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Category Archives: Things

List Therapy: Things I Like

28 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by Lori Mainiero in Growing My Garden, Life, Life Is Good, Reflections, Things, Welcome to My World, Where Did THAT Come From?!

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Here I am, head spinning from a stressful busy week, finding something to be  peeved about at every turn. In fact, this started out as a list of pet peeves (admittedly, some stupid, some funny, and some universal). As I mentally ticked off the things that tick me off, a still tiny voice in the back of my head said, “Way to focus on the positive, Lori.”

Ahem.

So I backed up a bit and decided to make my list about things that make me happy rather than the things that annoy me. Here goes.

  1. Sunshine. The brighter, the better.
  2. 70 degree weather (Can I get an amen?!)
  3. Babies cooing (even if they are so far in my past that I’ve almost forgotten them…almost…my memory was stirred by the family who sat behind us in church on Saturday.)
  4. Mabel in her role as “the Christmas Puppy.”
  5. Sunshine.
  6. Coffee with a just-right proportion of milk. It never lasts long enough. Good thing there are refills.
  7. A clean kitchen.
  8. Glimpses of summer at the end of January.
  9. Seeing Dom and Vic playing basketball when I pull into the driveway.
  10. Planning this year’s vegetable garden.
  11. Our freezer full of deer meat, which means I don’t have to buy hamburger meat at the store for almost the rest of 2015.
  12. Gospel songs, Statler-Brothers style.  “Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?…”
  13. Stove-top popcorn drizzled in Kerrygold butter– better than the movies!!
  14. A new bottle of nail polish.
  15. Sunshine.  (Can you tell I wanted to spend the whole day outside?)
  16. Realizing in the midst of stress just how blessed I really am when Aaron asks me, “Mom, do you need a hug?”
  17. Mommy-daughter time.
  18. Mom-son time.
  19. Dom time.
  20. Sunshine.

What was I stressed about, again?

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Lost Socks

20 Saturday Sep 2014

Posted by Lori Mainiero in Life, Mabel, Mason, The Critters, Things, What-Not

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dog socks

When we set out to build our house and planned to have less carpet in the new home than in the old one, my primary concern was whether Mason would be able to walk well on the tile and hardwood which would dominate our floors. I scoured Amazon for no-slip dog socks and found a collegiate-looking striped set for Mason. For Mabel, there were hot pink socks with a skull and crossbones design. Most fitting, don’t you think? I ordered them immediately.

Sadly, Mason did not care too much for his socks. Sometimes I think he equated them to cement shoes. Other times, he tolerated the socks for what I was certain was the knowledge that the socks would keep him from sliding across the floor. Toward the end, Mason was so timid about walking on the bare floors that if we couldn’t find the socks, we often had to make a trail of towels and blankets to get him from the living room to the bedroom or vice versa. Admittedly, the socks were a bit tedious. If we did not remove them from his feet on his way outside, he would accidentally leave one in the yard, or more often, the socks would get wet. Trust me, pee-soaked doggie socks are just gross.

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Mason sleeping with his socks on. 🙂

At one point shortly after last Christmas we lost one sock. Just one. Three remained. Mabel’s socks were too small for Mason’s big ol’ feet, so we rotated the three remaining striped socks in an effort to keep his back feet stable. We must have asked each other a hundred times where that lone sock could have gone. Dom swore Mabel took it.

When we packed up Mason’s things on that last day, we gently placed his three socks with his collar in his food bowl and reverently committed them to a cabinet in the utility room.

Today Mabel followed me into my bedroom and immediately began sniffing around my nightstand. And then she went all-out nutso, digging at the carpet and trying to reach her paw all the way under the nightstand. She was acting like she does when she has cornered a frog or a lizard, so I was nervous about investigating with her. But then again, no way was I going to allow some crawly critter to exist in my home, much less eighteen inches from my side of the bed, so I knelt down and peered under the furniture to see what all the fuss was about. There was something big under there. Something big and dark.

The thing seemed inanimate, so I grabbed a coat hanger and shoved it under the nightstand to hook the unsuspecting prey. Mabel just about came unglued. I pulled out the coat hanger and proudly displayed Mason’s fourth sock. Undoubtedly, he wore it to bed one night and inadvertently kicked it off while he slept in front of my nightstand. And we thought we had looked everywhere for that thing!

I don’t usually get too excited over lost or found socks. But, four months later, this reminder of Mason makes my eyes watery and my heart happy. And Mabel thought it was worth celebrating, too.

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Creative or Crazy: Sometimes It’s a Coin Toss

28 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by Lori Mainiero in Birthday Wishes, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Dominic, Growing My Garden, Life Is Good, Reflections, Religion, The Process, Things

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

beginner art, bible verses for homes, painting, word-art

Victoria sat beside me diligently watching as I put the finishing touches on a baby shower gift for my cousin.  “I wish I could paint like you, Mamma.  I can’t paint at all,” she complained.

“Technically, I’m not painting.  I’m writing.  This is no great skill, sweetie,” I assured her.   I had replicated the Suessian poem Baby, Oh Baby, The Places You’ll Go in the shape of a dinosaur.  I had to write the entire poem in said dino shape four times before I got my spacing and letter size just right.  And even then, some letters were wonky, the word “scrumpulous” folded in on itself inside the brontosaurus’ foot, and I realized too late that I had given him the wrong type of tail. The gift recipients seemed not to notice the flaws immediately, and I was grateful.

But I was also inspired.  Driven.  Hooked.

Victoria and I traipsed to our local craft stores the next night in search of a wreath for our front door, and I suggested we just go “look” at the canvases.  They were on sale.  Half-off.  I left Michael’s with a large grapevine wreath (which aren’t so much grapevine anymore as they are tangles of leaves and twigs.  What’s up with that?) and a 36×48 canvas, labeled “Artist Professional Level 1: Beginner”… mostly because it was cheaper, but also because, really, there’s no sense kidding myself.

That’s the basis of this project, but here’s the history.  I originally set out this summer to make two word-art prints for Dom’s birthday.  One would be lyrics of songs that make me think of him, and the other would be quotes from my favorite love-story books.  I gave each a different design so that they would be similar but not the same, and filled in the background with more corresponding text.  This is the result:

photo

Since I couldn’t work on these prints in Dom’s presence and I was itching to keep drawing and word-arting (making up your own words is a fine art, too, you see), I decided to bring the bible verses forward from within our walls where I wrote them in 2012.  I wanted them all in one place where I could view them, and I wanted them to form a picture.  So I shaped words and verses into a tree design and got this:

photo

But I drew this on poster board, which is totally not standard frame size (who knew?) and therefore all but useless unless I wish to thumb-tack it to my wall or hang it on the fridge.  So I figured with a little perseverance I could re-create the tree on a larger canvas.  And since this is for my enjoyment, I could take as long as I need to get it just right.  So began the process:

photo

This photo was taken about an hour too late, actually.  I should have taken the picture before the darker color was applied to the canvas, the point at which it looked as if Mabel had stuck her nose in yellow paint and sniffed all over the canvas.  The same point at which I sat back on the floor, stared up at the easel and said to myself, “Holy crap…I’m worse at this than I thought I’d be!”

It is at this moment that I feel compelled to beg mercy from the judgments of true artists.  I realize I have no clue what I’m doing when it comes to painting.  Refer once again to the post title, please.

Over the next few nights I dabbled in my art project, adding swirly verses and wondering if there was some way to use more color on the canvas and blend it so that it looked more like sunlight behind the tree.  I determined that for my skill level, there was not.

For the next several weeks (er, months) I worked on it a little at a time.  I took over the upstairs game room, setting up my paints and easel near the window for good light, and indulgently leaving a mess no one had to clean up or look at.  I totally felt like Ally in The Notebook, painting in the room Noah created just for her.  Except that I was fully dressed.

Now, here we are, already in another year, and with the Christmas decorations all put away there is a gaping blank space on my living room wall just waiting for the finished tree.  And tonight, that blank wall is filled with the verses that have carried me through the process of making this house our home.  Of course, it’s only now that I realize my efforts to make the canvas match the wall were too well-coordinated.  The canvas blends right into the wall, making the picture look not nearly as artful as I had hoped.  When I lamented the fade-away quality of my color choices, Dom asked what could be done to correct it.  Ahem… start over?

Maybe next year.

photophoto

 

 

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Who Moved My Trailer?!!

30 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by Lori Mainiero in Holiday Happiness, Life Is Good, Things, Welcome to My World, What-Not

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bad Santa, Christmas gifts, delayed delivery, FedEx, looking back and laughing, wrong address

Following up on last week’s post about my mishaps as Santa Claus, I drove to FedEx today fully prepared to have a Come-to-Jesus meeting, though whether they or I needed it more, I’m still unsure.

I had already contacted the online entity who sold me the posters and they are sweetly refunding my shipping charges.  I begged them to make FedEx find and deliver my package but like most things, once shipped, my items were at the mercy of the FedEx seas.  I was finally able this morning to determine that my package was dropped off at the main FedEx office on Christmas Eve where it continued to wait for me to pick it up.  The really fun part is that I was just supposed to know this inherently because FedEx, in all their wisdom and Christmas rush, made no further effort to contact me.  I spewed forth with unholy condemnations in the car as Dom pointed out that we were about to drive past a FedEx truck on the street near our neighborhood.

“Pull closer to him so I can flip him off!!” I demanded.  He didn’t.  So I didn’t.  It’s for the best.

I toyed with the idea of calling FedEx and insisting that they deliver my package today, but I decided knowing where my package sat was preferable to having it roam the streets again. So I drove myself to the shipping facility…fists taped, gloves on.

Once inside, I paused at the counter only to remind myself that the lady behind the counter is not the idiotic driver who failed to deliver Aaron’s gift on Christmas Eve.  She’s just working the FedEx counter, doing her job just like I would be doing mine if my office were open today.  She does not personally deserve my wrath.  Once she located my package she asked, “Do you have a new address?”  And so I launched into the whole stupid story – much like I did with you – and reiterated that the address on the package is indeed current and correct.

“I am so, so sorry for this mistake,” she offered.  Call me easy, but that was good enough for me.  Like I said, none of this crap was her fault.  I told her I would have been most happy with another phone call to alert me to the fact that my package would be available for pickup.  She agreed and apologized again.  We wished each other a good day and I hauled my four-foot long cylinder of a poster package to the car.

All in all, this goofy incident was little more than a hassle with a happy ending.  Aaron got his posters, I maintained my dignity, and the FedEx lady hopefully had an uneventful day at work.  As I stripped the cardboard cylinder of its labels containing my address I saw the driver’s reason for not delivering it, penned in the “other” category at the bottom of the adhesive label:

IMG_4113That’s right, folks.  Apparently my trailer was gone when he tried to deliver to it.  Like we place Internet orders all the time and then move the house before delivery.  I am thoroughly convinced that the dude wasn’t even on my street.  ‘Cause my trailer’s kinda hard to miss:

IMG_4111

Merry Christmas!!

 

 

 

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Bad Santa

28 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by Lori Mainiero in Aaron, Holiday Happiness, Munchkins, Parenting, Things, Victoria, Welcome to My World, What-Not

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

FedEx, gifts, guitar case, lost Christmas gifts, motherly madness, Santa

It all started on Christmas Eve, right about the time that I was congratulating myself for not stressing out over anything, for putting the joy of the season ahead of the tasks.  I really enjoyed Advent this year.  I even took a picture of the last lighting of the Advent wreath and bid the season a fond farewell on the afternoon of the 24th, just moments before FedEx called me.

I almost didn’t answer the phone because I didn’t recognize the number.  Except that it was a 504-area code, meaning the New Orleans area and possibly the other half of my brain (aka Stacey) simply calling from a number I didn’t have on file.  So I answered with a cheerful, “Hellooooooo!”

That’s when I quasi-met a FedEx rep who was in communication with a driver in my area.  Jackpot!!  The last gift to arrive was finally en route to my door!  It was a gift for Aaron – some fancy Lord of the Rings posters that will look awesome in his room.  (You can’t beat a map of Middle Earth.  You just can’t.)   The voice on the other end of the phone proceeded to tell me that the driver had information that I had moved.

Uhhh, like a year ago, dude.  Let it go already.

I politely asked what address they had on file, half-impressed that they would even know my address from over a year ago.  But he pulled a mind scrambler on me when he rattled off my current address.  “No, we haven’t moved,” I assured him.  “In fact, I’m standing in the kitchen of that address right now.  Tell the driver to come on out!”  And with that we wished each other a merry Christmas and hung up.

Four days later, I have replayed that conversation a million times in my head.  I wish I had asked all the logical questions, like: Can the driver find us on a GPS?  Can he find my neighbors’ (in-laws’) address instead? Why exactly does he think we moved? How can FedEx not find me when UPS has been here every day for the past two weeks?  If he doesn’t make it to my house, where can I go to retrieve my package?  Oh, hindsight, curse you and your practicality.

I was not surprised when FedEx did not show before we left for Mass.  I was disappointed when they had not come by the time we returned.  I decided to tell Aaron all about the posters and how cool they were going to be when we received them on the day after Christmas, and how we would hang them up together and make his room look awesome.  He jumped up and hugged me with a huge smile.  Totally worth it.

Fast forward five hours.  We returned from the in-laws’ where we had our Christmas Eve celebration and I proceeded to pull out the last of the kids’ gifts to put under the tree.  They’re cool with me being Santa and all, but I still like Christmas morning to hold some surprises.  So my plan was to put the two largest gifts unwrapped and under the tree after they went to bed.  Vic was getting a zebra-striped gym bag and Aaron was getting a carrying case for his electric guitar.  I reached into the upper cabinet of the utility room where I had stashed the gym bag and looked for the guitar case.  No case.  No problem.  It must be in another cabinet.

Thirty cabinets, six rooms and two hours later I was still looking for the damn guitar case, and getting quite frantic in the process.  How could I lose something that is almost as tall as I am?  I had my hands on it earlier in the day when I pulled guitar picks out of the bag to decorate another package with.  What.  The.  Hell????

I looked in every possible hiding place three times, a fact that later made my father question my sanity. “If it wasn’t there the first time, what made you think….??”  Because when you realize that of five gifts, three of your son’s are ABSENT from Christmas morning, you panic and do irrational things.  Like cry in the hallway at 1am and accidentally wake up your daughter, who gets up to make sure you’re okay and then stays awake another half hour retracing your own steps in an effort to help.  Oh, sweet child.

Needless to say, Christmas morning came and went without those three gifts.  Aaron graciously opened up his other two gifts while I served myself a steaming cup of shame-on-me and profusely apologized for losing his biggest present.  While I focused on the mishap internally, it seems no one else did, for we continued our Christmas morning with the spirit in which it was meant to be celebrated.  And I went back to the guitar shop and bought another case on Friday, with the express understanding that if I find the lost one anytime soon I can easily return it.  That’s right, people.  I have rolled up my Christmas sweater sleeves and taken measures to right the wrongs.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go throw down with FedEx.  I think I’ll offer an exchange…they give me my map of Middle Earth, and I’ll give them a map of Shreveport!!

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The Vaulted Files: Treasured Ornament

13 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by Lori Mainiero in Holiday Happiness, Reflections, Things, Victoria

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Christmas, Christmas decorations, keepsakes, loss, memory, ornaments

The Vaulted Files is a series of writings I am finding as I weed through years of unpublished posts stored on my computer.  This one was originally written in January 2011. 

I set out yesterday morning with one goal in mind: it was time to put away the Christmas decorations.  Sadly, the joyous season is over, but we have the blessing of preparing for a new year, new weather, and new adventures in life.

It took most of the day, but the whole family was instrumental in packing away the décor and putting the house back into its former state.  The last remaining task left to complete yesterday evening was the packing and storing of all my china ornaments which had hung this season on a tall gold-metal rotating tree loaned to me by my mom.  As I disassembled it and packed away my most prized ornaments, Victoria appeared beside me ready to help.

Since many of the ornaments are in fact hers, I said she could help pack them away, but they were all very special and had to be placed back into their original boxes in very particular fashion.  Victoria is a pro at packing stuff away, and with a small squeal of delight she began plucking ornaments.  We would talk about each one, or make some comment about a particular set of ornaments as we worked.

When all the ornaments were placed back into their respective boxes, Vic began asking about the ornaments that didn’t come out this year.  There are very few ornaments in my “special” box that I do not display, but there is one particular ornament that I have not removed from its original gift bag since I received it in 2003.  Victoria spied the ornament inside the bag and anxiously exclaimed, “Mommy!  Mommy! There’s a pretty blue one in here!  You didn’t take it out!! Can I see it????”

I drew a deep breath and reached into the bag, feeling the familiar Limoges ornament that had only been opened one other time.  “This one is from Aunt Maxine, Mimi’s sister,” I explained.  And then I simply couldn’t say anything more.

There is something so stirring about this ornament that it brings me to tears just thinking about it.  Dominic’s Aunt Maxine passed away during the first week of December in 2003.  On Christmas Eve of that year, my Mother-in-Law handed me a small gift bag, the same one Victoria excitedly peered into last night.  As I reached into the bag and unlocked the ornament on Christmas Eve 2003, there was a tiny circle of paper inside that read “With Love from Aunt Maxine.  December 2003.”  Maxine’s daughter, Maggie, had been responsible for making sure all of Maxine’s gifts got delivered to their intended recipients that year.  I cried the night I received it, and I cried again last night.

Update:

I neglected to properly conclude the post back in early 2011, but I recall Victoria insisting that the ornament needed to be displayed.  And she’s right.  Her statement reminded me of my maternal grandmother’s conviction that even our nicest things were to be used and enjoyed regularly, not kept hidden away in boxes.  Since that conversation, the ornament given to me from Aunt Maxine hangs proudly on the Christmas tree with my other treasured keepsakes.  The small paper circle remains inside reminding me of the love Aunt Maxine had for her family.

photo

 

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The Cookie and the Dog

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by Lori Mainiero in Birthday Wishes, Mabel, Recipes, Sweets and Desserts, The Critters, Things, Welcome to My World, What-Not

≈ 1 Comment

Today we celebrate Mabel’s fifth birthday.  I don’t know whether the miracle is that we’ve survived or that she has.

Over the last month our furry youngster has consumed – among other things – two sticks of butter, three innocent frogs, a Silence-of-the-Lambs-size moth-bug-thing (creepy little dude, he was), a bag of deer jerky and an eighth of a 12” cookie cake (which thankfully didn’t have enough chocolate in it to do her harm).  The final two items earned her a public shaming on Facebook and Instagram.  She didn’t even have the decency to look remorseful.

mabel

Mabel gives us plenty of reasons to smile, though.  Every morning she insists on pushing the top of her head into me as I give her kisses on each ear.  If she doesn’t feel she has received enough affection, she firmly nudges my elbow until I acquiesce and pet her for another ten minutes.  It is especially annoying when she nudges the elbow connected to the hand holding a full cup of coffee.  And speaking of coffee, she still likes to sneak drinks from my cup.  In her quieter moments, Mabel suns herself in the backyard or snoozes on the puppy bed we have in the living room.  Her “comfy” positions crack us up.

sleepymabel

In honor of the Teeny-Weeny Mabellini, (although after eating cookie cake, she’s not so teeny-weeny anymore)  here is the recipe for the homemade cookie cake I found in August (and which I have subsequently made five times.  Kinda takes away my right to scoff at Mabel’s weight, doesn’t it?)

Triple-Awesome Cookie Cake

I found the original recipe online, but for the life of me cannot get back to it.  You would think I could have bookmarked it, but alas…  If I come across it again I’ll be sure to link back.  At any rate, the original recipe is sufficient for a one-inch thick 12” round cake.  I needed more cookie for Aaron’s birthday party, so I increased the batter by half.  It’s just as easily reduced by half, so I’m listing all the appropriate measurements and sizes for your convenience.   It’s important to note at the beginning that I have changed the amount of chocolate chips in the cake because I thought the original recipe called for too much.  (Too much chocolate? I must be ill.) I have made it with full-on chocolate chips some times and half the allotment at others.  If you want more chocolate, feel free to double the portion of chips listed.

8-9” pan 12” pan 11×15″ pan
Butter, room temp 1 stick 2 sticks 3 sticks
Sugar ¼ c ½ c ¾ c.
Brown Sugar 1/3 c. 2/3 c. 1 c.
Eggs 1 2 3
Vanilla ½ t. 1 t. 1 ½ t.
Flour, all purpose 1c + 2T 2c + 4T 3c + 6T
Kosher Salt ½ t 1 t 1 ½ t
Cream of Tartar ½ t 1 t 1 ½ t
Baking Soda ½ t 1 t 1 ½ t
Chocolate Chips, semi sweet (I use Ghirardelli baking chips) ½ c 1 c 1 ½ c
  1. Cream the butter with both sugars in a mixing bowl (medium speed) until fluffy.  Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well.
  2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, cream of tartar and baking soda.
  3. Gently blend the flour mixture into the egg and sugar mixture.  Once combined, fold in the chocolate chips.
  4. Spread the batter into a lightly greased pan. (I used to swear by Baker’s Joy, until I nixed the preservatives BHA and BHT from my life.  Now I use Spectrum Naturals brand Canola Spray with Flour for a quick and easy dusting.)  The batter is very thick, so I have to push it to the sides of the pan and smooth it out the best I can.
  5. Bake at 350 degrees for 25, 30 or 35 minutes (depending on the size), or until the top is golden and you’re drooling at the lighted oven window.

So, yeah, this picture is totally of Aaron’s sheet-cookie-cake in August, and certainly not intended for Mabel on any day.  I used my regular buttercream icing recipe for the white icing, and whipped powdered sugar into homemade chocolate syrup for the accent icing.  To. Die. For!

cake

Happy 5th Birthday, Mabel.  Leave the cookie cake alone next time, please.

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Adventures in Upholstery

11 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by Lori Mainiero in Dominic, Things, Welcome to My World, What-Not, Where Did THAT Come From?!

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Tags

dumb ideas, furniture upholstery, wingback chair

The fact that I’m not as crafty as I’d like to be never manages to stop me from attempting the most asinine of projects.  Take, for instance, my wingback chair.

This chair was bestowed upon us at the onset of our marriage by a couple who was upgrading their living room furniture.  We were the proud heirs to the wingback chair and a matching sofa, both pieces outfitted in a lovely cornflower blue floral print reminiscent of the 1980’s.  Never let it be said that I turned my nose up at free furniture.

photo23

I handily slip-covered the sofa in a solid blue cotton with coordinating plaid throw pillows.  The only thing Dom had to remember was to not grab hold of the top back of the sofa, lest he become intimate with the family of stickpins which held my handiwork together.

In due time, our puppy Mason would eat the sofa (yes…the whole sofa), but the wingback chair managed to survive where it stood proudly in what I called “the sitting room.”  For the next 13 years the chair provided a comfortable place to read, relax and chat.  Since the blue floral print fabric was a bit dated for my taste, I constantly sought more pleasing fabrics to drape over the chair, giving it a new – if not wrinkled – look every time the mood struck.  Without fabric properly cut and sewn to fit, my chair always looked like a laundry bin, though I tried to keep it tidy and inviting.

Dom didn’t exactly share my love for the chair.  He found it utilitarian at best, and would gladly sit in it when he needed a place to rest, but I think he would have been perfectly content with the idea of leaving the chair as a permanent fixture of the house that we sold. I was having no part of that, and insisted that the chair come with us to the new house.

“Can’t we just buy a new one?” Dom complained.  “I don’t understand your attachment to this chair.

“It’s a good chair!” I insisted.  “Besides, I want it to live in the office at the new house.  It only needs a facelift.  I have the fabric already; I just need to find someone to re-cover it for me.”

My plan was to recover the chair in a fabric that my Aunt Penny had found – she had recently sent a bolt of a pretty gold-and-chocolate print upholstery fabric my way.  I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough for the chair, and thought about covering throw pillows in the fabric instead.  Then I unrolled the bolt and figured that if I found an alternate coordinating color for the back and sides of the chair, I would not only have enough of the print fabric for the main parts of the chair, but also enough to recover a footstool to match.

Keep in mind that the whole time I envisioned this transformation, I never once envisioned myself as the muscle behind it.  The only things I have ever successfully re-covered look painfully homespun.  I do not have the knack for making anything, save cakes, look store-window worthy.

But, as with all my projects, desperation and an unnerving desire to NOT spend money began to settle in my bones and I sort of convinced myself that re-covering the chair on my own might be an easy project (stop laughing) and surely it couldn’t be thaaaaat difficult.  (Really. I said stop.)

Dom helped me hoist the wingback chair upstairs to the bonus room where I could work on it to my heart’s content and not disturb anyone with my mess.  Using a small flathead screwdriver and a pair of needle nose pliers, I began to pluck staples out of the bottom of the chair, revealing the springs, padding, wood frame and (dear goodness) more staples.  Mabel felt the need to stay with me while I worked, at least until she heard the dog bowls rattling downstairs, at which point she was a puff of black dust in the doorway.

I worked on the chair for about an hour before my hand began to cramp and I noticed red grooves from the pliers’ handles marred into my skin.  I looked around the room and took inventory: one back and half a side of the chair uncovered, three metal tack strips that surely could be used as medieval torture devices but had only served to secure the fabric to the back of the chair, and about 200 plucked staples neatly piled in the curve of a Babe Ruth commemorative plate.

chair

I believe there was a still, small voice in the back of my mind as I tidied my mess that evening which told me I could very quickly get in over my head, and that this project surely was not going to be all rainbows and sunshine.  I also believe I told the voice to shut the hell up as I turned out the light.

The next day we had some rowdy power surges at our office which left the electric company working on a nearby transformer for the better part of the day, so we were granted the afternoon off.  I decided to spend this unexpected free time working on my chair.  Approximately fifteen minutes into the continuation of the staple pulling, my screwdriver slipped, viciously ramming my knuckles into the wood frame of the chair.  We have a saying in the Mainiero household that declares NO project is going to turn out well unless somebody bleeds in the process.  The evidence dripping down my hand suggested that my adventure in furniture re-covering was going to be a raging success.  I slapped a band-aid on my index finger and proceeded to pull more staples.

Two minutes had not passed before I realized the soaked band-aid was about to float away, and more blood was running down my hand.  I soaked through two more band-aids before throwing the pliers onto the ground, huffing in Mabel’s direction, and storming downstairs with a confused pup hot on my heels.  The little voice in my head had only one word for me:

Google.

Before my browser had completely launched, I was already employing my six good fingers to type the words, “furniture upholstery shreveport.”  A list of local businesses popped up and I began to dial numbers on my phone.  Five phone calls later, I understood that most folks want at least $700 for labor on a wingback chair. (Egad!!)  One lady broke my heart when she said her late husband was the one who did the furniture upholstery, but he passed away last December.  She would gladly make me a slip cover for my chair, however, but I needed to put all the fabric back on my chair so that she could work with it.  I already knew Dom would wrinkle his nose at the mention of a slip cover, and the mere thought of re-attaching all that fabric to my chair made my finger throb.  Another location offered to charge considerably less than everyone else, was located on my side of town, and would be open until 5pm if I decided to bring my now blood-stained chair on over to them.  With that news, Victoria graciously helped me load the crime scene furniture into my van, and I was on my way.

When I arrived at my destination, the gentleman who had spoken with me on the telephone walked out to my van to retrieve the chair.  “You wouldn’t believe how many people call us in your situation,” he said.

“What… frustrated and bleeding?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he laughed.  “Actually, if you hadn’t called today, you would have called once you got ready to sew on this fabric and realized your machine at home couldn’t handle it.  People usually break the machine’s needle before they call.”

I hadn’t even foreseen the problem of sewing on upholstery fabric with my little machine.    I gave him the fabric I wanted to use, and he helped me pick out a coordinating fabric from his stock for the sides and back of the chair.  He also pointed out that I have a really good chair “worth keeping” because of its solid wood frame.  I couldn’t wait to share the chair’s redeeming qualities with Dom.

So, in roughly six weeks I should have a newly recovered chair and healed knuckles.  And maybe, just maybe, Dom will be proud of this chair I refused to give up.

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The Dirt on My Green Thumb

07 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by Lori Mainiero in Exterior, Growing My Garden, Things, Welcome to My World

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

flower beds, flowers, gardening, hydrangea, lemon tree, palm tree, tomatoes, watering

When I arrived home from the hospital after giving birth to my first child, I was greeted by a slew of new house plants sent by well-wishing friends.  While I loved the plants for their color and life, I was overwhelmed by the obligation to keep them alive.  I could remember to feed the baby…wasn’t that enough? The thought of more than Aaron depending solely on me for survival almost sent me into a panic attack.  I still maintain that giving a new mother one more thing to feed and care for is borderline sadistic.  Balloons are equally cheery, require no water, and no one is appalled when they wilt after three days.  Just sayin’…

My grandmother would water my plants for me each week when she came to stay with us, and would frequently ask if I had thought to water them while she was gone.  I would stammer my response and duck my head.  For Christmas that year she gave me a silk African violet plant.  Silk…because, in her words, that was the only kind that stood a chance at my house.

When Victoria was born, Aunt Maxine gave me a beautiful pink hydrangea.  Now, I’m a Louisiana girl who regularly subscribes to Southern Living magazine and would love nothing more than to duplicate the “fresh-cut hydrangea bouquet” look for my dining room table.  I love hydrangeas like no other flower.  But here I was, a new mom again, and the hydrangea sat in a pot in the front flower bed for more than a few months.  The tiny pink petals faded to cream, and then to gray (ugh!) and I feared that Aunt Maxine would see what a terrible plant mom I was after I had sworn to help it thrive in honor of both her and my daughter.  As Aunt Maxine struggled with cancer I could have kicked myself for not keeping that plant alive.  After she passed away, I believed she would know my shameful secret .  I whispered an “I’m sorry” into the heavens and vowed to someday have a pink hydrangea in my yard dedicated to her memory.  This week I bought and planted two pink hydrangeas: one for Aunt Maxine and one for Victoria.

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In the Spring of 2011 I dragged my Mom shopping with me at local nurseries where I bought about $400 worth of beautiful plants for my newly re-designed flower beds.  Gardenias, hydrangea, hostas, ligustrum, begonias, an angel trumpet, azaleas and canas, not to mention geraniums, gerbera daisies and lilies.  As [my] luck would have it, 2011 was the year that we had a drought combined with 110-degree days.  I remembered to water some of my plants, but truth be told, it was a pain to go outside and move the sprinkler around.  Plus, I would often forget to turn off the water.  Having the sprinkler run all night long does horrendous things to one’s water bill, and I eventually stopped turning it on altogether.  I lost all but four of the twenty or so plants that I had purchased.  As the year drew to a close and Dom and I were deciding to build a new house I insisted that whatever we did, I had to have a sprinkler system.  With a timer.

I did manage, for two years or so, to host a vegetable and herb garden in my backyard.  It actually thrived — except for my tomatoes, whose 14 plants yielded only about 14 tomatoes all season.  I don’t know where I went wrong there, but I know it wasn’t entirely a reflection of my ability since everything else seemed to grow with gusto.

DSC_0524

My Lemon Tree 🙂

I genuinely love plants now, and Spring lights a fire inside me like nothing else.  I spent Easter weekend getting dirty in my new flower beds.  I brought a few plants from the old house when we moved: the Angel Trumpet, various herbs and my lemon tree.  But heirloom plants are the best, in my opinion.  So far I have a yaupon holly and Indian hawthorn from my mother; cannas, lillies and irises from Dom’s Aunt Pam (the irises came from Dom’s Grandma Zern – many thanks to Uncle Harold for digging them up and loading them into my van!); daylily bulbs from my mother-in-law; pineapple guava plants, a peach tree and two fig trees from one of my Dad’s co-workers; and boxwoods and a tulip tree from Dom’s Aunt Bobbie.  (Aunt Bobbie supplied us with lots of great plants at the old house at a time when I was finally taking an interest in my landscaping.)  And the pièce de résistance, my palm tree: 12 feet tall and gorgeous, my builder hooked me up with this one in January.  I only had to pay for the landscaping crew to bring it to me and plant it wherever I pointed.  As my grandmother would say, “You can’t beat that with a stick!!”

photo

The palm tree before any other plants…January 2013

Future plans include a vegetable garden in the new backyard, as well as a butterfly garden where I want to grow jasmine and honeysuckle and maybe some knock-out roses just outside of Victoria’s bedroom window.  And I’m also going to attempt to keep a terrarium in my large fish tank on the patio.  (Wish me luck!)  All in good time, I know.  To garden is to practice patience, and we all know I could use the practice.

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Blinded!

07 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by Lori Mainiero in Home Building, Interior, Things

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I knew when we moved in that we were going to need blinds in our windows.  Aaron’s room is on the front of the house, and I was surprised that he didn’t complain when he learned that he was going to be sleeping in there with no window coverings.  I didn’t know who to call for estimates and figured I’d probably be ordering wooden blinds online anyway.   Not having a clue what else might be important, my primary goal was to find blinds that would match the paint color of my window trim.  And so I Googled.

And Googled.

And Googled.

Then one Saturday after Mass we headed to our favorite pizza place for some fine dining and VOILA!!  Right there, across the street from our pizza parlor was a blind and drapery company.  Who knew???  (Just goes to show sometimes we only see what we’re looking for.)  I didn’t even bother calling anyone else.  Quite honestly, after living on this older end of town for the past 13 years, Dom and I are more than happy to patronize businesses who choose to stay over here rather than venture to the “newer” (and gawd-awful busier) side of Shreveport.  David Carroll’s Blinds and Draperies had us, quite literally, at hello.

I called them up and scheduled a visit for an estimate.  Mike, the store founder’s son, drove out to our house and measured all the windows, petted Mason and Mabel, and showed me four fans of color choices.  We went through the house holding the colors up in each window to make sure we got the closest match.  Turns out, it’s SPOT ON!!!

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(Look, Mom! I even made my bed today!!)  And no, I haven’t decided what to put on the walls yet…

The blinds were installed in just under two hours.  We ended up only covering the windows across the front of the house, in the master bedroom, and in the upstairs bonus room… all for considerably less money than I was anticipating, which made me (in the words of Duck Dynasty) happy, happy, happy!
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I omitted the option to put coverings on the living room windows, though I asked for a quote anyway.  I love the openness and light, and Mike agreed that it would be a shame to cover it up.  Maybe someday, but not yet…  We gotta leave one set of windows for Mabel’s nose prints!

DSC_0040

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