Rudi - The Writing Desk

"Hey, Jo!", a little voice shouted, "I'm back!" Mo was propping against a paint tin and gave me a big smile and kept on talking: "I'm feeling great! Did you miss me?" 

 "Not too much, I was in quit absorbing company" I said trying to look indifferent.

"Ah, Mr. Bargain, the vacation replacement! What do you think of him?" Mo wanted to know.

"Don't ask me, ask my purse!" I sighted.

"I know. He is fantastic, but has a tendency to overshoot!" she laughed and pointed at the old writing desk I had nearly finished painting: "I bet, he made you buy this!"

I nodded. "It's going to be my son's desk. Blue and red are his favorite colors and he'll be a school boy in one month time!" 

"Good heavens!" she yelled and glanced at me pitiful. "How time flies for you humans!" 

Mo has been around me ever since I can remember and doesn't look older than a 16 or maybe 18 years old girl by now. Me instead has turned forty this spring. Dear readers, I felt the need to change the subject: "How was your vacation?"

"Wonderful!" she dwelt and stretched herself. 

"Mr. Bargain told me, that you had been with someone?"

She grinned at me for some time before she said: "Maybe I'll introduce you to him, one day. But let's talk about this desk, first. The backplane is a little broken. You could take some fabric to cover it. Moreover, it lacks an ABC garland! One with big letters on the front and small letters on the back, at best!" 

And this is how the desk has turned out. We named it "Rudi", by the way. When I took these pictures in my working room - the light was better there, than in the kid's room - I felt an strong urge to keep Rudi for myself. Luckily Mr. Overshoot-Bargain  had made me buy not only one writing desk, but two. So there's a similar desk, waiting to meet the paintbrush, which will be mine and I think, it will get a little garland as a companion, too.

Till next time, dear readers!

Yours Mo and Jo

x

When in doubt add a flower

"Hey, Jo! What are you doing?"  Mo shouted and made me cringe. "You are staring at that computer screen for hours!"
Over and over again, I had been reading through these lovely comments on Lucy, the lady-chair and hadn't even noticed her arrival.
"I feel a little bit lost" I said, "because I want to say 'thank you' to all those people and don't know, how to do it properly. I always fear to sound pathetic when trying to express my feelings in English."
"Then try it in your mother tongue instead!" was Mo's conclusion, which made perfect sense to me.
I wrote down:

Liebe Leser aus aller Welt,

wir waren sehr überrascht über die vielen freundlichen Kommentare zu Lucy, dem Damensessel, und freuen uns wie wahnsinnig darüber! Ein dickes fettes Dankeschön an Euch alle, Ihr seid absolute Spitze!

I sighed with relief and Mo gave me a gentle slap on my back. "Can we get productive again, then?" she said, pointing at an old lamp, that I had painted recently but which was still lacking a lampshade make-over. 

Moments later, I was examining  our pool of vintage fabrics and everything went quite well until Mo decided, like in so many cases, that there was still something missing. 

"You  are right! It's got a lampshade now, but it isn't finished yet" I admitted carelessly.

"Fortunately we can make use of Mo's up-cycling rule No. 1" Mo replied with confidence.

"Which is?" I asked.

"When in doubt, add a flower!" she smiled and one second later, the so-called muse was gone.

I started crocheting and added some flowers to the lower ribbon of the lamp shade, which seemed to me fairly sensible at that time.

 

Then, as a logical consequence, I begun to add some flowers to the lampshade itself.

 

I didn't notice, the crochet flower virus was having a good grip on me, again. So things were getting out of control soon.

I had pinned half a flower shop to the lampshade before I got aware of what I was doing here. I surveyed my deed with a vague feeling. Was it good? Bad? Fine? Ugly? I didn't know. I was stuck. Fortunately I hadn't sewn most of the flowers to the lampshade, yet. I could still take them off again. I needed an advice, but where was Mo? All I could do, was to put some of her little furniture below the lamp, in hopes of luring her out.

As I'm writing this, I am still waiting for her, to take a seat and give me a hint.

What do you think, she will say?

Have a great time!
Yours Jo (and Mo)

Sun Bathing

Mo wanted me to add some more paint to these chairs today...

 
... but it's really hot and everyone is lazy...

... so I was sun bathing instead!

Have a wonderful & sunny week-end!

About naming

This is only my third post and I'm already in troubles. How come? Well, I was in a perfectly good mood until Mo showed up this morning and asked: "Do you know what the difference is between you and the people of Ikea?"

"Eh?"

"They manage to give their stuff proper names!" said Mo and curled a strand of her long white hair around her index finger.

"But I do give names to anything around" I replied puzzled. "Mrs. Schmitt the new cabinet, Wiesbaden the dining table, Wilbur the couch. What more could one want?"

"A little thoughtful research in advance in spite of spontaneous and loudly proclaiming a name to the whole wide web world!" she complaint.

"Eh?"

"You neglected blogging rule number one: Always ask doc Google before you name your blog!"

My heart sank and I asked: "What's wrong with the name?"

"Nothing but the fact that Mo and me is the title of a movie, a documentary, already!" whispered Mo.

"I didn't knew!" I replied weak.

"Can you imagine the crowds of disappointed cineastes when they mistakenly come ashore our little place?"

I turned white thinking about cease-and-desist orders by legions of lawyers. "How embarrassing! Mo, what are we going to do now?" Mo shrug her shoulders with a very clueless, ingenuous expression.

"Come on, you call yourself a muse! So please give me an idea!" I begged. 

"We could rename it. Say, About Mo and Jo, for example" she said.

"I wanted to leave my name out actually. Besides, we have two official readers already. What will they think?"

"We might ask them. Fortunately Blogger comes with built in demographic power. We could run a poll!" Mo grinned.

"That's ridiculous, isn't it?" sighed me. 

"Do you have a better idea then?" she asked carefully.

Bud I hadn't.

So, please help us making a decision! You'll find the poll formular at the very end of the page.


Edit: The poll is closed and since most participants voted to leave the name as it is, we decided not to change it. 

Just to show something more pleasant, I want to introduce you to one of Mrs. Schmitt's daughters in smurf blue:

Till next time
yours Mo and Jo

About starting something new

Today, Mo said to me: "Let's start something new!", and I replied: "Not again, we're constantly starting something new, but rarely get things done, once we've started! Some days ago we've started patch working, for example, and as you can see, I'm still busy with that!"

 "I guess, today we should start something that doesn't need to be finished at all", was Mo's conclusion and then she added: "What about a blog?"
"A blog? At the internet?"
"No, under the kitchen sink! “ she grinned.
"But, why?” I asked and turned off the sewing machine. Mo made a very big gesture for someone who is only about 10 cm small and shouted: "Because you love blogs, you spend a lot of time reading them! You should have your own!"
"I don't think people will be interested in my stuff. Nobody is going to read it."
Mo smiled. "That doesn't matter! We are going to visit it every now and then our selves. It will be great to browse through all the things we've started."

I raised my eyebrows and mumbled: "Maybe it will remind us, to finish them, too?"
"You are so negative! You are always looking for the hair in the soup! This is why you never get things done!" said Mo. Irony always makes her angry.
"Let's say, you want a blog and I'm supposed to write it? Is it that, what you are talking about?"
"Well, I can't write it! You know perfectly well that my English is bad and I can't handle the keyboard!" she argued."My English isn't good neither!", I added for consideration.
Mo happily shrugged her little shoulders: "Never mind. You've said it yourself; nobody is going to read it!"
"Ok!" I resigned, "Why not? Let's try."
And then, in spite of proceeding with stitching together this vintage patchwork wall cover, I took up the camera and made some pictures to document our constant starting process.

As for the patch work, it actually started recently with Mrs. Schmitt.

When I painted her, I found a little quotation behind her drawers. It was a coast estimation for a day trip to the zoo. The offer included the bus trip, coffee, some cake and was adressed to Mrs. Schmitt. Now she watches over some creatures of my animal collection and we all hope strongly, this will keep her from thinking about visiting the zoo by herself. Mo suggested to give her a colerful inner life by the use of vintage fabrics, just to be on the safe side.