Support an Artist

Whoops

I was contacted earlier this week by Stephen at Artreka, a new website for affordable art for the people. That would be you. The purpose of their site is to make it easier for everyone to buy art.

Boxer

The pieces come framed and ready to hang.

Centrifugal

Shipping is free. If you decide for some strange reason that you do not like the artwork once it is in your home, you can send it back for free.

Kaboom

The best part is that this week they are going to give away two paintings, and you could win one. Check out how here.

Gore

Which is your favorite? I think I like “Whoops” best.

Happy Homemaking!

P.S. I was not paid for this post, but I believe in good karma. Many people have helped me out in a time of need, and so I like to help people when I can. Plus, I believe in affordable art. Win-Win.

Potty Training

You read it correctly. We are potty training here at the Cape of Dreams. No, we did not adopt or kidnap a child. Nor am I talking about Douglas. He came fully trained. Crème is the lucky victim of my latest plot.

We hope that she will learn quickly, and we will be able to get rid of the kitty litter in the closet. Crème is good about using the litter, and it does not smell… much. However, it is just the idea that it is in the house that we do not like. Plus, it is greener to not buy kitty litter -save more money and put less in the landfill. Once Crème is using the toilet, we will not need litter at all. This is the plan.

We are using the CitiKitty Toilet Training Kit. We have not been paid for this post, nor any of the follow-ups that are to come. We have no idea if this will work. I read about this over at Apartment Therapy and decided to give it a try. Wednesday night was our first attempt.

Here is the toilet. Many of you have probably never seen a picture of the bathroom from this angle. I had to climb in the tub and assume a weird position to get this shot. There is also the not so awesome floor we are hoping to replace “soon.”

This is the training tray. There are perforated circles on the inside that you slowly remove until the cat is just using the toilet.

We bought flushable litter for the training process.

Crème seemed amenable to the idea of using the toilet. She was immediately intrigued by what we were doing. You know how she likes to be in the midst of everything.

However, she did not use it that first time. She sat there as if she were using it. Then, she did nothing. I checked it in the morning, and she still had done nothing. I was nervous about leaving for work that day in case she went to the bathroom somewhere else. So I opened the closet door back up and gave her access to the litter box while we were not home.

Once I got home I shut the closet door again and reintroduced her to the toilet litter box. She was not interested in the least. She continued to ignore it for the next five hours. Then I remembered that the kit comes with catnip or kitty crack as we call it. I sprinkled a little in the litter and she immediately jumped up and used the pad. There is the proud mama shot of the first time the child uses the toilet.

When I came to work this morning, I left the closet door is now closed so that her litter box is no longer accessible. Keep your fingers crossed that this works.

Have any of you ever toilet trained a cat or known anyone who did? Other than from the movie Meet the Parents?

Happy Homemaking!

Party All the Time

We have been living it up at the Cape of Dreams this weekend, celebrating the mothers in our lives. We invited my mother, her husband, my brothers and sister in law to spend the weekend with us. Then, we decided to go all out and invite a bunch of friends as well. It was a blast but a lot of work. In the end, the work was worth the fun we had, especially for my mother. It was her day after all.

Last week, we began cleaning the house and finishing projects that we had been putting off. I was mostly in charge of the cleaning, while Douglas did things such as clean out spaces in the basement for air mattresses and hook up the pipes and filtration system for the refrigerator water and ice. The basement is slowly looking better. You may remember it from my post about “My Big Dirty Secret.” It has been a huge embarrassment to us both, but slowly we are finding places for things and cleaning it out. I am pleased that there is now room for people to sleep on a blow-up mattress when the guest room is in use.

Saturday morning there was one last flurry of activity as we prepared for a deluge of people. Everyone was put to work. My brother Justin put a piece in the doorway that has been missing since we re-tiled the kitchen floor.

Laura, my sister in law, and I chopped veggies for salads and appetizers.

Douglas, my brothers and cousin Matt put up the tents.

We borrowed one tent from my mother and the other from the school where we work. We really should purchase one of these for ourselves. They are easy to put up, and they really saved us that day.

On Saturday, it rained. The forecast originally had said that we would have rain Wednesday-Friday, but that Saturday would be clear. The closer we got to the event, however, the worse the forecast was, telling us to expect afternoon thunder showers the day of the party. Saturday morning was clear, and we dared to hope only to have those hopes dashed as the rain arrived with the first guests. Luckily, it did not rain as hard as it could have, and there was only thunder and lightning once. Everyone cozied up to each other under the tent, and no one complained about the tight quarters. In fact, although we had the two tents, everyone stayed all together under the one.

My approach to throwing a party is laid-back. You will not see many decorations or themes at my get-togethers. I do not have fancy food or elaborate ways to serve the food I have. I do not have the time to prepare more than the basics when I am working, nor do I want to spend the whole party in the kitchen.

My theory is that if you have interesting friends, good food and abundant alcohol everyone will have a good time regardless of whether everything was color-coordinated or not. That is not to knock the people that do those things. I am in awe of people that have enough time to work and throw perfectly decorated parties. I just accept that I am not one of them. So, if you are looking for party design ideas, you can stop reading now. This was as decorated as it got. I was pleased to use one of my African baskets.

Despite the lack of sophistication, everyone seemed to have a great time.

For the party, we brought the table out of the kitchen and put it under one of the tents. I found it in the trash last summer. You can read the story in the post Curb Sale Finds. We needed it because Douglas and I do not have a lot of outdoor furniture. He had this table and chairs from before we got married. It was under the other tent. I was sad that I could not put up the hammock since it was raining.

I will give you one secret to a successful party. Cook with charcoal. Food has so much more flavor when it is cooked with wood versus gas. I understand that gas is much more convenient, but people will RAVE about your food if you cook with charcoal. Douglas did a great job with the grilling, which lead to many jokes about how much everyone loves Douglas’ meat. We are an immature group; what can I say? There also may or may not have been jokes about the pepper pistachios (hot nuts) we served as well. I will leave it to your imagination.

Another thing that makes me happy is that very little went into the landfill. We used no paper products at all, so really the only thing that was thrown out was packaging. We even have a compost for the table scraps. We have lots of silverware and dishes since we each had a set and spares before we got married. We also have a plethora of cloth napkins. I had many and then bought about fifty at a garage sale last summer for a couple of dollars. The only problem was that people kept forgetting which glass was theirs, so we had to keep washing the glasses. The dishwasher worked overtime. We decided that at the next party we are going to have a grease pencil available for people to write their name on their glass.

The party rocked on until the last people collapsed at three in the morning. As you can imagine, we slept late the next morning. My brother Jeremy really wanted to go to a Met game that day, but he was not successful in getting everyone else motivated. We spent Mother’s Day lazing about the back yard and eating the leftover food. It was sunny that day, and the hammock finally made an appearance.

The kids from next door kept sneaking over- despite their father’s warnings to stay away. He will not believe me that I do not mind their company.

It was a beautifully relaxing day, and my mother was able to enjoy it with three of her four children. Perfection!

Overall, I think that the party was a great success. We will have to have another one soon.

Happy Homemaking!

P.S. Today I connected a post with Victoria’s Made With Love link-up party. I was too busy preparing for the party to make anything last week, but I did make Douglas a Coat Rack/Metal Display a few years ago while we were dating and not yet married. Go to her page to check out what other people made.

Hammock Time

Is there anything more relaxing than a hammock in the summer?

In 2007, I bought a hammock in Venezuela. Since then, I have lived in six different houses and the hammock just keeps moving with me but has never gone up.

Last summer, I found a hammock stand at BJs that was a reasonable price. I do not recall exactly how much it cost, but it was under a hundred dollars. Unfortunately, I still did not hang up the hammock. We took apart the stand in the fall and stored it in the shed.

Finally, last weekend, I hung up my hammock!

Kahlua and I tested it out.

Kahlua was not a big fan, but maybe she will learn to relax.

Happy Homemaking!

Tulips are Better than One

Tulips are my favorite flowers.

I find their simple beauty stunning and love that they are available in my favorite colors, purple and red.

Do you think that tulips originated in Holland? I did.

I believed that for years, until I became good friends with some Turks. They were delighted to inform my of my misconception, because tulips are not actually native to Holland.

Instead, they come from Turkey and other areas of the Middle East. Dutch traders discovered them in the Ottoman Empire and brought them to Europe in the 16th Century. You can read more about it on Wikipedia.

I love that tulips are delicate, and yet they can bounce back from hardship. Have you ever taken tulips for a ride in a car? When you get out of the car, they will be all bent over. Car rides traumatize them for whatever reason.

However, if you let them be in vase of water, they will straighten themselves out quickly.

Unfortunately, tulips do not naturalize, at least not in New York. It is rare that the bulbs will last from year to year in the garden. If you read my post “Maximum Garden-Minimum Cost” you know that I like have as many perennials in my garden as possible. This keeps the costs low and the work to a minimum. One exception that I make year after year is to plant tulips.

The Cape of Dreams looks so great with all the tulips out front.

This post was linked to Tootsie Time’s Fertilizer Friday.

Happy Homemaking!

A Shrubbery and the Knights that Say Ni

After two years, we finally have our shrubbery. When someone tries to come into our yard, we stand there and say, “None shall pass.” Well, that part is not true. Even with the shrubbery, the neighbor’s kids are constantly coming into our yard. Our neighbor is mortified by it, but I do not mind. I actually like having the kids around while I am working. They are two and five.

There are no pictures of how horrible this side of the yard ever looked. I was sure that there must be photographic proof somewhere, but I have spent a couple of hours now searching for evidence and have come up empty-handed. All I have is this picture of the back yard before I moved in.

The bush on the far left is a pricker bush. It looked good in the summer, but it was a deciduous and very naked in the winter. What looks like another large bush to the right of the pricker bush is actually two different kinds of bushes. I am not sure what either of them are, but one of them has these gorgeous pink blossoms every spring.

The bushes were out of control and there was a vine strangling everything and threatening to kill it all. There was a rhododendron dying underneath the mess that took me two years to find. The pricker bush was eating it alive.

The rhodedendron does not look so great, but I am hoping that it will come back now that the pricker bush is gone. That is right. Last week, we did away with that monster forever. First, Douglas chopped it up with a long-handled pruning saw.

The stump was harder to remove. We had to buy a cable puller.

Douglas did this late one evening after work, so the pictures are dark. You can see the half-dead rhododendron in the back.

The tree was too close in the end, so we had to pull up the truck and use the bumper. Thank goodness for our F150.

After removing the bush, we also had to take out a large rock that was half-buried underneath. I keep saying “we” as if I did anything other than take pictures. This was all Douglas.

This weekend, we finished what had been a two-year project to put some better-looking bushes along that side of the yard. Two years ago, I bought one hundred privet hedges. In the catalog it stated that they were between two and three feet. When I got them, the sticks were barely over a foot. The company was not helpful in the least. After several phone calls, they sent me a voucher for next to nothing.  I was angry and vowed to never give that company more business, even if that meant that I did not get a cent back for any of the bushes. I threw away the voucher.

The pathetic little twigs that they had sent me were then planted in the middle of the yard. The side of the yard does not get much sun, and I was afraid they would die if planted there as frail as they were. My plan was to eventually have a raised garden bed in the sunny center of the yard, so I planted the privet there for the first summer.

Last spring we dug up most of the bushes and planted them along the side of the yard. I could not convince Douglas to take out the pricker bush yet, so we did not put any there. He liked how that big bush blocked more of the view of the neighbor’s parking lot. I hoped that once the privet got bigger, he would not be as adverse to removing large pricker bush.

We also planted privet in front of the shed we built in 2010. For the most part, I did that just because we had so many bushes that I was unsure where to put them all, but I think they add something to the back. It will look even better as they grow larger. That bench was one that Douglas pulled out of the trash. I am rubbing off on him! Repairing it is on my million project list of things I need to/ want to do around the house and yard.

We left a row of bushes on the north side of the new raised garden that we built. Those were the bushes that I eventually planned to plant where the pricker bush was. I am getting sick of calling it a pricker bush, but I do not know what kind of bush it was.

Last weekend, as I stated earlier, we finally finished the plan. Once the stickler was gone, we just had to dig up the privets and plant them along the property line. Douglas my studly husband dug the holes.

I dug up the bushes and replanted them. I would show you a picture of the digging up, but Douglas only took pictures of my behind. Never trust a man with a camera.

We put some grass seed down, and now all we can do is water and wait. Hopefully, this shrubbery will grow to epic proportions and block the view of the cement on the other side.

I am pleased with how it looks so far.

If I had more money, I would have bought mature bushes that would have filled in this area quickly. However, part of me likes the anticipation of what it will look like in the end after years of plotting and execution. That is our vegetable garden where the privet used to be. Hopefully this year it will produce lots of vegetables instead. My favorite addition to the yard is that cute little black dog.

Now we are the knights that say, “Ekke Ekke Ekke Ekke Ptangya Ziiinnggggggg Ni.” We love our shrubbery! By the way, if you did not get either of the knights references, go watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail and thank me later.

Do not forget to enter the raffle for the scarf hangers. You have until tomorrow at noon.

Happy Homemaking!

Win, Win, Win. Our First Giveaway! Velvet Scarf Hangers

This raffle is now closed. Congratulations to Carolyn and Maria! Keep following the blog in order not to miss the next give-away.

Are you as excited as I am? Maybe, I should tell you what you can win before you can show the appropriate amount of enthusiasm. Last Friday, I wrote about the scarf hangers that I bought.

Well, on Sunday morning, I got the idea to write to the company to see if they would donate some hangers for a raffle. I sent an email and within five minutes, I received an email from Henry at HDS Trading Corp. He was enthusiastic about the idea, and his only question was where to send the hangers and what color. HDS Trading Corp is somewhat local for me, as they operate out of Brunswick, NJ. I am also pleased to support any company with such great customer service. I never expected a response so quickly, especially on a Sunday.

These hangers are great, and they could be used for so many things. I hung my tights and scarves, but you could hang jewelry or even dish towels. The possibilities are endless. They hang nicely in the closet, but you could also hang them on the wall.

So, how can you win a pair of hangers? There are numerous ways that you can earn entries from now until NOON on Friday, May 03, 2013. You can comment on this post. Each comment earns one entry in the raffle. You can also earn an entry by liking the new Cape of Dreams facebook page and an additional entry by sharing this post via facebook. One entry is possible by pinning this post with Pinterest, and finally you get an entry for each day that you share this post via twitter. You can also follow @CapeofDreams. So many entries for everyone!

Back to the exciting stuff. There will be TWO WINNERS. If one of your entries is chosen, I will contact you via email to get your email address. You will get to CHOOSE which wonderful color you would like: blue, green, purple or pink. Really, there is no wrong choice. They are all great. You can use it yourself or give it to a friend or loved one.

You might wonder what I get from this giveaway. NOTHING, but publicity for my blog and the excitement of giving something to someone else. I really do love these hangers and purchased them without ever thinking that I might someday be giving one away. However, I am thrilled to offer you this opportunity.

Happy Homemaking!

Hanging Tight(s)….and Scarves

Last weekend I went to Burlington Coat Factory for the first time. Did you know that there are more than coats at Burlington Coat Factory? I had no idea, but I am sure that you, a much more experienced shopper than I, knew that. While my friends were shopping, I wandered the aisles looking at all of the things that tempted me and that I was not going to buy. Then, I saw these.

Flocked, flower-shaped hangers! It was love at first sight. Of course, I had to have them. I also convinced my friends that they had to have them. I am going to convince you that you have to have them as well. This is not a paid endorsement, but I wish it were. I cannot say enough good things about these hangers.

My tights used to be kept in the top drawer of my dresser. Then, I got the idea to hang them on a hanger in my closet, but they kept falling off. I knotted them onto the hanger, but it was bulky and I did not like the look.

They look much better on their new perch.

My scarves were wadded in the bottom drawer of my dresser with too many other things. I do not wear them as often as I would like to since they are hidden away.

They are hidden away no longer! Look at how beautiful they are hanging proudly.

Why are my scarves so much more adventurous than my tights? I need more colorful tights!

I also need to paint this closet. The colorful scarves highlight the dinginess of the closet around them. That is a project for another day. There are a lot of projects that need doing!

Happy Homemaking!

Maximum Garden-Minimum Cost

On Sunday, Douglas did a 62-mile run. I was exhausted just writing this post; I had to take several breaks. My excuse is that I have been sick, but I still feel like a big wimp. I am proud of him, though, despite questioning why he does what he does. I do appreciate that he never gives up when there is something that he wants. Here he is with Junior after the race.

Douglas will never give up on a race and I swear not to give up on my garden this year. After three years of living in the Cape of Dreams and taking care of the yard, I finally feel that things are starting to come together the way that I want them. I was fortunate when I moved in that the house was surrounded by wide flower garden bordered with Belgian blocks. There were some bushes and flowers in the garden and yard, but not nearly as many as I wanted. The gardens looked rather sparse and the side and back of the yard was a tangle of overgrown bushes. I did not have the money to do what I wanted in the beginning, but I have been slowly filling things in with plants that I love.

There are several ways that you can get plants for free. First, if anyone asks you what you would like for a house-warming gift (or birthday or any other special occasion) tell them that you would appreciate a plant. When I first moved in, my aunt bought me an azalea and my grandmother bought me a lilac. I think of them whenever I look at them, which is nice. My friend bought me a hydrangea to thank me for throwing her a baby shower.

Secondly, ask people if they have plants that they are planning to thin. It is possible to take cuttings or runners of many plants, and people are happy to share pieces of their gardens. One thing that you do have to consider when doing this is whether they will cause a problem in your garden. Some plants are invasive and will take over. Be aware that you will have cull them eventually as well. However, I decided to take hostas, irises, a bleeding heart and these blue flowers from my mother’s house.

Go to the woods. I learned this from my great-grandfather who used to dig up dogwoods in the forest behind his home and re-plant them in his yard. Before you do this, you need to make sure that you are taking native plants from the area where you live and not bringing invasive plants from a different environment. You also want to make sure that you are not breaking any laws or stealing plants from parks or private property. I took a couple of mountain laurels from my uncle’s property. They were growing wild in woods that he owned in an area close to my house, so I knew that it was alright to do so. I have also taken ferns and these small white flowers.

Do not overlook fruits and vegetables. I have also planted edible plants amongst my flowers in the beds around the house. The first summer I spent in my house, I planted tomatoes in the front garden. Every year since then, the tomatoes have grown up on their own from tomatoes that fell. The asparagus that I planted last year will come back every year as well. Last summer, I also planted a rhubarb plant. I forgot that it was there and yanked it last fall. Fortunately, it grew back again this spring. I am looking forward to strawberry rhubarb pie. Yum.

I planted a raspberry bush in the back yard, cherry tree in the front and a blueberry bush in a pot. These will grow produce year after year without me spending a dime.

There are herbs planted throughout the garden that come back every year. The rosemary plant refuses to die even in the snow, and it has grown into a monster since I planted it three years ago.

Bulbs can be bought in bulk cheaply in the fall, and most of them will naturalize or spread as the years go on. I have spent about fifty dollars every fall on bulbs, and after three years I am happy with how many flowers I have in the spring.

The only bulbs I buy that do not return every year are tulips. In order to maintain tulips over the years, you must pull and replant them. That is more care than I am willing to give them, but I love tulips, so I buy tulip bulbs every fall knowing that very few from the previous spring will make an appearance the following year. This year I went a little overboard and bought a bag of fifty tulip bulbs. It was too good a deal to pass up!

Do not overlook the “weeds.” I understand that many people like the look of a perfectly manicured lawn, but I love the look of a carpet of flowers. The yard is awash in crocus in March.

In April, there are violets galore.

I also have a great love of dandelions, despite the fact that most people consider them to be their worst nemesis. I love the cheerful color and tenacious spirit. They are also edible. My neighbors must hate me, but I embrace my beautiful yellow strewn lawn.

I am thrilled with the way that my yard and gardens look this spring. My challenge is going to be keeping up their appearance through the summer and fall. I will keep you updated on their progress and whole-heartedly welcome any help or advice.

This post was linked to Tootsie Time’s Fertilizer Friday.

Happy Homemaking!

My Afghan

In graduate school I spent a year in Salamanca, Spain teaching English at the University of Salamanca, studying and working on my Masters thesis. When I returned to the States in 2000, I was in limbo. Most of my classmates had graduated that spring, but I had not been in the country to present my thesis and take the exam. I decided to live at my grandparents’ house, in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, until I could finish up and then look for a “real job.”

This is the house that my great-grandparents built in the mid-1950′s, probably very close the the time when the Cape of Dreams was built. I had many fond memories of that house growing up. When my great-grandmother died in 1988, my grandparents decided to move into that house and convert their house into my grandfather’s photography studio. We had never lived near my grandparents, although we had visited often, but I was looking forward to the chance to get to know them better.

I found a job at the local Hampton Inn where I worked the night shift. It was usually quiet and afforded me time to work on my thesis and study for my exam. I graduated in December of 2000, but I do not have any pictures because I skipped the ceremony.

Since, I no longer had anything to work on at night, I found it hard to stay awake, and I asked my grandmother to teach me to crochet. She had just finished a beautiful afghan, and I decided to make the same one in a different color. Here is the finished product.

Why am I thinking of all of this now? Because I have spent the last two days under that blanket wishing I would get better or die! It has been a while since I have been this sick, and I had forgotten how miserable it is. I have no doubt that I caught this from the little germ-breeders at school, and I have been devising ways to torture them with tests and homework when I get back! I am sore and achy and stuffy. I cannot stop coughing, and I have no energy. I really hope this passes soon. I hope you are doing better than I am.

In the midst of it all, however, I do give thanks to my Grandpa Joe, who has since passed away. That year gave me the chance to get to know him well. I also thank my Grandma Bernie who is still going strong at 87 for taking me and my dog, Freckles the Freak in for the year, teaching me a beautiful craft, and helping me to create this afghan that warms me in my illness.

Happy Homemaking!