Curb Alert!

It was late last Thursday morning when I got the call. My mom's friend Marcia (who also happens to be my BFF's mom) is in town for a couple weeks and she was pulling out of my mother's driveway when she noticed a bunch of furniture and junk piled up at the end of the neighbor's driveway. Thankfully she thought it was a good idea to tip me off. I was at home with the kids, trying to get back into our routine while still picking up the insane post-Christmas/post-vacation mess. With school and a painting project behind us already, the kids were watching a little TV. So they were not very happy when I came running into the living room to shut it off. "Kids! Quick! Put on your socks and shoes! We gotta run out to Grandma's house for a minute!" I had to make sure I beat the trash truck. :)

I have no qualms about pulling up at a stranger's curb and digging through their discarded junk. However, this was not only my parents' neighbor but a woman I worked with for a short while. I was really hoping she would not be home. It figures, there was a car in the driveway but I didn't care enough for it to deter me. As I pulled up along the side of the road across the street from the neighbor's driveway, my kids started in with the questions. "Mom, what are you doing?" "Why aren't you pulling into Grandma's driveway?" "Where are you going?"  "How come you're doing that?" "Why???"

"Because I want to see if there are any good treasures out there!"

There was an assortment of furniture and a box of junk. I decided to take one of the chairs as a some day makeover project. It is a nice solid oak chair that has good lines. I figured it could easily be repainted and reupholstered. And it fit ever so perfectly in the back of my minivan.

The only thing worth taking out of the box of junk was this dirty glass covered cheese block.

My plan was to clean it up and use the cover like a cloche at some point.

Since it was trash day, I decided to drive around the rest of my mom's neighborhood to see if there were any other curbside treasures to be found. No such luck. So we headed home and I pulled in my driveway right after my sister, who had stopped by with a plate of homemade muffins and a little belated birthday gift.  The gift was this adorable little sparkly bird.

The bird prompted an idea: Use the Spanish moss I gathered in Florida as a nest, place the bird my sister gave me inside of it and cover it with the curbside "cloche!" Yeah... Sometimes things sound better in my head than they look in reality.

The glass cover is too short and too thick on the top. Even without the wood block, it looks ridiculous. Not going to work as a cloche. I already have a pretty cool covered cheese block but I guess now I have another one. Hey, I'll use it.

I'm keeping the bird in the moss nest though. For now it is, nesting by my kitchen window.