Spread thin

I am spread a little thin right now, but with all the newness there is a perma-grin stuck on my face.Over the past few days I have focused on the garden, in all it's zen glory. Today was a change of pace. It's a little bit of a mad dash on Tuesdays, such as today, since that is the day all our kiddos are in school. All day. So I jam a ton in and have way too high of expectations of what can be accomplished. Today I met with a painter, plasterer, electrician, carpenter, general contractor, had 4 A/V guys in the house all day and still carved out 2 hours to hunt for home furnishings stuff in La Jolla.

I love to find bargains AND I love to design rooms, so this was like speed dating for me. Quickly I honed in on the main design drag. I skipped the Bang and Olufsen and other chains and darted through the design shops. One was all white-washed and grey washed stuff that was tagged "french antique" but wasn't. Another had heavy dark italian legit antiques. Serendipity lead me to a third that was having a tag sale on all their floor samples because they are moving down two blocks. First of all, I don't like to wait 4-6 weeks for furniture (which always ends up being 8-9 in my experience), AND I love a deal. As my friend Gail said to me once, "It's true, you can go broke saving money with deals like these!" So I "found" their asian antique display cabinet, which wasn't really for sale, but since they were moving they got the owner on the phone. Meanwhile I scooped up a linen couch with down upgrade fill, a charcoal leather wingback, another dark leather office chair (to replace the kitschy one I'm sitting on right now), two side chairs, a rug, and two Janus-et-Cie sit-upons. Phew! Good haul.

Back home I zigged and zagged to bring everyone home, quickly changed them and took them to their riding lessons. Homework, homemade pizzas, Dirty Jobs and then 40 minutes of reading. We packed it all in. Then the dog got diarrhea. So I got to bath her and I'm waiting on 3 extra loads of laundry. Wheeeeee.

Goodnight.