Monday morning

Welcome to all who have visited from The Ultimate Blog Party. I was quite late in joining the party but it is loads of fun already. Thanks to 5 Minutes For Mom for coming up with the idea. I thought my usual Sunday Afternoon Tea party would work just fine!

I was out early this morning, soon after Goodwill opened its' doors for the day. There have been two place settings of a Noritake china on the shelf for awhile which would look great with my wedding china (of which I only have five place settings). Today they would go to half price and YES, they were still there. I purchased only the two available dinner plates and two salad plates for that is all I normally use of my wedding china, anyway. I'm so pleased with them. I don't purchase much china (except tea cups!) as I have plenty right now but these has been on my "look for" list a long time. Sigh...as I've said before, you know you've been married awhile when your wedding china has been discontinued. :)

I was up until Midnight last night, reading through The Simple Home by Sharon Hanby-Robie. What a wonderful "decorating" book. There aren't a lot of pictures but it is full of information for designing a house, decorating a house, and living in a house....for simplicity and to make your home a refuge. I thoroughly enjoyed that book. I was going to send it to my daughter when I finished but instead, put it on my own bookshelf to review later. (Okay, so she won't have time to read with a new baby, anyway!).

The book reminded me of how we purchased our two formal living room sofas. At our former house, I'd decorated all in shades of reds and greens (mostly hunter green and burgundy) so when I was purchasing a sofa and love seats, I'd intended to stick with that color. After my husband and I spending a long time looking at furniture, we both fell in love with a set that had softer greens, blues and mauve in a pattern that looked like plaid. It was much more feminine looking than we'd planned to purchase but it was complimentary to the remainder of the house because it had lighter shades of the colors we already were using.

When I was looking for a living room sofa last year, I had planned to purchase a more feminine look once more. After looking again for weeks (and consulting with my daughter on the cell phone since she WAS an interior designer), we ended up with a very masculine looking "tweedy" sofa which looked like it belonged in Hemingway's parlor. I am so glad we kept looking until we both felt at peace about the decision for it is perfect in this living room. It gives the look of an English Gentleman's library which complements the very vintage feminine look of the dining room niche.

If you saw the number of decorating and design books I have on my shelves, you'll know why I have just spent part of a blog talking about a sofa, hehehe.

Now...we're off to the library to "work" the library sale this afternoon. It's the $2.00 a bag day so it is very easy to be the cashier today. My son is always scheduled for Monday afternoons since his big job is to help them break down everything from the sale. Will be back to chat tomorrow!