I Hit the Motherlode!

Elli and I set out for an Ikea outing yesterday when we happened upon a local estate sale.  I have almost no ability to resist garage/yard/estate sale signs, so we detoured.  Fortunately, my Mr. shares in my sickness, so the only reprimand I receive from these detours is for going without him.

Anyway, I found FABULOUS! I can not wait to post these treasures in our shop! Hats! Scarves!  Bohemian Beads! Polka dots! Ruby depression glass! Linen!

I'm beyond giddy. 

The Shop!

We did it! We've finally launched Entropy: The Shop. And just in time for the holidays! We even shipped our first order this week!

We're small right now, but are growing daily. Please stop by and check out the goods...

We're selling some of our fabulous vintage finds:

My funky bohemian designs:

And Klee's delectibles!

And, if you ever see something you want from one of my blog posts, please message me, I'll do my best to accommodate!

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Necessity, the Mother of... Sanity

After months of negotiating with a toddler over all pantry items below the four foot mark, I decided to accept the reality that the pantry is no longer my jurisdiction

So, we are trying something new...

Welcome to Elliott's bistro!

The chef is in.

And the customers are lining up.

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What To Do With Old Branches and Tin Cans?

Make a towel hook/vase for the half bath!

A bulky towel rod in a bathroom that has neither a tub nor a shower just makes no sense at all.

Peace out!

Painter's Tape and A Little Bit of Psychosis

I promise there is a deep and provocative blog entry brewing within me, and I will write it soon, but not today.  I simply don't have the mental organization to pull it off.

So, I'll share another of my recent OCD projects...
The staircase!


Our staircase was beaten up and painted white (at some point long, long ago).  Now, I like white railing very much in the right setting, but these stairs are in a vaulted stark-white entryway, leaving the railing virtually invisible.












After a lot of playing with colors, I changed all that.

In general, when I paint I like to free-hand all of my trim.  I learned years ago that using painter's tape just takes a lot of extra time and the edge never looks as clean.  However, when I'm painting in tough corners, or in patterns which require meticulous lines (like stripes on a wall), I reluctantly pull out the blue rolls of sin. It's a love/hate thing.  It seems no matter how careful I am, when I go to pull the tape off, I find drips and bleeds.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

This is an OCD nightmare.  Especially if I've mixed my own colors, as I did here, and have limited quantity of paint for touch-ups.  I hover over these lines for hours with my magnifying glass and that familiar lump of anxiety in my chest.  But, eventually, I remember that sometimes you just have to step away from the project and take your little blue pills.


In the end, I make my peace with the madness,
and it all works out...

And, just in time for fall!

I Own Very Few Articles of Clothing That Don't Have Paint Spatter Somewhere

Paint is always close at hand in my world.  The other day Klee asked if I wanted to toss out the hideous pink curtains that came with the house.  I had been using them as drop cloths for painting the cabinets.  He figured, since the cabinets were done, I was done painting, so the curtains could go.

Oh, Klee.  The painting is never done...

Klee's old nightstand (which spent a year outside)

I found the paint at the rejected paint
stand at Lowes ($2.00!)
The knobs were on sale at Anthropologie

The Office (Devil Birds Included)

View from my bed

Before I get started, I have to comment on the duck.  I'm sitting here, on my bed, and I hear a quack from the creek below.  How completely cool is that!? (I never know what punctuation to use when I'm both questioning and excited. There needs to be a third option.)  And the duck is not alone!  I have been spied on by both deer and wild turkey.  And, somewhere in those trees is a horrid screeching devil bird and some form of bear-dog.

I also believe it is skunk season, as I have passed far too many aromatic road-kills these past few weeks.  I always liked the scent of a distant skunk.  Kinda feels like home (weird?).  But, up close, it loses that homey charm.

I really want to share my latest project with you.  Please excuse my tangent-riddled brain.  She's tired.  Also, the lyme symptoms are back and doing a number on her clarity.

Well, we've been working on our backyard this month.  I can't even describe how calming it is to finally have life out there.  (I will show you before and after pics in a future blog.)  One of the major improvements, of course, is the grass!  It arrived on our driveway in one big square pile of dirt burritos. I wanted to surprise Klee when he came home from work, so I managed to muster my superhuman strength, which seems to kick in when I'm in project mode, and lugged each of those muddy rolls to the backyard.

I was delighted to find a large wooden pallet at the bottom of the heap.  I couldn't wait to play.  As the ideas developed, I knew that one pallet would not suffice.  So, Klee and I set out to scavenge for more.  They're everywhere!  But they aren't all for the taking.  Some businesses reuse their pallets, so we had to make sure via lookout man and getaway van that they were free to take.  We collected all different sizes and color shades. Treasure hunting is kind of our thing.


So that's a whole lot of typing to tell you that I made some cool stuff out of wood pallets... and other materials like a big cardboard piece, tin cans, rebar twisties, etc..

Since Klee and I are both creative types, we decided to designate a wall in our bedroom to be our "ideas" wall.  We weren't sure just how we would go about this until our magic pallet appeared.

The great thing about pallets is that they are pretty much pre-assembled (take that Ikea!).  However, you will most likely want to embellish yours.  In this case, I cleaned and lightly sanded some of the really rough spots.  Then I applied just one coat of paint, as I wanted the character of the wood to show through.  I backed it with a large piece of cardboard, covered in fabric, which I had laying around (I have crap like that stashed all over the place).  The purpose of the fabric and cardboard was to serve as a pinboard, possibly sparing the wall from unsightly pricks.  This turned out to be mute, however, as I then proceeded to use eight screws to install the piece.  Mama likes her power tools.

Once the pallet was mounted, I played...

My tin can project (in process)

Card Klee gave me, telling me I was
courageous; and some shells
 from our beach trips

Sentimental frame, postcard, jars of rocks, and vintage
hat which I bought at a thrift store in Santa Cruz
when I was about 17 years old 

And, what idea wall is complete without a desk?

I plan to add glass to the top.  It turns out,
a desk with large gaps, has some drawbacks 

And, cool antique kitchen cart, which Klee and I found on an unrelated treasure hunt a while back.









The wall has two square windows which I've only slightly covered.  I will most likely add to them eventually.

I used wire, curtain rings and
fabric-like paper

It's still a work in progress, but, I guess that's the whole point of an "idea" wall, right?  It will change with each new piece of inspiration, or project.

Two Years of Entropy, Let's Celebrate!

In honor of the two year anniversary of My Groovy Entropy, I give you cupcakes...

Kahlua chocolate with chocolate raspberry ganache

Yellow cake with lemon zest, topped with lemon curd and
cream cheese frosting

Edible flowers from mom's garden:
nasturtium, pansies, roses

Chocolate covered espresso beans and
cookies to top it off

Two full years of entropy; still looking for my groove.  Stay tuned...

Fast Forward

Tidbits and thoughts from my life since May-ish...

In May, we managed to find a new home to rent.

Finding a rental, in a renter-saturated market, when your credit has been obliterated, is kinda like childbirth... Ugly, painful, and better with drugs.

Fortunately, after only a few (6) denials, we were able to find a home with enough cosmetic flaws to make us look  not-so-delinquent good to the landlord.

So, we've been sanding, painting, fighting, drilling, nailing, crying, and... Repeat.  

View from my bedroom window

But you know me.  I LOVE my projects.  So, it kinda feeds my insanity.  Actually, this home is perfect.  The more we paint, prune, and prop, the more ours it becomes.  And it sits right above a creek with a mountainside of trees.  I still can't believe we live here.

June brought graduations and summer vacation.  My boys were promoted to middle school.  My daughter was promoted to high school. And I was promoted to... old.

After the graduations, we headed to Yosemite for Klee's family's annual reunion.  Apparently, the cabins, which they usually reserve, were all booked up, so we stayed in tents.
I know you die-hards think this sounds great, but from where I was not sleeping, an 8 month old baby, 30 degree nights, and bears, was just a little too close to nature.

Of course, Yosemite was amazing when I was thawed out enough to stop shaking.

We were so lucky to be invited to Morro Bay to spend the fourth of July with Klee's family.  It was amazing to be able to give my kids an actual vacation.



We spent hours on the beaches, perused the antique shops, and even saw a movie!

Affogato

But the best discovery was the Affogato.  It should require a prescription as I'm pretty sure it would heal most ails.  I'm looking into it. Anyway, Affogato go now.  (snork, snork)







July 24th was my mother's 70th birthday, so we loaded up and headed down to Ventura county to throw her a birthday bash, complete with cupcakes and pinata.  The cupcakes filled my need to obsess perfectly.  The pinata was just hillarious.  It withstood everyone's blows until my brother, Darin, finally took it down to the ground Rocky style.

While we were down south, Darin and I took a day to go visit our 100-year-old grandfather, Herb Wiles, aka Papa Bear.

I treasured the chance to sit and chat with Papa Bear and his enormous cat, PrinceKit.

(My younger brother's girlfriend, Meagan, theorizes that PrinceKit is just compensating for all of the pictures, etc., of large tigers and lyons that my grandfather keeps around.)

While we were there, Papa showed us an old painting of Darin's.







We're back home now.  Back into our projects...

School starts Monday.  My baby girl is racing toward her freshman year. My boys start middle school, officially leaving me stupified by the passing of years.

Elliott is crawling, pulling up on everything that might put his life at risk, and discovering the joy of chewing his food.

Klee and I are pushing through the chaos.  Looking for our way in it all; skinning our knees quite a bit.  Wondering... if these are the dog days, what's next?

My boys and me, in the dirt.