Didyou know.......

That your own spit can take out your own blood stain? Yes you read correctly. Your spit will remove your own blood stain.





However did I learn this you ask? Well the summer before my 2nd year of college I took a job at a drapery shop where I cut out pillows from fabric, stuffed and closed fancy decorator pillows. I didn't get to sew the pillows, I was the main stuffer and closer Not the sewer mind you. But while I was stuffing there were other ladies there that made the drapes, those fancy, shamancy decorator designed drapes.





Well one day while the ladies were checking a drape to make sure it was in perfect shape before packing it up, someone yelled as a matter of course, ( I could tell by the tone this had happened befoer) there was a tiny spot of blood on the white lining of the drape. This lady then asked for everyone who had ever touched the drape to spit on a rag so she could find out who's blood it was so she could clean the spot up. Everyone spit on the rag and low and behold only one spit sample got the spot of blood off the drapery lining. I would not have believed it if I had not seen it for my own eyes. WHO KNEW?! And however did they learn this trick or trip? I never got that answer but sure enough I soon had to clean a tiny spot of blood off a pillow I had stuffed. you see working in a drapery place where straight pins are used often the workers accidentally prick their fingers leaving a tiny spot of blood on the item they are working on.





I had forgotten about this fact until recently. I accidentally bled on a skirt afewweeks ago. It was an awful day at work and mind you my body decided on that day and time to turn on me and I bled like I have never bled in years. I got a spot of blood on my skirt, luckily it was a skirt I could move around so the back could become the side and know one would ever know, that and I could where a lab coat all day on top of it. I used soap and water in the bathroom to get the blood of my skirt and then I remembered to SPIT, and yep it took the blood right up. Mind you I had to keep spitting for a while and rubbing the spot with a paper towel but finally the spot was out of the skirt. Lucky for me the office I work in is always cold, so I have a heater and my desk and it dried out my skirt in a jiffy. Oh the fun to be a woman and have your body betray you.

Scary Yardwork

Afterwork for some stress relief I decided to work in my yard. Over the last 2 years I have dug up many a large rock in my yard. For some reason after the spring rainy weather these rocks come up closer to the surface of my yard so when I got to dig a hole or plant a new plant I hit rock. I then have to take time to dig the rock or rocks up before I can finish planting whatever I am planting. I decided instead of tossing these rocks in piles through out my yard I will now start using them to build a dry stacked wall for my garden. I decided tonight was the night so I start moving rocks around. For some reason I told myself to be careful because you never know what could be underneath one of these rocks, and low and behold guess what? Yep Grass Snake # 2 was under one of the rocks. This time instead of grabbing a neighbor I grabbed my shovel. It was a small one but still a snake. Later I decide to finally spread out some mulch stil in bags in my yard, thankfully I told myself again to go slowly and sure enough Snake # 3 was under a bag. This time it was a brown snake. It isnow also dead and I am petrified to move the last bag of mulch in my yard. I may ask my neigbor to help me move it tomorrow.

I figure a few dead ones won't hurt so much. I am sure there are plenty others out there still to kill the rats or mice.

It's Going to be Another Nephew!

We found out on June 30th, the new baby is a boy, so I will get another nephew. We all wanted a girl, but a boy it is! Now my brother and his GF can start talking names and baby room colors. I am hoping she will let me help design the new baby's room. We shall see.

On another note my nephew Tristan graduated from Pre-School this year. He will be a kindergartner next year! This is the cool funny loving boy!

I LOVE this little Boy! YY

Congratulations Tristan only 13 plus more years to go! YY

A Bit of Shopping, Gardening & Creating!

This past weekend was a busy one for me. I shopped, I gardened, and I created.





I started by shopping at a Bassett Store in Dallas. After having dinner with my mom and sister, where they were celebrating the fact my mom was able lower her home taxes. They protested the tax accessor's value of my Mom's home and won! They were able to get the home lowered by thousands so her property tax next year will be very low. She is now 65 so they immediately locked her in at this new low rate so her property taxes will never go up again in her life.





After dinner Mom and I drove to the Bassett Furniture store. I wanted to show her a couch I fell in love with and of course we walked the entire store. I also showed her a coffee table I love. It takes me a while to find furniture I love. In fact I have been looking for coffee tables for almost 3 years now that I love. This is the line I found. I can't afford to buy them now, but they are on my list to buy in the next year, unless of course the new line has something I love more. So yes, I have heard and confirmed that Bassett Furniture has a new line coming out August 1rst, 2008. I have no idea what it looks like, but have heard they will have a big kick off sale when they introduce it. I also learned their prices will be going up 8% very soon but they will have a huge July 4th 25% off sale this weekend. Of course the couch I love is over $4K! Yes I want a $4,000.00 couch! It is a large curved couch. It will look amazing in my great room. I can design everything about the couch and pick out the fabric myself as well.





As we completed our round of the store I spotted a this lamp, but my Mom spotted an even better one and it was marked 50% off, so I bought it. It is beautiful. It is a heavy metal wire urn shaped lamp in an antique finish. It is perfect so I found the rep I spoke to earlier, Brian and bought it. As we were talking he asked me if I had a rug for my great room. Funny thing he asked me that because I spotted one at the back of the store, but wasn't able to get to it to find the price. We walked back to the store where we started flipping all the rugs since the one I spotted was at the bottom of the pile. We had to flip them all several time to get to the price tag $599. A great price but still to steep for me right now, but wait, it was on sale for 75% off that! SAY WHAT!?! The 10' x 10' rug was only $145.00!! Now that is a great price so of course I bought it! This is my rug and I LOVE it!



This rug retails for over $1000K and I found it online from $749 to $899 so my $145 rug was a true bargain. This picture does not do it justice. The colors all blend so it looks worn and weathered in places. It has the rich colors especially the plum that I wanted in my room. My wall colors seems a bit off for the rug now and I am thinking of adding a glaze to it, but only after I get the Bassett Designer out to my house to see what he thinks. My wall color is a bit golder than in the picture above. Oh but now my recovered couch does not work at all in my living room! The couch and chaise totally clash with my new rug, so now I want that $4000 couch as soon as possible. LOL. But I will wait.

Saturday Bassett came out to look at the dining room chairs I bought that were delivered the Saturday before. He said the finish was bad and he took them all back to have re-finished. Totally different experience than what I had with Ashley Furniture last year.

Saturday afternoon I drove to Frisco to visit the Ethan Allen store. OMG! What a disaster. I had never been in one of their stores and wanted to see what their designer center was all about and if they had a custom upholstery couch like the one at Bassett. The store had a few shoppers but probably more sales people that shoppers. We arrived right behind a young couple. We were in the store about 5 minutes when a rep approached the couple in front of us and introduced herself. So I waited expecting someone to approach me in a bit. We waited and waited. Mom and I even walked into the designer center a bit to look at the drapes and still no one came up to us. A few reps were in the design center talking. I even spoke up and stated in a loud voice how nice it would be to learn about the store and the design center. We get back to the front of the store where I told the lady at the front desk that I was unhappy. That I didn't appreciate being ignored, it was my first visit to the store and I came to check out the design center. I thought it was rude that the people in front of me and after my had a rep check up on them but not my mom and I. She said "I am so sorry, I can assign a rep to you." I was livid. I told her it was too late. She didn't know who I was or how much money I had to spend and how dare they ignore us. I was done with their store. I drove out of my way to that store only to walk away not knowing anything more about the store than before I walked in was very maddening! I still may write a letter to the store manager.


Then to top off my weekend, mom and I were out in my garden on Saturday in my backyard looking at my flower beds where I spotted a weird shaped leaf or twig. It blended in so well with the plants and leaves, I wasn't quite sure what I was looking at so I picked up a stick and sure enough it was a grass snake. My first snake in my yard. It was about 2ft long. I walked out to get a neighbor to help me and my next door neighbor and his friend saved the day by cutting the snake in half with hedge clippers. He took one half with him home and I found the other half in the bed dead on Sunday. The great part is, it is dead the bad part is where there is one snake there are bound to be others.

So that was my weekend. A bit of shopping, a bit of gardening, and the bit a creating I will talk about tomorrow.