The Perfect Summer Entertaning Glass!

 

Last fall I  had little birthday party for Hubby.  While  going through all of our kitchen  gear I discovered that  all of our wine, highball, and tea glasses  were onesy, twosie or threesies.   Of course,  this was no big surprise in my household.  Not the look I was exactly going for his fall birthday alfresco party.  I had always admired these French glasses with the honey bee's  from Ballard's Design.  But never got around to ordering them.



Guess what?  Shhhhh...I found them at Tuesday Mornings  and bought them out.  I bought the small tumblers, middle sized tumblers and the wine.  Three sizes, I probably overdid it but  knowing about the breakage in my house I didn't want to be in the same situation as last fall.  Now I need to figure out where I'm going to put them all? The Perfect summer entertaining glass!

Loving "Old Charleston Green"!!

This past December, Hubby, Ellie and I went to Charleston for a quick little holiday. Once we arrived we got started doing what we like to do most--simply walking the neighborhoods. We wanted to show little Ellie where we once lived a million years ago. Hubby and I lived in Charleston briefly, and I’m familiar with the 'Charleston single' homes, the neighborhoods, and the unique charm. This particular trip the thing that kept jumping out at me was the black shutter paint on the homes. I attribute this to the fact that I had painting to finish up at home. I had been looking for just the right black, with a little hint of green in it. I didn't know much more about the color and wanted to find out more.

I had just purchased the Brompton bag in rain forest green before leaving for Charleston. I bought my own Christmas present early. Now I normally never shop while on vacation, especially in stores that are here in Atlanta,but I happened to pop into J.Crew just to see if my bag had been marked down some more. I could not help but notice that their back wall was painted the same color black as all the shutters and doors that I loved. Here’s my chance, The sales assistant called it 'Charleston Green' and she thought it was a Sherwin Williams color.  That was enough to get me started. So back at the B&B I started googling.

Here’s what I found out…Garden &Gun had a nice article on Historic Charleston Green…check it out here. Now this is something I never knew! After the Civil War, the Union troops would send gallons of buckets of dreary funeral black paint and the Charlestonians would add green and yellow paint to it. I started wondering if I had actually ever lived in Charleston at all! I didn't know that...

I called Sherwin Williams on 472 Meeting Street. The nice gentlemen who answered said there were in fact three colors--'Historic Charleston Green', 'New Charleston Green', and 'Old Charleston Green'. He thought Old Charleston Green was the one that I was most interested in, after I describe to him the black shutters and the doors that I had seen. He also added that Old Charleston Green was a special mix (blue & deep gold - which casts a green tint) and not on their color chart.  To be on the safe side, it's best to call them--843- 853-6725. Trust me, the perfect, perfect, perfect black…Old Charleston Green!

Next time Belle Meade Green!.

Scatter My Ashes In Hubby's Garden

Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's...now wouldn't that be nice?  My buddy Janice from work had asked me to go see this with her over Memorial day weekend, and I couldn't because, well...see Hubbies In The Garden.  Tuesday morning while at work, Jancie and I both discussed our weekends, and hers indeed sounded much better then mine. I had  had a little nervous breakdown--Ellie was throwing up on my Ballard's jute rug. She insisted that I put the house and the graden stuff on hold and go check it out.  

So I saw the movie this past Sunday and even took Hubby (poor thing needed a break from the garden too). If you not familiar with the movie, it's a documentary that takes you through the history of Bergdorf Goodman, and the relationships with all its well-known designers. What I liked most was a peek at Linda Fargo's (Senior Vice President) meetings with a new up-and-coming designers.  See A Shopping Day With Bergdorf's.  She seems so nice and approachable.  Love her gray hair by the way--how many women can get away with that?

Ina's Library

This past March, one Saturday morning, I was on my way out the door for my usual jog when hubby decided that he would  (after eighteen months)  install a door knob on our master bedroom.  Before I got out the door he yelled for me to help him, after all, he was getting his drill out. I wasn't all that annoyed because  Ina was on. This particular show was  her Inaugural Library and she was having everyone over who worked on it to celebrate.  Since Hubby is not that great at using his drill I got to see the whole episode...Yeah!   I was so inspired and absolutely loved everything - bookcases, sofas, fireplace, rustic tables, rug, windows, paint color etc.  I had not been this excited about a room in awhile.  As I went for my jog, I was pondering the whole library and would love for my living room--which I like to call 'Ellie's chipmuck watching room' to look like this. 

Later that evening I tried googling Ina's new  Library to see if I could find pictures or anything about it...but nothing. I did discover that Ina has a blog...Yeah!  Then I tried to catch the next airtime for the episode, which is not easy on my schedule. For the first time, I  wish that we had TiVo.  Since I kept missing the episodes, I did the next best thing and ordered it on iTunes. By the way, the food that she does in the episode looks awesome too!  Next party I'm definitely going for antipasto  platter. 
 

How Do You Organize Your Spices?

This past January, I was obsessed with trying to organize our spices.  What a huge  mess...we have several teeny-tiny bottles from  McCormick's.   Ground ginger, ground allspice (don't know how that one got there), ground cloves, just to name a few.  Then there are several medium sized ones from Target--they have such cute jars (I bought these).  Here we have rosemary, dill weed, parsley,etc.   Then there are a few big spice jars from Publix--nutmeg, red pepper, cayenne pepper (of course we have that one I'm married to a Cajun) and a huge ground cinnamon (Hubby must have bought that one).  Enough cinnamon to last five years, after all, we only do our cinnamon-pumpkin dish once a year (see Thanks Ina! ). The point here is there is absolutely no order and it's driving me crazy!

I'm familiar with the spice rules, and everything I have is properly dated. Most are no more than eighteen months old which is from about the time we bought our house. When I moved from Nashville to Atlanta, I gave all of our spices over to my neighbor, Sandy.  Whewww...did she hit it big!   Reminds me of several, years ago...I got to house sit for friends of the in-laws. Their movers took off and left their a collection of spices. Too bad for them, but guess who got them?  Below Two-Tier Revolving spice Rack from Williams - Sonoma.

Anyway, when I met my friends for lunch this past January, this was my first probing question to them, "How Do Your Organize Your Spices?" Not "How was Your Christmas" or "How was Your New Years?" or "How's Your Life?" for that matter.   I really wanted to know how  they organized their spices. I heard conflicting reports. And to tell you the truth,  none of them were all that thrilled with how they organized them.  I did discover that there is spice store in Sandy Springs where you can buy your spices separately, and then store them in your own containers. This really threw me for a loop...now I was really confused as to what to do!  Below is a set from Williams Sonoma that I love.

 I read in Real Simple how you should store your spices in a drawer away from the stove. I don't have a drawer to give up due to space so they have to go in my small pantry, but this is the idea.

So one cold January Friday I was explaining my weekend wintery tasks to Gwen from work about my spice dilemma.  I told her about all my choices with buying fresh spices and storing them in  new cute containers, or just buying a spice rack with the spices already included. As I was leaning toward taking the easy way out  and just getting the spice racks with spices included. She said, "How do you know how long the spice rack been there in the store".  As such, this option got thrown to the wayside! Below is a Revolving Spice Rack from Crate & Barrel.

 

How Do You Organize Your Spices?

Easy, Easy, Easy...Coconut Macaroons!

 

Easy, Easy, and quite yummy coconut Macaroons!  Hubby had to contribute to a bake sale this past Spring and called me the day before to asked what I thought he should take. Asking me is fine, but asking me the day before...who does he think he's married to!?  "How about chocolate chip cookies" I rattled off.  He was not even remotely interested (which I couldn't believe)!  After the chocolate chip cookies idea failed, then I remembered seeing the Coconut Macaroons recipe in Real Simple. 

 

The day after the bake sale, he called me at work to gloat...he was so proud.  If you are in need of  a very easy and delicious bake sale item this summer, I highly recommend this recipe here.  

 

Funny thing is, Hubby likes likes coconut all of a sudden! See Craving Ina's Coconut Cupcakes!

 

 

 

Swim

 

As close to a beach or swimming  pool that I will be  this Summer -  will be  Ellie's (she's my dog) kiddie pool.  I was reading an article this afternoon about the percentage of women with multiple swimsuits.  Ha...I don't even own one!  The last few times that I've been to the beach it has been fall and winter.  I finally got sick of my old Calvin Klein that I had for years and pitched it awhile ago.  Anyway,  I got this postcard in the mail from J.Crew this past winter and love it!!