The dining room, continued

I have been working on decorating the dining room for months now. The big stuff (painting, curtains, etc) is done and now it is finishing touches. Like a centerpiece for the table. So I was psyched to find a great idea in Better Homes and Gardens and decided to collect acorns to use for my table.

Sophia and I headed out to get acorns, and came across a particularly fertile tree about half a mile up the road. It had dropped scads of acorns, so I scuttled about collecting them while trying to make sure Sophia didn't eat the acorns or the plastic bag I was putting them into.

We got home and for the next week the bag sat on the dining room table while I did other projects. So much for beautifying the dining room!

One day I came in the dining room, moved one piece of clutter on the dining room table while looking for another particular piece of clutter and . . . . saw a DISGUSTING little white maggoty creature squirming about on the table. I freaked out just a little bit and tried to figure out where it possibly could have come from. No idea, John disposed of said nasty little guy (he said it popped when he squeezed, ugh), and I moved on.

Until the next day when I found THREE more disgusting such critters on the table, and FOUR on the floor! My house may not be the cleanest, but this was too much! What if Sophia had found them first and ate one?! I shudder . . .

Finally it occured to me that I still had the bag of acorns on the table. I picked it up while John dispatched the latest collection, and sure enough, there was another little bugger under the bag itself.

What Better Homes and Gardens failed to mention when writing about decorating with acorns is that you should check them for little holes where critters might have bored to get in for some tasty little nut snacks. Like these little maggoty things did.

John discovered holes in some of the acorns when he took the bag outside, and set aside the "safe" ones for me to use. What a man! Thanks to him, I was able to finish my project, and no more little worms have shown up on our table.

Thanks to the previous house owners for the gold spray paint! Although I think next time I might prefer to buy my own spray paint and not have to dispose of the other 40 gallons of paint they so kindly left for us.

Oh yes, the fabric for the table runner is from Mardens. I bought quarter yards of 11 different 2.99/yard fabrics, making the total cost of my table decor less than $5!