This makes me exceedingly happy.

You can just turn off your porch light and dive into your candy head first because your Halloween decorations are all shit.

here

I've failed a bit at Halloween this year - my front porch has two sad pumpkins on it and nothing else and I haven't even practiced my party eye makeup.  I'm not even really doing a costume because the last time I went to a "costume" party on Halloween I was the only person dressed up which was uncomfortable as fuck.  

Everyone was wearing their holiday jorts and I was at the buffet shoving sausage balls into my mouth balancing a skull in my other hand, wearing a dramatic black felt hat and looking like I just walked off the set of AHS Coven: redneck edition.

Adults, man.  Sometimes they're the worst.

Next year I vow to have a party and you can ONLY come if you dress up!

Or can carve pumpkins like a boss.

I'll probably be all alone in costume yet again...  

Me write good.

So I'm a liar.  I told you we'd have bedroom pictures this week but every day I get home and it's too dark or overcast to take good pictures so here we are with my metaphorical hat in my blogger hands.  I'm trying not to build it up like it's some big exciting unveiling because it's really just a room with a bed and some wrinkled linens in it.  That I WILL take some grainy iphone pics of this weekend. 

But in moderately exciting crafting news I took an introductory calligraphy class this week!  Wave your markers in the a-ir like you just don't ca-are!  I had a pen set when I was in middle school (I had lots of friends, obviously) but haven't really touched it in 20 years.  

I signed up for a class through the Chattery and I needed to find a quote to transcribe with my soon-to-be-acquired dope writin' skillz.  Ahhh... *rubs hands together*  Some inspiration to hang on my wall.  But what really speaks to me on a spiritual level??

"That's why we call it murder not 'muckduck'." - Dwight Shrute

"Knuck if you buck." - Crime Mob(b)

"She can touch your lobes but never your latinum." - Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #40

"Hodor." - Hodor

"The flower doesn't dream of the bee. It blossoms and the bee comes." - Mark Nepo

"Hey, assbut." - Castiel from Supernatural

"Are you there, God?  It's me, MurderSauce." - Halloween season ModernSauce

"Actually, it's about ethics in games journalism." - internet shitlords

"I sneezed on the beat and the beat got sicka." - you know who

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer." - Zora Neale Hurston

"There's always money in the banana stand." - your favorite tv show

So many good, timeless options but I finally settled on:

"Have faith in your own bad taste." - John Waters

It seems to cover so much ground.

Well turns out that it was a different instructor and format than I thought so we didn't get to the quote.  In fact, I only managed to do four letters.

The instructor made the cute name card!

It feels a little like The Shining writing your name over and over and over but truthfully it was all I could manage.  Even though I write (type?) every day remembering how to write in cursive requires some brainpower that I apparently left in middle school along with my old pens.  I tried to write my neighbor's name but had to ask how to make a capital G in cursive sooo...

  

Bet I could figure out how to make a hashtag, though. 

Regardless of the fact that my entire public education was obviously wasted, I'm a handwriting enthusiast so I had a super fun time.  It's so meditative writing 'o' and 'a' a million times.  Even watching someone write is kinda amazing:

I gotta step up my envelope game for Christmas, y'all.

But I have to start practicing my general handwriting just to remember how to put letters together rather than the stroke-victim-printing I currently have.  Time to start writing a real note or two.  Anybody up for a pen pal situation?  

Also just like my middle school years...

From this short and amazing video

Mintstachio sounds like facial hair made of ice cream which sounds AMAZING.

You may remember me whining/bitching/informing you that the ModSauce Ranch is a mint green masterpiece but if you don't consider this your clue.  I'd have it repainted but it's vinyl siding so whadya gonna do.  It's a double disaster.  

BUT A DISASTER THAT'S ALL MINE!  *hearts and flowers and mortgage sobs*

I try to not think about that minor detail (the giant swathe of minty real estate that I own) but I'm slowly realizing this probably isn't healthy.  I'm fantastic at ignoring the piles of shit in the corners of my rooms or squeaky hinges that I don't even hear anymore so this is kinda the same thing.  Selective observation should be my superpower.

So in an effort to not only open my mental eyes regarding the house I'll spend a good portion of my life paying for I'm also going to embrace it.  Nay, CELEBRATE it.  Mynt 4 life. Please submit your hashtag options for the mint party.

Fortunately for me mint has been making a comeback beyond the neo-pastel movement of last Spring.  'Mint' is now 'pistachio' and it's refreshingly chic say all the design blogs I don't really read.

Even though I see mint - excuse me, PISTACHIO - in lots of ways it's rarely in the way that would work for me.  But these rooms are not only opening my eyes but making me nod in appreciation and if that tingle down below is any indication actually get excited about my eye sore of a house exterior.  Pistachio ain't all bad, right?  You just gotta love it the right way.

That's what she said.  

top two pics (and see more!) via Elle Decor 

I'm certainly not going to paint anything else mintstachio for gawd's sake but I think it actually kinda works with lots of crisp white and black and warm reddish wood tones.  Good things to think about when I'm thinking about trim and doors and porch accessories and new pets and dress codes for trick-or-treaters and gardening clothes and lawnmower colors and...  

I've also been focusing on planting lots of purple in my garden which seemed to scare people when I told them but look above!  That's some color combo validation if I ever saw it.  Can't wait to text this picture to everyone at the local nursery and Home Depot garden center and those three friends (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) and my mom and...

here

This room/photo is weird somehow (maybe it's just a real house not a magazine shoot and I'm a dick) BUT it has the same elements - white, black, wood, leather and texture to contrast the green not try to hide it.  It also has even moar shades of green which is the best trick in the book for making a color feel purposeful not weird.  

A friend had an unfortunately pink-tiled bathroom (not the fun kind) so they painted the walls a pale whisper of a blush and it was perfect.  One could be an accident, an obstacle, but there is power in numbers.  Or maybe just a bigger obstacle...  I don't but but the double pink bathroom is cute and in my head emerald makes mintstachio make more sense.

However the green marble above is giving me a bad 80s vibe but we can use our imaginations.  Would have been nice to be able to use my imagination to accept my minstachio green a long time ago but these things can't be forced.  Sometimes Pinterest is the only way.

*whispers* The only way...

here

Really, what does black, white, warm wood and texture NOT look good with?  Think I'll try to just do that all over my house and then nothing will ever be bad in my life again.  Also, probably something about cohesion or something blah blah blah.

So the moral of this story is that I'm not actually doing anything with these images other than using them as therapy.  Or as the gateway drug to acceptance and celebration of my home's exterior.  Working really hard (in my brain only) to get some solid curb appeal for el Rancho ModernoSauco so be on the lookout for that in 2019.

But before I make some agonizingly slow decisions regarding the exterior of my house I need to show you the inside.  Bedroom next week. For serious!

Have a purposefully minty weekend!

Beaux Arts and beauty, ye bitches!

Alert the (social?) media, I have returned from Fall break!  I had a week off to relax and unwind so naturally I scheduled two jam-packed vacations and my sinuses are now suffering the consequences of so much travel.  Since I feel like this blog has turned into an ongoing list of my ailments and travels, we'll just skip to the good part.  Feel free to catch up (or follow me!) on Instagram for a real blow-by-blow of all my activities with moderately entertaining captions.  You've never seen a sandy beach until you've seen MY sandy beach pics!

After a half week in Florida I booked it to DC for a ladies' weekend and to take my citizenship to another level.  After months of emails and planning we were able to get a tour of the White House!  America, fuck yeah!  Figured we should just do all three branches of government and decided on a tour of the Capitol and Supreme Court.  Notorious RBG here we come!

Sadly, the White House tour was not very exciting.  Partly because I KNEW that somehow we were going to meet Michelle and we did not and I was pretty pissed.  How rude of her.  We did however wait about an hour in line to get a 15 minute self-guided tour of the East Wing.  I think you can see more of the White House in an episode of Scandal.

However I DID enjoy the tour of the Capitol which I'm pretty sure I spelled 'Capital' on about half of all my 'grams and tweets last week.  

We had a (volunteer) docent who was incredibly knowledgeable and helpful.  And who can resist a ballet pink coffered ceiling?  

The art and statuary was pretty incredible and here is one of my favorites in the Rotunda: "The Portrait Monument" featuring Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.  It debuted in 1921 where is sat for ONE day and then was housed in the basement for 76 years until 1997 when it came back into the Rotunda on Mother's Day.  They some badass suffragette bitches who sat in the basement way too damn long.

After a quick stroll through an underground tunnel we came upon the Library of Congress which was by far the highlight of my DC tour.

I may be a weirdo modernist/Brutalist-lover but who can resist dozens of pairs of immaculate Corinthian columns?  

With the exception of the dramatic ceiling and mosaic-tiled floors, the entirety of the structure was in white marble.

Oh hello, you sexy, sexy marble man beast of a building.

I love me some good contrast.

It was so pretty I forgot that Michelle Obama stood me up for the meeting that existed only in my head.

"Hear ye, hear ye, let us inlayeth some glorious mosaic IN theith marble floors!" - A very smart early American architect person probably.

But the ceiling was what made me drool and walk around the mezzanine slack-jawed in circles for about an hour.  The center has a stained glass coffered ceiling because why wouldn't it be?  This is one hunnit percent Beaux Arts, ye bitches!

Read the entire list of quotes and references painted on the ceiling here.  I wish we'd done the guided tour here but it was an afterthought and we were tired.  Walking on concrete and marble for six hours really starts to wear on you and your plantar fasciitis.  Dammit, what'd I say about travel and ailments?!?!?

I feel like they're just showing off now.  Sheesh, America.  Tone it down.

Ornamentation can't be all bad, right?!

All of these pictures were taken in the grand hall of the library but you could peak into the main reading room here:

I KNOW some Nicholas Cage-type angels live here.

But you were completely enclosed in glass as to not disturb all the people below actually using the library for research purposes.  Or "research purposes" because they all looked like they just wanted to be seen in the Library of Congress to appear smart.  You're not fooling me, old guy in cardigan reading a three foot tall book.

Thank you, 19th-century absence of interior lighting.

There were also two large reading rooms on either side of the main hall that held exhibits on the Civil Rights movement and early American peoples.  I could have spent a few more hours in there but they didn't have as many marble columns (and also no pictures allowed).

Be grateful I spared you the images of the HVAC grates and handrail details.  I had to draw the line somewhere.  Also, the rest of my group was sighing dramatically sitting on the benches waiting for me.

So my advice is to skip the White House (thanks for nothing, Mobama!) and head for the Capitol and Library of Congress if you haven't done so.  All free and all worth it.  IF YOU LOVE AMERICA.  

But if you hate America and her architecture but love makeup fear not!  After I did my citizenly duties I did my consumerist duties and went to the Smooch Studio in Frederick, MD and had some custom lipstick made for myself!

I told her I wanted a red so dark it was black since I'm going for goth winter witch look this season.  Then a makeup wizard scientist mixed it up for me on a special makeup palette (part painter's palette, part color wheel, part recipe board) and poured it into mold and let it set then TA-DA!  I named it Tennessee Vamp.  Seemed appropriate.  

I'm sure Thomas Jefferson would have approved, the old fucker.

...in which dirt is dirty and I overreacted like a punk.

If you're a gardening person you know that it's Fall planting time as indicated by the glorious weather and that special need that comes from deep in your loins to birth green shit.  That is a terrible mental image...  

But because I, and most of my friends, are cheap bastards - we prefer the more respectful term "frugal fuckers" - we began a Plant Swap.  Bring me your old, your tired, overgrown shrubs yearning to breathe free...

So in preparation for the big day I began digging up years worth of irises to divide, wildflowers of unknown origin and whatever else I could rip from the ground.  It may have been glorious weather but I was sweating so hard I actually thought it was raining.  

So sexy.

After a few hours of work I squeegeed my face and took my gloves off and noticed a tiny splinter on the back of my hand.  This probably explained the pain I felt the last hour but had decided to ignore because I'm a gardening beast [mule].  When I removed the splinter I surprisingly gushed [trickled] blood for a few minutes as the splinter was apparently the cork in my knuckle artery.  These frugal fuckers better appreciate the brutal carnage I endured to get these irises.

The next day I woke up and my tiny wound was sore and inflamed.  Meh.  Maybe Charlemagne licked it during the night or I slept on it funny, I'll just let my superhuman immune system take care of it.

But it didn't take care of it - it got worse and worse.  

As I whined to my work colleagues throughout the day, someone mentioned it sounded a bit like a spider bite.  Since I can't remember how the injury happened it seemed like a possibility.  What I had assumed was a splinter was now most likely a giant fang from an EBOLA SPIDER.  Completely rational.

Naturally I went to the internetz which is the source of all things good and fair to guide me in my troubling time.

Is the area red and swollen?  Most definitely.

Is it hot to the touch?  Positively feverish.

Does it hurt?  I can't grasp a pen.

Are you easily swayed by hyperbole from the internet?  I'm here, aren't I?

Are there two puncture wounds near each other?  Um... yes.  Are spiders actually tiny vampires??

Are you experiencing elevated blood pressure, dizziness and stomach cramping?  WELL I AM NOW, GAWDDAMMIT.

It didn't help that when my boss pulled up a picture of a black widow spider bite she gasped because it looked exactly like my finger.  Even though I KNEW (in my head, not my heart) I wasn't going to have my hand rot off I still left work a few minutes early to go to the doc in a box to at least deal with the obvious infection in my hand.  

The nurse came in to do my history and I could feel her rolling her eyes.  My whole hand was throbbing and I was sure my muscles were disintegrating into black soup on the inside but it didn't actually look that bad so she was totally justified.

Fortunately, it was NOT a deadly bite from an Ebola Black Widow Spider From Hell but was in fact a bacterial skin infection called cellulitis.  Even though I've never heard of it it's pretty common.  The doctor told me if my swelling went beyond these lines, though, I would probably lose my hand.

Just kidding, he said take some antibiotics.  I mostly trusted him but since I heard him telling some other patients in the next room over about the Ebol-ai virus and compared it to HIV I was a little suspect.

Fortunately, the swelling went down considerably overnight and even though it still hurts to grasp anything at least my hand muscles aren't rotten meat soup so I'm fine.  

The worst part of the whole "ordeal" (mild inconvenience?) was that I updated my tetanus shot and had a pretty severe reaction to it.  Thanks, medicine!  In addition to the normal tetanus muscle pain and inability to lift my arm to take my clothes off or wash my hair, I also developed flu-like symptoms the rest of the weekend!  Yay!  

Luckily, before my joints started to ache and the chills set in the plant swap happened and it was glorious.

Not all mine. 

Never been so excited about a bunch of dirt and weeds in plastic grocery bags before.  I think everyone left with lots of new goodies and none of their own so Plant Swap is now a "thing."  A regular event.  I'll probably send out invites in foil-lined envelopes in the Spring so start digging!

We always follow the Plant Swap with the driveway sale at Green Thumbs Galore which is a magic fairlyland of earthy goodness.  They almost exclusively do online sales so everyone can shop.

My goal is to take a few pics for you soon of my new plants - I always want to wait until they "look better" but that's just low landscaping self esteem thanks to Pinterest.  I'm still planting and mulching (hard to dig holes when you can't grip a shovel with your right hand or move your left arm) but I'll show everything to you soon - good or bad.  Hold me accountable.  For the sake of plants everywhere.

But glorious foliage will have to wait because I'm going on vacation next week!  I planned that well - plant a bunch of things and then leave for a week.  No wonder I kill so many things.

But while I'm gone please make sure to visit this garden tour at The Design Files which I'm loving.  You can also entertain yourself at the Fly Art tumblr which is filled with gems like this:

I would like a giant - shall I say... anaconda-sized? - poster of this on my wall please.

Also, someone please go water my plants while I'm gone.  I still have tons of irises that would love to go home with you too.

Just make sure to double glove.

And do NOT google images of cellulitis.

Velvet and rhinestones and an-easy-yet-efficient-storage-solution-for-my-accessories oh my.

Lest you think I'm a total flake I'm hear to assure you I haven't forgotten about showing you my "final" bedroom - whatever that means.  I'm fine if you think I'm lazy but not a flake.  I have personal standards.

Ok I actually keep forgetting to print a photograph to frame so I guess that does make me somewhat flaky... 

And since I'm wrapping up some things in my bedroom I'm shifting focus to other things like ORGANIZING.  Can you even contain yourself with how much excitement you're feeling right now?!

Depending on how you much like jewelry and order maybe you ARE feeling excitement.  I happen to j'adore jewelry and order so much it causes me to use phrases like 'j'adore' in sentences with no hint of sarcasm.

I have a pretty large collection of jewelry - wait, I should say shiny things I adorn myself with because none of that shit is real.  I mean, it's 'real' in the sense that I didn't metaphorically buy it from Forever21 but not real in that sometimes I still find tarnish on my finger when I take my jewelry off.

But I'm tired of shamefully storing it in ugly plastic bins with drawers.  I'm going adult!  With my plastic jewelry.

here

However much I would like to casually-but-purposefully display my "jewels" with the help of antlers or Brutalist sculptures or figures from my brass menagerie,  I just don't think I want this much clutter on my dresser top.  I'm not to be trusted with artful mess.

here

I j'adore 'artful mess' but the problem with 'artful mess' is that it quickly becomes j'pile of artful shit.

here

No way I can maintain a curated mess like this all the time.

Now THIS mess, maybe...  I love the Chanel bag behind the bottle of Yellow Tail.  I can't tell if I love this girl or want to pee in the bag while flipping her off.

Regardless, it's a j'izzillion times better than this mess:

here

Jesus crafting Christ, y'all.  

Let's check in with some professionals because this cheese grater shit is the Ebola of Pinterest.  (Creating lots of unnecessary hype in this country by middle class white people that probably watch a lot of Fox News.)

here

Stylist Mary Alice Stevenson really knows how to, well, do everything in life perfectly, I'm guessing, based on how meticulous her designer jewelry collection is displayed.  See the rest of her closet here and j'weep in joy and jealousy.

We can't talk about jewelry organizing with talking about everyone's favorite/feared designer Kelly Wearstler.

here

Her closet is just as impressive/fearful as you would imagine.

here

Somehow I just feel a maniac lurks beneath her expensive exterior.  But I'd be j'happy with her maniac closet and jewelry organization.

But the rest of us plebes have to make do with the Container store and costume jewelry but I'm fine with that because both of those things make me squee.  Who's the middle class white lady now, huh?!?!?!?

here

I'm not allowed to look at the jewelry displays at junk stores anymore.  I'm like a magpie but only for bargain sparkle.

here

here

here

I have a lot of big bangles - it's my crutch signature - so bracelet storage is the cornerstone of my setup.

here

Cute little storage bowls like these are fine for some people but I need architecture.

here

Although one day I really would like a printer's cabinet or apothecary cabinet or flat file solely filled with glorious jewelry but I'll settle for a drawer or two of my IKE-Rah Malms right now.  

Until then, please continue to enjoy this collection of jewelry storage porn.

unknown

So velvety, so shparkly.

here

unknown

here

here

I mean, damn.

here

Literal moist panties right now.  

I j'cream for tray after tray of glitz apparently.  Big surprise.

So I've been researching organization trays for my drawers and the next time you see me I'll probably be draped in powder blue silk and perched atop my Louis Vuitton luggage going through my drawers of aphrodisiacs. 

here