nine years ago today...

we met for root beer floats (only HE had a malt instead) and yes, he wore that hat that day which made me like him even more. It took us seven months before we began dating and in the blink of an eye, we knew...we KNEW.

i'm pretty easy to please

It really doesn't take too much to make my day. The car may be on blocks temporarily and the new tiny casa may be full of more boxes than not but it's the little things that carry me through. Like this waving Lucky Cat...

Or this happy clutch of chickens.

Finding faces in stones at the cove.

And getting to squeeze this lovely lady after missing out on a visit during the BIG road trip.

This weekend will be full of mister getting the car up and running, a run to somewhere to find more hangers, some stitching for a future craftzine project and hopefully a thrift visit that may or may not reveal some shelves. Happy Friday!

she is worried because her frame is missing

and it is being painted lime green...

good morning

an almost making the bed post

Most of the vintage linens are still in boxes protecting various jars of doll heads and doodads. I'm not sure it would help too much anyway to unpack them as the new bed is an upgrade...we got a queen. So now, all my vintage fitted sheets are too small which is a good thing as now I have no excuse to NOT use them in crafty bits. Alls I gotta do is tear out that elastic and get to cutting and stitching.

And since I have far too much to unbox and have been on a (mostly) thrifting hiatus I can now thrift with the purpose of looking for queen sized fitted sheets and that darn expandable coat rack thingamabob my mamos used to use for her mugs. I have a perfect spot for one and now aim to find one at the thrifts. I've seen them oodles but now that I want one...you know how it goes.

Now that I have a thrifting purpose I STILL have to wait. Saturday, when mr. a-go-go and I began our journey out to our favorite thrift in a town about 35 miles away, poor old Sir Rodney sputtered and died. He just went kaput! Luckily we were still in town and not yet on the highway and since we've had so much phone fiasco with that wretched company known as AT&T, we've been carting around our three-year old and barely used Tracphone (albeit reluctantly) so were able to call a tow-truck. I admit, it was one of those moments where a cell phone was handy. Knowing that Sir Rodney is getting on in years and miles we suspected and hope, hope, hoped it was a case of a shredded timing belt and it turns out it was! Phew! mr. a-go-go took apart all sorts of parts in Rodney's front end to find evidence of an after-party belt fiasco. He has since ordered parts so now we have to wait a week or so before Rodney is up and running. I begin my new work-gig (!) in town this week and am happy to say I can probably easily bike it so we're good to go.

Still, it puts a slight damper on unpacking plans as we are in need of shelves and wood to build said shelves but we'll make do, we always do. We're still phone-less and internet-less and am very grateful the homestead a-go-go is less than a mile away (with internet & family) and we have bikes and good legs for pedaling.

**does anyone out there use broadband2go? we're looking into some sort of cell phone/internet wifi dealio that will be less than $60 a month. we're also looking into appletv or something similar as we really do not want cable, just a wee bit of regular network channels and the ability to watch Netflix on our computer screen. i'm not even sure all i wrote is possible, don't fergit, i AM a techno-DUNCE!

the fickle persnicketies

Sounds like a band name, doesn't it?

When mr. a-go-go and I picked up the application for the new apartment, we knew it involved a "No Paint" rule. Looking at the textured white walls I thought to myself, I can live with this. I even kinda thought it in a smug kind of way. Sure the walls were white and I'm used to color but how else is a girl to know if she is growing up if she can't accept a challenge such as white walls. I thought of it as a design challenge and I thought it would be easy to embrace. I mean, just look at all the pretty white walls you see on Decor8 and such. It was time, I thought to myself to channel the Swedish side of my genes and embrace those white, white walls.

Of course, once I announced the new digs, the first thing everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, asked me was what color I was going to paint the walls (I know there are far too many commas there, ugh). And again I thought, wait till I show them how awesome I can be with white walls. Then, mr. a-go-go and I did the walk-through on the morning of the move in. Our landlords do not live locally so scheduling was a bit wonky there and we noticed that the white walls were not simply white walls but rather a conglomeration of white paint on happily textured walls. It seemed that our landlords did not afford the idea that they should repaint and we being nice and already a tad bit too demanding told them that while we thought the rainbow collection of whites and not-quite white spots that dilly-dallied all about the now spackled over holes was less than appealing, we would not ask them to repaint but we wanted to make note and well, makes LOTS of notes about the mottledness of it all. Nevermind all the other notes we took, man I hope they don't regret renting to us.

Now that we're moving in and choosing paint colors for furniture I have found that i am not of fan of the specific white that covers the walls in the bedroom. It may or may not be the same color in the rest of the tiny casa but having painted the bed a pastel jade that lends itself to a wee bit of blue I have found that the bedroom walls look a bit like cement. not quite white but not grey and rally not even blue. And if there were any more spackled bits, the walls could be considered polka-dotted.

Wow, can I whine just a little bit more? What I intend by writing this all down is how smug one can feel and how white is not white is not white. Also, man oh man am I just happy we have a place to call our own. We lucked out we did, even after the decade of being tenant spoiled in the old tiny casa we feel lucky and excited to begin this new adventure. The mottled walls are walls that hold up the roof over our heads and the whole kit and caboodle keeps us safe from the elements of our spoiled California weather. Sure we are neighbors with HWY 1 and our bathroom window looks into what could be considered a frat house and it seems a gopher has claimed the back would-be garden for its own but the paper lanterns are coming out and lights are being plugged in and once I learn how to light the darn Dixie there will be baked goods and home cooked meals to keep our bellies happy. Have I told you how lucky we are?