6 Pack of Swimsuits

We're headed for vacation today. I promise to be back with lots more posts upon my return.

I will wiggle my toes in the sand for you.

When Life Gives You Gas Leaks, Wear an Extra Diaper

Surprise! I haven't really fallen off the face of the earth, never to blog again. I've just had a few crazy weeks, but nothing has happened that has been worthy enough to write about. Until today. Call it Murphy's Law or Tuesday the 26th bad luck--the stars had a good laugh over our house today. Of course there are worse problems to have...no one was hurt or killed (and there are people starving in China). Just a funny way to ring in the unofficial start of summer:

~A gas leak in our house necessitated our exile for a couple of hours (thank goodness the grandparents live right around the corner!)...no heat (fine by me), cooking (thank God!) or hot water until tomorrow. As for the hot water...not a good look with 3.3 babies in diapers. "They" told us we have just enough hot water for 2 showers. I'm assuming "they" think one shower = 1.2 minutes rather than the customary 14.6 minutes per.

~In all the hulabaloo, Kat, our cat (try not to get confused with the spelling), got locked in a closet for the duration of our evacuation. I do hope kitties are immune to the long-term effects of the equivalent of glue sniffing.

~My laptop caught a swine flu-like virus, my 6-week-old Blackberry died a premature death and our desktop computer is a near-casualty due to a recent storm (ok, all of that didn't happen today, but I'm still feeling the effects).

~A regular sitter due to arrive at my house at 8:00 am tomorrow called at exactly 8:00 pm to tell me she will be off tomorrow. Huh? Whatever happened to asking, not to mention more than 720 minutes' notice?

~Speaking of sitters...someone in my family, who shall remain nameless and who is in great need of help right now due to health issues, let a sitter go (to put it mildly) within 30 minutes of her arrival today by using tactics reminiscent of Sophia Petrillo on The Golden Girls. Anyone who has seen the show will know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, rent it for a good laugh!

~My two cousins are killing me in Scrabble...on Facebook. We have ongoing games and they keep getting double, triple and quintuple-times-eighty word points for words like "if," ti," and "la" (those last two, the symbols for Titanium and Lanthanum, your common, everyday household metals). Tonight my cousin Laura enlightened me about the dictionary function on the side menu of the game. Where was this hot tip 200 points ago?!?

All of this while trying to pack 6 people for vacation next week. Watch out for those gas leaks in the baby pool.

Cinco de Mayo

It's almost Cinco de Junio, but I still wanted to share with you a couple of photos from a Cinco de Mayo party in Dallas.

My cousin, Laura Adams, and her fun group of girlfriends, affectionately known as the Girls of Belfort Place, held a party to celebrate this holiday which is actually more widely celebrated in the U.S. than in Mexico. I love the miniature pinatas hanging from the chandelier! I wonder if they were filled with candy? {A funny sidebar: when I was little we took a trip to Mexico, where my parents bought a pinata for me to take back as the star attraction for my birthday party. The party goers and I were surprised when no candy fell out despite repeated beatings of the paper mache animal! How were we to know we were supposed to fill it ourselves?!?}

Margaret Story made this adorable cactus-inspired centerpiece for the party, which was held at the beautiful home of Kay Neve. I can't wait to try this clever idea!

Unique Uses-More Round Top

There's no end to the unique uses people found for things at Round Top. Alas, these things did not come back eastward with me. I do hope they found good homes. {Sidebar: Rancho Buck came a'callin' last week with all of my purchases (click here to see them). All arrived safely and I didn't even regret anything.}

A yellow drum topped with glass and set on feet makes a dainty round cocktail table.

While we're on the subject of round things...I loved this huge yellow rose-y of Texas star yard art piece, which used to be a wheel of some kind. And top right, tire frames were outfitted with mirrors. Random hoops were scattered on the wall to make an artsy statement, bottom right.

Garden items could be found in multitudes. A few of my favorites were: an iron headboard turned garden bench, old windows formed into a miniature greenhouse, golf clubs with random metal pieces added to make kooky-face garden stakes, water meter covers used for stepping stones, windows on top of a makeshift porch roof and a little ferris wheel that held potted plants on the "seats" (it actually rotated!).

This vintage window could be hung on a back porch with plants placed on various open window "shelves."

One trip to Round Top and you'll be convinced that anything can be made into a lamp. If you know how to weld, you might want to set up shop down there because these things were selling for hundreds of dollars each (yes, many had "Sold" tags on them). In the center, some type of cutting blade was welded onto a lamp form. Top left is an old rectangular iron piece used as a lamp base and bottom left, an old beekeeper's mask was converted into a light. Top right, some old clamps form "C"-shaped lamps and bottom right, an old orange wheel served as the base for a lamp.

Of course not everything was meant for the serious shopper. Consider this bovine-painted door or the banjo-playing man made of nuts, bolts and license tags. The tin man thought he had it bad...