Two Wishes

Technical Difficulties

The bad news -- my computer died.

The better news -- we were planning to replace it this week anyway. How's that for timing?!?

It does mean a few more days of blog silence. But if you're patient, I promise some excitement when I return. I'm having my first giveaway, and it's a good one!

Small Sign of Life

Hello, everyone. 

I have not forgotten you.  In fact, I spend far too much time worrying about the lack of posts.  (Or regretting that I have not emailed commenters to tell them how much their comments mean to me -- hopefully you all know that's true?)  And as for blog reading?  I'm so far behind that today I did the unthinkable -- one press of the "Mark All Read" button on Bloglines, and 700+ unread posts were wiped clean.  I never seem to turn on the computer these days, and in my absence the ever-changing Internet, once my lifeline and my addiction, has become the 200-pound yoke around my neck.  

Wallaby at 3 weeks: So innocent, so beautiful ... such an unreasonable tyrant

Wallaby has been at atom bomb dropped in the midst of our comfortable lives.  She never sleeps for more than 90 minutes at a stretch -- in fact, 90 minutes is a rare gift! -- and she demands to be held 24/7.  Even if you think she's asleep and you can just ... sneak away ... for a minute ... the second her head hits the sleeper, she's awake and voicing her displeasure.

I am blessed with more help than most new mothers -- Mr T fully shares the parenting responsibilities, and my mother takes over for many hours a day.  Most days, we all get 8 hours of sleep.  (In crazy, stitched-together bits and pieces, but 8 hours nonetheless.)  But I am ill, my mother has health challenges of her own, and Mr T has to juggle baby with work....  

In short, we are exhausted.

I promise you posts.  Once I emerge from this fog and start paying attention to the outside world again, I can even promise that most will be baby-free....  But please bear with us while we resolve our technical difficulties.

Many thanks,

The Management

Change to Our Comment Form

I don't know whether it's possible to have "a touch of dyslexia," but I'm convinced that I do. For the most part it's not a problem. I've been a voracious reader since early childhood, and usually I just know what a word is supposed to be. The troubles only appear with foreign words, unusual names, and sometimes numbers. (And oddly, the letters d, b, and p are basically the same thing in my brain.)

But lately the Internet has thrown a new curveball my way. I speak, specifically, of these -- the bane of my modern existence:

Because these tests use random letters rather than recognizable words, my brain doesn't process them easily. At best, they take way too much thought, and at worst, I consistently get them wrong and have to try again.

So, in one small step for people like me, I have removed them from our comment process.  (You might still get one if a spam sensor is triggered.)  Just please don't take advantage of this opening to tell us all about your medical breakthroughs, financial tips, hot schoolgirl pics, or V1@gra deals.... Deal? Thanks!

Martha, Martha, Martha (Revisited)

Sorry for all of yesterday's troubles with the live blogging software!  (For anyone who subscribes by email, no I did not blog in Latin.  Don't know where THAT came from....)

Here's a cut-and-paste of the big event:

9:49

We are through the door and in our seats -- I'm sitting next to several other Weddingbee bees and met more on the way in the door, whee!   The audience warm-up man is insanely cute.   I want to take him home and so he can give me motivational speeches three times a day.

9:51

The studio is gorgeous.   And freezing.   I recognize lots of Martha's Macy's products scattered around the studio....

9:52

For other ANTM fans, I suspect I saw Nigel Barker walking up the stairs while we were waiting.   If so (or even if it was someone else), he was gorgeous.   As were his very pregnant wife and small child.

9:57

Darcy Miller just asked for a photo with Bee!   She (and of course I mean Bee) is such a celeb.

10:02

Martha's here and the show is on, y'all.   I have mixed feelings on the whole Martha phenomenon (perhaps we'll discuss later), but she is seriously darling in person.

10:07

Martha just gave cameras to her associated bloggers.   Now I feel extra guilty for forgetting my own camera at home.   People are snapping pics left and right (at least, they were before the show started).   Well, y'all know what Martha looks like, right?

10:11

Perez Hilton will be on after this commercial break.   When the warm-up guy announced it, everyone was like "Paris Hilton, whoohoo!"   Then people figured out it was Perez.   Oh.   Um, okay, guess he's interesting too....

10:24

Bee is also live blogging over at Weddingbee.   Hers is far more informative than mine.   I actually drifted off for a bit and emailed Mr T.   Used to be skeptical of married people who are all, "aw, I'm apart from my honey for a few days and it's so saaaaad."   I always figured it's a good opportunity for girl time.   But, you know, this is our first couple of nights apart since the wedding....  And it's so saaaaaaad!!

10:28

They're making cookies.   Now I'm hungry.   And freezing!   And my laptop battery is disappearing at an alarming rate -- excuse me in advance, if I disappear without warning before the show is over.

10:35

Earlier, Martha and Perez Hiilton were discussing the amount of celebrity information available on the Web.   Martha's salary came up, and she said of course that's available in her public filings.   And PH asked something along the lines of "And is it correct?"   The SEC lawyer in me kind of loved that one.

10:37

She's doing crafts with one of her editors, Eddie Ross.   Apparently he's a contestant on Top Design this season.   I've only watched one episode this season, but I don't remember him at all.   I even remember the interview from the clip they just showed, but somehow he, the interviewee, never made it into my brain.   Will have to root for him now!

10:42

Two "political bloggers" from the Politico website.   I dedicate my audience participation in this segment to Mr T, who reads a zillion political blogs.   I love that about him, in part because it means I don't have to -- whenever something interesting comes up, I just ask him for all the details.

(In other news, apparently Sarah Palin reminds Martha of her friend Sharon.   Random, I know.   But you heard it here first!)

10:51

They're discussing gardening.   I recently read that gardening is incredibly healthy -- not the food necessarily, but the actual digging in the dirt.   Sadly, we only have fake plants at home.   And the cats eat them anyway!

10:58

Big audience pan.   Get ready everyone!   (In other news, "hi" to Grandma, who's watching this at home.   No idea if she'll actually get to see me in the audience.   Though they got as close as the woman next to me ... a/k/a Mrs. Toucan.)   And just as I typed that, they photographed it from behind.   Pigtails and a green print shirt, if you were watching!

10:59

And we're out.   But we're all getting HP wireless printers.   Yay!!!

10:59

My laptop is extremely close to dead, so I'll catch you all later for a wrap up.   Thanks for following along!!!

A couple of postscripts:  First, here's a photo of Bee and Darcy Miller, from Darcy's blog:

Also, thanks to the hard-hitting journalistic resource known as US Magazine, I have confirmed that Nigel Barker's and wife are expecting a baby in December.  So that was definitely them spotted yesterday morning.  What an incredibly attractive family!

Woohoo, We're Getting Fancy Now!

Just a note to say I've been working on a few technical changes here at Two Wishes in the past couple of days.... There are now handy subscription links on the bottom left side of the page, including a link for our new FeedBurner email-based feed. (If you're not familiar with this FeedBurner feature, it can send blog updates directly to your inbox.)

I've also added a link to the brand-spankin'-new IndiePublic blog ring. IndiePublic is sort of a MySpace for independent designers, bloggers, crafters and artists, and the shoppers who love them. It's a vibrant community of interesting people and worth checking out. And please feel free to link up to me if you do!

Color Week: Blue

The final color of Color Week comes in handy, because I've been obsessing over a certain Blue topic for a few weeks now.... 

Ed has decided to paint his bedroom, a much-needed update.  He loves blue, and after hours and hours of Internet research, he purchased pure pigments in a lovely shade of Mediterranean blue.  The trouble?  His room is situated at the back of his building, and the one window gets no direct light.  Lovely for quiet naps on weekend afternoons, not so good for owners painting in darker shades without the room looking small and gloomy.

But recently, staring at the paint sample on the wall, I was reminded of the blue trim on  Mediterranean-style buildings that I used to see in Israel:

(House of `Abbúd, Akka, Israel)

(House of `Abdu'lláh Páshá, Akka, Israel)

And I formed a new plan -- paint Ed's ceiling and trim blue, with the walls white.  Overall, the look would be of a Mediterranean house.  His furniture is dark wood -- Chinese antiques, actually, but they should blend well with the look.  And there are many simple blue-and-white patterns to be found in bedding.  With maybe an inexpensive Persian rug from Ebay (emphasis on the inexpensive because the pets will inevitably shred it over time).  The interior of these houses often used dark wood, as well as lots of plants (an actual interior courtyard garden) and Persian rugs:

(House of `Abbúd, Akka, Israel)

For art, among other things, I could blow up some of my altered Polaroids of the actual houses:

(House of `Abdu'lláh Páshá, Akka, Israel)

(Mazra'ih, Israel)
 
Ed is open to the idea but stuck on the fact that ceilings are difficult to paint.  My theory?  If Michelangelo could handle 4 years of work on the Sistine Chapel, I figure we can handle "blue"!

Color Week: Yellow

So I missed out on Green Day yesterday ... completely underestimated the disruption of attempting to blog during a family visit, especially when your family is sleeping in the room where the computer lives!  But I'm just squeaking in under the wire with today's Yellow post.

Yellow doesn't fit well with most of the color scheme of my home, but I absolutely adore the mood lift that the color brings.  I really only have three yellow collectibles that I can think of -- some fake daffodils from Target (beloved for the Wordsworth poem), a little stepstool from childhood, and a teapot that I picked up at an estate sale in NC for a couple of dollars about 10 years ago.  The three have been grouped together in one otherwise-useless corner of the kitchen counter that I think of as "the yellow corner":

And then of course there are the required rubber duckies in the bathroom....  The little guy with all the attitude on the left is said to be the original rubber duck.  When I lived in New York, I once went to the chi-chi Zitomer Pharmacy and browsed its stash of high-end products quite thoroughly, and all I walked away with was this little guy and some Band-Aids with funny patterns on them.  Guess I'm still just a kid at heart. 

Then there's the most important yellow duck in the household -- Zoe's toy Duckie.  The Duckworth Family are supposedly ergonomically engineered to fit a dog's mouth, and, while that has always sounded a bit silly to me, I've never known a dog who didn't love a Duckworth toy above all else.  Trust me on this one!

Finally, a quick shot from Home Cheap Home, the decorating book from dear, departed Budget Living magazine.  They suggest using vintage scarves to recover a lone chair, and I love the bright yellow color they used to paint this one.  How could you not be happy with this chair in your home???

And the house that made me realize that, as much as I love little yellow accents around the house, I love an actual yellow house the best of all!  Frank Black's house from the late 90's TV show Millenium:

But no matter how fond I am of yellow, I think these guys like it even more.....

(Photo by Jodi Cobb, from Fashion, published by National Geographic)

Color Week: Red and Pink

Kayte at Love Forever has declared a Color Week, and today's colors are red and pink.  I've been looking forward to this to almost a pathetic degree, as it's my first mass blog "event", and better yet my parents are in town this week and I can look for colors as we're out and about in DC.

However, I forgot that today would be a problem.  One of the downsides of chronic illness is that you always run out of energy before reaching the bottom of life's "to do" list.  Always.  And what's near the bottom of my life's to-do list?  HOUSECLEANING.  So major cleaning really only gets done when there's some reason to bump it up to the top of the list.  (And, darlings, it's been a loooong time since Thanksgiving!)  In other words, today was spent in an absolute panic of frenzied housecleaning until my parents arrived in the early evening.  No time even to stop and grab a snapshot of a red item in my home....

Luckily, at the very least, I happen to have a conveniently colored pic of the scapegoats:

Look forward to joining you all for Green Day tomorrow!!!

Still lost in Internetland....

I've been quite ill this week, and all I can seem to manage by way of daily activity is propping myself up in a desk chair in front of my trusty computer.  I have spent a lot of hours exploring the far reaches of the Internet, and wow, the Internet is huge!  (I mean, "duh", right?  But sometimes it takes a fresh brush with the vastness of it all to remind you of the mindboggling dimensions of what's out there.)  Every interesting blog or site that I find leads to dozens of others....

One case in point was yesterday's discovery of Delightful Blogs.  Another has been a new site called sk*rt.  There's already a site called Digg, one of the "user powered content" stars of Internet 2.0 in which users submit links to sites/stories/videos/etc. that they find interesting and other users rate those links to determine their popularity.  Sk*rt is, bluntly put (and according to its own Website), "the female version of Digg."  I have mixed feelings on the site -- the tips are mishmash of the inane, the mediocre, the see-my-site self-promotion, and the useful and interesting, and you have to weed through all of the former to get to the latter.  (Then again, you might call that a description of life itself...?!?) 

But I've passed through many interesting destinations in all these Internet travels, and I'm looking forward to sharing some of the fruits with you all.  Stay tuned! 

Stop the Insanity!

I've been online for hours today, thanks to my new discovery of DelightfulBlogs.com.  It's an "edited directory" of 1,624 blogs on all sorts of subjects -- 127 on DIY and Crafting alone. 

Let's just say my "Favorite Craft Blogs" list is going to need some serious editing one of these days.  I've discovered so many fantastic new blogs, hopefully there will be a better way to organize them than just a long alphabetical list? 

OK, I'm now stepping slowly away from the computer.  No more blogs for tonight....