Men in little white coats are stalking me....

And They're coming to take me away Ha Ha
They're coming to take me away ho ho he he ha ha
To the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be happy to see those nice men in their clean white coats
They're coming to take me away Ha Ha
To the happy home with trees and flowers and chirping birds and basket weavers who sit and smile and twiddle thier thumbs and toes
They're coming to take me away Ha Ha Ha

OK, I am just going to say it...I have a hoarding, cluttered, creative mind.  Day and night I am making plans for things I want to create.  It's distracting and it's a sickness.  At work, I think about the clothing I want to sew and the elements like the ruffles, ribbons, buttons, beading, puffed sleeves, gathered waist and fancy threads.  In my dreams... I awake from a dream with positive wonder and the bizarre ideas I must remember.  When I look at the thrift shop I see inspiration everywhere, from flowers, to patterns on china, to jewelry, crocheted doilies and even the clothing other women are wearing.  To me the world is one huge idea catalog!  My home is littered with things I have purchased and forgotten.  When I rediscover them I think, what did I buy this for?  Or I buy something and store it away, only to buy it again!


Let's not even talk about the Internet and all of these wonderful bloggers who actually are creative and finish what they start!  Oh my gosh, my computer files are full of ideas I have borrowed and recipes that I would love to try!  What is the matter with me?  Give me something to stop this madness, this sickness, this terminal epidemic I am being tortured with!


So as an example of how cluttered my mind is, look at the above picture.  It is my old kitchen table that was moved to my happy room.  See the clutter, OK, it's some of my jewelry, I sit down there in the morning to get ready for work and fuss with my face (make-up) and futz around with what earrings and bracelets to wear.  Plus the Professor likes to stack crap on there that he deems mine that he finds on the sofa, dining room table or in the mail box.  We won't mention he has a lair filled with his crap behind the sofa table where I get to trip over it when I want to open or close the drapes, oh no, my stuff can't sit in the front room but his can...okay, that was a vent.  My table is cluttered and chaotic and is the perfect metaphor for my mind.

So this morning I straightened it all up and we can identify a couple of elements of my sickness. Buttons!  I love buttons!  The buttons in the above picture were rescued at the thrift shop.  They will go in my button box.  I love having cute hair, in fact at work if I don't have a cute element in my hair, I disappoint.  I made the above hair combs with net flowers from the wedding aisle at Hobby Lobby.  Now the pin...

Isn't it darling?  It is an angel made out of a spoon and clip on earrings.  Honestly, I bought these from someone, I don't remember who but I gave them as gifts and I forgot I had this until I found a box BEHIND my dresser!  Sickness!!!!!!!!!

Now the aforementioned cute hair sickness.   I love flowers and ribbons and such for my hair.  I have bought a few but they can be expensive so I have made many.  When I would come home from work they would be strewn about the Professor's pristine home cluttering up his decor of early American rat hole in the corner behind the sofa table....so I claimed a dog leash and hung it on the wall and clipped all my beautiful hair accessories to it. But to take this mental illness to a new level...

lovely plastic flower pin bought at the Thrift Shop was begging to be converted into hair bling!  Yes it's a bit heavier and gives me a headache but it is perfect in my hair and what girly girl wouldn't mind a headache, it's so little to pay for thrilling tresses to delight all!

Now here is a look at an ongoing compulsion.  My top that I want to design, well this morning I lined them all up the fabric I want to use on the back of the love seat.  I draped some rescued lace from the thrift shop on top of them. The fabric second from the left, the brownish rose colored fabric I want to be the semi fitting bodice.  The  rest in the picture above and below, I want to make a panel from each for the body of the blouse.

See the cream colored fabric with the little roses which is second from the right?  It's a bed sheet, I have two of them that were gleaned at the Thrift Shop for 2 dolla' each, they are full size!  Yes, inspiration everywhere my friends.  Let's not mention the yards and yards of lace I have from the Thrift Shop.  I want to take a different length of each and lay it down over where the panels meet on the body.  Yes, I do get closer every day to actually making this designer piece and maybe in 8 years I will actually have it finished!  I am sick, sick, sick!

Now for another example of madness, like you need to hear one as I am sure you all have the inkling of the level of my illness, is the dress I bought for 5 dolla at the Thrift Shop yesterday.  The fabric is sheer, the skirt is approximately 2 full yards.  The bodice has a cute pin tuck front.  I want to use the pin tuck front with the buttons to create a small hand bag.  The skirt I want to make a strapless top, with elastic casing at the bust and I think a ruffle, like a Goddess dress, but just a blouse!  I am shrieking here with the possibilities...someone stop me quick before I hurt myself!

See...even the objects on my desk are surprised at my lunacy!  God Bless and may all your obsessions be just as delicious as mine here in the folds of the Lilac Thicket.

Who 'dat?

It has been a long, hot and dry summer here in the Lilac Thicket.  I have been away from the blog for quite a while.  There is no one reason for my absence, other then life. 


The Professor did a wonderful thing a few weeks ago, he bought me beautiful flowers.  He had walked up to our Farmer's Market and brought home vegetables, homemade bread and a bunch of flowers that included gladiolas, Gerber daisies and a lovely stem of this lacy looking green fern.  I have the pictures now to enjoy as the flowers dried up.

The secluded Thickets all over are parched and brown.  Many trees are dropping their leaves and the farmer's crops are bad.  I found life in pictures of various flowers I have come across, like these knock out roses in Independence.

Our family has spent way too much time at our local hospital.  Brother 2 had his appendix rupture as the surgeon was removing them and then they couldn't stop his bleeding.  He ended going home for a couple of days and returning with a horrible huge abscess from tummy to back.  14 days in the hospital!  It was not fun for any of us, but he is going back to work on Monday.  Praise the Lord!

Mom ended up in the hospital this past Sunday when she couldn't breath.  She did the right thing by going to the emergency room.  She did the wrong thing by not calling any of us until the next morning.  She went home late on Monday with lots of medication to treat her severe bronchitis. 


On a lovely note she had the prettiest Hydrangea bush.  They were spectacularly colored blooms.

Last month down the street was a hibiscus bush with blooms as big as my face!  I had never seen those flowers with such huge blooms.  Of course I needed pictures.

This is a lovely bar stool that the Professor and I bought at the Thrift Shop for three dolla'!  I love it.


My schedule at work has changed and I am now off on Fridays and Saturdays so we miss the Monday half price sales.  That being said, the Thrift Shop is still my favorite place to haunt.

I fell in love with this lovely swing for sale up at my favorite HyVee.  Being a poor soul, I could only sit on it and ponder all the joy and peace I could enjoy resting in it at the Lilac Thicket.  It was gone the next day and I hoped someone had thoughtfully dropped it off at the Lilac Thicket, but alas...no!

I had mentioned in a post some months back that I had broke out the sewing machine.  I had made a really cute sun dress but it is too small and I became discouraged.  I have the dress hanging in the closet for the day when I lose enough weight to wear it.  I did start my inspiration book with a lovely pink blingy journal someone gave me.

I am filling it with swatches of some of the fabric in my stash and ideas of...

girlishly delicious elements and designs I like for my future creative endeavors.  I love ruffles and flowers!

Inspired by a t-shirt I saw being worn by a woman on television, I want to create my own blouse with fabric I have pulled in my own collection.  I envision a camisole style with a strip of one fabric around the bust and  then strips of different prints as the body.  I would like to overlay different lace pieces I have where the seams of the strips lay, down the entire seam.  I want a collar like this:

The tutorial is here: http://www.rufflesandstuff.com/2010/07/gardens-at-dusk-tank-tutorial.html

It has been too hot to do much cooking or baking.  Our little Thicket is only about 850 square feet so it quickly heats up.  It isn't too hot though to collect yummy sounding recipes.  I found a wonderful sale of locally grown zucchini which I shredded and froze for wonderful future bread.

I have been feeling super for the past couple of months.  I have lost some weight and I have been taking green coffee beans, just 2 with each meal and I have been losing weight even though I haven't changed what I eat.  The girls at work are doing this and some have lost and some haven't.  It was worth a try and it seems to be working for me.  I have a doctor appointment Monday so I will find out just how much I lost since March.

Mom gave me her tread mill.  I wanted it to walk, it really isn't like walking down the street, it is harder, I must be doing something wrong.


Well my dearest readers that is what is happening here, just simple life! Stay happy, Stay Blessed!  God Bless!