Well, I’m not yet. But it looks like I’m going to be because every single furniture store I’ve shopped is dedicated to that color.
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I’m looking for two couches, a chair and an ottoman in this hardback, rolled arm style. The couches will be solid, the chair and pillows a coordinating pattern.
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All the floor samples are beige, which is fine… it’s not like I want neon orange. But the decided lack of color in the fabric choices is driving me batty.
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The fabrics are pretty…
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But I swear they’re all blue and grey.
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Everywhere.
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At every store.
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My kitchen and breakfast nook are blue and grey.
My den is blue and beige.
My spare bathroom is blue and grey.
Which is why my living room has always been green.
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But it looks like that’s not happening this time around.
The year was 2015 and it was my first Christmas without my mother. I’m an only child, my father died when I was 15. Losing my mother hit me hard and I was feeling unhinged. Alone. And not at all in the holiday spirit. Decorating the house and hosting my husband’s ungrateful family was more than I could bear…. so I went to a travel agency, told them how much I wanted to spend and asked them to find me something interesting within driving distance.
Which is how we ended up spending Christmas week in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania.
We generally like our accommodations out of the way and quiet… and brother, that’s just what we got.
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Welcome to the Pocono Manor Resort. A massive, secluded, surrounded by mountains and rolling hills, giant stone edifice I won’t ever forget.
It was dark and overcast when we arrived. Mountain fog surrounded the grounds and the silence was eerie. No cars in the parking lot, one dim light by the front entrance.
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And while the interior was fully lit and beautifully decorated…
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It was as silent as a tomb.
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A very large tomb.
Built on 3,000 acres in 1902 as a summer vacation residence for wealthy New Yorkers, families lived here for months with no reason to leave. Boasting an 18 hole golf course, tennis courts, a full spa, riding stables, fly fishing pond, indoor and outdoor pools, multiple restaurants, game rooms, library, theater, and it’s very own post office with private zip code… it was a world unto itself.
And when we visited December of 2015?
We literally had the entire building to ourselves.
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No, I’m not kidding. For the first 5 days of our week long stay it was just us … and every time I walked down this hall to our room? I expected to see the twins on tricycles because we were staying at the Poconos version of the Overlook Hotel.
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Yes, there was staff.
Ghostly staff, because you hardly ever saw them.
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We wandered room after room and never encountered a soul.
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Every morning we had breakfast alone, in a room that probably seated 600.
Creepy?
You could say that.
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We sat alone in the theater…
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And watched It’s A Wonderful Life.
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Hoping the lights would come back on when we were through.
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Long, endless, empty hallways with only the sounds of our footsteps for company.
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Ho! Ho! Holy Hell it was bizarre.
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It was a place frozen in time, although it had just undergone a 5 million dollar renovation.
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I never did manage to get a photo of the entire place…
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You couldn’t really, it was too big.
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But it was definitely a magical and quirky way to spend the holiday.
Sadly this amazing place caught fire and sustained substantial damage in 2019.
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(not my pictures)
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It’s been closed since then with various plans to rebuild.
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Horror of all horrors? The latest developer to be interested is the Margaritaville Corporation who want to build a village of tacky housing.
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They say they will “honor the memory” of the Manor but I don’t think plastic palm trees are going to cut it.
😰
Now it’s your turn.
Share a happy, funny or strange Christmas memory with me.
Have you ever seen something that was simply too perfect?
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Okay, so it’s not a pear tree. But a partridge on your Christmas wreath is pretty damn close.
We had one of those beauties on our front lawn a few years ago.
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I had no idea what it was and had to look him up in my bird watchers bible.
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Native to the Middle East and southern Asia, the Chukar was brought as a game bird to North America, where it has thrived in some arid regions of the west. From late summer to early spring, Chukars travel in coveys, but they may be hard to see as they range through the brush of steep desert canyons. They become more conspicuous in spring, when the harsh cackling chuk chuk chukar of the territorial males echoes from the rocky cliffs.
They’re noisy little devils and if you’ve ever heard one… you’re not apt to forget it.
Remember when I found that adorable opossum site a while back and said I wanted one for a pet?
Well….
I found another site.
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And now I think I need a raccoon as well.
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As a Christmas gift it sure beats a toaster.
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When my husband was young and living on the farm, his father rescued an injured baby raccoon that had been hit by a car. Not wanting to release it back in the wild because it limped.. they adopted him and named him Teddy.
Somewhere I have a picture of the hubs as a teenager lying on the couch with Teddy. Talk about cute!
As I’ve said before, I’m always 10 years off trend. When I redid my kitchen a decade ago I wanted blue and grey but everything was green and beige. Now that I’m redoing my living room and want green and beige, everything is blue and grey.
But aside from grandma’s drapes, I prefer the before picture here with the warm wood tones and stone fireplace.
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That’s Lord Dudley, and he doesn’t ever see the bottom of the bowl.
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This made me laugh out loud when my husband thought it was a breakfast place that served the corned beef variety.
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I excel at all those things, but after reading the title I’d say the author needs help with preposition placement.
Since we’re in the middle of renovations, Christmas decorations in the house are minimal this year. I can’t wrangle a firm date from our contractor on the flooring replacement so we don’t even have a tree. I refuse to put one up only to take it down days later.
River's world..... 