Decorating Your House Quotes

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

...and challenging your neighborhood to a round of competitive outdoor decorating. Because you’re not really celebrating the birth of Jesus unless your house can be spotted by passing aircraft.

In his rearview mirror, I saw something flash in his eyes. "You want to know?" he sneered. "Let me imagine, Agha sahib. You probably lived in a big two- or three-story house with a nice backyard that your gardener filled with flowers and fruit trees. All gated, of course. Your father drove an American car. You had servants, probably Hazaras. Your parents hired workers to decorate the house for the fancy mehmanis they threw, so their friends would come over to drink and boast about their travels to Europe or America. And I would bet my first son's eyes that this is the first time you've ever worn a pakol." He grinned at me, revealing a mouthful of prematurely rotting teeth. "Am I close?" Why are you saying these things?" I said. Because you wanted to know," he spat. He pointed to an old man dressed in ragged clothes trudging down a dirt path, a large burlap pack filled with scrub grass tied to his back. "That's the real Afghanistan, Agha sahib. That's the Afghanistan I know. You? You've always been a tourist here, you just didn't know it.

You have the blood of warriors in your veins. The kind of men who protect what is theirs and love without restraint. I want that love and I want you. (Gabrielle) It’s all yours. You’re not getting much out of this deal since all I own is what I can carry in two hands. (Carlos) Great. That means I get to decorate the house the way I want. (Gabrielle)

Professional. You live with him, you cook for him, you decorate his house like your own nest – it's totally professional. I mean, it's not like you're in love with the guy.

This is terrific. What a gorgeous kitchen. You’ve decorated it so beautifully. Now you’re going to have to clear all the counters. Vases. Books. Knickknacks. Get rid of all that stuff. I mean, it is just beautiful. Beautiful. I love what you’ve done with this house. Make sure you put it all away.” ~Real estate agent (p.76)

Are you afraid of the tigers? Do you hear them padding all round you on their fierce fine velvet feet? The speed of growth of tigers in the nightland is a thing which ought to be investigated some time by the competent authority. You start off with one, about the size of a mouse, and before you know where you are he’s twice the size of the Sumatra tiger which defeats all comers in that hemisphere. And then, before you can say Knife (not a very tactful thing to say in the circumstances anyhow), all his boy and girl friends are gathered round, your respectable quiet decorous docile night turns itself into a regular tiger-garden.

Lovely house,” Jack said, as he was led—hands still bound—through the grand entrance of Belgrave. He turned to the old lady. “Did you decorate? It has that woman‟s touch.” Miss Eversleigh was trailing behind, but he could hear her choke back a bubble of laughter. “Oh, let it out, Miss Eversleigh,” he called over his shoulder. “Much better for your constitution.

Do not decorate the walls of your house with the valuable stones from Eubœa and Sparta; but adorn the minds (breasts) of the citizens and of those who administer the state with the instruction which comes from Hellas (Greece). For states are well governed by the wisdom (judgment) of men, but not by stone and wood.

From the Garden” Come, my beloved, consider the lilies. We are of little faith. We talk too much. Put your mouthful of words away and come with me to watch the lilies open in such a field, growing there like yachts, slowly steering their petals without nurses or clocks. Let us consider the view: a house where white clouds decorate the muddy halls. Oh, put away your good words and your bad words. Spit out your words like stones! Come here! Come here! Come eat my pleasant fruits.

It is only when you put your house in order that your furniture and decorations come to life.

There’s enough thermex inside Kaiser to level a house. So unless you’d like your nice, glowy walls decorated in a lovely new color called blood and brains, I suggest you let me up. Now.

Believe me, a highly strung brain such as yours demands occasional relaxation from the strain of domestic surroundings. Forget for a little while that children want music lessons, and boots, and bicycles, with tincture of rhubarb three times a day; forget there are such things in life as cooks, and house decorators, and next-door dogs, and butchers’ bills. Go away to some green corner of the earth, where all is new and strange to you, where your over-wrought mind will gather peace and fresh ideas. Go away for a space and give me time to miss you, and to reflect upon your goodness and virtue, which, continually present with me, I may, human-like, be apt to forget, as one, through use, grows indifferent to the blessing of the sun and the beauty of the moon. Go away, and come back refreshed in mind and body, a brighter, better man—if that be possible—than when you went away.

To the hyper-judgmental gay community, I say this: don't throw stones when you live in glass houses, everyone can see you barebacking strangers from the internet. You also have bad taste. Glass walls? Time to execute your decorator. And yourself.

Think of renovating a house like operating the federal government. You start with a budget and the revenue to finance it. Then the special interests keep adding items to the list; you have to end the war between the interior decorator and the electrician, so you pump in more money to buy peace; and by the time you’re done, you’re $16 trillion in debt and having to borrow money from the Chinese.

Of course, most failures aren't so public in nature. Most failures happen quietly, unspectacularly, and their effects are cumulative. Most of the time failure doesn't reveal itself in a moment but wraps around you over a lifetime, adding heaviness to your step until one day you recognize you've been wearing failure on your face all along, that your failures have decorated your breast like the medallions of an army general's coat, that they've stripped away what's best in you, like rain peeling away the layers of a freshly painted house.

Milwaukee, Rebecca. Order and sobriety and a devotion to cleanliness that scours out the soul. Decent people doing their best to live decent lives, three's nothing really to hate them for, they do their jobs and maintain their property and love their children (most of the time); they take family vacations and visit relatives and decorate their houses for the holidays, collect some things and save up for other things; they're good people (most of them, most of the time), but if you were me, if you were young Pete Harris, you felt the modesty of it eroding you, depopulating you, all those little satisfactions and no big, dangerous ones; no heroism, no genius, no terrible yearning for anything you can't at least in theory actually have. If you were young lank-haired, pustule-plagued Pete Harris you felt like you were always about to expire from the safety of your life, its obdurate sensibleness, that Protestant love of the unexceptional; the eternal certainty of the faithful that flamboyance and the macabre are not just threatening but - worse - uninteresting.

SELF-HELP FOR FELLOW REFUGEES If your name suggests a country where bells might have been used for entertainment, or to announce the entrances and exits of the seasons and the birthdays of gods and demons, it's probably best to dress in plain clothes when you arrive in the United States. And try not to talk too loud. If you happen to have watched armed men beat and drag your father out the front door of your house and into the back of an idling truck, before your mother jerked you from the threshold and buried your face in her skirt folds, try not to judge your mother too harshly. Don't ask her what she thought she was doing, turning a child's eyes away from history and toward that place all human aching starts. And if you meet someone in your adopted country and think you see in the other's face an open sky, some promise of a new beginning, it probably means you're standing too far. Or if you think you read in the other, as in a book whose first and last pages are missing, the story of your own birthplace, a country twice erased, once by fire, once by forgetfulness, it probably means you're standing too close. In any case, try not to let another carry the burden of your own nostalgia or hope. And if you're one of those whose left side of the face doesn't match the right, it might be a clue looking the other way was a habit your predecessors found useful for survival. Don't lament not being beautiful. Get used to seeing while not seeing. Get busy remembering while forgetting. Dying to live while not wanting to go on. Very likely, your ancestors decorated their bells of every shape and size with elaborate calendars and diagrams of distant star systems, but with no maps for scattered descendants. And I bet you can't say what language your father spoke when he shouted to your mother from the back of the truck, "Let the boy see!" Maybe it wasn't the language you used at home. Maybe it was a forbidden language. Or maybe there was too much screaming and weeping and the noise of guns in the streets. It doesn't matter. What matters is this: The kingdom of heaven is good. But heaven on earth is better. Thinking is good. But living is better. Alone in your favorite chair with a book you enjoy is fine. But spooning is even better.

By allowing myself to add quirk, I was announcing to the world that — guess what? — I now have the confidence to put something in my home even though I know someone will think it’s ridiculous. Once you experince that kind of freedom in decorating, you’ll never go back, and your house will finally look the way you’ve always dreamed.

I’m heading out.” Her gaze searched his and, a little breathless, she asked, “Leaving?” “Yeah.” He stepped closer. Any second how Trace would intrude. “Thing is, Alani, I can’t be around you without wanting you. Bad. Really bad.” “Oh.” “If that’s crude, well, then screw it, I’m crude. I know we’d have a great time in bed, but since you aren’t ready for that yet, well . . . I promised Trace I wouldn’t pressure you.” Her neck went stiff. “Dear God. You discussed this with my brother?” “No!” He cut a hand through the air and his voice lowered. “When . . . if . . . I get you out of your panties, believe me, it’ll be a private thing between us. No way in hell would I discuss that with anyone else.” Her face went as red as Priss’s had. “Trace and I talked about you maybe decorating my house, that’s all.” “Oh.” Face still hot, she said, “I—” “Yeah, forget it. That’s off. Like I said, I’d just hanker for you, and you aren’t exactly reciprocating. So that’s that.” She blinked fast. “But if you ever change your mind, all you have to do is let me know.” He reached out and touched her cheek. Her skin was soft and warm and he wanted to feel her all over. All over him. Naked. Hungry. Wet . . . Damn, he had it bad. “I can promise you, if you do come to me, you won’t regret it.” She swallowed, licked her lips and damned if her eyes didn’t heat. She wanted him, too. He had to believe that. But Trace was starting up the hill, and the others were looking on, and the last thing he wanted was to make Alani uncomfortable. “Tell everyone I said goodbye. You make up any excuse you want.” And with that, he left Alani standing there, watching after him as he walked away. God willing, she’d contact him soon. He wasn’t sure he could stand it if she didn’t.

Kids shouting and skidding in the playground with no idea what future Hells awaited them: boring jobs and ruinous mortgages and bad marriages and hair loss and hip replacements and lonely cups of coffee in an empty house and a colostomy bag at the hospital. Most people seemed satisfied with the thin decorative glaze and the artful stage lighting that, sometimes, made the bedrock atrocity of the human predicament look somewhat more mysterious or less abhorrent. People gambled and golfed and planted gardens and traded stocks and had sex and bought new cars and practiced yoga and worked and prayed and redecorated their homes and got worked up over the news and fussed over their children and gossiped about their neighbors and pored over restaurant reviews and founded charitable organizations and supported political candidates and attended the U.S. Open and dined and travelled and distracted themselves with all kinds of gadgets and devices, flooding themselves incessantly with information and texts and communication and entertainment from every direction to try to make themselves forget it: where we were, what we were. But in a strong light there was no good spin you could put on it. It was rotten top to bottom. Putting your time in at the office; dutifully spawning your two point five; smiling politely at your retirement party; then chewing on your bedsheet and choking on your canned peaches at the nursing home. It was better never to have been born—never to have wanted anything, never to have hoped for anything.

A Zentangle® Art Kit To make your own little art kit you will need: Zentangle squares cut from black and white paper A Micron 01 and 05 Pen A Sakura White Gel Pen A White Pencil A Soft Lead Pencil A Box to house all your treasures. All you have to do is gather your materials and put them in a box. You can decorate the box as you like. Maybe you would like to draw Zentangles all over it. I like to carry my kit in my purse and so a box is quite cumbersome. I use a small plastic pouch. It very easily houses all my Zentangle squares, pencils and pens.

I make my way back whistling. Gerry nods towards Mrs Brady who is standing beside the trolleys. Morning, Mrs Brady, I say cheerfully. I push her provisions out to the car. Things are something terrible, she says. You can't trust anybody. No. It's come to a sorry pass. It has. There's hormones in the beef and tranquillizers in the bacon. There's men with breasts and women with mickeys. All from eating meat. Now. I steer a path between a crowd of people while she keeps step alongside. Can you believe it - they're feeding the pigs Valium. If you boil a bit of bacon you have to lie down afterwards. Dear oh dear. Yes, I nod. The thought of food makes me ill. The pigs are getting depressed in those sheds. If they get depressed they lose weight. So they tranquillize them. Where will it end? I don't know, Mrs Brady, I say. I begin filling the boot. That's why I started buying lamb. Then along came Chernobyl. Now you can't even have lamb stew or you'll light up at night! I swear. And when they've left you with nothing safe to eat, next thing they come along and tell you you can't live in your own house. I haven't heard of that one, Mrs Brady. Listen to me. She took my elbow. It could all happen that you're in your own house and the next thing is there's radiation bubbling under the floorboards. What? It comes right at you through the foundations. Watch the yogurts. Did you hear of that? No. I saw it in the Champion. Did you not see it in the Champion? I might have. No wonder we're not right. I brought the lid of the boot down. She sits into the car very decorously and snaps her bag open on her lap. She winds down the window and gives me 50p for myself and £1 for the trolley.

From: Audrey Griffin To: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal Hey you! I got gingerbread houses to decorate after school. When will you be home? I want to know when to pop the roast in the oven. * From: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal To: Audrey Griffin As I said, I’m superbusy at work, so I won’t be back for dinner. But my mouth is watering just thinking about your famous roast! * From: Audrey Griffin To: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal Don’t think I can’t take a hint. How about I get in my car and deliver you a plate myself? * From: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal To: Audrey Griffin How about you don’t? Thanks, though! *

The road leading off campus was lined with hickory trees, their leaves so bright yellow they shone like fire, as if the road were lined with giant torches. Claire rested her head back as Tyler drove, his hand on your knee. Houses in town were decorated in full Halloween regalia, some more elaborate than others. Jack-o-lanterns flickered on porches, and red and yellow leaves swirled. This wasn't her favorite time of year, but it certainly was gorgeous. Autumn felt like the whole world was browned and roasted until it was so tender it was about to fall away from the bone.

MOTHER GOOSE: Howdy, Chris! Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to have a chat with me! CHRIS COLFER: How did you get inside my house? MG: This is your house? Good lord, I thought we were in Queen Victoria's tearoom Has anyone ever told you that you decorate like an old woman? CC: As a matter of fact, I - Wait! Who are you? MG: Really Chris? Is that how you greet your favorite muse? CC: Oh my God. . . You're Mother Goose! This can't be real@ I must have hit my head or something! MG: As I said to Howard Hughes, no, you're not dreaming, I'm really here.

He said that death marks places like a dog marking its territory. Some people can sense it right away, while others simply start to feel uncomfortable after a time. Every stay in any place betrays the quiet ubiquitousness of the dead. As he said: ‘At first you always see what’s alive and vibrant. You’re delighted by nature, by the local church painted in different colours, by the smells and all that. But the longer you’re in a place, the more the charm of those things fades. You wonder who lived here before you came to this home and this room, whose things these are, who scratched the wall above the bed and what tree the sills were cut from. Whose hands built the elaborately decorated fireplace, paved the courtyard? And where are they now? In what form? Whose idea led to these paths around the pond and who had the idea of planting a willow out the window? All the houses, avenues, parks, gardens and streets are permeated with the deaths of others. Once you start feeling this, something starts to pull you elsewhere, you start to think it’s time to move on.’ He added that when we are in motion, there’s no time for such idle meditations. Which is why to people on trips everything seems new and clean, virginal, and, in some sense, immortal.

You have won rooms of your own in the house hitherto exclusively owned by men. You are able, though not without great labour and effort, to pay the rent. You are earning your five hundred pounds a year. But this freedom is only a beginning; the room is your own, but it is still bare. It has to be furnished; it has to be decorated; it has to be shared. How are you going to furnish it, how are you going to decorate it? With whom are you going to share it, and upon what terms? These, I think are questions of the utmost importance and interest. For the first time in history you are able to ask them; for the first time you are able to decide for yourselves what the answers should be.

You have won rooms of your own in the house hitherto exclusively owned by men. You are able, though not without great labour and effort, to pay the rent. You are earning your five hundred pounds a year. But this freedom is only a beginning; the room is your own, but it is still bare. It has to be furnished; it has to be decorated; it has to be shared. How are you going to furnish it, how are you going to decorate it? With whom are you going to share it, and upon what terms? These, I think are questions of the utmost importance and interest. For the first time in history you are able to ask them; for the first time you are able to decide for yourselves what the answers should be. —Virginia Woolf, “Professions for Women,” 1931

sometimes i feel more like a house than a person with the way i decorate my body and my face to hide damaged walls and empty spaces; my heart is more like a door with changed locks because i've made multiple keys for people who walked all over me with filthy shoes, people who said they could live here, but they were just passing through. i hope my eyes are not windows, because i fear what the world might see— all of my flaws and insecurities on display like a coffee table or some shoddy love seat. sometimes i swear i left the oven on and forgot because my mind feels like a smoke detector with the way my apprehension never calms. i smell smoke, but i can't see it; i'm told things are never as bad as i make them, but every wildfire starts with a spark and it's easy to burn when you're a house made of straw.

Neliss, why is this rug wet?” Legna peeked around the corner to glance at the rug in question, looking as if she had never seen it before. “We have a rug there?” “Did you or did you not promise me you were not going to practice extending how long you can hold your invisible bowls of water in the house? And what on earth is that noise?” “Okay, I confess to the water thing, which was an honest mistake, I swear it. But as for a noise, I have no idea what you are talking about.” “You cannot hear that? It has been driving me crazy for days now. It just repeats over and over again, a sort of clicking sound.” “Well, it took a millennium, but you have finally gone completely senile. Listen, this is a house built by Lycanthropes. It is more a cave than a house, to be honest. I have yet to decorate to my satisfaction. There is probably some gizmo of some kind lying around, and I will come across it eventually or it will quit working the longer it is exposed to our influence. Even though I do not hear anything, I will start looking for it. Is this satisfactory?” “I swear, Magdelegna, I am never letting you visit that Druid ever again.” “Oh, stop it. You do not intimidate me, as much as you would love to think you do. Now, I will come over there if you promise not to yell at me anymore. You have been quite moody lately.” “I would be a hell of a lot less moody if I could figure out what that damn noise is.” Legna came around the corner, moving into his embrace with her hands behind her back. He immediately tried to see what she had in them. “What is that?” “Remember when you asked me why I cut my hair?” “Ah yes, the surprise. Took you long enough to get to it.” “If you do not stop, I am not going to give it to you.” “Okay. I am stopping. What is it?” She held out the box tied with a ribbon to him and he accepted it with a lopsided smile. “I do not think I even remember the last time I received a gift,” he said, leaning to kiss her cheek warmly. He changed his mind, though, and opted to go for her mouth next. She smiled beneath the cling of their lips and pushed away. “Open it.” He reached for the ribbon and soon was pulling the top off the box. “What is this?” “Gideon, what does it look like?” He picked up the woven circlet with a finger and inspected it closely. It was an intricately and meticulously fashioned necklace, clearly made strand by strand from the coffee-colored locks of his mate’s hair. In the center of the choker was a silver oval with the smallest writing he had ever seen filling it from top to bottom. “What does it say?” “It is the medics’ code of ethics,” she said softly, taking it from him and slipping behind him to link the piece around his neck beneath his hair. “And it fits perfectly.” She came around to look at it, smiling. “I knew it would look handsome on you.” “I do not usually wear jewelry or ornamentation, but . . . it feels nice. How on earth did they make this?” “Well, it took forever, if you want to know why it took so long for me to make good on the surprise. But I wanted you to have something that was a little bit of me and a little bit of you.” “I already have something like that. It is you. And . . . and me, I guess,” he laughed. “We are a little bit of each other for the rest of our lives.” “See, that makes this a perfect symbol of our love,” she said smartly, reaching up on her toes to kiss him. “Well, thank you, sweet. It is a great present and an excellent surprise. Now, if you really want to surprise me, help me find out what that noise is.

From: Audrey Griffin To: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal Hello, stranger! It turns out you were right. Hotel living has finally lost its luster. I’m taking you up on your offer to host us chez Lee-Segal. Don’t worry! I know you’re busy with your big new job, and I wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing you. I looked for you at drop-off today. Lincoln told me you’re working such long hours you don’t even have a Christmas tree! I’m going to swing by my garage and grab my bins of decorations. I’ll have your house trimmed by the time you return. Don’t try to stop me. You know Christmas is my favorite holiday! How’s this for irony? Remember when you were divorcing Barry, and Warren handled the whole thing for you gratis, saving you thirty thousand dollars? Remember when you literally sobbed in gratitude, promising you’d make it up to us? Here’s your chance! I’ll let myself in with the key under the cupid. One question. What do you want for dinner? I’m going to have a feast waiting when you get home.

I’m in mid-passage, darling,” he said, beginning to talk like a queen so as to demystify himself, so as to destroy the very qualities John Schaeffer had fallen in love with, “I’m menopausal, change of life, hot flashes, you know. Wondering how much longer I can go without hair transplants and whether Germaine Monteil really works on the crow’s feet. I’ve had it, I’ve been through the mill, I’m a jaded queen. But you, dear, you have that gift whose loss the rest of life is just a funeral for—why else do you suppose those gray-haired gentlemen,” he said, nodding at his friends on the floor, “make money, buy houses, take trips around the world? Why else do they dwindle into a little circle of close friends, a farm upstate, and become in the end mere businessmen, shop-owners, decorators who like their homes filled with flowers and their friends flying in on Air France and someone pretty like you at the dinner table? It is all, my dear, because they are no longer young. Because they no longer live in that magic world that is yours for ten more years. Adolescence in America ends at thirty.

But depression wasn’t the word. This was a plunge encompassing sorrow and revulsion far beyond the personal: a sick, drenching nausea at all humanity and human endeavor from the dawn of time. The writhing loathsomeness of the biological order. Old age, sickness, death. No escape for anyone. Even the beautiful ones were like soft fruit about to spoil. And yet somehow people still kept fucking and breeding and popping out new fodder for the grave, producing more and more new beings to suffer like this was some kind of redemptive, or good, or even somehow morally admirable thing: dragging more innocent creatures into the lose-lose game. Squirming babies and plodding, complacent, hormone-drugged moms. Oh, isn’t he cute? Awww. Kids shouting and skidding in the playground with no idea what future Hells awaited them: boring jobs and ruinous mortgages and bad marriages and hair loss and hip replacements and lonely cups of coffee in an empty house and a colostomy bag at the hospital. Most people seemed satisfied with the thin decorative glaze and the artful stage lighting that, sometimes, made the bedrock atrocity of the human predicament look somewhat more mysterious or less abhorrent. People gambled and golfed and planted gardens and traded stocks and had sex and bought new cars and practiced yoga and worked and prayed and redecorated their homes and got worked up over the news and fussed over their children and gossiped about their neighbors and pored over restaurant reviews and founded charitable organizations and supported political candidates and attended the U.S. Open and dined and travelled and distracted themselves with all kinds of gadgets and devices, flooding themselves incessantly with information and texts and communication and entertainment from every direction to try to make themselves forget it: where we were, what we were. But in a strong light there was no good spin you could put on it. It was rotten top to bottom. Putting your time in at the office; dutifully spawning your two point five; smiling politely at your retirement party; then chewing on your bedsheet and choking on your canned peaches at the nursing home. It was better never to have been born—never to have wanted anything, never to have hoped for anything.

The same thing happened with large civic clients. He and Calvert Vaux had built and refined Central Park from 1858 through 1876, but forever afterward Olmsted found himself defending the park against attempts to tinker with its grounds in ways he considered tantamount to vandalism. It wasn’t just Central Park, however. Every park seemed subject to such abuse. “Suppose,” he wrote to architect Henry Van Brunt, “that you had been commissioned to build a really grand opera house; that after the construction work had been nearly completed and your scheme of decoration fully designed you should be instructed that the building was to be used on Sundays as a Baptist Tabernacle, and that suitable place must be made for a huge organ, a pulpit and a dipping pool. Then at intervals afterwards, you should be advised that it must be so refitted and furnished that parts of it could be used for a court room, a jail, a concert hall, hotel, skating rink, for surgical cliniques, for a circus, dog show, drill room, ball room, railway station and shot tower?” That, he wrote, “is what is nearly always going on with public parks. Pardon me if I overwhelm you; it is a matter of chronic anger with me.

Of course! It’s just around the corner,” Cinderella replied gratefully. She pointed at the cobblestoned path that led to the garden. As Cinderella walked back into the house, she heard another knock—this time coming from the back door. She hurried to answer it. “Now surely that’s the baker,” she said as she ran back to the kitchen. “I hope Stepmother didn’t hear the second knock. I don’t want her to come downstairs until all of the cakes are gone—and the new rosebush is planted!” Sure enough, the baker was standing at the kitchen door. He looked very nervous. “Hello,” he said. “Is the dessert ready?” “Yes, it is,” Cinderella replied with a smile. “Come in. I hope you’re pleased with what we’ve done. I think that it really turned out wonderful! The baker stepped into the large kitchen. His eyes grew wide as he took in the sight: dozens of beautifully decorated cakes that almost looked too good to eat! “How—how did you do it?” he said with a gasp. “It’s not possible . . .” “Oh, I had a little help from some very good friends,” Cinderella said. She glanced over at Gus and winked. “May I try one?” the baker asked, pointing to one of the cakes. “They look delicious.” He licked his lips in anticipation.

tuff. Almost all of us have it in abundance. What can we do with it? One of my favorite hideaways is an old faithful: the cardboard box. Cover it with festive Contact paper and stuff away. Or hang a shelf about a foot from the ceiling, and use it to store items you don't want sitting around. It's also great in a child's room for toys that aren't played with often. Get old school lockers or trunks, paint them, and use them for storage. Clutter around your house can cause clutter in your emotional and spiritual life too, so clean up and spend your best time enjoying life. re you reluctant to share your home with others? Maybe it's not your dream house or you don't have the money right now to decorate the way you'd like to. But you know what? It's not about having a perfect home. It's about your spirit of hospitality, your willingness to share your home and your life with others. Don't wait until everything is perfect because that will never happen. Focus on making your home cozy and comfortable. Your place will always be at its most beautiful when you use it to warm hearts. aking time for your husband doesn't have to be difficult or a hassle. With a little imagination and the desire to make him happy, you can make him feel loved. Are you thinking, Oh great, now Emilie 's telling me what I'm doing wrong with my husband. Not at all! I just want to give you a few ideas to help you let your

I left Brookstone and went to the Pottery Barn. When I was a kid and everything inside our house was familiar, cheap, and ruined, walking into the Pottery Barn was like entering heaven. If they really wanted people to enjoy church, I thought back then, they should make everything in church look and smell like the Pottery Barn. My dream was to surround myself one day with everything in the store, with the wicker baskets and scented candles, the brushed-silver picture frames. But that was a long time ago. I had already gone through a period of buying everything there was to buy at the Pottery Barn and decorating my apartment like a Pottery Barn outlet, and then getting rid of it all during a massive upgrade. Now everything at the Pottery Barn looked ersatz and mass-produced. To buy any of it now would be to regress in aspiration and selfhood. I didn’t want to buy anything at the Pottery Barn so much as I wanted to recapture the feeling of wanting to buy everything from the Pottery Barn. Something similar happened at the music store. I should try to find some new music, I thought, because there was a time when new music could lift me out of a funk like nothing else. But I wasn’t past the Bs when I saw the only thing I really cared to buy. It was the Beatles’ Rubber Soul, which had been released in 1965. I already owned Rubber Soul. I had owned Rubber Soul on vinyl, then on cassette, and now on CD, and of course on my iPod, iPod mini, and iPhone. If I wanted to, I could have pulled out my iPhone and played Rubber Soul from start to finish right there, on speaker, for the sake of the whole store. But that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to buy Rubber Soul for the first time all over again. I wanted to return the needle from the run-out groove to the opening chords of “Drive My Car” and make everything new again. That wasn’t going to happen. But, I thought, I could buy it for somebody else. I could buy somebody else the new experience of listening to Rubber Soul for the first time. So I took the CD up to the register and paid for it and, walking out, felt renewed and excited. But the first kid I offered it to, a rotund teenager in a wheelchair looking longingly into a GameStop window, declined on the principle that he would rather have cash. A couple of other kids didn’t have CD players. I ended up leaving Rubber Soul on a bench beside a decommissioned ashtray where someone had discarded an unhealthy gob of human hair. I wandered, as everyone in the mall sooner or later does, into the Best Friends Pet Store. Many best friends—impossibly small beagles and corgis and German shepherds—were locked away for display in white cages where they spent their days dozing with depression, stirring only long enough to ponder the psychic hurdles of licking their paws. Could there be anything better to lift your spirits than a new puppy?

If there was anything really wrong with Shady Hill, anything that you could put your finger on, it was the fact that the village had no public library – no foxed copies of Pascal, smelling of cabbage; no broken sets of Dostoevski and George Eliot; no Galsworthy, even; no Barrie and no Bennett. This was the chief concern of the Village Council during Marcie’s term. The library partisans were mostly newcomers to the village; the opposition whip was Mrs Selfredge, a member of the Council and a very decorous woman, with blue eyes of astonishing brilliance and inexpressiveness. Mrs Selfredge often spoke of the chosen quietness of their life. ‘We never go out,’ she would say, but in such a way that she seemed to be expressing not some choice but a deep vein of loneliness. She was married to a wealthy man much older than herself, and they had no children; indeed, the most indirect mention of sexual fact brought a deep color to Mrs Selfredge’s face. She took the position that a library belonged in that category of public service that might make Shady Hill attractive to a development. This was not blind prejudice. Carsen Park, the next village, had let a development inside its boundaries, with disastrous results to the people already living there. Their taxes had been doubled, their schools had been ruined. That there was any connection between reading and real estate was disputed by the partisans of the library, until a horrible murder – three murders, in fact – took place in one of the cheese-box houses in the Carsen Park development, and the library project was buried with the victims.

You’re called to come out of the crowd. You’re called to be counter-culture. You’re not called to live in this world, be of this world-you’re called to come out. News flash-the crowd is stupid. The crowd has no identity at all. We just do what everyone else is doing. “ “When you decide, you divide the enemy and his tactics, and his distractions towards your life. The moment you actually conqueror the urge, you get stronger and the urges get weaker. But it will never happen, until you determine “I am not like the crowd, I’m coming out of the crowd. I’m apart of the minority. Ruth is determined to choose right over easy. You want to know what the right thing is? The right thing is God’s word, and it’s not just about knowing it, it’s about applying it to your life!” “Choose right over easy.” “See, when you come out of the crowd, and when you say, and when you say with the crowd, it’s all crowded here, and when you say I’m going to be apart of the minority, but let my commitments stand. Hey Naomi, you don’t know me, I made a commitment, and my commitment matters. You can tell me I’m relieved of my responsibility, but my vow is my vow. And I’m not going to be swayed, just because the circumstances have changed.” “Stay on the path, because you don’t know what lies ahead of you. Because you’re not God. All He asks you and I is to put one foot in front of another. To keep on moving. Keep on going. Commit to God’s way, and watch God make a way, when there seems to be no way. “ “Being single is awesome! When you’re single, everything in your house, you own all of it. All the money in your bank account, belongs to you.” :) “I think one of the hardest things, that people don’t talk about is that you get to decorate your house exactly how you want to do it.” “The older I get, the more I realize that people are borderline obsessed with what’s next…but if you’re not careful you’ll get so obsessed with what’s next, you won’t care about what is now. It doesn’t take a lot of use to realize, that if you’re graduating from high school, everyone’s going-“where you going to college?” If you’re in college, everyone’s like “where are you going to work?” You work for a little while as a single person, and it’s like “when are you going to get married.” You get married, and everyone’s like, “when are you going to have kids?” You have a kid, and everyone’s like, “when are you going to have more kids.” “Singleness is not a stop sign. It’s not a period, it’s not a comma. Your life doesn’t begin when you get married. A boy-friend or a girl-friend doesn’t make your life start happening. Life is happening. The question is, “are you happening?” You don’t have to live boring or be bored to be single. A life filled with Jesus is full of adventure. It’s filled with spontaneity, it’s full of ups and downs. And it’s time for you to get on mission. Let me just be loud and clear and frank with it-Jesus is a better partner than any spouse could ever dream of being.” “The truth is, sometimes sitting on the path can be just as detrimental as getting off the path. You’re called to move forward, you’re called to grow, you’re called to become.” “Be the minority, because the majority is overrated.” -Rich Wilkerson Jr., Single and Secure

HEART OF TEA DEVOTION rc t c//'VI/~ L tLP /'V to/ a My dear, ifyou couldgive me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs. CHARLES DICKENS If teacups could talk, my house would be full of conversation ... because my house is full of teacups. My collection of china cups-begun many years ago, when I set up housekeeping as a child bride-has long since outgrown its home in the glass-front armoire and spread out to occupy side tables and shelves and hooks in the kitchen or find safe harbor in the dining-room hutch. Some of these cups I inherited from women I love-my mother and my aunties. Some are gifts from my husband, Bob, or from my children or from special friends. A few are delightful finds from elegant boutiques or dusty antique shops. One cup bears telltale cracks and scars; it was the only one I could salvage when a shelf slipped and 14 cups fell and shattered. Three other cups stand out for their intense color-my aunt was always attracted to that kind of dramatic decoration. Yet another cup, a gift, is of a style I've never much cared for, but now it makes me smile as I remember the houseguest who "rescued" it from a dark corner of the armoire because it looked "lonely." Each one of my teacups has a history, and each one is precious to me. I have gladly shared them with guests and told their stories to many people. Recently, however, I have been more inclined to listen. I've been wondering what all those cups, with their history and long experience, are trying to say to me. What I hear from them, over and over, is an invitation-one I want to extend to you: When did you last have a tea party? When was the last time you enjoyed a cup of tea with someone you care about? Isn't it time you did it again?

But depression wasn’t the word. This was a plunge encompassing sorrow and revulsion far beyond the personal: a sick, drenching nausea at all humanity and human endeavor from the dawn of time. The writhing loathsomeness of the biological order. Old age, sickness, death. No escape for anyone. Even the beautiful ones were like soft fruit about to spoil. And yet somehow people still kept fucking and breeding and popping out new fodder for the grave, producing more and more new beings to suffer like this was some kind of redemptive, or good, or even somehow morally admirable thing: dragging more innocent creatures into the lose-lose game. Squirming babies and plodding, complacent, hormone-drugged moms. Oh, isn’t he cute? Awww. Kids shouting and skidding in the playground with no idea what future Hells awaited them: boring jobs and ruinous mortgages and bad marriages and hair loss and hip replacements and lonely cups of coffee in an empty house and a colostomy bag at the hospital. Most people seemed satisfied with the thin decorative glaze and the artful stage lighting that, sometimes, made the bedrock atrocity of the human predicament look somewhat more mysterious or less abhorrent. People gambled and golfed and planted gardens and traded stocks and had sex and bought new cars and practiced yoga and worked and prayed and redecorated their homes and got worked up over the news and fussed over their children and gossiped about their neighbors and pored over restaurant reviews and founded charitable organizations and supported political candidates and attended the U.S. Open and dined and travelled and distracted themselves with all kinds of gadgets and devices, flooding themselves incessantly with information and texts and communication and entertainment from every direction to try to make themselves forget it: where we were, what we were. But in a strong light there was no good spin you could put on it. It was rotten top to bottom. Putting your time in at the office; dutifully spawning your two point five; smiling politely at your retirement party; then chewing on your bedsheet and choking on your canned peaches at the nursing home. It was better never to have been born—never to have wanted anything, never to have hoped for anything. And all this mental thrashing and tossing was mixed up with recurring images, or half-dreams, of Popchik lying weak and thin on one side with his ribs going up and down—I’d forgotten him somewhere, left him alone and forgotten to feed him, he was dying—over and over, even when he was in the room with me, head-snaps where I started up guiltily, where is Popchik; and this in turn was mixed up with head-snapping flashes of the bundled pillowcase, locked away in its steel coffin.

to look at Louisa, stroked her cheek, and was rewarded by a dazzling smile. She had been surprised by how light-skinned the child was. Her features were much more like Eva’s than Bill’s. A small turned-up nose, big hazel eyes, and long dark eyelashes. Her golden-brown hair protruded from under the deep peak of her bonnet in a cascade of ringlets. “Do you think she’d come to me?” Cathy asked. “You can try.” Eva handed her over. “She’s got so heavy, she’s making my arms ache!” She gave a nervous laugh as she took the parcel from Cathy and peered at the postmark. “What’s that, Mam?” David craned his neck and gave a short rasping cough. “Is it sweets?” “No, my love.” Eva and Cathy exchanged glances. “It’s just something Auntie Cathy’s brought from the old house. Are you going to show Mikey your flags?” The boy dug eagerly in his pocket, and before long he and Michael were walking ahead, deep in conversation about the paper flags Eva had bought for them to decorate sand castles. Louisa didn’t cry when Eva handed her over. She seemed fascinated by Cathy’s hair, and as they walked along, Cathy amused her by singing “Old MacDonald.” The beach was only a short walk from the station, and it wasn’t long before the boys were filling their buckets with sand. “I hardly dare open it,” Eva said, fingering the string on the parcel. “I know. I was desperate to open it myself.” Cathy looked at her. “I hope you haven’t built up your hopes, too much, Eva. I’m so worried it might be . . . you know.” Eva nodded quickly. “I thought of that too.” She untied the string, her fingers trembling. The paper fell away to reveal a box with the words “Benson’s Baby Wear” written across it in gold italic script. Eva lifted the lid. Inside was an exquisite pink lace dress with matching bootees and a hat. The label said, “Age 2–3 Years.” Beneath it was a handwritten note:   Dear Eva, This is a little something for our baby girl from her daddy. I don’t know the exact date of her birthday, but I wanted you to know that I haven’t forgotten. I hope things are going well for you and your husband. Please thank him from me for what he’s doing for our daughter: he’s a fine man and I don’t blame you for wanting to start over with him. I’m back in the army now, traveling around. I’m due to be posted overseas soon, but I don’t know where yet. I’ll write and let you know when I get my new address. It would be terrific if I could have a photograph of her in this little dress, if your husband doesn’t mind. Best wishes to you all, Bill   For several seconds they sat staring at the piece of paper. When Eva spoke, her voice was tight with emotion. “Cathy, he thinks I chose to stay with Eddie!” Cathy nodded, her mind reeling. “Eddie showed me the letter he sent. Bill wouldn’t have known you were in Wales, would he? He would have assumed you and Eddie had already been reunited—that he’d written with your consent on behalf of you both.” She was afraid to look at Eva. “What are you going to do?” Eva’s face had gone very pale. “I don’t know.” She glanced at David, who was jabbing a Welsh flag into a sand castle. “He said he was going to be posted overseas. Suppose they send him to Britain?” Cathy bit her lip. “It could be anywhere, couldn’t it? It could be the other side of the world.” She could see what was going through Eva’s mind. “You think if he came here, you and he could be together without . . .” Her eyes went to the boys. Eva gave a quick, almost imperceptible nod, as if she was afraid someone might see her. “What about Eddie?” “I don’t know!” The tone of her voice made David look up. She put on a smile, which disappeared the

A brick could be used to decorate a house. And not just one brick, thousands could be stacked and affixed together and really make your house not only feel like a home, but less drafty too.


as the specific room we stay in; our StrengthsFinder® results (based on Gallup University’s list of thirty-four talent themes, a weighted list of innate strengths that carry potential to increase a person’s performance success) as the way we decorate our room; but our Enneagram type as the kind of home we build (maybe some of us live in a hip urban condo, others prefer a gable-roofed Thai-inspired house, while others are happy to call home a one-story ranch). Our Enneagram type is the home we are likely born in and will most definitely die in. But let’s not get too fatalistic about the Enneagram. It’s not static like most popular profile systems; rather, it’s dynamic and constantly in motion, just like our personal patterns of progress and regress.

I like to think of the various results of the profile tools and tests we appeal to in an effort to learn about ourselves as the egoic spaces we inhabit. One way to illustrate this is to view our temperament (often categorized as one of sixteen combinations of basic preferences that can be determined through the MBTI® inventory—a typology developed by Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother Katharine Briggs based on Carl Jung’s typology theory) as the specific room we stay in; our StrengthsFinder® results (based on Gallup University’s list of thirty-four talent themes, a weighted list of innate strengths that carry potential to increase a person’s performance success) as the way we decorate our room; but our Enneagram type as the kind of home we build (maybe some of us live in a hip urban condo, others prefer a gable-roofed Thai-inspired house, while others are happy to call home a one-story ranch). Our Enneagram type is the home we are likely born in and will most definitely die in.

The house decorating with the things and yourself with the dress is nothing as long as you do not furnish your language, talk and your character with the role modesty, decency, morals, sincerity, and love of humans.

he would even suggest such a thing. Her motives for such dedication were unclear, but since she was only a client, he didn’t press for more. As she stood abruptly, he followed suit. “I’ll show you your room,” she said, the words clipped. Larkin followed her back to the foyer and up the stairs, pausing only to grab his bag. The house was furnished with impeccable taste, luxury in every detail, but nothing at all ostentatious. He wondered if she had redone the place after her parents’ deaths, and he suspected she had. Somehow the decor reflected the personality of its owner. When Winnie paused, Larkin followed suit, standing shoulder to shoulder with his hostess as he surveyed the room. He whistled. “Very nice.” This close, he inhaled the scent of honeysuckle again. “I hope you’ll be comfortable. I appreciate your fitting me into your schedule. Let me know if you need anything at all.” There it was again. That pesky, subtle does-she-or-doesn’t-she vibe that made his skin itchy and his sex

I used to have PHS - Perfect House Syndrome. At some point, though, I realized I wanted to live in a HOME, not a museum. Now if someone asks me what my decorating style is, I tell them it's 'confused,' reflecting all the facets of the people who live in it. I like signs of living, and the best compliment you can get on your house is, 'I feel comfortable in your home.

Maybe you've moved too many times, or maybe you wish a move were in your future. Maybe you are renting and wish you weren't; maybe you are upside-down in a mortgage you don't want and can't move. Maybe you love where you are but feel like you aren't doing it justice with your decorating skills, Maybe you are waiting on that next house so you can finally start enjoying where you are. The dream house isn't the answer. The answer is a gift in disguise.

If you look for love and beauty, you will find it. You will find it because in doing so, you will realize that it is something that has always existed in you. Those who look for happiness or love outside of themselves will always be dissatisfied. It is like decorating your house with paintings and expecting to become a skilled painter yourself. To make a beautiful painting, you must pain. Similarly, to fill your life with love, you must first love. You cannot rely upon other people and expect them to complete you. It is something one must cultivate in oneself.

Inside the vault housing Shalmaneser: cool. Waiting for the launch window, which is a decorative way of saying when the GT guide is good and ready to start, this fact has already decided several of the crowd one hundred nine strong (some of whom are tourists some of whom are genuine potential recruits lured by the handouts and TV plugs of the GT Corp. some of whom have seen themselves here so often in the personae of Mr. & Mrs. Everywhere that they couldn’t tell you why they bothered to make the visit in reality and some of whom are GT’s own plantees primed to speak up at the right moments and give the impression of Things Happening) that they aren’t going to be interested in what they’re shown. Cold! In May! Under the Manhattan Fuller Dome! And clad in Nydofoam sneakers, MasQ-Lines, Forlon&Morler skirtlets and dresslets; strung about with Japind Holocams with Biltin g’teed Norisk LazeeLaser monochrome lamps, instreplay SeeyanEar recorders; pocket-heavy with Japind Jettiguns, SeKure Stunnems, Karatands to be slipped on as easily as your grandmother drew on her glove. Uneasy, watching their accidental companions on this guided tour. Well-fed. Shifty-eyed, slipping tranks into their chomp-chomp jaws. Damned good-looking.

And so they did. Over the next several weeks, the garden friends collected trash that they found lying around—from soda cans that had tumbled out of the recycling bin, to a weather-beaten cardboard box, to an old baseball cap that was the perfect size for a mosquito-sized soda fountain. The friends used this junk to construct tiny buildings. They decorated their new business with colorful leaves and flower petals, and they used rocks and pebbles for tables and chairs. Wiggly worked hard at making tunnels in the dirt for his new park, and even Snarky caught on to the enthusiasm and collected shiny pebbles for his shop. By the time they were finished, Garden Town had come to be—a tiny town with a soda fountain, a park, a restaurant, and a pebble shop. Wiggly Worm and his friends had proved that, with a little hard work and determination, it’s possible to make your dreams come true! Just for Fun Activity Collect old containers and other trash-bound items in your house. With a little imagination (and some craft supplies), I bet you can make a pretty cool Garden Town of your own! Glue the town to a piece of poster

The art of hygge is a simple one: immerse yourself in the warmth and comfort of your beautifully lit and naturally decorated house with good friends, hearty food, and some happy conversation.

since the accident. I don’t know what her problem was. After all, I was a “hero.” At least the newspaper said so. “Hey, Alex,” she said, twirling her ponytail with her pencil. “Oh, hi,” I stammered, looking down at my burger. “You guys sounded really great in the talent show. I didn’t know you could sing like that.” “Uhh, thanks. It must be all the practice I get with my karaoke machine.” Oh God, did I just tell her I sing karaoke? Definitely not playing it cool, I thought to myself. TJ butted in, “Yeah, Small Fry was ok, but I really carried the show with my awesome guitar solo.” He smiled proudly. “Shut up, TJ,” I said, tossing a fry at him, which hit him between the eyes. “Hey, watch it, Baker. Just because you’re a ‘hero’ doesn’t mean I won’t pummel you.” “Yeah, right,” I said, smiling. Emily laughed. “Maybe we could come over during Christmas break and check out your karaoke machine. Right, Danielle?” Danielle rolled her eyes and sighed. “Yeah, whatever.” I gulped. “Uhhh…yeah…that sounds great.” “Ok, give me your hand,” she said. “My hand,” I asked, surprised. “Yep,” she said, grabbing my wrist and opening my palm. “Here’s my number,” she said, writing the numbers 585-2281 in gold glitter pen on my palm.” I will never wash my hand again, I thought to myself. “Text me over break, ok?” she said, smiling brightly. “Yeah, sure,” I nodded, as she walked away giggling with Danielle. “Merry Christmas to me!” I whispered to TJ and Simon. “Yeah, there’s just one problem, Dufus,” TJ said. “Oh yeah, what’s that, TJ? That she didn’t give you her number?” I asked. “No, Dork. How are you going to text her if you don’t have a cell phone?” He smiled. “Oh, right,” I said, slumping down in my seat. “That could be a problem.” “You could just call her on your home phone,” Simon suggested, wiping his nose with a napkin. “Yeah, sure,” TJ chuckled. “Hi Emily, this is Alex Baker calling from the year 1984.” He held his pencil to his ear like a phone.  “Would you like to come over to play Atari? Then maybe we can solve my Rubik’s Cube while we break dance ….and listen to New Kids on the Block.” He was cracking himself up and turning bright red. “Maybe I’ll type you a love letter on my typewriter. It’s so much cooler than texting.” “Shut up, TJ,” I said, smiling. “I’m starting to remember why I didn’t like you much at the beginning of the year.” “Lighten up, Baker. I’m just bustin’ your chops. Christmas is coming. Maybe Santa will feel sorry for your dorky butt and bring you a cell phone.” Chapter 2 ePhone Denied When I got home from school that day, it was the perfect time to launch my cell phone campaign. Mom was in full Christmas mode. The house smelled like gingerbread. She had put up the tree and there were boxes of ornaments and decorations on the floor. I stepped over a wreath and walked into the kitchen. She was baking sugar cookies and dancing around the kitchen to Jingle Bell Rock with my little brother Dylan. My mom twirled Dylan around and smiled. She was wearing the Grinch apron that we had given her last Christmas. Dylan was wearing a Santa hat, a fake beard, and of course- his Batman cape. Batman Claus. “Hey Honey. How was school?” she asked, giving Dylan one more spin. “It was pretty good. We won second place in the talent show.” I held up the candy cane shaped award that Ms. Riley had given us. “Great job! You and TJ deserved it. You practiced hard and it payed off.” “Yeah, I guess so,” I said, grabbing a snicker-doodle off the counter. “And now it’s Christmas break! I bet your excited.” She took a tray of cookies out of the oven and placed

Her name was Jane,” I said, and Olivia stopped walking. “We were together for two years, married after a few months. I was happy, genuinely happy. Even though she was human, and I knew I’d outlive her, I just wanted to enjoy the time that we had together. “It all ended on a damp November morning in seventeen eighty-two. I’d been away working for Avalon for a few months and had been eager to get home. I found her inside the house we’d shared. She’d been butchered. Her blood decorated our bedroom. She was naked and appeared to have been dead for several days. My rage was…terrifying. I buried Jane with my own hands, placing her near a field that we used to love going to. And then I burnt the house to the ground.” Olivia’s shoulders sagged, but she didn’t turn and face me. “I hunted her killer for a year. I didn’t care who I hurt to get the information I needed. I was so single-minded, so determined to have vengeance. Eventually, I discovered that her murderer had been part of the king’s army, which had been going through the area. “The killer was an officer by the name of Henry. No idea what his last name was. It didn’t matter. He liked hurting women, and once he’d finished with them, he kept their hair as a souvenir. The rest of his squad had waited outside while he brutalized and murdered the woman I loved. No one had helped Jane, and no one had tried to stop him. “I discovered that they’d been on training maneuvers the day of the murder, just their squad of thirty. And after all my searching, I found them and I killed them. They died in one night of blood and rage. All but one. I left Henry until last. I took him away to a secluded place and had my fill of vengeance. It took a week for him to die, and when he finally succumbed, I buried Hellequin with him.” The memory of Henry’s blind and bloody form flashed in my mind—his pleas had long since silenced because I’d removed his tongue. I hadn’t wanted information from him; I’d just wanted to make him suffer. Before he’d lost his ability to talk, he’d told me that someone had paid him to do it, but he never said who. No matter what I did to him, he took that secret to his grave. And after a few years of searching, I decided he’d been lying. Trying to prolong his life for a short time more, hoping for mercy where there was none to give. “I no longer had the desire to go by that name,” I continued, still talking to Olivia’s back, “I no longer wanted to instill fear with a word. I hoped that the legend would die, but it didn’t, it grew, became more…fanciful. “You’re right, I’m a killer. I’ve killed thousands, and very few of them have ever stained my conscience. I can go to a dark place and do whatever I need to. But for those I care about, those I love, I will move fucking mountains to keep them safe. And I care about Tommy and Kasey, whether you grant permission or not.

Very bad,” she muttered. Benedict looked up. “Did you say something?” She crossed her arms mutinously. “Just that you’re a very bad man.” He chuckled. She’d known he would chuckle, and it still irritated her. He pulled the curtain away from the window and looked out. “We’re nearly there,” he said. He’d said that he was taking her directly to his mother’s residence. Sophie remembered the grand house in Grosvenor Square as if she’d been there the night before. The ballroom was huge, with hundreds of sconces on the walls, each adorned by a perfect beeswax candle. The smaller rooms had been decorated in the Adam style, with exquisitely scalloped ceilings and pale, pastel walls. It had been Sophie’s dream house, quite literally. In all her dreams of Benedict and their fictional future together, she’d always seen herself in that house. It was silly, she knew, since he was a second son and thus not in line to inherit the property, but still, it was the most beautiful home she’d ever beheld, and dreams weren’t meant to be about reality, anyway. If Sophie had wanted to dream her way right into Kensington Palace, that was her prerogative. Of course, she thought with a wry smile, she wasn’t likely ever to see the interior of Kensington Palace. “What are you smiling about?” Benedict demanded. She didn’t bother to glance up as she replied, “I’m plotting your demise.” He grinned— not that she was looking at him, but it was one of those smiles she could hear in the way he breathed. She hated that she was that sensitive to his every nuance. Especially since she had a sneaking suspicion that he was the same way about her. “At least it sounds entertaining,” he said. “What does?” she asked, finally moving her eyes from the lower hem of the curtain, which she’d been staring at for what seemed like hours. “My demise,” he said, his smile crooked and amused. “If you’re going to kill me, you might as well enjoy yourself while you’re at it, because Lord knows, I won’t.” Her jaw dropped a good inch. “You’re mad,” she said. “Probably.” He shrugged rather casually before settling back in his seat and propping his feet up on the bench across from him. “I’ve all but kidnapped you, after all. I should think that would qualify as the maddest thing I’ve ever done.” “You could let me go now,” she said, even though she knew he never would. “Here in London? Where you could be attacked by footpads at any moment? That would be most irresponsible of me, don’t you think?” “It hardly compares to abducting me against my will!” “I didn’t abduct you,” he said, idly examining his fingernails. “I blackmailed you. There’s a world of difference.” Sophie was saved from having to reply by the jolt of the carriage as it ground to a halt. -Sophie & Benedict

I was suffering with profound personality change, and if I had to go out onto the highway and stick out my thumb and secure a ride to a Waffle House in order to consume grits in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I would go to a Waffle House, leaving behind the unwanted back hair and the expanding belt lines and the godforsaken cheese grits to make of myself a person of the road, a person of the highway, a person of indeterminate location. You could get some grits at a Waffle House, and it wouldn’t cost you an arm and leg, because it was presumed at Waffle House that you were on your last nickel, that you had squandered opportunities, that all was illusion. A man still has to eat, however, and coarsely ground cornmeal was best. It needed nothing other than what it was, and if an inn with a bunch of nauseating pastels and some faux-Mexican decor could not provide you with true and authentic grits, then you might go elsewhere, as you did, eventually. ★

Non-goblins are strongly urged to avoid Goblintown at all costs. There are parts we recommend goblins do not even venture into unless part of a highly trained and well armed cram. If one still feels the urge to visit Goblintown, we recommend seeking counseling to eliminate the suicidal tendencies. Should this fail or not be desirable, we suggest using one of the many fine Euthanasia Houses our world has to offer. (See Euthanasia Houses, Suicide Assistants.) Not only will they strive to make the experience pleasant, but they will beautify your corpse and deliver it intact to your next of kin or designated recipient, along with a valid proof of death, allowing your affairs to be put in order. Goblintown has no such guarantees, and the odds of a corpse leaving intact are minimal. However, there is an excellent chance of your head being made into a warning decoration. (See illustrations.)”    -A Visitor’s Guide to Traven, 144th Edition

Sometimes it can feel awkward going into the neighbors his houses. I mean, we really take over their world, not just a room is being read decorated. Participants give up so much control when you're on Trading Spaces. They have to let go of expectations they have for their own room, they have to let go of doing things their way and if seen their house is a home. To some degree, their houses become TV sets. We leave runners on the floor, we keep up with the trash, and we're careful, but there is only so much you can do when every room is filled with TV equipment or catering or make up or supplies, not to mention 20 to 30 people running in and out. And let's not forget the tablesaws, hammers, compressors, and a construction madness going on outside.

You will catch your death, Wife.” Joseph opened his cape and enveloped her in its folds, which—happily for her—necessitated that he hug her to his chest. “I will be back as soon as possible.” “We have much to do in your absence.” “I’ve never seen this house so thoroughly decorated for the holidays. I can’t believe there’s another thing to be done.” Louisa felt his chin come to rest on her temple. “We have a great deal of baking to do if we’re to send baskets to the tenants and neighbors. I must write to the agencies to find us another governess, and you’ve set me the task of finding a charity worthy of your coin. Then too, I am behind on my correspondence, and if all else fails, I have your library to explore. I will stay busy.” “While I will freeze my backside off, haring about the realm without you.

f you're living in a place that's just not big enough for that huge Christmas tree you'd love to have, get branches of evergreen, balsam, or juniper and use them to outline mirrors, arrange on mantels or windowsills, or decorate tabletops and bookshelves. Add gold or silver balls or showcase your holiday collectibles among the branches, such as snow villages, angels, and Christmas teacups. And don't forget to use plenty of unlit candles in seasonal colors. If you do light them, make sure the branches are arranged so they're not a fire hazard. Add a nativity scene to set the significant tone of the season. Make your home warm and welcoming, overflowing with love and good cheer. hose food shows on TV don't have anything on me! Cooking with your friends-inviting them to sit with you while you prepare a fantastic meal is something I've been doing for years. More often, though, I'll put my friends to work. We all have fun pitching in. I've had some of my best conversations while I was stirring a pot of soup and someone else was tossing a salad. I've also had some of my closest times with my husband in that warm, creative room in our house. Good talk seems to happen naturally in the kitchen. And teamwork is great fun! No one is lonely; no one feels left out. Creativity flourishes as you work together.

The same is true for the practice of feng shui. It is only when you put your house in order that your furniture and decorations come to life.

A water-bearer in India had two large pots hanging at the ends of a pole that he carried across his neck. One of the pots was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house. The other pot had a crack in it, and by the time it reached its destination, it was only half full. Every day for two years the water-bearer delivered only one and one-half pots of water to the master’s house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments—perfect to the end for which it was made. The poor little cracked pot was ashamed of its imperfections and miserable that it could accomplish only half of what it had been designed to do. After two years of what the imperfect pot perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water-bearer and said, “I am ashamed of myself and I want to apologize to you.” “Why?” asked the water-bearer. “What are you ashamed of?” “Well, for these past two years, I have been able to deliver only half a load of water each day because this crack in my side allows water to leak out the whole way back to the master’s house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all this work without getting the full value of your efforts,” the pot said. The water-bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, “As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.” Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot noticed the beautiful wildflowers on the side of the path. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because half of its load had leaked out once again. Then the water-bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path and not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I’ve always known about your flaw and took advantage of it by planting flower seeds on your side of the path. Every day as we walked back from the stream, you watered those seeds, and for two years I have picked these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without you being just what you are, he would not have had this beauty to grace his house.”1 Like that cracked pot, you too can accomplish wonderful things. It doesn’t matter that you have flaws and limitations. Don’t let what you perceive to be a weakness keep you from taking bold steps inspired by hope. 2 Corinthians 12:10 says: “… When I am weak [in human strength], then am I [truly] strong (able, powerful in divine strength).” Isn’t that comforting to know? Even when you’re weak, you’re strong because God is with you. He is using every part of your life—even the cracks—to create something beautiful. Get Your Hopes Up!

I wonder if the real measure of "home" is the degree to which you can leave it alone. Maybe appreciating a house means knowing when to stop decorating. Maybe you've never really lived there until you've thrown its broken pieces in the garbage. Maybe learning how to be out in the big world isn't the epic journey everyone thinks it is. Maybe that's actually the easy part. The hard part is what's right in front of you. The hard part is learning how to hold the title to your very existence, to own not only property, but also your life. The hard part is learning not just how to be but mastering the nearly impossible art of how to be at home.

The willingness to take an honest look at yourself and the ways you can improve is a great act of courage.  Some can approach personal development from a place of fixing what’s broken, but I think true personal development is making something great even better.  It’s the difference between demolishing a house and decorating one. 

Oh, your birthday! What a day that would be. I would make you a cake and decorate the house with banners, before creeping into your room with a fistful of balloons and confetti and a cupcake with a single candle in it. This would become one of our traditions, so no matter how old you got, you’d always wake to a cupcake, with pink frosting of course, and a single candle. If for any reason I couldn’t be with you on that day, you’d make one for yourself or someone you loved would buy you one, and holding that cupcake would make you feel close to me wherever you were in the world. Your birthday would be a day for great, great celebration, the day my life changed. The day I got you, the day I gave my heart away . . .

Look. This is a Christmas tree. It’s a decoration. Why do you think everything is a toy, Cat?” “I thought it was a toy ball, not a toy cat, and this thing here looks like a mouse-toy,” Trouble said, pointing to a mouse dressed in elf clothes that hung on the tree. “That is a toy mouse, not a mouse-toy for cats!” I said sternly. “What’s the difference?” said Roger, poking at it and getting it swinging. Trouble added in wonder, “You think the people of the house did not put this mouse and these balls here for us to play with?” “Yes ….” “So we’re playing. What’s the problem?” “No, Cat!” I stammered. “I mean. Yes, they did not.” Roger-That said, “I think you are confused black and white Patch Dog.” Finally, I said, “I am finished with this head-ache!” Trouble said, “Ok. What head-ache do you want?” “No. I mean you are the head-ache.” “Wrong.” he said, “I am Trouble.” “You got that right, Cat!” I said. “You should watch what comes out of your mouth!” “At least what comes out of my mouth isn’t dog drool!

You could do nothing more important than to wake up every morning of your life and remind yourself that the One who created and controls everything that exists has been made, by grace, to be your Father. He thinks of you with pure and faithful fatherly love. He acts toward you with the giving, providing, instructing, patient, and forgiving love of a perfect father. He is always with you. His hand is always upon you. He never stops watching you. His heart is always for you. He is always at work accomplishing his plans for you and through you. He lifts your burdens and lightens your load. He is your God, your Savior, your Friend—your Father. Nothing can ever be the same again because you now live in the Father’s house, where glorious grace decorates every room.

sonnet in my soul that spoke to you through the mist-covered fields that whispered to you from inside the swirling waves and the morning dew kissed your house once there was a perfect ballad filled with love, rain and rainbows even the dark clouds loved you once there was a perfect rhyme your hair decorated with white jasmine flowers your long white soft summer dress loose and free on your beautiful body once there was a love poem once there were you once there was a love poem once there was me once there were us a beautiful love song a beautiful love poem

After pushing the appliances into place, I emptied our hamper into the washer and started a cycle. As the remarkably quiet load finished, I observed that many of Nia’s clothes, particularly her undergarments, appeared old and worn. “Nia,” I stated, holding up a blouse with an obvious hole in it, “This is unacceptable. You need to go out right now and buy yourself some new clothes.” I didn’t have to ask her twice. The next morning, she went out shopping for a new wardrobe with her friends. While she was gone, my friend Erick and I cleaned up the flower beds in front of our house, planting fresh flowers and shrubs. When we were done, the kids and I decorated the driveway with sidewalk chalk, leaving messages of appreciation for Nia. After putting the kids to bed, I cleaned the house, intent on making everything sparkle on her return. With shopping bags draped over her shoulders, Nia approached the front, radiating a happiness and gratitude I hadn’t seen in her since the day before my confessions to her two weeks prior. Her gaze fell upon her new flower bed. “It’s beautiful,” she said. As she entered the house that smelled brand new, she turned to me with misty eyes and said something that overwhelmed me with emotion. “You’ve been so sweet to me,” she said after dropping her bags, covering her face with her hands. I didn’t deserve to hear those words; the things I was doing should have been done long ago, but they immediately brought me to tears. I walked over and wrapped her up as she sobbed into my shoulder. I reassured her of my undying love for her and reminded her that I was no longer the man I had described in my confessions. “I know you may think I’m doing this stuff just to win you back,” I said, “but I hope time will show how much I truly love you.” I wouldn’t need much time at all. An opportunity to demonstrate my physical and emotional faithfulness to her was on the horizon. 33 Shiny Boxes As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

Max-Ernest’s parents were divorced, and everything in his life was doubled or divided. (When Cass first visited his house, she couldn’t believe it: the house was split down the middle, each side designed and decorated differently, with neither parent ever stepping onto the other parent’s side.)

We are here to bring the interior designer inside all of us to life. To turn a house into a home full of style. To turn your space into a place that is always inviting and warm, like an embrace from your loved ones. We are here to help you create a space you always want to come back to. We search out the world’s most gifted artisans, find and develop fashion-forward trends, and handcraft exclusive products; always with you at the forefront of our mind.

My dear," he admonished her when she brought up the fact that she might, in the future, go back to work as a lawyer, "how do you expect to do two jobs?"... "You already have a job," he explained. "From now on, your life with your husband is your job." He corrected himself. "It's more than a job. It's a career. Your husband makes the money, and you create the life. And it's going to take effort. You'll rise each morning and exercise, not simply to look attractive but to build endurance. Most ladies prefer yoga. Then you will dress. You'll arrange your schedule and send e-mails. You'll attend a meeting for a charity in the morning, or perhaps visit an art dealer or make a studio visit. You'll have lunch, and then there are meetings with decorators, caterers, and stylists; you'll have your hair colored twice a month and blow-dried three times a week. You'll do private tours of museums and read, I hope, three newspapers a day: The New York Times, The New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal. At the end of the day, you'll prepare for an evening out, which may include two or three cocktail parties and a dinner. Some will be black-tie charity events where you'll be expected to wear a gown and never the same dress twice. You'll need to have your hair and makeup done. You'll also plan vacations and weekend outings. You may purchase a country house, which you will also have to organize, staff, and decorate. You will meet the right people and court them in a manner both subtle and shameless. And then, my dear, there will be children. So," Billy concluded, "let's get busy.

I've stopped preoccupying myself with the idea that my happiness is dependent on whatever might lie ahead in the future (in this case, buying a house). Contentment within my home is something I can find now - but only if I allow myself to actually appreciate the act of real living. Contentment within your home is something you can find now, not in a far-off home-owning future.

Your son, he doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, does he?” Dan laughed. “Tommy? No, he believes in sports. Soccer, basketball in the winter, baseball in the spring, video games in between.” “But your daughter does. She has imaginary friends, I’m guessing.” “She’s six. Of course she does.” Tamara bent down by the fireplace and reached her hand over the decorative logs. A second later she pulled away, as if burned by an invisible flame. A good actress indeed, he thought. “So, what, you think she’s being haunted by the ghost of Saint Nick?” he asked. “Did I say that?” “No, but come on. What kind of question is that?” “Remember the tea, Dan? Children, sometimes the elderly, sometimes even people of great faith, they act like conduits. Why? ’Cause they believe. Much easier to pass through a door that’s open than one that’s locked.” “What if someone doesn’t believe?” “There’s always more than one way into a house. And more than one—” Tamara snapped her head back to the foyer. Her eyes scanned the stairs, as if something silent and unseen had just run down them and into the hallway. He felt a chill pass behind him. “The painting,” she said, reaching out an arthritic finger that pointed past Dan, to the door at the end of the hallway. “It’s there, isn’t it?

All you have done is help yourself to our money.' 'Your mate's money.' Another flash of hurt. 'Thank you so much for taking time out of your home-making and shopping to remember me.' 'I built a room in this house for you. I asked you to help me decorate it. You told me to piss off.' 'Why would I ever want to stay in this house?' Where she could see precisely how happy they were, where none of them seemed remotely as decimated as she'd been by the war. She'd come so close to being a part of it- of that circle. Had held their hands as they'd stood together on the morning of the final battle and believed they might all make it. Then she'd learned precisely how mercilessly it might be ripped away. What the cost of hop and joy and love truly was. She never wanted to face it again. Never wanted to endure what she'd felt in that forest clearing, with the King of Hybern chuckling, blood everywhere. Her power hadn't been enough to save them that day. She supposed she'd been punishing it for failing her every since, keeping it locked up tight inside her. Feyre said, 'Because you're my sister.' 'Yes, and you're always sacrificing for us, your sad little human family-

the last of his water bombs into the air, and zoomed off up the marble staircase, cackling insanely. ‘Well, move along, then!’ said Professor McGonagall sharply to the bedraggled crowd. ‘Into the Great Hall, come on!’ Harry, Ron and Hermione slipped and slid across the Entrance Hall and through the double doors on the right, Ron muttering furiously under his breath as he pushed his sopping hair off his face. The Great Hall looked its usual splendid self, decorated for the start-of-term feast. Golden plates and goblets gleamed by the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles, floating over the tables in mid-air. The four long house tables were packed with chattering students; at the top of the Hall, the staff sat along one side of a fifth table, facing their pupils. It was much warmer in here. Harry, Ron and Hermione walked past the Slytherins, the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs, and sat down with the rest of the Gryffindors at the far side of the Hall, next to Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost. Pearly white and semi-transparent, Nick was dressed tonight in his usual doublet, with a particularly large ruff, which served the dual purpose of looking extra festive and ensuring that his head didn’t wobble too much on his partially severed neck. ‘Good evening,’ he said, beaming at them. ‘Says who?’ said Harry, taking off his trainers and emptying them of water. ‘Hope they hurry up with the Sorting, I’m starving.’ The Sorting of the new students into houses took place at the start of every school year, but by an unlucky combination of circumstances, Harry hadn’t been present at one since his own. He was quite looking forward to it. Just then, a highly excited, breathless voice called down the table, ‘Hiya, Harry!’ It was Colin Creevey, a third-year to whom Harry was something of a hero. ‘Hi, Colin,’ said Harry warily. ‘Harry, guess what? Guess what, Harry? My brother’s starting! My brother Dennis!’ ‘Er – good,’ said Harry. ‘He’s really excited!’ said Colin, practically bouncing up and down in his seat. ‘I just hope he’s in Gryffindor! Keep your fingers crossed, eh, Harry?’ ‘Er – yeah, all right,’ said Harry. He turned back to Hermione, Ron and Nearly Headless Nick. ‘Brothers and sisters usually go in the same houses, don’t they?’ he said. He was judging by the Weasleys, all seven of whom had been put into Gryffindor. ‘Oh, no, not necessarily,’ said Hermione. ‘Parvati Patil’s twin’s in Ravenclaw, and they’re identical, you’d think they’d be together, wouldn’t you?’ Harry looked up at the staff table. There seemed to be rather more empty seats there than usual. Hagrid, of course, was still fighting

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I’m about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it’s gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There’s a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash. I may even throw some multi-colored leaves into the mix, all haphazard like a crisp October breeze just blew through and fucked that shit up. Then I’m going to get to work on making a beautiful fucking gourd necklace for myself. People are going to be like, “Aren’t those gourds straining your neck?” And I’m just going to thread another gourd onto my necklace without breaking their gaze and quietly reply, “It’s fall, fuckfaces. You’re either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you’re not.” Carving orange pumpkins sounds like a pretty fitting way to ring in the season. You know what else does? Performing an all-gourd reenactment of an episode of Diff’rent Strokes—specifically the one when Arnold and Dudley experience a disturbing brush with sexual molestation. Well, this shit just got real, didn’t it? Felonies and gourds have one very important commonality: they’re both extremely fucking real. Sorry if that’s upsetting, but I’m not doing you any favors by shielding you from this anymore. The next thing I’m going to do is carve one of the longer gourds into a perfect replica of the Mayflower as a shout-out to our Pilgrim forefathers. Then I’m going to do lines of blow off its hull with a hooker. Why? Because it’s not summer, it’s not winter, and it’s not spring. Grab a calendar and pull your fucking heads out of your asses; it’s fall, fuckers. Have you ever been in an Italian deli with salamis hanging from their ceiling? Well, then you’re going to fucking love my house. Just look where you’re walking or you’ll get KO’d by the gauntlet of misshapen, zucchini-descendant bastards swinging from above. And when you do, you’re going to hear a very loud, very stereotypical Italian laugh coming from me. Consider yourself warned. For now, all I plan to do is to throw on a flannel shirt, some tattered overalls, and a floppy fucking hat and stand in the middle of a cornfield for a few days. The first crow that tries to land on me is going to get his avian ass bitch-slapped all the way back to summer. Welcome to autumn, fuckheads!

To figure out what deserves more time in your life, I suggest making something called a List of 100 Dreams. This exercise was shared with me by career coach Caroline Ceniza-Levine more than a dozen years ago. I wrote about it in my first time-management book, 168 Hours, and I continue to hear from people more than a decade later about how helpful it is. The List of 100 Dreams is exactly what you think it would be. You write down a hundred things you’d like to experience or have in your life. These can be regular bucket-list items (Visit Fiji! Run a marathon!) but most people’s bucket lists stop around item #25 when they’ve listed the twenty-five countries they want to visit. Getting to a hundred is hard. This is the point. You start thinking beyond the Fiji trip, and start thinking of more off-beat items (getting the house professionally decorated for Christmas?).

On unrelenting standards: You may have a less severe form of Achievement Orientation. Perhaps the balance between work and play is slightly off in your life. You cannot really relax, but at least your life is not totally consumed with work. And you may be a workaholic about things other than your job. It may be decorating your house, shopping for clothes or sales, or hobbies and sports. It could be anything – any form of activity that you turn into work and that enslaves you.

[On unrelenting standards:] You may have a less severe form of Achievement Orientation. Perhaps the balance between work and play is slightly off in your life. You cannot really relax, but at least your life is not totally consumed with work. And you may be a workaholic about things other than your job. It may be decorating your house, shopping for clothes or sales, or hobbies and sports. It could be anything – any form of activity that you turn into work and that enslaves you.

Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Monroe says, nearly knocking over her water glass with her flying hand. “That pissant probably couldn’t get hard anywhere. No amount of shabby chic decor is going to stop Gabriel Legend from pounding you into your pillowtop tonight.

Other Kinds of Fun LARGE MOTOR SKILLS ♦  Take a walk on a balance beam, along the curb, or even down a line on the sidewalk. ♦  Play catch (start with a large, slightly deflated ball). ♦  Jump over things (anything more than a few inches, though, will be too high for most kids this age). ♦  Throw, kick, roll, and toss balls of all sizes. ♦  Ride a tricycle. ♦  Spin around till you drop. ♦  Pound, push, pull, and kick. ♦  Make music using drums, xylophones, flutes, and anything else you have handy. ♦  Play Twister. SMALL MOTOR SKILLS ♦  Puzzles (fewer than twenty pieces is probably best). You might even want to cut up a simple picture from a magazine and see whether your toddler can put it back together. ♦  Draw on paper or with chalk on the sidewalk. ♦  Sculpt with clay or other molding substance. ♦  Finger paint. ♦  Play with string and large beads. ♦  Pour water or sand or seeds from one container to another. ♦  Get a big box (from a dishwasher or refrigerator), then build, paint and decorate a house together. THE BRAIN ♦  Matching games. ♦  Alphabet and number games (put colorful magnetic letters and numbers on the fridge and leave them low enough for the child to reach). ♦  Lots of dress-up clothes. ♦  Dolls of all kinds (including action figures). ♦  Pretending games with “real” things (phones, computer keyboards). ♦  Imaginary driving trips where you talk about all the things you see on the road. Be sure to let your toddler drive part of the way. ♦  Sorting games (put all the pennies, or all the triangles, or all the cups together). ♦  Arranging games (big, bigger, biggest). ♦  Smelling games. Blindfold your toddler and have him identify things by their scent. ♦  Pattern games (small-big/small-big). ♦  Counting games (How many pencils are there?). A FEW FUN THINGS FOR RAINY DAYS (OR ANYTIME) ♦  Have pillow fights. ♦  Make a really, really messy art project. ♦  Cook something—kneading bread or pizza dough is especially good, as is roasting marshmallows on the stove (see pages 214–20 for more). ♦  Go baby bowling (gently toss your toddler onto your bed). ♦  Try other gymnastics (airplane rides: you’re on your back, feet up in the air, baby’s tummy on your feet, you and baby holding hands). ♦  Dance and/or sing. ♦  Play hide-and-seek. ♦  Stage a puppet show. ♦  If it’s not too cold, go outside, strip down to your underwear, and paint each other top-to-bottom with nontoxic, water-based paints. Otherwise, get bundled up and go for a long, wet, sloppy, muddy stomp in the rain. If you don’t feel like getting wet, get in the car and drive through puddles.

Alton opened the door to his apartment and shielded his eyes. The normally dark room was filled with bright light. Peeking through his fingertips he eventually saw that the light was actually made out of many smaller lights. He stepped inside and rubbed his eyes. A short robot ran to greet him. “Welcome home, Alton!” the small robot chimed. “Yeah, yeah. What's with all the lights,” Alton said tiredly. “I have decorated for Christmas!” Alton kicked off his shoes and shuffled further into the apartment. Strings of lights had been hung everywhere. They wrapped around the walls and draped across the ceiling. Any surface not covered in lights had been dressed up with garlands made of a shiny plastic that reflected the lights. Everything seemed to give off light. “Why have you decorated for Christmas?” asked Alton. The robot's head clicked as it formed an answer. “Because that is what you do on Christmas. You decorate your house. Do you not like it?” To be honest, Alton did not like it. He did

The house decorating with the things and yourself with the dress is nothing as long as you do not furnish your language, talk, and your character with the role modesty, decency, morals, sincerity, and love of humans.

1930s Functionalism/Modernism Exterior •Facade: Cube shapes and light-color plaster facades, or thin, standing wood panels. •Roof: Flat roof, sometimes clad in copper or sheet metal. •Windows: Long horizontal window bands often with narrow—or no—architraves; large panes of glass without mullions or transoms. Emphasis on the horizontal rather than on the vertical. Windows run around corners to allow more light and to demonstrate the new possibilities of construction and materials. •Outside door: Wooden door with circular glass window. •Typical period details: Houses positioned on plots to allow maximum access to daylight. Curving balconies, often running around the corner; corrugated-iron balcony frontage. Balcony flooring and fixings left visible. The lines of the building are emphasized. Interior •Floors: Parquet flooring in various patterns, tongue-and-groove floorboards, or linoleum. •Interior doors: Sliding doors and flush doors of lamella construction (vaulted, with a crisscross pattern). Masonite had a breakthrough. •Door handles: Black Bakelite, wood, or chrome. •Fireplaces: Slightly curved, brick/stone built. Light-color cement. •Wallpaper/walls: Smooth internal walls and light wallpapers, or mural wallpaper that from a distance resembled a rough, plastered wall. Internal wall and woodwork were light in color but rarely completely white—often muted pastel shades. •Furniture: Functionalism, Bauhaus, and International style influences. Tubular metal furniture, linear forms. Bakelite, chrome, stainless steel, colored glass. •Bathroom: Bathrooms were simple and had most of today’s features. External pipework. Usually smooth white tiles on the walls or painted plywood. Black-and-white chessboard floor. Lavatories with low cisterns were introduced. •Kitchen: Flush cupboard doors with a slightly rounded profile. The doors were partial insets so that only about a third of the thickness was visible on the outside—this gave them a light look and feel. Metal-sprung door latches, simple knobs, metal cup handles on drawers. Wall cabinets went to ceiling height but had a bottom section with smaller or sliding doors. Storage racks with glass containers for dry goods such as salt and flour became popular. Air vents were provided to deal with cooking smells.

Okay, well, here are the best or most popular picks who still have one opening left: Heather Herr, Blair, Heidi, Noel, Heather Long, and Amy.” Ashton stood beside her locker, trying to appear as if she wasn’t listening. I could see her watching me from the corner of her eyes. That caught my attention. The ache that had taken up residence in my chest these days squeezed, reminding me why it was there. Would this feeling ever go away? How long would seeing her hurt so bad?” “Oh, and Ashton, of course.” Kayla’s chipper tone finally said the one word I couldn’t drown out. “What about Ashton?” I asked, tearing my gaze away from her to stare down at Kayla. “She’s still available. No one has picked her, except Sawyer, of course. I don’t think anyone will. No one wants her because they know they won’t be getting any special treatment from her. All the special treatment she’ll be dishing out will be for Sawyer.” “I want her.” “You do? Really?” “Yes.” “But you know Noel has a thing for you, and I can promise she’ll meet all your needs--” Kayla started saying. “I want Ashton,” I repeated and glared down at her again before turning and heading outside to the field house. Asking for Ashton might be opening myself up to more pain, but the thought of her doing things for Sawyer was enough to drive me crazy. The thought of her having to bake cookies, decorate a locker, and make cards for another guy infuriated me. Besides, I wasn’t doing so great in chemistry. I needed some tutoring. The one-on-one kind where boyfriends weren’t allowed.

I feel like a tourist in my own country,” I said, taking in a goatherd leading a half-dozen emaciated goats along the side of the road. Farid snickered. Tossed his cigarette. “You still think of this place as your country?” “I think a part of me always will,” I said, more defensively than I had intended. “After twenty years of living in America,” he said, swerving the truck to avoid a pothole the size of a beach ball. I nodded. “I grew up in Afghanistan.” Farid snickered again. “Why do you do that?" “Never mind,” he murmured. “No, I want to know. Why do you do that?” In his rearview mirror, I saw something flash in his eyes. “You want to know?” he sneered. “Let me imagine, Agha sahib. You probably lived in a big two- or three-story house with a nice backyard that your gardener filled with flowers and fruit trees. All gated, of course. Your father drove an American car. You had servants, probably Hazaras. Your parents hired workers to decorate the house for the fancy mehmanis they threw, so their friends would come over to drink and boast about their travels to Europe or America. And I would bet my first son’s eyes that this is the first time you’ve ever worn a pakol.” He grinned at me, revealing a mouthful of prematurely rotting teeth. “Am I close?” “Why are you saying these things?” I said. “Because you wanted to know,” he spat. He pointed to an old man dressed in ragged clothes trudging down a dirt path, a large burlap pack filled with scrub grass tied to his back. “That’s the real Afghanistan, Agha sahib. That’s the Afghanistan I know. You? You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know it.

Relationships with your partner’s parents, siblings and/or children can reveal deep truths about where you place value in personal relationships. I may believe that all family members are welcome in our house at any time of day or night, while my spouse may feel that 3 A.M. is not an acceptable time for visitors of any sort, even a sibling in crisis. I may wish to invite my mother over to discuss decorating questions; my partner may view this as intrusive or overly dependent. It’s valuable to examine assumptions like these. Many of us retain into adulthood unresolved issues with our families of origin—issues which we may attempt to resolve, consciously or not, within the context of marriage. If you have a parent who is alcoholic, for example, you may refuse to keep liquor in your home, but your partner may enjoy having a drink when he or she comes home from work. Can you or should you separate your deep feelings about alcohol from your partner’s needs?

First up is the Coway AP-1512HH HEPA Air Purifier. So in case, you’re looking for high-quality purifiers, but at an affordable price, then it will be your first choice. It comes in both black and white colors. Also, the purifier has an attractive and appealing design and does not take much space in your house or office. With an innovative concept and added luxury, it almost resembles an iPod.

Like a contractor building a house, this book is constructed from the ground up: first comes the big slabs of foundation, then the necessary load-bearing walls, the elegant but impermeable roof, and the lovely interior decorations.

DECORATE THE HOME OF YOUR TASTE WITH OUR FURNITURE COLLECTION “A house is not a home without the finishing touches. An exclusive inventory of DST Furniture Store will create the ideal image of luxuries in your home. we are expert in remodeling and redesigning and we always fully complete each project with perfection and give you and your home the attention it deserves

What Are The Main Advantages of PVC Doors They usually have a clean floor with bright paint-free in order that they'll keep away from the discharge of any toxic gas within the air which might be very dangerous to human physique especially if they use the decorative paint. PVC doorways have another advantage in that they are surroundings pleasant because they are often recycled after their life is other to other varieties by melting them and then remolding them.In addition to the above advantages of PVC doors, you find them to be good for your own home as a result of they are very simple to put in in addition to simple to maintain. Moreover, PVC upvc doors ipswich doorways are straightforward to take care of. As a result of the truth that PVC is manufactured from plastic, there are much less possibilities of injury from other parts. Cleaning them just requires a wet piece of cloth with little cleaning liquid.The opposite most important advantage of those PVC doorways is that they're climate proof. They aren't affected by presence of extra water or moisture since they don't take up any amount. They can not warp in case of direct heating. Also, they do not lose their colour when exposed to direct daylight and this has led to their increased utilization worldwide. Another good motive why PVC doorways are fashionable is that, under regular circumstances, they are generally straightforward to take care of. Cleaning a PVC door is relatively easy to do. All it's good to wipe its surface clean and it'll look pretty much as good as new. Furthermore, PVC doors don't require stripping or repainting, and are typically quite sturdy. The identical can't be said of conventional wooden doorways, significantly those which can be sensitive to moisture and chemical compounds. Traditional wooden doorways require cautious maintenance to be able to preserve their appearance and wonder. Initials PVC stands for polyvinyl chloride which is a chemistry time period used to discuss with a certain type of material which may be very durable, has great insulating traits and does not emit any harmful fumes under regular conditions. Its chemical properties could be modified so that it turn out to be very robust and stiff like in a PVC door and even very flexible like in an inflatable swimming pool. PVC is getting used all around the world due to its power. The following are the advantages of PVC doorways; PVC door does not require upkeep, repainting or stripping and you solely need to wipe its floor occasionally for it to look good. Compared to timber door body which shrink and develop over time, PVC door body often remain steady as it is 100% water proof. Whereas doors from other materials discolor and fade if they're exposed to direct daylight, PVC’s one does not fade or discolor as a result of it is extremely UV resistance and thus it can remain looking new for a very long time.

Learn About The High Rise Apartment Benefits Deciding places to reside typically be a concern and it is truly advisable to search into high rise apartment benefits prior to making a decision. Although surviving in a normal condominium in the city most likely be lurking in small space, it ought sure the benefits of some people. Keep in mind that bigger houses can be found in contain higher overhead expenses. Short-time period stay should involve minimal bills to purchase furniture and decorations for your home. If you happen to lived in a bigger home in the outskirts of city, you will have to buy a lot of thing to refill your place. After you have to move, dropping all of your possessions often are tedious and tiresome. Staying in 1 rental will require you in order to get fundamental furnishings only. Another benefit of staying in a city constructing is the convenience of commuting to work. Sometimes, your office could be downtown where additionally, you will discover many tall residential condominiums. You can walk to operate or take a short bus ride within your office. Going to see the suburbs would require that enable you to personal method to commute specifically for your office every day. The city lifestyle additionally has given to you more luxury and comfort. Good eating locations and pubs must be close by. You'll search for a good shops and goods within the city. It will be convenient to are now living in a high-rise apartment intrinsic of town that provides you easy access to good shops to operate your errands. In the suburbs, you'll likely have to have a automobile as a way to easy chores. If you could have to go to operate with at hours away, you would spend a lot for gasoline. Your car may also wear down quickly the santorini condo price since you'll be driving it usually permanently distances. Making a home in a high-rise residence can remove these extra burdens such as gas costs and time travel. You can spend extra quality time with your partner or youngsters by dwelling near your place of work. Suburban households are inclined to hire babysitters to observe their youngsters though they work miles away. Vacationing as a condominium ear your office will let you being more involved with of affairs since you is certainly not spending couple of days commuting each day. It is right to are now living in urban cities if you're single or live as a general couple. You'll be able to take advantage of high rise apartment benefits if you find yourself in a functional location close to your workplace. Staying in a very very condominium can supply you with higher security.

Whether the oddments of superstition my mother told us when we were young were believed by her or were meant as a kind of amusement for us, like the Easter Bunny, Moss Babies and the Tooth Fairy, I am undecided; possibly something of both. She wouldn’t wear green (but that was due to family history: Great-Aunt Emma had an emerald green dress and her fiancé had perished at sea); Christmas decorations had to be totally removed by Twelfth Night as witches could get into the least scrap of tinsel or coloured paper. The snippets of lore were varied: never bring into the house bones, peacock feathers or may blossom; never mix red and white flowers in a vase (death ensued if you did); don’t look at the moon through glass; don’t put shoes on a table (surely just hygienic advice); sing before morning and you’ll cry before night; if you meet a piebald horse, make a cross in the dust on your shoe.

BARTON CENTRE, 912, 9th Floor, Mahatma Gandhi Rd, Bengaluru, Karnataka - 560 001 Phone Number +91 8884400919 ### Surfnxt sri lanka tour package from bangalore: Find the Gem of the Indian Sea Settled in the sky blue waters of the Indian Sea, Sri Lanka, affectionately named the "Pearl of the Indian Ocean," is a stunning objective that ought to be on each voyager's list of must-dos. With its lavish scenes, energetic culture, and rich history, Sri Lanka offers a special encounter that enamors the hearts of the individuals who visit. On the off chance that you're in Bangalore and longing for an outlandish escape, the Surfnxt Sri Lanka visit bundle is the ideal entryway to this island heaven. #### Why Pick Sri Lanka? Sri Lanka is prestigious for its dazzling normal magnificence, which goes from immaculate sea shores to verdant tea estates and lofty mountains. This appealing island includes a plenty of attractions, including old archeological locales, untamed life safe-havens, and beguiling towns loaded up with history. Whether you're a nature devotee, a culture buff, or essentially hoping to loosen up by the ocean side, Sri Lanka has something for everybody. #### Features of the Surfnxt Visit Bundle The Surfnxt sri lanka tour package from bangalore is intended to give you a far reaching look into what makes Sri Lanka so exceptional. Here are a portion of the features that you can anticipate: 1. **Cultural Exploration**: The agenda incorporates visits to critical UNESCO World Legacy destinations, for example, Sigiriya Rock Fort, an old stone bastion decorated with frescoes and astonishing nurseries. You'll likewise investigate the hallowed city of Kandy, home to the renowned Sanctuary of the Tooth Artifact, where a loved remnant of Buddha is housed. 2. **Stunning Landscapes**: Experience Sri Lanka's amazing scenes, from the rich tea ranches in Nuwara Eliya to the beautiful sea shores of Bentota. You might take a picturesque train ride through the slopes, wondering about the all encompassing perspectives and dynamic plant life en route. 3. **Wildlife Encounters**: For untamed life sweethearts, the visit offers a thrilling safari experience in Yala Public Park, where you can detect the slippery panthers, elephants, and various birds right at home. 4. **Culinary Delights**: No outing is finished without tasting nearby food. During your excursion, you'll have the valuable chance to appreciate scrumptious Sri Lankan dishes, known for their rich flavors and one of a kind flavors. From the conventional rice and curry to mouth-watering fish, your taste buds are in for a treat. 5. **Relaxation on the Beach**: After all the investigation, loosen up on the delightful sea shores of Sri Lanka. Whether you're in Mirissa, Galle, or Hikkaduwa, absorbing the sun and partaking in the quiet environmental elements will certainly revive your soul. #### Arranging Your Outing The Surfnxt sri lanka tour package from bangalore is a very much made venture that spotlights on both the sights and encounters that make this island so charming. With adaptable travel courses of action and comprehensive bundles that cover transportation, facilities, and feasts, arranging your outing to Sri Lanka has never been more straightforward. When to visit? The best chance to investigate Sri Lanka is from December to April when the weather conditions is ideal for touring and ocean side exercises. #### End Sri Lanka is something other than a movement location; it's an encounter loaded up with experiences, culture, and dazzling magnificence. The Surfnxt Sri Lanka visit bundle from Bangalore offers a superb chance to investigate this unimaginable island. So gather your sacks and plan to make recollections that will endure forever in the "Pearl of the Indian Ocean." Whether it's your most memorable visit or a re-visitation of this lovely land, Sri Lanka vows to charm and joy.

Shop the finest home decor furniture today and give your interiors a stunning makeover. For any inquiries, reach out to us at theeasydecor@gmail.com. Let The Easy Decor help you turn your house into a home you’ll love!

Welcome to Schumacher's Feine Weine & Schöne Dinge in Neudorf, Luzern, where quality, passion, and style come together. We take pride in offering a thoughtfully curated selection of fine wines from small, exceptional vineyards, ensuring the perfect balance of quality and value. Explore our unique range of stylish home decor and seasonal accessories, ideal for creating a cozy ambiance or as heartfelt gifts. Complement your experience with gourmet delicacies, perfect for crafting an unforgettable Italian-inspired evening or indulging in special moments. Visit our wine house and event space, where inspiration meets hospitality. Whether you’re hosting a memorable event or seeking the perfect addition to your home or table, Schumacher’s offers something truly special. We look forward to welcoming you!

Who knows how mage lights are powered?” Professor Trissa asks, ignoring his question and reaching into her pack. She removes eight small wooden boards, no bigger than a plate. She puts them in the center of our little stand-off. “Well?” “Lesser magic,” Maren answers. “The ones you create yourself.” Professor Trissa nods. “What about the ones that run continuously in, say, the first-year dorms. The ones that work before you can channel?” Every rider looks at me. “They’re powered by the excess magic both we and our dragons channel,” I answer. “It comes off us naturally, like…waves of body heat, but it’s such a small amount that we don’t even notice it.” “Exactly,” the professor agrees. “And what is it that makes that kind of magic possible? Magic tied to objects instead of a wielder?” She looks us over with expectant, dark-brown eyes, then rubs the bridge of her nose. “Gods, I thought Felix was joking. Sorrengail, you’re practically covered in them.” I glance down, glimpsing the shimmer of my dragon-scale armor beneath the V-neck of my uniform top, then lock onto the daggers Xaden gave me. “Runes?” “Runes,” Professor Trissa confirms. “Runes aren’t just decorative. They’re strands of magic pulled from our power, woven into geometric patterns for specific uses, then placed into an object, either for immediate work or usage at a later date. We call the process ‘tempering.’” “That’s not possible.” Maren shakes her head. “Magic is only wielded.” “It’s still wielded.” Professor Trissa all but sighs in disappointment at our ignorance. “But just like we store food for winter, a wielder can temper a rune using as much or as little power as they choose, then place it into something.” She bends down and picks up one of the boards and waves it in our general directions. “Like wood, or metal, or whatever object the wielder chooses. That rune will activate when triggered and perform whatever action it was tempered for. Unlike alloy, which houses power, runes are tempered with power for specific actions.