Decorating Styles

I suffer from total style confusion.  

Country white and blues with that worn look?  Love it. It is easy on the eyes.
Pristine white glossy and glass and stark?  Amazing and makes me feel clean.
Bold colors?  Cool!  Bring it on.
Black and white?  By all means, yes!
Modern?  Groovy!
Overstuffed with lots of pillows?  Let's fall in.

What is in my house?  A mishmash of variety.  I don't have a favorite anything, be it color or style.  I know what I don't like...gold and white frilly French Racoco, busy black Oriental, and big dark clunky rustic Mediterranean.  I don't like cutesy hat boxes, clutter and fluff, and I don't like dead leaves.  I'm not fond of Colonial either.  Aunt Alice calls the collection of furnishings we get without considering what the flow should be, Early Halloween Style.  Oh no...I suffer from Octoberitis!

Surprise surprise, our dining room furniture is Colonial, but I am fond of it.  Purchased when we bought our first house back in the early 1980's, this was da bomb!  The table and chairs were a belated wedding gift from my father-in-law, who passed away shortly after.  The china cabinet followed because, well we had china and it matched.  Down the road I came across the server cabinet (basically a smaller china cabinet without the hutch) and picked that up.  I like the carmelly colored wood, but wish it didn't have a flower carved into the cabinet doors and chair backs.  I like that I can change the fabric on the cushioned seats and plan to find something that will tie our outdated dining furniture into the rest of my odd collection of furniture that we call home.

Mark likes to furniture shop.  Unfortunately, he is attracted only to a variety of colors that could be mistaken for a pile of dead leaves.  We have a tannish colored microfiber sofa.  It was a great price and it was "comfortable".  I swear that man would wear slippers and pajamas in public if it were socially acceptable.  Mark bought himself a wide leather recliner that suits his big and tall frame.  It is in a different hue of tan, maybe more grayish.  He bought it because it fit him and, well, that was the only color it came in.  Because I love to read and rock, I ended up spending a lot of time in his recliner.  Mark made the royal decree that I needed my own so he wouldn't have to share.  I thought maybe blue, burgundy or dark green might tie in the two tans.  I wanted a smaller recliner that would fit ME, the one my Big Sweetie Mark teasingly calls homunculus. (A homunculus is a perfectly proportioned little person.)    Instead, we ended up with a giant brown recliner that hurts my neck and lower back.  It rocks, and there is enough room for me, my dog, a blanket, a stack of books, and a laptop - OR one big Mark. I wanted a printed area rug to pull in all colors of our furniture.  Our new rug is beige, and it sits atop creamed-coffee colored carpeting.  I shop for throw pillows without Mark.  The current fall/winter pillows need to be replaced with something summery.  The only shade similar to a leaf's will be green and alive!

Dear Future Home Owners

I wrote a letter to tell potential buyers that come to look at our house how very wonderful it is to live here.  This was easy to write, but very hard to read to my father.  I started to cry when I began reading the paragraph about how special my neighbors are, and Daddy said, "Baby, maybe you should stay there!"  He loves the nature and wildlife that we are offered on a daily basis here and wishes he could have all of this.

My letter sits on the kitchen counter and is exactly (including picture) as follows:

Dear Future Home Owners,

Our community is woodsy and far enough away to have a country feel, but with the convenience of a good variety of stores, restaurants and new expressways nearby.  Our roof and air conditioner are both new.  Our home is quiet and offers total privacy.  ALL of the neighbors are wonderful and ours is a happy street!

Next door (on the pool side of the house) lives Kyle and her two big teenage sons.  The boys are quiet and polite.  I sometimes hire them to help with heavy moving.  They get their sweetness from their mother.  I will miss my conversations with Kyle through the fence in the mornings.  You will rarely see or hear their dog, Scooby Do, who is a giant chicken.

The house on the street side of us belongs to Chris, Leslie and their four very polite and well-behaved children that vary in age from first grade to middle school.  Leslie is a doll, patient and kind.  She teaches summer swimming lessons and, if you are outside, you may hear her praising a toddler for “kick-kick-kicking”.  Chris is a model father, a total gentleman.  He coaches his children’s baseball teams and you will regularly see him playing with the kids.  They have a small white dog named Tebow who, with one deep “woof” invites our little dog out to play.  (He potties in his own yard – not ours.)

Every morning I wake up before daybreak, grab a cup of coffee, and make a bee-line for the back porch.  Birds are chirping their morning song and a soft breeze blows through the woods.  Sometimes I can hear the far off whistle of a train or a rooster crowing.  This morning I heard turkeys, clucking as they woke from their roost in the top of an oak out front near the pond.  It is not uncommon to see 7-8 deer parade past, just beyond the state park fence line, stopping to munch a leaf or two before moseying on their way.  One neighborhood doe, affectionately named Tripod, has a bent front leg that has been this way since birth.  She is healthy, is able to run and leap, and has a new fawn every year.  Three squirrels frequent the Queen Ann Palms, feasting on its tiny coconut fruit.  Stumpy, the short tailed boy, frantically buries nuts all over the back yard, but never has one sprouted into a plant.

The pond out front is spring-fed, but with the (current) lack of rain, the water level does drop, but never empties.  In warmer months you will enjoy a pond-side frog symphony that starts at dusk.  They’re especially happy after a good drenching storm.  You will sometimes see deer (especially Tripod) and turkeys in the front yard.

Our sons had a wonderful childhood growing up in the security of Wekiva Glen and, like my husband and me, they have made lifelong friends here that will be cherished forever.  It breaks our hearts to leave our paradise, but with aging parents and the rest of our family in Jacksonville, we feel the need to be near during their twilight years.

Very Sincerely Yours,

Marty Watson

Home!

Ahhhh to be home. The trip was very nice, but it is always good to be back home. I was surprised with a relatively clean house, no big stacks of laundry, and of course, happy family.

Our little dog, Juliet, went crazy when I walked into the house and leapt all over me. I nearly dropped her, she was so "everywhere". I think she climbed around my neck a couple of times too.

I bought some groceries yesterday and cooked a simple meal last night, as I am still very tired. It is a combination of jet lag and a headache from blooming things in Florida.