The Church And The Barn

Yesterday I got to have one of those girl days that I love so much!  My friend Carol and I do this a few times a year.  We usually meet in Castle Rock which is about halfway for both of us. I have told you about the places we go before, but this time I had the for thought to bring my camera...so you can actually see what we did!

First we went to eat at The Old Stone Church.  It's one of the oldest churches in Colorado, but it's been a restaurant for many years.  The food is just amazing!  I had a hazelnut crusted chicken over pasta with a cilantro pineapple butter, and a little bit of cranberry walnut salad on the side.  Yum!  Carol had shrimp and goat cheese enchiladas with a chipotle cream sauce...I almost had that.  She let me taste it...it was insanely good!  

They also gave us a basket of flat bread with chimichurri sauce to dip it in. The sauce was SO good that I was dipping my chicken in it. The server asked if I would like some more, and I jokingly said I would like a whole jar to take home. She said they did sell it by the jar, and when you bought it..you got the recipe for it too! Naturally a jar came home with me.

Next we headed down the block to The Barn.  It really is an old barn.

It sits right next to the Purina Chows company.

But inside it's unassuming exterior lies delights that can barely be described!

Every vendor gets a little room for their wares.

This is just a small sampling of the many rooms!  They have a real eye for vendors that fit a certain style and it would be easy to spend thousands in there!

While I didn't spend thousands, I did get some lovely little treasures, including the grey scarf in the back, some small reproduction french letters, a key chain and two necklaces.

I also got a carved crow, and a couple of handmade flowers.  I didn't show you everything I bought.  I got a lovely feather flower but Penelope was trying very hard to help me with it so I decided to put it back on my jewelry amoire safely out of little kitty paws reach!  I got some really pretty leg warmers and a truly beautiful headband with a flower on it too.  I am wearing the headband though, so it didn't make it into the picture either.

This is just a close up of the swan lake and the Paris necklaces I just had to have!  

They have added a small building to the left of the Barn called The Barn Too, which was filled with more delights including the shabby pink table with it's scalloped edge.  I thought it would make the perfect stand for my TV, so after some careful maneuvering we managed to get it into the back seat of my car!

It was a really fun day, and also so great to see my friend.  I know if you knew her you would love her as much as I do.  She is just this fun, cool, sophisticated lady with a little bit of an edge...there is NO ONE else like her!

Happy Hearts And Broken Toes

I know I know...it's been so long since I posted.  I apologize but it's summer, and I have had no desire for the computer at all.  I have just been cleaning and gardening and enjoying the warm weather.  Sometimes suffering in the crazy heat!

Last Sunday was my birthday and I had such a lovely weekend.  Saturday I went to Denver and went shopping.  R was so good about it, he didn't sigh or tap his foot once.  And he only grimaced slightly when I bought out the mall! 

Then on Sunday we went for dinner at P.F. Changs.  I had Chilean sea bass...yum!

One of the treasures I picked up was the book above.  It presented itself at exactly the right time as things tend to do.  I have been thinking a lot about happiness lately.  Now don't get me wrong, I am not unhappy by any stretch.  But I have been wondering if I am truly happy?  How do you know exactly? 

They say money can't buy happiness, but I am not sure that's entirely accurate.  I have stuff in my house that makes me quite happy just to lay eyes upon it and most of it cost money.  Of course I don't think things bring you true happiness.  (Except for teddy bears of course!)

So what is true happiness?  How do you live happily?  I would have to imagine that the answer is different for everyone.  For me I think happiness is being satisfied with all that you are and that you have in your life right in this moment!

The book....which I have only read a little of so far...says to be happy you simply choose to be happy.  Sounds easy, but is it?  It says you have to align your thinking to the fact that every incident in your life is the best possible event right that moment.  Now I know that is hard.  But maybe it's true. 

Monday morning I got up at 4 am...I have been sleeping nights again...and I walked right into Ridley.  I didn't see him in the dark and my toes went onto either side of his leg.  I heard them snap.  I break my toes all the time.  I suspect it's because I break my toes all the time and they are weak.  This is the first time I have broken two at once.  So why would this be the best possible event right now for me?

Pain aside...maybe it's because I needed to slow down and sew again.  Maybe it's because it gives me time to enjoy some of my favorite movies while I sew.  And maybe there is a larger reason I can't see right now?  Who knows maybe it kept me from something bad that I might have done if they hadn't broken.

I think I am going to take the advice from the book and choose to look at this in the best way possible.  Afterall...I do need to sew, and who doesn't love to watch their favorite movies?

Hopefully I will have something new to show you soon.

Also I must say that receiving all those birthday wishes on Facebook really did make me feel special, and that makes my heart just that much happier!

Have a lovely day, and be happy...no matter what happens!

Hugs, K. <3

Toes And Treasures

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day.  It was cold, but what a bright blue sky!  It was the perfect day for a little bit of adventure.  I woke up feeling completely excited.  It was going to be a girl day!

Now I love going places with R, but there is something special about having a day with a female friend.  I suppose it's because I don't get many of those anymore.  As I have told you before, all the female friends I had that live in town have either moved, or moved on.  So those girl days that used to come a few times a week, now only come a few times a year.

When I got to the freeway I felt that old familiar quiver in my stomach.  Having traveled so much in my life, when I am faced with an open road the gypsy in my soul stirs and I get butterflies...it's almost the exact same feeling as falling in love.

I was only going as far as Castle Rock, but it didn't matter.  It took less than an hour to get there.  I pulled up in front of the quaint Victorian house that was the restaurant I was to meet my friend at for lunch. 

After that it was off to Copper Falls spa.  We had pedicures.  I know you will probably be amazed when I tell you that I have never had a professional pedicure before.  It was heavenly!  If I were a rich woman, I would have someone do something for me every week at a spa.  It's my guilty pleasure.  Don't my toenails look fabulous!

After a blissful hour of being pampered we trudged half a block in 19 degrees wearing those funny little sandals they give you, carrying our shoes.  We stopped at a Parisian cafe for macchiatos. 

After an hour of drying and gabbing, we headed off to The Barn.  Don't let the name fool you.  The Barn is indeed a big white barn, but it houses one of the best antique shops I have ever been in...and I have been in quite a few.

We bought a few treasures including some glitzy bracelets, a letter opener, a lace scarf, and a decorating magazine that I love but find only on rare occasion because it's from Denmark.  I also got some cute little buttons and yards and yards of ribbon to use on bears!  There were a couple other little trinkets as well.

By then it was time to head home.  I could have let the day last much longer, but I suppose all good things much come to an end.  I am already dreaming of my next girl day!

Mentally In-vest-ed

Sometimes I write posts because I need to get something off my chest, or work through something that is eating away at me. But on other rare occasions I feel extremely prompted to write posts without being really sure why I want to write that particular thing. It's almost as if I have a feeling someone out there in the world needs to know something. It doesn't happen often, but when it does I can't rest until I write whatever is burning a hole in my brain. This is one of those posts, it's been bugging me for three days, so here I am writing it. Maybe one of you needed to get this message? I don't know. Anyway on to my post:

Have you ever noticed that there are people in the world who have the ability to make statements that sound insightful, sometimes profound even. But when you really stop to think about what they have said, it's meaningless. Those people often hold positions of authority, power or celebrity.

A while back I had been watching something I had recorded on my DVR. When I shut it off one of those daytime talk shows was on. I came into it just as a psychiatrist was saying that women who like to shop do it to fill a gap in their lives. The audience was of course appropriately impressed by his declaration. I listened to him spew his rhetoric for a few more minutes, then shut it off. Of course women shop to fill a gap. But then that's why anyone does anything.

We eat to fill a gap of hunger, we sleep to fill a gap of exhaustion, we watch TV, read books and climb mountains to fill gaps of what would otherwise be inactivity.

Despite not being impressed that he had dropped an epiphany on the audience, it still made me wonder...what gap is filled by shopping? I love to shop. But I was suddenly certain there was more to it than consumerism.

My answer arrived just a couple weeks ago. I had gone into a clothing shop and found a rack full of vests discounted to 80% off. Now I don't normally buy vests because they don't look that good on women with large chests. They really aren't designed for that body shape. As a result I only have one and I have it because it has tabs strategically placed that nip in the waist, thus conforming to my figure better than most.

The rack of vests really drew my attention however. It was brown velvet with antiqued brass studs all along the edge and a little bit of a bead work design in the center of each side on the front. It wasn't the classic menswear/English style vest, but more of a rounded bolero cut. I tried one on in front of the mirror. As I put it on a sales girl walked by and said that I was the only person she had ever seen the vest look good on. Now I am going to assume she was being sincere and not just giving me sales girl talk since they had so many of the vests left and they were discounted so much.

Even if it was just sales girl talk, it didn't matter I already knew I was going to buy the vest. On my way home I thought about my purchase. It wasn't the sort of thing I normally buy...so why did I like it? What motivated me to buy it?

I knew the answer, in fact I knew the answer to why I liked to shop in that moment. Aside from the dopamine rush you get from buying something, it fills my gap for adventure.

No, not the adventurous aspect of getting a bargain. But when I looked at the vest I saw Morocco. I saw exotic spices, flying carpets, Aladdin, and Ali Baba...maybe even a genie in a lamp. It filled that yearning I have to see those far off places that probably are nothing like my overactive imagination (and Hollywood) has painted them.

Apparently I was the only one who saw the vest that way, considering how many were left. But maybe that's also why it looked good on me? Perhaps my romantic nature shined through as I put it on.

I realized that's why I buy lots of things. It's expensive and difficult to travel these days. So maybe buying a little trinket here and there fills that gap for me. It mentally takes me away from everyday life to those places I dream about because I can see those places in these items. It's not as the TV psychiatrist suggested; that I do it because I am neglected by my loved ones or have too much idle time on my hands, because neither of those things is true.

I think that psychiatry is over rated unless you have a true mental disorder. Years ago I had something rather bad happen to me and my doctor sent me to see one because of my stress level. I had never been to one before. (Keeping in mind this doctor was a complete quack who nearly killed me twice through misdiagnosis, and said I had a brain tumor when I actually had a bone spur in my shoulder. I have a different doctor now.)

At any rate, the psychiatrist wanted to delve through my past history and have me come to terms with things. After two visits he realized I was pretty well at terms with everything already and that my brain didn't function like most people. After eight visits and a battery of tests that seemed to be more for his amusement and study than anything else, I stopped going to him because I didn't feel like paying to be his Rubik's Cube. But I digress.

I don't know what gap others fill with shopping or anything else they do, but I am pretty sure whatever it is...most of us are doing ok, and we can't be shoved into little boxes by TV psychiatrists who tell us things we already know. I think in the long run we would do better to indulge our own minds in their little escapes and live our lives without worrying overmuch what needs to be fixed. The answer is probably nothing. We don't need to dig up our pasts or cast aspersions on the people in our lives for what we have been told they might not be doing when in fact they are doing just fine. We just need to recognize that we are doing fine too and no one's life is perfect or what they would ultimately like it to be. But that's ok, if our lives were perfect and everything we wanted them to be, we wouldn't have our lovely imaginations or even anything to strive for...and we would probably have to shop more! =}

The Lure Of Far Off Lands

Given the opportunity, there is no country on earth I would not visit. I dearly love to travel, and while I have been fortunate enough to go to a few countries, I am not done. Probably because of this, I have always been fascinated with things that come from far off, exotic locales. For some reason things from other countries seem so much more interesting. Even mundane things like t-shirts and jeans are better from abroad. I wonder if people in those countries feel that way about what we take for granted in the US?

Yesterday however, I only traveled as far as Denver. I still came away with several little treasures that flew from worlds away to find their way into my shopping bags...or gave the illusion they did.

I found a lovely English floral tea towel appliqued with birds and trimmed with green pom poms, to use as a new tank cover in my powder room. Now I am sure you might be confused by that, so let me explain. I have never cared for those rug like tank covers. Somewhere along the line I used two vintage tea towels. I drape one down the front vertically, and fold another to put across the top of the tank horizontally. I am proud to say I have inspired several of my friends to do the same.

Next I found a french necklace that was long, had a vintage skeleton key, a small octagonal chandelier crystal and a bejeweled ball charm. I also found a delicate hairband imported from India that looks quite Edwardian, and a plaid scarf.

I got some utterly heavenly solid perfume in little pot from a company called Tokyo Milk. The scent is Lotus Sake, and it has a white grapefruit base, (I always gravitate towards grapefruit based perfumes) combined with lotus, basil, mango, orange blossom, and sycamore fruit. It's a very light, delicate scent and it's so wonderful that I can't stop sniffing my wrist just so I can drink it in. It came in a darling box that had the most adorable miniature note cards. It's very Japanese in nature...they love to give you that little something extra with every purchase. The thing is, it's not really from Japan. In fact it's from a Denver artist who specializes in art and soap. It doesn't matter though, because it elicits memories of my trip to Tokyo. I just wish that particular scent came in a spray. She has others that do, but sadly not that one.

I got some cute Christmas ornaments from Crate & Barrel, some exquisite green velvet ribbon to use on bears, and a present for R. (I can't tell you what that was just in case he decides to read my blog, which he rarely does...still though, I would rather not take the chance so he will be surprised!)

But the best treasure I came home with yesterday was a Danish magazine called Jeanne d' Arc Living. The pictures are so lush that I sat and looked through it twice in my comfy chair with my quilt this morning. There are decorating ideas and recipes. The "Snappy Onion Pie" recipe caught my attention in particular. While the decorating style could be considered spartan compared to what many Americans have, the aesthetic was amazing and I could happily move right into several of the living spaces featured. I think I need one more peek before I go back to bed!

Topping it all off like a cherry, was having fun and lots of chatter with my friend Carol. We had lunch and looked at all the beautiful things the stores had to offer. It was a great day out, and I needed a little get away, even if I only traveled an hour away.