Christmas is Here!!!

Well, at least the Christmas ornaments are here. This posting is all about the Christmas trees - all five of them. Of course, Nancy wanted me to get the pictures taken before the open house last weekend because the trees had a whole lot more ornaments. Now, you can actually see the trees.

With all the pictures, you can click on them and make them full size - big enough to more than fill your monitor screen.

The first (red) tree is from The Good Life. It's sitting next to the Mantle where there used to be two Mantle Covers, two matching Tree Skirts, and another half dozen matching stockings. They went fast last Friday during the Open House. Oh yes, in the lower left hand corner, you can just see a bit of my favorite chair - the red leather recliner. Maybe that will be my Christmas present from Nancy?

The second tree, the one with all the flocking and feathers and birds and such, is also at The Good Life. What a wonderful tree. Nancy had me set it up and it came out of the box fully flocked and lit. I had it assembled and up in less than 30 minutes. Nancy's keeping this one, but she has another one for sale in the back room. This wonderful (I like easy) 9-foot tree is $800. Of course, even though it only took less than 30 minutes to assemble, Nancy spent 4 or 5 hours, or more, putting thousands of dollars of decorations on it.

The next tree is the first one you see when you walk into Whimsy. Right at the head of the stairs is WOW! The picture doesn't do justice to it. First, it looks better in person. Second, Nancy's friends took 2/3 of the ornaments and decorations off the tree last weekend. Nancy keeps telling me that's okay, that it's okay if her friends take the ornaments home to make beautiful trees at their houses, even if her magnificent trees at the stores go bare.

Right inside the front door is Nancy's playful tree. This is a little different than Nancy's done before, and it's really neat.

Nancy hasn't even thought about decorating our home for Christmas. That won't come until the middle of December. However, there's just one story along that line that I've got to tell. All of Nancy's friends know about her passion for creating themes that go together well, matching colors and textures to create just the right setting. That's why she can create 5 totally different Christmas trees that all feel right. Well, the thing about Christmas trees is that they look all nicely coordinated, then you get complete chaos in the wrapping papers that are used.

Well, Nancy's solved that problem in our home. Every year she finds 4 or 5 completely different but coordinating wrapping papers that become the "approved" wrapping papers for under our tree. Of course, she picks them out the previous Winter or early Spring when she's ordering all the other Christmas things for the stores. You should see it - all the presents looking different but nicely coordinated. That is, until we shred the papers ripping open the presents.

Ah yes, the last tree. Somehow, I don't think this needs a lot of explanation. With Eiffel towers on the tree and in front of it, plus "Paris" in 8" high script, tin walls and ceiling, and racks of unique clothing, this must be Whimsy.

If anyone is actually reading this blog, please leave comments. Nancy promises that she'll post something personally eventually, but for now, she tells me what to do and I try my best to do it.

Open House Results - Gingersnap Recipe

We had a great weekend seeing lots of old friends and new friends. The Christmas trees are much lighter than they started, with so many ornaments going from our trees to your homes. Fortunately, there's still a great selection for those that are still waiting to buy just the right decorations for the holidays.

We'll be closed on Thanksgiving, of course, but open again on Friday.

I was asked a number of times over the weekend for the recipe for the Gingersnaps. So, I've included it below. They're not real tricky, as I prove every year by making them. I got the recipe from Nancy's Mom, and others claim it's in the old Betty Crocker Cookbook.

I always make a triple recipe, for several reasons. First, if I'm going to go to the effort of measuring, mixing, baking, and cleaning up, I want to get more than a few cookies. Second, I find the measuring easier with the triple batch - mostly the molasses. I never measure that into a cup because it turns out that half a 12 ounce bottle of molasses is exactly what I need for a triple recipe. The third reason I make a triple recipe, is that I end up making 3 or 4 triple recipes every November for our friends at the open houses - we serve a lot of cookies!

Gingersnaps - Each Recipe Makes 36 2.5" cookies
	1 Recipe				3 Recipes
Mix Together:	3/4	cup	soft shortening		2 1/4	cup
	1		egg		3
	1/4	cup	molasses		3/4	cup
	1	cup	brown sugar		3	cup
	2	tsp	soda		2	Tbs
	1/2	tsp	cloves		1 1/2	tsp
	1	tsp	cinnamon		1	Tbs
	1	tsp	ginger		1	Tbs
Then Add:	2 1/4	cup	flour		6 3/4	cup
Chill dough. Roll into balls the size of large walnuts. Roll in sugar.
Place sugar side up on no-stick cookie sheet. Bake until just set in
375 degree oven - around 10 minutes, then remove quickly from
pans to keep the bottoms soft.

Open House

You’re Invited

to a

Holiday Open House

at Whimsy

and

The Good Life

Refreshments

15% off everything!

(In-store only)

Friday & Saturday,

November 16 & 17, 10 am – 8 pm

Whimsy &

The Good Life

133 & 135 East Main Street in

Historic Downtown Madison, IN

nancysstores.blogspot.com

the most

fun gifts,

beautiful clothes,

yummy food,

pretty stuff for your home,

& holiday decorating ideas

all at your favorite stores

Whimsy &

The Good Life

make sure you come to our

once-a-year sale and open house—

a holiday gift to our great customers

We're Open!!!!!

Yes, we've moved to our new location at 135 East Main Street - right next to Whimsy! The new space is 2-3 times as big as the previous location, so now there is that much more of The Good Life!

As you would expect, there are all the familiar things from the little store at 113 E. Main - great gourmet foods, kitchen tools, entertaining items, linens, glassware, dishes, barbecue tools, Shannon Martin items, and lots of other things that Nancy will be amazed I didn't think of and remember.

Plus there are lots of completely different and wonderful items to enjoy. In the front window you'll see Pine Cone Hill bedding products. You just have to stop in and feel the blankets and the fabrics used in the sheets, duvet covers, and pillow cases. Besides looking beautiful in your home, they'll feel wonderful when you cuddle up to sleep.

Across the aisle Nancy finally has one place to display all (well, almost all) the dishes, glassware, and table linens. In one massive (15 feet long by over 8 feet tall) glass and wood cabinet, you'll find familiar favorites and many new lines.


Beside the cabinet you will find those unique and special tablecloths. With so much more room, Nancy has added even more linens with many more arriving in the coming weeks. You will want to stop in regularly to see the latest selections.

Another big change with the added space is Nancy is now able to offer more of the special and unique furniture pieces that she's carried on a limited basis at Whimsy. In addition, she's branched out into other areas that she never had space for before. As always, everything is beautiful and unique. For instance, everyone seems to love the little red recliner - it's a wonderful small size, reclines fully (so tempting to fall asleep in!), is wonderfully comfy
with great lumbar support, and (of course) is beautiful. It comes in other colors, but the red is so neat.

There's another really neat thing about the new store location. Now, it's even easier to shop both Whimsy and The Good Life as they are right next to each other. With over 300o square feet of beautiful, fun, tasty, interesting, unique, comfortable, exciting (you get the picture) clothing, cards, dishes, glasses, furniture, gourmet foods, cooking items, bedding, gifts, and so much more, you'll want to stop in often!


Oh yes, on a personal note, now that we're open, and the remodeling is 95% complete (oh yes, there's still more to do while we're open), I'm excited that I can finally get cleaned up and maybe even stay clean for a day or two. Remodeling (at least the way that I do it) is very dirty work.

Progress

Lots of pictures, mostly pictures in this post. Nancy had the last two days off, so she spent most of them on her hands and knees laying tile. With a store of almost 1900 square feet, and each tile one square foot, it's pretty easy to figure out that we've got to lay almost 1900 tiles - Wow! The first picture was taken shortly before noon on Tuesday - only an hour or so after Nancy started.

The last two pictures were taken this afternoon. In the back corner you can see a beautiful red section - a carry over from the current location of "The Good Life". Nancy plans on putting all the great kitchen stuff and probably the delicious gourmet food back there.

If you look to the left of the red wall to the area where we previously stored over a ton of demolition (and two tons of demolition before the last ton), you can see piles of boxes. Between Monday and Tuesday 4 semi's arrived with goodies for the store. My favorite was the 400 pounds of art products - all in one huge box! Oh yes, the one box was on top a pallet sitting inside the trailer. But the room is now full of furniture, art, more furniture, and more stuff is scheduled to arrive every day between now and the end of the month!

In the last picture you can see a green wall section which, with additional trim work and decoration, will hold some of the great dishes and glass wares. You can see that Nancy has 2/3 of the tile down - she's just sailing away!

Getting Closer

Isn't Sunday supposed to be a day of rest? In this case, it was getting the rest of the work done in preparation for tiling. After a little over 5 hours on my knees filling all the seams to ensure no soft spots in the floor, I found out just how big the floor really is -it took a full 45 minutes to sweep the floor using a 24" push broom - Wow!

Today's picture was taken after I painted the floor with primer. The primer seals the floor so the vinyl tile will adhere better. When I stepped back and looked at the room, with white ceiling, white walls, and white floor, all I could think of was a 45 year old song by Cream! Yeah, bad joke. The second picture shows a little patch of the tile (not yet stuck down, just set there for show).

OSB

We've been laying OSB over the existing floor. The existing floor was a combination of flaking tile, OSB, and historic Hardwood. It's a shame that the historic hardwood can't be recovered, but it's buried under multiple layers of other materials, including tile, OSB, plywood, etc.

Here is where we stand after hours of work. Glenn has been driving nails with the rented nail gun, but he'd never have gotten close without Eric's help. Eric has been the main man helping with the renovation. Eric ran the grinder that removed the foam from the basement, Eric removed the rear transition area, and Eric laid most of the OSB.

Notice the walls are white, and the ceilings are white. The floor is tannish, but we'll replace those with beautiful vinyl tile in the next week. One more picture for your review. This is from a different angle, but it also shows the changed color of the walls and ceilings, but, more importantly, it shows that the floor, walls, and ceilings are other than white and beautiful. We'll change that real soon by creating a solid floor of OSB, painted a single color of primer, and then laid with beautiful Travertine tile.

Wow - Huge Progress

The plan is to open September 25 - oh my. This puts a lot of pressure on her team preparing the space. Hey, this is Glenn, the main person preparing the stuff. I'm working with Eric, who is doing everything he can (along with me) to get it done. We're firmly convinced that Nancy is crazy - that her targets for opening the new, expanded The Good Life are crazy. On the other hand, I'll do anything for Nancy, so expect the unexpected.

We painted the ceiling and walls last weekend. This week we've been laying the OSB over the existing flooring so that we can follow with the Tile.

Making Progress

Oh yes, we've been working our butts off trying to make the space into what Nancy would feel was acceptable. As you know, Nancy has really high expectations.

We started painting last weekend. Remember the multiple colors and the "tobacco" paint on the ceiling tiles and the walls? Well, this is what happens to the guy running the spray gun painting the nearly 2000 square feet of ceiling.

So, we painted, and painted, not only the ceiling, but also the walls. All told, we used better than 20 gallons of paint toward creating a wonderful new space for our special clients to enjoy. Here's where we ended the week, where we were when stopped for the weekend.

Middle of Work

I took these pictures last weekend, September 1, before we started painting. Oh yes, we missed taking pictures of the two tons (4ooo pounds) of trash we removed from demolishing the front entryway, the rear transition area, and other areas that were really ugly and nasty. However, here it is before I started painting.

Notice, with the first picture, that the walls are all sorts of colors and the ceiling is a "tobacco" color - a gross yellowish color. Oh yes, he second picture shows the pile of carpet that was 1/2 of the second dump run. In this case, we only had one ton - the pile you see was only 1000 pounds!

The Good Life Expansion

The Good Life will be expanding and moving in late September. The new location will be at the end of the block, next to Whimsy. We've spent hundreds of hours working on the space, but we failed to get any pictures of the very early stages.

Here's what we started with - three areas that had to be demolished/removed. The first area was a storage area/display area behind the west window. The second area was an entry way that included a false ceiling around a second door entering into the main space. The third area was a transition area between the 25x75 foot area in the front of the store and the the 22 x 22 foot area in the rear. Oh yes, everything was covered by carpet - which smelled, like moldy socks. Oh yes, there was the basement, with another layer of carpet, which had been submerged in basement floodings several times. This carpet was foam backed, and the carpet came up real easy - only the foam stayed stuck to the floor. Yuck!!!

Bridal Fair Winner

The winner at The Good Life of a Rachel Ray 8 Quart Covered Pasta Etc. Pot is Glenda Beach of Hanover. She stopped in today with her fiance and picked up her prize. The picture shows Glenda with her new pot. What I didn't get a picture of were the treats that she and her fiance picked up at the same time - Habanero Salsa (exceptionally hot), Island Jerk barbecue sauce, and Pappy's Sauce for Sissies.

Another Grand Opening Winner

Connie Griffith, winner of a $25 gift certificate from our Grand Opening stopped in today and collected her prize. She filled her bag with lots of goodies and was nice enough to take time to pose for a picture.

Congratulations Connie!!

We still have two prize winners that have not picked up their gift certificates, including the grand winner of a $100!

Don't Forget Fathers Day

Fathers Day is almost upon us. Now, we know that most adults have already planned far in advance to make sure we have the perfect gift for our father.

Right.

There just might be the possibility that not everyone has completed their Fathers Day shopping already. With that in mind, we've got a few ideas for that special Dad.

What Dad doesn't like to grill? We've got a complete collection of grill items. To keep him clean (and provide some humor) we have a complete line of aprons from The Funny Apron Company. They are heavy-weight polyester/cotton blend and only $20. They even come in dark colors so Dad can grill up a storm and still look clean. Don't worry, the little ones will have no idea what the funny comments on the aprons mean.

While he's out grilling, he'd really appreciate having the finest in grilling tools. We have a complete line of grill tools and books by Steven Raichlen, the absolute King of the Grill.

While we're talking about Grilling - now is the time to tell you about some of my absolute favorites. First, there is the Grilling Basket (just $25). With two vegetarians in the family, it's a life-saver. We fill it with squash, zucchini, potatoes, peppers, onions, and whatever else looks good in the produce section. I plop it on the middle rack of the grill and remove the removable handle. Every so often, I put the handle back in, flip the entire basket over, and forget about it again. It makes grilling mass quantities of veggies extremely easy.

For the non-vegetarians among us, there is my absolute favorite - The Sausage Basket (just $13). The Sausage Basket holds up to 6 hot dogs or sausages at once, allowing you to turn them all together and keeping them from rolling around the grill. Our family, at least those that aren't vegetarians, loves Bratwurst. Not only does this little tool let me flip them all at once, it also keeps them from curling up into a big "C". They fit on the bun oh so much better now!

When Dad goes out to grill, you know he's going to want it hot. If he's totally crazy, we've got Black Mamba hot sauce ($18), plus lots of other hot sauces for the only semi-crazy. Or maybe he just loves a great barbecue sauce. You could try Pappy's Moonshine Madness, which claims to be "so friggin' hot you'l go blind!". Yes, it's quite hot. Then there's Pappy's Sauce for Sissies, which claims to be "good for babies, brats, and bikers". They're both only $6 each. Our biggest seller has been the Island Jerk by Cherith Valley Gardens $6.90). We've sold out twice already!

Oh yes, for that serious Grilling Dad that also loves to golf (don't they all), what could be better than combining the two passions. The Golf BBQ Set, which includes a quality fork, tongs, and spatula is only $25. Best yet is that the grips on the tools are real golf grips! So, while he might be at the grill and unable to have his trusty Driver in his hand, he'll still be connected to the course!

Hope that gives you some ideas, or maybe some ideas you can pass along for your kids when they go shopping for their Dad. Do stop in and enjoy just looking around.

Go ahead and take a seat in the garden and relax.

Making Progress

Well, we're getting closer. I finally got a picture of Whimsy posted where the picture of Whimsy was supposed to be. I also got a real picture of the Tula hats posted instead of an old picture of where the Tula hat rack went later.

It shouldn't be much longer before Nancy is ready to add her style to the Blog and start posting regularly.

Victoria Magazine Is Returning

Nancy was ecstatic the other day when she read the attached article. Without a doubt her life was left a little less joyful without Victoria Magazine in her life. They describe themselves on their website as "The Magazine about Romantic Living". Certainly, Whimsy is a store about Romantic Living, and The Good Life carries that into Cooking, Entertaining, and Gourmet Foods.

Well, this is what Victoria magazine has to say for itself:

"The endearing charm of the gentle, romantic life captured so vividly in Victoria magazine returns, following the announcement that Hoffman Media will relaunch the much beloved magazine in November, 2007.

"Victoria offers a respite from the hurried pace of life, an opportunity to nourish the feminine soul. Created for all who love the timeless appeal of romantic fashions, heritage linens, charming homes, gracious gardens, unique decorative touches, and all that is beautiful in life, Victoria promises a return to loveliness.

"The charm of yesteryear, updated for today’s reader, comes alive in each issue. Be transported to gracious days of genteel charm and enduring elegance. Connect with the sentiment and elegance of times gone by and be pampered with topics close to your heart, as you take Victoria into the reading room of your soul."

Bridal Fair Drawing Winners

I'm happy to announce that we have drawn the winners from the 2007 Lanier Home Bridal Fair.

The winner at The Good Life of a Rachel Ray 8 Quart Covered Pasta Etc. Pot is Glenda Beach of Hanover. Her wedding is scheduled for July. I will be contacting her so she can pick it up.

The winner at Whimsy of "a bunch of pretty stuff for planning a wedding" is Mallory Persinger of Madison. Her wedding is in October. I will be contacting her so she can pick it up.

After the brides pick up their winnings, I will be sure to post pictures.

Tula Hats Are In

We just received a shipment of Tula hats this afternoon. The hat tree was looking pretty sparse with only three hats on it, but now we've added 9 styles, many in multiple sizes. So, for those people that were heartbroken by not being able to get just the right Tula hat, it's time to stop in to The Good Life. Oh yes, they're still a steal at only $25.00.