April 1, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Overheard in March 2014

I did not actually overhear a lot in March. Okay. That is a lie. I overheard a lot of stuff I felt was too inappropriate to share. One thing in particular I cut out because it involved a young teenage girl. Gotta use my common sense.

It’s in there, I swear.

Somewhere.

With that in my mind, here are some funny or interesting conversations I overheard or took part in in March:

I find dynamics between women fascinating. When we were eating a meal in Vegas one day, I happened to overhear an awkward woman in her late forties approach the table of two women the same age who were currently all ready halfway through their lunch.

“Hi!” She screeched. And the two women at the table exchanged glances. And I cringed inside for the loud girl.

“How are you doing?” She guffawed. But before they could answer, she immediately jumped to, “Did you hear I got promoted?!”

They acknowledged that indeed they had.

The awkward girl tried to downplay it like it was no big deal, but one of the women interrupted her and said, “It’s obvious you’re really proud of it. You can’t play it off like you aren’t.”

The girl could not take a hint and stood there for a good five minutes longer, looming over their table describing the entirety of her new job and title. She could not seem to sense that the two women were not only not happy for her, but that she had long overstayed her welcome.

After she finally made it back to her own table, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. It was a tough one to witness.

Yesterday, my family and I went to a falconry lesson (post to come soon). While we were driving home, we were discussing the things we learned and the many different raptors there are in the world.

My son said, “I would really like to see a Golden Eagle.”

To which my daughter replied, “You know it’s not really gold, right?”

My son sighed heavily, and sadly said, “Really? Darn! I really wanted to see that.”

My husband said, “It is more like a brownish gold.”

My son replied, “Oh! So, like a perfectly toasted marshmallow?”

I will never be able to see or hear the words Golden Eagle and not think of marshmallows again.

We were walking back to our hotel in Las Vegas and a couple was fighting in front of us. Not in front of us, but rather, they were walking directly ahead of us and their conversation was loud enough for me to hear. And not necessarily fighting, but having a loud conversation that neither of them was likely to win.

“You do this every time!” The husband proclaimed. He was neither indignant nor was he sad. Just kind of factual and emotionless.

The wife did not seem to care. “I’ll make it up to you when we get back to the hotel.”

“Great.” The man said in a slightly uplifted way. Meant I am sure to be sarcastic, but the wife was all ready rushing ahead, intent on whatever new pursuit had caught her attention.

The man begrudgingly began to follow her and I was just close enough behind him to hear him mumble, “But you won’t.”

And I wish I had not been that close, because that made me sad.

I was at a bar with my friends. Wait. That sounds rather seedy and dangerous. Oh? It doesn’t? Okay, good. No need to explain further, then.

There were two young couples in their early twenties seated at a table next to us.

I noticed that one of the four young adults would jump up, tour the bar area slowly and then come back and the next person would get up and do the same thing. It was too loud to overhear what they were doing. My talent lies in observations not in conversations. I was far too shy (and frankly far too lazy) to go to their table and ask them what they were doing.

My outgoing friends had no such qualms. They approached the table and inquired as to their curious behavior.

It turned out that the two couples were in town to celebrate one of the couple’s engagement. They were all old friends and had decided to meet there that night.

The bar had a long wall of paintings and each of them was getting up, picking their favorite painting and coming back to the table. The game was in deciding if the other members of the table knew the person doing the choosing well enough to correctly guess their favorite painting.

It was a cute, innocent ~~drunken~~ game. And I was happy to witness easy fun between friends. Us girls were so much older than the two couples and it saddened my heart to think of the light-heartedness eventually coming to an end as the heaviness of the years takes over.

I hope it doesn’t. I hope their light is trapped within each of them like the oil on the paintings that they each picked. And does not tarnish.

Speaking of friends. On another night while walking in Las Vegas (oh! My feet. My poor, poor feet. This blog would take on a new tone if they could speak), a trio of men would burst ahead of us. And then stop. Then run. And stop. They were all over the place.

This might have been scary.

Had they not each been under one hundred thirty pounds. In their very early twenties (little boys, really). Dressed in pastels. And had not been so completely oblivious that there were other individuals in the world besides the three of them.

They were yelling back and forth to each other. Somewhere along the line, the three of them got separated (how this occurred is beyond me, as it was a straight walk back to our hotel).

I walked in front of the dark haired young man with the purple pants and blue checkered shirt. His eyes focused. Then refocused on me. “Hey!” He screamed, even though we were two feet apart. “Hey! Have you seen Ferdinand?”

I replied, “I do not know who Ferdinand is, but it is a lovely name.”

He was back to ignoring that I existed and five feet a head of us a blonde haired young man was impatiently stalking.

“Ferdinand!” Yelled the young man. They happily rejoined each other as if they had not been separated for less than three minutes.

“Ferdinand, she doesn’t know who you are! She’s never heard of you!”

They both looked back at me and snickered. I was surprised he remembered speaking to me. The two boys took off running.

I wondered if the two of them remembered their duo had been a trio just moments earlier.

I turned to my husband and said, “Wow! I have never seen anybody drunk act like that before!”

My husband chuckled at my naivety. “Honey,” he said. “That wasn’t alcohol.”

“Ohhhhhhh.” I exhaled. It had never occurred to me that it could be anything else.

And I guess that is a good thing.

I was at our hotel and a group of male escorts were behind us. I accidentally stopped and one of them almost ran into me. But before the collision occurred, he belted out, “BOOM!”

Which startled me and made me move.

And then chuckle.

Because if that is not the best way to get someone out of your way, I don’t know what is.

Have you overheard anything funny lately? Any good stories to share?

* If you missed February’s Overheard In, you can find it here.

March 29, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Dear Children: Being A Stick-In-The-Mud,

Call it a fuddy duddy. Stick-in-the-mud (which by the way sounds better than being mud, doesn’t it?). A party pooper.

These are all society’s acceptable names that seem to be okay to call someone who does not give into peer pressure.

Guess what?

Your mommy is proud to have been called all of them.

Because sometimes, well sometimes, it’s important to stand up for something you believe in.

And people are going to feel threatened that you might not agree with their actions.

By you refusing to do an action with them, it calls into question their own morality.

People don’t like that.

But you should “stick to your guns anyway.”

This will probably lead them to result to name calling. Those words will hurt. Don’t think they won’t. But not as much as your soul will hurt if you go against it. The names they will call you may cut deeper than a “stick in the mud.” And as hard as this will be, you must ignore them.

When I was a child there was a nonsense little saying that went like this:

“Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But words will never hurt me.”

That saying is ridiculous. Words are the most powerful thing in the world.

You might also notice that in Mommy’s time people were kind of obsessed with sticks.

I can’t explain this.

There must have been more trees back then.

This probably explains the many leaf idioms, as well.

But even back then, people fought the word, “no.”

Maybe they never learned differently. Maybe they just want to make their own choices. And that is okay. As long as you get to, too.

Because you should respect the use of someone else using that word, too.

Otherwise, we might as well all be made of sticks and leaves. And even stones.

Being human is more than that.

At least, it should be.

If your friends or adversaries still will not understand your decision to not conform to their decision, well, I guess they “got the short end of the stick.”
Maybe you could, “Help them turn over a new leaf.”
If not, have more confidence than one can “shake a stick at.”

In today’s terms:

IOW, JTLYK, YOLO.

YKWYCD?

JSN!

ILY,

Mommy

March 18, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

The Time I Met A Fairy Tale

I am about to tell you a tale.

It is up to you to decide what to make of it.

Everything in this story is true.

And for the past seventeen years there have been moments where I have questioned the validity of my memory. Thankfully, it has remained the same after all of these long years. However, it does not make the story any less strange:

When I was nineteen I worked as a hostess at a little steak restaurant in town. The owners were a really cool laid-back couple in their thirties. Every girl that worked in the joint had a crush on the owner. We’ll just call him Derek*. He had long dark wavy hair that caressed the collar of his button-down cowboy shirt (the type of buttons that snap… And unsnap quickly, if you get my drift), a Brad Pitt smile, brown gleaming eyes, the sexiest whisper of a voice, and he wore his jeans well. Sorry for all of the sordid details. I wanted to get the details right for the story’s sake, of course.

Well, actually, Derek had nothing to do with the story, but I thought it would be fun to throw him in. For my your dreams tonight. It will make the story I am telling a little less disturbing.

You’re welcome.

So, there I was. At the hostess counter. The restaurant was extremely busy. The bar was full. We were operating on a short staff. We had an hour and a half wait. And us two hostesses were being swarmed with customers. Hungry customers, who after ten minutes into their hour and a half wait, would be coming up to us demanding to know where they were on the list. This wouldn’t be so bad if just one person did it, but it seemed that many folks parading around under the title of “adult” were terrible at time management.

And would come up every ten minutes to check our magic list. Because time must work differently on it.

This is why we always gave a wait time longer than we expected it to be. And, beside each name, the time we had given them to expect to wait was written.

That’s a little hostess trick I’m givin’ ya. And my second gift in this post.

Again, you’re welcome.

I might have also been slightly irritated that the white crayon I had been whittling with a steak knife had had to be put away to deal with the crowd. And also why today, there is one less whittler and one less crayon sculpture in the world.

This is where my gifts to you end.

Somehow, in the midst of all of this, in through the crowd, stalked a short little old man.

He is the center of our story.

He was as real as you and me.

He had a long white beard. A face full of leathered wrinkles. A large hawk nose. Beady little eyes. And a scowl larger than the whole of his entire body.

He also could not have been taller than five feet. In my memory he was as tall as the bottom of my rib cage, but that seems entirely impossible. And so for you I say, “under five feet.” In my head I say, “as tall as my rib cage.” You may choose to believe whichever you choose. It is just a small part of the story. He was not a “little person” as we know them today. He was just a very short…Very grumpy…Very odd little old ~~imp~~ man.

He came up to the hostess booth and asked me how long the wait would be. I asked him if he was by himself (this is because parties of one are quicker to seat). He was.

I told him his wait would be an hour.

Then I asked him for his name.

And he told me.

And I stared at him.

I asked him again.

And he told me.

And I laughed.

I could not believe it. It was the best joke of the night.

The little old man’s cheeks flushed red with anger. In my memory, he stomped his wee feet. But this is the part I think I might have exaggerated. For this story’s sake, though, we will say he stomped his feet in a mad little rage. He asked me why I was laughing.

And this is what I said, “Your name. Why, that can’t possibly be your name!”

He just stared at me. And stared at me. Until I picked up my pen.

“Okay. How do you spell that?” I inquired. It was at this point I began to suspect he was quite serious. And it was at this point I began to wonder if the air in the restaurant had been drugged.

“R-U-M-P-E-L-S-T-I-L-T-S-K-I-N,” he sharply spelled out, all the while giving me a stare that would have shriveled straw.

“Okay, Rumpelstiltskin. I will call you when your table is ready.”

The little old man stalked off towards the bar.

Our hostess desk continued to be bombarded. And I put the strange man out of my head for a time.

Until his name was the next to he called.

“Rumplestiltskin, your table is ready.”

No answer.

Snickers from the impatient crowd.

Two more times I called his name and two more times there was no answer.

For the last time, I said, “Final call for Rumplestiltskin. Rumplestiltskin, this is your final call.”

I never imagined that those words would be uttered from my lips.

I really never imagined any of the situation would have have occurred to me.

And that it would indeed be not an imagination.

Rumplestiltskin never did answer my call.

Maybe he had heard we had a magic list at that hostess desk and he was disappointed to learn the truth of it.

I think he left, because he was upset that he told me his name.

Either that, or the fact, that I cannot spin straw.

But it is definitely one of those two.

There really is no other explanation.

My having laughed at the poor man being entirely out of the mix.

* Derek is the only part of this story that is made up. The name, that is. The man, well, he was oh so real.

Sweet dreams.

P.S. This absurd and 100% true account was written for The Daily Post’s Weekly Writing Challenge: Power Of Names.

March 15, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Our Finished Otomi Bathroom

I am so excited to share our finished bathroom! Here is part one and part two in case you missed them.

My friend, Jessica, owns Bella Wall Designs. She was such a sweetie and stenciled my walls for me. She did such an amazing job on the stencil. The whole bathroom just pops. The updated bathroom makes me smile. Just like Jessica does.

My philosophy on design is to do whatever makes you happy. And every room should have layers. Small bathrooms have so much potential, because you can really make them pop in a more bold way than the rest of your home.

Do not be afraid of color.

It has never bit anyone.

That I know of.

I wanted to share some tips on what I did for a quick update on a builder’s stock bathroom. Our bathroom is over twenty years old. I thought of replacing the vanity, but the tile in there is fairly new. And it matched the tile throughout the house. To replace the vanity probably meant having to patch some areas of the tile. This seemed risky (what if it didn’t match?) and costly. I also priced out several vanity pieces. I fell in love with an antique pine cabinet, but it sold out when I was not looking.

What’s a girl to do?

Well, I simply purchased these furniture legs on clearance from a hardware store in town that specializes in molding. Our woodworker who did our library cabinets and baseboards put them in for us at the same time he did our mirror.

Then we just painted the cabinet a medium shade of grey to compliment the blue that was going to go in.

Added mustard knobs from World Market.

And voila’! Our vanity looked like a new one!

I love the frame that Paul from Vrieling Woodworks. (he also installed our large baseboards and our bookcases) built us last year. It was installed around our standard builder’s mirror. It definitely goes with my Alice In Wonderland meets The Hobbit themed home.

I love our farmhouse copper sink in our kitchen. I purchased that one off of eBay. So, I knew I wanted to continue the copper theme into our hallway bathroom. I continued the savings by purchasing this copper vessel sink from eBay, as well. Copper is a natural killer of bacteria. So, it is perfect for a bathroom. If you do choose to purchase copper sinks from eBay, it is important to do your research. Some copper sinks from certain countries have lead in them. That would be dangerous to have in your home!

The faucet was also purchased from eBay for a steal.

We went to the local countertop dealer and requested a look at their scrap pieces. We were able to save money on the countertop this way. We also got a much higher end countertop than we thought we would be able to get, because of our savings. It is a concrete countertop with bits of blue glass and shells in it. Almost as if Alice came back from her adventure and put her souvenirs into this countertop.

I bought the Otomi Stencil from Etsy. I have a collection of Otomi pieces from our trips to Mexico. I love the pattern. I knew I wanted to match the blue of the Otomi in the bathroom to the blue of the pattern below.

Here is sweet Jessica, who did my stencil in the bathroom holding the Otomi piece with me. Notice her amazing vintage Ralph Lauren tie. She has the coolest style.

Here we are in the finished bathroom. The embroidered crewel pieces are all part of my vintage collection.

And here are some pictures of the bathroom sans us friends. The shower curtain is Anthropologie’s Flamenco Shower Curtain. I love the different shades of blue and green it holds.

I am so proud of this room. I think it came together in a variety of cool layers.

Have you redone a room in your home lately? Added any fun colors?

P.S. I shared this on Savvy Southern Style.

And My Romantic Home.

Gnome Lover

Stumbling through life while still having fun

in

Overheard in March 2014

Dear Children: Being A Stick-In-The-Mud,

The Time I Met A Fairy Tale

Our Finished Otomi Bathroom