Wednesday, January 18, 2012

New Furniture

I ordered some furniture last week and it arrived today. I need furniture for my new house but don't want to spend a lot (or any) money this year, I want to live in there first to see what exactly I will need and figure out exactly what I want. I am not the kind of person that rearranges the house and buys new furniture every few years. I feel if you take care of furniture it can last you forever...except mattresses, they need replacing once in a while. I don't even like new furniture I like old furniture, I feel it has more character and class. Luckily for me the fruit and vegetables still come in wooden crates here, I had 20 of them delivered to my house today. I washed them up today and will get to work tomorrow painting them. What you see here are, coffee tables, a night table, a linen closet, book shelves and a shoe shelf and who knows what else I can come up with. Pretty clever I thought......doesn't get classier than this.


Sunday, January 15, 2012

My child's inheritance


Did I ever find a treasure today, I scored big time. I also think it is a funny coincidence that I wrote about it yesterday. Cotton Sheets, real 100 % cotton, soft as silk and thin as paper, just like the one's I told you about in my last post. I am not sure what makes this cotton so soft, it seriously feels like they have been washed over and over, like the ones in your grandma's closet. It's a vintage cotton, but these sheets are new, they were in a sealed package. I found them at the Juarez market today and I actually even needed sheets, I bought a new bed last week (a double bed) for my house and now my twin sheets don't fit, they of course will get recycled into cushion covers or tables cloths, napkins...the possibilities are endless. 
After I got  home and ripped the package open and draped the flat sheet all over me and pranced around the house like a major crazy sheet ghost I realized that I had been so excited when buying it that I clearly wasn't thinking straight.....why on earth did I not buy another flat sheet to make curtains with? Imagine these white feather light curtains with a little redwork embroidered on the bottom edge flying like sails out of my windows (that have no screen or glass), they are so light they would move by blowing on them. I must go back....some day. 
The Juarez market only happens once a week, on Sunday mornings...yes, I played hookie from church to go to the market today. Surely I can't do that two weeks in a row. I will just cherish these for now, they will after all be my child's inheritance....along with my harmony knitting needles. 

I know you can't feel the softness .......
The price for these sheets, 50 pesos for the flat and 60 or 70 for the fitted, I always mix the numbers 60 and 70 up so I am never really sure, it's the difference of $1.00 so who cares.

I'll leave you with some pictures of the Juarez market, it's a crazy place, full of new and used stuff, it's takes up a whole block. All the booths are side by side and back to back, so side by side that sometimes you have walked yourself stuck....you know what I mean. Mexicans have no sense of space, not your spare or their space, there's is always more space to squeeze in one more booth, one more person on the bus, one more person in a car, one person on a quad.....there is always space. When you get to the market and you first get off the bus it looks like there is no space for you there....but there is.

To get to the market you have to first get on a boat to get to the mainland....a boat like this

Because it's 7:30 am the fisherman are just all coming in with their nightly catch

The fish cleaning table....one of many

Of course I stop and buy one of these hot deep fried yummies for breakfast

Check it out 2 kilos of Chilis for 10 pesos.....

A mount of grapes and strawberries

The radishes are unreal here, huge but yet not woody tasting

Of course I had tacos

There is everything here, food, clothes, groceries, tools, appliances, electronics ....everything, except a mop pail, I was looking for a mop pail
Another boat ride to get home. 
I had a shopping list that looked like this;
A mop pail
A toilet brush
Coffee grounds

I came home with this;
A sheet set and pillowcase
1 Rosemary plant
1 Lavender plant
1 Toilet brush
One can of coffee
A bunch of Cloves....really much coves...like lots
2 hair thingers, by the way, the word thinger does not translate in Spanish, when you say thinger they know not what you talkin about like at home.
2 cloth Napkins (stamped to embroider)
2 balls of embroidery thread ........because that table cloth that I started embroidering 10 years ago will soon be done and I will need another project.....not likely.

I must go outside now and enjoy the magic, and dance around in my new sheets.