find your inner witch!

We have opened the cans of candy colored fun and Halloween is a comin'!

My Lindsey loo and I have been burning up the paintbrushes.

Jay did the sawing and we had all the fun.

This is just a smidgen of the Halloween door decor that will be at our Witches Night Out. You will not want to miss this evening of fun and flamboyance straight from the cobweb filled minds of the team at ALiCe and JaY!

finest words you will ever hear...

So...the removal of my old parts went very well. The doctor actually used a robot to assist in removing my stubborn parts. This went well and I came out with 4 little holes in my abdomen. Not bad for such a big removal! The sweetest words you will ever hear? When you roll back in to that fabulously lavish hospital room and the nurse says, "Ms. Durham, you have a pain pump right here by your side. Just push the button when you start to hurt!" OH, if life only had a pain pump!
Now , to know me is to know that I canNOT sit still. Not even with holes in my belly. So, my family decided we should all go to the beach for the weekend. Sounded pretty good to me. Now I know when I say beach house, many conjure up the image of Martha Stewart lounging in her 50 room home by the sea...I have a 4 room home by the sea. There is a tiny little stretch of highway that runs from Mexico Beach to Panacea, Florida that is known as the Forgotten Coast. It still looks and runs like Florida did in the "good ole days". My little tiki hut resides on Cape San Blas. We are sandwiched by the gulf of Mexico and Port St Joe Bay. It is a bit of heaven on Earth. The weekend was exactly what I needed and I thought I would share a little of my simple pleasures by the sea with you. The first picture is of my fishing buddies! They tore those fish up on Saturday!

I love old flamingos. They kinda make my heart sing when I find one.

My Mom made this shower curtain for me years ago and I still just love it. How do you like my dollar store wall art? Cape San Blas only has 2 stores, the BP and the Trading Post, so decorating is pretty simple when you shop locally.

I know that grape vine wreaths are a thing of the past but this one is a collection of our lives and fun days spent at the beach.

This is the kind of fish that I like to catch.

The bay behind our house is full of scallops. I don't eat them but I do glue them to little white lights and make my mantle happy.

Here is one of my favorite spots. This is my walkway that leads to the beach.

Here is my view to the right...

straight ahead...

and to the left. This is my all time favorite! I have a porch bed with a mattress where you can lounge all day long and just listen to the waves. This place is magical. The Indians used to inhabit this area and you can still find their pottery washing up on the shore. I believe that their spirits still somehow keep this place "forgotten" and it is as magical for them as it is for me. I hope that everyone has a special place to go that is a healing place. Mine is not fancy(in fact, we are the smallest house on the entire peninsula)but is is practically perfect in my eyes. Blessings to all and thank you for the well wishes. I am on the mend and looking forward to living life to the fullest.

They're BACK!

The witches are coming! The witches are coming!

Just a reminder before I go in to the repair shop tomorrow, we will have our FIRST Witches Night Out on September 16th! Our new building will be open and filled to the brim with spooky

spectacles. We will have plenty of bubbly for all of our witchy friends and fabulously fiendish finger foods. The doors will open at 6 pm and anyone who wears their own pointy hat will receive a 15% discount on their ghoulish shopping treats.

Don't be afraid! Come and party with the Alice and Jay witches! More info when I return! See you soon.

saturday night date

Hello! It has been a while. We have been busy, busy with the renovations on the bank and I have been painting like a mad woman to get a little ahead. I will be out for a few weeks to have some body work. I seem to have reached that age where a few of parts need removing and few need some routine maintenance to keep them going till I reach my million mile mark. Hopefully, it will be a short and sweet visit to the repair shop and I will be back spinning wheelies in no time! In the meantime, I have made Jay a VERY long list!

In the other meantime, I found this image on tiny white daisies and fell in love. Can you imagine a Saturday evening under the stars like this! I don't think I could pull it off(because you would be carried off by swarms and swarms of mosquitos and gnats down here in South Georgia!)..but wouldn't it be loverly, if you could!

Have a simply CRAZY weekend and fill it with nonsense and sillies!

sweet feet

Happy Saturday! I hope everyone has a splendid weekend planned and it is full of sunshine! We have a store full of new furniture today so we hope you can drop in to see us. We put some new items on the online store this week too. This sign is my new favorite! I am moving my youngest daughter in to her first college apartment this afternoon and I am going to take this to hang in their den. The only thing, I better get to learning how to roast red peppers! I never knew!

And from the workshop this week..... lessons learned the hard way. I was happily painting and waxing with my wonderful Annie Sloan while unbeknownst to me, I had an audience.

This is what happens when your audience has walked across your table while the paint was still a bit damp, then you wax it.

If I didn't love that little Harvey so much, he might have gotten in trouble! If the table had been going home with me, I might have just left that sweet little print but luckily it just sanded right off and Harvey is still trying to help!

knock, knock

Progress! Progress is a wonderful thing! We have started painting the outside of our buildings. I have toned down the colors a wee bit. When I originally bought these buildings in this negative one horse town, the local snoots didn't roll out the red carpet for me. In fact, they rolled up the carpet and laid out a bed of nails. This is where being a hard headed farm girl came in quite handy(not to mention that this was a very angry period in my life; whew! Glad that has passed on!). I just rolled up my sleeves and painted my side of the street the brightest colors I could find. I wanted to be sure that everyone could have a look at me when they drove by. I was called everything from a whorehouse to....well, I let you just ponder on that. Life has quieted down a little and so did the new color palette. I can't wait to show you the before and after.

SOooo... on to the bank building! Yahoo! They came on Thursday to start the concrete floor.

You gotta pack a whole lot of RED sand/clay to fill up the holes!

Let me just say...If your husband works in this every day, my hat is off to you! Tide should give you free detergent. If your husband does not...say a big ole "thank you, Lord"! They packed and packed all of Thursday...

and then Friday morning...WOO HOO... it's concrete pouring time! They were able to do the whole floor in 2 days. I was impressed.

Today, it was door cutting! They actually used a chain saw to cut through the 3 layers of brick. This doorway will connect my two end buildings for our retail store.

It took all day for these guys to remove all of these bricks but by this afternoon...

Lookie, lookie...I have a floor and a door and a roof! Next week will be a back wall. I am usually a DIY kind of gal but I must admit that hiring someone to come in and do it all for you has been really nice. Next, I may be lounging around with bon-bons and a man slave fanning me with palm fronds!

footnote to chemical warfare

Footnote to the day! So... we finish and get ready to go home and I decide to go have one more look before I leave... Take note that there is NO back wall to this building and now there is NO front window either...I hear a clanking and turn to find Jay doing this...

He is locking the door! Burglars beware! You ain't gettin' nuttin out of this secured building!!!

protected by chemical warfare!

I thought I would give you a mini tour of the bank vault. Mini because I know so little about it and mostly mini cause it is tiny in there! One of the neatest things about the vault is a little metal sign on the front that reads, "CAUTION! This vault is protected by chemical warfare!" Now, notice the little metal line running up the wall on the next picture...

This line had a canister of mustard gas at the base of it and if you follow it up the beautiful domed ceiling...it leads to this ominous looking creature.

This looks like something I may have had nightmares about as a child. Fortunately, we were able to remove the canister and this thing isn't going to shoot out anything anymore(except maybe dust and rust). The other feature inside the vault that I find fascinating is this little hole. Look on the first picture directly above the safe and you will see it. I wonder what it was for? A breathing hole in case you got locked inside!!! If you know, let me know and I will give you a prize.

The next few pictures are just of the door. The details are just so lovely.

We have sandblasted it and are now going to seal it. Look at these interior doors. They are super heavy and super scary when you close them and you are inside!

Next, is our progress for the day! The windows have to be taken out and repaired and new frames constructed. This has not proven to be an easy task.

apparently these windows are not only fragile, but very weighty.

Jay managed to get the front window safely out and tomorrow that girl will have a brand new frame and maybe a few coats of new paint. I hope she will be smiling!