Stylish kid about town’! Check out this take on the traditional rocking horse from JIP. Buy it for £40 from DotMaison.

In spite of the fact that I like to find spiffy, retrotastic new/old things, I think we’ve already established that I actually detest the act of shopping. I loathe going out to chain stores and shuffling through merchandise. I find it mind-numbing & stressful. I *don’t* feel this way about Internet shopping though! In fact, I greatly enjoy it like a hunt for a buried treasure. ::grin:: Even when I have no plans of purchasing anything, I get a kick out of finding something — a unique gem — that I’d enjoy having. So, sometimes when the weather is grim, or I’ve just finished a book and I am missing my characters too much to delve into another one just yet, I start traipsing through the www. I find it cathartic & thrilling to stumble upon — following link after link after link — that crazy cool something that tickles my fancy. I seldom buy anything, but I feel as thought I unravelled & cracked a secret code when I’ve discovered something truly interesting, like an archeological dig of I DIG this! I realize I am only doing what all of you do, but don’t whizz in my Cornflakes. ::chortle:: I like to share!
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Annual Mad Hatter’s Tea Party at Tea Leaves & Thyme in Woodstock, GA ~ circa 2006 🙂

I know there’s been a lot of recent hype being posted by parents who blog about taking the holidays down a notch because it’s just gotten so out of control. In so many regards I do agree, wholeheartedly. I think, mostly, about those less fortunate families who struggle with finances, and then there are such a multitude of demands on all parents via the school events — how children pass around favors, and the parties that require the adults to take off from their jobs or be absent from the festivities (which both cause such immense guilt). I feel for them because I was one of them for the majority of Mini Maven’s life. But, I have to admit to being a holidayaholic, even when times were tough. I just love a good excuse to party & be utterly ridiculous! I’ve ALWAYS loved holidays — all of them — and I can’t deny being gaga over Easter. It’s just magical to me, and since Mini Maven was knee-high to a grasshopper, I have made it even more magical by giving it an Alice in Wonderland theme. ::grin:: I am mildly enrapt with Alice in Wonderland. Okay, madcap & manic over Alice in Wonderland, fine, you got me. I identify with Alice. Oh, how I identify with Alice! I, more often times than not, sometimes have believed more than 102, 394, 586 impossible things before breakfast.

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This is NOT the complaint we’re having this Easter season. “Oh I do declare, this sweltering 36 degrees is suffocating, darling!”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve lost my patience waiting for spring! From the droning on and on all over the social media sites about this grotesquely grueling winter that WILL NOT QUIT, I’ve had to come up with very creative ways to go to my happy place. In case any of you were wondering, my happy place is in the sunshine, the warmth, and baring bare shoulders, gosh beaver dam it!

This was my status message to all my comrades on my personal Facebook page yesterday:

This never-ending weather has turned me into Archie Bunker. I am officially a grouchy curmudgeon. I’ve been fighting against it, but now I’m throwing in the towel. This is my disclaimer that my usual devil-may-care, playful self is now being overrun by a crotchety hag. If you’ve got a problem with it, take it up with Mother Nature. We are no longer on speaking terms. She sold me out for Old Lady Winter and she knows I hate that beotch.
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My Mini Maven is now 9 years old and in the 3rd grade. She’s at that age where she’s really beginning to come into herself and learning how to express her inward self, outwardly. It’s a beautiful spectrum of multilayered colors & hues of personality being brushed onto a pure & untarnished canvas. Every day is a new day that sweeps in brushstrokes of new phase, and I am never left unfazed by how extraordinary she is, organically. However, this is when it gets both tricky & scary sometimes as a mum, because now I have to determine & decide which spills & splatters I need to come at with a clean cloth and make sure I get up before they dry — which ones I don’t want her to have to paint over later, and cover up, because we all know that no matter how many times you paint over something, it stays underneath.  Forever.
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Home Depot & Lowes know us on a first name basis already!

I’m grateful to say that my Z Pack of antibiotics is really kickin’ in, but it isn’t to say that I’m not still in recovery mode because I am still waxing & waning. Yesterday was the first day I got up before noon and was raring to go, but it was kind of a tease because I slept in until noon again today. Boo! This didn’t change the fact, however, that I managed to completely redo the master bedroom walls — resurfacing & sanding plus repainting them. I just think I may have pushed a little too hard and overdone it. Not to mention that Darling Hotbuns had to redo the entire wall in the kitchen where that ghastly & gruesome wallpaper was, so I could not help him with sanding (not with a DA, at least — too many clouds) because of my bronchial infection (and now there’s a thick layer of drywall dust ALL over the downstairs — so glad we spent a whole day scouring the kitchen! ::chortle::). And before you school me… Yes I DID wear a dust mask! I already got that lecture from my doc. Oookay, if it’s ordered. #kicksdirt
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