THIS HAS BEEN ONE OF THE WORST AND BEST WEEKS OF MY LIFE

Wow, what a week. This is my first post since the 20th. Last Thur. I went to get my chemo treatment and instead got a burning shot in each arm to try and build my white blood cell count back up. The chemo had done it's job--wiped me out literally.

I was told my white blood cell count should have been 1500 but was 500 and that my platelets were also low. I had to go back on Fri. to get another shot and then told I had to go to the hospital on Sat. and Sun. for more shots and tomorrow, Monday I will get my blood work done to see if the white cell blood count is up enough to resume chemo on this coming Thurs.

Today, Sunday, I have noticed my kidneys are throbbing and aching. They have never done that before so it scares me. I will have to stop by the Oncologist's office tomorrow and let him know about my kidneys. ugh!

Now for the best week. First, I received a beautiful pillow that Gina of The Shabby Chic Cottage made and sent me. She knew I had wanted it but could not afford it. She told me that her arms were not long enough to reach out to me and hug me and that hugs didn't last that long but that the pillow would be there for a long time. It has a French blue Fleur De Lis stamped on it. But what I love most is the calligraphy on it. I look at it and am amazed at how much love is represented in that pillow. It is so wonderful to have a new friend that will reach across state lines to send a love gift to me.

BUT THERE IS MORE. Lauren from Pure Style has been keeping all of of us posted all week while BH&G did a photo shoot of her beautiful home for the next Nov. issue. People coming into your home at 8 a.m. and you there with a colicoly newborn! Exciting yes but it had to be stressful too.

She had sent me some sweet cheerful notes this past year knowing I was dealing with cancer. They helped to sustain me. Today I decided it had been long enough and time for me to start blogging again. I don't know why I picked today but I invited someone to join Lauren's and Gina's blogs as a follower. When I went in to start my post for some reason I glanced down and saw that I had a new follower. I had to find out who it was so I could thank her or him. When I opened it up and saw Lauren I just started crying. That was like God giving me a Xmas present. 

I feel so humbled by these two ladies because they are so talented, busy, creative but most of all so caring. These are large people in the blogging world and so they should be. I am grateful for their acknowledgement.

Peace and love to all.
nancy
later.   

Discovering A Top Notch Blog By Way Of A Top Notch Magazine

The March/April issue of Victoria Magazine featured a young  lady, Gina Galvin, who has a wholesale business that "brings the past to the present era with French accents that speak of an elegance of days gone by." She is a happily married with small children. But nothing seems to get in her way of traveling when she needs to to promote her business, or taking care of a tons of different animals. Her blogs are mesmerizing. She has 2. The pics were taken by Marcy Black Simpson. She lives in a French style two story mansion surrounded by considerable acerage in Grand Blanc, Michigan.

What makes me happy is that she comes to Texas every year and stays in the country with friends and sets up booths in Dallas. Her blog is peacockparkdesign.blogspot.com. Login and visit and fall in love with everything French!

You can buy and assemble this ornate Victorian-style glass and iron conservatory and have it for your own. She makes things that have the same feel as a French Flea Market.

 

  
                            Don't you just love the bamboo rugs decorated with vintage calligraphy?

                             The pillows are picture post card images of elegant people from the past.

These are wooden vaudeville-era stand-ups-reproductions from Gina's collection-that perform in a dollhouse-size Parisian opera house.

This is a picture of her mansion.

The antitique statue stands guard over an iron gazebo. 

                  Clematis vines twine around a latticework gazebo containing an antique cross centerpiece.

Later.

Artichokes, Lanterns, a Gateleg Table and Art Work

Realizing artichokes keep cropping up in my recent posts, here we go one more time. Being too sick to take chemo until next week, means I feel too bad to go through my vast array of old interior design magazines to post beautiful pictures and the stories behind each designer's work.

Realizing I am anal retentive is not a good thing for me! It means that no matter how sick I am, when I walk past tablescapes in my home, I am driven to hopefully, change/alter them for the better. Which brings me back to the subject of my overabundance of painted artichokes.

Having a chemo brain means you tend to change subjects with no warning and that doesn't help either when you are trying to utilize your writing skills. Before I became so ill, I moved around a couple of pieces of artwork and tried to find homes for my many artichokes and then took pictures of them. While all of this was going on, I became impatient about selling my gateleg table on Ebay and incorporated it in to my living room. So now I have something to post about and share with you, without ever having to leave my home. Enjoy!

So I moved the new, large artwork, ( I was able to get thanks to Lauren of Pure Style sharing with me) to a place in the room where it stands out more. I placed my gateleg table underneath the art work.

I guess you can see that I removed my lanterns from the curtain rod that had them hanging in front of my         window.

I placed the smallest lantern with a blue candle in it next to the pitcher to bring out the blue painted on the pitcher.

Honey, one of my little dogs made her way in to the picture.

xoxo,
later.

Master Interiors Illustrator

Veranda Magazine April 2008 featured Jeremiah Goodman, and some of his illustrations of his famous client's homes. He prefers to be known by his first name. He was born in 1922 in Niagara  Falls, New York. He studied at the New York School of Professional Art and at the Parson's School of Design. His first job was working for Joseph B. Platt a designer of commercial interiors. Right before he came on board, Mr. Platt designed the sets and interiors for Gone With the Wind. If you would like a collection of Mr. Goodman's life time sketches and room portraits you can purchase the coffee-table book Jeremiah: A Romantic Vision (2006).  When he found out he was going to be featured in Veranda, he offered to paint two magazine covers.  These are the ones he painted. 

A small list of some of his clients are as follows: Elsa Peretti, designer at Tiffany& Co., Edward Albee, Sir Cecil Beaton, and Elsa Schiaparelli.

The legendary interior designer Melanie Kahane told him, "You can hammer a nail in the wall, and it looks good."

  

later.

Gray, Orange and COTE DE TEXAS Type Lanterns

On day after day of gray days here in Texas, I decided to post some of my favorite gray/white pictures to remind me how much I love the color gray, and added a couple of pictures with orange in them for warmth. These pictures are from Veranda Magazine, March and April 2008 issues. Photos by Peter Vitale and Thibault Jeanson. Sit back and and enjoy!

  

I know that the settee looks like it is a pink/peach color but in the magazine it is definately orange.

later.

The Artichoke Fiasco

One of my followers asked me what happened to my artichokes when I was spraying my wreath. We know that I got an artichoke stuck in my paint can but there is more to the tale.

I purchased the artichokes the day after Xmas at Hob Lob for half price. Why I waited so long to work on this project was because I kept thinking we would have some pretty weather but to no avail.  I did finally get the artichoke out of the can and poured the rest of the paint into a bowl to roll the artichokes around in using tongs in order to coat them. WHEW!

It took several times of rolling the artichokes around in the paint to cover them this well. So here are the final results.

  

later.