Decorating Trends

So, I was out an about getting things for birthdays and such and decided to check out what decorating trends were happening. I find one of the best ways to see what colors are hot is to check out upholstery fabric, other ways include looking in magazines, home stores, hgtv etc.

I was curious to see if teal and aqua still had the country by storm, and yes, indeed they do--which is fine by me, because I think aqua is about the perfect color. Also the compatible tangerines and oranges are still hot. Variations of lime green have been around for a long time and still are. Grey is outpacing browns. Pink and purple variations are trying to sneak in, but I have a hard time appreciating purple as anything but an accent color. So basically not a lot of new things. Red was the only real surprise, which seems to be making a stand. But of course red goes good with grey, so makes sense I guess.  White cabinets are in and of course mosaic backsplashes are a must. Gold finishes are so yesterday! Chrome and silver are cool. Stainless appliances still rule. Modern lines are in, but usually paired with a bit more traditional stuff. And curtains with large grommets instead of tabs--a definite must have.

A year or so ago when I was on an hgtv jag (I go in stages--watch it for two weeks, then totally forget about it for a couple months, then back to it again. I usually go back to it when I am cleaning the kitchen and am totally sick of ALL the news channels.) At any rate, at one point a year or so ago, I never saw a single design created on hgtv whether bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, or living room, that did not have aqua walls! They have moved away from the all aqua walls, so maybe it is in decline. But not a very steep one. I imagine in another twenty or so years they will be painting over all those "Early 21st Century" aqua walls.

By the way, Target still has the best cotton comforters. (Sheets and comforters are on clearance at Target, btw.) Why am I always looking at comforters? I don't know. The one on my bed I got from a garage sale for $10--it is 100% cotton from Pottery Barn.

If I missed some obvious trends, please tell me. I'm planning on repainting our bonus room--maybe a tan or brown, though olive green is cool. Ideas? The trim board in the room is a medium dark brown.

Event Boundary: through the doorway

Have you ever entered a room to get or do something and not been able to remember why you are there? Well researches at Notre Dame (not entirely reliable, I know!) have discovered why that is:

Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an ‘event boundary’ in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away. Recalling the decision or activity that was made in a different room is difficult because it has been compartmentalized.


An event boundary! Makes perfect sense.


Take for example the $1 wire candle holder. I received this candle holder (or possibly bought it myself) as a gift. They were at the dollar store some 10 years ago. I recently ran across it with a candle melted into the wire and thought, "I will just toss it out! It's not worth fussing over. I have a dozen candle holders, and I never use this one--cute though it may be." But then, a little idea crept into my mind that I could heat the whole thing briefly in a pan of water and detach the holder from the candle. Even as I thought this, I knew it was a bad idea. But, I heated up a pan of water, placed the $1 candle holder in it, and headed back upstairs to quickly finish something I had been doing and then hurry back down--knowing as I went, that I would never remember to come back down to retrieve it before it boiled over. Sure enough, some time later, I heard a sizzling noise and flew downstairs to find wax and water all over my somewhat-new glass-top stove. An hour later, I had it mostly cleaned up.


Doorways can be treacherous. Dozens of these events occur every day, granted, not all of them so disastrous.


PS: I just went in search of said candle holder to take a picture so you could see how lovely it is but how it may not be totally worth an hour clean-up. But I could not find it. And I almost forgot that I was in mid post!

Time was

Time was when we received so many Christmas cards they were layered two and three deep on a string attached near the ceiling from wall to wall. Now, as we have come midway in December to Christmas, we have four cards: one from the newspaper boy, one from the new dentist Stephen went to see a few weeks ago, one from the Obamas (with a personal letter enclosed!), and one from Matt and Gina Ellsworth--thank you Gina--great pictures! But not to worry, I will pick out some favorite leftover cards we have sent from past seasons to add to the display. And who knows what the mail will bring today?

This is what comes of living in the same city for 25 years and from all the social media possibilities. When we moved to Knoxville in 1990 (Zuckerberg was six), we were fresh from five years in Troy, New York; before that we were in Seattle for two years; and before that we each had various lives in various locations: school, missions, and work (Salt Lake City, Palo Alto, CA)--as well as home towns. Little by little, distance did its work and connections were lost.

Of course I will get a few updates from friends who write Christmas letters, and I will send out a few. (I usually wait till someone sends me one, and then respond--so low!) But now with kids basically grown, the Christmas letter is a bit boring. Kids grow wildly every year, accomplish amazing feats, and do spectacularly funny things that are fun to synthesize with a few anecdotes and well-chosen words. Adult children are still interesting I suppose, ;), but it is no longer socially acceptable to tell funny stories about them, at least not usually. The things that I think are hilarious, they don't think are quite so funny. I guess an empty nest at Christmas isn't that great. Good that Mary arrives on Tuesday.

Mad Hatter's Tea Party & Why Not Mitt?

Niall Ferguson Endorses Mitt Romney for President

Nov 28, 2011 12:00 AM EST (Newsweek 12.5.2011)

From the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street, America is angry at elites. But Mitt Romney’s business success makes him the best candidate by far.

This column is for Ted Forstmann: financier, fun lover, and philanthropist, who died on Nov. 20. But it’s not just for him. It’s to him.

Ted, I’m worried. I wish you were still around to help me get this right. The U.S. is going nuts with populism. That’s always to be expected after a big financial crisis, I know. But this is dysfunctional.

On one side, there are conservative fundamentalists—the Tea Party—who think we can turn the clock back to before the New Deal, if not further. Some of them want to get rid not just of the Federal Reserve but of most of the federal government itself. I have more sympathy with these Teapopulists than with the other lot, the motley crew who want to Occupy Wall Street (call them the Occupopulists). But when it comes to practical politics, this Tea Party has more in common with the Mad Hatter’s than Boston’s.

To begin with, they’ve created a mood in the Republican Party that makes any kind of compromise on our fiscal crisis impossible. We just saw the ignominious failure of the supercommittee, which was supposed to come up with a plan to reduce the deficit. Predictably, each party blames the other side for this flop. Either way, the consequences are dire. First, the markets are spooked, just the way they were by the partisan dogfight over the debt ceiling earlier this year. Second, the country is now on course for more drastic spending cuts in 2013, which could not only slash our defense budget in an irresponsible way but also plunge the economy back into recession.

There’s another problem. Just like the populists of a century ago, the Teapopulists are drawn compulsively to disastrous presidential wannabes. I never asked you what you thought of Mitt Romney, Ted. But I am sure you’d prefer him over the other contenders. Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich—the one thing these people have in common is that they would lose to Barack Obama next year even if the unemployment rate were twice what it is now. Their appeal to the crucial center—to the independents and the undecided—is just too low.

What’s the case against Romney? That he’s a Mormon? Ted, you were a devout Catholic, just as I am a doubting atheist. But this is America. Religion and government are separate. And we tolerate all faiths, no matter how idiosyncratic, provided they tolerate ours too. That he’s changed his mind on hot-button issues? Well, so does any intelligent person. You often did. What is this, a dogmatism contest?

Actually, the best case for Mitt Romney was just made by the other side. In an unintentionally hilarious piece, The New York Times attempted a hatchet job based on his time as the founder and CEO of Bain Capital: “After a Romney Deal, Profits and Then Layoffs.”

You’re not going to believe this, Ted. You know what this evil bastard did? Yes, that’s right. He used borrowed money to take over failing companies. And that’s not all. He fired some of the folks who worked at those companies. Wait, it gets even worse. He restored those companies to profitability. I know, I know. And—to cap it all—he made hundreds of millions of dollars doing it.

Pretty funny, isn’t it? Because that’s exactly the business model of private equity and leveraged buyouts that you pioneered. And as I was reading about Romney’s very impressive business career, I was reminded of you.

These days people like you are vilified as members of the “1 percent”—the rich elite that the Occupopulists blame for all our ills. Their remedy? Taxes that take the money you gave to great causes like the Children’s Scholarship Fund and channel it to the federal government, which has such a terrific record of managing money, after all.

In Europe these days, the answer to fiscal crisis is to put a technocrat in charge. But I think you’d agree with me, dear Ted, that what the U.S. government really needs is a private-equity guy in the White House.

Niall Ferguson’s latest book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, has just been published by Penguin Press.

picking up leaves

I was walking around the neighborhood on my usual constitutional, picking up leaves. I had passed by leaves on various other walks, but this day I started to pick up a few. Some giant-sized tulip-tree leaves had caught my attention. And then I just kept picking up various leaves because there were so many beautiful ones. And of course that got me to thinking about mother dear. And that led me to thinking how I wish I had been a better daughter, and that led me to feeling teary and nostalgic. Of course, I don't think I was a bad daughter--I had planned projects, trips, dinners, and events to take her to when she visited. And was usually supportive and complimentary--not forced, but genuine; but there were plenty simple things I could have done better. Why we don't treat our parents better, I don't know. I suppose the ingrained habit of thinking of them as there for us, prevents us from seeing them as real people (even when we have consciously come to that realization), with real feelings along with problems or odd and perhaps annoying habits, just like we have. I recently read in Paul Tournier's book, A Person Reborn, a well-put phrase how we always make allowances for ourselves, but can't quite extend the same grace to others. (Can't find the quote.)

Anyway, on around the subdivision I went, picking up more and more leaves, and wondering what on earth I would do with so many. I thought perhaps at Thanksgiving the fam could do a leaf craft, and all make pictures with the dried leaves. But would the kids want to? Stephen, no; Joyanna, probably; Elizabeth, probably--I think she has moved on to the point where she is willing to indulge me. It's a good place. A place where you accept your parents mostly for who they are and even find them somewhat endearing. I had a delightful lunch with her the other day, and she showed me the lovely new curtains in her condo; Aaron, no; Mary, yes. Not because she really loves crafts, in fact she doesn't, but because she likes to make me happy. A very strange girl that one. An angel blown down from heaven that somehow landed at my house.

I found that often the most beautiful and enticing leaves were the ones with spots of age, or a leaf disease making it brilliantly red and fabulously yellow all at the same time. Of course just when I started philosophizing about how a person's beauty sometimes comes from their trials, age, sicknesses and uniqueness as well, I would see a glowing leaf, vibrant with red orange coloring and absolutely perfect. Certainly hard to compete with that! And that made me think of a line about competition in another book I recently read, Finding God Beyond Harvard by Kelly Monroe Kullberg: "timeless values of character, ethics and truth had morphed into modern values of image, competition and success." I wondered about the "morphed" part. Are we really more shallow today than yesterday? Well, I decided, probably so. But at any rate,  I did not have to decide which leaves were the "most pretty" all were very very lovely.

On future walks, I planned before hand to NOT pick up any more leaves. Russel had been quite indulgent, helping me spread newspaper on the dining room table and then layering books on top. But enough is enough. Yet time after time, I would pick up "just one" to wave like a flower on my walk, and soon I had the whole bouquet.

Post wedding returns

Rehearsal Dinner

I know you want to see pics of the wedding, but I haven't got much yet. However, I'm sure you want to know that I returned all the pre-wedding buys that I did not use (or at least did not want) to the stores! Yes! all of them. A skirt to Dillard's--they had put a little tag on the inside label and didn't even look at my receipt to return the money to my VISA (I HAD the receipt however); I returned the shiny teal jacket and skirt to Belk--was lucky to find that receipt; returned a teal knit top to Target; returned the medium teal biker jacket (fake snake skin--I just read it's all the rage) to Stein Mart--I still have the size small; and returned a dress to Pennys! Wow amazing! Oh and I also returned the 7 dollar-store runners that Val and I  bought to Dollar Tree. We only had enough time to put up 14 pew decorations--which we already had from the rehearsal dinner. Obviously teal was the color for the wedding. Elizabeth was in a teal dress, Mary in a brown. I wore a teal jacket and brown skirt.

Dimensional roof shingles, the economy, sons, cars

So probably dimensional roof shingles have been around for a long time, and I just never noticed them. Then the big hail storm of 2011 hit and everyone in the neighborhood got new roofs (rooves?). And then we found out about dimensional shingles. Dimensional shingles are just a tad like a wood shake roof. They look way cooler than flat roofing tiles, which are soo one dimensional.

Since the big hail storm, many benefits have accrued to good ol' West Knox. For instance, in our 40-year-old subdivision (and in all of Knox County), nearly everyone got new roofs, many got new siding, or new paint, new windows, and new gutters. Now not many people in this middle-of-the-road subdivision could spring for a new roof, but since the insurance is paying--well we have revival in Foxfire. Plus, many people are doing extra stuff that is at least partially covered by the insurance. We for instance are getting a new, large, deck. The other one was small and falling down. We are also getting new paint (same color scheme--when it works stick with it) and new gutters--mostly compliments of insurance money.

In addition to breathing new life into our subdivision, which may have, without all these upgrades, gradually fallen into the lower echelons of subdivisions, we are employing droves of workers--no doubt our fair share of illegals--and buying tons of supplies from all the home stores. People can hardly beg enough to get workers to come in and do the repairs because they are all busy at other jobs. And the people who make roofing tiles are working 24/7 to keep us supplied. (We are just now, 6 months after the storm, getting the work done on our house.)

When I was considering the illegals doing a lot of the work, I thought about my own dear son, who at that time was unemployed. I couldn't imagine him in my wildest dreams up on the roof ripping off shingles in the heat and hammering on new ones, nor could I imagine any of my friends' sons who are in similar need of jobs, up there. It just wouldn't be safe. Not for the man/boy, or the roof. In addition to keeping all the construction people of Knoxville constantly busy for the last 6 months, droves of workers from other areas have come in--not all of them scrupulous. So, all that said, the storm was a great boost to the economy. And not just to the construction workers. The car industry flourished as well.

Wedding present. (Notice roof tiles in background)

First Hill: Chair Rock, or Photo Rock, as Jonathan called it

We received insurance money for Russ's car and for Stephen's which were damaged by the hail.  Stephen received about $1,300 for his '95 piece-of-junk Taurus. He decided to keep the car, or he would have got $2,100. Then a few months later, someone ran a stop sign and hit him. His car was totaled again. This time he took the $2,000 dollars. Then his parents who are way, way too nice to him, looked diligently for a car on Craigslist and found a gorgeous 2002 Mazda Tribute for $4,600. I'm not kidding, the car looks bran new. The tires are new too. Stephen had to have his friend put in a $30 part because it sometimes quit on idle--now it doesn't. So all that to say, a) Stephen did not deserve the car and boys/men who are over 21 should not live with their parents, and b) The auto repair industry came out like bandits, as did the car dealerships where everyone went to replace their hail-damaged cars.

You might be feeling sorry for the insurance companies about now. Don't. They will raise the rates, of course.