Good Clutter

I do like the Clean House shows and Designed to Sell, but certainly can't live with their less is more philosophy. It really does work to sell a house, I'm sure, but to live in??? No, thanks. When we moved from our big old house to our new little house, I toyed with the idea of no clutter, which lasted about 24 hours. The former owner had NOTHING on the kitchen counters, shelves had only one item per shelf on it. I thought, how nice to have counter space, then quickly came to the realization that I hated the vacant spaces. I filled up the counters with cookbooks and little shelves and antique smalls, and smiled big, clutter is me. A friend of mine is the exact opposite, he loves sparse, and used to tease me. Once, I went to his house and found a duck decoy on the coffee table "Look, Elaine, I decorated just for you!" We also had the exact opposite idea about antiques, he thought why on earth would you pay that much for an antique when you could have new, me saying why on earth would you pay that for something new when you can have something old? I also admit to having complete decorators ADD, I love so many styles and although primitive is my favorite, I do mix it up, adding my Italian Renaissance paintings and statues right next to the cabins and dough bowls. I think they are happy together. Now, if my clutter were cleaner, I wouldn't complain, but that is another matter altogether!

I have tons of good stuff to list this week, love those cute little cardboard animals that I will be auctioning, starting to think spring with some robins egg blue, with plans for more appley greens to come, plus I have some great prims that just need to be black, busy, busy busy!

I have to mention my lovely food weekend. We went back to the Power Company and got to splurge with ordering steak Oscar, a divine tenderloin topped with crab, asparagus and bernaise, it was heaven. To thank my husband for taking us, I made walnut chicken for us last night, I'll write that recipe down and include it in a future blog, it has a port wine sauce to pour over chicken with walnuts and bacon, not possible to eat without making yummy sounds.