Household Remedies.

Boot Bonanza!

Oh, have you been to SHOEVILLE lately? We took a gazillion photos on Monday and I am loading them up even as we speak.

Hurry over for a peek, they're going fast.

YAY!

Coming Soon.

Another etsy shop is in the works, and this time it will be filled with my beloved collection of vintage housewares.

Keep your eyes peeled!

Vote for BEES!

So I just got an email from Etsy.com. It seems that one of my dresses is in the running for some sort of St. Patrick's Day item poll. Go here to vote for the Bees Knees Vintage! It's the KISS ME, I"M IRISH dress. I actually might be Irish, you never know.

My Thorny Past.

I was just ten years old, in fourth grade and quite ill with chicken pox when The Thorn Birds mini series was on TV for the first time. I remember it well because my sister, who gave me those dang pox, was completely fine, eating my mom's homemade cookies, drinking SQUIRT (it's practically ginger ale) and staying up late watching TV with my parents. I, on the other hand, was sick as a dog. It was terribly unfair and well, the story of my life. When I get sick, I get really sick. Luckily, it's rare.

So anyways, I was at the Oakland Library with Alvaro this last weekend when I spotted it! On video-tape! And we since we still have a VCR, I snatched it right up.

It's almost as good as I remembered it to be. You get to see a young and exceedingly handsome Richard Chamberlain in his birthday suit (from the side, of course. Very modest, those priests) and the ladies clothes are pretty good.

Lord help me, it's 4 tapes long!

Oh, that dress!

Jessica in a Bees Knees find.

Olives - I have failed you.

Long story short. Last year on a Thanksgiving Day walk with Alvaro, I discovered OLIVES!

Free food!

Growing on trees!

Right there on my moms street just waiting for me to forage!

So we walked back to the house, found a paper shopping bag and filled it with pounds and pounds of olives.

Two days later, back at home in Oakland, I spent all day on the old internet trying to figure out a non-scary way to cure my new olive friends. I was determined to find some way to make them edible without bringing a can of Red Devil Lye (um, that's sounds safe!) into our kitchen.

After hours upon hours and reading a gazillion recipes, I found one where you soak them in a very salty solution for a long time and then one day, no more bitterness! Like magic or something.

We had those jars of olives clogging up our counter space for what seemed like months and to tell the truth, they weren't bitter in the end but they were so squishy, I couldn't eat them.

I stashed them in the cupboard covered in olive oil until one day Alvaro announced "your olives are moldy" sort of like I imagine him saying "your kid soiled his diaper again." At least with mold I had permission to throw them out.

But what did I do this Thanksgiving but say "hey AV, wanna go pick olives?"

It's like I completely forgot the whole 2007 Olive Debacle even though it's only been a couple months since I got the greasy film off of the bottom of the cupboard. Wouldn't it be okay to let Alvaro shoulder some of the blame since he didn't try to stop me or anything?

Exact re-enactment of last year including skipping down the street with my shopping bag, picking like a mad-woman, searching for curing methods, soaking in solutions etc.

But today I looked over at the jars of olives, no doubt getting squishier by the minute and said "ENOUGH!"

I am throwing them out, one and all. Olive curing is best left to professionals or folks with more counter space.