My Life and How I Live It...

How's That Bathroom Looking?

2009-04-12T19:06:00.004-04:00

So, have you been waiting with baited breath to hear about our little adventures in remodeling the White House?? Sure. The last installment left us in a predicament with our toilet, right? Well, here are a few pictures I snapped just before the old toilet was taken out.

Ripping out the fake tile wallboard stuff:

Ahh, yes. Getting the old cruddy sink out of there:

Here you can see several layers of walls that the bathroom had seen:

Plaster knocked out, down to the slats:

Oh, and just so you can sleep tonight, here is a picture of our new toilet, installed and working perfectly!!! (There is the new drywall in the background as well!)

I'm going to leave you in suspense over the results. Wuahahahaha! Tune in for the next installment!!

Boy, it is so good to be back!

2009-04-12T18:44:00.002-04:00

Happy Easter everyone, I made it!! And you guys have stuck with me!?! Wow, you deserve a hand. So much has happened in the past six weeks. I can't wait to get caught up with everyone and to let you know all that has been happening here as well. This experience has really shown me how much blogging can take over a person's life with out them even realizing it. I hope I can keep it from building into an obsession again. This will probably mean fewer posts, even fewer comments to all you great ones out there, and probably giving up SITS completely, because as much as I love you guys and all the great ideas you have, I love my family more and need to put them first. Well, now that I have been a real downer for today I will go work on a real post. But, Rejoice!! He is risen, Alleluia, Alleluia!!

I Got My First Award!! And An Announcement That May Cost Me...

2009-02-23T15:35:00.001-05:00

Wow! I was so surprised the other day when I learned that Denise gave me The Lovey Award! This is my first award and I am thrilled!

Now here is the disclaimer for the award:

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find friends and be friends.They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships will be propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly- written text into the body of their award."

Eight? I don't even know if I know eight people... but I'll try.

Okay, let's see

A. B. M. (don't know if you want your real name out there...) at Domesticated.

Alli at My New Life. Hey maybe you'll start blogging more now, as in more that one post!

Chris at Just a Girl
Cynthia at An Accomplished Woman
Jen at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Jill at Controlling My Chaos
Kimba at A Soft Place to Land
The gals over at Like mother, like daughter

Okay, Phew! That wasn't as hard as I thought!!

Now for my announcement that I hope will not make you stop following me... I am taking a six week hiatus! Please don't leave! The Lenten season will start tomorrow with Ash Wednesday, and lately I've been realizing how much all my blogging time is taking from my family. So, this year I'm going to give up blogging (and possibly the internet as a whole - except email...) as my Lenten sacrifice. I really do have so many posts floating around in my head, but I think this is really something I need to sacrifice. I am looking forward to all I hope to accomplish during this time as a result of not blogging, but I will be back come Easter with, hopefully, a better sense of how to balance my time in this virtual world and my time with my family. In the mean time I have added a button to my sidebar, so you can email me, if need be. Okay, there, I said it, so now it has to be done. See you at Easter!

Yes, Yes, I Am Actually Alive!!

2009-02-23T14:34:00.005-05:00

And yes, I do realize it has been over a week since my last post... I Am So Sorry!! We have gotten ourselves mixed up in a complete bathroom renovation, and boy this 69 year old house had some surprises in store for us! On Tuesday night the Mr. took out the vanity and toilet and took down the fake tile look cardboard stuff. The wall behind the board was not salvageable so he ripped out all the plaster from four feet high down to the floor. On Wednesday we put up drywall and I spackled while he was at work. Wednesday night and Thursday he fussed with putting the toilet in which is where things started going south, I will get to that in a minute... Also on Thursday I went to order the sink, which as luck would have it was going to take "around a week" to come in. Sheesh!

So, I don't know what the people were thinking when they "fixed" the bathroom before, but they somehow thought that having a flange on the toilet wasn't necessary. Yeah, the (rusty, corroded) bolts were cemented into the floor and the wax ring was just sitting directly on the floor! Furthermore, they fitted some new pipe into the "poop hole" and cemented it in but didn't make sure it was level while the concrete was setting, so the pipe was crooked. So when the Mr. brought home a new flange and put it on it wouldn't sit level, and he couldn't shimmy it to where it was level because then it wouldn't sit flush with the floor. He got a metal bit and for the next three days, between working at his real job, getting three hours of sleep per night and me shoving food in his mouth so he wouldn't have to go through a two hour decontamination process just to get dinner in his belly, he was grinding the metal pipe to the point where he could fit the flange on correctly.

YAY! Or so we thought... After correcting the ID10Ts slap job of getting the toilet (they just kept reinstalling the original toilet, by the way... BLECH!!) in, the Mr. put in our new Lowe's toilet, which went fine until he put the tank on the back. Hmmm... it wouldn't fit. The bowl was right against the wall, literally touching the wall, so the tank couldn't fit, the bolts to attach the two together wouldn't even match up! URG!! Well, after yet another trip to Lowe's we found someone who actually knew what he was talking about! He said that we needed a toilet with a 10" setback (which is the distance between the wall and the bolts in the floor) which is something most people "nowadays" don't know about. Of course, Lowe's and the other big box home improvement stores don't stock that kind, but he could order it for us and it would arrive in three to ten days (Lets see, it's Saturday, and I've had to shlep down to the basement to pee since Tuesday, what's another week-and-a-half) OR we could try some small plumbing stores, one of which was the store where we ordered our sink. YIPPIE!! So we run right over to that store only to find out they were closed on Saturday and Sunday.

Well, at 8AM this morning I was on the phone calling this store, but no one answered. Wait 30 minutes. Called again. Yep, they have 10" "rough in" toilets. They probably have a couple in stock. They'd cost around $125.00 - less than we paid for our Lowe's potty. Told the Mr. and he jumped out of bed and ran (well, drove, actually) over there. An hour later he was bringing our new toilet through the door! Then he bathed really fast, dressed, grabbed his lunch and ran off to work. So, maybe with a little bit of luck and a lot of prayer I will at least have a potty up here before I go to bed tonight. I guess I can keep dreaming about my inspiration bathroom:

Psalm 18

2009-02-15T10:39:00.003-05:00

The LORD is my stronghold, my fortress, my rescuer,
my God is my rock where I take refuge.
He is my shield, my saving power, my mainstay.
I call on the LORD, worthy of all praise,
and I am saved from my enemies.
In my distress, I called to the LORD and
from his temple my God heard my voice;
my cry came to his presence, to his very ears.
This is why I will praise you, LORD, among the nations,
And sing psalms to your name.

Sweets For The Sweet

2009-02-13T14:56:00.002-05:00

Everyone must be feelin' the love of St. Valentine! I have found so many great giveaways out in blogland. Now, since it is St. Valentine's Day tomorrow I guess I will be generous and share my findings...

First, because this one ends tonight, is Pink and Polka Do t. Beautiful jewelry and part, half to be exact, of the proceeds goes to a worthy cause.

Denise is giving away a twenty dollar giftcard to Target. Now who can say no to that??

The Nester is giving away a *fabulous* (I'm going to start putting asterisks around that word every time I use it!) set of art prints! Comments are at 220 and counting, ladies!

And for the grand finale (drum roll please): Jeanne Winters is having a giveaway in honor of her one year bloggy anniversary. This one is big, big, BIG!!!

Now, just because you read it here doesn't mean you have to go enter.

Oh, what am I saying, GO ENTER! I never win anyway, so what could it hurt??

What The...? Wednesday

2009-02-11T07:08:00.005-05:00

*This title was ripped off from Denise at There's Always Room For One More.*

I meant to post last night, but that post is still not ready, and also I was dozing off at 10 pm - even though I had a second cup of coffee at 4 that afternoon. Whoa, this 6 AM wake up is rough...

Anyway, this morning I was over at SITS reading the featured blog which triggered a crazy memory. The Mr, the girls, and I were at a pond a couple of streets over feeding the ducks (and geese). Now, of course, we weren't the only ones there. There were three people congregating about a hundred feet away from us when a police officer pulls up and walks over to them. He kept talking to them and we were trying not to pay attention to them and continued to feed the ducks (and kick the geese away from eating my children).

I had seen out the corner of my eye some seek, black thing pop up out of the water and quickly back into the water. I said to the Mr, "I there is some huge animal under the water, " so we start throwing some food into the water. Soon we see the animal's back cresting the top of the water and then his head pops out to get the food. The Mr said, "I think that's a badger!" We both kind of chuckle, then the "badger" turns to swim away and his tail crests the water. The Mr gasps because that was no badger tail. "What is that," I ask him. "That is a rat!" is his reply. No. Way.

We were talking a bit louder than normal, and I'm noticing that the group with the police officer is glancing over at us, so we walk to another side of the pond about fifty feet from where we saw the "rat-from-you-know-where" to continue to feed the ducks. We toss some food to the ducks who are eagerly awaiting the provisions when we notice a sleek black shadow cresting the water and swimming among all those ducks. The Mr has decided that the badger-rat needs to go see Jenny Craig and avoids throwing any food in its general direction. So, spawn-of-Satan-rat gets mad and jumps toward the pond's edge to try to show us who is bossy boss around there. The Mr yells, I scream and try to save my unsuspecting children from being devoured, and Mr Policeman and posse scurry over to see what's going on. Then the police officer (who, I am certain, must think we are a family of mental patients) starts patrolling the water's edge to get a visual on the target. We soon see the sleek black shadow of Satanrat off in the distance in the water swimming, undoubtedly, back toward his lair, muttering, "I'll get you my pretties! And your little dog, too!"

Monday Memories

2009-02-09T07:24:00.006-05:00

I wasn't sure what to write about today, so I just thought I'd share some of my favorite experiences. I don't know if I've mentioned before, but My husband and I had the most fabulous (there's that word again) honeymoon ever. We went to Rome. I really don't know if there is anything that can compare. We would love to find a way to move there. Anyway, here are six of the over four hundred photos we took:

Saint John Lateran. We actually didn't get to see this beautiful church until our last full day. Everytime we were able to get there they had already closed for the evening.

Raphael's Tomb. The artist is buried inside The Pantheon.

Another church, Saint Mary Major. Stunning!! The piazza we are standing in is where I was able to snap the photo of the little boy in my header.

Our first glimpse of Saint Peter's Basilica. There are no words to describe...

The Roman Forum. The history here is amazing. It's so humbling to realize how small we are in the whole span of time.

The botanical gardens. We got some amazing shots here. Even for the beginning of March it was beautiful.

I am trying to scrapbook our memories from this trip, but it's so hard to not include absolutely everything. Right now we have the pictures in two huge albums.

Our Masterpiece

2009-02-07T07:09:00.003-05:00

The Mr caught this yesterday while I was taking a bath! Isn't this precious!!

What a masterpiece!

She is actually asleep, and she stayed that way for quite a while. She wasn't happy when she woke up, though because her hand fell asleep...

6AM

2009-02-06T07:35:00.002-05:00

That is the time I have been setting my alarm. I don't necessarily want to get up so early but there are things I want (need) to do before the girls get up. I just went from a 7AM wake up to the new 6AM wake up schedule this week because they were getting up before 7... Ideally this should work. In reality they seem to have this sixth sense that Mommy is getting up earlier and therefore they should as well. So for the past two mornings I have been trying to get Taz back to sleep so I can get laundry and blog rounds done. It ain't happenin' folks. I'm starting to tear my hair out. Now I'm an hour-and-a-half behind "schedule." What do your schedules look like?

Bliss In Your Bedroom...

2009-02-05T08:35:00.002-05:00

...even if you're in bed alone!

Imagine crawling into luxurious 500 thread count sheets, resting your head on a set of memory foam pillows, lotion, candles, and soft, fluffy spa towels.

Imagine this and more, then get yourself over to SITS and enter their February contest to win!!

I know I want to win BAD!! And the winner will be drawn on March 1 - my anniversary!! What a perfect anniversary present this would be, even though I never win anyway, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I Think I Have Given My Blog The Wrong Name

2009-02-04T00:11:00.000-05:00

So, I'm starting to think I should have name this blog Adventures in Wrecking My Nest or something like that. The Mr and I were talking last week about getting new living room furniture (none of the furniture matches... or even meshes well together, for that matter.), but after looking around at three or four (or seven) furniture stores and thinking it over some more we came to the conclusion that we could make our bathroom really look the way we want for about the same amount of money. We thought that would be the better option.

What do I want to do in the bathroom? Well, the tile needs to go, the fake tile needs to go, and the sink desperately needs to go. We have talked about what kind of sink to get and whether those fabulous marble tiles might be under the sink cabinet. I was pretty sure that the cabinet was not original to the house and that the tile would be under the cabinet. This morning I decided to sneak (not much sneaking going on in this tiny house, but...) in there and do this:

Yeah, I don't think this cabinet is going to be worth even donating when we are through with it.

Plaster walls... with a big chink in them. Where there is one, there will be more... Ugg, that's going to be a job!

Okay, here we go! I think I can get a view of the flooring now!

Good news!! That picture shows the first layer of linoleum! They must have still had the pedestal or wall mounted sink (which I'm guessing is what was originally installed when the house was built) at that time. So there must be the marble floor underneath.

I'm having visions of the perfect bathroom. And it looks eerily similar to this picture I saw at The Inspired Room. She posted about decorating in black and white not too long ago... and, anyway, here she is:

Isn't she wonderful (I almost typed fabulous, but I think I'm wearing that word out, so I'll let it rest)!! We found a similar sink today, and those are almost my tiles. My heart starts beating a little faster whenever I see this picture!

My Fireplace: A Tutorial

2009-02-03T06:56:00.008-05:00

Maybe you live in a circa 1940 home like I do and you have a "lovely" fireplace that looks like this:

We have lived in this house for almost six years. I have never liked this fireplace. At first all I could think was, "Why would someone paint that stone fireplace?" But then again, I didn't know what was underneath all that bright white high gloss paint (why gloss? why did they have to paint it with gloss???) I dreamed that one day I'd have the money to stucco the thing or strip the paint or move to a new house or something so that I would no longer have to look at this mass of bright white, high gloss piece of ugliness. But I've realized that isn't about to happen anytime soon, so I decided to do something about it. Myself. Without spending a dime. You can do it too!!

First I gathered together all this stuff from around the house:

Paint. (These were paints I had sitting around the basement. The white almond is our kitchen cabinets, the apricot is our dining room walls, the rainforest green is the girls' bedroom walls, the black was house trim, the tan and the gray color in the back were colors I just mixed from those other colors, and the burnt sienna and burnt umber were from a paint set we had.)
Sponge brushes.
Kitchen sponges.
Detail brushes.
Oh, and not pictured, but very important: Sandpaper. And a damp cloth.

The first thing you must do is sand the stones. This doesn't really take the paint off, it just roughs up the surface a bit so the paint will adhere better. After sanding, wipe the stone down with your damp cloth. While you are at it you can pick out the pine needles that got wedged in between the fireplace and the screen thingy when you had your fabulous Christmas garland up for Nester's Garland show and Tell.

Now you are ready to sponge on your base coat:

Pretty hideous, huh? Don't worry! It will look nothing like this when we are finished, I promise! What we are doing right now is giving the stone some depth.

On some stones I added patches of green, like this:

Doesn't it make you want to scream, "GO CANES!" Okay, so maybe it just makes you want to scream...

Next I sponged on some of the browns and it looked like this:

Now it's starting to evolve! I rubbed on some black. See you can still see some of the other layers showing through:

Now we are going to add tan. Remember to start off pretty lightly because you can always add more. The kitchen sponge starts to really come in handy on these later layers. I sponge the paint on with the sponge brush, then dab with the kitchen sponge. Always make sure you are dabbing, otherwise there will be streaks which are not very common in real stones.

Now we go gray. Yes, ladies, sometime going gray is a good thing! I sponge and dab and rub and even use my fingers a little bit to get the paint just how I want it and here is what I end up with:

Don't forget to stop very often! You need to step back and view your progress.

Your stones will evolve even after you think you are done. See those chocolately brown stones? They don't look anything like that now.

Between thinking exactly how I wanted the whole thing to look, researching the internet for ideas on how exactly to do this, getting pictures of stonework, and chasing two kids away from my jars of paint every ten minutes, I was able to do about five stones per day. You will probably be able to get it done much more quickly!

Here is what I have ended up with:
(Note: I still have to seal it so the paint won't stratch off...)

Now I have to figure out what to do with the mantel and trim... But I think I will sit back for a while and enjoy what I have accomplished so far.

I hope you enjoyed my first tutorial!!

We Interupt Our Previously Unscheduled Absence...

2009-02-02T13:15:00.005-05:00

First I must apologize for my long absence... I didn't mean to be gone so long I promise!!! I've gotten myself involved in a little project that is taking longer than expected. It's going to make for a good post, though, so stay tuned.

Anyway, if you would have told me yesterday that the groundhog would see his shadow this morning I would have said, "No way!" Yesterday it was a lovely 60 degrees, sunny, and beautiful!! This morning we woke up to this:

My husband was scheduled to be off work anyway today. Yay!! So we all went to the grocery. And no, we aren't those type of people who freak out and run to the grocery every time the weather turns bad. We always go to the grocery at the beginning of the week. Now I was really dreading it because I was sure that it was going to be packed, but it actually wasn't bad at all.

By the time everyone got dressed and we headed out to the car here is what greeted us:

I am so glad the Mr. is home to take the girls out in this, 'cause snow ain't my bag, baby!!!

Why? Just Tell Me Why.

2009-01-27T22:57:00.004-05:00

What could possess someone to cover this up with linoleum??
It's not a perfect job. We need to scrub it, buff it, or something, but who in their right mind could cover this beauty?? I don't care if it does feel cold under your feet - put on some darn socks for crying out loud!!
My husband's answer as to why someone would do that was something like, "Well, if you were drunk this would really make you dizzy!"

I did say that I thought the first layer looked like it was from the sixties or seventies, so maybe they were tripping out on something...

Can We Tear Up This Little House Any More??

2009-01-26T22:05:00.004-05:00

Remember my ugly duckling? Well, yesterday I was is the bathroom talking to my husband while he was getting a bath (what, you've never done that?) and some water splashed all over our basket of magazines so I moved it to keep the water from ruining our required reading. Now remember why that basket was so strategically placed? We started looking at the linoleum and got the bright idea that we'd peel up the floor! I knew what was underneath because I had already looked under it in the bathroom closet. There was a loose tile in the closet so I yanked it out and we went to Lowe's to see what it was (I thought maybe it was quartz) and what we needed to fix the floor. It turns out that the tile was marble!! We have marble floors under three layers of linoleum!!

My husband hard at work:

Here the first layer is peeled up and you can see the second layer:

Here is the original marble floor:

This picture is after he ripped the whole top layer of linoleum up.

You can see the bottom layer of linoleum in this picture. I'm guessing it was laid in the 60's or 70's.

I'll keep posting the progress on this project. He started last night and we still have a long way to go!

My Sad, Sad Laundry Room

2009-01-24T21:27:00.008-05:00

Meet my laundry room.

She's a little sad.
The first reason for her sadness? This thing.

Yep, that's an All jug rigged up and duct taped to the drain pipe. The amount of water the washer shot into the pipe was too much for it to drain fast enough to keep from overflowing, so my husband fashioned his own "reservoir" to try to contain the overflow until it had time to drain. It worked okay...

...but not perfectly, that's why there's that cooler sitting there to catch the rest of the overflow.

Here is what the dryer gets to look at day after day:

By the way, that's what it looks like when it's clean. That puffy yellow stuff? That's called Great Stuff. It's for filling cracks. You spray and it foams up and dries hard as a rock. Maybe I could take a chainsaw to it... Keep an eye out for it throughout this post. I don't know what the deal is with the wall and baseboard being cut off about four inches above the floor. Next to that toilet is a sink and next to that is this:
That's supposed to be a shower.
Here is is from another (blurry) angle:

And here is a head on shot of it:
That green piece of soap in the soap holder? Yeah, that belonged to the previous owners. We've never used this thing for it's intended purpose. Oh, it's comprised of a concrete floor and metal surround. This sucker would take a jackhammer to remove.

And as if you haven't had enough of the shower?
That silver thingy in the upper right hand corner is the shower head. I don't know what kind of water pressure it gets. And I don't know what's up with that two by four wedged up there...

Here we have the lovely brown astroturf that is on the floor in this room.
Those nasty looking stains would be courtesy of our washer. Something about it leaks oil onto the floor.
Here, let me move this baker's rack so you can get a better view of the corner.

Oh, there is that Stuff again and there is that strangeness with the wall and trim cut so far above the floor again.

Well, I understand that you are saying, "Would you shut up about your hideous laundry room already!?" See, there are actually two reasons I brought up the thing. One is I found this blog called Pink and Polka Dot and she is so cute! About a week and a half ago she posted about her laundry room. Let me tell you: I was drooling just over the before photos! But the no-cost after is so stinkin' cute!!

So, what's the other reason I would post this? See, my poor laundry room is now more depressed than ever because now she has to share her nastiness with this:
I'll pardon you with the details about our acquiring this set of fabulousness for today. But I do feel bad to have to put them in this room.

Oh, look at this:
Did you see?? Rather, did you see what's missing?? No more rigged up "reservoir!"!!!!!! The washer uses so little water that we don't need to worry about that anymore!

And now I'm pondering painting the room, see:
...as if that will help... Sorry my little sweethearts!

In This Moment I Remember

2009-01-22T00:01:00.002-05:00

My Sweetheart,

Five years ago at this moment I was joyfully and fearfully laboring with you. I waited to see your face, your promise, my hope for the future. I didn't know what was yet in store nor all that occurred in your life already. But if your being two and a half weeks late hadn't proven to me already how much stubbornness was contained in your tiny body, the next few days would.

There was no way to know the fight that was going on between my body and yours. All we knew was that you were a perfect eight pound beautiful girl. When you were having trouble breathing in that first hour of your life our midwife determined that you need more specialized help that she could give.

Two hours after your body was cut from mine you were taken from my sight. I was not prepared for anything that followed. The next time I saw you I could hardly bear to look. We were supposed to be home already, our new little family. Instead we were ushered into the NICU of Children's Hospital.

You were sent as a precaution for the sticky fluid on your lungs, but the next few days spiraled out of my control, something that I could hardly bear then ...and now.

Platelets practically nonexistent.
Transfusions aren't working.
Can't figure out why.
Blood work expedited to Wisconsin.
Unpronounceable words.
NAIT.
No more children.
Do not have more children.
No brothers.
No sisters.
Period.

...But, I had my precious angel.

Please don't ever forget how precious you are to me.

I am so thankful for you.

I Must Be A Pack Rat

2009-01-21T22:09:00.005-05:00

This is everything we cleaned out from just one portion of the basement!!! What is even more sad is that every single bit of this is trash! As I took boxes out I realized a bunch of this junk was stuff that was put in the basement the day we moved in... That was almost six years ago, people!! Too sad.

Oh, and do you see the big hole in our basement door? That is courtesy of Bismarck, the Belgian Tervuran that my husband used to own. He decided that he wanted to go outside when we wouldn't let him, so he ate the door! (I'll leave that thought for another day, though.)

I even thought I'd be so kind as to give you another view of this mess!
All those flattened boxes were going to be used some day to pack stuff ...yeah, right!

There you have it: I am officially a pack rat...

It Had To Be Done

2009-01-20T22:07:00.003-05:00

I can't believe I am about to show you this, but I soooo need a kick in the rear to get things started.

This is just a tiny glimpse into our dungeon, er... basement:This is really just the tip of the iceberg, but I don't have the courage tonight to let you see the rest...

BUT

That was one aisle of the basement yesterday.

Here is what my husband and I accomplished today:
Not perfect, but oh so much better.

Here is an after picture going the other direction:
Ooooh, man, I should have taken a picture of what came out of the basement... I'm too lazy and it's too cold right now, but I think I'll post that tomorrow... I know it doesn't look like much, but this took us almost two hours to do! I can't tell you how long it's been since I've been able to walk through that area without hopping over something or squeezing by something!

Hearing The Call

2009-01-18T17:55:00.003-05:00

Then the Lord called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!"
1 Samuel 3:4

NEW YORK - Chesley Sullenberger spent practically his whole life preparing for the five-minute crucible that was US Airways Flight 1549.

He got his pilot's license at 14, was named best aviator in his class at the Air Force Academy, flew fighter jets, investigated air disasters, mastered glider flying and even studied the psychology of how cockpit crews behave in a crisis.

When the ultimate test came on a descent over the Hudson River, he spoke into the intercom only once and gave perhaps the most terrifying instruction a pilot can give - "Brace for impact" - with remarkable calm.

And as the 150 passengers of Flight 1549 marveled at their hero pilot's skill and cool head, they learned what friends and relatives of Sullenberger say they have known all along.

On Friday, the 57-year-old pilot fielded a congratulatory call from President George W. Bush. The engineer of what Gov. David Paterson called "a miracle on the Hudson" had yet to speak publicly, but the accolades piled up. Mayor Michael Bloomberg showed off a key to the city for the pilot. Congress took up a resolution paying tribute. The governor said someone had offered $10,000 to build a statue of Sullenberger.

His wife, Lorraine, appearing outside their Danville, Calif., home, called her husband a "pilot's pilot" who "loves the art of the airplane." She described him, as almost everyone else had, as controlled and professional.

"This is the Sully I know," she said. "I always knew how he would react. So to me this is not something unusual. It's the man I know."
ERIN McCLAM, Associated Press
Saturday, January 17, 2009

And the LORD came and stood forth, calling as at other times, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for thy servant hears."
1 Samuel 3:10

New Addition???

2009-01-17T09:17:00.005-05:00

No, no, no... It's not me! At least I'm pretty sure it's not me, but if it's you or a friend you might just want one of these:

Just about the cutest thing (what am I talking about, they are totally, completely irresistible!) is the "bum decor" on the back!! Check this out:

Makes you want to have a baby, right?? Well, what's even better is she has these in toddler t-shirt sizes all the way to a 5T!!!!

Now I know you are jumping for your purses to get your check cards (keep Dave Ramsey on the brain, people!) out, but STOP!! SITS has featured Ella Bean in their Saturday Spotlight, and you know what that means!!! GIVEAWAY!!!!!

So, just go enter the contest, I know I won't win, but hopefully you can! That would mean I scored an assist, right??

This Little Pig Went to Market (And Got Herself a Makeover!)

2009-01-16T21:21:00.008-05:00

Amazingly, when I brought up the subject of maybe painting the piggy to my daughter, she agreed. Her reasoning was, "Because pigs aren't white and red striped with blue and stars."

So, here she is:She is a little brighter (sheesh) and a little more salmon in color than this picture shows, but I would say that this is a definite improvement. Would you agree?

I am not really sure that I am done with her yet. I think that I will live with her for a while before I decide, though.

My New Look

2009-01-15T08:20:00.004-05:00

Like it?? I worked REEEAAALLY hard to get this HTML stuff figured out. In the process of changing things I lost all my blogs and websites that didn't have buttons, so now I'm going to have to try to find them all again... Also my header will be changing soon!

Edited to add: Got my header pic changed!! How's it look??

Ugly Pig

2009-01-13T16:23:00.007-05:00

I'm sitting here staring at this thing wondering, "Why in the world did my MIL have to get this piece of hideousness for my daughter?" I had hoped it would be one of those things that I could tuck away and she'd forget about it, then I could donate it to charity or something. But, oh no, every time she finds a coin (or raids our pockets...), into the pig it goes. And, let me tell you, this gal has some lofty goals for this money: it's going to buy our new house one day!! So, I have to pretty this sow up with some paint or decoupage or something. I was thinking of a peachy pink, but I don't know... Any ideas??

Getting The Behavior Under Control

2009-01-12T22:45:00.004-05:00

I'm going to tell you a little secret. I'm a horrible mother. I let my temper get the best of me way too much, and I get so angry with my children sometimes that it really feels like I am going to bust a blood vessel in my eye one day. My four year old really knows how to push me over the edge. I have been holding onto the end of that rope so tightly for what seems like so long that I just don't know if I want any more kids at all. Then I feel guilty. We worked so hard to get our babies here that I feel so unappreciative of the miracles God has given me. I have to try so hard every day, and I don't know where I would be without Him, but I know it would not be pleasant.

So, last week I was on the computer and I found this Works For Me Wednesday post. I got so excited because I had seen the Dilley Six on TV and knew that their mom had some sort of really involved discipline method, but I didn't know quite how it worked. IFLC even referenced it for me (I mean her readers), so I was able to read it for myself! You can read that here.

I talked to my husband about it that night and he thought it sounded like a good idea, so the next day I set about creating the whole thing. We've instituted it with our daughter, and so far so good! I am praying that this is our answer.

Here are the two charts I made. You can click on any picture to enlarge it. Now the daily chores have to be completed before any privileges are allowed, even breakfast.
Here is the ladder side of the chart. The infractions will change, I'm sure, as we encounter different behaviors that need to be modified. We also consider any extenuating circumstances before we have her move her marker...

Here you can see she has already completed all her chores.

And here is the chore chart without the magnets covering the pictures.

For the "Little Apprentice Duties" she is learning how to do my chores alongside me. I don't expect too much out of her right now. She still pitches in and helps me with them, but I really just want to make sure she's paying attention and watching carefully how I am doing the tasks. As she gets older the chart will, of course, change, and I will change my expectations of her as well. But for now, I think this is enough for her.

By the way, I made the chart and magnets for free out of stuff I already had: scrapbook paper, a circle punch, and old magnet advertisements that I was just about to toss in the trash. See?

This makes me smile every time I look at it!!

Stoked!!

2009-01-11T18:23:00.005-05:00

We went out today and I convinced my husband to drop me off at JoAnn's to "window shop" while he went to Lowe's to pick up some supplies. Well, I, of course couldn't make it out of JoAnn's with nothing in my hands. Check out what I bagged!!!

That's five garlands, two boxes of pine cones, a bag of 100 tea lights, and a string of Christmas snowflake bead garland (for the Lucy tree). It cost a whopping $9.01 plus tax!! The garlands were 29 cents each, pine cones were 59 cents each, the beads were 39 cents, and well, I did pay full price for the candles - $5.99 for the pack of 100... I'm so excited!!!

Aren't These Just Lovely?

2009-01-10T09:49:00.005-05:00

If you are an avid photographer you are just going to love these. Shealynn makes such luscious camera strap covers. Here are just a few of them:

Like pink and brown? How about Jewel dot?

An eastern flair? Maybe Moorish Espresso is your kind of poison...

Nature with a twist: Lava Leaves

Maybe you have lots and lots and lots of need to wear orange (it's a great color, Alli!)... Then how about Autumn Wallpaper??

So, what could be better than purchasing one of these cuties from Shealynn (no shipping, by the way...)?? How about winning one??? SITS is having a giveaway! Just leave a comment HERE (Alli, you have to click that word) and let them know which one is your favorite. Then if you want more chances to win blog about the giveaway and let them know you posted about it and they'll give you FIVE more chances!

Now, just make sure you don't do any of that so my chances of winning are better , 'kay?!?

A Giveaway...Not mine, silly!!

2009-01-09T16:17:00.004-05:00

Denise just had her 200th post! Wow, this is number 23 for me, so 200 just seems impossible!!! Anyway, I just discovered her last week and I'm so glad I did. This gal has SIX kids, y'all! I pull my hair out with just two! And they are so incredibly adorable, too!!

Well, to celebrate her 200th post she's having a giveaway! That's something awesome I've noticed about blogs: when a blogger has a big event such as a milestone post or a blog anniversary instead of having a party to get presents many of them give presents away!!! Denise had me at Tazo Tea! But then she's throwing in a mug to drink it from and Pepperidge Farm cookies to eat with it And a book to enjoy while sipping it AND a movie in case you don't feel like reading AND movie snacks to enjoy while watching the movie!!!!

So, don't go enter this giveaway so I'll have a better chance to win, okay??

Virus

2009-01-08T08:48:00.004-05:00

Well, we have been getting over a virus in our house - a computer virus to be exact. Everything seemed fine on Sunday. I searched for a lovely picture to go with my post and posted it and really stayed off my computer for the remainder of the day. My stepdaughter did get on the computer to mess around with her myspace page, but that was it.

Well, that evening when I got home something strange was going on with the computer. I decided it would be best to just leave it alone. When my husband got home I mentioned it to him, and after fooling around with it a bit he declared we had a virus. Great.

He got some software to eradicate the bugger and we have switched from Explorer to Firefox, so life can continue where we left off...

O Star of Wonder!

2009-01-04T08:17:00.003-05:00

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him."

When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet: `And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel.'"

Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared; and he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship him."

When they had heard the king they went their way; and lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.
Matthew 2: 1 - 12

Happy Epiphany!!!

Garland Show and Tell: The After Christmas Edition

2009-01-02T21:31:00.004-05:00

Remember this beautiful garland I made for Nester's Garland show and tell?

Well, today I took her down... After removing all the flowers and berries and gold twig thingies and glass icicle ornament thingies all that was left of her was this:

No, actually that wasn't all. She left a nice thick carpet of green all over my hearth. Durn, I didn't get a picture of that... But take a look at these (oops, sorry they're so blurry!)

I piled all those ad-on thingies up on the hearth. Who says accessories don't make all the difference??

A Wordless Wednesday

2008-12-31T10:42:00.005-05:00

I'm not feeling so good today so this is going to be my "Wordless (or should I say "Word few") Wednesday."

I feel so blessed to have this painting grace my dining room.

This Is Keeping Me Up At Night...

2008-12-30T09:14:00.005-05:00

So, I've been getting to bed really late because of a couple of little obsessions...

This year my husband and I were just doing Christmas for the kids because we couldn't afford to do much more. I got laid off back in July and, even though we now aren't paying for childcare, we are really strapped for cash.

However, my husband must have some secret little savings account somewhere, because he got me the mother of all gift sets. Let me just tell you, when I first saw this at the store I was taking my 4 year old to the bathroom and stopped dead in my tracks at the display on the way there. Coming back from the bathroom, I couldn't see straight and when we got back with the rest of the family my husband said, "What's wrong with you?" So, I told him just to walk to the bathroom and he'd see. So he did and while he was gone I found a chair to sit in... He came back and just said, "Wow! 33 disks!?! 86 hours!?!"

Do you know yet???

Yeah! I fell in the floor and cried when he said, "Santa must have dropped something in the fireplace..." Okay, call me a freak, but not until I tell you the other thing that's been keeping me up late...

I guess I'm a tad bit obsessed with this:

Now, this is not a Christmas present. It's not even a new game, we bought it used at EB. We had rented this game, but I didn't play it... well, I tried but wasn't any good, so I just gave up. We bought it months ago and just stowed it with our other Wii games. Then a couple of weeks ago my husband mentioned it and decided to finally get it out and play it. It's really fun to watch, but one night I decided to give it another go and ended up having a blast. Now I'm hooked!!

Okay, now you can call me a freak!

Yes, I'm still here...

2008-12-29T08:40:00.004-05:00

No, no, nothing happened to the Sacred Marty Crane Chair (see the bottom of this post)! Sorry for the little bloggy vacation; I think there was some holiday we were all a little wrapped up in...

Anyway, I'm playing catch up now, but just wanted to post real quick like about this contest to win this:

I just entered this contest, but please, please don't go over there and enter it too, 'cause I never win anything and need all the help I can get...

We Elf'd Ourselves

2008-12-23T10:18:00.002-05:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

A Couple of Silly, Little (But Finished!) Christmas Gifts

2008-12-20T23:36:00.003-05:00

Well, I've finished some of those gifts I mentioned that I have been feverishly working on. I had a few that I deemed were safe to show photos without ruining any one's Christmas surprise... So here they are:

We made these butterfly ornaments (okay, so I don't have a hanger on them yet...), and there is a story behind this, but I want to wait to share it because it ties in with some other ornaments I made. I'll just say that both my mother and my mother-in-law love butterflies, so these are for them. Oh, and my four year old called dibs on the orange one...

No story to go with this one... it's a "garland" of Christmas-y houses for my sister-in-law. She has tons of bookcases in her house and we thought this could easily decorate the top of one. I got the idea when I was looking at some back issues of Mary Englebreit's Home Companion magazine (I'll edit this later to put which issue... I don't want to hunt it back down again right now...)

That's it. Pretty boring tonight... I'm wanting to figure out how to make one of those nifty buttons that no one but Alli would want. Oh, who am I kidding, she wouldn't even want one, but I'd hack into her account anyway to put it on her blog. *insert widely grinning smilie here*

Why have I been MIA??

2008-12-19T21:43:00.005-05:00

Okay, so my best friend (she just started blogging!) calls me this afternoon to ask me what is going on because I haven't blogged since Tuesday. Well, I've been staying up way too late for the past two nights working on Christmas presents. So, Alli (or anyone else I know IRL), if you happen to get anything that looks eerily similar to something in these photos just know they took some effort on my part, okay so a certain four year old helped a lot! But since we have no money for gifts I had to come up with something... sorry, hope you like it!):

My "Lucy Tree" Angel

2008-12-16T22:21:00.004-05:00

I realized that I didn't post a close up of the angel on my girls' tree on our tour, so I'm going to tell you all about her. Hmmm... Maybe I'll even name her St. Lucy. Huh, yeah, I think I will. Come to think of it, I put the "Lucy Tree" up on St. Lucy's Day! Or, maybe St. Lucy's Eve... I think that's a sign, or something. Anyway, here she is before I gave her a little wardrobe update:
Pretty, but I thought she needed some color.

I had a bag of various ribbon. Now, I've got to tell you, I have two hot glue guns in this house, one of which has gone into hiding. And I have, probably around 75 glue sticks for the guns. It beats me where they are. I ended up using all of the part of a glue stick I had left in my glue gun to do a mistreament for Guinevere, so thanks to my neighbor for letting me borrow her Super, Duper, Ultra Hot Professional Burn All Your Fingertips Off glue gun! Thanks Jo!!!

So, after cutting some ribbons to an appropriate length and arranging them to a pattern I thought looked okay, I hot glued them to another gold piece of ribbon.

Some onto the front:

Others onto the back:

Then I folded the ribbon over and over again to hide the edges where I glued. All I had left to do was to tie it around Lucy's waist like an apron, and there you have it!

I think this is a little more festive!

Christmas Tour of the White House

2008-12-15T00:50:00.013-05:00

See! I told you it was the White House! Boy that's a blurry picture!

Father Christmas gives you merry greetings:

Our "Welcome Un-wreath." If you are selling something, don’t bother stopping by :)

As you come in you will see my masterpiece garland on our mantle. You can read more about it here.

Our Christmas tree gets sad when she has to look at the garland.

Well, at least Miss Guinevere will give her some attention!

Oh, and if you’ll notice, I did add more to the garland after the garland show and tell. See?
They don’t look as great in the photo, but they are leaded glass icicles and they really sparkle.

Oh, the tree is getting sad again, so let’s pay her some attention.

Here is a squirrel roasting a chestnut over an open fire!

How about a Superman lunchbox?

I wonder what’s for lunch...

Oooooh! Hippo and meerkat! My favorite!

The top of the tree:

I'm not too good at the artsy photography...

As you head to the Dining Room, please notice our Advent wreath.

Oh, yes, I almost forgot. We have two Advent wreaths.

You’ll notice that it’s Gaudette Sunday.

And here is my sideboard, where Molly and Kirsten have taken up temporary residence.

Wow! These picture make my walls look really pink!! They aren’t, though. They are Valspar Apricot 5. They have more of an orange undertone to tie in with the coral handles there on the sideboard...

A little touch of Christmas in my bedroom:

Okay, what’s with the camera making my walls look pink?? This room is a deep shade of crimson. I don’t know the name because it was this color when we moved in...

Here’s a bit of Christmas in the bathroom. I don’t like the fake garland sprig thingy, but Santa seemed like he needed something.

I loved this Santa because he was blue.

Here is the Charlie Brown (no Lucy) tree I made for my girls. The angel is almost bigger than the tree

Well, okay, so I didn’t make the actual tree. I made the ornaments. Here are some close ups:

And most importantly... why we celebrate.

Jesus will be placed in the creche on Christmas Eve.

Now, for a reality check. On your way out, you see "The Marty Crane Chair."

If anything ever happens to this chair, this blog will be abandoned as I will have entered Witness Protection...

Hope you enjoyed touring my home!

An Ugly Duckling of a Bathtub

2008-12-13T22:06:00.005-05:00

Chris asked me in this post if that was my bathtub to the right of the window. Well, yeah, it is, but I'm going to give you the real deal on this.

Here is the glorious arched alcove bath:

And here we have a basket of magazines to peruse...

...or to hide the three layers of linoleum that are peeling up from mildew!

Here is the bath from a different angle:

That tile going around the arch is just ugly.

"What's that?" you say? "What's that thing at the top where the shower head is supposed to be?"

Why, it's a broken shower head nozzle! And it's ready to spray the skin right of your body like a power washer!!

Oh, this is the example of the lovely mildewed corners of the bathtub...

And this is the lovely job the previous owners did of putting up a fake (cardboard) tile do-hickey on the back of the tub. Gotta love how they pieced the thing!!

Well, I guess I should mention some pros about the tub now. I do absolutely adore the alcove, although I'd like to figure out how to improve the tiles (you can't paint them can you???) And the tub itself is so deep and great for soaking. I also love the lines of the tub which you can see in the second pic...

Hmm, maybe I can get pictures of my grandparents tub on here after Christmas. It's really neat... REALLY colorful, but really neat.

Dinner and a Show

2008-12-12T21:13:00.004-05:00

Again I'm going to try to make this one quick, so I can get to a painting that's being sitting around for a week, a little Charlie Brown (no, maybe Lucy) tree that's been sitting around for two weeks, and paper ornament patterns that, well, they've just been sitting for a day, but they've got to get done!

Tonight I made pizza for dinner. I have never made pizza (well, unless you count the frozen box kind...) for dinner, but I wanted to get rid of the chicken I made to other night, so I was determined to do it. Oh, and did I mention that we aren't eating tomatoes?? We've renounced foods containing salicylates for a few weeks to see if it helps my 4 year old and some issues we've been having. Tomatoes are at the top of the list of foods we will re-introduce because we love Italian food, and my husband makes the most excellent spaghetti!

So, instead I made a homemade Alfredo pizza with chicken and spinach. I didn't make the crust from scratch... I cheated and used some Rhodes frozen bread dough. Here are the results:

Another thing I forgot was mozzarella cheese, so I used Parmesan and some Monterrey jack instead. This was great stuff!!!

On with the show... after dinner we decided to go see this house not too far from here. It's all decorated for Christmas, and when we got to it there were ten other cars trying to get a good spot to see it. Why?? The people had every square foot of yard and every square inch of house covered in lights. They had them all set to a program that times the lights with music! You've heard of this, right?? You put your radio to a certain station so you can hear the music in your car and just sit back and enjoy! These people have been doing this for, oh, the past three or four years, and it's always entertaining, especially for the kids. So, we watched for a while and then came home. Fun!

Bathroom Window Mistreatment

2008-12-11T22:07:00.003-05:00

I'm going to try and make this short and sweet today. I'm busy making Christmas ornaments out of stuff around my house for gifts since we have no money right now... I'll try to get a post up of them soon.

Anyway I've had this fabric in my closet for a year and a half, I would guess. I was keeping it back to reupholster my chairs at some point down the road. There were maybe six yards of fabric, so I decided to cut it in half and do a mistreatment of my bathroom window.

I got some upholstery tacks from Home Depot, 20 for 97 cents (hey, I just realized there's no cent symbol on my keyboard... what is the world coming to when you don't even use the cent symbol anymore!)! Then I folded my fabric up several times. Then I just tacked it up with a few of the tacks! I didn't even need the glue gun, I just sort of tucked the raw edges in and was done!!

Here are the final results:

A little closer view:

Ah, the casualties of war!!!

Hope you enjoyed this post!

My Very First Christmas Garland

2008-12-10T00:03:00.001-05:00

The thing is I wasn't even going to participate in this since I don't have any garland at all, and with funds being what they are right now I couldn't justify going out and buying one. However, a couple of weeks ago I helped my mom put a cut tree up for my grandparents, and there were tons of trimmings from that ginormous monster. I asked to take some and they gave me about a quarter of what they had. Those branches have been sitting on my porch ever since!

I decided to challenge myself to see if I could make a garland from those trimmings and a box of decorations that I wasn't planning on otherwise using. Oh, and I didn't actually start working on this until about 8:50 tonight, so I can't guarantee that it will hold up.

Here are the results:

I didn't even think I had anything to tie the branches together until I remembered a bunch of multicolored yarn I had from eight years ago when I taught Sunday School.

I had this ugly brass pot of fake stuff that I shoved in here and there. I also had a few sprigs of fake berries and these gold thingies.

It's a little lopsided, but here it is hanging up... Oh, and I just nailed those nails in, too. My husband was asleep on the recliner as I did this. He didn't even wake up and neither did the kids! Gee, I think it needs a bit more.

What d'ya think??

Here's a close up:

I had a couple more pictures, but i don't know how to add more than five pics on blogger... Well, that's it. Even after I quit taking pictures I messed around with it some more, and I'm sure I'll probably keep at it until after Christmas. I'm like that, though...

Messy Office Cleanup

2008-12-09T09:21:00.003-05:00

Well, today I guess I'm going to be a little boring and show my cleaning skills. Ha! Ha! Since I've started spending more time in the office with this blog the uninspiring desk configuration and basically the entire look of the room have been getting to me. So I rearranged everything and am working on getting an office that looks more like me (Yikes!). Well, here is what the desk area looked like before:

You can see I've already started ripping down painted wallpaper in these pics. The ivy wallpaper was on top of textured wallpaper, and on three of the walls it was only put on the area under the 2x4's that I'm guessing are supposed to be a chair rail (the chair rail was only on three walls as well. On the fourth wall the ivy covered the entire wall (blech!).

Here are the after photos:

See that pile of papers under my cell phone? Those are bills that need to be paid and if they are not in full view for my husband, he'll forget that they are still due...

Doesn't that look much more streamline? Those canvases under the desk are hiding all the mangled electrical cords.

This do-hickey thing slides out so we can access the printer supplies and our other files without having to look at their messiness all the time.

Well, that's it. Pretty boring.

Hey, join me for Kimba's Christmas open house next week! click the button on my sidebar to find out what it's all about!

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

2008-12-08T11:10:00.004-05:00

Do remember your favorite toys as a child? Perhaps you still have them packed away somewhere. Perhaps you have no idea what happened to them. Or maybe you played with them so much that they had to be retired to that great toy heaven in the sky... (okay, okay, you know what I mean). For me the toys that really stick out in my mind as toys I had to have when I was a kid fall into two categories: My Little Ponies (my brother and I had tons of these) and these gals:

Kirsten and Molly. I loved those girls. They are still made (as are My Little Ponies), but they just aren't the same. Pleasant Rowland had this really great company, Pleasant Company, that made these gals and the quality was outstanding! Since she sold the company to Mattel the quality has gone down quite a bit, but the prices have stayed pretty much the same so I guess that makes them more accessible for more people. But I'm not here to talk about the history of the American Girls company. I got Molly for Christmas (Kirsten came later). My best friend had Samantha and her cousin had Kirsten. We had American Girl sleepovers with our dolls. We even had the librarian at our school ask us if she could display our dolls and all of their accessories in the library one month.

One thing I didn't have for my girls was their Christmas outfits, but a while back I found the originals on ebay and won the bid for each of them! Now that I have my girls dressed up for Christmas I want to display them somewhere in my house. Aren't they adorable!

So the question is, where could I put them?? If I were my best friend's mom (my best friend now, not the one who had Samantha...) I'd have a whole room dedicated to my doll collection, but she has the room for it, I'm working with 1600 square feet of house here. Right now they are on my sideboard, so I guess they'll just stay there until I can figure out something else to do with them. Any thoughts??

What Could Be Hiding in the Ivy???

2008-12-06T20:50:00.006-05:00

I was going to write about favorite toys from my childhood, but we made a little discovery the other day that I just had to document here...

Okay, so in my first (Wait, wait! Did you notice what I just did? I just made that word a hyperlink! Woo hoo! No more stupid hyperlinks-that-are-just-the-address's for me! Yeah, I rock!!!)post you caught a glimpse of my hideous breakfast-nook-turned-office-room with the nasty ivy wallpaper crawling all over the wall. Well, that picture wasn't actually that bad, because, see, on three of the walls the ivy wallpaper was only on the lower two feet of the wall below a to-low-to-be-a-chair-rail-chair-railing (What's up with the phrases-that-are-all-dashed-together today?? Promise that's the last one. Promise.). What you don't see is the one wall on which one of the previous owners decided to nix the railing and just do the whole wall in the ivy monstrosity. See?
That's just half of the wall because on Thursday I was doing some rearranging in the off ice and I just couldn't stand to look at it anymore. So, I got and exacto and just started ripping it down wherever I could. My poor dear husband came home to find "his" office rearranged, wallpaper everywhere, and me smiling stupidly (after having downed almost half a bottle of wine), "Doesn't it look great, Honey?"Wow, that picture is blurry! I must have had a kid hanging off of me...

Well, as I was ripping I uncovered a "sweet" little message someone had left for me. Can you see it??
This is after I scrubbed part of it off today! Honestly, I know it must have been a stupid teenager, but still, on the wall of some one's home? Give me a break! Well, I guess it's all the more incentive to keep at it, so I'm going to be working on that tonight.

A Tearful Farewell...

2008-12-05T20:42:00.005-05:00

This year Thanksgiving was to be at my house. My Grandparents are the traditional hosts of every holiday get-together (getogether?), but, being in their mid eighties, their health isn't so great. My mother's culinary skills leave much to be desired, so I said I'd have it and to just show up. It was not going to be a big deal, just ten people - five of which would be my family. So, I got a menu and all the recipes I was going to need, and went grocery shopping. Then around noon on Wednesday (the day before the big event) I received a call from my mother. No one was coming. The Grands weren't well enough to travel the 75 minute trip to my house and Mom's beau (I hate referring to a 61 year old woman's significant other as a "boyfriend") and his son would be spending Thanksgiving with his family. I was slightly perturbed and told Mother she should be with the Grands so they wouldn't have to be alone. It wasn't so much that they weren't coming as it was the late notice that really bothered me; I mean I had all the food, the fine china, the seating arrangements, and the buffet all set and just waiting.
See my buffet all organized and ready?

So as I started to pack it all away I thought, "No, I am going to use my good china anyway. Why save it for someone else to enjoy?? I've always wanted to use that turkey plate and, by gosh, I'm gonna use it for once!"

I rearranged the seating and put the extra tables away. Then I revamped the menu and cut out several dishes I had planned. We'd have a beautiful Thanksgiving anyway, just with a smaller cast. Thanksgiving morning arrived. The turkey was in the oven by 8:30 and the dressing was in the crock pot by 10:30. Did I mention we were having dinner promptly at 12:30 because my dear husband had to work that day?!?!

Since things were going so smoothly I went for a walk outside with my 4 year old and noticed that my neighbor was home alone, so we decided to invite her to dinner. She arrived at 12:30 and had fun (I think?) entertaining the kids while we got finished preparing everything. The turkey was out cooling, and I was bringing china from the dining room on which to put the food. The only thing that wasn't china was the turkey platter which was a gorgeous crystal wedding present that I had yet to use.
See?

My dear husband thought it would take an act of Congress to get the turkey onto that plate in one piece, but I did it!! And after placing all of the dishes on the sideboard I was ready to take the turkey, but as I started to lift the plate I noticed the was turkey juice all over the kitchen counter. I hadn't thought I had made that much of a mess while transferring the turkey to the platter...

Then I lifted it another in or so when it became apparent that...

the turkey wasn't quite cool enough when I transferred it over so this happened:

Alas, poor Gorham 1831 Fall Traditions turkey platter, I am so sorry for having murdered thee!!

Blogland, How I Love Thee...

2008-12-04T23:09:00.005-05:00

Oh my goodness, why haven't I done this before now?!?!? I have so many posts floating around my head I can't wait to get them out!
Upcoming post topics:
Bathroom Window Mistreament
Office Redo
A Gorham Farewell
Childhood Reminiscing Brought into the New Millinium...

So, I'm trying to only post one post per day (oops!). By the time I get these posted I will, hopefully, have finished my surprise for my girls' room: their own girly, girl Christmas tree!! (it's a good thing they can't read, yet!)

I can't leave without a photo, so here it is:
This was a while back, but I just LOVE it!!!!

My Silly and Sad Little Ragamuffin Garland

2008-12-04T10:28:00.008-05:00

Hooray, I finished my Ragamuffin Garland last night!! It looks a little sad compared to the Fabulous ones by Miss Nester (see this post: http://nestingplacenc.blogspot.com/2008/04/ragamuffin-memo-garland.html to take a look at some real ones!)

For some reason I misread her instructions and made my rag strips too, too, short, so I had to scrap most of them. Any ideas on what to do with those?? Also, Nester said she makes the base ribbon about as long as her arm and I must have really short arms or something 'cause my garland looks really short...

Anyway, without further ado, I give you my scrappy little ragamuffin garland:

Ta Da!!

Here is a closer look:

Then I decided to finally do something about these cute little cards I have had forever hoping I'd find frames to put them in and hang them for real (do you follow all that?). So, I remembered I had gotten some poster putty and ran off to find it. Alas, no poster putty ever showed up. Poo! Well, this morning I thought I'd just stick them up with scrapbook adhesive and see how that would do. End result?

Of course, Three of the four have since fallen. I put more adhesive on two of them and put them back up. Now I'm off to get the third one back up.

Itty, Bitty, Kitty Mistreatment!!

2008-12-03T11:02:00.009-05:00

I've had this blog for how long? And this is my first post?? Who starts a blog without posting for, like, years??? Me. That's who. But I just had to post after being so inspired by theeeee domestic decor diva extraordinaire: The Nester, a la http://nestingplacenc.blogspot.com/ (okay, so I don't know how to do those nifty little things where the word is a hyperlink, yet. Hey, at least I know the term hyperlink!)

I would guess I've been reading The Nester off and on since early this year. But ever since I was laid off in July I just lost track of her. So this week I got all caught up, and I decided it was finally time to quit putting off little projects out of fear that they would not be perfect. The Nester's motto is: It Doesn't Have To Be Perfect To Be Beautiful (AKA: IDHTBPTBB).

With that in mind here is a photo journal of a project I did yesterday:

Before:
Okay, so I know there are SO many things wrong with this picture, but this little ol' house is a work in progress, so just pretend the walls don't really have that nasty ivy wallpaper and that the chair railing isn't about a foot too low, 'Kay??

I had this table that was in the way when we put up our Christmas tree in the living room, so I thought of this:
A little better...

(and, yes, Miss Guinevere is actually going to use her new digs as I'm snapping these!)

After:
So much better!!

Please don't click on the photos! They are soooooo blurry and I'm too lazy to get better ones!

Okay, now I'm on a roll...

Here's what I started working on last night:

Yep! It's the beginnings of a Ragamuffin Memo Garland! Yippy Skippy! I did have to quit because I was getting a callous on my thumb and the tip of my finger had lost all feeling from cutting the pieces. I don't' think I have enough strips cut just yet, but I have to tell you something: I have had these fabric remnants for ten years... TEN YEARS FOLKS!! No... wait... maybe longer than that; they are from samples I used while I was in design in college. To be honest I don't even care if it turns out because at least I've used the darn things!!

Yippy, Skippy, here we go!!