Snippets of the weekend 5.15.2023

Friday afternoon Melissa & I hit the beach, then back home to eat and back up for a few more hours then onto the porch for a while. It was a lovely day.

Saturday I painted the apartment in sections - it's so small in there that everything has to be prepped and moved in pieces. MFD was not pleased because it rained all afternoon and he just wanted to have a lie down with TV but I had ripped shit up. Most walls are Sherwin Williams Jocular Green (SW 6736) but two small ones are the darker green seen in the first photo below which is Sherwin Williams Dancing Green (SW 6716).

I cleaned up for the day, Melissa put out a spread, and we hung out on the porch for a while and people watched and laughed about nothing. It was a nice relaxing night. 

Sunday morning and afternoon another trip to Sherwin Williams and more moving furniture and painting in sections. This was a tiring project. When I was done I headed up to the beach and got a few slices of pizza and Melissa met me there and we sat for a few hours. An inexperienced kite flying lady let her kite gently bump into me and I nearly choked with laughter. Another great day. I did a house walk through with Melissa for summer prep, packed my car up and left around 7.

weekending reels on Instagram 

 

So great to spend the weekend with forever friends and their kids friends who we also enjoy. Thanks for the time, laughs, gifts, and spreads. 

Friday Files 1.13.2023

Second-hand decor updates. I like to move things around after Christmas is gone and add something new when needed. These second hand finds fit the bill and I'm thrilled that they're second hand. Mosaic glass forever. The mosaic glass lamp was my mother-in-law's, she loved it too.

Happy happy birthday to my sister-in-law Aubrey. I'm lucky to have one that I love as a person and love spending time with. We have fun!

How it started

How it ended. Always go.

Some small treasures from a walk this week.

Ben is Rose from Titanic: draw me like one of your French girls. Bruce is a trance chewer/kneader. The electric blanket brings all the animals to the yard

I had a cold this week, the first time I've been sick since 2019. I sneezed a lot, which I have never done with a cold in my life. I keep thinking of the Vicks Nyquil commercial the nighttime sniffling sneezing coughing aching stuffy head fever so you can rest medicine and how I always thought who sneezes when sick and MFD and I talked about how we never did and now we know and we do. MFD had the sneezes too. This is not the same immune system as pre-covid era. It isn't any fun. I've also spent the week looking - I can say this objectively - absolutely terrible. 10/10 do not recommend this cold season

I'm cooking straight out of the freezer and pantry right now, and the meals start out so nicely then deteriorate into like a freezer burned roll smeared with Worcestershire sauce or something. Not quite so bad but I do hate food waste so I need to burn through some stuff. 

Sometimes you make good nail combos and take clear pictures and sometimes you don't. 

Keenan Anderson. I'm not repeating shit said ad infinitum but that is not public safety and we are not killing people in the streets and calling it public safety. Black Lives Matter.

Just started. I know people are out there defending the Windsors like they are blood relations and raging against Harry and Meghan. I've got no skin in this game or big opinions, I just wanted to read it. 

I started painting our shore apartment this week - the space is so small with limited places to move things that I'm doing it piecemeal. Tuesday I did the shortest wall and trim around the window. If you know me you know I am not a neutrals person so the blah beige was really on my nerves over the past year. This is SW6736 jocular green. 

Hope you have a fabulous weekend, especially those of you with a three dayer for MLK on Monday. That is not me and has never been me.

Also say a prayer or light a flare that MFD finds a replacement for his totaled car in the next two days before I riot in the streets. We've been sharing a car since 12/16. You know I'm not a good sharer.

Saying hello on Saturday

The draft of this post was set up last Friday, and that was a carryover from the week before. Too far gone so starting fresh with a 20 timer on Saturday morning and what we do we do. Let us begin.

We’re all spending $61 or more every time we open our mouths, right? Jesus take the wheel. For those who think Joe Biden is responsible for global inflation…bless your heart, to borrow a phrase from my southern brethren 

Thrifted wall decor:

My resin replacement for a fist full of keys from South Street Art Mart - support your local creators! 

We tried Liquid Death Mango Chainsaw. LOL at the name, like the flavor.

I had to buy the stupid Christmas brownie cakes. I will make a foray into the Christmas Tree cakes then I will turn my back on both for this season.

Have you all heard of the retired spy with the daughter who does the reels? Agent Buttercup? The hold these people have on me. I can never find them when I go to look for them but I know I follow on Insta so they pop up for me. Here's an article. 

The amount of Foreign Policy Experts With Experience Negotiating Political Prisoners With Psychos With Nukes who have shown their face over the last week, mylanta. Welcome home Brittney Griner, even if a bunch of people have made sure to get on the Internet and say your freedom is worthless

The office in the PNC Building in the Market West neighborhood a block from City Hall where I have worked since August 2008 has officially moved to Old City. I'm pumped to explore down there and might actually try to make it into the office twice a month! I was going to come out of the gate with three times and I don't want to overshoot my shot. Cheers to new beginnings and good change.

Nails. The blue is OPI LED Marquee and the pink is OPI Pixel Dust

Wednesday night MFD and I went to the Turn PA Blue celebration in Conshohocken to congratulate the folks who worked so hard to secure and flip seats in our area. It was nice to see people but for me even nicer to be out of any active work in political races and just writing checks in support of candidates or writing postcards to voters. It is dirty AF, damaging to your spirit, and at times dangerous. I was reminded how you truly don't know until you've run or a candidate lives in your house. I'm  happy that's in the rearview and all the support to people out there deciding to do it anyway and applause for people who work hard to get them into office.

We walked to Pepperoncini where I haven't been for YEARS to have a fat ass Italian meal after that, then walked back. Those Conshohocken hills, man. The meal was good and we stood outside in no coats on an evening in December talking to people leaving the Turn PA Blue party for a bit longer. Out past 10:30 on a schoolnight!

This is what we were doing at 6 pm that night...the event started at 6 a half hour away LOL

Reminder.

Agree.

Painting happened at the shore this week. The interior and exterior of the new porch door (SW 6766 Mariner, same as exterior of main house porch door), two tiny walls that are accent walls near the bathroom (SW 6716 Dancing Green), and the inside of the main apartment door (SW 6564 Red Clover, same as its exterior that was painted in May 2021).

A few books from last week - not a romance reader but I flew through Lily B. The Stacy W book comes out in January and if you like that sort of thing, you should look into it.

The bowl I painted over Thanksgiving weekend when Carol, Aubrey, Lola and I did the Glazed Over Pottery outing

It is hard to beat the solitude and beauty of the beach in the late fall into winter season when you can be out for well over an hour and not worry about shivery dogs or fingers that feel like they may fall off. My plan is the entirety of January there, with a pop up to Philly to see Jagged Little Pill and do my monthly hair appt and massage. December I am up not there a lot so I'm glad the temps have not dipped too much into a freeze. 

End on pets, yes? 

Snippets of the weekend 12.5.2022

Friday I took the train in and walked from Market East to 1st & Chestnut to do a quick set up of the stuff MFD and I dropped off on Thursday for my company holiday party. It was a nice night! I recommend Glory Beer Bar & Kitchen for folks looking to host events in Philly. Food, service, and pricing were all good! We got home around 1 and I was straight to bed.

And up by 7 on Saturday thanks to Bruce. Animals DGAF if you are old and have been out late. My original plan was to head to the shore to clean up construction work but it was raining pretty solidly and I really needed the option to bring some stuff outside so I ended up staying home. My car was also full of stuff from my office and the party and had to be emptied before I reloaded it and all of that in the rain was a no. We watched the World Cup, I read a book, we cleaned up/purged/organized the living area basement room and then hung out down there which I never do, MFD made dinner, and we watched all of White Lotus season 1. I fell asleep on the couch around 11 and never moved to bed.

Sunday up at the asscrack again. I showered, emptied my car of the shit in there, refilled it with stuff to go back to the shore, and was at the shore by 9:30. I am absolutely thrilled with the work done in our apartment - the top is before and the bottom after  - not a great after but we're still in progress. We're going to paint down here and the trim and door need to be painted but seriously thrilled for the added airflow and light.

I did a first round construction dust vacuum/cleanup/change bedding, put shit back etc. Then I went and picked up pottery we painted on Black Friday, stopped in at the Thrift Store just to browse, picked up lunch and dinner at ACME and exchanged my five gallon water bottles, and popped in to Sherwin Williams then painted paint swatches all over the apartment. We're going with the lighter and brighter (SW 6736 Jocular Green) but I did paint the small coffee wall in the bolder color (SW 6716 Dancing Green)

We had a nice long walk on the beach to close out the weekend.

weekending reels on Instagram 

Happy birthday to my uncle Billy yesterday! Which I thought was today, but today is not the fourth, it's the fifth LOL. I cannot keep up on so much right now, so I'm just putting it down and doing what I can.

Thursday Thoughts - back fill

Photos from last week - I skipped Thursday Thoughts on 5/13 so this is a backfill for me (as in I am writing it on 5/17 and setting the publish date to 5/13, not written before or on 5/13) and if you enjoy it too, even better. I will blog forever if only to store my paint colors somewhere accessible LOL. 

Shore doors got painted. Main house is SW 6606 Coral Reef and apartment door is SW 6564 Red Clover - this is one of the deeper pinky purple colors I see in hydrangeas at the shore and it is exactly what I wanted.  

Some other pics from the week...

-I remember when I didn't want to move desks in the office because the monitors "knew" my set up. Now I literally pop up a monitor wherever at the shore now that I'm reacclimating to working in my apartment since the summer season is coming. 

-It was a rough beginning of last week so wonton and laying were required. 

-New office chair Aubrey passed along to me! Over a year into WFH and I'm grooving

-My old boy at a Dog Beach trip

-Ben smashed the patriarchy pen so we can only surmise he would also smash the patriarchy

-Gus and Ben in the yard. No Bruce this week but we still have him LOL

TWTW - insert title here

Friday I spent the day cleaning up professional and personal shit in Philly with my PB&J lunch, then headed to the shore around 4:30. I was thrilled to see much of the door project done - ordered in September and in since January, I was at the it's about fucking time stage for the installation of those. They grouped them with the second set of windows (just the bathrooms, and two of the windows were probably 30-40 years old). I'm hoping they are fully done by Tuesday of this week. After that excitement it was Wawa for dinner as everything else was closed and I had nothing quick to make. I finished a book, painted my nails, and that's about it. 

Saturday I got 8.5 hours of sleep which was amazing. It's finally porch coffee season. I went to my second favorite indie bookstore - Bookateria Two, the used paperback store a few blocks from my house. I also got a Bungalow Bowl. We did a long beach walk. Boyar's BLT for dinner. I meant to do things but I couldn't put the Laura Dave book that comes out on May 4 down (get it!) then I got caught up in feng shui and looking for door colors. Our apartment door is set, ordered, on its way - it's the green (Fallow & Ball Verdigris) - the main house door is still up in the air. I'm partial to the orange here - salmon in a lot of natural light, which we have. That's Charlotte's Locks from Fallow & Ball. I did just discover there is an archive softer version of this I might be interested in - bisque. 

Sunday I went through every room in the main house making a list of what needs to be addressed in the next month, catalogued all of the bins under the beds so I know what is where for turnovers, purged what needed to be purged, figured out where new decor is going, and got rid of some trash. I took Bruce and Ben to the beach then headed home. I returned stuff to JoAnn and Target, hit Sam's when I was hangry and bought trash food, and had dinner with my brother & Aubrey and the kids. I caught a great sunset on the way home and chilled out until bedtime. 

It looks like I find myself back on TWTW and Thursday Thoughts posts. Insert shrug shoulders emoji.

If you missed it this weekend - Harriett's Bookshop's lease is up in July. There is a gofundme to get them a permanent space. A lot of true feminist, anti-racist work is shifting resources. If you have funds, please donate. If you do not have the money to donate at this time, please share the link, and also ask companies who pledged a commitment last to be a part of true, radical, substantial change in our  communities to achieve equitable spaces to shift some resources to this Black woman business owner who is a leader in the community.