Dirty Sally (or I Hoard Bottles and Tons of Other Things)

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day
'Til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I've looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with

Excerpts from "Time in a Bottle" - Jim Croce


FINALLY! It's time for a DIY project! But first.....Dirty Sally? What the what? All I have to say is, blame it on my mother! See, I'm basically a short but exact replica of my mother, fellow bottle hoarder extraordinaire.  Soon, I will tell you the story of her obsession with cobalt blue bottles and how she found this certain brand of wine coolers that were available in said bottles. So she drank them. Then she convinced others to drink them. Lots of them. Then she turned them upside down and stuck them in her flowerbeds. As edging. It was STUNNING! She also had a goldfish that lived in a crystal punch bowl, but now we're off on a wild tangent. Anytime my mother found a new bottle she would say, "I tell you, I'm just like Sally the Bottle Lady." Now it's obvious, huh? No??? You mean, you're not addicted to Gunsmoke reruns? What's wrong with you, then? Here's the Reader's Digest version for all you 60's western TV show slackers.....Sally was a recurring character on Gunsmoke who actually got her own spinoff show (thank you, IMDB. I did not know this.) She was ALWAYS drunk and chewing tobacco as she wandered the streets of Dodge City with all these bottles in her cart. I'm not drunk and neither is my mother, but we LOVE bottles and all other types of shiny things. And, yes, I admit that I hoard bottles. Spaghetti sauce bottles. Pickle bottles (after I drink the juice). Salsa bottles. My absolute favorites are the organic apple cider vinegar bottles! Nothing makes me happier than seeing someone eat the last pickle. I get downright giddy. There's one problem. I looked in my china hutch recently and realized that while I don't have any actual china, I have a cabinet FULL of empty bottles. Never fear, Annie is here! Let's turn those bottles into swoon worthy vases appropriate for both the toniest of parties and the perfect accent for a rustic wedding vignette. Tonight we will focus on the color-blocked gold vase dupes that some top design stores are selling, as well as my own take on personalizing a chalkboard vase. You're wanting to know if there will be pictures. There.Will.Be.Pictures. Here's one of the looks we're emulating. Again, EMULATING.....they are large and in charge, including their price tag!

STEP 1 - DO NOT LOOK ON PINTEREST TO FIND OUT HOW TO REMOVE LABELS FROM BOTTLES. Do not. I've done all the legwork for you. I've tried a gazillion methods and will now share my secret label removing technique with you. It's so simple!!!! Fill up your kitchen sink with the warmest possible water you can coax out of the tap & add a liberal squirt of Dawn. If you're de-labeling more bottles than will fit in your sink at once, do multiple batches or just use your tub. Before you pop the bottles into the water, do these two things: Thing 1 - remove as much as of the label as you can just by picking it off. Don't stress over how much you can actually remove. It's completely fine if there's still a layer left. Thing 2 - fill each bottle up with your super hot water then gently place your bottles longways in the sink/tub. Turn the tap off once all but the very tops are covered. The hot water inside the bottle will couple with the hot water outside the bottle, all at the same time, and a-la-peanut-butter-sandwiches, the magic will happen. BUT FIRST, you'll want to sprinkle a liberal amount of baking soda just on the top exposed side. Now, pour a teency amount of white vinegar on the top of each bottle. Yes, Dexter, you've just created a tiny chemical reaction. Put up the vinegar. Put up the baking soda. Put up the Dawn. We can hoard, but let's be neat about it. Now, WALK AWAY. Relax. Drink a wine cooler, maybe. Come back in 15-20 minutes. Here's the fun part! Take a metal spoon - just a regular eating spoon. Hold the spoon so that the concave side is facing away from you and your thumb is braced on the back. Find the angle that works best for you and scrape the label off. Depending on the manufacturer's specific adhesive, the label will either slide right off or require a little scraping. If you still see residue shadow on the bottle, rub vigorously with a magic eraser sponge. This technique will work with any glass bottle, including wine bottles. Rinse your bottles. Notice how the light bounces off of them. Aren't they gorgeous? Swoon....

STEP 2 - Suns out, spray paint cans out! But, first we prep. Abraham Lincoln said, "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." Words to live by, I tell you, So......first we tape off our bottles. Now, since I do the amount of painting that I tend to do, I have painter's tape on hand at all times. I have used masking tape before with excellent results, however. Those should be your choices, painter's tape or masking tape. No packing tape. No gift wrap tape. The sticky value will not be adequate for the seal you'll need. Now, do not get all OCD over getting the tape around each bottles in the same exact place. I prefer the randomness of having the painted section at random heights around the bottles. One bottle will be taped close to the top, but the next bottle should be taped off closer to the bottom. There will be a pic. Soon. Like now...

After this, you'll need to cover the portion of the bottle that you do not want to receive any paint. In our case, that part will be on the top. I've seen really pretty bottles where the top is painted but the bottom is clear. While I love the look of those, I don't want to see flower stems all helter-skelter at the bottom (in the event that I choose to put flowers in the vases). But, that's just me. Back to covering the tops...use whatever is on hand. I save the coupon circulars that come in the mail. Also, the big city newspaper really, really wants me to subscribe. So much so that they keep leaving some odd Friday paper in my driveway. I have no intent of subscribing to something I can read on The Skimm (shameless plug because I want them to send me Skimm swag), but I do save the papers for such projects. So I wrap the tops in newspaper or a coupon circular and secure that with a scrap piece of tape. Confused yet? Don't be. The end result will look like this:

Next step - GO OUTSIDE. It should not be: below 40 degrees, raining, or extremely windy, unless you want to be wearing (in this case) disco gold paint. "But Annie, what do I do with the newspaper on the top?" Dear ones, just pull it out of the bottles and use it as a shield for your arm. That way, you can have one arm inside the paper, gripping the bottle lip, and the other arm wielding your spray paint can. Use a very light hand when spraying the bottles. Hold the can 12 inches away, like the hairspray can says. I'm a child of the 80's. This is difficult for me. But, trust me, light is better. Repeat after me, "Light is better." Once you've painted all your bottles in your neighbor's driveway, it should look a little something like this:

Guess what? Your hard work is DONE! These babies will dry very quickly. Leave them in your neighbor's driveway for 15-20 minutes, just to be on the safe side, then gingerly peel away both the tape and the newspaper and bring them inside. Once you've lined them all up on your dining room table, get ready for the "aha" moment. They are stunning!!!!! See?

Goodness, I adore these bottles! What will you do with yours? I am fortunate that my adult sons send me roses at least a few times a year. Hippy chick that I am, I string them up and dry them once their best day has past, so I almost always have dried roses on hand. Here's what I do with my gold dipped vases.

But, then again, my sons tell me my house looks haunted. (It's because it's old and I love anything with a patina or with an ample accumulation of rust). My gorgeous daughter-in-law, though, asked me to style her bookcase recently. In the spirit of "only use free stuff that you have on hand", as that is my motto (not YOLO but OUFSTYHOH, I guess), we did this:

Tre' chic, stylish and modern! But wait, there's more!!!! Maybe you're not gold crazed like I am right now. S'ok, you can use silver spray paint, or ANY accent color. But wait, there's even more! I tried out the chalkboard spray paint today. Sure, it clogged and ruined my manicure, but the end result was adorbs! I was prompted to cut my only pretty white rose from my flowerbed and pair it with another pretty blue blooming plant whose name I can't remember and a couple of sprigs of fresh mint. Can't you imagine this as part of a wedding vignette!

So, there you have it! Our first actual DIY. Sally, it's time to get more bottles. Can you please eat that last pickle? I'll drink the juice & we'll hoard it for another vase. You cannot, unfortunately, save time in a bottle, but these bottles are so pretty. I'm betting my memories are all stuffed into each one, & that's something. In the words of the amazing Carol Burnett...

"I'm so glad we had this time together, just to have a laugh, or sing a song. Seems we just get started and before you know it comes the time we have to say, "So long". Until next time! Much love from The Dearest Annie. 

Umm, you had a baby where? OMG...

People smile and tell me I'm the lucky one, and we've just begun,
Think I'm gonna have a son.
He will be like she and me, as free as a dove, conceived in love,
Sun is gonna shine above.

And even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with ya honey,
And everything will bring a chain of love.
And in the morning when I rise, you bring a tear of joy to my eyes,
And tell me everything is gonna be alright.

"Danny's Song" -Loggins & Messina

Let's pretend I didn't take a month off from my blog. Shhhhh.....I was busy ushering an amazing Summer into, what I hope will be, a stellar Autumn. A million bazillion things happened. My son graduated from the super secret squirrel organization (no, he's not in the Illuminati). My BFF daughter-in-law and my precious angel granddaughter moved way way far away to be with the secret squirrel. My oldest son looks startlingly like a duck-call maker. His sweet little brilliant girlfriend still adores him (winner, winner!)...and I refinished enough commissioned furniture to float a fleet of boats. But enough about me. Ok, actually a little more about me. This just in! My forever BFF's daughter reached out to me to ask me a question or two about home birth. Months upon months ago, another precious little relative asked me for my birth story.Today, I made my first batch of Switchel. I read a news article recently that referred to Switchel as the Gatorade of the 1800s. I LOVE it. So, I laughed at myself and pondered over the other things I'm drawn to that are strangely from another time and place. And, I started thinking. Should I? Tell my story, that is? Major market tease (not). Duh, of course I should. Isn't it GROSS when old women who haven't had a kid in 24 years offer up a Madden worthy play-by-play of how little junior made his appearance into the world? Right? Well, for this day, that gross old woman is moi. So pull up a chair, cause I owe a couple of people a good 'ole birthin' story, Miss Scarlett!

My first child entered this world in the most ordinary way. It was the 80's. I was 19. Take a drink of wine. I was already married & had been for over a year. It was planned. Yes, I know you're wagging a finger, eviling an eye, and tssking me from one end to the other. You go right ahead. There are MANY things in my life I know I effed up. Being someone's mommy is not one of them. It is the one and only thing I know I did AMAZINGLY well. Did I make mistakes? Gosh yes. Daily. Did I scar them for life? I better have. Are we all better citizens of the world as a result? Yes, yes, and hell yes. But back to the matter at hand. At the tender age of 19, in the ruralist of rural hospitals, I had a baby. 1986. Insurance didn't cover sonograms because they were "experimental". I went into labor with what I thought was a 7lb baby of either gender only to welcome a 9lb 7oz small man into this world. He was healthy and gorgeous and I was on top of the world. As the next few days evolved, however, I developed a BITTER taste in my mouth for the uber rural Texas birth experience. Allow me to explain....

Once upon a time, a birthing class was mandatory. At least I was naive enough to believe the person who told me it was mandatory. So, my baby daddy and I went to each one. We paid attention. I took notes. My ears perked up when I heard things like "no enema", "don't let them shave your nether regions", & the ever popular "you should walk until you need to push." So I showed up at the podunk hospital with a WRITTEN BIRTH PLAN (cue laugh track). Nurse Ratched promptly looked me over, rolled her eyes, snarkily sigh-laughed, and said something along the lines of, "Shave her, strap her in the bed, & give her an enema. STAT!" That's how I remember it, at least. I have NEVER been so scared in all my life. My baby was blessedly beautiful and precious. The experience, though, left a scar on my heart.

Fast forward. I was the mommy of an 18 month old. I still lived in uber rural Texas, but I worked in a call center way far away in a ginormous city. I was going to school at night. I was pregnant again. Gulp. Hello, early 20's. Due to an unforeseen annihilation of all home construction in the state of Texas, baby daddy (I only have 1) moved 1500 miles away to tackle a huge construction project. I would join him. Post baby.  In 8 months. I have never been one to do what I'm told. I am most definitely a rules girl, but when my back is against the wall, I can initiate fisticuffs like the best of 'em. So, at the 4 month mark, I took the toddler and one of those awesome potty chair thingies that lock onto the top of a big toilet and hopped on a Greyhound bus bound for Nothern Virginia. Sure, I almost missed the switch in Memphis. Sure, I feared for my life a few times. Sure, I used a pocketknife to cut off some nasty training pants at one point. But, guess what? We pulled into Manassas as one confident mommy and one toilet trained toddler. Fast forward 2 more months. Little Texas girl lives in a DC suburb. I am 6 months pregnant. I am a college dropout. I am unemployed. I have no health insurance. Virginia has no Parkland hospital. We have a home, but we are surviving on carrots, tap water, and fried bologna sandwiches. I have 3 months to get my sh%t together. It's time to birth another baby. It turned out to be one of the best times of my life!

One day, the toddler and I are walking through our neighborhood, picking up sticks and talking about BEAUTIFUL Virginia, the deer tracks, the battles fought there, the mountains, & the snow that stacks up until it's 8 ft tall, turns charcoal gray, and refuses to melt until Summer. At the end of our street, a woman walks out into her yard. She has two kids. She waves. She invites us in. She is the first nice & welcoming person in a sea of not-so-nice people who hate my accent and my Texas hair. She asks me 1 question. When are you due? An hour later we are both drying my tears. She takes my hands. She says, "Listen. It's going to be okay. I had both of my kids here. At home." 

There is no such thing as GPS. There is no such thing as internet. There are no such things as personal computers. Cell phones are available. They weigh 10 lbs & I'm so not kidding. I put the toddler in a car seat (they were just declared mandatory). I drive to the closest gas station & buy a map. I stare at it for what seems like hours. I write down what I think my route should be. I strike out in an unknown land. It is time to meet my midwives.

There were 3 of them, these midwives. I recall thinking of Greek mythology and wondering which one was Enyo & would they pop an eye out to pass to the next. Then, we talked. They were ANGELS. I had never seen women who didn't shave their body hair. Relax, I thought. You like Madonna & she doesn't shave, either. Understand, it's still the 80s. One examined me. One held my hand. One held my child. There were many appointments. I was most definitely back in school. Read this. Commit this to memory. Research this. Meet this pediatrician. Pre-register at this hospital. Sterilize this. You don't know what erythromycin is? You do now. That birthing plan I wanted to use in 1986? It's 2 pages long this time. Boil water. Bake sheets. Walk 2 miles a day. Rinse, lather, repeat.

The baby is two weeks late, this middle child of mine. I'm scheduled for induction at the hospital on Monday. It's Thursday. I see the midwives. The baby daddy and I are making that loooong drive home when it hits me like a ton of bricks. "Pull over," I say. "Find a pay phone," I demand. "Traffic is awful. They'd better head out now. I'm about to have a baby." By the time we pull into our driveway, an hour and a half has passed. I cannot remember climbing the stairs to the second floor. My husband is sweating profusely. I'm pacing back and forth in front of my bed, waiting on the cavalry to arrive. He decides to clean out the closet. A relative that made this pilgrimage with us arrives to take my sweet boy for ice cream. Everyone in my camp from Texas thinks I'm a lunatic. It's 7 pm. I remember that we had an iron bed. Full size. My childhood bed. There was an ornate footboard. I white knuckle it. I am in the process of deciding what to do: scream? squat? cry?  speak Swahili? Everything seems possible. Nothing seems possible. Finally, my midwife arrives. It's Martha, secretly my favorite. Later I will find out that she wasn't even on duty that night but, hearing it was me, decided she wanted to take the call. The RN I hired as a birth assistant is right behind her. Four hours from that fateful moment on a congested DC highway, little bitty me gives birth to a small elephant. He is perfect. He is huge. The scale on hand maxes out at 10 lbs. He is every bit that and then some. 15 stitches later, the realization of what my human body was able to do truly resonates. Challenge me on how I know there is a God & this is the story I will tell you. 18 hours later, at a pediatrician's office in Herdon, VA whose name I cannot recall, he still weighs 10 lbs. "I'd bet anything he weighed about 10.4," he says. In my head I wonder how it is even possible to birth a baby this big. Or this perfect. Or this precious. Was it the birth experience? Was it the fact that  my mortality and that of my child hung in the balance for those precious few moments? Was it all I had learned? All I knew then was what I will tell you now. Birth is a miracle. God is in charge. It can work blessedly well at home. It can all go wrong. It can work blessedly well in a hospital. It can all go wrong.  For me, home was where the heart was. I was young. I was often foolish. I threw caution to the wind. I birthed this baby at home. And the next. I am so, so grateful I had the courage to make that decision. It is not for everyone. It was for me. 

Coming soon....baby # 3 is born at HOME. Texas. Research the term "lay"midwife. Until then....peace, love, & babies!