Kitchen issues...

Why, oh why, do I feel like I have to redo every inch of my house to "make it my own"? It must be some sort of psychological disorder.

We actually bought this house because I fell in love with the combo kitchen/eating area/family room. I suppose the addition of the columns to keep our master bedroom from falling into the family room disrupted my psychological flow as well as the space-to-space flow of the entire area.

So now of course -- because it makes no sense at all financially or time-wise -- I just have to redo the kitchen.

My favorite kitchen is the one here. But that isn't going to happen. Why? Counter tops. I have freaky Go Wake Forest/Go Georgia Tech gold-black granite counter tops. So I am now in decorating therapy for my kitchen redo issues.

I know I'm going to do something, but I don't know when. And I don't exactly know how. And, of course, I don't know what. But here are the leading inspiration ideas, all from Coastal Living...

Falalalalalalalala... 'Tis the season to hang holly...

Tomorrow is November 28:  the first Sunday in Advent 2010! Woo Hoo!!!  We spent yesterday decking the halls inside since it was a little rainy and wet outside.  My favorite "structural element" of the house to decorate is the banister.  It used to be the mantle, but like I said before, the house has a big ol' honkin' TV hanging above the mantle, and that big ol' honkin' TV gets close to flamin' hot sometimes, so we're a little twitchy about starting a house fire by stuffing dried pine boughs under it.  So, yeah, I *heart* my front entry decor.  It whispers "Christmas" to me in a classier way than the Santa gnome who lives on the front porch next to the front door. 

When we deck the banister, we start by hanging 2- 8' pine garlands, attached end-to-end and wrapped in 16' of berry garland.  We used two types of berry garlands:  one set of garlands has larger berries -- about the size of small crab apples -- and the other set of garlands has smaller berries that look like clusters of holly berries.  Some very old plastic adjustable ties secure the top, middle, and bottom of the garland.  Since no part of the garland wraps around the top surface of the rail itself, the kids can still propel themselves upstairs, holding on the both railings and leaping 3-4 steps at a time. 

Next come the bows.  It took me a couple of years to figure out that spending a little extra time labeling bows in the undecorating phase would make decorating the next year a TON easier.  The bows are made of nylon-netted wire ribbon, trimmed with gold beads.  They are the greatest bows in the world.  They don't get creases in storage.  I just toss them in the banister box and put it in the attic for the year.  When I take them out, I fluff the loops a little and straighten the streamers, but there's no remaking bows every year like I had to do with velvet ribbon.

Hey, look!  I misspelled banister.  :) I do it twice more. Now I know why my thesis adviser said that I misspelled so consistently that she began to doubt the correct spelling of several words.   :) :)

The bows are attached with wire at the top, in the middle, and at the bottom of the garland.

Then comes a ribbon wrap.

It runs in three sections so that it's easier to wind around the garland:  top to middle; middle to bottom; bottom wound around the main support posts. I tried using one long ribbon, but three shorter sections are MUCH easier to manage.

Next I wrap gold beading around the garland, in three sections again.

And then add in some poinsettias to give the garland more dimension.

 

And there we go.  The banister is done.  I love all the red and green greeting us as we come and go throughout the season.  

 

At the beginning of this post I mentioned that tomorrow is the first Sunday in Advent, so stay tuned later this evening for a special Advent post.  If you haven't gotten out your Advent wreath yet, do it today.   Ideas for wreaths are here and here and here. Or you could just google "Advent wreaths."  That works too.

It doesn't have to be fancy -- just five candles, four in a circle and one in the middle. Remember we're celebrating the fact that God became flesh to pay for our sin; it's really not about the snazzy decorating, although, in His infinite love and glory, He gives us beautiful things to point us back to Him.

How perfect is that?  I stand in awe.  Got to go... I feel a little worship moment coming on... 

Ode to Angst...

By: Kelsey and Julia

Poolgress report...

Once upon a time, there was a family that had the brilliant idea to buy an older house and "make it theirs." They had attempted such a task once before, and having had to address multiple foundational issues on a house they thought needed "only a few cosmetic tweaks," they really should have known better.

But, oh, the size of the lot, the ridiculously cheap price per square foot, the fact that the previous owners had already done the messy work of smoothing the ceilings and replacing/refinishing the hardwoods, the location, and the overriding "P-word" (potential), all these things came together in a force that caused the family to abandon all common sense and buy the house anyway.

Among MANY updates the family undertook in the first three years was the update of the pool area. (Side note: It is true. A pool really is the land-equivalent of a boat: a hole in the ground into which you pour money.)

Below is a lovely photographic essay of the family's pool-ventures so far.

First appearing is the pool during the first season the family owned the house. Why the previous owners built a pool in the woods, the family never discovered. Freeing it from the deciduous forest became the primary goal. Freeing it from early-stockade decorating style ran a close second.

First went a few trees. Then went the stockade fence.

See? Pool stockade in the woods....

And then AFTER the removal of a few oak trees and the stockade fence.
(Never fear, tree-hugging friends, there are PLENTY of oaks remaining to drop their acorns and clog the pool filter.)

The shallow end of the pool BEFORE...
(Can't see it, can you? It's because of the inordinate number of oak trees.)

Oops... the family neglected to get a good shot of the actual shallow end of the pool AFTER, but here's a lovely shot of the new fire-bowl seating area. The Man of the House replaced the wooden landscape timbers with blocks. The old landscape timbers are outside the new fence. See? They're still there because MOTH will repurpose them as part of a retaining wall on the deep end of the pool.

And here is said deep end of the pool BEFORE...

And here is the deep end of the pool AFTER. See how the new black fence allows the family to enjoy the remaining good trees that are far enough away not to drop leaves, twigs, acorns, ants, and spiders into the pool? Ah, living in harmony with nature.

Here is the view of the pool entrance area BEFORE:
(This view makes the Woman of the House twitchy because she knows they are going to have to replace the lovely circa 1984 Masonite class-action-lawsuit siding with Hardiplank siding in the not-so-distant future.)
*WOTH bangs head against laptop keyboalsjfkdh.*

And here is the thus-far-completed portion of the pool entrance now. Block on the left. Wood on the right. The family undertook this DIY project over Memorial Day Weekend. After that, going to the beach seemed a lot more fun that hauling landscape block in 100+ degree heat. So... instead of AFTER, here is SO-FAR:

If you live near the family, they cordially invite you to come for a swim. When you arrive, please grab a couple of landscape blocks (sitting behind the dump-truck load of dirt resting next to the circular drive in the front yard) and place them neatly in the pile on the landing outside the lower pool gate.

Thanks!

The Verdict...

Kelsey: AHHHHHHH!!! You FINALLY painted my room! You really did it! I love it! Thank you!!!

Zane: Cool. Thanks for the new stuff. Did you clean my closet? Oh, great. Now I have no idea where anything is.

The boy's room got did too...

Not as did as his sister's, but we did clean and organize it. He also got a couple new lamps and a new comforter to replace the "little boy" one he'd had since he was about eight. He's fourteen now. It was time.

Today's the day! They'll be home from Impact late this afternoon. Neither has any idea that anyone would even walk in their room while they were gone, much less home improve it.

Will we hear shouts of joy or screams of horror? Tune in and find out!

Sneaky little parents...

Let me preface this post by saying that it would have helped if I had taken a real "before" picture, but I thought I had one I could use.

Notsomuch.

But here's a recent shot of Kelsey's room when she was studying for the AP Bio exam. She made a a Fortress of AP Biolitude.

She's hated the pink room with flowers since the day we moved into this house, but we compromised a few months ago and bought a new comforter with the promise that someday soon she'd get the room painted.

Since the soon ship has long since sailed, we opted for Impact Week to paint it. She doesn't know.

I feel safe blogging about it before she comes home because: a) in theory she doesn't have interwebs at camp; b) even if she did have interwebs, she'd be creeping on her friends' tumblrs and formsprings; and c) I'm pretty sure she doesn't have any idea where this blog is. So... (: [Translation: win!]

Kelsey's room before:

Kelsey's room almost-after:

I say almost-after because the walls are a blank crystal aqua canvas at the moment. I am not crazy enough to try to guess what on earth a sixteen-year-old would want to put on her walls. Sitting in the corner opposite the window in the picture, there's a big pile of stuff from which she can choose to garnish her walls. Or she can pick anything else her heart desires, so long as she never ever hangs anything with scotch tape again. (Ah hem...)

I'll show you how it turns out when I finish.

Happy July!

I finished something...

I finished a project! This summer! So technically, I can go back to work having accomplished SOMETHING around the house. Yay!!!

So... here's the nightstand I found at Goodwill for $9.

And here's the nightstand-turned-side-table after a couple cans of high gloss black lacquer paint... (And, yes, there is a saga to the refinishing process, but it's ugly and complicated, and I want to go to the pool this afternoon, so I'm just not going there.)

Done! Now I'm going to the pool. :D

If you give a mom some fabric...

My favorite children's books that have been recently published are the If you give a _____ a ______ series. If You Give a Moose a Muffin, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, If You Give a Pig a Pancake... If I were a little more creative and a little less sleepy, I'd write a lovely curtain-making parody.


But my brain is fried. I've been making window treatments for the past week. And, in case you haven't made window treatments in a while, it forces you to combine right-brained creativity with left-brained math. I hate math. We are not of the math tribe. It is foreign to us.

My friend, Angie, got the ball rolling on my curtain-making frenzy. She teaches Domestic Arts (Home Ec) at our school. She helped us redesign our rec room area this spring. (Pictures will come shortly; we're not quite finished.) Angie picked out the cutest fabric, and for some reason, I can't seem to sort-of do anything, so I took everything that was left and bought a little more and now our entire informal living area on the main floor is bedecked with window treatments.

See...

Tomorrow I'm making coordinating pillows! My brain should be completely mush by the time I'm done.

Easter egg tree...

I always wanted to have an Easter egg tree, and thanks to Zack and our friend Julia, we have have one this year.

Whew...

Celebrate... celebrate... dance to the music...

It was wonderful. But it was exhausting!

I had an absolute blast with the Celebrating Christmas blog. Can't even begin to tell you what a blessing it was to see women I love and respect give sacrificially to build up other women during this holiday season. We have had emails and comments from all over the world. I stand in awe of our Lord!

One of my favorite emails came from a lady who lives in Canada. I have no idea how she found the blog, but she emailed and shared that she lives alone and this year she's doing a major home renovation so she didn't decorate her house at all. She'd never heard of a Jesse tree until she read about it on the blog, so she decided to make one. Even though her Christmas didn't look like it had in the past, she felt focused on Jesus. What a blessing!

We are taking a break and the launching a year-round version of the blog. It's called "Celebrate!" Karen D had the idea that it might just bless even more people if we kept on encouraging each other to put Jesus as the focus in the rest of the holidays and everydays. So far she and I are the authors listed, but we are looking for a few more women who'd be willing to post now and then. If you're interested, email me. The only "requirement" to be on the writing team is that you really need to love Jesus.

Thank you ALL who contributed in one way or another ... photographs, posts, comments, emails, ideas, etc... We did have a few things left over that we hope to use next year. My prayer is that the Lord will bless you in a way you didn't imagine and in a way that you know could be attributed only to Him.

Pajama Party

Tonight we are headed to Jimmy's office Christmas party. It's usually in Pinehurst, but mercy has prevailed and we get to stay close to home. Since the district covers much of the eastern part of NC, there's no telling where the holiday extravaganza will land, but I am grateful that this year it landed here.

For the past couple of years they have collected gifts for a children's charity. This year they are collecting children's pajamas and books for the Pajama Program. Being that I am not a regular viewer of Oprah... OK, honestly I NEVER watch her show... I had never heard of the Pajama Program, but when we got the email I read about it and thought, What a great idea.

After posting a Facebook status about buying pajamas for a Christmas party and getting a couple of comments, I thought, Hey, THAT's a GREAT(ER) idea. Wouldn't it be cool to have a pajama Christmas party and have people bring pajamas for the kids in that program or even at one of the local Rescue Missions? Or have a hats and scarves party and bring extra to donate. Or a warm socks party... wear warm socks and donate warm socks. Or a blanket party ... come wrapped in your blanket and bring one to donate. Or a Teddy Bear party. Bring one, donate one. Lots of ideas!

I'm going to ponder these and next year... maybe we'll start a new tradition amongst our friends and neighbors. Or maybe we'll do it this year in January, after the dust from Christmas settles a little. Hummm... Yep... this could be really cool!!!

Getting Jimmy down from the ladder...

Today my mom asked me how long I'm going to leave Jimmy up there on the ladder.

Momma... I'm helping him down right now...

Here is the entry hall stairway before Jimmy painted. I forgot to take "before " photos of the hall. Who photographs a hallway? Sheesh.


And here is the entry stairway after Jimmy finished painting.



My friend Melinda came up with the perfect explanation of color for me. Color needs to feel "happy." The old color was SO nondescript, it wasn't happy at all. The new color... happy, happy, happy!!!

Now... I'm having issues with the trim/cabinets in the kitchen and family room. Don't like the color even one micro snippet of a bit. Hummm.... how long do I need to wait before we tackle THAT project?

One more treasure...

So obvious! For anyone who's ever been here, you know this one sits on the kitchen counter, but you probably don't know why.

This "Sun Tea" jar is one Jimmy's mom had. She used it just about everyday to make sun tea. She was a huge tea-drinker. Loved the stuff. Jimmy... HATES tea. Even the good kind that requires an insulin shot afterward. (We call that kind "Granny tea," after my sweet Granny, Ethel Southern.)

I can't drink tea much for reasons that would fall into the T.M.I. category. Suffice it to say that my digestive system is very delicately balanced and tea does it no favors. Once in a while, I love it, but I just can't on a regular basis.

One of the things Jimmy chose to bring to our house when he and his brother, Tommy, were sorting through Nana's things was this jug. OK... He hates tea. I don't drink tea. The kids don't care for tea either. Why in the world did the man choose THAT, of all things? You know the answer... it was all about his mom. She loved tea. She made sun tea all the time. When he saw that jug, he saw her. So...

What on earth do you do with a giant sun tea jug when no one in the family drinks tea? I'll tell you...

You fill it with something.

With what do you fill a giant sun tea jug when no one in the family drinks tea? Bouncy balls, of course!

We love our bouncy balls. From Harris Teeter, Old Navy, Wal-Mart, birthday parties, Fall Festivals, even Christmas stockings. We get them from everywhere. I tried throwing them away. I didn't think anyone would notice. Goodness... we have millions of the things. Yeah... you know how this one ends:

Zack: Mommy, where's my blue bouncy ball?
Mom: What blue bouncy ball?
Zack: The blue bouncy ball I like.
Mom: (!!!!!) Bubby, you have a million bouncy balls. Go look in "the drawer."
Zack: I looked already. It's not there. The other blue bouncy ball is there, but not the one I like.
Mom: OK
Zack: Where is it?
Mom: Where is what?
Zack: The blue bouncy ball I like.
Mom: Did you look under the sofa?
Zack: It wasn't there.
Mom: Did you look in your special box next to your bed?
Zack: It wasn't there either.
Mom: Did you look in the car?
Zack: No.
Mom: Go check.

*****
Zack: It's not there either... *eyes watering* What if I never find it?
Mom: Use another blue bouncy ball.
Zack: I can't. That one has the blue and white swirlies. It looks like the world from outer space.
Mom: Paint swirlies on another ball.
Zack: But I like that one. And I'm playing space shuttle and I need it to be the world.
Mom: Sigh... I may have thrown it away.
Zack: WHEN?
Mom: The other day. I cleaned up a lot of stuff. I can't remember for sure, but I may have cleaned that up too.
Zack: NOOOOOOO!!! That was my favorite bouncy ball!!! I'll never have another bouncy ball like that one again!!!
Mom: If it was that important, why did you leave it in the middle of the floor? That's dangerous. Someone could have tripped and broken a leg on that thing. If you're going to play with bouncy balls and you don't want them to end up in the trash, you'd better put them away.
Zack: But where?

... and thus was born the Sun Tea Bouncy Ball Jar.

Nana's Treasures...

Today Kelsey and I went through Nana's jewelry box. Nana was Jimmy's mom. She lost her battle with lung cancer in 2000. It was the same rare type of lung cancer that claimed Jimmy's dad's life nearly 20 years ago. We have to work at it a little to make sure that our kids connect with their dad's side of the family and one of the ways we do that is by periodically going through the heirlooms.

Nana loved jewelry. Papa Jerry loved boats. We've been blessed to inherit things that stir up memories of the passions they had for their favorite things.

Nana had a ton of jewelry. So much, in fact, that we hadn't even gone through the things in this particular jewelry box. We've sorted through a couple of others, used some things and given some away. But this time we were looking with the thought of repurposing in mind.

Kelsey found some lovely large-bead necklaces that she's putting into her own jewelry rotation. It's funny how styles go around. The things I would never wear because, "My mom wore that!" are the things that Kelsey latches onto as trendy.

As we sifted through the layers and layers of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings, we discovered quite the collection of pins. Oh my! I knew from my mom's jewelry box that there'd been some pin-doings in the '50's and '60's and '70's, but this was a sight to behold.

I snapped some shots of a few of them. Believe me when I tell you that this barely scratches the surface of the collection. These are just a few of the ones that stood out to us in one way or another.

The daisy and the butterfly pin.
My mom has one similar to this too, if it hasn't been decluttered yet.
Must have been quite stylish in the 1970's.

The silver artsy flower pin.
I think this one is gorgeous, but it does disturb me
a bit in that it looks a little like something Jadis might be sporting.

The delicate flower cluster.
I just like this one. I don't really know why.

The elliptical (or is it more parabolic?) beaded flower pin.
I love to bead myself, so I stand in awe of whoever
worked all those tiny seed beads into this pin.
The craftmanship is amazing.

The other beaded flower pin.
With this pin, the beads are actually sewn onto the backing.
Maybe someone gave it to Nana as a handmade gift.
I don't know.
Nana didn't label a whole lot of her stuff.
Labeling would be helpful.
(Hint, hint...Gramma!)

The pin Zack has claimed for his wife.
It's not the style pin that I would pick myself, but... I'm hoping she'll like it!
Zack was curious about the treasures and I explained
that they belong to Kelsey and his and Zane's future wives.
Zack decided his future wife will like this one best.
So now it waits for her!

The repurposed pin.
It's the reason we started looking through Nana's jewelry box in the first place.
We realized that we could take these pins, put a dab of hot glue on the back,
and glue them to a regular push pin or thumb tack.
Now we can enjoy them everyday.

This bee pin is especially precious because Papa Jerry was a entomologist.
What a sweet family treasure!