Iris Wednesday

Two years ago in the fall, my friend Renee gave me two bulbs for tall dark black-purple irises.  Last year, the shoots of the leaves came up, green and fan-like, and stayed that way all year, with nary a sign of a bloom or even a stalk or bud.  This year, I was shocked to see buds, and as the days went by and more of the tightly curled petals could be seen on the bud, I was more and more excited to see the full bloom.

Which I woke up to this morning.

Look at the SIZE of that bloom!!!

The petals are even darker in person, a black purple.

Squirrel Planter!

There have been a LOT of changes around Catty-Corner Cottage lately!  We have a brand new roof, this year's flowers and plants starting to flourish, our red maple tree removed from the front yard, a new chandelier in the almost-ready-to-debut finished dining room...so much!

The thing is, I have to repaint my door to coordinate with the new roof, and until I do that I don't want to share the changed exterior.  And I want to get some super-good pictures of the dining room before I share that too.  So I've been busy around here, but that's why the blog has been quiet!

Saturday was the Great Granville Garage Sales.  At last year's event, if you recall, I got my gothic-style table that once was used in a church.  Like last year, this year I only found one item to buy, but it was a stand-out item again.

Late in the garage sale season last year, I found a super super heavy stone garden plinth for $10 (I can't believe it either).  I've been needing a planter for the top of it.  Well, at Saturday's sale, I came across one that was too perfect to pass up.

A pair of squirrels on each side of the heavy stone planter form an ornamental design reminiscent of Arts & Crafts design with their tails.  Acorns adorn the center of the pattern.

At $20, it was a bit more than I usually pay for something at a garage sale, but I knew I'd deeply regret it if I didn't bring it home.

And look at how lovely it is filled with coleus by the gate!

Princess Etienne Finishes The Room

...I can hardly believe it.  The last princess is done.  The room?  Is done.  All I have left to do is replace the chandelier, and then hopefully recruit a talented photographer friend to take pictures of the room for its grand unveiling on the blog.  And of course invite everyone over to see. 

Two years in the making, the princesses are done.

A little sneak peek of two princesses next to each other:

A Shameful Confession

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So I've been dancing around the idea of posting this confession for a month or two now.  At first I thought I might just post it as a status update on Facebook, and then I avoided even that.  Then I had to admit that there was enough to explain that I might as well make a blog post out of it.

So here it is...my shameful admission.

I am a bibliophile.

Wait...there's more.  If that was the end of the confession, I'd be proud, not shameful.  Here we go...

I am a bibliophile who no longer reads.

And that sentence was pretty darn hard to type.  But it's time I admit that it's true.  I was the little girl who took a book out to recess and sat under a tree.  I was the high school Junior showing off my doorstop of a tome (To Green Angel Tower, 1104 pages) in the lunch cafeteria.  For goodness sake, I'm currently the 33 year-old who has worked in her dream job in a library for 11 years now.  And yet I have to admit that my reading habits have sunk from bad to shameful over the last year or two.

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I can blame social media.  It used to be that I would carry a book with me wherever I went.  Trip to the gas station?  I had to have my book.  Trip to an amusement park?  Tuck a book away just in case.  My rule of thumb for finding a new purse was "could I tuck a paperback in here and still have room for my other necessities?"  Then a handful of years ago I got my first laptop computer.  And then a little over a year ago I got my iPad.  Now, the iPad goes with me wherever I go, tucked in the pocket of my car.  And the silly thing is...I hate reading books digitally (I'm old-fashioned that way) so I no longer have a book with me at all, in any format.  My husband told me how sad he was to see me stop my habit, but I didn't pick it back up.

I can blame social media, but I won't.  Because yes, it is a distraction, but it's my willpower that is to blame.  I still check out books from the library, I do.  But when I sit to read them, I stop every few paragraphs to tap on the Facebook app on the iPad.  I click on Pinterest on my laptop to see what gorgeous images my friends have shared.  The internet is a source of such aesthetic beauty for someone who thrives on enchantment and fantasy.  And it's a place to communicate with kindred spirits I never thought I'd find...not only new friends, but many of the actual authors and illustrators of the books that so shaped me during my formative years are now conversing with  me through the miracle of the internet.

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But I don't get lost in books like I used to.  Oh, occasionally a book will cross my path that proves to be the exception to this new and very sad rule.  I devoured Carolyn Turgeon's The Fairest of Them All as fast as I could read it, and did nothing else for days, for instance.  But more and more I stare guiltily at the book on my nightstand as I curl up under the tent of my blanket fort before bed and watch another episode of Ghost Whisperer on my Netflix app.  I just can't seem to find the escape in most books that used to come so easily to me.

And I miss it.  Boy, do I miss it.  I'm so pleased with all the creative outlets I have in my life now, through creative interior decorating, blogging, magazine contributions, fine-art, and modeling for fine-art photographers.  I've built up a wonderful network of amazingly talented and creative souls.  But I miss that feeling of forgetting all about the real world for a little while, and getting lost in the pages of a book that seems more real than real.

I don't honestly know what the solution is.  Perhaps I need to force myself back into good old habits.  Maybe I need to pick up an old favorite or two and try to re-read them again.  All I know is that the book that has sat on my end table for the last month is 175 pages long, and I'm on page 30.  And that may just be the final straw for this bibliophile to take.

Princess Alexandretta

With Princess Alexandretta, I only have one more princess left to finish before all the princesses are complete on the walls! 

After working on this project for about two years, it's hard for me to believe I'm almost done.  I have one more project in the room, and then I need to have a new chandelier installed as a reward...and then I can have my celebratory shindig to debut the room as a whole! 

Princess Adeline

I had an extra day off today, so Princess Adeline was finished!  Now we have two princesses left.

Princess Cheyenne

Three more to go after her!  Princess Cheyenne was finished today.