Cucumber on my Eyes, and I am All Set.

I have spent the weekend doing some much-needed domestic chores, getting ready for a party I'm hosting tomorrow. Man, am I out of practice doing the hosting thing. There's a lot of cleanup involved, let me tell you. Back in the day, when I used to throw parties all the time, I seem to remember it being no big deal - but that was before I Saw The Light, started knitting, and stopped doing housework.

But, I recently got this cool book in a $4.99 bin at Save-On Foods:


and it has inspired me to create this:



Pretty twinkles! It's just a crystal vase filled with minilights (the string goes down the back side, behind the mantle, and then through the chiffon fabric tacked to the edge of the mantle) into which I poked three beaded "floral picks" I got from the Dollar Store...invested the enormous amount of $1.50 on each of them. The room was very dark when I took that picture, so you can't see the picks really well, but I assure you they are lovely.

And, in the dining room, this -- which I have to say is the start of maybe the most fabulous table I've ever set --




It's a scrap of peach-coloured georgette in my mum's punch bowl, with about 25 mini-lights coiled inside it. Then I scrounged around til I found a glass plate that fit inside the punch bowl, to hold down the lights and provide a level surface on top of which I can put flowers, or cut-up veggies, or whatever I like. I haven't quite figured out what to do with the rest of the light string, yet - I tried winding some of it around the milk-glass pedestal plate in the foreground, and I think that looks nice too...it's just the cord I need to deal with. If my future holds a lot of mini-light decorating, I think I will have to invest in some battery-powered strings. I'm sure I'll come up with something, but any suggestions you have would not be taken amiss. Anyone? Jenny?


It did occur to me, as I was wrassling 450 minilights around my home, that this might be on the verge of too weddingy. But then I realized that the absence of white tulle, and the presence of taste and judgment, would avert that particular calamity.

And now I am off to bed. In an effort to stave off the cold I suddenly feel coming on, I have just finished a rather vile drink comprised of very hot water, the juice of half a lemon, and one drop of lavender essential oil. Though I highly respect essential oil in all its external applications, I have to say that, taken orally in water, it is absolutely disgusting. It has a disquieting way of cleaving to the palate.

Hopefully more knitting next post, unless I am prostrate on my bed with a raging fever, lifting my fainting head only to hoarsely berate Mr HalfSoledBoots for insisting I get the Flu Shot. In which case, I'm sure you can understand that my fingers will be too busy flipping him off to type.