Converstion Hearts

Well, it has been nearly four weeks since I even thought about posting here, and almost two months since I actually posted something useful (last two were Instagram posts, if you can remember that far back.)  I would like to say I'm back, but I can't make any promises as to how consistently, since I'm still unwell (still?! yes, still.)  I'm thankful for modern medicine and old-fashioned prayer (though my new medicine has me dozing off in odd {and frequently embarassing, though funny} places...)  Simple tasks are still exhausting me, but I'm approaching things with more gusto.  And I'm eating again, which is helping immensely.  Can't express how thankful I am for Jayson, who has been waiting on me hand-and-foot, and for my job, which has let me work part-time indefinitely until I'm well enough for full-time again.  Also thankful for some very dear friends and family (you know who you are) who have stepped up to take care of things I couldn't.  I am on the road to recovery and will be myself again before long.  :-)

Well, as Maxine says, a very heartwarming thing happens in the middle of February every year: all the candy goes on clearance.  I'm a candy-lover, myself, and my husband is a bargain-lover.  Which means that we have a brand new stash of candy that would put Willy Wonka to shame. 

My personal favorites are the conversation hearts because of the things they put on them.  (Nothing says romance quite like "Tweet Me.")  They also remind me of a sweet/corny/silly thing I did for my wedding.  Around this time six years ago, my mother purchased pounds and pounds of candy hearts, literally tens of thousands, and together, we spent hours over several days pulling out all the hearts that said 'Marry Me.'  On my wedding day, I had my brother-in-law give several gifts to my soon-to-be-husband, including the box of special conversation hearts.  {Insert 'awww' here.} 

It wasn't until we returned from our honeymoon that I found out he hadn't even opened the box.  I was horrified.  (It's hilarious now... but that night, I felt like bursting into tears.)

And every year since then, he pulls out the 'Marry Me' hearts for me.  :-)  (I think it's his way of telling me he's still sorry.)

What are your Valentine's memories?

~ Sarah

The NEPA Tremor of 2011

So, did you hear there was an earthquake yesterday?

If you lived on the east coast, you almost certainly heard, and may have even felt it.  Or you feel left out that you didn't.  lol 

I have some creative friends who wrote creative statuses (stati?) about the earthquake.  If you're my FB friend, you probably already read these, but I'm sharing them again, anyway.  ;)

{Please note -- I am not making light of the earthquake itself -- I know that there were injuries and damage close to the epicenter, and I wouldn't want anyone to think I don't consider that to be serious.  But where I live, the shockwave we felt was little more than a tremor, and it was enormous news.  I am enjoying what people had to say about it; that is all.}

• "Is it strange to consult Fb for an earthquake update prior to turning on CNN?"
• "Perfect time to {be} down in the coal mine tour...During an earthquate...Really???  Just my luck!"
• "Don't worry guys, apparently a bunch of people in China just jumped at the same time."
• "Things I've learned today: Earthquakes are scary, Scranton will panic even if it's not near the epicenter; Goucher's emergency notification system does not consider earthquakes to be an emergency."

And, my personal favorite:

• "A large truck rolled by at the same time the house started to shake.  You can have your earthquake theory, but Optimus Prime just shook my house."

And finally, a photograph posted by another friend depicting the local earthquake destruction:

Hope you chuckled, like I did.  :)

~ Sarah

There's a Pirate in my Mixing Bowl

Hey, everyone!

Do you know what time it is? It is 12:50 a.m., and I am sitting in my kitchen, boiling eggs and potatoes, because I am supposed to bring potato salad to a reunion tomorrow. And I remembered 20 minutes ago. *sigh*

Well, it seems I'm not entirely alone. The puppy is snoring in the next room, and little kitty is periodically rubbing against my leg. But we have another companion, too.

A little history. You know how it is when you first move in with someone. Your new living arrangements inherit... things. You know - things that make you, for the briefest moment, think again about sharing your living space with this other person. Things like a collection of tee-shirts that appear to have been used as target practice (and, in my husband's case, that's not an absurd guess), or the bright yellow fish with fluorescent purple glitter lips and sunglasses that, apparently, is expected to share the Christmas tree with your grandmother's antique glass balls.

Or the pirate head. The pirate head that someone made (on purpose) from a coconut, and someone else with disposable income actually paid for. Then gave to my husband to let him know they were thinking about him all the way in Aruba. How sweet.

Isn't it cute? NOT!

Confession: I started trying to throw this thing away the day we moved into our house. Jayson found it in the garbage. "How did this get in here?" he asked. "It must've fallen."

"No, I threw it there."

And that was how our first married fight started. Long story short, he agreed to keep it out of sight, and I agreed to only throw it away if I saw it again. To be honest, I'm not really sure what happened immediately after that, but I can tell you what has been happening ever since.

Mr. Aruba (a/k/a Coco, the Fearsome Buccaneer) has become the family joke. We hide him on each other. He has been all over the place! He's been hanging in the shower, wrapped around toothpaste bottles, hidden in lunchboxes, stuffed under pillows, mingled with granola bars, pinned to a sewing machine, hung on the wall of the living room (ps - I didn't notice that one until after we'd had a house full of people!), fallen out of laundry baskets, dangled in the fridge, zippered into pockets... And tonight, I found him in my mixing bowl.

Hey, if you have to stay up insanely late boiling potatoes, you might as well enjoy it with a pirate.

Now where to hide him next... Any suggestions??

~ Sarah

The Piano

So... yeah.

I've been busy sewing, crafting, organizing, and baking, but you'd never know it from my posts this week.  "Pics or it didn't happen," and all.  I promise to take some over the weekend and share what I've been working on. 

You'll enjoy this, Readers.  After yesterday's scavenger hunt, I had a scare.  It went something like this:

"So, hunny, did you happen to see today's post?"

"Umm... no.  Sorry.  Haven't been on your blog in a while, actually.  Why?"

"No particular reason."

{his eyes narrow}  "Why?"  (He knows me so well.)

"Well, uhh, I kindof had a contest."

"What kind of contest?"

"A scavenger hunt, of sorts."

"For what?"

"Well.... see, the thing of it is... so, remember how you said... you thought you may possible be ok with me... sortof... putting your name on my blog?"

{pause}.... "No...  I thought I told you I'd prefer to be anonymous."

{another pause}... "Wait... you specifically told me you were ok with me putting your name!"

"No... No, I didn't..."

"You didn't?"  {picture Sarah with very wide eyes and a racing pulse}

"No."  {he studies me}  "You put my name on your blog, didn't you?"

"It was already there... I just suggested that my readers find it." 

{awkward silence, where he didn't speak and I felt a knot in my stomach the size of a bowling ball, realizing that I had over 100 page views yesterday and any number of them found (or at least saw) his name}

"I'm just kidding.  I guess it's ok my name is on there.  Will I be getting fan mail now?"

*Sarah smacks Jayson*

Anyways.  Moving on now...

I don't have any crafts or projects to share, but I thought I'd share a funny story with you.  It's about my piano.  (I realize that the average piano doesn't invoke much humor.  Aside from Gary Larson, not many people have used pianos in jokes or cartoons.  They're kindof... well... I mean, they're ordinary.  Beautiful, elegant and classic, of course, but ordinary.  Half the homes in America have them.)

My piano isn't much different - ordinary.  In fact, the poor thing was kindof an outcast.  It's been passed around (for free!) from person to person for about 15-20 years.  My mother-in-law got it from someone who got it from someone else who only took it to salvage it from the scrap yard, etc, etc.  She decided she didn't have the space for it, and me, newly married and trying to (naively) fill a large house, was only too happy to suggest that Jayson and three of his strong friends cart the monstrous thing to my living room (which was completely gutted at the time, by the way.)   At least I gave them all iced tea.

Do I play?  No.  I think I played for about four weeks when I was ten or eleven.  Does Jayson?  Nope.  So... why do we need a piano?  Precisely.  It took me almost a year to finally come to terms with the rhetorical question, "A piano??  What was I thinking??" 

And how exactly does one get rid of an old, beaten up, outcast piano?  One offers it to friends and families, of course (perhaps, if you're lucky, a naive young bride will take it!)  The poor thing is in rough cosmetic shape.  Although it has ivory keys, a couple of them are broken, and one of the pedals is stuck.  The top of the piano was replaced at some point with a warped board.  It sounds very sickly, as it's been 20+ years since it was tuned.  So, the point is, one look at my miserable little thing, and friends and family politely declined.  I don't really blame them; it's not like I found it desirable at the time.

So one turns to Craigslist.  I advertised it as a beaten-up, antique piano for $100.  I had a couple of people ask for pictures, but they didn't even bother writing a 'no, thank you' after they had a look.  *sigh*

One evening, we were sitting in the partially-finished living room, talking about something (paint, furniture, whatever) and suddenly I blurted out, "I hate that thing!  I want it GONE!"  I didn't really hate it, I just decided I needed the space, and it was a useless piece of furniture since we never used it.  That, and I was impatient because I couldn't find a sucker to take it off my hands.

Jayson asked the most obvious question, "Well, what if our kids play the piano?"  I explained that it was in such rough shape that I'd rather get them a nicer piano, anyways, if we did happen to have a musical child.  Ever the level-headed, practical person, he asked me if I'd looked inside to see who the manufacturer was.  Ever his opposite, I had not.

So, we opened it up.  Wouldn't you know - 'The Regent Piano - Philadelphia', Built 1909.   Whoa.

So I did a little google research.  I found the Antique Piano Shop and scrolled down to the section about my piano.  Here is what they had to say about it: 

"By this time makers had streamlined operations and the piano had evolved into a perfect machine. The upright piano had evolved into a very simple basic design, becoming more utilitarian in appearance than ever before. With the exception of period furniture styles like Louis XV and French Provincial, Upright Piano, Circa 1920 most upright pianos were without ornamentation or frills. Instead, plain square pillars and streamlined moldings resulted in a very "modern" looking upright piano which was considered "uncluttered" and "beautifully simplistic". These simple looking upright pianos were generally of excellent quality, and were some of the finest pianos built in history."

Uhh, SHOCKER!!  This poor little piano that I was willing to GIVE away was one of 'the finest pianos built in history'!!  I went to the showroom on the website, out of curiosity.  At that time, they had a piano that looked identical to mine, fully restored, on sale for...

.... are you sitting?...

... $20,000!  Yes, that's a two-zero-zero-zero-zero.  Twenty thousand dollars.

I immediately messaged everyone I knew that the piano was no longer available. 

So, it's still sitting in our (now-finished) living room, waiting for us to get around to selling it to a restoration company.  But every time I look at it, I mentally apologize for my previously thinking that it was a useless waste of space.  As a penance, I regularly polish the wood so that it looks rich and lovely, even if it does still sound horrific. 

We also tell this story to everyone who sits in our living room.  :) 


~ Sarah

PS - Anyone want to buy an antique sewing maching??  ; )