A little ray of sunshine

In the midst of one of the most difficult weeks of my life, a little ray of sunshine arrived from the South, in the form of Jessica and her family. I'm so glad I was able to take a couple hours out of the day last Thursday to attend the Junk Bonanza with my friends. I had bought my ticket months ago and had been looking forward to Jessica and crew coming for weeks.



Here is a little glimpse at one of the beautiful booths we saw.



Very Miss Mustard Seed, don't ya think?

Loved how they turned this shutter into a jewelry holder.
I have two tall shutters at home just waiting for a new life. I'm thinking my girls need one in their room for necklaces and the other should hold photos somewhere upstairs.



Amy joined up with us too, but of course she managed to avoid the camera. She's all stealthy like that. But she can't hide for long. ;)

And then, after a few text messages, we had what felt to me like a celebrity sighting. We got to meet-up and chat with Jenn for a bit. I tell ya she is every bit as sweet and genuine as you expect her to be if you read her lovely blog.



And as if that all weren't enough, I also found and bought the top three items on my "junk" list. A vintage globe, food scale and old schoolroom pull-down map of the USA. It's HUGE, and a dream come true. I'll share them as soon as I do a little decorating/rearranging around here.

Next up, a day at the apple orchard and THE most beautiful flower arrangement I have ever seen. I spent an hour this morning photographing it. Yes, I may be a little nuts.

No longer in my arms...

but walking streets of gold with his Lord and Savior.



January 29th 1947 - September 14th 2011

I love you Daddy and miss you terribly.

This past week...

...one of our sweet TaDollie's traveled home to hold a spot for a brand new babe that will one day make his/her way halfway around the world.

I am praying for you R family!





This big guy celebrated a birthday.



(that's 37 +1 to grow on)



He also risked his life finished painting the living room with me.



My $15 auction piece got it's face-lift.



I sanded the top down to bare wood and re-stained it a dark walnut and used my new love paste wax as a finish on the entire piece. The rest is painted with Benjamin Moore's White Dove, but mixed at Home Depot in Behr's Premium paint and primer in one.



Added shelves for the necessities, where drawers used to be.



A basket underneath to hold all the excess cords. Genius!



And a chippy finish that David still hasn't warmed up to, but I adore. Now I won't mind so much when my kids abuse this piece. Because, as we all know, that will happen.



I'm so glad to finally have a piece of furniture turn out just as I had envisioned.
Thank you Miss Mustard Seed for the great tutorial!


(The feet on this piece were all missing the wood wheels, but thankfully the ones from the old table I had in the corner were a perfect fit. Now I can take my time finding replacements for the table we are not using right now. Whew!)

My beloved secretary got a new look and a more prominent home.
Good-bye black and white toile!



Windows got new white curtains that still need to be shortened. And will soon have bamboo roman shades as well.



My favorite lamp became a twin and so did my favorite pillow. The wall is still begging for art, preferably something like this used in a collage of some sort.

This room was my inspiration. Especially for the windows and I'd love to swap out our coffee table for their less-heavy look. But I tell ya, it's difficult to make a room full of leather and wood, look good for more than just the fall season. I am trying my hardest though. I'm being very purposeful about everything I put back in here and the wall over the couch can make or break that effort. Wish me luck!


*paint: Urban Putty by Sherwin Williams

And tomorrow I get to meet this sweet family at the airport. Then we all get to meet up with this friend in person (finally!) at the Junk Bonanza on Thursday. Can't wait to hug y'all!

p.s. I would covet your prayers for my dad and our family. He is in his final days and though it's been expected it's not one bit easier going through it. He seems very peaceful at home and I am spending every minute I can over there. Tonight he gave me a big smile when I held his hand and told him I was there. And when I said I was going home to get some sleep he said "Good". His only word to me today. My brother was able to visit with me this afternoon and when we left I asked what he was going to do next. He said "I'm going to go find my boy and give him a hug." Awe...I love you Jason.

Thank you Lord for the comfort you give us in the form of hugs from little ones so small. For they are some of life's biggest blessings.

I'm linking up to Miss Mustard Seed and Primitive and Proper.

You're off to Great Places!

What a beautiful morning it was to send our sweet girls off to big-kid school for the very first time.



Everyone was happy and not a tear was shed.



The dress I finished for Allison last night. With one of my favoirte lines from the book "Oh the Places You'll Go!"



I hope she has a terrific first day today. I can't wait to hear all about it over lunch.



Emily was a little bit timid about it, but we answered all of her questions and reassured her that she'll do great.



This little guy's excitement is from hearing the choo-choo trains off in the distance. Of course I'd like to think he's also excited about all the one-on-one time he'll get with me while the girls are off learning. ;)



They look so ready for their big day.



Their backpacks have lots of room for all this year with bring home.



Special Daddy snuggles just before heading to the bus stop which is just across the street. ;)



This pose is all Sam's doing. He can't wait for his turn.





We have a very busy stop!



Neighborhood friends.



And then it came.



And this is the best shot I got of them getting on. They couldn't hear us yelling to turn around. I'm sure they were very focused on what to do next. And I didn't have time to change my camera settings. :(



Whew...they found a seat together. And David said he could see Emily already talking to a friend across the isle, as they drove away.



Shouldn't looking for new mail always be this fun?



Can't wait to see you ladies in just 2 more hours!

Falling in love with my house again. One curtain at a time.

How can our days not start out sunny with these new curtains?

I dare someone to stay crabby over their bowl of oatmeal.

I found these fun curtains at Ikea a while back and have been dreaming about them for a long time. But I'll admit I was pretty worried they would be too over-the-top with such a bold graphic print. It also helped to see them in Edie's home too. ;) Having lived with floral and toile curtains for 12 years I was ready to go all white in the whole house. But my heart was really saying "Do it!" And I'm so glad that when Amy came over she said "Do it!" too. I love them even more now that they are hung.

So here is how I hung them up...

I didn't know this until I opened them, but these have gathering tape already attached to the back and are lined too. I'm sure by next spring I'll need to add black out lining too since this west side of our house gets super hot from 4-7pm. But since fall is here we don't need that so much in the winter and I'm ready to move on to another project.

Back to the curtains. I used these little metal hooks and placed them at the height that looked good once they were hanging. But I also made sure that that was below some extra stitching. On our last curtains I made them from scratch and reinforced the stitching along that line. But even with that some of the stitching pulled out from all the opening and closing these get to control light throughout the year.

(Please note that the two hooks in the middle are just there to show you what they look like.)

I used nine hooks per panel. Just make sure you use an odd number so all you have to do is keep finding the middle. No measuring. Gotta love that!



Next I pulled on the gathering strings to shorten the width of the panels to the size needed.



I still need to shorten them so I just left them to puddle on the floor until tomorrow.

So...what do you think? Am I a little nuts for loving these?

We will be replacing our table and chairs this week with my mom's set. It's in perfect condition, unlike ours that is falling apart. It's oak like our floor, oval with a double pedestal base and has 3 leaves that store inside it. At it's smallest size, it's the same length but 6" wider. The chairs are very similar but the legs are straight instead of turned. We'll place it in the opposite direction and I'm no longer adding a buffet below the mirror.

Now to decide what color to paint the table and chairs. Black or white?

And what color to paint the mirror frame next to it. Red or aqua?