Category: Home

It’s Beginning to Smell A Lot Like Not This

It’s late and I’m beat, so this is a quickie.

Today Holidailies would like to know the top three scents or flavors that always evoke holidays for you. I believe I answered this one last year (pine, peppermint, and allspice–I think) so I’ll tell you what does NOT evoke holidays for me. This stuff:

A candle called Woodland Path designed to smell like cedar and fresh pine.

It smelled so nice in the grocery store, cedar and fresh pine, just like the label says. When I bought it I couldn’t wait to go home and light it. I got out the lighter and was just about to take it to the wicks and then I smelled it. Something was off. Way off. As in it reminded me of something I didn’t want to be reminded of. I couldn’t place it at first, probably out of denial, but with each sinus-cramping sniff, it emerged from the depths of my scent memory.

It smelled like a million bad dates from my late teens and early 20s, a time in life when the males of the species are so used to the olfactory assault of the sweaty gym clothes piled up on their floors and doing the sniff test to see if a shirt they already wore twice can go a third round that they become nose-blind and end up practically bathing in every young guy’s go-to cologne once he outgrows Paco Rabanne and Polo. It smelled like cars borrowed from fathers and older brothers, dorm room sex, and hangovers. It smelled like…

Drakkar Noir men's fragrance.

Now, see, I’m sure there are a lot of guys out there who love this stuff. But for the love of all that is holy, don’t spray it directly onto your skin, fellas. Spray it up into the air and then walk through the mist like you’re going under a limbo stick. ONCE.

As for me, it’s a “no.” Too many horny dudes who doused themselves in it tried to get into my pants back in the late 80s and 90s and it triggers an automatic rejection from my lizard brain.

This is not to say Tuscany candles are bad. Here’s one of my favorites:

A candle called Peony Blossom.

That’s my spring candle, though. I have one for each season. My summer one is Yankee Candle’s Iced Berry Lemonade, which is below half and a little too sooty for me to show you. It’s juicy, though. Makes me wish it was a slushy so I could drink it.

I guess I’ll have to go with my fall candle this holiday season. I haven’t used it yet, but it does remind me of the holidays.

A candle designed to smell like apples.

One of my favorite rock stars has a thing for apples, so I’ll have to put on his band’s music when I light it. Too bad they don’t have a holiday album. Get on that, Poets of the Fall, would ya?

And now to post this and hit the hay. No snowflake tonight again. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are my in-office days and by the time I get home, work out, shower up, and have dinner, I have almost no time left before it’s lights out. I’ll finish one on my lunch break tomorrow.

Oh, and I’ll be seeing the state trees on Friday the 13th. Just too much work to do, and I love to tempt fate.

Eye Candy

I’ve long put off doing something with my home office. All I have in a 9’5 x 11′ room is an L-desk, a file cabinet, and a salvaged printer table.

When the exterminator came by today for routine maintenance, one of the ladies in the rental office glanced in and I felt shame, so MUCH Libra shame. So I did what any good Libra would do and rationalize a little shopping spree by noting that it’s a three-paycheck month. Now I have a dark red and black traditional Oriental rug and a 55-inch black console table coming. I’ll get artwork after the rug arrives to see what colors will work best. I keep my office dimly lit, with warm light bulbs, so probably something in fall colors.

I didn’t stop there, though. I bought artwork for over my bed and a four-piece set of birdie artwork for somewhere in the living room. They’re 12-inch square so while they are long enough to take up the necessary space with three inches between them to fill the two-thirds rule of how wide artwork should be over a sofa, they might not be tall enough. If so, I will hang them in a square in the dining area.

Yes, I’ve been living without artwork in my apartment for about nine years now. Why? Because I got rid of all of the stuff I had when I moved back to Virginia in 2015 as it was all given to me by people I didn’t want to be reminded of in my new life. I also hate clutter, as my ex-husband was a slob (one of the reasons for the divorce—nope, signed up to be a wife, not a maid) and my ex-boyfriend was somewhere between a level 1 and a level 2 hoarder (living in the same zip code was enough for me).

A couple of years ago I started going to galleries and looking for paintings, but as much as I wanted to and could finally afford it, I just couldn’t bring myself to plunk down $2,000 or $3,000 on a piece of art for fear of getting it home and then finding that it wasn’t a good size or it just didn’t work with my furniture, color scheme, or light.

So hello canvas prints from small businesses on Amazon! If they work, great! If they don’t, no harm, no foul. I’m only out a couple hundred bucks and I can offer them to friends who might like them. I do know the bird art will work, because bird art will ALWAYS work in my home, but not sure about the abstract I bought for over the bed.

I also figured out where I’m going to hang artwork given to me in recent years by people I do want in my life, as well as smaller pieces I’ve picked up over the years and just never hung, like this beauty, “A Study of Riddles,” by Apollo the Crow at Diva Crows:

I don’t believe Apollo has been painting lately, or, if he has, Diva Crows has stopped selling his artwork, so I’m super glad I got one of his last commissions. He’s still alive and well as far as I know, though.

Another great thing about this painting is the fabric Diva Crows used to wrap it:

Yes, those are eyeballs in the roses. What lovely mix of romance and Hitchcockian terror! Fortunately, I’m on the good side of the Crows who live on the property, having kept them in peanuts for a couple of years now.

And now for today’s candy: Gummy Eyeballs! Fortunately, these were not around when I was a kid or I might very well have turned out even more warped than I did.

Housekeeping

A little housekeeping: I’m turning anonymous commenting back off. I think the way this comment system is set up, it’s not intuitive that you have to manually type in your name, etc. if you are not logged in on WordPress. This will force you to do that or it won’t take the comment. Sorry about that, but anonymous comments irritate me, even if they are unintentional.

A big housekeeping: We have a bit of a spider problem in my building.

And now for today’s candy: Whoppers! (Just like some of those spiders, heh.) These are malted milk balls. They have a nice crispy kind of crunch to them, unless you get a bad one. The bad ones are unexpectedly soft and chewy and a form of grossness unto themselves.