a before and after

Shortly after we moved into our house last May I was on the hunt for a new dining table. The one I had my eye on was just too pricey. We had so many expenses with the move and with all of the projects we had in store, so I was on the lookout for a real deal. Plus, I actually like refinishing furniture - what a great way to make a piece truly your own! - so I was not afraid to look at St. Vinny's, antique shops or Goodwill to find what I was looking for. You can get a piece of such better quality, though used, than what a lot of new furniture stores sell. And much to my delight I found almost a carbon copy of the dining table I had had my eye on - the one that was too pricey! The difference, was the color of the wood. Here's a before shot I snapped with my camera phone at good ole St. Vinny's.

right style, shape, and size but so the
wrong color

Once I found this "diamond in the rough", it was a matter of being able to fit the table in my car, so I paid for the table, had St. Vinny's hold it for me, and my dad was kind enough to go pick it up later with his Subaru. With my dad's help we were able to pick up the table - I should also add that he deserves sainthood due to the amount of help he lent as he stripped the wood for me. He then delivered the stripped down table to my house where I finished it with sanding, paint and polyurethane. Here's the after shot:

the finished project!

I also stripped, painted and reupholstered the accompanying chairs (found at an antique shop - 4 chairs for $28, I kid you not!). Oh, and I failed to mention the table happens to be Ethan Allen and I paid a whopping $49! Not bad, right? 

sweets for my sweet

Today is my husband's birthday so, of course, there was much reason to celebrate! I managed to bake him little cakes for the occasion and since it's just the 2 of us so a big cake wasn't completely necessary. I made angel food cake topped with chocolate ganache and blackberries. I'm admittedly not the best baker (too many rules to follow!) but in the end I was pleased with how these little cakes, almost like petit fours, turned out. They were quite tasty too!

the ganache glistens, doesn't it?

chocolate and fruit,
a perfect combo!

the birthday boy with our little Nino,
a curious on-looker

I do love the glow
from a birthday candle

Happiest of birthday wishes to my wonderfully loving husband.

one hundred!

Today marks my 100th "Inside the Pomegranate" blog post. So, I thought I would somehow incorporate the idea of 100 into my post today. I wasn't sure where the idea of 100 would take me, but my mind started wandering - which it's prown to do - and I remembered that I recently read that there are 100 meanings of om. I decided to take that idea and run with it for my 100th post.

For anyone who's ever gone to a yoga class, many are begun or at least ended with a collective chant of om. Yoga, with in roots in Hinduism, relies on many Sanskrit words for poses (asanas) and breathing techniques. Sanskrit, as you probably know, is the ancient language of India (akin to how Latin is an ancient language). Depending on the yoga class and the teacher more or less emphasis is given to the meaning of om. I'm nowhere near being an expert on the meaning of om or Vedic chanting, but here's a little of what I've learned through a bit of reading: in the beginning it was the supreme word and the word created everything, the sound om is the sound within us and it is also the sound of the universe, by chanting om it also means you are inviting energy, and om is the sound of the divine.

the Sanskrit word, om

Om, when spelled out, is obviously a short looking word, but when chanted it takes on a vowel-heavy song-like quality, more like aaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmm. I love when, at the end of a yoga class, chanting starts with each person voicing om in their own pitch - their own musical note - and then suddenly the tone melts together in harmony. It is a beautiful thing to be part of. 

I also learned that om, which comes to us from Hinduism and before that from Sanskrit, is the same root word for Amen in the Roman civilization, Amun in the Egyptian civilization, and Ameen in the Arabic civilization. Interesting, no? 

springtime in Paris

There's a reason that springtime in Paris is sung about, written about, dreamt about. It's an enchantingly beautiful city to begin with and when you add buds and blossoms into the mix, something extraordinary is to be beholden. I took this photo while in Paris in March of 2004. This is another photo I took in those pre-digital days, so I scanned the photo directly from the album.



at the Musee Rodin, 2004

I love the combination of the statue's feminine body and profile, the bare branches against the powder blue sky and the grand dome in the background. Standing at the same spot in the summer you don't even know the dome is there! 

shout out - Brookish

I adore Etsy and finding a new, fun shop on the website is always so exciting. To my extreme delight I stumbled across a shop called, Brookish.  Brookish is an amazing shop for anyone who loves Jane Austen (most of you know, I fit this category), especially Pride and Prejudice (my favorite of the Jane Austen novels) as most of the items they sell are Pride and Prejudice related. I could not decide between 2 t-shirts because each was so lovely in its own way...so I ended up getting both. When faced with that type of difficult predicament, who out there hasn't made that same decision before?  

I was giddy as a schoolgirl when I opened the package sent from Brookish - here's a photo of how nicely they wrap their items. It was like a gift - to me, from me! And, to be 100% honest, it was a fantastic treat for me at the end of a rather rough week. Their attention to the little details is so sweet!

what pretty packages! 

After opening the packages, I laid the shirts out on the dining table to take a photo - Nino jumped up to see what was going on.

after I upwrapped my "gifts"

Brookish does superb work - check out their Etsy shop!  http://www.etsy.com/people/Brookish. The shirts have now been washed and dried and I really adore them - I'm awfully happy I bought both!

the key locations and towns in
Pride and Prejudice

Mr. Darcy's marriage proposal
written out in beautiful script

light and reflections

Luceat lux vestra - let your light shine...

a glowing star

flowerful Friday

Lilac blooms are quite possibly one of my favorite things ever. I love the flowers themselves, but the scent, to me, is divinely intoxicating, and I cannot get enough of lilacs when they are in season. Their return is still a little ways off, but I thought for today's flowerful Friday post, we could all use a small dose of lilacs.

"in flore" = Latin for "in blossom"

I took this photo last year when the lilacs were in full bloom - while snapping away with my camera I was breathing as deeply as possible to get that amazing fragrance as deep into my lungs as possible. Now if only I could send you their heavenly scent too. For that you'll need to use your imagination. Happy Friday to you. 

crescit eundo

I'm delighted everyday when I walk outside and see the many bulbs I planted last fall starting to poke up through the earth and gradually raising their green bodies upwards for all of us to see. The Latin phrase "crescit eundo" means "it grows as it goes" (musicians out there - do you see where the term crescendo comes from?) and I learned that it originally referred to a lightening bolt in the sky growing with momentum as it moves. But I think this phrase, crescit eundo, is the perfect way to describe spring bulbs - growing little by little, going from hidden bulb to beautiful and triumphant bloom. 

the crocuses will bloom any day now!

to me, this is a happy sight indeed

awaiting the trumpets of daffodils

aren't tulips, 
even at this stage, gorgeous?

the earliest of bloomers -
they've reached their own crescendo

ex animo - from the heart

Yet another Latin post title! This one "ex animo" simply means "from the heart". 

I have no great (or even good) skill at painting, but about two months ago I was on a mission - that seemed to come out of nowhere - to paint. I drove myself to a nearby craft shop bought some inexpensive acrylic paints, paint brushes and canvases, came home and painted. 

colorful flowers - is anyone surprised?

more muted - a variation on a theme

For me, painting these was a thoroughly cathartic process, and I recommend it to all who feel that urge to create. I'm not claiming that my paintings are at all good, but I did have fun making them and they truly were born "ex animo," from the heart.

vivat crescat floreat

By now you probably picked up on my recent theme - Latin post titles. Why Latin? I don't really know why, but I thought it would be a nice side project to work this "dead" language into our lives just a little bit. Today's post title, "vivat crescat floreat" is the Latin phrase: "May it live, grow and flourish". It's quite a pretty saying isn't it?

Below is the picture from a card my mom gave me a few years ago (I hold on to cards that I think are particularly meaningful and/or beautiful - and to me, this one fit both bills) and since I wrote recently about the lotus flower, I thought this image could help continue the theme of what the lotus represents. The original image is a watercolor painting by the Thai artist Somboon Phoungdorkmai.  



isn't it lovely?



palma non sine pulvere

That's Latin for "no reward without effort". We started our big outdoor project plans this weekend. There is nothing like a little graph paper to make one get organized. Walking around the back and side yard with our tape measure, note pad and dreams, we came up with our big 3 outdoor projects for this summer. 

Project #1 on the list - fence in our vegetable garden. We were hit hard and often by shockingly large (read: very well fed) rabbits last year. We tried many purported invisible fence sprays and other natural "solutions"; however, nothing seemed to work and as soon as we'd get a leaf of lettuce, it would be gone. Last year the other vegetables did really well so we didn't suffer a total loss against those bunnies, but this year we are taking action - this project, Project #1 on our to-do list will be affectionately known as Operation Peter Cotton Tail Defensive.

Project #1: fencing in our raised
vegetable beds

Project #2 involves a little landscaping and the general beautification of a corner in our back yard. This is where the former owners' much neglected compost was located. We'll put in some evergreens - our back yard is screaming for year-round color. I plan on planting perennials and bulbs in this new garden. And, my husband promised to build me a few wooden garden obelisks so I can have some nice climbing flowers - perhaps climbing roses or clematis. Who knows! I am really excited for this project - it's a blank slate for me to play with.  

Project #2: the tee pee like objects are the obelisks
I have in mind for vines & climbers

Project #3 is the biggest of our projects and my husband, Paul, will be doing the bulk of this. He's really handy so we're very lucky that we can do most of our own home and garden improvements ourselves. Well, plus we enjoy these types of projects, which is a win-win. This project is on the north side of our house so while I'll be there to lend a helping hand with the construction of the path and garbage enclosure, my main contribution to this project will be to design and plant the shade garden. I'm thinking of using really nothing more than the shade loving staples - hostas, astilbes, lily of the valley and bleeding hearts - nothing that requires too much work.  

Project #3: side of the house project -
lots to do!

So we hope that with a little (or a lot) of effort we'll reap some big rewards in our yard this year! I'll post photos along the way.  Wish us good luck!

tempus fugit

I was looking through some old photos (the ones taken in the pre-digital camera days, remember those?) and came across this one taken in the summer of 2001 while on vacation with my mom and dad. Despite it being nearly a decade ago, the Latin phrase "tempus fugit" (translated into the more commonly used "time flies") describes exactly how I feel when I look at this photo, as it seems like it was just yesterday that this moment in time was captured.

  taking it all in...

In this photo, I'm standing in front of Monet's Le Bassin d'Argenteuil at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. In my bedroom as a teenager I had a poster print of this same painting hanging over my bed. I'd lay in bed and look up at those fluffy clouds and sail boats and day dream. Seeing the original and not just the paper copy that I had grown used to was like seeing something entirely new for the first time even though I had seen the image every day for at least 4 years. For me, this was both a humbling and inspiring moment - there is nothing like seeing and experiencing "the real deal" in person. 

Want to learn more about this painting? Here's the d'Orsay's link: 

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/painting/commentaire_id/le-bassin-dargenteuil-16785.html?tx_commentaire_pi1%5BpidLi%5D=509&tx_commentaire_pi1%5Bfrom%5D=841&cHash=f259eb07a3

light and reflections

I like the combination of the curved iron-work, the evening sky, and the glow cast by the lamp post. Doesn't the light that the lamp throws off make you feel so nice and warm?  

iron gates softened with curves,
light casting its glow -
my kind of place

flowerful Friday

Recently, I came across a Buddhist quote that I find filled with so much meaning and inspiration, and I hope you find the same to be true:

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.

What does this mean to you?

the beauty of the lotus flower -
so much symbolism in one bloom
Bangkok, Thailand

Happy Friday.