valentine's day May We NEVER Forget

valentine's day

valentine's day Peace out 20s....

Today I am 30 years old...I am no longer in my 20s, nor my late 20s...I am 30. I'm not going to provide you with this in depth introspective post about what turning 30 means to me or anything but I will say this...I'm freaked out about it.

So in honor of this stupendous occasion I'm going to provide you with 30 random and perhaps totally insignificant facts about myself.

1. I won't drink 'white' milk.

2. I used to be really into NASCAR, but to my defense I worked for a company that sponsored one and I called on Home Improvement stores...hello I needed to know about NASCAR.

3. Milo was 'this close' to be named Bogart.

4. In high school, I was into punk rock and ska music....I may still have ALL that music.

5. I am a AGD.

6. I have a ridiculously small pinky toe, with an even smaller toe nail on it.

7. My childhood nickname is Pooh Bear.

8. I still haven't legally changed by name....yeah I'm really bad.

9. I was on the quiz bowl team in junior high and high school, and I freaking loved it. I also was captain for our sorority team in Greek Week.

10. I took tap, jazz, ballet, and toe shoe ballet. Obviously, being 5'2" a ballerina was not in my future.

11. My mother let me name my lil brother or at least she let me think I did....after my favorite television show in 1984 - Heart to Heart.

12. I have OCD when it comes to closing the garage. I will turn around and come home to make sure I closed it, I do it ALL the time.

13. I used to have a thick southern accent when I was 4-5yrs old. When my parents were still married we lived in Natchez and Baton Rouge for about a year or so.

14. In 1st grade I went to a speech therapist and she got rid of the accent.

15. My favorite book I think will always be Dante's Inferno. I read it for Honors English senior year. For our class gift to our teacher, we made a plaque for above his door that read, "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here"

16. I have a deep love for techno music....thanks to college.

17. Mr. Jetplane and I often call each other by our last names.

18. Freshman year of college, I dated 2 guys and they knew about each other - One at home and one at school.

19. My favorite color is any shade of blue.

20. I know almost every word to Pretty in Pink, 16 Candles, and the Breakfast Club. John Hughes was God!!!

21. I also may have watched Howard the Duck every single weekend with my lil brother, on a VCR we rented with our videos.

22. My brother and I used to set up Double Dare challenges in our backyard.

23. I am messy. I hate to clean.

24. Dr. Pepper is my favorite soda.

25. Up until the 8th grade, my mother made me get perms. She used to give them to me in the kitchen sink...I used to say to her...give up I have straight hair.

26. I participated in beauty pageants, and I won some. My talent was tap.

27. I haven't spoken to my biological father since I was 20, and that was just by mistake when I answered the phone and he wanted to speak to my brother.

28. I curse alot.

29. I love Party Pizzas....like LOVE them.

30. My favorite smell in the world, honeysuckle.... It takes me right back to being a kid, playing with my cousins in my grandmother's backyard.

So there you go....30 totally random things about this 30 year old lady. Oh and one last thing...

valentine's day What Is On Your Dresser?

valentine's day

The dresser in my room

1) An ironstone plate piled wit baubles and earrings, and a Victorian tortoise shell calling card case given to me by my mother to celebrate the opening of my design business. I wake everyday and think of that case and get ready to start my day designing.

2) A wooden box from my father's dresser. Then it was filled with loose change and stray marbles, sewing needles to put buttons back on his Brooks Brothers button down shirts, a thimble, extra buttons, a celluloid tortoise shell shoe horn, extra S and H Green Stamps which he would give to me to fill in my stamp book, rubber bands and extra monopoly pieces.......Now it holds earrings, stray jewelry parts, my daughters' baby teeth and such.....it still holds needles, buttons and extra thread to sew on missing buttons.

3) There is an Art Deco Daum vase in aqua and royal blue that takes center stage on top of two cobalt blue lacquer boxes from West Elm. The vase is filled with more jewelry, none very expensive, much of it from Cost Plus where exotic trinkets can be found for pennies.

4) There is a tortoise shell circular box, part of a Victorian dressing table set passed down from my aunt. The hand held mirror has made it's way mysteriously to my daughter's bedroom.

5) Two well used urn vases sit on top of white blocks from West Elm that were meant for wall mounting. The vases were a gift from Mom. They are chipped and cracked, one missing an "ear". But the color is like summer at the beach. They please me to no end.

6) There is a carved ivory colored box that I have had since college. I cannot remember where I got it. But it is a reminder that a person grows and changes. There are nicks and chips, but the box is still here and fills up with little bits and pieces of things collected over the years. A lone earring missing it's mate, pearls that have spilled off of broken strings waiting to be restrung, Indian head coins and 20's era broaches, and Girl Scout patches still waiting to be sewn on my girls' sashes.

7) The mirror is from a garage sale. The gilding is darkened. Some days I think it needs to be freshened up, and some days I like that it is a bit moody and dark. It is hung too high and the glass is too aged to really use it for reflections of me....so I use it to hold pictures. There is one of my grandmother on my Mom's side, and a family picture of my Dad and his siblings. There is a picture of a house in Martha's Vineyard that belongs to the family of my husband's best friend, and a photo of my oldest daughter at the beach when she was just knee high. The mirror is strewn with shell necklaces from Hawaii and one very special necklace given to me by an Aunt who was a very big part of my life. She passed away from breast cancer. Tim and I visited her the day before she passed, and the last thing she had said to us was not to waste time. Life is too short, so hurry up and get married. We did. That was over 20 years ago. She was only 54. The necklace is made from carved ivory beads and has a shell pendant held by tooled silver that hangs right over my heart.

Do you have memories on your dresser? I would love to hear about them, and see a photo! If you send them to me, I would love to post it and tell your stories.

Add some memories to your weekend!