Nella Vita di PoPos on the MoMo (Update)

Happily, we can no longer terrorize the streets of Virginia in our former cop car as we have sold it for sweet succulent profit!!  My love's deal finding and making abilities would put even Monty Hall to shame.

Nella Vita di Changes

I've added a couple new features for your enjoyment.  You'll notice there is a links page for other great blogs.  (Congrats for Ms. Kate O'Shea for being the only great blog at the moment!).  Think you know another one, let me know and if it passes a rigorous screening process I will happily add it.  

Also, there is a section where you can let the world know how cool you are for reading this blog.  I'm just curious to know who reads this on a fairly regular basis, if for nothing else to perhaps cater postings.  

Nella Vita di Supreme Debator

So this is make its way around the blog and email circle so why leave nellavita out?   A little dose of humor never hurts...

A normal evening in the Celii-Thackston household...

It all started with Mr. Puppy aka JC enjoying his third mid-afternoon nap.

Meanwhile, Pollux was busy hunting flies (both real and imaginary).

Growing tired, Pollux decided to snuggle up with JC where they remained for the next hour. Then Molly the Terrible came in from outside...

and layed the smack down on Pollux. And by smack down I mean she pinned him and proceeded to like every inch of him.


Satisfied that Pollux is now clean, she turned her attentions to JC.

Not one to turn the other cheek, the big JC retaliates. This continued for quite sometime until finally Molly and JC decided to make up...

twice.

Nella Vita di Taffeta

The past couple weeks have been filled with lots of great projects, one of which is making curtains for Shane's sister Jonelle. She picked out this really pretty iridescent blue crushed taffeta that hangs amazingly. Curtains and I have a love hate relationship and these of course proved no different, but every challenge presents an opportunity to learn something new. In this case if the devil was a shape he would be a rectangle. It's like my Zoolanderish weakness but where I can turn left I can't cut a square. But in the end and I was happy with the results, and hopefully Jonelle is too.

Here you can see one of the small panels and how dramatic they will be.


Here you can see when the flash is one the iridecense of hte curtains. They have blackout backing so the light won't pass through them. At first I was hesitant about how the fabric would look as curatins, but once they were done I was tempted to keep them for myself.

Nella Vita di an underground preservation revolution

As a lover of preservation, the earth, doing the right thing, and not condemning us all to hell, I must admit that I have committed certain sins. It has been two months since last visiting a historic site and I have had impure thoughts about a cul-de-sac. Joking aside, I have, and will continue to, shopped at chain stores including the death star of chain stores, he-who-must-not-be-named, the rose-bud of Satan's childhood: Wal-Mart. Yes, I just can't resist their cheap prices, plethora of supplies, and the golden opportunities to build my self esteem by simply be observing the so-called 'people' who shop there (myself excluded of course). I would much rather shop local independent stores, but pricing and availability makes it difficult sometimes. But I've found there are some things I can do to make an impact, albeit small. First, I always pay with my debit card (not credit, debt is evil…a topic for another day perhaps). Every time I swipe, Wal-Mart pays for that transaction. While normally I eschew plastic bags, I like to bag each item individually at Wal-Mart because they have to pay for those bags. Plus I get the added satisfaction of reusing Wal-Mart bags as litterbox liners and pooper-scoopers. Transversely, when I'm shopping at a local store or my favorite third place near work, Blue Ridge Café, I always try to pay cash so there is more profit for mom and pop. Plus I never use a bag and try to limit using plastic ware because they have to pay for those. Now in no ways am I naïve enough to think that my actions will really make a difference, but at the very least they assuage some of my chain store shopping guilt.

Nella Vita di Secret Gardens

Last week was the United Way’s Day of Caring where thousands of volunteers from area organizations and companies go out into the community for various service projects. The City of Charlottesville was sent to a community education facility for landscaping/yard maintenance. I was looking forward to a morning outdoors away from the office and getting some exercise so I could later rationalize my decision not to go to the gym. The day ended up being more than that, it turned out to be a ‘secret garden, this is why I love preservation’ type of day. It turns out where the school now stands was once a large manor estate. All that remains of this parcel of land’s former identity are a series of terraced gardens separated by field stone walls dating to about the nineteen teens. When we arrived that day all we saw was vast overgrowth and the promise that we may find some cool things. By the end of the day, Charlottesville workers and also workers from State Farm had cleared out level upon level of gardens. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of what the gardens look like (I may have to ‘visit’ the grounds to get some). Roughly, they start at the top of a large hill and then descend down the hill towards what is now the Schenks Branch creek. A rock wall wraps around the entire property with a foot trial running along the wall. The manor house is now completely gone along with this large pond that was once on the property (I can understand tearing down a house, but how does a pond just disappear!). The coolest part of the whole day was getting to see all the other volunteers begin to critically examine the history of a place and realize that things may not always be what they seem, but that with a little sweat (literally in this case) the past is just waiting for its secrets to be uncovered.