Radical Move!

Greetings to anyone who still stops by this blog!
Obviously it's been a light-year since I last posted here. I simply got tired. Tired. Of. Life. In. General. But there's a funny thing about "ennui": after awhile you can't stand it anymore and crazy things start happening.

For starters, I quit smoking. Yep, after 25 years of puffing my life away I got some sense and dragged my stinky nicotine smelling self off to a hypnotist and took care of the problem once and for all. It's been 6 months since I quit and I haven't had any urge at all to smoke. Yippeeeeee!!!!
And good riddance to it!!!!!

Then, as my GI cousin so adeptly put it, I gave my job at the bank the "one-fingered salute." Yes indeed, I quit. After 15 years I left a good paying job with great benefits to open my own retail shop!!!!! Wow. Am I nuts? Probably. In this economy? Yep. Go figure! Anyway, I've been wanting to do just that for ages and I finally followed my dream and opened my shop on Nov 22nd. It is called 'Twas Brillig. I make customized floral designs, handcrafted jewelry and many other nifty things. I know I'm biased but my shop is really stinkin' cute!!!!

In the meantime, I am going to deep six "Imaginary Fronds." Look for a new blog very soon showcasing my adventures in small business ownership and all matters handcrafted!

Until then.....beware the Jub-jub bird and the frumious bandersnatch!!!!

Kitty Alarm Clocks

"The best laid plans of mice & men, often go awry."
(Adapted from a line in “To a Mouse,” by Robert Burns: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men , Gang aft a-gley.”)

So much for sleeping in this weekend. The Kitty Alarm Clocks went off at 6:45 on Saturday, and 7:00 today. Yesterday, I would have ignored them but I did need to drop Katie (my dog) off at the groomer by 8:00. For making sure I didn't oversleep, they were warmly praised! What good kitties they were!

This morning........I could have killed them. At 7:00 precisely, I was awakened by the sound of Hercules & Isis knocking over my bedroom lamp and breaking the light bulb inside of it. Ugh. Glass everywhere. Of course, they looked at me with big, round, innocent eyes when I loudly announced, "I am NOT amused." What bad kitties they are!

At least I made use of the extra time so lovingly granted to me by the Divine Felines. After I dropped off Katie yesterday, I indulged myself with a bit of photography. The morning light was too perfect to ignore! Here's a sampling of what I saw:

The Southern Pines train station.....renovated by the town about a year ago. Lovely to look at, hard to photograph! The train track runs right through the middle of town. Broad Street, the main thoroughfare and home to many eclectic boutiques, runs parallel to the tracks (on both sides - one way in each direction).




The Christmas display in the window of A Wild Hare, one of my favorite gift shops in the downtown area.






Our new Christmas wreaths that decorate the lamp posts up & down Broad Street. The lamp posts, also new this year, have an old-timey gaslight look to them and really complement the atmosphere of downtown Southern Pines. And the new wreaths are a HUGE improvement over the old ones which were too ugly to describe!





I liked the way the light played on the branches of this towering old sycamore tree. I'm always fascinated by how quickly the light changes when taking photographs. I took 9 or 10 pictures of this tree, mostly from this very same angle, over a period of 2 to 3 minutes and no two of them are exactly alike. This was the very last one I shot and it turned out to be the best. Also, this scaled down image does not do this picture justice....it really looks much better as an 8x10!






Two more shots of Broad Street....it is so peaceful downtown when no one else is around!





This morning, after the great broken light bulb caper, I decided to put together 2 floral creations. I had a special dispensation from Lucy to purchase silk poinsettias and other sundries to make Christmas arrangements for work. I even came in under budget, although not by much! ;)

I hope everyone at work likes our 2 new reindeer friends....

It's hard to see but the baskets are grapevines twisted into the shape of reindeer, spray painted gold and then given a dusting of snowy glitter. The antlers are really the best part...all those twigs jutting up. Very cute effect!