Let There Be Light...and Make it Purdy

My den has no overhead lighting...which I don't mind so much, as I much prefer natural light or ambient lighting.  But have you folks checked the prices on lamps lately?  They's expensive!  New lamps for the den could easily run me $100 or more. 

So I went bargain hunting...in my sister's attic.  She donated several brass lamps to my cause.  But they weren't exactly jiving with the decor in my little ranchero.  And while lamps are expensive, spraypaint is not.  I turned those brass badboys into some citrus delight in just a few hours.

A few tips:

• Use painter's tape to cover the electrical parts
• Paint in a well-ventilated area
• Apply a coat of primer to cover any rust spots and give yourself a nice even coat of paint
• Buy a plastic spray gun topper for your paint can - you'll save your index finger, keep from getting messy and be able to spray in steady strokes.
• Put the lamp in an oversized cardboard box to catch the overspray (thanks, Dad!)

Brass monkey...a less than funky monkey.

Primed and ready for a citrus overcoat.

Freshly squeezed orange paint

Orange you just loving this?

Clap on!

Godspeed, Lone Ranger

He wandered into our garage more than a decade ago and took up residence in the seat of my grandfather's old Cub Cadet riding lawn mower.  At first, we weren't going to encourage him.  But then Mom couldn't stand to see him go hungry, so she set out bowls of food in the garage.  When it got cold, a folded towel in the seat gave him somewhere to snuggle.  And soon, there was a cat bed for him to weather the weather.  Before many months passed, he breached the threshold between indoors and out because it was just too cold to leave him outside anymore.  And so he became officially ours.

My brother dubbed him Lone Ranger because of the dark fur that circled his clear (though slightly crossed) blue eyes.  He was put together by a committee that couldn't agree using parts that were rejected from everyone else - a too-skinny tail, short bandy legs, and a purr that had a hitch in the giddy-up.  He wore the same expression every moment of every day, forever and ever amen.  And his unerring ability to live by a schedule, his particularity about his place in the world, and his lifelong belief that by taking his picture, I would steal his soul, earned him the descriptor of "special kitty."  Ranger, it seemed, needed to be handled with care and came with his own special instructions.

Ranger was a poor fighter, missing a bite of skin out of one ear and a toe off one foot, making his nickname "Ranger Danger" all the more ironic.  His compromised immune system was constantly challenged by bites and scratches until Mama saw fit to just keep him inside all the time.  We battled through countless oral infections and finally pulled almost all his teeth, but he still insisted on eating his morning treats.  I guess he gummed them to death.

Today, we lost our battle with the final infection.  It was time.  Time to let Lone Ranger ride off into the sunset.  I will miss his yowling meow at the door demanding to be let out.  I will miss his swaying gait across the kitchen that made it so easy to imagine he was saying, "dumpity-dump-dee-dum-dum" as he went.  I will miss his soft snores from the chair or the back of the couch.  I will miss the intensity with which he used the cardboard scratcher.  I will miss his straight-legged resistance when picked up and his complete indignation when kissed.

I will miss our sweet Ranger Cat.

She's So Unusual

Last weekend, I went to Taste of Athens with plans to fill my belly with lots of good eats for a good cause.  And I did.  The Pink Champagne Cake Bites at Silver Lining Cupcake Co. were beautifully delicious and the mint gimlet at Hotel Indigo's table was the most refreshing libation I've had lately.

And when I found my way to the silent auction, I found something else delectable I had to have.  I have never bid in an auction before, but when I saw this wire sculptured bust from Aurum Studios, I had to have it.  I ended up staked out beside it at as the auction closed with a wily gleam in my eye daring someone to outbid me.  I must have looked scary enough, because "Miranda" went home with me.  Although, my friend Nikki and I felt like her messy updo and dangling earring made her a ringer for Cyndi Lauper.

Stiletto Surrogate

My twitter friend, Lauren, better known as @cubanalaf, recently fell and broke her leg.  Painful?  Yes.  An annoyance?  To be sure.  But for a fellow shoe-lover, there is a special poignancy in Lauren's confinement to...gasp...comfortable shoes.  So, LAF, this is for you.

Photo courtesy of Ivy Le

Color Me Obsessed

I'm lucky enough to work with my musical soulmate.  When Rob Entsminger says, "Listen to this" followed by a link, I'm 99.7 percent sure I'm going to be smitten.  After catching The Civil Wars at Unplugged in the Park back in October, he messaged me the next day with the duo's video for "Poison & Wine", which I proceeded to listen to on repeat for the next three or four hours.  I hopped from video to video after that based on YouTube's handy recommendations of other performances. By the end of the day, I was a fan. 

The Civil Wars met through a quite literal eHarmony - a Nashville singer/songwriter service that matches collaborators.  Both John Paul White and Joy Williams tried to ditch the first meeting, but, lucky for us, neither had a bonafide excuse.  And when they met, they discovered an other-worldly connection as though they'd known each other a lifetime.

When I heard that The Civil Wars would be making a visit to Athens to play The Melting Point, I made plans to be there by corralling my good friend and features reporter Joe VanHoose into covering the show.  It came just a week after The Civil Wars' debut full-length album Barton Hollow soared to the top of the iTunes chart.

In concert, The Civil Wars are every bit as stripped down and haunting as they are on recordings.  There is no overwrought instrumentation or backup band.  Their performance is comprised of nothing more than White's collection of guitars, Williams's occasional stint at the piano, and the best instruments they've got - their perfectly matched voices.  People often mistake them for a married couple - and they are married, just not to each other - but the mistake is easy to understand once drawn into the intimate circle of their voices matching bravado and mixing low throaty notes and contrasting Williams's sweet, clear, rich voice with White's gravelly baritone.  And their performance is both musical and an embodiment of what they sing - alternately assuming impassioned lovers, the broken-hearted and sad longing.  Interspersed with ballads and lullabies were quiet jabs spoken to each other in jest and amazed delight by these newly minted superstars.  Their astonishment at hearing the audience sing along with them was genuine, and it's rare that you get to see a band that's on the first leg of their meteoric rise to fame.

There's a vintage quality to Barton Hollow.  The Civil Wars almost feel like two souls from that time period telling their stories through the plucked guitar strings and the haunting, melancholy voices of Williams and White.  You really believe the title track that no preacher man can save their souls - that wailing ache in their voices - and that the desperate plea in "Fallen" to know that love is over is in earnest.  And "Forget Me Not" is a plaintive duet that seems like it should be listened to over a grainy radio connection in the 1930s.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I've been listening to Barton Hollow nonstop since it arrived in my mailbox.  (Yes, I still buy real CDs.)  And if you're a friend who has music taste similar to mine at all, I've urged you to download their free live performance at Eddie's Attic from their MySpace page.  And if you live in a city where they're touring, I've sent you the link and instructed you to buy tickets.  So I thought it only fitting that I take my message to the masses and blog about my Civil War obsession.

If you're still on the fence, please note they do a killer cover of "Billie Jean" as an encore. What more could you possibly need to convince you?

Now We're Cooking

Roughly 70 days, at least 7 different contractors and 7 degrees of sanity lost, the kitchen is finished.  I mean, the renovation process is.  Let's not get overzealous.  There's still work to be done - heck, we might all die with the sugar residing in the spare bedroom.  But at least we have a functional, fashionable kitchen to call our very own.

Let us first go back to the way we were, nearly 30 years of history housed in cabinets and countertops and really amazing retro shelf paper.

Before -note the stylish but functional formica

Here we have the always lovely "peninsula"

The always fabulous "vent hood."

Although our time machine isn't presently operational, this has just about the same effect.

Shortly after these pictures were taken, the demolition began along with a stint of microwave meals and takeout.  And along the way, there were more than a few headaches.  Like the one cabinet that had to be ordered three times.  Or the backsplash that almost never happened. Or the floor gouging incident perpetrated by the backsplash guys that nearly made my sweet, even-mannered mother lose her religion and her temper.  But in the end, it all came together.  Behold!

And the angels sang...

Islands in the stream - that is what we have

Double ovens! More room for Mama Harp delicacies

It's all shiny and new!

Please note the backsplash. There was a lot of heartache in that backsplash...

Adventure Monkey: Universal Studios Florida