Holy Hathor! Where'd The Time Go?

Hola darlings!  Normally this time of year I'm totally bonkers, scratching around the back 1/12th acre looking for grass and treasure underneath a couple feet of snow.  Except, this year, we never got any 60 below zero temperatures nor tons of snow either, so my brain is all confused. So far for January, a measley 12 inches or so, and that's on top of about ZERO measureable snow in December, 2011.  U-N-B-E-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-E!  What's a woman to do? 
Guess it's NO WONDER I'm spending my bonkers time this winter looking at budget decorating blogs and doing stuff that - well, maybe I've got advanced Alzheimer's and I just don't know it yet, but you'd think my friends (or the people at work) would have told me?  But - maybe they did, or tried to, and I just don't remember...
OY!  What's an out of her mind woman to do? 

Nothing.  That's a fat lot of what I did today - about NOTHING!  Yeah yeah yeah, I finally got the remains of the Christmas Tree split apart, tied up in its special sheet and dragged (drug?) out to the garage and its own teensy weensy box that it never came in (it's the box my replacement microwave came in a few years ago).  Thus ends another season.  WHEW!

Except -- except, the living room looks bare naked now. And, it looks off-kilter.  Surely this cannot be the first time that it seems the fireplace is not exactly centered on the wall where it was installed in 2002?  Please tell me I'm not imagining it and it is perfectly centered!  Alas, I'm not happy with this room at all.

It never ceases to amaze me what a difference the angle of light can make in a photograph!
The Christmas Tree used to be in front of the window.  Sob, sob, sob... all naked now.

I shoved furniture this way and that way, but not - that way (if you know what I mean.  Darlings, it's just too damn provocative to put my furniture like that!)  Sucking-up vacuum close behind trying to eradicate the offspring-of-glitter. 

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME????  This arrangement has made perfectly good sitting and situational sense for several reasons (I only use the front entrance which is just to the right of the photo, above, and I cannot put anything in the path from front door to kitchen at the back of the house, just beyond the stairs you see in the top photo.)  I have heretofore always been happy with it.  Why now, then, do l feel the urge to junk the entire room and start all over, when the budget just will NOT allow? 

I tell you, it's those insidious "budget" decorating blogs.  Ha!  They have sucked me in, lock stock and barrell-shaped waist line. 

Oh, I vacuumed, and vacuumed, and vacuumed (the insidious glitter is everywhere, breeding even as I'm typing this...), and I shoved things around this way and that, and shook out the rugs, and dusted and wiped and swiped.  With plenty of wine breaks in-between, naturally.  And while I was taking those wine breaks, I was looking at dozens and dozens of linked-in "projects-of-the-month", etc. etc. at budget decorating blogs and added several special blogs to my list of Favorites.

I mean, this was serious work (going through those blogs).  I spent nearly the entire day at it, from when I crawled out of bed in search of coffee at 7:15 a.m. until I began typing this.  That's why I haven't even attempted to make a blog entry until now, and it's nearly 7 p.m. local time.

Then I got sappy, and kept in the RED CHRISTMAS LIGHT BULB in the corner lamp, because it reminds me of VALENTINE'S DAY.  Right now, do you know darlings, there are actually online CONTESTS going on over who has the best-decorated Valentine's Day fireplace mantle?  I kid you not!  I think I have caught some kind of budget decorating blog virus...

But that cognizance didn't stop me one whit!  Nope!  I just kept on with the Valentine's Day decorating - ala Maison Newton style.  I dug out a really old old mop of silk roses and stuck them in a vase that is now on the dinette table - on top of the new RED tablecloth.  Yes, heart's-blood red, da-thump, da-thump...

I rationalized away this bit of insanity by saying to myself "Self, the ladies of the investment club will really appreciate this lovely token of remembrance of this ancient holiday with its truly pagan roots when you meet again on February 12th..."  AND, as if that wasn't enough, I created a "vignette" on the side table underneath the lamp with the RED LIGHT BULB.  I added a mini-bouquet of silk roses in a tarnished silver-plate vase that Mom gave to me years ago.  I did not polish the tarnish off the vase!  This is like a major breakthrough, as I'm given to believe that tarnish is part of the shabby-chick ethic. Shabby-chic ethic.  Whatever.  Then I tossed in an old photograph of Mr. Don and I taken when we were still madly in love with each other (in 2002, LOL!)  and - I cannot believe I actually did it, but I did it -- I lit a votive candle inside of a sentimental favorite glass votive holder that I bought at a Pottery Barn (no joke!) in downtown Chicago probably in 1993. 

I even attempted to take photographs, but I have no idea how to take photographs with this camera (or any other camera) in the dark!  But snapped away I did.

Mad, I tell you.  Mad.

I think the Devil took this particular shot with my camera...

Anyway, it's now 7:04 p.m. and darlings,  TODAY THE U.S. FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIPS WERE ON COMMERCIAL TELEVISION!

And I had no idea they were on!  There I was, farting around all day with the Christmas Tree and sheets and vacuuming and putzing around and looking at all these blogs online, and then I just happened to look in the t.v. thingy that comes with the Sunday Journal/Sentinel about 4 p.m. and lo and behold - I see the skating championships  WERE ON COMMERCIAL T.V.!  Click click click got the recently established from upstairs to downstairs mini (19 incher) flat screen digital t.v. turned on and cursed the crappy reception (it was tres windy out there today, darlings, that's why I didn't venture out, not in 30-40 mph winds -- those blasted winds not only wreak havoc with my balance, they also wreak havoc with my t.v. reception, which I'm totally dependent upon since I'm too cheap to get cable).  So, I was able to watch the final hour of Ice Dancing, but I missed Davis and White, or is it White and Davis?  You know, he's really cute but has too much moppy blonde hair and her eyes are too far apart...  But they are smoking hot together when they hit the ice and who's looking at her eyes then, I ask you!  I've always wondered, though, if she isn't part alien-from-outerspace.  Well, have you never watched X-Files???

How could I have not possibly been aware that the U.S. Figure Skating Championships were taking place THIS WEEKEND?  Now, this is significant because normally this time of year, other than tearing up the turf in the backyard with my hoofs, er, gardening tools in a premature frenzy due entirely to Cabin Fever, I am counting down the days to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. I am fretting - who will be top woman?  Who will be top - well, okay, nothing else counts except who is the top female singles skater.  Except - not this year.  That, in and of itself, is just damn scary I wasn't even aware that it was this weekend and actually on commercial television! 

All is not lost, however!  The Great Event -- the Ladies' Free Skate -- will be televised tonight at 8:00 p.m.!  HOORAY!  So I have not missed the most important part after all...

Gasp!  I have no idea who even is in first place at this point.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?  I'm more interested in doing a Valentine's Day vignette than tracking the figure-skating championships which actually impact real people and real lives?  This is just so damn totally strange-O, people.  Strange-O!

Okay, it's 7:54 p.m. now and time to change the channel from PBS and Jacques Pepin old cooking shows to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on NBC.  Alas, things just are not the same since Michelle Kwan retired some years ago.  Mirai Nagasu, where are you???