Jenyfer Matthews

Last week I mentioned a few projects I’d thought up for myself. Here are the results.

How happy was I when I went to Joann Fabrics and found a plain wreath form 50% off? Add a couple of bags of ornaments from the thrift store / garage sales and it looks very festive. I’d like the ornaments to be a bit more dense, but the beauty of this project is that I can just keep adding to it when I find appropriate ornaments. I have gobs of tiny globes coming in my shipment from Egypt and I’m sure I can spare a few for the wreath!

This is currently hanging inside, at the bottom of the stairs next to the laundry room door (where I get to see it all the time, LOL). There is a storm door over our front door and I don’t think the gap between the is wide enough for this full figured wreath and glass ornaments. Can’t you just imagine what would happen the first time the door slammed?? Maybe next year we will have a different house and it will get a more glamorous location.

And what do you get the man who has everything? Well, you can do what I did and just repackage something he already has! When we were going through all the things that we got out of storage, we found a bag full of beer coasters my husband had collected here and there over the years. I decided that they would be better appreciated on display than forgotten in a box and voila! Cool, unique present.

I got the frame at Goodwill and arranged the coasters using poster putty – that way they can be repositioned if necessary. Also, I didn’t want to GLUE any of these in case any of them did actually have any value! I was so enthusiastic about how it came out I almost gave it to him early, over the weekend, but I resisted. I can wait two weeks more

(Don’t worry – I got him another present too!)

I’m pretty much done decorating for Christmas. I bought a couple of small, prelit, table-top trees last week – one for upstairs and one for downstairs. I have to admit that it is absurd how much pleasure looking at my little green tinsel tree, hung with ornaments I’ve picked up at estate sales, gives me. The children were slightly less impressed and somewhat worried about where we would put “all of the presents”. (Just how many are they expecting??)

Like most things, this tree looks better in person! Clicking on the picture to make it bigger helps too

I normally would get a larger tree but I was going back and forth on the idea of real vs. fake trees. I like real trees but they are messy and my daughter has a lot of allergies; fake trees are more convenient but the ones I liked most were $$$. My procrastination paid off this week because I got a great fake tree for 70% off between the clearance price and a register coupon I had.

You know it is pre-lit because I would never take the time to string all those lights! And it’s a good thing I settled for the 7′ tree because it’s nearly brushing the ceiling as it is!

How are you all doing with your holiday preparations? No cookies here yet, but there is still time. And if all else fails, I know where some Girl Scouts live!

Though I love to collect kitchen items – measuring cups and spoons, good pans, dishes – and I enjoy eating good food, I do not necessarily love to cook. (Who wouldn’t have a personal chef if one were available??) I do however derive a certain amount of satisfaction from making tasty and well-balanced meals for my family – a task that takes both time, forethought, and some skill – which is why I don’t appreciate it when my children make faces when I serve something for dinner they don’t care for.

There were things my own mother cooked that I liked better than other things and a few things that I didn’t like at all but I ate whatever she cooked. It just never occurred to me to complain about dinner (at least not to her face and until I’d moved out!)

I don’t think it is too much to ask of my own children that they extend the same courtesy to me. I don’t make them eat things that they have tried and genuinely given a fair chance but don’t like. Not everyone is going to like everything. (My mother did not make me eat acorn squash for instance) If I choose to make something for dinner that I know ahead of time is going to be more pleasing to the adults in the house than the children, I will make an alternate selection for them (doesn’t happen much!) But if I make something that the children have eaten 100 times before without complaint and they just aren’t in the mood for it? Tough. Have a bowl of cereal or go to bed hungry. I’m not a short-order cook.

I made it pretty clear a few years ago that I wasn’t going to make macaroni and cheese every night and that I wasn’t interested in hearing negative commentary either. My daughter got the message and rarely if ever says anything negative about dinner. She is a good eater and the way to judge her enthusiasm is whether or not she takes a second helping.

My son on the other hand can be a real pain. If it were up to him, we would only ever eat macaroni and cheese, pizza, and bean burritos. He has no problem making faces or pouting at the table, particularly if I serve chili. He too is a good eater (quantity) but lately his range of acceptable choices seems to be shrinking. Last week he made a big fuss about a meal I have served many, many times before and that he has always liked. I was fed up so I sent him to his room with nothing. He was mad and stubborn enough that he decided to stay there even after I told him he could return if he liked. Eventually he came back to the table, after the rest of us had finished eating, and ended up eating two big platefuls.

When I remarked upon it he said, “It’s good. I forgot that I liked it.”

All that drama because he forgot he liked it? Oy-vey! He’s only 9 years old. If this is going to be a battle of wills, then I’m probably going to be entirely gray by the time he is old enough to move out. I sure hope that he learns his lesson or it might one day his wife be sending him from the table hungry!

Just ask anyone who knows me: It’s not very often you find me at a loss for words, but it seems to be the case this week. I just can’t think of much of anything interesting to talk about.

Things sort of feel like they are settling down a little – there were a couple of days this week when I thought about what I needed to get done and the answer was not much. Kind of a nice feeling. I know it won’t last though – I did get a message from the moving company to say that they have located our shipment. It is in NJ and as soon as it is released from customs, it will travel overland to Michigan and eventually to our house. So this is just a little lull before the house is full of boxes again and I am whirling around trying to find a home for everything.

In preparation for the shipment being delivered, I am trying to get done refinishing the last of the dressers so that the room where I’m currently working on it – my so-called sewing room (Ha! Where NO sewing has been going on!) – can be more available for overflow. In spite of the fact that I don’t really know what I’m doing, the dresser is coming along nicely. I will post pictures as soon as I am finished.

I mentioned in my last post how Nora Roberts reportedly writes a new novel every 45 days. A quote that I like that has also been attributed to her is that you can’t edit a blank page. In the spirit of this, and because for the last week or so the story I abandoned a year ago has been on my mind, I got back to work today. I had some good feedback on it when it was fresher which got me enthusiastic about looking at it again. Having just read it again, I’m not sure if I like it or if it’s boring. That’s the trouble with trying to judge your own work. Ugh. Guess I will forge ahead though – maybe it will get better!

I have at least nearly finished up all of my Christmas shopping, aside from stocking stuffers. My shipment better arrive soon – our stockings are in it!

I went grocery shopping today, because it’s my habit. Usually after having the family home all weekend, our cupboards are bare by Monday. I got home and realized the error of that assumption when I had very little room to put anything away. My husband went shopping yesterday and I guess I wasn’t paying attention to how much he got! Oh well – if we get snowed in this month, we won’t starve!

I once read an article in which Nora Roberts, an author I love, said she started writing while stuck at home on a snow day with her two small children. Another interview I read last week said she writes a book every 45 days. EVERY 45 DAYS. That rate does explain her prodigious output, but it also makes me feel like a real slacker. Even when I’m actually working at writing industriously, I can’t write nearly that fast. I know it’s not constructive to compare myself to someone who is apparently one of the fastest and most successful writers on the planet, but every 45 days…amazing. And something to think about.

After procrastinating for something like a month, I finally got started on the refinishing of the last dresser today. In the end I stripped it all down and sanded it thoroughly in preparation for an application of Danish oil. I didn’t want to try and mess around with a separate stain and finishing topcoat. The Danish oil is “one-step” in so far as it can contain a stain color and it soaks into the wood and dries, giving it some protection against moisture with a more natural satin-finish look. At least that’s what I’m going for, and if it works it will blend with the other dresser we have quite nicely (when it arrives). I’ll let you know how it goes.

Speaking of our things, last week we got an email from the moving company in Egypt saying that our shipment had arrived and that we should contact the local movers on this end who will be delivering our things to us. I did that, and the local movers said that they had not received any paperwork so as far as they were concerned the shipment was not here. Okay. Today I got a phone call from the local movers today saying that our shipment has in fact arrived, but that the paperwork does not list their name as a receiver so they are having trouble claiming it for us. Great – you know how I love a delay. Taking a deep breath and hoping for the best is as much as I can do at this point.

Seems odd to think that this time last year I was preparing to go visit my friend in Cologne, Germany and shopping in the Christmas markets there. It’s slightly more exotic than Target!

I am happy to say that I am mostly done with shopping and decorating. I was debating the merits of real vs. artificial trees. I love a real tree but they are messy and I wondered how my allergy prone daughter would deal with a real tree in the house. The fake trees are more convenient and tidier, but the ones I like best are way $$$. As a stop-gap, I bought two 48″ prelit tinsel trees, one green and one silver. They are shiny and tacky but they make me ridiculously happy. I may just run with them and wait and see if I can get a satisfying fake tree on clearance after Christmas!

There is probably a cheesy fake tree in our shipment – if it ever arrives…

Better do it yourself, as the saying goes. Too true.

It’s been that kind of day. The kind of day you spend running around from place to place and still feeling like you aren’t getting much done.

After much errand running in the morning, the landlord’s son came by to replace a unit in the horribly inadequate track lighting fixture in the kitchen (it’s so bad, I have a lamp on my counter). In the process of working on the fixture, he switched off the breaker (after shocking himself) which in turn zapped the configuration of my wireless router and in turn cut off my internet.

Any other plans I had for the afternoon were put on hold as I set about trying to get the router back up and running. I finally broke down and called my internet provider. After going through all the same steps with an automated system, I got on with a live person who told me that they didn’t support my particular router and the best they could suggest was that I either hook my computer directly to the modem with a cable or I get them to come and install a new modem with a built in router. Um…huh? I got this router as part of my sign-up “bonus” and two months later they tell me they don’t support it? Not only that, but I have to pay them a new installation fee plus a monthly rental fee on a new modem.

I don’t think so.

I let them set up an appointment for the installation but when we got off the phone I went back to work and successfully reconfigured my router myself. Ha!

So, I don’t have much to show for my time today but I do at least have internet – and a way to waste MORE time! (Why doesn’t sitting on the internet feel like a waste of time they way running errands does??)

I also have an appointment to get new tires on my car in two weeks. If the two days of snow this week are an indication of how the city will maintain the streets here in the winter, I am going to need all the traction I can get!

We had our first big snow fall yesterday afternoon and evening. It wasn’t sticking when I went to bed, but we woke up this this lovely scene. (Click any image to enlarge)

I got up early on purpose because I wasn’t sure whether or not the driveway would require shoveling. My husband decided he and his AWD Subaru were just fine to get out, but what about me and my little VW? Doubtful. I got out the new, handy-dandy, ergonomic shovel.

I look happy don’t it? That was my first five minutes. It became less fun as I discovered that it was about 4 inches of light fluffy snow on top of a layer of slush.

Now I know why the schools gave us a two hour delay – so I would have time to clear my driveway.

I thought the basketball hoop full of snow was funny when I saw it outside. So glad all that didn’t fall on my head as I was passing by with the shovel!!

The service manager of the dealership where I had my car serviced recently told me that my tire tread was at about 60%. I asked him if that was good enough for winter. His response: “You’ll find out the first time it snows.” Guess I’m about to find out because it’s time for school!

This week I am thankful that yet another dresser has been successfully restored and is now in service.

It all started when I found this dresser at a garage sale for $10.

The beast weighed a ton and somewhere along the way someone had spray painted it silver, but I liked the curve of the drawers and I decided it was worth $10.

I might have even been able to live with the silver paint if it hadn’t been so badly done in the first place and so chipped up in the second. Take a look at these dribble marks:

I thought – mistakenly as it turned out – that it would be easier to remove the spray paint than regular paint. It would go on in thinner coats, right?

HA! Perhaps that might have been true in theory, but whether it was down to the metallic nature of the color or the person who did the job, removing this paint was a bit like trying to remove old, baked-on duct tape. A goopy, sticky mess.

Under all that messy paint was a layer of what was once probably a decent honey-oak veneer (over chipboard). Unfortunately, the veneer on the body of the dresser was in better shape than the veneer on the drawer fronts so I couldn’t just stop and leave it there.

You might wonder why I went to so much trouble for a cheap dresser I got at a garage sale that wasn’t actually solid wood anyway.

Check out this furniture maker stamp inside the top drawer. I don’t know that maker specifically but the font would suggest that the dresser is c.1960-70s. Though much of the body of the dresser is chip-board it is also solid. The drawers alone have more wood in them than most of the new dressers I’ve seen for $$$ in stores.

I had half a gallon of white paint left from the first dresser I restored so I decided to go with that. The paint job seemed to go on and on, but in in the end, I think it looks pretty good. I didn’t even need to buy new knobs.

There are already a few scuff marks on the white paint where the drawers slide on that middle bar and on each other, but I am going to just call that my contribution to the shabby chic idea. (And I still have a small jar of paint leftover for touch-ups if necessary!)

Not bad for $10 and a lot of elbow grease.

I’ve gone on quite a bit (translate that to whined) about what a stressful year this has been. I can’t deny it has been stressful, but I also have many things for which to be grateful:

I’m grateful that one of my best friends works for the US State Department and that she called me at home in Egypt and helped me make the decision to evacuate Cairo in February at a time when I was so stressed out that it was difficult for me to make any decisions at all;

I’m grateful that my sister and her family were able to make room for us in their home and put us up for nearly a month while we tried to decide what to do next – a month which gave me a rare and wonderful opportunity to get to know my two teenage nieces much better;

I’m grateful that I had a long-lost high school friend who had a big enough house and generous enough heart to insist that my children and I come to stay with her for as long as we needed – even though she and I hadn’t seen each other in twenty years;

I’m grateful that I found a gem of a used car when I really needed one and that my brain wasn’t too fried by stress and anxiety to learn to drive a stick-shift at my advanced age (I can admit it now – it’s kind of fun!);

I’m grateful that my father and step-mother were able to give my children and I a place to stay over the summer – and a bit of normalcy that the children’s lives were distinctly lacking this year;

I’m grateful that just when I was on the verge of buying tickets to go back to Egypt at the end of the summer, my husband was offered a wonderful job in a lovely, stable and safe Midwest community – which seems like almost a miracle in such a fragile economy;

(Just think – my family and I could be in Cairo right now, going through revolution part II)

I’m grateful for my two incredibly resilient children and for the fact that the pieces of our lives are finally falling back into place in a pleasant arrangement.

I’m especially grateful that I am not in Cairo right now. This latest uprising is not a surprise to me – how could it not happen? Ousting President Mubarak was mostly symbolic – who did they think was propping him up? And could anyone have really thought that the military would quietly go away or obediently heel to a new master? It isn’t always a happy thing to be right however.

It makes me sick at heart to think about the friends who stayed in Cairo and what will become of Egypt, whether the elections occur or not.

I prefer to remember Tahir Square and the surrounding area as it was one Friday morning when I took a walking tour with several others from the university. I hope someday soon it can be this way again…

Wherever you are and whatever you are doing for Thanksgiving, I hope you have many blessings to count.

The furniture restoration goes on… and on…

I am in the midst of painting dresser #2 and had hoped to have it done by the end of this week. No dice. Looks like it will be sometime next week. (I am taking my time painting the sides this time!) When that is done, I still have dresser #3 to stain – a bit nervous about that one. It is the nicest of the lot and if I mess it up, I’ll be pretty disappointed.

Not everything I bring home is in such sorry shape however. Mr. Matthews and I stopped by an estate sale last Saturday and we found an absolute goldmine of Mid-Century lamps. We snapped them up – of course! I love lamps and absolutely could not resist this one:

The shade reminds me of an alabaster pot we have coming from Egypt. In addition to the above “rocket lamp”, we also found two floor lamps and a “flying saucer” table lamp with a metal shade, and two teak folding side tables. All the tables required was a bit of polish and they are both beautiful and serviceable.

(Note to self: buy coasters)

The floor lamp above has a label inside that suggests it was manufactured for a laboratory, which is perhaps why the lamp heads swivel up and around independently. Cool! I think it will be the perfect companion to look over my shoulder when I get back to hand quilting.

I found this coat at a different estate sale and didn’t even try to resist.

Secretly I have always wanted something in animal print and lucky me – apparently faux fur is “in” this winter. Can’t you just picture me prowling the aisles in the grocery store wearing this coat?

The next best thing to getting a good deal on something is getting it for free. It astonishes me what people will put on the curb. I can only assume that they put the things out because it is easier for them than either hauling it off to Goodwill or taking the time to sell it on Craigslist. I was on my way home from the grocery store when I found this sitting on the curb half a block down from my house.

Isn’t it lovely? (The glassware is mine of course.) The scallopy edge at the top made me think of you, Mama Pea!

Aside from being a bit dirty and the finish being worn on the front corner of the cabinet top, there isn’t a thing wrong with this piece and I wasn’t about to leave it sitting there! I hurriedly unloaded my groceries and folded down the seats in my car and went back for it – two trips. It’s amazing what you can fit in the back of a VW Golf and can lift yourself when you are determined!

Once upon a time, when I was living in the United Arab Emirates, I had a friend who was a bit older than me and also a quilter. We frequently took fabric shopping trips together, talked on the phone daily, and met once a week at her house for our local quilting group. We were as close as we could be so when one day, out of the blue, she attacked me with an accusation of taking shortcuts in my quilting and doing shoddy work it really stung. She was going through a lot in her own life at the time and was under a lot of stress, but her hurtful comments were enough to damage our friendship enough that it never recovered.

Though she and I are no longer in contact, I still think of her every time I am working on a project and I think of a way to make it easier – am I taking a shortcut that will ultimately compromise the integrity of the end product?

I have to admit that on this particular project, the answer is probably YES.

I recently visited a blog where the writer challenged all the readers to make an apron. I have never been much of an apron wearer and have only more recently become interested in vintage aprons. But I got sucked in so what could I do but figure out how to make an apron?

I have a sewing machine but it hasn’t been used in 12+ years and probably needs some attention (my Bernina is on a ship en route – I hope!). Given the fact that I am much more likely to toss a dish towel over my shoulder while I’m cooking (in order to wipe my hands a hundred times) it was a natural choice to choose to make a dish towel apron. It didn’t hurt that I happen to have a stack of vintage dish towels from my antique mall shopping sprees this spring. I used an apron from my grandmother as a pattern:

This apron is in such good condition that I doubt my grandmother ever wore it either!

I folded in some pleats, bought some ribbon, and tacked on a tie – voila!

Turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself.

I don’t know if you can see it in the picture, but I added some rick-rack to the tie just for you, Susan

So what do you think? Shortcut or not, did I do okay?