the swap meet strikes again!

so today . . . i learned a few things.

1. i prefer mediterranean ocean views to hawaiian ocean views.

2. all palm trees are not the same. some palm trees look like they are coming to eat me.

3. rollie likes paintings of red poppies (yay!)

4. i am a terrible judge of space and size. (and age and weight, but those two aren't really relevant to today's blog.)

5. i need to drink more water.

every saturday morning rollie plays basketball at the church. he leaves early and usually gets home between 10:00 and 11:00. most saturdays this works great for me! i sleep in and just take it easy. but every once in a while, i get this urge to go do something fun. and today, my urge to go do something fun just happened to coincide with a non-basketball saturday for rollie and our need for some new artwork...

that, of course, meant just one thing. orange county swap meet, baby!

we have lived in our new house for seven months now, and there is nothing hanging on our walls. nothing. the furniture is all in place. the boxes are all emptied (well, except for the book boxes--i need to get a bookcase.) we are all settled in. except that there is nothing on the walls.

when we moved, i decided i didn't just want to hang everything back up. we've been looking at the same photos and artwork for the last 20 years, and i decided it was time for a change. so i put all those photos and decorative items into boxes and spent the last seven months looking at blank walls. and that has been ok, but it feels like spring is just around the corner, and that always makes me feel like prettying things up.

in the past, our walls have mostly been decorated with photos. i love photos! but it seems like once i frame a photo and hang it up, it's place is secured until the end of time. i've heard that there are people who actually change the photos on their walls occasionally, but i am not one of those people. once a photo is up, i can only add to the arrangement. i cannot take it down. the result of this sort of thinking is that my walls become "cluttered" with photographs.

i've worked really hard to get rid of stuff and keep our new house clean and clutter-free. it just feels calmer to me that way. cleaning now trumps cuteness. i watch all these shows on hgtv where they come in and redo rooms for people, and they always look beautiful! but now i look at all the stuff they "stage" and think, "who is going to dust all of that after the designers leave?!?" i am done with dusting stuff just because it is cute. i hate to dust! so my solution is not to clutter up every horizontal surface with things that require me to dust them.

this also goes for wall art. i love a good collage wall, but that means a lot of frames that have to be dusted and glass that needs to be cleaned. instead, i've decided bigger is better. bigger means less dusting! bigger means less confusing to the eye. bigger means i feel calmer.

but there is a limit...

our goal today was a nice big picture to hang in our bedroom. for the last ten years, our bed has had a window behind it, but now there is this big, blank wall. we have a vaulted ceiling in that room, and it is a large room, so i thought a nice large painting would be perfect. i've tried to give that room a calm and peaceful feeling, so we have light yellow walls, driftwood colored furniture and white trim. this decor screamed out for a beachy picture. i was thinking ocean, sand, and palm trees. and then we started actually looking at paintings...

i discovered that i hated the palm tree beach pictures. i didn't know why, i just rejected all of them. i was saying things like, "the colors are too vibrant," or "it looks too fake," or "it looks like a picture from a calendar," or "no huts with thatched roofs!" and then there were the snakey, carnivorous palm trees. they looked like they were coming to get me. they looked like if i didn't run fast enough, they would eat me for lunch! they were my worst nightmare!! i couldn't have those things hanging right above me as i slept... or i shoud say, as i tried to sleep!

this surprised me! i love palm trees!! but i was not loving the palm tree pictures...

what i was loving were the pictures of the mediterranean ocean views. we had the good fortune to visit santorini in greece several years ago, and there were some paintings of that location. i really loved those paintings! they were calm and serene, and they reminded me of how much we enjoyed that trip. the problem was, i have a small painting that we bought when we were in greece of santorini, so it seemed like two pictures so similar might be too much.

as we were flipping through all the paintings, we found one of red poppies. i love red poppies! (actually, it would be more accurate to say that i love pictures of red poppies. in person, i'm not such a fan. but show me any group of paintings, and if there are red poppies, that is probably going to be my favorite.) "i love those red poppies!" i said to rollie. "well," he replied, "they are the state flower of california." "really?" i said, "i guess i did not know that. they are just so happy looking." "yes," he said, "i like them too!" this was news to me. i didn't think rollie would be all that enthusiastic about any flower pictures, but he liked the poppies! we quickly decided that the poppies would be perfect in our living room, over the brown couch which will one day be a cool and stylishly sleek red leather couch. i hope.

we were making progress, just not in the direction we had planned. now we had a painting that we weren't even looking for, and we still didn't have one for the spot we needed. we looked and looked and looked, and finally decided on a painting of the marina on catalina island. the colors were perfect for our room, but the painting was really large. we asked if they had a smaller one, but they didn't. that was ok though, because as i said, we have vaulted ceilings...

we walked back to our car, each carrying a painting. and then we got to the car. it's a prius. i was looking at the large painting and looking at the prius and thinking, "we are going to have to call someone with a pickup truck to get this painting home!" have i mentioned that i don't really know anyone with a pickup truck who would be willing to drive all the way out to costa mesa on a saturday afternoon to pick up a painting for me??

maybe i need some new friends. preferably ones with a pickup truck and no life...

rollie was saying, "oh, ye of little faith..." as he put the back seats down and got that big painting into the back of his prius.

ok, maybe i don't need any new friends as long as i have rollie and his prius...

we were all smiley all the way home. we had found not one, but two paintings that we both loved! we were so excited to get them home and get them hung up. we brought them into the house and i propped the poppies up on the back of the couch, just to see how they were going to look. they were perfect!

then we went upstairs to hang the picture of catalina. and that's when the trouble began...

"it's going to be too big," i said. "it isn't going to fit! we are going to have to take it back!!" "let's just get it unwrapped and see," said my calm rational husband. "ok," i said, "but i can tell that it is too big." we unwrapped it and held it up where we wanted to hang it. yep. it was too big.

how could this be?!? it fit in the prius!! how could it not fit on the wall?!?! and what if we couldn't take it back? why hadn't i measured the space? or the painting?? i was getting a little bit panicky.

rollie was not. because even though it wasn't fitting in the space we had, it was close. so we started shifting things around, and we finally got it hung. (that is the short version. the long version included moving the bed several times, taking the 6" risers out from under the legs of the bed, and carrying the painting around the room to see if we had other options. this was all done by rollie, while i stood back and gave my opinion. and then of course, we ended up right back where we started. there are days when you don't want to be married to me...)

our house is starting to show some personality. when you walk into our living room, now it looks like people live here, not just like it is a storage room for furniture. and while that giant painting in the bedroom is a little overpowering right now, i do love it. and i think when i get some smaller things up on the rest of the walls, it will balance out.

at least i don't feel like it is going to eat me!

on a side note... one of the things i was looking for today at the swap meet were seat covers for my car. it sits in the sun with the top down sometimes, and i am worried about the fabric seats fading. there were lots of people selling seat covers, but these are the ones rollie thought i should get.do i even need to tell you what i thought about that??? i didn't think so...

"dude! i need some wicked cool shades..."

so today . . . was a perfect day in the o.c! and lucky for us, once again the planets aligned juuuust right so that we could go to the swap meet!

(i am just going to warn you, this is probably going to be a photo-heavy blog. so if you don't want to see a thousand pictures of sunglasses, you might want to log off right now.)

as you know, we love the orange county swap meet. i don't know why--it just sucks money out of our pockets. but we always have a fun time. and we always have an agenda...

today's agenda was mostly rollie's. he went to the eye doctor last week and is giving contact lenses a try for the first time. they are giving him fits, but he is doing his best to adjust to them, because he is concerned about his ability to see the basket when he plays basketball. (you notice his reason has nothing to do with anything even remotely humanitarian. it isn't like he is going through all this agony to save the world...) and so, now he needs sunglasses--really cool sunglasses--(which i think might also be a factor in the whole contact lenses vs. glasses debate.)

before we made it to the end of the first row at the swap meet, he had already bagged four pair of sunglasses, diandra had three pair, and even i had one. (i only bought one, because they were 2 for $10 and diandra had an odd number...)
it wasn't as easy as it sounds though. we had trouble before we even left the driveway. somehow diandra was in the car first, but when i walked out, she was already making a sad face. i whipped out my camera to take a picture... only to realize i didn't have my camera! thankfully, we were still in the driveway. i went into the house, retrieved my camera, and pointed it at her. but by then she was smiling... i tried to get her to make the sad face again, pressed the shutter on my camera... and nothing happened. as always, i pressed it over and over and over again, before finally giving in to the thought that my batteries must be dead. so, i went back into the house for fresh batteries... which also didn't work. now i was starting to get worried. i took the batteries out and put them back in again. i turned the camera off and on and off and on. and then i finally realized... my camera was set for viewing photos, not taking them.

maybe i should just choose a care facility now...

we finally made it out of the driveway, stopped at mcdonald's for an unhealthy breakfast, and made it to the swap meet by about 9:30--which may be the latest we have ever arrived at the swap meet. ever.

we have a set pattern for shopping the swap meet, but today when we walked in, there was a booth with sunglasses right in front of us. so instead of turning right and going up and down the rows in an orderly fashion, we went down the center aisle! i would have thought rollie would get hives over such a brash move, until i realized that we were following him straight to the center aisle...

at the first sunglasses booth, he was like a kid in a candy store. when you have worn glasses to correct your vision for your entire adult life, wearing regular sunglasses seems to be an unattainable luxury. you look at the cool sunglasses in the store, knowing you will never be able to wear them, (unless you are me, in which case you try to make the cool sunglasses fit over your regular glasses... with mostly disastrous results.) and so this was his first opportunity to put sunglasses directly on his face.

it was hysterical. he would put a pair on, look at us with a big smile on his face and say, "what about these?" to which one or the other, or sometimes both of us would reply with some form of "no." he had some very specific ideas about what he wanted, but we were mainly concerned with how they looked. rollie was all about function, and we were the style police. then diandra said, "here, try these!" this worked much better. we would choose glasses (and when i say "we" i mostly mean diandra,) and then rollie would try them on to see if he liked them.

by the end of the first row we had purchased eight pairs of sunglasses, (well, when they are only $5 a pair...) i had spent all my money (not just on sunglasses,) and diandra was ready for a soda. this was not our typical day at the o.c. swap meet!

rollie and i sat at a table while diandra bought a soda, and this is what happened.doesn't he look happy?did i mention how excited rollie was to have normal sunglasses? and lest you think he went a bit overboard, he was quick to inform me that each pair of glasses served a different function--one was for very bright light, one was for partially cloudy days, one was for driving the convertible on the freeway (the wind, you know...) and the last pair? ok, that was just because he liked the blue lenses :)

these are my new sunglasses. it is kind of hard to see it in this picture, but the side edges are all sparkly!! let me just say that i succumbed to peer pressure when buying these glasses. first of all, i do not wear contacts, so sunglasses are an issue for me. but these fit pretty well over my regular glasses, they were jeweled, and diandra said, "come on mom, get them!" so i did. (have i mentioned that i have very little sales resistance? especially on items costing less than $10?) and yes i was wearing a tank top--it was a beautiful day! rollie even wore shorts!!

as soon as we got home, rollie left to do an errand.
i think maybe he just wanted to take his favorite new sunglasses for a test drive...

another day at the o.c. swap meet

so today . . . we went to the orange county swap meet.

the planets have to align in just the right way in order for us to make this happen, because usually our family scatters on saturday mornings--rollie plays basketball, diandra usually has plans, and i generally sleep in.

but today, rollie did not play basketball, because they are laying new carpeting in the gym. and diandra was home, because there were no weddings and javier is training in kansas. and i, well, i agreed to get up at 7:30 so we could go to the swap meet!

we had a time deadline today, so we skipped mcdonald's and headed straight to the fairgrounds. once again, we each had goals--rollie needed a new belt, some folding scissors, and maybe some cherries. i was looking for the ever elusive perfect handbag and some sunglasses. and diandra? well, i am not sure what she was looking for . . .

at our first stop there were hairclips, earrings, headbands on sale at 3/$5. diandra found two pair of earrings and i found a hairclip. as diandra was pulling out her money to pay, i opened my bag and said, "i think i have a dollar in here . . . no, wait. i guess i left my dollar in my other purse!" diandra looked and me, and then she laughed. "you left your dollar in your other purse?!?" for some reason, she found this to be hilarious . . . maybe because i did have birthday and mother's day money to spend. but i didn't have a single dollar!

diandra soon decided she might want a sparkly cell phone cover. she considered having the crystals applied directly to the phone, but eventually decided on a jewelled snap-on cover.

we moved on. and i saw this:

this is daisy. you never know what to expect at the swap meet, but a dog in a stroller was definitely a surprise! i've seen dogs in handbags and back packs and front packs, but this was my first sighting of a dog in a stroller. and if ever you wanted to be bitten by a dog, you want to be bitten by this dog. this dog has a $3,000,000 liability insurance policy. yes, you read that right. three million dollars. daisy is a therapy dog for a local hospital. and the reason she is in a stroller is that they have to be very careful where she walks. she could pick something up on her feet that would be toxic to the patients she visits. so when she goes to the swap meet, daisy rides.

(i petted her, but she refused to bite me. which is kind of too bad, because i could use three million dollars.)

i was still thinking about daisy in the stroller, when i saw this:

yes, those are doggie sunglasses. and while they are currently on a fake dog, they were being sold to people for their real, live pets! i don't have a problem with dogs wearing sunglasses, but i'm pretty sure my dogs are not going to wait to go outside until i position their shades correctly . . . and, if my dogs are going to wear sunglasses, they are going to have to come up with something a little less goggle-like . . .

and speaking of dogs, look at this hat!

really? who would put this on a child?!? it looks like the husky is having diandra for lunch! (well, it would if she had tied the thing under her chin. but doesn't she look cute? even with a dog on her head?? she is such a good sport when we are at the swap meet, and i say "stand there! hold that! put this on your head!")

i had to backtrack to the bathrooms, because even though we didn't stop at mcdonald's this morning, i did bring a drink . . . and when i got back to rollie and diandra, they were standing just where i had left them--in front of a cookie stand! and they were both holding bags which i soon discovered held cookies and fruit. for some reason, we were going backwards today and had started with the food row, which is where we usually end our day. they looked pretty happy about it. sadly, i did not take a picture . . .

rollie's quest for a belt started out a little rocky. at first all we could find were studded and embellished belts, and after seeing these sunglasses, i was a little worried about finding what i was looking for too!

but we continued on. rollie got sidetracked at a booth with stuff for laker fans, and diandra was trying to discourage him from making a purchase. we told the vendor that we were blazer fans, because you can take the girls out of oregon, but you can't make them cheer for the enemy. rollie gave the vendor his most heart-wrenching "see what i have to put up with" look as he was eyeing the beverage containers. diandra pulled him away and said, "dad! those are beer mugs!" to which rollie replied, "no, it is just a mug. it isn't a beer mug unless you put beer in it."

as all this was going on, i was still looking for that perfect handbag. after our search last week, i think diandra had sort of given up on me finding one and had just given me money for mother's day. so i had cash, and there were several booths with lots of choices . . . you would think it would be easy. but it was not. there were so many choices! and it isn't like you can buy a bag, take it home and put your stuff in it, and then return it if you change your mind. so we looked, and discussed, and looked some more . . .

rollie said, "why don't they ever put the places selling couches next to the places selling purses!" i think he was maybe getting a little tired of standing around while we debated the merits of one strap or two, zippered openings or magnetic, colorful or neutral . . .

but rollie was finally rewarded when he found the splatting tomatoes.

and yes, i have video, but you know i am having trouble getting my videos to post. maybe tomorrow i can make it happen.

as is usually the case, rollie finished up before diandra and i did, but we weren't too far behind him. all of us had found some of the things we were hoping to find, and we had a great time together. on the way to the car, i made diandra pose for one last picture in front of some beautiful bougainvilla plants.

the sun finally came out, and it turned out to be a beautiful day. we went home with some treasures, but the good news is, we didn't find everything we were looking for.

and that is good news, because it means that we will have to go back to the o.c. swap meet again. of course, we will have to wait for those pesky planets to align . . .