Simple Pleasures

It's been a crazy week for us with out of town guests, a late Father's Day celebration, 8.5 hours of driving for me on Wednesday . . .

But even on busy days, I take time to look around and enjoy life's simple pleasures.

I am loving the canna lilies

that are slowly blooming all over the garden.

Steve and I escaped the heat and hit the water in our kayaks.

That long drive on Wednesday (4 hours each way) for a reunion planning meeting led to me spotting a gorgeous garden.

I moved a little table onto the back porch - 

it needs to be painted, but for now it's dressed up with a patriotic display.

Out shopping the other day, I came across these little pieces of wood in one of my favorite shops

and that led to me writing words on a piece of driftwood.

I gathered shells, sea glass and starfish

to create a summer centerpiece for the dining room table.

Along with shells and starfish, my beach bucket collection is on display for summer.

While tackling the jungle the other day, I propped a shovel against the house - that gave me the idea of displaying my father's old garden tools all over the garden.

My final pleasure was actually Steve's - while I was driving in LA traffic, he spotted our resident bluebird hanging out on the most recent addition to the garden.

What were your simple pleasures this week?

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Join me at Poofing the Pillows for Thoughts of Home Thursday

Stuck Inside

I have been stuck inside the house the last few days because my lips are sunburned and blistered beyond belief.

I really wanted to be in/on the water because it has been SO HOT, but the doctor said the best solution to heal my lips was for me to sit in a dark basement for a month.

My house isn't quite a dark basement, but it is out of the sun, my lips are feeling much better and remarkably, I have gotten a lot done.

After arranging all my clocks on the mantel, I had a lot of "spare parts" so yesterday I gathered things from all over the house for a bit of rearranging.

After putting a very simple display on the hallway cabinet, I tackled the guest room.

I thought of the lyrics, "it's my party and I'll cry if I want to" as I decorated the ladder.

My lyrics became, "it's my house and I'll use coastal decor if I want to" even though it's nearly fall!

I live in a beach house, so it works for me.

I bought the beach bucket on our vacation a few weeks ago.

If our guests want to see beach houses, there are plenty of books for inspiration

and no shortage of nautical trinkets.

Once I decided that the theme for the guest room would be the beach, I even went so far as to switch the paintings.

This is one of my favorite paintings - our old kayaks at Little Beach where we launch.

Both of these displays were in the living room all summer, but now they're in the "Beach Room".

The screen over the bed has a simple WELCOME message

with a few beachy touches.

The painting above the dresser is of our family in Kauai several years ago and is one of the paintings Steve will never sell.

A few of my buckets decorate the dresser 

and my shopping cart is full of shells we have collected on local beaches.

More shells decorate the side table

and my heart rock collection is in a prominent spot - the big heart isn't a found piece, but I added it for size.

The guest room is ready for family coming next month.

But, I won't be be using these spare parts today because two days out of the sun helped my lips

and I plan to be in the water 

or on the water escaping this crazy heat wave.

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Join me at

Ms. Toody Goo Shoes for Best of the Weekend

Willy Nilly

I haven't posted for over a week and as I tried to come up with a topic,

the word random came to mind.

 iPhotos on my computer is filled with

a bunch of random,

unconnected pictures.

Then, the word Willy Nilly popped into my head so I googled it to make sure I understood the meaning.

Yes, my life seems to be quite "here, there and all over the place" lately

and this post is completely haphazard too.

Last week, I was looking online for Christmas ideas and found Marie and Magnus - 18" pixies-  on sale for half price at Maileg USA.

Marie and Magnus will probably be sitting on this ladder when I decorate it for Christmas, but for now they are sitting on a bench at the foot of the guest room bed.

Or, at least they were when I left the house to run errands this morning.

When I got home, the pixies were in a pile on the bed.

Lulu would not look me in the eye when I asked her about the pixies.

Another recent purchase was a set of cake stands from Decor Steals.

The stands can be taken apart for storage so I just put them in a cupboard until I started my Christmas decor.

But, the other day, I decided I didn't want to wait for Christmas, so I made a "cake".

I gathered up all the dried flowers I could find around the house and in cupboards and tucked my twin mice into the vignette

I added the Little Sister Mouse that I bought at the same time as the pixies.

I don't decorate much for fall, but this vignette definitely has some fall tones to it.

On our recent San Francisco vacation, we spent one night in Folsom visiting family and walked around the historic shopping district.

If we hadn't been in Steve's sports car, I might have convinced him to let me bring home the bathtub or maybe the vintage screen door.

Instead, I settled on a vintage look bucket that fit in the car just fine.

In finding a spot to display the bucket, I decided to bring this yellow bench down from the attic.

I will close this disjointed post with the ad for a class I just signed up to take - I have always wanted to try felting.

Thanks for staying with me through this "higgledy-piggledy" post.