Wednesday Turnstyle

I've been working a few weeks already. Working in a consignment store is just as fun as I remember from back when I owned a consignment store. The women are so awesome! And the young uns (love me some young uns). And the men that shop the store. Love the men. Love all the peeps. Peeps is fun!

I've already bought a handbag. It's from Italy people! How can I say no to Italy?

Latest Obsessions

Mahjong

want to learn. want to start a group. want to buy.

Winnebago

still and always

Handbags

still and always

Shoes for Retail

cuter than you might think

Chair for Living Room

maybe. still thinking. i'll know when i see it.

Too Legit To Quit

Too Legit To Quit

This is what I get when I wander around Tumblr. 

Yesterday, 9.11.11, was my daughter Bella's birthday.

We had a family BBQ. Pup and The Big B sat in the living room and watched hours of football while Bella, Lorenzo, Lorenzo's boyfriend BT, and I commandeered The Big Room (which is so lovely I want to sleep with it - pictures someday I hope) and watched some crazy movie on the Netflix stream.

The two youngest young uns were a tad hungover we discovered while Bella and I planned our next outing, shoe shopping for her birthday present and another closet makeover and styling session for Bella.

Another fun family dinner with our family. And yes, it was on 9.11.

10 years ago on 9.11.01 it was my daughter's 19th birthday.

I had taken the day off from my downtown corporate job to stay home and make Bella's favorite meal, my homemade spaghetti with red sauce and meatballs. It takes all day to make the "gravy" and I wanted us to be able to eat at a normal time rather than the 6:30 or 7 when I would normally make it home from my long 2+ hour commute (still cannot believe that I used to drive around 4 hours a day back then).

I was upstairs making beds and getting dressed for the day. Lorenzo was in the living room downstairs waiting for ride to school while watching GMA.

"Mom! I'm leaving! You better turn on the television. Something is happening."

I went downstairs and turned on the television. Of course, nothing's been the same since.

I don't remember too many details on how I felt that day. Numb, dumbfounded, incredulous. Our family had no direct connection to New York except a love of the city we had visited a time or two. Watching everything unfold I did feel like I had a connection. How could I not? This was way beyond that. This was everything we ever held dear to our hearts.

Our freedoms, our unshakable belief that we live in the best country in the world, our core values.

I do remember spending the entire day in suspended disbelief. Maybe not truly drinking in what this would mean from that moment on.

And I was angry. So angry. As the day spun away and we all waited for word, I wanted everything to be fixed. Fixed. I had no idea how broken everything was.

So, yesterday, we did celebrate our Bella's 29th birthday. We laughed and cried at a dumb movie. We endured Pup's constant haggling (annoying, lovely man), we ate burgers, pasta salad, awesome little wonton thingys Lorenzo made.

Pup hung a new flag on the front of the Chez Emerson.

In the back of my mind I thought of how it's been in the past 10 years.

The Deep End

Source: My Favorite Book - The Internet

My house is a mess. For real and for certain.

I'm behind on laundry. I'm behind on dishes. I'm behind on niggling little projects all over Chez Emerson.

I have too many junk drawers. I have a utility room where you wouldn't be able to find a utility if your ass was on fire. BTW - what the hell is a utility? Why does it need its own room?

These are the things that inhabit the space between my ears. Not useful things like, "Here is my plan for the day. Let's see how many check marks I can make against this list."

Nope.

I think about whys and why nots. I think about human nature and why women can be so mean to each other. I think about the love in families. And how, sometimes, it is goes badly. I think about how I know I would die for either one of my girls. I don't say that lightly. That love is so definite. No quibbling. It is a cement wall.

I think about how lucky I've been in my life. How I have had good people around me for much of it. How I have been able to jump in many many deep ends of pools with various degrees of success. The success isn't always the yardstick I measure with. The jumping is the thing. The jumping really is the thing.

Even now, at my geezerly age (AARP is stalking me peeps! WTH!) I am starting, yet again, a new thing. In the core of me I hate learning new things. At the core of me I love learning new things. CRAZY! lol

Trust me, working retail (a consignment store - working in it, not owning it) isn't rocket science. But already, I am liking the familiarity of it. I have just that kind of disorderly mind that loves making things orderly. It's a sickness really.

Although I could be cleaning my house.

How Many Pups Can I Have?

I call my darling husband "Pup" on this blog.

When I started the blog I wanted a name for him and "Pupcake" popped into my head. It seemed to fit him perfectly! And, of course, I thought I was brilliant for thinking of it.

I didn't think of it! My dear friend, Teri, called her darling husband Pupcake and while I had not forgotten about them, I had certainly forgotten that she had penned that original nickname. I'm telling you! I bet over HALF of what I say and think has been plagiarized! I'm a word-thief!

I know; we all are to some extent. We take things we've heard, read, seen, and shake some of our personal sea salt on them and put it on the table. "Nummy Deborah! You are the best!" Deep inside I'm a thief.

Creative thinking my hooches!

In a not too distant past life I'm a graphic designer. Ideas never came over easily to me. If I had to come up with something right out of my ass I'd have to hunker down with stuff I had collected (inspiration folder I always called it - I'm so clever!) and shut my office door and start brainstorming - and alone when I was working my corporate job.

A few hours later, hopefully, I'd have a few ideas to present to my manager and we'd cull it down to the one that would work. Then I'd get designing. It was always painful. The thinking of it, not the execution of it.

On other fronts in my life I have no problem with inspiration. Decorating is painless. Clothes styling is instant. Vignetting is a see-in-my-head process. Even writing is like pooping. It just happens.

But graphic design; painful.

I was waaaaay better at the building of the project. I ROCK at that part. I was way better at the collaborative projects than the alone-with-my-thoughts projects. I had a job where we were a huge team of art directors, writers, project managers, photographers, and production artists. Awesome process. When I worked alone; hard to jump start.

Back to Pupcake. He is now, happily I might add, Pup to me on this blog. And how many Pups do I need to make a blog?

Hot Men Friday

Oliver Reed and Alan Bates.

A week or so ago I stumbled on the movie Women in Love. Somehow I had never seen this movie. And somehow I had forgotten all about Oliver Reed. And Alan Bates. Does anyone remember seeing An Unmarried Woman? I totally went swoony over Alan Bates. In fact, my wasband (first husband) looked very much like Alan Bates.

But back to Women in Love. I haven't read the book but I will have to now. While watching the movie, at times I would totally forget it was filmed in 1969. Then moments later it would be glaringly obvious it was filmed in 1969. There was so much crazy flavor going into films at that time.

Worth a watch. I tossed it from my TiVo and now I'm wishing I hadn't. The two men are so beautiful and there is an attraction between them that is partly physical, but mostly spiritual/intellectual. Soul mates. There is a scene where the two male leads wrestle while naked and you can feel the attraction between them. Not surprising I guess since Bates was bi-sexual. I don't know about Reed.

Two beautiful men. So dark and broody. Both with hair you just want to fondle. And great lips.

Fortune Cookies