Mr. Paisley said no because we don't have a place to put it. I'm sure there was a place for it between the two porch rockers up at the cabin...he's just crabby. 


There was also this gorgeous bed...I didn't bother to dig around for the price because I didn't NEED it, so I took a picture...love the legs and spindles...LOVE.  Hey wait...there's another door - how did I not see that?! Guess where i'm  going tomorrow morning....

What I love about my house...

This post was inspired by Grace over at Sense and Simplicity after reading what she loved about her home - I happen to love several of the same things about MY home...err "shanty" as my silly co-workers like to call it (the FL house is "the shanty"...the TN cabin is "the mansion" - I work with strange not quite right crazy whack-a-doo interesting people.)

Like Grace said - we all look at, drool over, fixate on, aspire, and draw inspiration from magazines and decorator catalogs. Who doesn't love a Pottery Barn bathroom? Or a Ballard Designs living room? Then you put down the catalog and you see your room. You see what you want it to be...but it's not there. It might never be there, but it is yours and while you may not love everything about your home, you know you didn't buy it just to have a roof over your head - there was something about it that you loved...even if it looked like it should be condemned when you bought it - it had potential and you saw it.

I met my house in late 1996 or early 1997. I was 23. My parents had a collection of rental properties as I was growing up. One of my girlfriends had her first baby our sophomore year of high school and got married our junior year. At 24 with two little girls she was ready to divorce her husband and was looking for a home in which to raise rear her girls (one of my high school English teachers drilled into our heads that animals are "raised", children are "reared"...you win Pam Covert...you WIN okay?!) in a good school district. She found my home. I first met my home when she called and asked if I could talk my dad (Mr. Real Estate) into coming with her to look at it. We did. A few months later Mr. Real Estate asked the outcome of the ugly little house. My friend couldn't get financing or a co-signer...so she was staying married. He said I should buy it...and if I didn't, he would. So I bought it. I had just finished my college classes and was wading my way thru final exams. May 7, 1997 I received my bachelor's degree in business administration with a concentration in computer information systems. Later that week I closed on the ugly little house. Before and afters of the ugly little house and it's full story will show up in a later post, but you get the idea (and for the record I did actually go look at a couple of other houses, but buying a house at that time had not been in my plan - I was just fine in my pink bedroom on the lake with the fancy designer wallpaper and my parents footing the majority of the bills).

There was certainly potential...but it needed a lot of work. A lot...of work. Lucky for me, it was only about 7 minutes from my parents' house where I was living and I didn't move in until it was 99% done. My mom says she wasn't even sure I had moved...she just realized I hadn't come home in a few days and I must have flown the coop. Indeed.

Fast forward 13 years and here are a few things I actually LOVE about my house...

The lot...it's about 60'W X 180'L - there's a pretty big easement across the front due to the county claiming it for a 60' roadway (which will never happen - it's a dead end street with 8 lots on each side).

The windows in the family room - they go pretty much from wall to wall and obviously they let in a ton of natural light. Smirnoff likes the windows - she can at least look outside while she's stuck in her cage all day while we're at work. I don't love our collection of Mustang stuff (well part of the collection) up there anymore - it will have a new home once we get the addition built - funny thing, those windows will go away with the addition. This room will become a dining room at that point.

The deck - Mr. Paisley built the deck several years ago - it took him less than a week working on it after work. We use it year round...for us it's just another room. Mr. Paisley LOVE to grill...we have dinner out there, I sit out there with the iguanas and soak up a little sunshine (vitamin D...it's good for you), if i'm lucky I can catch a quick nap in the lounge chair on the weekends...it's very comfortable.

The kitchen...yes, it is too small, but I love it since Mr. Paisley refaced the cabinets and gave it a pretty serious makeover. Yes, I realize my curtains are hanging at a weird level. On the far right where you can't see it in this photo, there is a large "box" in the corner where the wall and ceiling meet. It covers the AC duct from the attic into the family room that was added on before I bought the house. This dumb box buts right up to the top corner of the window frame...thus the placement of the curtain rods...they're as high as I can put them with the box there (which will be there until we move the window wall out 4') - I figured they should at least match in height to make them look slightly less dumb. I could take them down I suppose.

The bathrooms. Both have been redone - although the master bath was part of the addition I had done prior to moving in back in 1997. My tastes have change a little bit since I was 23... go figure ;-)

The wood siding. It's almost all original. Remember how I said the house was ugly? It was covered with green and gray brick pattern shingles when I bought it. The original siding was under them in perfect shape (except a few along the bottom that had some rot from moisture issues).  

So there you go - some things I LOVE about my house. It's a shorter list than the things I don't like, but they do exist :-) What do you love about your home?

Less than stellar BEFORE photos

I just realized I did not include these photos in the make-over post. I should pull all the covers off and retake "befores" :-) These will have to do for now.

These are the cushions that were re-covered - they actually don't look yucky in the photos, believe me, they are filthy. The one on the bench is a little darker tan with a lattice print with palm trees. I can't seem to put my finger on a good photo of it at the moment. The lounge chair cushion is tan on one side and black, red, cream and tan striped on the other. I'm not at all sure what I was thinking when I decided it looked ok with the palm trees, hammocks and beach umbrellas on the chair cushions.