Makely

Some of the best things in the Pottery Barn catalog are not what they are selling, but what they are not. You may remember last year that my love (and I mean LOVE) of Peonies drew me to this PB photo.

Pottery Barn

Do you see that arrangement far back in the right corner? Let me zoom in.

If you look closely, you can see that the Pottery Barn stagers have added these gorgeous flowers to a big vase of seashells. I was so in love with this arrangement, that I made my own mini-version last summer.

Here we are almost a year later, and I am still obsessed with that arrangement. I’ve been patiently waiting for fresh cut peonies to come available in local stores this Spring. Sadly, they do not grow well in my area, so I am unable to grow my own.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into Whole Foods last weekend and found tons of gorgeous Peonies waiting on me to take them home! They were about $10 for a bunch of 5 (gasp!), but I’ve been waiting so long that it was worth the cost to me.

When I got home, I set out to put together a new and improved version of my Pottery Barn inspired Peony and seashell arrangement. This most recent bunch of flowers had beautiful leaves and long stems, so I wanted to do something a little different. After playing around for a few minutes, this is what I came up with:

To create this arrangement, I filled the bottom of a tall, round vase with some shells. I then added water and my Peony stems. Next, I poured more shells into the vase so that they filled about 2/3 of the vase, making sure they covered the bottom of the stems. Last, I tied a little piece of jute ribbon around the vase for a finishing touch.

I love this arrangement even more than I loved last year’s arrangement. You can do this at home, right now. Even if you don’t have a ton of shells laying around like I do or access to Peonies, you can use rocks and any sort of long-stem flower that’s cheap. If you do use rocks that you collect yourself, just make sure you wash them really well so bits of dirt won’t be floating around in your flower water!

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I’m sure you have been anxiously awaiting the announcement of the winner of the Quality Custom Designs giveaway. Well, if you are lucky commenter #94, then congrats!

Congrats to Kimberly W! I’ll be sending you an email later today so that you and Mandy can be in touch about your custom roman shade!

If you didn’t win, no worries. I have a summer FULL of giveaways going on! Check back each Thursday for something new and exciting from one of my fabulous sponsors. You won’t want to miss it!

Today, I’d like to talk about an uncomfortable subject – your toilet. Well, really I’d just like to talk about its’ lid.

Your toilet is unsightly. I don’t care how gleaming white it sparkles or how expensive that upgraded model cost. Seeing an open toilet is a reminder of what goes on *ahem* in there. Particularly if you have a bathroom in an easily seen part of your home (our powder bath is right off of the entry way), go ahead and keep that toilet lid closed.

Country Living

Other than an open toilet lid being an eyesore, there’s another good reason to keep that lid closed…

One day when my sister was about 6 months old (I was about four and on a playdate at a friend’s house), my mom was at home with her and my father decided to come home for lunch. Before he left to go back to the office, my dad walked into the master bathroom and found found a big surprise. There was a snake – and not just any snake, but a Water Moccasin – curled up on the toilet seat.

To say that my dad is terrified of snakes would be an understatement. He slammed the door shut and shoved bath towels underneath the crack between the door and the carpet. Clearly, he couldn’t let the snake escape the bathroom.

Panicked, my mom did what any other person would do – she called the police. How else were they going to get the snake out of the bathroom? The Police Department in our small town recommended that she call Animal Control. Unfortunately, Animal Control’s offices were closed for lunch. Desperate, my mom called back to the Police Department and demanded that someone come out and help. I’m pretty sure that tears were involved, although that has never been confirmed.

A few minutes later, two of our small town’s finest, came roaring into our driveway – lights flashing, sirens blazing. My parents led them into the bathroom, where they came face-to-face with the snake.

Unsure of how to proceed, the police did the only thing they could think of – they knocked the snake off of the toilet, followed it as it slithered into the bedroom, and then beat it to a bloody pulp with their billy clubs – all on my mother’s brand new carpet. Once the snake was nice and smashed, they tied a rope around it and carried out outside to the trashcan.

The next day, my parents had a plumber visit the house. They wanted to know if there was some sort of snake trap they could put in the toilet to ensure that the scene would never, ever be repeated. You see, we lived across the street from a neighborhood lake in a newly developing area, and it was determined that the snake must have somehow gotten into the sewer system through the open plumbing pipes at one of the new homes. The plumber laughed at the snake trap request and said, “Well, the only thing you can do is to keep ‘yer lid shut.“

This story may sound like an urban legend, but I can assure you that it is not. It was such a big news in our little town, that the local newspaper actually ran a story on it. My mom still has a copy of the story tucked away in an old photo album. I’ll try to find it the next time I am at my parents’ house so I can show you proof.

To this day, I never go into the bathroom at night without turning on the lights, and I always keep my toilet lid shut. How about you?

Perfect Pottery Barn Inspired Peonies

Shut ‘Yer Lid