obsessed insanity

Baby Valerie

2010-09-20T11:51:00.000-04:00

I might be slightly biased, but my cousin Amanda gave birth to the most beautiful baby in the world on Friday. Amanda and I were thick as theives growing up and I can't believe she just had a baby. They live in Fort Collins, Colorado and I am flying out there October 14th. I can't wait! Amanda and her husband named the baby Valerie Patricia. Valerie for Amanda's mom who passed away from cancer when Amanda was 13 and Patricia after Amanda's paternal grandmother.

Warning! Lots of pictures to follow.

Amanda's brother Dan, with Valerie

Amanda and Valerie

The parents, Amanda and Ryan, with Valerie

Amanda's brothers, Matt and Dan with Valerie

Can you beleive she had a baby the day before this photo was taken?

Baby Valerie

Amanda is my hero! When she arrived at the hospital, she was already 9cm dilated. She pushed for an hour and forty five minutes and then Valerie was born. She did it without drugs! I find that absolutely amazing. I do vehemently believe that drugs or no drugs, every child is a gift from God and every birth is miraculous.

Seeds of Turmoil

2010-09-10T19:56:00.001-04:00

Bryant Wright has done an amazing job with Seeds of Turmoil: The Biblical Roots of the Inevitable Crisis in the Middle East. I found it absolutely fascinating. Obviously this book is written from a Christian perspective and I highly doubt that people of the Islamic faith would enjoy this book, but from the Christian point of view it is fabulous.

The author takes everything back to scripture and details the repercussions of the actions of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah and Jacob. He includes maps and also explanations of where lands mentioned in the Bible are located today. I found it interesting that he also gives a history of the conflict from both the Islamic and Jewish perspectives. He admits that he probably doesn’t do the best job of covering these points of views, but he attempts it anyway, which I find humbling. I think this book would be of great aid to people trying to comprehend the book of Genesis and understand how the actions that occurred in the beginning effect our lives today.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Outlive Your Life

2010-09-10T19:42:00.001-04:00

I just finished reading Outlive Your Life: You Were Made to Make a Difference by Max Lucado and I LOVED it. I have been a fan of his since I was in high school and while all of his books follow a similar format, this one is so no exception, but the content is refreshing.

Outlive Your Life is based on the book of Acts. I love his character portrayals of the early disciples. Max can paint a literary picture like no one else. He uses the actions of disciples like Paul and Stephen as examples of how we are to live our lives for others. At times it reminded me of the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan, but where Crazy Love can often guilt you into actions, Outlive Your Life inspires us to action. The difference is amazing.

The Butterfly Effect

2010-09-07T21:18:00.001-04:00

I was recently given the opportunity to review The Butterfly Effect by Andy Andrews. This is a short gift book that weaves fascinating little-known history facts into a story about how our actions effect the lives of other people. The author does a great job with the “what if?” game and illustrates how our lives would be different if certain figures in history had done things differently or worse yet, not acted at all.

This book would be a fabulous gift for someone who is struggling with problems in life, or someone who is wondering if their life matters. Andy Andrews does a fabulous job illustrating the fact that who you are matters and God has created you to fulfill His divine purpose.

The Boy Who Changed the World

2010-09-07T21:05:00.001-04:00

I was given the opportunity to review the book The Boy Who Changed the World by Andy Andrews. This book is the children’s version of his amazing story The Butterfly Effect. I am an enormous fan of Andy’s and have heard him tell the story in person and have also read the book, so I was very excited when given the opportunity to review the children’s book.

The illustrations in this story our amazing. The pages are filled with bright colors that delight the eye and capture the imagination. Of course there are beautiful butterflies adorning the pages and reinforcing the idea of human beings flapping their wings and having actions positively effect others.

As much as I love the adult version of this book, I found the children’s version to be a little disjointed and feel that perhaps this story might be a little hard for the average child to comprehend and grasp on their own. This book would be great for a parent to read to their child and follow up with discussion.

Book Review: “Captured by Grace”

2010-08-17T22:40:00.001-04:00

I initially requested this book simply because I was captivated by the title. The idea of being captured by grace was intriguing. I knew very little about what the book was about. This book is FACSINATING. The author, Dr. David Jeremiah goes in depth into the lives of two men who have been captured by grace; the Apostle Paul and John Newton, the slave trader turned preacher who penned the classic hymn Amazing Grace.

This book is divided into three parts that individually cover grace for your past, grace for your present and grace for your future. The author weaves facts and stories about Paul and John Newton with lots of scripture to make for a transformative read. Dr. Jeremiah does a wonderful job of using descriptive metaphors to illustrate the concepts presented in this book.

I did notice several typographical errors in the book, but I was so entranced by what the author had to say that I was quickly able to set those aside. This book definitely ranks as a transformative read for me and I have already passed it on to someone else to read.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Review of Beyond Opinion by Ravi Zacharias

2010-08-04T11:23:00.000-04:00

Beyond Opinion, Living the Faith We Defend by Ravi Zacharias is an astoundingly deep book. I'm a college graduate and a speed reader and this is definitely a book that will take quite awhile to read and properly absorb. You can't read it in one sitting or even several sittings. I find this to be refreshing; I think that because it takes so long to read you have more time to think and absorb on what the author is saying.

The books is divided into three sections and is ultimately a collection of essays that deal with different facets of apologetics written by members of RZIM (Ravi Zacharias International Ministries). Part One focuses on some of the major challenges Christians face in apologetics and the responses we can give to the challenges that we face. Part Two focuses on us ourselves looking inward at the questions and answers and Part Three focuses on living out our faith. At one point Ravi states that one of the main issues facing Christianity today is that we don't live our faith and we appear hypocritical to non-believers. Amen to that!

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It took me about a month to read, but it was well worth the investment of time.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Awesome Video!

2010-07-25T13:42:00.000-04:00

I've talked before about how J.D. and I took a 34 week Bible study at our church called Disciple. We finished up this May and loved it so much that we signed up for Disciple II. A gentleman at another church in the Atlanta area took Disciple a few years ago and wrote this song about Disciple to the tune of Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere Man". It's awesome and catchy!

OUCH!

2010-07-20T10:22:00.000-04:00

I hate that I am accident prone! Last Saturday night I was chopping red onions for BBQ Chicken Pizza and I guess I got in a hurry and nearly sliced my thumb off! I stayed pretty calm and we rushed off to the hospital. We were planning on having our good friends, Justin and Matt and Matt's brother, Brian, over for dinner. They met us at the hospital and grabbed a key to our house and went back and finished making dinner. I went home after receiving five stitches and dinner was ready! I am so lucky to have such good friends.

By popular request, here are pictures of my thumb:

My summer so far...

2010-07-17T11:02:00.001-04:00

Wow! Summer is flying by. I know I haven't posted anything in a very long time, so be prepared for this to be a very long post with lots of pictures.

First, I do believe I have giveaway winner to announce. Congratulations Stacey H., you won your very own copy of "The Heart Mender". Email or facebook me your address and I will get it out to you once I receive one of my two copies back. The book was so good that I lent a copy to my boss and my other copy to a guy in my Sunday school class.

Second, I have some other big news to share. I started Weight Watcher's back in May and I have now lost 30 pounds as of last Sunday! Weight Watcher's has changed my life. I love it because I can still have my precious Chick-fil-a every day, which giving up my chick chick would have made any lifestyle change impossible!

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

Admittedly I am horrible at taking pictures. Memorial day weekend I was up at y family' cabin in Ellijay, GA and on of my cousins and I drove to the pool on the way back from a girl's lunch out. Two of my other cousins were there with my aunt and when we all got ready to leave the pool, the boys were trying to carry that huge raft up the incline. I had the bright idea to throw the raft on top of my car, so my cousin Erica and I drove around the mountain and back to the cabin with our hands out the window holding on to the raft. My Aunt Linda snapped the picture.

AMANDA'S BABY SHOWER

My cousin Amanda is one of the people I am closest to in the whole world. She and her precious husband are expecting their first baby on September 20th. She was about 25 weeks pregnant in this picture and she looks like she just had a large lunch. She flew into town in early June for her baby shower. It was so good to see her! She and her huband aren't going to find out the sex of the baby. It's making our family crazy!

Me and Amanda

Erica, Amanda and Aunt Cindy (Erica's mom)

Aunt Gail and Amanda. Aunt Gail doesn't like to take serious pictures.

ERICA'S BIRTHDAY

I have been a serious cake making fool lately. I made four of these cakes in two weeks!

One for a church bake sale... it sold for $30!!!! Another one for the birthday of girl from church, one for Erica's "friend" birthday party and another as a surprise for my friend Justin Wilson to celebrate his first week of work at his new job. It is homemade chocolate cake with homemade chocolate icing with Kit-Kat bars and M&M's that make it look like a barrel. It's a lot of fun!

For Erica's family birthday party I made this cake:

She kind of wanted a hot pink tractor cake, but decorating Kyle's red tractor cake back in April kind of burnt me out on the tractor cake for a little while.

The birthday girl with her cake. I love baking cakes for others!

MEL AND DOM

This morning we woke up super early and met our old neighbor's for breakfast at Cracker Barrel They moved to Raleigh, NC about two years ago. They were the best neighbor's ever and really became family. They spent the night in Atlanta on their way to see Dom's parents in Mobile, AL and we got to have breakfast this morning with them and their girls.

Melissa, Marli, Me, Jenn and Korin.

The best part is that they are going to stay overnight at our house on their way back to North Carolina! We will get to visit even longer!

I hope that everyone has an amazing weekend. I have to prepare a Sunday school lesson. We are reading "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan as a Sunday school class and it is amazing. As a Sunday school teacher, I am loving this series because it leads to awesome class discussions.

I think we are also going to be doing some serious painting and getting the house together. There is nothing like company from out of town to get you motivated!

Be blessed!

Book Review and a GIVEAWAY!

2010-06-18T14:48:00.000-04:00

Can I just say that "The Heart Mender" by Andy Andrews was hands down one of the coolest books I have read in awhile? Andy wove a great blend of fact and fiction, which made for fascinating reading. I honestly read this book in about two hours because I couldn't put it down.

When I signed up to review this book, I thought I was reviewing a work of fiction. Come to find out, this book is a true story with a few minor tweaks to it. In reading this book I learned some new things about World War II that were shocking!

This was the first book I've read by Andy Andrews, but it certainly won't be the last!

Disclaimer:

I did not receive any money for this post. I did however receive a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson for an honest review. I also received a bonus copy as part of this giveaway.

Now, on to the giveaway! If you would like to receive a free copy of this book, please leave a comment on this post with the title of your favorite book. You also have to agree to send me your address should you win. I will accept entries until 11:59 pm on June 30, 2010.

Gravel in my knees

2010-05-26T11:07:00.000-04:00

If my birthday weekend was reviewed, it would get 3 out of 10 stars. It was one mishap after another. I don't think it helps that I always get weird and broody around my birthday.

Saturday morning we woke up early and headed to my aunt and uncle's new cabin in Ellijay, GA. I love Ellijay. I gew up going to Ellijay because my Grandad has had a cabin there since I was a kid. It's amazing how much that place has changed since I was a kid.

J.D. and I made it to the cabin around 10am and we went for a short hike down to the lake with the rest of my family. We only brought one of our dogs with us to the mountains and that made things so much easier. Pickle was hysterical. None of our dogs like swimming, but Jessie, my aunt's black lab loves it! Pickle jumped in after Jessie and swam all around. My cousin Kyle has some video footage of it that is awesome.

J.D. and I went antiquing that afternoon in Ellijay and then we went back to the cabin and napped on the porch. At one point I grabbed Pickle by her harness to try and distract her from barking and my fingers on my left hand got bent backwards. I started crying and I couldn't stop. It was the big ugly cry that I hate and avoid at all costs. Tears just kept pouring down my face and I felt like I couldn't get a grip. I finally got myself together and we were able to leave for dinner.

We headed about fifteen minutes north to the town of Blue Ridge. I love Blue Ridge. Blue Ridge is one of the most dog friendly places. I was so excited because we could bring Pickle with us everywhere we went. The plan for the evening was to eat at my favorite restaurant, Serenity Cafe and then head to the drive-in movie and see the new Shrek movie. Serenity has the best chicken salad melt and some of the best soups ever. I had been thinking about that meal all week. We arrived at the restaurant and they were closed for the evening! We forgot that because they are renovating their main restaurant and are in a temporary building with a small kitchen, they are closed in the evenings. Can I say that I cried?

We ended up eating BBQ which was decent, but it wasn't Serenity. We headed to the drive-in movie theater which was like a trip back in time. I had never been to a drive-in and it was AWESOME! We were parked on the first row and we brought out chairs and just sat and relaxed while we waited for it to get dark enough for the movie to start. The admission is only $6 and that is for a double feature! They were showing Iron Man II after Shrek. Everyone tunes their radios to a certain station to hear the movie. Shrek was cute but as I was getting out of my chair to go home, I slipped in the gravel and tore up my right knee. I kind of felt like a kid again.

We got up early the next morning to drive two hours to be back in time for church. After church we all went swimming at Grandad's pool. I love having a pool on the compound!

Kyle’s birthday cake

2010-05-23T07:00:00.000-04:00

My cousin Kyle’s birthday was in mid-April, but since my birthday just happened, I figure I’ll blog about his.

Kyle loves tractors. He inherited our grandfather’s vintage Farmall Cub that is about 70 years old. He drives it and even uses it to cut our pastures. He loves all country music songs about tractors and has even ordered some International Harvester and Farmall Cub merchandise online. The boy is devoted.

I love to cook and Kyle asked me to make him a cake for his birthday. I decided to take it a step further and make him a tractor cake! It took me several hours, but it was so worth it. His party was on a Sunday afternoon and that morning in church he leaned over and whispered to me “Did you make my cake?” and I told him “I’m sorry, I didn’t get a chance to. I bought you one at Publix.” He was mad! He threatened to steal my Kitchen Aid stand mixer and sell it on Craigslist!

The look on his face that Sunday afternoon when I brought out his cake was priceless. I will show you pictures, but you can’t turn me in to cakewrecks. This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this.

It’s a lot harder to do than you would think!

You can see in the picture below that he is wearing his Farmall shirt! The boy means business!

And I have to include this picture-

I think I am going to make tractor cakes for all of the kids in my family this year. Erica, who is in the second picture wearing the “Thing 1” t-shirt, requested a hot pink and lime green tractor for her birthday in June. I’m on it!

I’m how old?

2010-05-22T07:00:00.000-04:00

Well, I had myself an excellent birthday yesterday. I did a whole lot of nothing. I had lunch at a fabulous restaurant in McDonough, Pasta Max, and J.D. and I ate ourselves stupid. We shared the pasta with Italian Sausage and the Agnolotti, in case you click on the link and look at the menu.

After lunch we walked around the square and looked in some shops and I bought myself an egg in a nest to go somewhere in my house. It’s just so beautiful. I also bought some poo-pourri. Have any of you ever heard of this stuff? One of the sweet girls at my church was telling me about it and I saw some and bought it. I can tell you that it works!

Seriously! I think it is going to be my gift for White Elephant Christmas swap this year. I love it.

My camera battery died so I don’t have any pictures of my birthday celebration last night. A group of eight of us went and ate hibachi and had a fabulous time. My Aunt Gail and Uncle Fred brought me a fabulous chocolate cake with glazed strawberries on top from Publix. LOVED IT!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

It’s like a heat wave…

2010-05-21T07:00:00.001-04:00

Our central air conditioning system broke over the winter. We knew it was on its last legs so this was to be expected. We were planning on having it replaced with a 13 or 16 seer unit. I have no clue what “seer” means, but I don’t think it has anything to due with psychic abilities. Anyway, we were having a contest among ourselves to see how long we could go without turning on our air conditioning. If you ask me, it was a stupid game to play in Atlanta, GA. Because of this game, we didn’t realize our A/C was broken until we had a gentleman from our Electrical Management Company/power company out to inspect it to see if we qualified for a rebate when we replaced the old unit. The dumb unit wouldn’t even come on.
Let me be the first to tell you that psychologically you begin to want air conditioning the moment you realize that you are no longer in control of whether or not the unit comes on. It was all fun and games when I was in control, but the thought of sweating against my will was more that I could take. Keep in mind that this was mid-April at this point, Atlanta is just starting to get nice and warm and humid.
We decided on a system and the repairmen says that it will be 3 weeks before he can put in. I had no choice but to be okay with it. I slept okay at night until the temperature reached 78 degrees and that I slowly started losing my mind. The dogs were even miserable. We slept with our windows open during pollen season and everything turned yellow and we sneezed constantly. It was pleasant, I tell ya.
Finally May 11th arrived and our new system was due to be installed. Except it wasn’t. Our repairman gave his helper the day off and said that it would be another ten days before it could be put in. I honestly thanked him and then hung up the phone and cried.
We sweated and sweated and sweated and then last Friday rolled around and my Uncle Fred remembered that one of my aunts has a stand alone air conditioning unit in storage. I had no clue what that was but the word AIR CONDITIOING had me hooked. At midnight last Friday this was hooked up in my bedroom….

Seriously, I recommend everyone investing in one. This has saved my sanity for the past week. We moved the mattress in from our guest bedroom for J.D. to sleep on because the mattress from her bedroom wouldn’t fit on my floor and she deserved some A/C as well. This is what my room has looked like for the past week:

Until yesterday! After three days of Mr. Repairman working with his helper, our new central a/c and heating unit is installed and working. It’s beautiful! I think the best part is that our house isn’t near as humid as it has been.
The most interesting thing that I have noticed is that our utility bills have not decreased as much as I expected them to. They have only gone down maybe $50 or so a month. For me, that isn’t worth it. I will gladly pay $50 extra per month for a decent night’s sleep!

Hello Dolly!

2010-05-20T07:00:00.000-04:00

I so have to share what happened to me yesterday with you. If you didn’t know, I work in commercial property management. My maintenance staff is working on some other projects at another site right now, so I am running the show all by myself. Today’s task was tackling some wasps nests.

I’m not crazy about bugs, but I am not the kind of girl who is going to run screaming from them like the village idiot or anything. I get to the nest location and proceed to spray at those creepy flying insects. The wasps died on contact. SCORE for me! I wait a few minutes and proceed to try and knock the wasps nest down with a pole. The nest falls and I can’t find it. I’m frantically looking all over the ground, trying to figure out where in the world this nest could be when I catch a glimpse of it…. IN MY BRA!

Dude, I was wearing a dress that isn’t even low cut! I have no clue how this happened. To make matters worse, there were people outside who were watching me. I’m thinking to myself “DO NOT FREAK OUT, DO NOT FREAK OUT!”while simultaneously wondering how I am going to get this nest of wasp larvae and pesticide out of my bra without calling attention to myself.

Oh the exciting life I lead. I finally walked away and removed the nest when I was out of view from the general public.

You better believe I had quite the story to tell when I got home from work.

Birthday gifts

2010-05-19T07:00:00.002-04:00

My birthday is on Friday. I have a love-hate relationship with birthdays. It gets worse as I get older, but ironically that has nothing to do with age.

My maternal grandparents were the best with birthdays. Since I lost my grandmother almost two years ago, my birthdays have gotten a lot harder.

The last birthday I had with my grandmother she gave me a sizeable check as a gift. At that point, J.D. and I were still living in the house we had built. When we built that house, the front yard was entirely landscaped and the backyard left a lot to be desired. We had a scalloped wood fence installed about 18 months previously and the builder had sprayed hydro seed on the back, but that was it. I decided to use my birthday money from my grandmother to have a professional come up with a landscape design and then J.D. and I would implement it. My grandmother loved to garden and this absolutely delighted her! She was thrilled with my use of her gift.

The woman who drew the design had some great ideas. I told her that I loved daylilies because of how low maintenance they are. I also told her that I had been looking at gardening books and that I really wanted to have lamb’s ears in beds. She incorporated my wishes into the design and J.D. and I got to work on the weekend of Memorial Day.

We bought all of the plants but we could not find the lamb’s ears. We looked and looked and checked out the big box stores and the local nurseries. They would tell us that they had just gotten some in and that they were sold out. We decided that we would keep checking back.

Suddenly my grandmother was gravely ill. She slipped into a coma and passed away. The backyard was put on hold. Plans were made to sell our house and move into my grandmother’s house. The yard was forgotten.

About this time last spring with the first anniversary of my grandmother’s death and my birthday approaching, my grandmother’s flowers that she had planted over the years around her house, now my house, began blooming. Except something that had never bloomed before was also blooming; LAMB’S EARS! Last year there were two plants. Two little plants that bloomed gorgeous magenta flowers with the silkiest green leaves.
And this year? I have over twenty-five of them in this one flower bed!

Dear Gamma,

I love you and I miss you so much. Thank you for the birthday present. I promise to take care of it. Give Grandaddy a big hug and a kiss for me. I think of you guys everyday and I hope I make you both proud.

Your granddaughter,

Lindy

Book Review- Friendship for Grown-Ups

2010-04-21T14:27:00.000-04:00

As a fan of hers, I may be slightly biased, but I loved Friendship for Grown-ups by Lisa Whelchel. Most everyone has heard of Lisa because of the 1980’s television show “The Facts of Life”, but many more don’t know that she is a devout Christian, gifted speaker and author of many published books.

Friendship for Grown-ups cracks beneath the surface of the seemingly perfect Whelchel. She is candid and honest about her struggles with forming and developing supportive adult friendships. She is clear that this book is not a how-to for making friends, but more of a portrait of her journey, a journey that she states she is still on.
I loved hearing about her friendships and I found her story to be so relatable, she has a wonderful way of making you feel like a friend; that you were invited to read a private journal of her journey. Lisa ties everything back into scripture, relating everything to God’s amazing love for us.
As a person who has struggled with my own self identity and finding my authentic self and then struggling to expose that person to others, I related well to this book. I think that the majority of women will be able to relate and ultimately draw comfort from Lisa’s story.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com http://BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255 http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara.cfr/waisidx.03/16cfr.255_03.html : "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

I am not ashamed...

2010-04-14T17:15:00.000-04:00

I take 20 mg of Paxil every day. If I didn't, I would be climbing the walls. I have taken Paxil for the past 5 1/2 years. Yes, I have tried to wean myself off of it a few times and at this point I am not ready to do so. I am well aware that there is a stigma attached to anti-depressants, but my sanity comes first.

I have a dear friend who has reached his breaking point. During a phone conversation this past Sunday he revealed that he has thoughts of suicide quite often. I implored him to see a counselor, to consider medication, to get help. He won't because he is afraid of what other people might think, and the thought of a future employer reviewing his medical history and seeing that he was on anti-depressants is humiliating for him.

What is more than I can bear? Two years ago I was there as my best friend buried her brother who committed suicide. I was there with her family as they viewed his body before it was cremated. I heard the gut wrenching screams of her mother as she viewed her sons lifeless body. I was there when they cleaned out his apartment. I was there and I heard countless numbers of his friends say over and over again how they wished he had sought help, gone to counseling or tried medication.

I'm here today because of the love of my family, my faith in God and a little selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor known as Paxil. Please pray that my friend seeks the help he needs.

Will the World End in 2012? - Book Review

2010-04-05T11:04:00.000-04:00

Last week, Thomas Nelson Publishers sent me Will the World End in 2012? by Dr. Raymond Hundley. I was interested to read this book because I have always found the hype around the year 2012 to be a little more than slightly ridiculous.

This book is set up to be an easy, quick read. Dr. Hundley covers ten popular theories from the Mayans to Nostradamus to NASA regarding 2012 and he discusses the pros and cons of each. In each chapter he does an excellent job of presenting the facts in a non-biased manner which I found impressive since it states on the cover that Dr. Hundley is a Christian. He waits until his conclusion to share Christ's message with his audience.

This was a very quick read for me; I read the entrire book from start to finish in about an hour and a half. My only complaint with the book would be that he starts each of the ten theories with a fictional story relating to the theory. In my opinion this takes away from the credibility of the book and adds a science fiction-esque quality.

Overall it was an interesting book. I would recommend it to someone who is looking for basic information regarding the 2012 hype. It is by no mean an exhaustive study.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com http://BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The optinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255 http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara.cfr/waisidx.03/16cfr.255_03.html : "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

A spoonful of…..

2010-03-26T21:08:00.001-04:00

Eggs in a nest!

It seems like everyone in home decor blog world has heard of The Nester. So when she came up with the idea for Nesting Spoons and decided to sell them on EBay, I jumped on it! I started bidding on two of them, but only won one. I decided to put it in J.D.’s room because she needs some more of something in there.

I love it! And if loving it makes me a Nest-head, I don’t care!

J.D.’s Bathroom Reveal

2010-03-25T06:18:00.000-04:00

Okay, this is seven weeks late, but here is the grand reveal. I think we spent a total of about $160 on the bathroom. It was worth every penny.
Before:

In these picture to the left you can see the dirty white cabinets with the dirty white knobs. Sanding and painting those cabinets felt GOOD.
In the picture to the right you see the UGLY BRASS FAUCET and you just may notice the reflection of the ductwork in the linen closet because there are NO DOORS on the closet. We have lived in this house for nearly 15 months without those doors. Shame on me!
I realize it may not look that bad, but it felt horrendous to me. These pictures don’t capture the funk properly.
On to the good stuff….
Look at those black cabinets! I love them. I love them even though it took something like four coats of paint to make them perfect.

Because you clearly needed a closer shot….

more black cabinets!
And a view from the doorway….

Look at that faucet….

And we have doors on the linen closet!

We primed the cabinetry, the bathroom doors, the linen closet doors, the trim and the window. The cabinetry was painted with Satin Black Rustoleum OIL BASED paint. I hated the clean up, but the finish is so durable. Never soak your paint brushes in a styrofoam cup with gasoline. Gasoline eats through styrofoam. I am assuming that everyone else knows this and I am the only idiot who did not. I still need to coat the cabinets with polyurethane, but that is going to have to wait. The white trim and doors were painted with Semi-gloss latex paint from Sherwin Williams that we used on the rest of the house. I’m not sure of the exact color name.
It wasn’t that much work. The hardest thing was the faucet installation and that was a combination of the fact that we had never installed one before and the fact that the instructions that came with the faucet were seriously lacking. The most time consuming thing had to be the prep and painting of the cabinets, but that is the key to the best looking finish. We puttied and sanded and sanded and painted and sanded but I couldn’t be more pleased with our results.
Now for the million dollar question: what should we tackle next? Finishing up my bathroom? The hallway and the millions of doors? The foyer? The kitchen? The basement? Let me know what you think in the comments!
Be blessed.

It's been awhile

2010-03-24T11:55:00.000-04:00

Hello Everyone. I know it has been over a month since I have posted anything on my blog. I've been having issues trying to define the purpose of my blog and I haven't had a clue what to write about. It has also been difficult trying to make time to post. I work ten to eleven hour days and by the time I come home and fix dinner and try to keep a tidy house, I have very little time for home improvement and blogging.

J.D. and I had a great time on our cruise at the beginning of this month. We ate and slept. Seriously, I think we were in bed by 10pm every night! We met some great people and really enjoyed ourselves. If you are ever in Cozumel you have to eat at this great restaurant called Pancho's Backyard. It's a little hard to find because it is behind a store called Los Cinco Soles, but it is completely worth the effort. The restaurant is in a courtyard and they have the best atmosphere and guacamole! I will have to post pictures soon.

I am very involved at church. I wrote previously about my involvement with Women of Faith and trying to bring women from my church to the Atlanta conference in September. In the past week I have had 35 women sign up! That is amazing! J.D. and I have been taking a class called Disciple at church since August. Disciple runs from August to May and you read over 70% of the Bible during that time. It is amazing how much I have learned and how much it has grown my faith. I never thought I would see J.D. wake up early in the morning so that she would have time to read the Bible, but nothing is impossible with God!

J.D.'s bathroom is 95% done, I really need to post pictures. I'm amazed at what we can do when set our minds to it. We had our first 70 degree day last Saturday and we spent the afternoon cleaning the outside of the windows and cleaning and installing the screens. I don't know how long it had been since those windows were last cleaned; I know my grandparents hadn't done it for several years before they passed away, so they were really dirty. We used the finest grade of steel wool we could find at Lowe's and an ammonia and water mixture and just scrubbed in circles and wiped with a dry cloth. It worked like a charm and our windows look amazing! We did the nine windows on the front of the house and this weekend we are going to work on the windows on the side and rear of the house.

I'm really itching to paint our kitchen cabinets, but I know that is going to be a giant undertaking. I can't decide if we should clean out the basement and begin painting it or do the kitchen first. If we do the basement first then the dogs will have a place to stay during the day instead of our sunroom and then I can begin fixing up the sunroom, which I really want to do. My dad advised me last summer to do the basement last because we don't really use it, but I think if it was in better shape than it is now, we would use it more. I've never posted pictures of the basement, but it is horrendous. I'll definitely have to post some pictures before we start work because that will make some great before and after pictures!

Take care and be blessed.

Bon Voyage

2010-02-17T20:13:00.001-05:00

It is official, two weeks from tomorrow J.D. and I will sail away on a cruise. We love cruising and it has almost been three years since we have been on one. We will be sailing to Mexico for the third time and it hasn’t gotten old yet!

What’s not to love?

The food and the amazing service?

The water?

The cute towel animals placed on your bed?

Maybe the ports that you stop?

Yes indeed, we love a cruise!

I won!

2010-02-16T06:32:00.001-05:00

I have never received a trophy in my entire life. I’ve won Social Studies and Science fairs in school before, but we always got a ribbon or a framed certificate. That all changed the night of the Super bowl.
Our church hosts a chili cook-off every year during the Super bowl to benefit the youth. Usually there are about 25-30 pots of chili entered and you go around and sample different chili’s and you buy tickets and use your ticket to vote for your favorite. I had never entered, but had heard that it could get really competitive; mainly my Uncle Fred and his friend Paul revert back to school boys on the playground.
Case and point, My Aunt and Uncle’s display:

Yep, the title of their chili was “Everything But the Kitchen Sink”. Everyone else’s Crockpot was on a folding table, but they had to be different.
I was so nervous, I honestly thought that mine didn’t stand a chance. I mean there were twenty five other chili’s there!
I won first place!
I had the largest majority in history and I am proud to say that my pot of chili raised $100 for the youth department.

And no, I won’t be posting my recipe. :-)

Running water is a necessity…

2010-02-15T06:18:00.002-05:00

We finally figured out how to install the bathroom faucet. I think it took us about a week to complete installation, but it is in now and it does not leak!

The ugly gold before!

No faucet. It stayed this way for about a week!

Jennifer finally got it installed….

and it WORKS!

I would definitely order from Overstock again. The quality could not be beat for the price. We know the bare minimum about plumbing, so that was probably a contributing factor in how long it took us.

So it snowed….

2010-02-14T18:08:00.002-05:00

We received some serious snow on Friday. God decided to dump a good six inches of snow where I live in Georgia. It was breathtaking. It snowed for a good ten hours and it was like a winter wonderland.

This southern girl had never seen anything like it! Our house with the snow!

The two story house above is my aunt and uncle’s house. They live right next door to us. My cousin Kyle hooked on of our sleds up to the four wheeler and we went sledding in one of the pastures on our property. Talk about fun!
Right before it got dark, Kyle took me on a four wheeler ride through the woods on our property. It was gorgeous and the entire time I was thinking of the verse from Job 38:22, “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow….?” . God’s creation truly is majestic.
My enthusiasm for the snow had dampened after Saturday morning. Jennifer and I walked outside to check what had iced over and no sooner had I stepped out of the garage did I hit a patch of ice and twist my knee and then land on it. I’m hobbling around but am mostly on bed rest. I cannot stand being confined!

Women of Faith

2010-02-03T16:04:00.000-05:00

I am really trying to make an effort to update my blog more often, so here goes nothing:

Remember a few weeks ago when I was terrified of going to a big, scary conference in Dallas? Well, I shouldn't have been! I had the time of my life! Have any of you ever heard of Women of Faith? I hadn't either until I went to Dallas. I went at the last minute to this big group leader planning conference because someone in my church wasn't able to go. I loved every single minute of it. It was a little odd at first because I was with a bunch of women who had all experienced what Women of Faith was all about, but by the end of the first day I was just as excited as the rest of them.

Basically it's a two day conference with amazing speakers designed to show you how much God loves you. It fills you up with His love until you are overflowing. Spiritually, I left bigger than I came. I laughed, I cried and I made some amazing new friends. I am now on board to bring 50 women to the Atlanta conference in September. I can't wait!

A few of my pictures from the event....

Picture #1: The karaoke cab in Dallas. This was the most fun I have ever had in a cab. There was a karaoke machine and a strobe light and shag carpet and cd's glued to the ceiling and tinsel and all things gaudy. It was a blast!

Picture #2: My new friend Stephanie from North Carolina. We went to this awesome restaurant in downtown Dallas, Taco Diner. It was delicious. Dallas has THE BEST Tex-mex.

Picture #3: Me and Lisa Whelchel! I have loved her since I was a little girl and I watched her on The Facts of Life. She is really involved with Women of Faith and it was such an honor to meet her at the conference. She is just as sweet as you would imagine!

If any of you ladies would like to come to Women of Faith with me in September, I would be honored to have you!

P.S. Stacey H., you're coming with us! Hurricane Heather, I haven't given up on you yet either!

Bathroom update!

2010-02-01T11:27:00.000-05:00

I was hoping to have a big fancy bathroom reveal today, but I think, actually I KNOW that it is going to have to wait about a week. You see, as we went along things kept being added to the list. Also things somehow manage to take three times as long as you expect them to. I also spent a weekend in Dallas, TX and nothing got done while I was gone. I figured that J.D. would have gotten a lot done while I was gone because I tend to be a bit of a distraction in the way of " LET'S DO THIS! NO, LET'S DO THIS! HOW ABOUT WE GO HERE? LOOK AT ME, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS?" Who knew I was a motivating factor?

We spent about four hours yesterday trying to install the new bathroom faucet that I ordered from Overstock. It is awesome quality and I like it, but suffice it to say, the directions are seriously lacking. The directions are worse than Ikea directions! J.D. spent about two hours removing the old faucet and we were able to get the center part/spout of the new widespread faucet installed, but installing the cold water handle threw us for a loop. The directions would refer to crazy terms but wouldn't explain what that crazy part was called or that you had to twist here or tighten there. We finally quit after about four hours and decided we would try again on Monday.

The cabinet is finally painted and it looks nice. I accidentally bought oil-based paint which was a giant surprise when I opened the can and got a whiff of the paint. Rustoleum didn't label the can as oil-based, but maybe I should have just known. I am actually glad that I ended up using the oil based paint because I have read that using oil-based finishes on kitchen and bathroom cabinets is better because the finish is more durable. I also need to say that using gray-primer when you will be painting something black makes all of the difference in the world. I can't say that enough.

All of the other trim and doors are primed and we have also cut trim for the baseboards by hand with a miter box and saw. Go us! We are going to buy a miter saw before we cut and hang the crown moulding. I think that would be a little much with a hand saw.

I promise to post pictures soon!

J.D.'s Bathroom

2010-01-11T13:20:00.000-05:00

Our project for this month is J.D.'s bathroom. I am really loving our new schedule of working on one room a month. If you want to check out some before pictures of the bathroom, here is the link.

So far we have taken down the framing around the bathroom mirror and painted the back side of it. I never actually painted the back side black and because the wood was glued onto a mirror you could actually see in the mirror's reflection that the back wasn't painted. IT DROVE ME CRAZY, PEOPLE. Also, I do not recommend hot glue to adhere things to a mirror. One of the pieces of the frame fell off the mirror and nearly killed someone. Not really, but it could have. Maybe. So, I painted the back sides of those puppies and I will re-glue the frame up on the mirror with Liquid Nails.

We have also taken off all of the doors and drawers from the cabinet and have sanded everything. We are still trying to take all of the hinges off of the doors and that has proved impossible because the screws that hold the hinges to the doors are stripped. J.D. bought a fancy pantsy drillbit at Lowe's on Saturday and we are going to try and drill them out. The cabinet itself has been primed with gray primer because we will be painting the cabinets and the doors a matte black.

We have also begun priming all of the other trim , bathroom doors, and closet doors. It looks better already with primer on them! My grandparents had everything painted an almond white that has always seemed dingy and dirty to me. I am loving the bright white!

My biggest expense thus far has been ordering a new faucet for the sink! I am so excited to finally do this. I have looked and looked and looked and have found the best deal on Overstock.com. Here's what I ordered:

It was only about $75 with shipping. It is an 8 inch centerspread faucet and those are not cheap! I will let you know what I really think of it when it comes in.

I am going to start keeping track of what we spend on each room. I am trying to do the absolute best job for the least amount of money and I think it will be fun to keep track!

$16.80, gray tinted primer, good paintbrush, razor blade glass scraper and 2 screwdrivers

$29.28, quart of black paint, 3 cans black spray paint and 1 can gray primer spray for cabinet doors

$74.94, new faucet with shipping

$7.00, new drillbit (I don't actually know the cost, this is a guess)

TOTAL, so far: $128.02

I know this seems really high, but keep in mind that we had to replace a faucet! We already had a lot of the other materials like paint pans, rollers, brushes and sandpaper.

I will be sure and keep everyone posted as our progress continues!

Where in the world has Lindy been?

2010-01-07T17:54:00.000-05:00

Sick. For almost three weeks now! In Louisiana for Christmas. Cooking up a storm with my new Kitchenaid stand mixer. Trying new things. Cooking for people.

This post has probably come about a week too late. I haven't really made any resolutions this year. I made goals last year and I stand in amazement as to how far I have come with those goals. My number one goal in 2009 was to develop a personal relationship with God. I think I have definitely made a good start there. Once I opened the door to cultivate the relationship, the blessings that have come through that door have not stopped. In 2009 I joined a new church, joined a Sunday school class, made new friends, joined a Disciple class, began titheing and have began volunteering with the sandwich ministry (a ministry that feeds the homeless in Atlanta). I have studied the Bible in Disciple class and have loved learning the history. I can't wait to see where my walk with God takes me in 2010.

Which brings me to my next bit of news. I leave next week to attend a Women of Faith training conference in Dallas, TX. My church asked me to attend as a group leader for our church. I'm terrified. After 9/11 I developed a crazy fear of flying. I will be flying to Dallas without any people that I know. Once I am there I will have a roommate whom I don't know. I can't imagine sharing a room as an adult with someone I don't know! Please keep me in your prayers.

We have started renovations on the house again. I will be updating soon with our schedule and some pictures. I feel like I am finally learning how to renovate without losing my mind! I'll be sure and share tips about what is working for me and how I am managing to stay relatively sane.

I wish each of you peace and blessings in 2010. And Love. Lots of love.

2009-12-08T14:44:00.000-05:00

To be honest, we haven't been doing a lot on the home renovations front. When I started this blog a little over a year ago, it was to chronicle the things we have done to my gradnparents home. We haven't started any new projects since last June and the more I think about it I realize that coincides with the time we joined our new church. I guess you can say that I've been spiritually remodeling myself instead of my house.

I haven't really blogged a lot about it because it is something that has been so close to my heart that I haven't really wanted to share for fear of being criticized. In July I joined the United Methodist Church and I haven't looked back. It has truly been life changing for me. For the first time in my life I feel like I am part of a spiritual community and I have a church family. People know my name and greet me every Sunday. I'm a member of a Sunday school class and I have learned so much. I volunteer one Saturday morning every month and make 180 sandwiches for the homeless with two other people. But my favorite thing by far has been our Disciple Class. J.D. and I signed up for a 34 week study of the Bible in which you read over 70% of the Bible. It has been amazing! We are learning so much! We meet for two hours every Monday night with our class of about 12 other people and discuss our reading for the week with the two instructors. It has been such an amazing experience.

Something inside of me has changed. I have always considered myself Christian and had always believed in Jesus, but this is different. If you would like, I invite you to listen to the podcast from the first Sunday of Advent here. It's amazing and Dr. Beyers has such a gift.

A few photos from Thanksgiving

2009-12-06T09:55:00.020-05:00

We had a little bit different of a Thanksgiving this year. We celebrated the Saturday after Thanksgiving with a big dinner at our house with our family and friends. After dinner one of our friends, Justin, had my Aunt Linda give him a haircut at the dinner table.

J.D. jumped at the opportunity to wet Justin down

How about a mohawk?

Justin, all finished and J.D. vacuuming the remaining hair.

Justin is one of our favorite people. He tells the best stories and bears a startling resemblance to John Edwards. When people tell Justin this he gets angry because he is a staunch Republican. He actually has kids call him "Mr. President".

Our dear friend, Matt. He isn't cross-eyed, nor does he wear goofy hats.

It was a great day! After dinner we retired to the den to watch Georgia beat Georgia Tech! Yahoo!

Christmas Ladies Lunch and some wress-a-ling!

2009-12-05T09:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday both J.D, myself and my Aunt Gail were off from work. We went to the Pinehurst Tea Room and had a delicious lunch. The Pinehurst Tea Room is this cute Victorian cottage that mostly hosts weddings and receptions, but during the week they serve lunch. It was all decked out for the holidays and we had a blast. The food was so good that we ate it all before I had a chance to take any pictures!

J.D., me and Aunt Gail

Later on last night we went to my cousin Kyle's middle school wresting match. I should clarify that wrestling is huge in my family. My Uncle wrestled in both high school and college and has been a high school wrestling coach for 25 years. I have to confess that I love the sport because of my guys. Not the crazy stuff you see on television, but the school sport.

Kyle beginning his first match.

Kyle won! He pinned him in the first minute!

My handsome cousin.

I can't believe that he is going to be in high school next year. Honestly, he is the sweetest, smartest kid I know. Can you believe that the child has never made anything but straight A's? I love that boy so much.

I hope everyone has an awesome weeked! It's freezing here- I think the low tonight is 25 degrees! Stay warm and tell your family how much you love them.

Burt's Bees is the Bees Knees!

2009-12-02T10:03:00.000-05:00

I know I only live in Georgia and we really don't have too much of a harsh winter, but my hands get really dry this time of year. Painfully dry. They crack and bleed and it is really ugly. It's probably a combination of the cold weather and the fact that I wash my hands at least 30 times a day. OCD anyone?

My solution? This amazing stuff:

I'm not keen on the banana smell, but if you actually like the smell of bananas, then you you will love this stuff! A little goes a long way and once you apply this stuff to your hands they will stay protected through MANY hand washings. I've had a 2oz jar of my hand creme for several years now and am just now running out. It's also super affordable- I think it's less than $8 for a jar. Awesome!

My latest obsession....

2009-12-01T13:54:00.001-05:00

*************UPDATE 12/11*************
My superfabulous mom/stepmom, Laura, found a Hallmark store that had the ornaments in stock! She bought two of them for me!!! I am so excited!!!!!!

A stinkin' Christmas ornament!

This one to be exact:

I've mentioned before that "Christmas Vacation" is my favorite movie ever. I realized last night that Hallmark has released a keepsake ornament this year of Cousin Eddie's RV. It even has some of his classic lines from the movie. The only problem is that I can't find it anywhere! I went to Kohl's today and even the display ornaments had sold. Right now I am having J.D. look at the Hallmark and Kohl's in the town where she works. I need two of them, one for me and one for my Uncle Fred. My Uncle Fred pretty much looks like Cousin Eddie and we tease him that he acts like him too (he really doesn't). My Uncle Fred and Aunt Gail also about an RV this year! We have teased them incessantly about that.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

These are a few of....

2009-11-19T17:45:00.000-05:00

So, one of my favorite blogs is having a favorite things party! Don't you just want to hear all about the things I love? I thought so!

First up, CHICK-FIL-A! I don't think I could live anywhere that didn't have Chick-fil-a! I love their sweet tea and their chicken sandwiches. My true favorite would be a Chick-fil-a Chicken Breakfast Burrito. You don't really need to know how often I eat those. Another reason I love Chick-fil-a is that they are closed on Sunday's. Also the owner and founder of Chick-fil-a, Truett Cathy is an amazing man. Seriously.

Second, my favorite movie ever is Christmas Vacation. I remember seeing in the theatre when I was in third grade. I also remember telling my classmates about the line in there when they ask their great aunt to say grace at Christmas dinner and she replies "Grace, she died thirty years ago!" I went to Catholic school and I so got in trouble for that one. I remember my teacher telling me that saying that was sacreligious. To this day, I don't think so.

I love the fragrance Lovely by Sara Jessica Parker. It's a clean, yummy smell. It isn't heavy or cloying. It's perfect.

I love Lucky Fiona dog collars. Lucky Fiona is a fabulous Etsy shop. My dogs now exclusively wear Lucky Fiona. Shannon, the shop owner, does a terrific job and custom makes each collar for your pooch!

Neosporin Lip Health is AMAZING! I got it for about 17 cents at CVS last month and am addicted. (I'm a serious coupon shopper, this stuff is usually like $6). Anyway, it is the perfect lip gloss/chapstick/balm.

Starbucks Pike Place Roast. I love coffee. I'm a serious coffee drinker. For years I was loyal to Community Coffee, a Louisiana brand. I actually feel like a traitor confessing how much I love Pike Place Roast. It's actually cheaper at Starbucks than Wal-mart. Surprising, isn't it?

My favorite book ever is "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb. I read it after my freshman year of college and it touched my heart. I love books about struggle and triumph.

Since I grew up in Louisiana, this stuff is in my blood. You can use it on anything that isn't dessert. You get bonus points in my book if you can properly pronounce it!

And last but certainly not least, my babies. You can't buy them anywhere and that makes them priceless!

Cirque du Soleil!!

2009-11-11T12:08:00.000-05:00

I am so excited! We are going to see Cavalia! My aunt called this morning and she is treating our entire family to tickets! We are going November 24th.

An awesome Youtube video about Cavalia:

I have always wanted to see a Cirque du Soleil show and now I get to!

In other news, life is going well. I have been so busy with church and trying to keep up with projects around the house and that leaves little time for blogging. I think I am going to start writing all of my post for the following week on the weekend and scheduling them to post automatically. There is so much I want to share!

Happy Wednesday!

I think I might be a little "!" happy. I think I need to stop shouting! Oops, there I go again.

Nervous

2009-10-30T13:19:00.000-04:00

Yikes. I am so nervous! I was asked today by the financial administrator of our church to stand up and talk during two services this Sunday about tithing and why I tithe. I don't mind talking in front of groups of people, but about money? I've never done that before!

We have a busy weekend planned. My Sunday school class is volunteering at our church's fall festival on Saturday night. I still can't decide if J.D. and I are going to dress up or not. I found some cartoon boiled eggs online and I was going to print them on t-shirts with t-shirt transfers and we were going to wear devil horns and be deviled eggs! I'm kind of nervous about wearing the devil horns to church though! What do you think? Are any of you guys dressing up for Halloween? Do you celebrate Halloween?

About me...

2009-10-28T14:00:00.000-04:00

My dear friend Heather awarded me the "Over the top" blog award. I think all of the answers have to be one word, so I did my best to try and stick to that.

Where is your cell phone? Purse

Your hair? Clean

Your mother? Absent

Your father? Wise

Your favorite food? Greek or Italian (I know it's supposed to be a one word answer, but I have two favorites)

Your dream last night? Christmas

Your favorite drink? SweetTea

Your dream/goal? Children

What room are you in? Office

Your hobby? Cooking

Your Fear? Messiness

Where do you want to be in 6 years? Married

Where were you last night? Home

Something that you aren't? Mean

Muffins? Yep

Wish list item? Sewing Machine or Cricut (Again with the two word answers!)

Where did you grow up? Baton Rouge

Last thing you did? Phone

What are you wearing? Professional

Your TV? Off

Your pets? Home

Friends? From God

Your life? Blessed

Your mood? Pleasant

Missing someone? Yes

Vehicle? Element

Something you’re not wearing? Bracelet

Your favorite store? Publix

Your favorite color? Blue

When was the last time you laughed? Today

Last time you cried? Yesterday

One place that I go to over and over? Chick-fil-a!

One person who emails me regularly? Hurricane Heather

Favorite place to eat? Albasha

I think I'm supposed to tag people, but some people don't do this kind of thing, so if you want to do this, please do! Just send me a note or leave me a comment letting me know that you did because I would love to learn more about you!

Cooking Light Winner!

2009-10-28T13:42:00.000-04:00

Well, I had two entries total! The winner is The Future Mrs. Etten!!! I'll be emailing you soon. Congratulations!!!

Maybe this is too personal...

2009-10-27T10:58:00.000-04:00

But, it's my blog so I am going to share anyway. I have stated before that I don't have a relationship with my mother. She is abusive and mean and all of the things I hope to never be. My grandparents estate was settled at the end of last week and this was a letter I received today.

                                                                                                                      23 October 2009

My dear Lindy,

I had devoutly hoped to be able to pay off your student loans in full. This is still a possibility, but I want you to understand my feelings on the matter at this time.

Since you have lived in the house, rent-free, for a year, +,-, now, I consider that to quite a chunk of change that has come your way. In the normally appropriate course of events, that should have been rental income for me, obviously split with you aunt, but it is an income loss for me. Consider your "good fortune" as the first installment in what I hope to give you. I do hope and plan to fulfill my obligation in this regard.

My request to you is this:

I want all of my good jewlery to be returned, anything Eric gave me. This includes but is not limited to my Mikimoto pearl studs, my diamonds (studs) and anything else Eric was kind enough to give me. I hope that you keep the earrings Val and I gave you, as they were a gift in good faith.

Perhaps when you are a mother yourself you will come to understand better any mistakes I made, and forgive me. I love you with all of my heart, and my door is always open to you.

                                                                                                  You have all my heart,
                                                                                                   Mom

Isn't she loving? I would also like to say that the jewelery was given to me during the years when I was in college when she didn't give me anything for Christmas. It was always given in April or something with an apology of "sorry I didn't give you anything for Christmas, have this". You should also know that she is inheiriting a sizeable estate and my grandparents made it clear to everyone before their death that they wanted her to pay off my student loans. Unfortunately, that was never put in writing.

I don't care about the money. I know my treasure isn't on this earth. It just breaks my heart to see what kind of person my mother is. There is so much more to this story that I wish I could share on this blog, but I do have to draw a line somewhere.

To all of you out there who have good mothers, thank them and hug them. They are a treasure and you are so lucky.

Wishin' and hopin'...

2009-10-21T12:05:00.003-04:00

.... for a new roof!

We have an insurance adjuster coming out today to check our roof for our hail damage. The Atlanta area has been hit pretty hard with hail storms in the last year and about 3/4 of our neighbors on the five mile road we live on have had their roofs replaced due to hail damage. My aunt and uncle next door had their roof replaced last week and it looks fantastic!

You really can't tell from this picture, but our roof is poop brown. I HATE IT! I am really partial to black architectural shingles, but I'm not sure if they would go with our brick. We would also have to paint or replace the gutters because they are also brown. Who has brown gutters? I also seriously need help picking out paint colors for the trim and shutters. Stacey H, my dear interior designer friend, do you hear me?

I'll let you all know what our adjuster says!

Also for those of you who entered my Cooking Light magazine giveaway, I haven't picked a winner yet but will do that very soon. My laziness got the better of me!

Pickle's Excorcism

2009-10-12T10:34:00.003-04:00

Those of you who know me in real life know that I am a sucker for animals. You might also know that I have a knack for rescuing the ones that most people would consider psychotic. My youngest dog, Pickle, is no exception.

Our church hosted it's annual blessing of the animals on October 3, 2009. We really felt that all of the dogs needed to be blessed, but because J.D. had to work, there was no way I could bring all three of the dogs to the church. We settled on the one who needed it the most, Pickle. I think the picture below pretty much sums it all up.

"What, he has his hands on me? Run!"

Needless to say, we're still waiting on this blessing to "take".

FREE Paint!

2009-10-09T15:51:00.002-04:00

Seriously folks, Glidden has done it again. Go get yourself some free paint! It's only good until Sunday, so hurry up and go!

Here's the link: https://www.glidden.com/color/color-visualizer.do

There's a little bit more work involved this time; you will have to send them a label off of an old paint can, but that's it!

The truth of it all

2009-10-09T12:16:00.004-04:00

The truth of it all is that I am so inspired by all of you. I read a lot of blogs and so many of the ones that I read are written by amazing women. The majority of the blogs I read are about decorating and decorating on a limited budget. What amazes me most of all is that these women is that they have real lives. Husbands and kids and work and church and babies and homeschooling and cleaning and cooking and they have perfect homes. I have work and church and cooking and cleaning and I feel like I can't get it all done at all. I have an enormous list of projects that I want to get done, but I have to sleep sometime! I don't know if some of you ladies sleep! How do you guys do it all?

I finally figured out what to do with Craft-it-forward. Subscriptions to Better Homes and Gardens! Who doesn't love receiving a pretty magazine in the mail to drool over? Of the three ladies who first signed up for Craft-it-forward, only two of them gave me their snail mail addresses, so Beckie and Nicol are getting a two year subscription to BH&G!

Which brings me to my next idea. I love Cooking Light magazine. I've only recently discovered it because to be honest I've always thought that cooking "light" meant cooking "nasty". This magazine has totally proven me wrong! Since I love it so much, I would love to give one of my readers a one year subscription! Just leave me a comment for a chance to win and if you want to blog about it and leave another comment letting me know that you did and link to your post, you get another chance! I'll leave this open until October 16, 2009 at 12 noon, EST.

Good luck!

When Life Doesn’t Give You a Mantle

2009-09-29T21:10:00.002-04:00

Those of you who have been following my blog for awhile or those of you who are in my friends and family know that I have been waiting for over a year now on a beautiful HEART PINE mantle. My mantle is going to be about a foot thick and is made from reclaimed floor beams from a 200 year old barn in Georgia. Can you say gorgeous? My contractor first had to find someone who let him use his planer (sp?) on it and that took about nine months because his friend who had the extra large planer needed to have a blade replaced on it or something like that. Well, my mantel has been planed, but now the contractor is building brackets. I’ve given up hope on having a mantle for Christmas, so I had to take matters into my own hands.

The fireplace before. It’s a Buck Stove, which is great in the winter, but really ugly year round. It sort of has a little shelf on top of it, but there are these ugly brass knobs on each end of it that make it hard to decorate around. The shelf isn’t proper mantle height either. I could have bought a pre-made mantle, but then I would have to drill into the brick and I didn’t want something that permanent because I would have a beautiful mantle one day. I also didn’t want to spend more than $15.

So I started thinking one day; what if I built a box to sit on top of the shelf? Kind of an upside down window box? It would add height to the shelf, cover up the ugly brass knobs and be a great TEMPORARY solution. The only catch was that I had to sell my idea to J.D. I’m not the best at verbalizing my ideas, so they usually end up with me running my mouth and trying to make hand gestures to describe what I am thinking. It took a trip to Lowe’s and learning how to use the circular saw, but she finally grasped what I was thinking!

TaDa! We did it! It took one 8ft long by 7 1/4 (I think) strip of mdf and a strip of 48 inch wood laminate meant for shelves (that’s the top). I think we cut two 18.5 inch sections of mdf and then two 7.25 inch pieces and glued them into a box and then used finishing nails to secure them. We then attached the wood laminate with glue and nails and brought her inside to try her out.

I decided she needed a coat of black paint, pronto!

I basically coated the entire thing with Zinsser primer. Zinsser makes a primer that will adhere to anything, even laminate, without sanding. I discovered that stuff back in February when we started priming our ugly knotty pine paneling. I let the primer dry/cure for two days and then I spray painted multiple coats of gloss black paint.

Here she looks all decorated for fall:

Seriously, I could just sit on the couch and stare at my fireplace all day long. I love it! I know my mantle is far from perfect, but it is meeting my needs until my beautiful reclaimed wood one comes home to me!

I think that sister of mine is finally learning how to interpret my crazy gestures.

Edited to add:

PS. Did you know that either spelling of mantle/mantel is correct? After I published the first time, I realized that I had used both spellings and I had to check!

The birds!

2009-09-25T00:20:00.003-04:00

I love fall. I love Halloween. I love Thanksgiving. I love decorating for the fall season and the holidays that fall (ha!) in it. When I stumbled upon this idea in the latest Country Living magazine, I knew I had to try it.

Crow in a jar. No, that shelf isn't his permanent home, the white background made him show up better, nor is the shelf crooked, that's my photography skills for you. I'm just keeping it real.

This was so super easy. I grabbed a pasta sauce jar and made spaghetti so that I could use the jar. I used $8.00 pasta sauce. Heck no, I didn't pay $8.00 for it! It was on clearance at Publix for $1.00! I bought like 12 jars. The funny thing is, I like the $2.49 Classico sauce so much better. Anyway, I spray painted the inside and outside of the lid black. I found a twig in my yard and spray painted it black. I bought a little black crow at Michael's for like .79 on sale and I hot-glued that crow to the twig and the twig to the bottom of the jar. I added a little moss around the twig and screwed the jar lid on the jar and TA DA! a crow in a jar!

I love it! I bought a giant jar of pickles so that I could make one with a larger crow. I am going to have a giant crow collection (maybe three or so) for Halloween. What do you think?

Once upon a time....

2009-09-24T10:50:00.002-04:00

there was a very lonely corner in a kitchen. It had a very ugly blank switch plate and giant old inoperable wall heater from the days before central heating and air that couldn't be removed and patched because of the tongue and groove wall paneling but its owners were just grateful they painted it white instead of the ugly poo brown it was before. Anyhoo this corner was lonely. I knew it needed plates. The more I thought about the plates, the more I knew that the plates needed a shelf to prop their pretty selves on. I'm pretty much like the mouse in "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...". Actually, I think the book is written about me.

Sad corner. Sad face :-( The corner is much improved by the artwork of Larissa Herbert. As I looked her up to link to her, I noticed she has new artwork of herbs that would just be perfect for my kitchen. Herbs people! Herbs!

Well one day I was perusing a the Goodwill and I happened upon a fantastically ugly shelf for $2.98! This shelf even had grooves in the top to hold plates! Be still my heart!

The fantastically ugly shelf in my fantastically ugly carport. Holla.

I immediately knew what I was going to do with that puppy; sand it, prime it and douse it with every home decorating bloggers dream: HEIRLOOM WHITE spray paint by Rustoleum. What they don't tell you is that stuff is incredibly hard to find. Lowe's discontinued it several months ago. It now appears that Home Depot is following suit. JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby sell it for $4.99 a can! I checked at three Home Depot's and finally found mini spray cans that they had on clearance for $1.99. Yeah, I bought six of them. Obsessive much?

The shelf, primed.

Giant trash bags make great drop cloths. When the paint dries, you can use them for their original purpose.

My shelf in my kitchen. I am seriously in love.

I even used Nester's Hide me some ugly thermostat trick. Goodbye ugly switch plate! Unfortunately the really ugly vent is still there, but my shelf draws your eye down so it isn't as noticeable.

Can I tell you that I have seriously become addicted to thrift store shopping? To those of you who have known me for a long time this will come as a serious shock!

A daily reminder of my grandparents…

2009-09-17T21:07:00.001-04:00

I have been trying to figure out what to do with the board and batten wall in our kitchen. I finally decided on framing some of my favorite recipes from my grandparents. I went through all of their old recipes and selected my favorites: Mississippi Mud Cake, Gramma’s Pecan Pie, Pineapple Apple Sauce and Sweet Potato Soufflé.

I decided on floating frames because some of the recipes are two sided. I found the frames at Michael’s for $7.99 each. But I had a coupon for 50% off all frames! Score! I love that I can see my grandparents handwriting on our walls everyday!

The Office!

2009-09-17T11:22:00.004-04:00

THE OFFICE season premiere is tonight! This is my favorite show of all time. I own seasons 1-4 and can't wait to purchase season five.

A photo from one of my favorite episodes of season four:

Seriously, how many of your have worked with people like these characters? What character are you most like? How many of you watch The Office?

On a different note, I promise to start blogging again. I don't know what happened to me this summer, but it seems like I stopped cold turkey! I haven't done very many projects around the house, but I need to show you what I have done. I will definitely work on that this weekend.

Monograms

2009-08-26T00:01:00.001-04:00

Has the vinyl monogram-on-the-car trend made it to your town or is it just a southern thing? After lusting after one for months and months I broke down and ordered one last week. I went to Etsy and found one for $4! That's right people, $4!!! I ordered it on a Thursday afternoon and would you believe it came in the mail on Saturday? Two days!!!! Because I know you want one also, here is the link for the shop I ordered mine from AJC Inspiration

She has lots of colors to chose from. I chose white because it needed to match the fleur de lis on the other side of my back window.

GEAUX TIGERS! Is anyone else on pins and needles waiting for college football season to begin on September 5th?

Take me out to the ballgame...

2009-08-25T09:52:00.002-04:00

This girl loves sports. Seriously. Football, especially the SEC, makes my heart race. I can't watch baseball on television because it bores the mess out of me, but I love attending a game. Turner field in Atlanta is such a neat place. We attended the Braves v. Marlins last Saturday and had a blast! There were six of us that went: Me, J.D., Matt, Travis and Jason and Justin. Somehow Matt, Justin and Travis escaped being photographed!

J.D. and Jason, couldn't you just squeeze his cheeks?

Jennifer doing the tomahawk chop

Chick-fil-a cow doing the tomahawk chop. This girl loves her some Chick-fil-a!

Me and Jason

J.D. and Jason

We had so much fun. You know what is really fun? Being the only two girls in a group of four guys!

What happens when you kick a Smurf...

2009-08-21T09:20:00.003-04:00

Yikes! Those really are my ugly feet!

When you kick a smurf, your feet turn blue. I willingly chose to paint my toes that color! Ugh! Coincidentally, it matches the monogram on my purse. Why did I do this? I *thought* it would look good. A group of us are going to the Atlanta Braves game tomorrow night and I have this cute outfit all planned out around the colors of brown and blue. My favorite pair of brown pants became high waters last year so this past week I took them to the tailor and had then turned into bermuda shorts for $6.50. Add a white fitted polo, brown and blue flip flops, my cute monogrammed purse, some turquoise jewelry and you have a cute outfit, right? Blue toes could only enhance the look, right? WRONG! Can I tell you that when my feet hit the floor this morning and I glanced down, they frightened me?!?!

Time for a color change.

Where I've been... as if I know!

2009-08-19T15:08:00.003-04:00

Yeah, if only I could answer that question! I feel like I have fallen off the blogger earth. It's been a busy summer. To be honest, we haven't done much on the house since my Dad, stepmom and little brother came to visit in early July.

I have done a few little things here and there and I've taken pictures of those things. However, those pictures and the SD card they were on were destroyed by the creature seen in the photo below before they could be uploaded.

I love her, but she is going to make me crazy. Do you know that she PEED ON ME Sunday night in the middle of the night? Oh yes she did! She has since been sent back to her crate at night. Jerk.

I would like to introduce you to my Dad's mini-me. Meet Zach. He could also be known as Michael, Jr. I wish I had a picture of my Dad at six years old to show you because these two are twins.

Don't you love a toothless grin?

I loved having Zach here visiting. He is such a charming kid! I think he is one of those kids that every parent wants; the child who is a perfect angel at school and makes great grades but also has a great sense of humor. Zach started first grade last week. He had an awesome kindergarten teacher last year and Zach must have really paid attention because he knows all sorts of facts and figures. While he was visiting we had a conversation that went something like this:

"Hey Sissy, did you know that Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States? Do you know two good things he did for our country? He defended the country during the Civil War and helped to end slavery. He wore a stovepipe hat. He was shot in the back of the head in a balcony by John Wilkes Booth at Fords Theater in Washington D.C. After he shot Lincoln, Booth jumped on the stage and broke his leg."

Yes, I was amazed. Seriously. My brother who just finished KINDERGARTEN told me all that. I think the child is a genius. He must take after his sister. HA!

Help!

2009-08-12T09:21:00.003-04:00

I know I am probably really low-tech because I follow blogs from my blogger dashboard and not in some fancy reader and this is now kicking me in the pants! I need help from all of you smart bloggers out there; when I go to my blogger dashboard it is now telling me that I am not following any blogs even though I am! I have spent a year finding all of these great blogs and now it feels like they are gone forever. When I happen to remember a blog address and go to it and try to "follow" it again, I can't because I am already listed as a follower. What is going on? I need help!

Another post in which I am entirely too honest...

2009-08-07T11:09:00.005-04:00

We had a wonderful Wednesday night dinner this week. I really should have taken pictures! The shrimp and grits were a huge hit. Matt, one of our good friends from Sunday school and a close family friend was there with us. After supper, Matt, JD and me were talking about dating and how you can stray so far away from your values and what is important to you. This led me to explain my standards or "deal breakers".

1. no use of tobacco products

2. good money management skills ( wealth doesn't matter, but being able to manage what you have is important)

3. anti-abortion

4. Christian

5. involved in church

6. does not consume alcohol

7. no pre-marital sex

That's my list. I don't compromise anymore. I used to compromise on some of these issues and I had some pretty cruddy relationships. I know that these may come as a shock to my family and friends and may be more than my Dad wants to know about. Sorry, Dad! Though I think you might be proud of what I stand for.

You might notice that physical attributes aren't on this list. For me, physical attraction is only about 5% of what draws me to someone. It's amazing how attractive someone can be when you see eye to eye on what matters to the two of you.

Something you should watch...

2009-08-05T11:22:00.002-04:00

OK, my cousins tried to show me this YouTube video last Christmas. I took one look and said "interpretive dance... I don't think so" and turned away. J.D. watched it though and it touched her. Eight months later I finally watched it and it is amazing and beautiful. Watch and enjoy.

Care for a swim?

2009-08-05T09:55:00.003-04:00

Remember this post? That's right, the one where I whined and whined about the heat and wanting a pool? Guess what?

We're getting a pool on the compound!!!

(People tell me I need to stop referring to the fact that I live on acreage with several different houses with my family as a compound. They say it makes us seem like a cult. We aren't. )

A bona fide, in the ground pool. No, we aren't digging a hole in the dirt and filling it up with the hose. My granddad, who lives two doors down, is putting in a pool for the grand kids! Last week he had the pine trees taken down got the permit from the county and construction started this week! I have no idea how long pool building takes but I am hoping that it will be done by Labor Day weekend. Hopefully we will be able to use it until mid-October, being that this is Hotlanta and all.

Tonight my cousin Daniel is going to be in town and I am making dinner. Shrimp and grits baby! I am using a different recipe this time. I bought 8 POUNDS of shrimp last night!!! Hopefully that will be enough to feed 12-16 people. Some of those people are children who don't eat much. I'll be sure to post pictures tomorrow!

Fear

2009-08-04T10:25:00.003-04:00

What does fear keep you from? What goals could you reach if fear wasn't an obstacle?

I have lived my entire life in fear of one thing or another. When I was a small child I feared burglars and the Wicked Witch of the West and the flying monkeys and E.T. and an invisible monster at the foot of my bed underneath my covers, which resulted in me sleeping at the head of my bed in the fetal position. I've realized recently that I might still be living my life in the fetal position; curled up and waiting for something to hurt me. That isn't living.

Life is hard. People can be cruel. Words hurt. Judgement stings. We internalize all of those hurtful words and actions, we feed on them, gobble them up and let them poison our souls and keep us from being our best selves. Suddenly, we expect people to be unkind. Our shield is up before we walk out the door in the morning. We limit possibilities for fear of judgment and rejection, beginning each day curled up in the fetal position, ready to roll quickly through our day making sure to avoid the monster at the end of the bed.

I have had enough. I don't want to live this way. I'm tired of feeling like I am not good enough, not talented enough, not pretty or thin enough, not smart enough; feeling like I will not measure up. You know what? I AM ENOUGH! We are enough. You are enough. We are amazing miracles of God's design and creation, created in His image. Isn't that enough?

Today I am joining the party at Emily's for Tuesdays Unwrapped.

New blog design!

2009-07-31T22:19:00.003-04:00

Well, what do you think of my new blog design? I love the color blue and I love birds, so I think that this is perfect for me! I bought this template from http://www.acornglue.com/. Sharnee does great and inexpensive custom and premade blog designs.

Life was a little rough for me for awhile. My blog is very aptly titled "Obsessed Insanity" because I do live with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I usually take the wonder drug Paxil every day, but a few weeks ago I decided that I knew better and went off my medication for about a week and just about drove myself and everyone else up a wall. I've been back on medication for about two weeks now and I am feeling much better.

J.D. and I have joined a new church. We are now Methodist! I love our young adult Sunday school class. We have made some great new friends who I am sure you will meet in future blog posts.

This weekend I plan on uploading some house pictures so you guys can see what we have done recently. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

My most embarrassing moment...

2009-07-21T15:02:00.003-04:00

Okay folks, I am going to share my most embarrassing moment ever with you. I'll warn you that some might consider it a little crude, but I am not a crude person.

It was my freshman year of college, spring semester. My first day of class with Dr. Hampton. I believe the class was English History to the year 1260 or something like that. Being that I attended a small college where the average class size was 12, we were going around the room and introducing ourselves and stating why we were attending this college.

My turn came and I said "My name is Lindy and I came to Wesleyan to lead a happy and SEX-FILLED life." Oh yes. I did. What I meant to say was "My name is Lindy and I came to Wesleyan to lead a happy and SUCCESSFUL life."

Dear friends, if only you knew what a prude I was at 18. I guess I still kind of am. Just ask J.D. This memory still makes my skin crawl and my face turn purple with embarrassment!

I'm still here

2009-07-20T11:14:00.002-04:00

Wow, it has been about 2 1/2 weeks since I have blogged. An awful lot has been going on in my life lately and I think I have been too overwhelmed to share. I feel like I am at a crossroad in my life and I need to decide which way I am headed. I need your prayers, so please remember me in prayer right now.

P.S. My craft-it-forward peeps, I haven't forgotten about you! I am just trying to decide where to go from here.

How do you motivate a depressed turtle?

2009-07-02T11:18:00.002-04:00

Seriously. How do you motivate someone who has no motivation? Zero, zip, zilch, nada, nothing. Honestly I wonder sometimes if this man has a pulse.

Okay, I have a guy who works for me. He's in his sixties and he does maintenance. He is the slowest person ever. He also has some anger management problems.

Case and point: last week this gentleman, we'll call him M.W., was working with J.D. and a gentleman she works with, K.H. At lunchtime, K.H. went to lunch and left his reading glasses on J.D.'s desk. J.D. must have left her office for a moment while M.W. was in there. K.H. came back from lunch and picked up his glasses and said "my glasses are all smudged, M.W. must have licked them!" J.D. insisted that he couldn't have, he wouldn't have done that. They decided to review the camera footage. Would you believe that the camera footage actually shows M.W. picking up K.H.'s glasses and licking them?!?!? A sixty something year old man licking a forty-five year old man's glasses!

M.W. is with me today and I want to use a taser (sp?) on him to get him going. At least I'm not wearing my glasses today :-)

I love me some grits!

2009-07-01T14:40:00.004-04:00

I live in Georgia. People in the South love their grits. Stone ground corn is delicious! I think grits were one of the first "solid" foods I ate. It was love at first bite and it hasn't changed in 28 years! Being that I am also from Louisiana, I love shrimp. Combine the two and you have a love affair worth writing home about!

My favorite shrimp and grits recipe comes from Southern Living's February 2008 issue. It's super easy and absolutely delicious!

Grits with bacon....

Grits without bacon....

SHRIMP AND GRITS
Makes 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients
2 bacon slices
1 pound unpeeled, medium-size raw shrimp
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
2 teaspoons canola oil
1/2 cup chopped green onions
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup low-sodium, fat-free chicken broth
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon hot sauce

Preparation
1. Cook bacon in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat 10 minutes or until crisp; remove bacon, and drain on paper towels, reserving 1 tsp. drippings in skillet. Crumble bacon.
2. Peel shrimp; devein, if desired. Sprinkle shrimp with salt and pepper; dredge in flour.
3. Sauté mushrooms in hot drippings with oil in skillet 5 minutes or until tender. Add green onions, and sauté 2 minutes. Add shrimp and garlic, and sauté 2 minutes or until shrimp are lightly browned. Stir in chicken broth, lemon juice, and hot sauce, and cook 2 more minutes, stirring to loosen particles from bottom of skillet. Spoon shrimp mixture over hot Cheese Grits; sprinkle with crumbled bacon.

Cheese Grits

Makes 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients
1 (14-oz.) can low-sodium fat-free chicken broth
1 cup fat-free milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup uncooked quick-cooking grits
3/4 cup (3 oz.) shredded 2% reduced-fat sharp Cheddar cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

Preparation
1. Bring first 3 ingredients and 1 1/3 cups water to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat; gradually whisk in grits. Reduce heat to low, and simmer, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes or until thickened. Stir in Cheddar cheese and next 3 ingredients.

This was our supper last night and it was so good! Kroger had Georgia wild-caught shrimp on sale for $6.99/lb. Folks, we are having shrimp for dinner tomorrow night! I love wild-caught shrimp so much better than that funky stuff that is farm raised with antibiotics in China. Yuck!

The best thing about this recipe is that it has NO BUTTER, but it tastes like it is horribly bad for you. I'm sure with two different kinds of cheese and such it isn't the healthiest, but it tastes so good you would think it's full fat!

Enjoy!

Whoa!

2009-06-30T15:26:00.003-04:00

I am ready to get off this ride. Seriously though, do you ever feel like you are on a carnival ride and you just want to get off and have the dizziness stop? That is life in the obsessed house right now.

Atlanta is going on two weeks of 90 degree+ temperatures. This doesn't sound so bad, but factor in 90% humidity and you feel like you are being smothered and are walking through soup. I want to bury myself in ice right now. I miss our old neighborhood pool. I miss my big garden tub in our old house. I miss winter right now.

J.D. and I looked at buying one of those easy set-up pools with a filter that all of the big box stores are selling right now. We actually bought one and then I changed my mind 30 minutes later and we brought it back. I kind of wish we hadn't because I could seriously go for a soak in one of those with an ice cold glass of lemonade.

I think our house is going to be a perpetual disaster zone with projects that are half done. I nearly broke my toe this morning tripping over a five gallon bucket of paint that was in the middle of my kitchen floor. Good morning to me! I know it doesn't help that last week I decided our den was too winter-y and fall-like and proceeded to hang new curtains, artwork and buy new accessories and pillows.

I know I need to include more pictures in my posts, but I have always found uploading pictures from my camera to my computer to be a giant pain in the rear. Does anyone have any tips for me? If there a way for my computer to absorb my pictures through osmosis? Telepathy? A snap of my fingers? Anyone?

Progress....

2009-06-24T21:28:00.009-04:00

Somebody please call a psychiatric facility and make me a reservation.

Just kidding. Some days I feel like checking myself in though. Do you ever feel that way?

The kitchen (phase one of it) is about 75% complete and I have moved on to the laundry room. I think I fail in the diligence category. In all fairness, the laundry room is right off of the kitchen and it just makes sense to do it all at once.... RIGHT?

A little preview of my oh so attractive laundry room....

Don't you love my dark pine cabinets? Aren't they sexy?

I can tell you that the laundry room is now unrecognizable from these pictures. I am going to wait to post pictures of my progress because I have pictures of the 75% complete BOARD AND BATTEN!

Do you remember the before? Let's take a look, shall we?

And after!

Is that not one million trillion percent better? We still need to paint the white crown moulding and also do another coat of white, but I think it's better already. I really hope my grandmother isn't rolling in her grave because we painted all of her panelling, but I think it looks great! You can just ignore the pizza boxes on the counter. Also please ignore the clutter on the side of the refrigerator. Dirty elves or flying monkeys must have snuck in while I was at work today because I NEVER live like this.

And lastly, I was at the Salvation Army a few weeks ago and I snapped this picture of this er.... treasure with my phone because it was just too good not to share.

It's a owl clock/pirate ship/paddle boat/fake aquarium/alarm clock that lights up. Who thought of this and why didn't I buy it for next years White Elephant Christmas swap? Somebody tell me why!?!?

Craft-it Forward

2009-06-23T21:43:00.004-04:00

I received the neatest thing in the mail yesterday. Dawn from Life at Eventually Cottage sent me the nicest package. Why would she do that, you might ask? She's crafting it forward!

Dawn made me three beautiful black wooden wall hangings and she included a little package of birdie notes.

If you like my beautiful wooden plaques, I think Dawn sells them!

Do you want to Craft-it Forward and receive a neat-o mosquito gift from me that is just the bee's knees?

1) Be one of the first THREE bloggers to comment on this post.

2) You then agree to share your snail mail address with ME (leave me your e-mail in the comment and I'll contact you) so I can send you a small gift handmade by ME

!3) When you receive your gift, you then blog about this game & link back to my blog in that post.

4) And most importantly, you ALSO AGREE to "craft it forward" (or just pay it forward if you'd rather) and send a small gift to the 3 people who comment on your blog post...

That's it!

We have winners!

2009-06-20T09:18:00.002-04:00

Because I am so not web-saavy, I couldn't figure out how to get the random.org thingy on my blog, but on to the winners!

For "Devil in the Details: Tales of an Obsessive Girlhood", random.org selected #12, Hurricane Heather of Poop In My Pocket!

For the lovely Lucky Fiona collar, #6, Phillips Phamily Mama of Phillips Phamily Phive!

For the Cherry Blossom Candle, #8, Nicol of Classy and Sophisticated!

Ladies, email me your addresses to Lindyd1011(at)aim(dot)com !

Congratulations!

How many fruits and vegetables can I eat today?

2009-06-18T12:26:00.004-04:00

Don't fall out of your chair or anything, but I am cooking dinner tonight. We have done pretty good this week, I cooked Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights, Wednesday night was pizza from Truett Cathy's (Chick-fil-a owner) pizza restaurant and tonight is Paul Prudhomme's Lentil Soup and Mardi Gras Salad.

I got the idea for Mardi Gras salad from Carmella at Southern Fried Dreams. Like I said before, I grew up in South Louisiana and I have never heard of this delicious salad. I'll be trying it out tonight and I am pretty sure it will be delicious! It has a total of 6 fruits and vegetables!

When J.D. and I were home in Louisiana last month we caught Paul Prudhomme's cooking show. That day he was making lentil soup, but his looked even better than mine! You can find the recipe here. It has a total of nine different fruits and vegetables!

Some of the vegetables, like the onion and bell peppers are in each recipe so I won't count those twice... but that is 13 different fruits and vegetables in a meal! Wow!

I'll let you guys know how it turns out!

You can still enter my giveaway!

Call a plumber... an electrician? I THINK NOT!

2009-06-17T10:09:00.004-04:00

Well we haven't accomplish much in the way of board and batten this week. I think both of us are more than a little burnt out on painting. However we have not been resting our laurels while on painting hiatus. Oh, no!

Let me tell you that J.D. had a nickname in college. She was known as "Super D". Little did I know how appropriate that moniker was.

This girl can do just about anything. She isn't afraid of getting her hands dirty or her feet wet (I totally am). She would probably tell you that she will try any repair once simply because she is so cheap, but I think she has natural abilities.

See, she is totally not afraid to get in and get dirty! Case #1: my bathroom sink has never, ever, ever drained properly, even from the time we moved into this house. I always found this frustrating especially because the bathroom had been gutted and new sink and pipes under the sink has been installed. It has progressively gotten worse. A few months ago we tried removing the p-trap and seeing if there was a clog in it, but that baby was clean as a whistle. I have really been conserving water over the past 8 months because I have gotten used to running the sink at a trickle to wash my hands and brush my teeth in order to keep the sink from filling up with water.

On Monday J.D. bought a 25 foot power auger. Oh, yes! This puppy attaches to a drill and boy is it powerful!

After working for two hours and using all 25 feet of line, she removed a washcloth from the pipe! I wonder how long that had been down there? She asked if I wanted to photograph the evidence, but believe me... you wouldn't have wanted me to! My sink is draining beautifully now and I think we saved at least $200!

Case #2: ugly brass hall light. We have slowly been replacing light fixtures. About two weeks ago I saw a light fixture at Lowe's on clearance for $14.00. I think the regular price was $42.00. The only issue was that they were out of the ones in boxes. I learned two years ago not to buy the one they have hanging up. I did that once and it didn't have all of the hardware and it was a disaster. Well last week I went back to Lowe's and they had one in a box that had been returned! I snapped that baby up!

Ugly light!

Well, I think I can tell you why it was on clearance and why someone returned it. It took her two hours to put up! Normally she can change out a light fixture in 15-30 minutes from start to finish. The screws weren't long enough, I didn't remove all of the packing material and on and on and on. Let me tell you, J.D. is PERSISTENT and DILIGENT if she is anything.

That baby is up and lit!

These aren't really the best pictures, but I do think it reflects that it is much better than what was the there. I love that CFL's are great for the environment, but I hate the fluorescent glow they give off! Grrrr!

You can still enter my giveaway! Friends and family are eligible!

100th post G.I.V.E.A.W.A.Y!!!

2009-06-13T13:39:00.008-04:00

Well folks, I can't believe it; I've had enough to say to write 100 posts. In honor of this, I have assembled a giveaway. Because I want to increase people's chances of winning something, I will be giving away three different things to three different people. Now on to the giveaway!

Have you ever been to Luckyfiona? I love this etsy shop. I can't tell you (out of shame) how many collars my puppies have from this shop. Shannon, the proprietress and Fiona's dogmom, makes each collar by hand and let me tell you, they are exquisite!

My personal favorite is "The Lotus". Mr. wore this collar for our photo shoot.

image courtesy of Lucky Fiona

The Ted would have to be my second favorite. It's my favorite collar on Zoey. In fact, she wore it for our photo shoot.

image courtesy of Lucky Fiona

Well, it is your lucky day! One of you will win a gift certificate to Lucky Fiona for a custom collar. Don't have a dog? Shannon also makes custom cat collars!

The next item you have to chose from is a Cherry Blossom candle from Amy's Country Candles. These candles are from my home state of Louisiana and they smell delicious. When I was home last month I purchased an extra one to give away on my blog... lucky you!

image via www.amyscountrycandles.com

My last and final item is one of my favorite books ever. This book probably isn't for everyone, but if you have ever been described as Obsessive Compulsive or know someone who is, you will definitely enjoy this book. I will be giving away one hardback book of "Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood" by Jennifer Traig. I love this book. I seriously laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. It was that good.

photo from http://www.amazon.com/

Okay, here's how it is all going to work. You get two chances to win. To enter to win:

1. Leave a comment on this post.

2. Blog about my giveaway. Please leave a second comment letting me know that you did.

That's it! You don't have to follow me or anything like that. If you like me and you want to follow me, that would be great!

If you would like to win the book, please let me know in the comments. I will lump everyone who wants to win the book together in a separate category. My reason being is that this book is so super fabulous I only want it going to someone who will appreciate it. Is that crazy?

The deadline to enter is Friday, June 19, 2009 at 11:59pm EST. The winner will be drawn by 12:00 pm on Saturday, June 20, 2009.

I will draw the winner for the book first, and the draw a second name and this person can pick from either the collar or the candle. The third name drawn gets whatever #2 didn't pick. Does this make sense?

Good luck!

Board and Batten, part 1

2009-06-11T11:08:00.004-04:00

Last night we hung the boards for our board and batten. I originally got the idea to do this somewhere in our house last fall when we visited our contractor's house. He had done it in one of the hallways in his house and I loved it. He said that it was really easy to do, so I filed the idea away in my head. The walls that I decided to do this on are wood. They are thin panels of real wood that were stained a really dark color to match the cabinets. I've never really cared for these walls because they added to the whole cave feeling that the kitchen gave off. Once I decided to board and batten the walls, I googled "how to board and batten" and came across Karla's blog. Karla and her husband used mdf for their "boards" and they made it look pretty easy overall.

I must have looked at her directions 50 times. The idea of buying sheets of mdf and cutting it into strips scared me. All we have is a hand saw, miter box and circular saw. I wasn't sure if we could cut straight and how it would look. I also felt like because the wall was wooden, I had one shot to get it right. I probably visited the hardware store ten different times and looked at wood.

I knew it was going to cost around $30 for each sheet of mdf. I knew that the two sheets of mdf would provide much more wood than we needed. Last Saturday, J.D. and I were at Lowe's and we stumbled upon pre-cut Poplar boards. It was $1.98 per 1"W 1/4"D and 4'L board. I think we bought 6 of those. We also spent $5.98 each for (3) 3"W, 1"D 6'L board. We ended up only using two of those.

Tuesday night J.D. primed the wall. The space started looking lighter!

J.D. cutting the 3" thick boards. That was work. Out miter box isn't mounted to anything, so it took one person to hold it down. That was tricky because we were also trying to avoid getting our fingers chopped off.

First section hung.

J.D. working behind the refrigerator. One board came out a little short, but it is going to be completely hidden behind the refrigerator. It also may seem silly to do this in an area that we will never see, but I wanted it to cover the entire wooden area.

J.D. hammering away. We used a level to get everything straight.

I can't wait to paint the bottom part bright white and the top part Maison Blanche!

Once it is painted and finished I will post better directions on how we did this. But really, for the best directions, go check out Karla's blog.

Paint, how do I love thee.......?

2009-06-07T17:57:00.005-04:00

I love paint. I hate painting. After we tackled the knotty pine debacle in the den last February, I didn't want to see a paintbrush again for a good little while. My motivation came back around with the news that my Dad, stepmom and little brother are coming for a visit in July. The obsessed part of me feels like the house needs to be perfect by the time they arrive. The realist in me knows that there is NO WAY on God's beautiful green earth that is going to happen in the next five weeks, but I can do what I can.

Last weekend we began knotty pine kitchen overhaul part one. Here are some before pictures to remind you of the hideousness of my kitchen.

Hello, my name is dark and dreary and stuck in the 1960's. Don't I inspire gourmet meals out of you? What, you don't like me?

Look at the difference one coat of primer and THREE coats of Maison Blanche by Sherwin Williams will make! I no longer want to put on depressing music and have a pity party when I walk into my kitchen. SCORE!

For the record, that is a giant dog gate you see in the picture above. When you have three zealous dogs who weigh between 50 and 100 lbs each; the little baby gates don't cut the mustard, so to speak. Also notice the ugly hole to the right. That is an old heating fan from before the house had central air and heat. We ripped them out in all of the rooms with sheetrock and had the sheetrock repaired, but we couldn't do that with the panelling, so I am working around it.

We plan on painting the window frames white this week, so I will post photos of that once it happens.

Remember this dark ugly wooden wall?

Oh baby, do we have big plans for it. Can you say board and batten? I am so excited about that!

Favorite Paint Colors

2009-06-04T09:50:00.004-04:00

update!My favorite paint color is actually SEA SALT by Sherwin Williams. I wrote this post off of the top of my head and guessed the paint color by memory. Evidently this is a very bad idea!

Today I am participating in My Favorite Paint Color Party over at 320 Sycamore. You should probably know that I am the type of person who may or may not agonize over paint colors. My steps are probably crazier than most. I will buy the mini tester cans to try out a color, but not for the reason you might think. I buy them because I am not trying to decide between shades of blue, but because I am thinking about painting a room school bus yellow or charcoal gray and I want to see if I have lost my mind. They end up being a good investment because I have never actually painted an entire room charcoal gray or school bus yellow. Once I decide that I am going with blue, for instance, I look at the color strip and immediately select a color. No waffling here!

My absolute favorite shade of blue is Beachglass by Sherwin Williams. My bedroom is painted this color and I love it!

It works so well; it isn't baby blue or depressing blue, but perfect blue!

Bubbles's House

2009-05-31T22:58:00.004-04:00

Today I would like to show you Bubbles's house. Bubbles is my Maw-maw, the mother of my stepdad. She is truly one of the kindest people I know and some of my best memories from childhood are of Christmas's spent at this house.

Bubbles's house is really old. Before it was Bubbles's house, it belonged to my stepdad's Grandmother Ethel. I don't know whose it was before it was hers, but I do know that the house is about 150 years old. It was built after the Civil War and a bank used to stand where the house is now. My stepdad said that they used to crawl around under the house when they were kids and find pieces of canon balls that were fired from canons on boats on the Mississippi during the Civil War. How cool is that? The house is really close to the levee though. Like see the river from the house close.

Front of the house
Koi pond in the backyard

Back garden

Another shot of the pond

Gorgeous hydrangeas in the backyard

The front porch. Aren't those windows amazing?

There are swings on each end of the porch. These are quite possibly the coolest porch swings I have ever seen. My cousin Melissa and I used to spend afternoons playing in these swings.

The back of the swing splits in half and folds forward to form a cradle for babies! How cool is that? I don't know if it meets modern safety standards, but that has to be one of the coolest swings ever!

The windows are enormous. When you open them, you can just about walk straight out onto the porch. Since people were shorter back in the day (especially the Cajun French), they could just walk right on out to the porch!

The detail of the framework around the windows. The shutters actually close!

Look at the detail in the spindles on the porch rail!

Next time I go back and visit, I'll take pictures of the inside. Bubbles has the house decorated beautifully at Christmas. Her house has even been on the tour of homes!

2009-05-30T15:30:00.001-04:00

So it sort of seems like everywhere I turn, I see ALPHABET BALLS! I have seriously been coveting them for a long time now. I've seen them online and in some stores, but they are kind of pricey. A few months ago I came across a set of big and little ones at T.J. Maxx for $29. Because I wasn't as educated in the wall of beautiful ceramic alphabet spheres as I am now, I didn't realize what a steal this was. Stupid me didn't even realize this steal two weeks ago when they were still on the shelf at T.J. Maxx.

Then came yesterday. I happened to be at T.J. Maxx and thought that I would take a look around and see if I can find my balls (I'm really not trying to be funny or dirty.) I thought that since they had been around awhile maybe they had finally been moved to clearance. I scoured the store and could not find them! J.D. looked at me and said "well, I guess it wasn't meant to be." At that point I realized that must be the phrase I hate the most. I was about ready to go APE CRAZY when she looked behind me and found my ALPHABET BALLS! Wait for it... they were on clearance for $20!!!!! Two sets, one big and one little!

Now that I have them home, I have no clue what to do with them and what rooms they should go in. I have the big set in a Southern Living at Home canister on my fireplace and the small set in an apothecary jar on my desk. Any ideas?

Say it's your birthday!

2009-05-30T10:52:00.004-04:00

Once again I proved myself to be a complete and total idiot in regards to my birthday. No one forgot and it was a great day!

On the evening of Thursday, May 21st we went to eat Hibachi. There was a crowd of ten of us, so we had our own grill and table. We had a great chef who was very entertaining and a delicious cook. The picture below is of me dancing with the wait staff behind the grill. I had to participate in the song, you know what I mean?

One of my gifts from J.D. was a travel coffee cup with an "L" on it. If you know me, you know I love anything that has my initials!

We had a delicious Carvel M&M ice cream cake. I love ice cream cake! We still have about 2/3 of the cake left in our freezer.

Aunt Gail, Uncle Fred and Kyle officially started my Cabbageware collection. I love Bordallo Pinheiro. They gave me four plates, a serving bowl and a serving tray. I have them displayed in my redone corner hutch and they look fabulous.

The next day we headed to my home state of Louisiana. I love Louisiana. I love the food, the culture, the people, the shopping, the music. I'm not so crazy about the humidity, however.

J.D. with a baby crocodile head in the French Market in New Orleans.

A really blurry picture of my stepmom and stepdad, Laura and Eric and Jennifer and me at one of the coolest places ever..... MARGARITAVILLE. They have one in the French Quarter and upstairs there is a tire swing bar. We were all sitting on tire swings instead of bar stools. It was really cool.

Me on a tire swing.

J.D. on a tire swing with a Margaritaville menu. Did she want photographic proof that's where she was?

We had a wonderful time and I still can't believe how much we fit in to two days and three nights! Tomorrow I will do a feature on my Mawmaw's house in Donaldsonville, LA. Her house is over 150 years old and is gorgeous. She also has beautiful gardens. I can't wait to show you guys.

Also, I am coming up on my 100th post and there will be a GIVEAWAY! I am channeling my inner Oprah and giving away some of my favorite things. They won't be nearly as extravagant as Oprah, but they will be good. Stay tuned!

Hello, my name is Lindy and I am a lampaholic

2009-05-28T19:48:00.004-04:00

Nestergirl is throwing a big, superfabulous lamp party! Let me start off by saying that I love some lamps, I love a PAR-TAY and I love the Nester. Of course I was going to participate!

Some might say that I have a lamp problem. I think that much like tassels, they can go anywhere! They also add a terrific finishing touch to a room.

My Lab Lamp. I love dogs. I have three Labrador retrievers. Need I say more? Oh, but I will. I found this lovely lamp at Tuesday Morning and has to have it. He was $14.99, thank you very much.

This little map is a fringe-y lamp from Pier One that I received for Christmas a few years ago. It has a tassel hanging from it to finish it off.

There isn't anything special about this lamp other than the tassel hanging from it. It was purchased during the big Nester sale last month. I love it!

The lamp in J.D.'s room. Nothing spectacular here other than the fact that I made this shade myself from an old el cheapo shade and a $5.99 roll of rope from Lowe's. I used lots of hot glue too. It looks awesome at night! Take that Pottery Barn.

The bunny lamp in the guest bedroom. After reading Rhoda's blog for so long and seeing her bunny lamp, I wanted one and I wanted one bad. I looked on eBay, but I couldn't find anything good. Last week I finally typed "bunny lamp" on Atlanta Craigslist and I found this beauty! She was $10. She had a brass support pole but I spray painted it bronze and bought a new lamp shade and now I have a bunny lamp.

Tea pot lamp in the guest bedroom. This was a college graduation gift and I still love it six years later. Can't you tell that I am a fan of tassels. Oh, I didn't even bother to clear off the dresser before I snapped this picture. Light bulbs, dust and junk, OH MY!

Bird lamp in my bedroom. I actually have two of these. They each have a blue tassels hanging from them. Notice the Chick-fil-a cup in the corner. Didn't clean here either. I am totally outing myself with my addictions tonight.

I even have lamps in the bathroom. Sue me.

Mason jar light fixture in kitchen entryway. Okay, I made three of these last November. It looks really cool when you turn on the light, but it doesn't photograph well when it is lit. I will eventually be using just one of these lights and that will be over the kitchen sink. Over time I have decided that making three might have just been overkill. But I still give myself points for creativity! That ugly panelling you see in this picture will be painted tomorrow! Yee haw!

That concludes my tour. For more lamp tours, please visit The Nester!

An awesome giveaway!

2009-05-28T11:38:00.003-04:00

It seems like everywhere I turn, people are sporting those cute vinyl decals. They are on people's walls and laptops and even on their cars! I've always wanted one, but have never bought one.

Until today. I love Kimba. I love her flower pins. I have a flower pin. I H.E.A.R.T. it. I wear it at least twice a week. But enough about that. Kimba is doing an awesome giveaway with one of her sponsors... Lewa's Designs. Go check it out and enter for a chance to win! If you have a blog, you can also get something for FREE!!!! How cool is that? Go NOW, people!

Birthdays schmirthdays

2009-05-20T10:26:00.002-04:00

I have birthday issues. Deep- seated crazy birthday issues.

Does anyone else fear people forgetting their birthday? As I typed that, I realized that I sound narcissistic. I'm not, I promise.

I fear that the people I am closest to will forget it's my birthday. It's almost like I hold whether or not they remember my birthday or not as a test. If they remember my birthday, they love me, if they don't remember, then they don't love me. I know that is completely irrational... I've let someones birthday slip by me; I knew it was their birthday, I just never made the call on the correct day or sent the card in time. In fact, I did it this year with my stepmother, Laura. Does it mean I don't absolutely adore her and love her like crazy? Absolutely not. Why do I play this crazy game with myself?!?

I don't think it helps that this will be my first year celebrating my birthday without my grandmother. Last year was my first year celebrating without my grandfather, but I still had my Gamma. They always made me feel so loved. They weren't extravagant people, but they made sure to let me know that on May 21st they made the time to really thank God for my life. I miss them so much and I fear that it won't ever be the same or anywhere as enjoyable without them.

I'm the proudest Dogmom

2009-05-19T10:33:00.002-04:00

Our pictures are in!

J.D., Mr., Me and Zoey

Mr. and Zoey

I have wanted to get professional photos of all of us for the longest time. This was so worth the money. I know it may seem ridiculous to some of you, but my dogs are my kids and I need good pictures of them. Don't you love them?!?

Finally, our trip to Raleigh!

2009-05-17T21:27:00.005-04:00

We had a wonderful time in Raleigh visiting our friends Dom, Melissa, Korin and Marli! It was Korin's 2nd birthday and her birthday party was held at Build-a-Bear.

Baby Marli

J.D. and Marli

Marli and Me (ha!)

Melissa had this precious cake made for Korin

Korin, the beautiful birthday girl in her sweet birthday dress

Korin's bear in it's box

Sweet Korin having fun with the bear bathtub

Noelle

Mel and Dom have the coolest cat, Noelle. She is more like a dog than a cat. When Mel and Dom were our next door neighbors we would sit Noelle when they went out of town. I am not usually one for cats, but Noelle is #1 in my book.

Blech

2009-05-12T18:42:00.003-04:00

We made in back from Raleigh, N.C. and had a wonderful time while we were there. We brought home a wonderful souvenir, the STOMACH FLU. I will be posting about pictures of our fabulous trip when I get to feeling better and eating solids.

A trick that worked for me!

2009-05-06T10:56:00.003-04:00

Wow... it's Wednesday and I am doing a "works for me Wednesday" post. I don't know where to link to, but I am going to do it anyway.

Our basement is a disaster. To be fair, not all of it is our crap/stuff. I would say that about 1/3 to 1/2 of it belongs elsewhere. There is an antique dresser, clothes, a trunk, clothing, a gigantic metal shelving unit, pictures, two deep freezers, a dry bar (my grandparents never drank, so who knows what this is doing down there), a rocking chair, a bench, some folding tables and general odds and ends.

I don't really worry about the things that don't belong to me. I know that eventually they will find a home. It's the boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff from our old house and the carport at this house (remember the great carport clean out?) that bother me.

"What's in these boxes?", you might ask? Let's just say that I am an avid reader, so we have about six boxes of books (that is half of what I had before, before we moved I donated about six boxes!), at least ten boxes of Christmas decorations, three boxes of fall decorations, two boxes of fabric, boxes of craft supplies and then boxes with who knows what in them. The boxes were everywhere! It stressed me out to go down to the basement. The basement is technically "finished" but needs priming and painting and flooring and quite a bit of updating. I know that this will never get done if the basement stays in it's current state.

I read somewhere online a tip that advised people to work 15-20 minutes daily on their problem room. Set a timer and quit when the timer goes off. I think they also said something about working right to left or left to right. I can't remember that part. I remember thinking when I read this tip, "I can do fifteen minutes a day!"

Well, we went down there last night at 7:52pm and set the timer for 8:20pm. We decided that before we started working left to right or right to left, that we ought to group like boxes with like, that way when we started working in order, everything would be together.

Would you believe that we finished moving all of the boxes around so that like went with like? We also now have more of a large open space to work in and move around in. I was amazed when the timer went off! I know it was 28 minutes of actual work, but I don't like 15 minute intervals, so I am working on a little bit more time. A little bit every day works for me!

Maybe one day I will be able to post pictures of my basement without feeling like a I need to pin a scarlet "M" or "S" on my chest for "messy" or "slob"!

The Mondays...

2009-05-04T10:29:00.004-04:00

I have a case of "the Mondays". Today started out great. J.D. and I went to the photographer's studio to look at our proofs. A few weeks ago we had pictures taken at an awesome studio of us and our dogs. The pictures came out great! We had no trouble deciding which ones we wanted. It will be three to four weeks before our pictures come in, so I left with a black and white printout of the photos. This printout has been impossible to scan! Once I was able to get it to scan; blogger is giving me trouble posting the images! I so badly wanted to share them with everybody! I had always heard that really good photos were expensive and I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the price sheet. But the photos are awesome, and I will figure out a way to show you all.

I figured it out! The photos are pretty grainy, it's a scan from a sheet of regular paper. All things considered I don't think it turned out so bad.

This past weekend was pretty uneventful. We are super excited because this coming weekend we are headed to Raleigh, NC to see our Godchildren. Korin is turning two and we are going to her birthday party at Build-a-bear.

We haven't seen them in quite awhile, so we can't wait!

Drumroll please....

2009-04-30T07:59:00.004-04:00

For your viewing pleasure.....

THE CARPORT IS CLEANED OUT!

Yes, only one car is parked in there. On the other side there is a giant shelving unit with 8 different recycling bins, two riding lawn mowers and a 27" planter box. Cleaning out the carport was a giant accomplishment which took all day last Saturday. Now it is done and I couldn't be happier to pull into the carport. I think J.D. and I need to take turns, but she says she doesn't mind parking in the driveway. Martyr.

The Gifts of Spring

2009-04-29T19:53:00.004-04:00

If you follow my blog fairly regularly, you know that I live in my grandparents former home. This June my grandmother will have been gone for a year and this August my grandfather will have been gone for two years. To say that I miss them greatly is an understatement.

Last fall and Christmas were probably the hardest times living here. We had just moved in and everything was in chaos and I missed them so much. We had been renovating since August and I hadn't broken down yet. I was fine when we sorted through all of their belongings and moved the furniture and stripped the wallpaper and ripped up the carpet. Then came November and it was time for me to pack up Gamma's linen closet. As I sat on the bathroom floor with that box and inhaled the scent of her linens, I sobbed. They were folded perfectly and smelled heavenly. It didn't matter what laundry soap she used, her linens always smelled the same. She always ironed the pillowcases and there they were, sitting on the shelf in neat little stacks. It was more than I could take.

Looking back, I wonder if somewhere inside I felt that by renovating their home; I had removed them from it. Packing up those linens felt like the proverbial nail in the coffin. They were gone and I couldn't have them back.

Me and my Grandaddy. I was about three.

Kyle, Jessie and Grandaddy. This was Kyle's first garden. He's about four here.

My front porch now

Then came spring. Bulbs that my grandmother had planted years ago started popping out of the ground. I felt her again. The things that she loved were coming up again and it was like she was there to remind me that she was still here.

The Magnolia tree getting ready to bloom. My grandmother loved Magnolias.

Iris's underneath the Magnolia.

Apple tree outside of my window.

I used to make homemade applesauce every summer with my grandparents.

Fig tree behind the house. It's taller than the house now.

Beautiful, huge bush right outside my back door. Can you tell me what it is? I have no clue.

Another Iris behind the house.

Every time I walk outside or pull up in the driveway and see the beautiful plants, I feel warm inside. I can sit by my bedroom window in the evening and listen to the birds and crickets and I am instantly transported back to my childhood and a feeling of security and love instantly washes over me. Isn't it amazing how senses can take you to another place and time.

Thank you, Gamma and Grandaddy.

A corner cabinet, 80% done

2009-04-28T10:07:00.006-04:00

Meet my friend, Mr. Ugly. He's a corner cabinet from an era that no one is quite sure of. He came from another family member who purchased him at a yard sale in the late 1970's- early 1980's. That would make him 40-50 years old? Who knows? He begged to be put out of his misery. He was pine-y and had hideous plastic knobs and ugly hinges. I knew Mr. Ugly had potential, but he needed an extreme makeover.

First, he needed his warts removed (the ugly knobs and hinges). Once we removed those with a scalpel, it was time to exfoliate. We sanded off that top layer of skin and removed the shiny, glossy, oily finish. We primed him inside and out with a coat of Kilz and then gave him two coats of Ralph Lauren's "Turret Stair".

I then gave him some new jewelry (pretty new knobs and hinges) that I installed kind of almost by myself. Really I put the knobs on by myself and hung one set of hinges, but then I needed help. J.D. is super handy with the drill. I did the measuring, Lord help poor J.D. It's a good thing she understand that when I say three and four quarters and between the next little line, she knew what I meant. She's good like that.

He's definitely not done yet. He has piece of molding that goes on the top of the cabinet, I guess that would be a hat for his head. He also needs glass to go in the doors and I want to put lights under the shelves. But, I still think he is 100% better. What do you think?

I H.E.A.R.T. The Nester

2009-04-24T11:57:00.002-04:00

I love The Nester. I know I am like, one of her many thousand fans and I will go ahead and tell you that this girl belongs on Oprah. Possibly her own show on HGTV or Style.

Nester makes tassels. Beautiful, gorgeous, to-die-for tassels. Last week, she listed 100 tassels at 9am and by 9:14 am there were only like eight left. I bought one of the remaining eight and it came in the mail yesterday. I almost wet my pants, I was so excited. Seriously.

Would you like to win a gorgeous birdie tassel made by The Nester? Head on over to Amy's site, Everything Etsy and enter for your chance to win. If you haven't discovered Etsy yet, well you need to head there too. It's like the best online handmade store ever. I could spend hours, maybe even days there. It's where I buy the best, most adorable dog collars ever. I will never switch, so Shannon better keep cranking them out.

How's that for a ton of links?

Today I feel anxious....

2009-04-23T14:40:00.002-04:00

I feel yucky today. I have no reason to feel yucky. Well, I should say no good reason to feel yucky. I woke up, was able to put both feet on the floor and see the sunshine. That's a beautiful thing, right?

Pickle, our youngest dog terrorist, bit J.D. this morning. It's the third time in about two weeks. Ladies when I tell you she bites, well, she bites bad. She has bitten her chest (the area that is covered by a bra) three times. J.D. has said that Pickle can leave a mark through a shirt and sweater. I don't know what to do. Pickle gets jealous when I give attention to one of the other dogs so she tries to attack the other dogs and when J.D. tries to stop her, she bites. Pickle doesn't bite me like that and I feel guilty. That wasn't a good way to start out our morning. A side note.... Pickle has never bitten anyone but J.D. and wouldn't hurt a child.

J.D. and I are both stressed with work. The economy is hurting our pockets good bit. I haven't had a bonus in three months and J.D. got a tiny one this month. Please don't think I am crazy for being sad about us not getting a bonus; our bonuses are a large part of our salaries and usually very easy to attain. I am very, very, very thankful that we do have jobs! Do you know that J.D. and I work for the same company? How cool is that?

Our house overwhelms me. Everywhere I look I see something that needs to be done. Painting, cleaning, sanding, installing, it's everywhere. I know I need to stop and remember how far we have come. I seem to lose perspective very easily. When our friends and family walk into our house they are amazed at how much we have accomplished, but when I look at it I don't see those things. I know I need to.

We plan on cleaning out our carport/garage this weekend. It has never really recovered from when we began renovating last August. All of the subcontractors who were in and out never cleaned up their messes and materials and when we moved if we didn't know where to put it, it went in the garage. I think that this will help a lot because a) I hope to park there and b) it is the first thing I see when I get out of the car at home and it stresses me out everyday! I just need to do it!

Last night we did manage to scrub out our recycling bins, put the final coat on the corner cabinet and plant some flowers. I was also a good girl and we ate dinner at home. We were also in our beds by 10:30! J.D. was happy because Mr. stayed in bed with me all night long. He usually ends up with her at some point and totally takes over her bed.

Does your heart ever hurt and want to break for all of the sadness in the world? Somedays I feel like I am going to have to quit watching the news. I know that there has to be good news in the world; where are those stories?

How do I love thee, Chicken Tortilla Soup?

2009-04-22T09:18:00.003-04:00

I H.A.T.E.D. soup growing up. Could it have been because my mother was a horrible cook and her idea of cooking soup was dumping different canned vegetables in a pot and adding spaghetti noodles? Possibly.

Then I grew up. I think my love of soup began when I first ate my stepmother's shrimp and corn soup. Mama Laura has tried to tell me how to make it several times, but I am afraid of it tasting like shrimp water, so I haven't attempted it. Instead, I have her make it every time she comes to visit and I freeze it and ration it out.

The soup I do make? The Lazy Organizer's Chicken Tortilla Soup. I could eat this stuff a few times a week. I make it nearly every week anyway. It's cheap and delicious and full of flavor! Seriously. Sometimes I only use one chicken breast for a pot of soup and you can't tell the difference! The recipe does call for two cups of heavy cream, but I don't exactly do that. I'll tell you my secret: I use one cup of half and half and one cup of skim or 1% or 2% milk, depending on whatever we are using that week. I think I also add a lot more garlic, onions and bell pepper than she does because that's how I roll, baby.

On to the recipe!

Chicken Tortilla Soup
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1/4 cup green pepper, chopped
1/2 large onion, chopped
2 cups water
3 chicken bouillon cubes
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup salsa
1/2 -1 cup frozen corn
1 can black beans, rinsed
1-2 cups cooked chicken, shredded
cumin powder (I don't measure, keep adding and tasting, it's probably a T. or two)
chili powder ( I don't measure, keep adding and tasting, it's probably a T. or two)
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 cup cold water
fresh cilantro, torn
tortilla chips
1 fresh lime
grated cheese

Saute garlic, green pepper and onion in a tablespoon of olive oil until soft. Add water, bouillon, cream, salsa, corn, chicken, and spices until boiling. Stir corn starch into cold water and add to soup slowly. After it’s thickened add fresh cilantro and lime juice. Serve hot with tortilla chips and grated cheese.

Maybe it's just me and the way I cook, but I always have these ingredients on hand. I am also a fan of soup and salad in the summer. If I don't have to turn on my oven in the summer, I am a happy camper.

Enjoy!

P.S. Mom, when are you coming to visit? I need some shrimp and corn soup for the freezer! J.D. and I also have a woodworking project for Dad for our sun room.

Big furniture changes!

2009-04-21T20:53:00.003-04:00

We have had this corner cabinet in our carport since the Christmas holidays. It came from another family member's house. They renovated and didn't need it anymore. I knew I wanted to paint it, but had no motivation.

Then came Rhoda's post on her flea market corner cabinet. This was the inspiration I needed! We hauled that puppy into our sun room, sanded it and put a coat of primer on it. My camera battery died as we put the primer on it. Tonight, we put on a coat of Ralph Lauren's "Turret Stair". We'll let it dry tonight, buy camera batteries and put on another coat tomorrow night. I can't wait! I love free furniture!

Happy Birthday!

2009-04-20T09:21:00.004-04:00

Today is my friend Lizzie's birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZZIE!

Lizzie and I first met in high school. We didn't have any classes together until our sophomore year and then we were in Free Enterprise/Civics class together with Mr. Washington and Mrs. Ross. We also had Biology with Ms. Bennett together. Mr. Washington was a notorious sexist and I remember being terrified of having to take one of his classes. I remember Lizzie's dad coming to school on one occasion to have a talk with Mr. Washington about one of his tests. Ms. Bennett was absolutely crazy and she could be quite insulting. I don't think Lizzie or I ever had to deal with being the subject of one Ms. Bennett's jokes, they were brutal! Lizzie, do you remember Ms. Bennett drawing a "short bus" with a girl in the window on a piece of paper and "driving" it down to a girl named Jenny when she asked a stupid question? Or Ms. Bennett saying things like "your a** is grass and I'm John Deere, let's start mowing!!!"?

We really became friends our senior year of high school when we both had radio together. For those of you who don't know, our high school had a student run AM/FM radio station. Lizzie taught me how to "run the board" and we would work on crossword puzzles together. Cori was also in radio 7th hour... we had so much fun. Do you remember the time Mr. Dean fell on the floor and he had all of us write up reports of our versions of what happened and Cori wrote "I looked up and Mr. Dean was on the floor."? Cori also wrote "The Histoire of 7th Hour Radio" during that time. I wish a copy of that still existed!

I remember sobbing in your driveway before I left for college. I remember Christmas break of our freshman year of college. I think you had surgery for your deviated septum a few days before I left to go back to school. I didn't call you or come see you before I left. I know you were upset with me for that. What I don't think I ever told you was that I couldn't stand saying goodbye again. Leaving for college hurt way too much.

You were the first friend I ever had who accepted me for who I was. I don't know when I told you how crazy my mom was, but you never judged me. I never felt like you held back around me and I never had to hold back around you. I loved you so much (and still do) and I knew that you loved me just as much. You weren't pretending to be friend, you were. (and still are)

We may not talk as much as we used to. We may not email as much as we should. But Lizzie, I think of you every day and hold you so close to my heart. Today, I thank God for bringing you into this world and sharing you with me! I hope you have a wonderful birthday and that I get to see you soon!

"On today, we shall synchronize our personal timepieces and wish you a Happy Birthday!" (That would be a J.B. Williams reference for you)

I love you!

P.S. There will be picture added within the next day or so, I just need to scan them!

Easter in our backyard

2009-04-15T21:50:00.006-04:00

One of my favorite things about living on our family compound is the area we call "the park". The park is between my house and my Aunt Gail's house and we hold every family event from Easter to the end of October here. I tried to take pictures of what it looks like. We didn't get to finish planting flowers before Easter and everything isn't in bloom yet, but this will give you an idea.

It's decorated with lots of vintage items. There is an old bicycle, pots and pans, a pedestal sink and a clawfoot tub. The clawfoot tub is about to be turned into a fountain with koi. I joke with my uncle that I am going to get him an antique toilet for him for Father's day. He actually wouldn't mind.

My cousins Daniel and Kyle. Dan needs a haircut. His hair is really curly and he had me straighten it that morning. I straightened it all right; straight into him looking like a Ken doll.

Me and my cousin Erica.

J.D. and Erica

Me and Grandad H.

Sweet Aunt Gail and cousin Kyle. His birthday was the day after Easter.

We had a great day. Every year I realize more and more how blessed I am to share life with my family. Thank you, God!

Mi casa!

2009-04-13T19:21:00.007-04:00

So a lot of my blog friends have been talking about doing tours of their homes. Up until now I have been very leery about showing a lot of my home because it isn't "perfect" and we are renovating. Well folks, today is your lucky day because I am throwing caution to the wind and disclosing everything! Okay, just about everything. You aren't seeing the pantry, laundry room and yucky basement. We are also going to skip a few closets. Without further ado, I present to you the new thorn in my side: MY KITCHEN

It's dark and dreary. I love to cook and this kitchen most definitely does not inspire cooking. It's a basic galley kitchen and I am open to any and all suggestions as to inexpensive updates. The cabinets are custom and the countertops are Corian, but I disklike it all.
Yes, those are takeout boxes in the photo below. Did I just say I love to cook?

The kitchen leads to the den. Which is about 80% complete. We still need to finish the trim and paint the doors. Bonus points if you can guess what LJZMP stands for. Seriously, I am thinking of a prize if someone comments and guesses correctly. You will get something good, I promise.

Off of the den there is a hallway that leads to the bedrooms and bathrooms.

First stop, J.D.'s room. The bedroom furniture came from my Great Grandmother.

To the left of this picture you can see into my bedroom. It's across the hall and our next stop on the tour.

My room. I honestly love it!

One drawback; my bathroom is connected to my bedroom and there are no doors to the bathroom. I can see the toilet from my bed. SCORE!

The other view of the hallway:

Guest bedroom. Aren't the blue window frames classy? We haven't gotten around to painting those yet.

Back into the hallway into J.D.'s bathroom. I hate the gold faucet. Unfortunately, replacing it is low on the list right now.

Linen closet in bathroom. Oh, none of our closets have doors. Yet. We have them. Where are they, you may ask? Why sitting in our carport, mildewing while waiting to be painted.

Foyer. It's boring. I haven't done anything but paint and replace the light fixture.

Formal living and dining. No furniture in the formal living room. Low on the priority list as well. One benefit of taking these pictures is that I have realized that the chandelier above the dining room table is way too small. I think I am going to put it over the kitchen table and get a new one in the dining room. You didn't see pictures of the kitchen table because it's a little cluttered right now. So sue me. I take that back, don't sue me. ( Line totally stolen from Michael Scott, Dunder Mifflin... THE OFFICE)

As you can see the dining room table is covered in "stuff". The clutter in here doesn't bother me because I go in here about once a week and it is completely shut off from the rest of the house.

The sunroom.

Yes, those are blankets on the floor. In the spring/summer I take away the dog beds and they lay on blankets. It's easier.

This concludes our tour. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

An $8 redo

2009-04-11T10:13:00.002-04:00

Don't you just love storage? I do. I love dressers and bins and boxes and containers and jars and everything under the sun at my favorite store, The Container Store. There's only one problem with my love of The Container Store; their prices. It can get kind of expensive having a Container Store habit, so I am learning to reuse and re purpose things I already have.

Meet my grandmother's sewing chest, Maude. There is nothing wrong with Maude other than Maude's knobs. Maude's knobs made her feel old and out of style.

A close up of Maude's knobs:

The new knobs Maude begged for, on sale for $1 at my other favorite store, Hobby Lobby:

Maude's complete transformation into Marguerite:

Priceless.

Now I just need to figure out what to put in her. Office supplies? Scrapbook paper? Board games? Fabric? The possibilities are endless!

Talk About Gratituesday

2009-04-07T09:28:00.009-04:00

Spring is officially here even though it's 36 degrees outside right now! This past weekend was a beautiful sunny one and we learned how to operate the riding lawn mower.

My sister J.D. did an awesome job! It's definitely a learning process. I am in love with our yard. As I have stated before, we live in my deceased grandparent's former home. They lived here for over forty years! Even though I miss them terribly, every spring I feel like they are right here with me. My grandfather loved dogwood trees and planted them everywhere! When they bloom, I feel like my grandfather is smiling right at me. You can see a small one behind J.D. in the picture above.

One side of our very long driveway. You can see a few dogwood trees here too. When I was a little girl, the driveway was lined with peach and apple trees. Over the years they have died and had to be cut down. I think I heard somewhere that some varieties only live for 20 years or so. Of course, I could be making that up in my head. We still have a few apple trees left on property. I have great memories of making homemade applesauce with my grandparents.

This is our house from the road. It isn't a very good picture. I need some help with paint colors. Anyone with any suggestions? The house has been in the same color scheme ever since I can remember. It has a brown roof, yellow trim and siding with burgundy shutters. The brick is a brownish red brick. There isn't a horse in the front pasture and to me, that's a miracle!

I was on my way home from work Friday afternoon when J.D. called to tell me that Chief (my most favorite horse ever) was down in the front pasture and they couldn't get him up. When I say down, I mean he was laid down on his side. Chief is thirty years old and for a horse, that is getting up in years. My aunt and uncle called the vet. A neighbor let us know that Chief had been down since at least 12 noon. It was now 6:30pm. I pulled in the driveway and it broke my heart to see Chief lying there. Chief has been around since my childhood. We have had Chief for twenty years or more now. He was originally trained to work with disabled children. He is the calmest, sweetest, most gentle and amazing horse I have ever known.

We didn't know what was wrong with Chief. Sometimes horses get stomach problems in the spring when all of the nutrient-rich grass begins to grow. They eat too much and their bodies can't handle it. Horses can't vomit like you and I can, so their intestines can twist. This is deadly in horses.

The vet came out and couldn't find anything wrong with Chief other than his back legs were weak and he couldn't get up. He thought he might have a pelvic fracture somewhere due to his age. He said that there wasn't much we could do. We decided to give him a steroid shot and an anti-inflammatory and wait until morning. Chief still wasn't getting up.

By this point I was sobbing. I wanted to grab a blanket and sleep out in the pasture with Chief. I knew that the longer he was down, the worse his chances of survival were.

The vet said he would come back out in the morning. We all knew that if Chief wasn't up by morning, he would need to be put down. None of us wanted to do that.

We all went to bed. My uncle got up at 2 am to go check on Chief and he wasn't in the front pasture! My uncle said he had to rub his eyes and make sure he wasn't seeing things!

CHIEF WAS UP!!!!

Needless to say, the vet was shocked! He didn't believe it either! Three days later, Chief is still doing well. I am so grateful, I wasn't ready to lose my friend. Animals are such an amazing part of God's creation. As Sister Claire says, "look around, all of creation is a love story written by God for us." Amazing, isn't it?

For more Talk about Tuesday entries, go visit Lara!

Tassels, oh my!

2009-04-06T10:02:00.004-04:00

I love garden gnomes. I don't know if it has to do with all of those Travelocity roaming gnome commercials or what, but I think they are just about the cutest thing out there. I also love tassels. Nester is the ultimate tassel maker, but at the moment I can't justify spending $46 on a beautiful tassel. I could justify it, but my justification would not hold water.

So this weekend I made these babies! I used Lindsay's instructions and I think I spent $15-20 TOTAL on both tassels!

A wee little gnome with a shovel

My personal favorite, I love his blue shirt!

Please ignore the messy cookbook cabinet in my kitchen. I need to organize it. Do you see the tiny bride and groom inside the cabinet? Look all the way to the right beside the big bride and groom. That was on my grandparents wedding cake 60 years ago! I don't know where the big bride and groom topper came from, but it was in my grandmother's china cabinet so I feel like I should save it until I know more. I want the tiny bride and groom on my wedding cake one day when I get married.

Another picture of my favorite little guy.

I hope everyone has a good week. I am now officially obsessed with making tassels for around my house. Watch out!

Inevitable

2009-04-02T09:16:00.004-04:00

Change is inevitable. Everything around us is in a constant state of evolution. When we moved into my grandparents former home, the house seemed stuck somewhere in a bad 60's-70's-80's-early 90's time warp. Each room seemed to be stuck in a different area and none of them were modern.

The den in particular was stuck in a 1960's cave. It had real tongue and groove knotty pine panelling that EVERYONE told me not to paint. When I read Emily's post about painting her kitchen cabinets black, I finally knew I had made the right decision to paint our panelling. Everyone seemed to be worried that the den would lose it's country-esque, log cabin like feel. I had planned to kind of go with a shabby-chic, cottage-y, white accessories and slip covered feel, but the room beckoned to me for something different.

It became this:

And this:

Because of this:

And this:

dictated it so. Chocolate brown microfiber works really well when you have dark doggies. We vacuum the couches several times a week and they always look clean. Therefore I am not always pulling my hair out about our furniture looking dirty because every single spot doesn't show. The best part, it was FREE! This furniture was taken from our formal living room and moved into the den. Granted, the formal living room is now empty, but that is okay because we really don't use that room. Yet.

I am in love with my bedroom. Nester's obsession with white plates has totally rubbed off on me. I used to have a mirror on the wall above my bed. I love the plates so much more! Every time I walk into my bedroom it makes me smile. I also L.O.V.E. the color on the wall. It's "Beach Glass" by Sherwin Williams. I knew I wanted a blue that wasn't baby blue. I agonized over shades of blue for weeks. This was the one. Even better, I have no regrets. I also love my all white bedding. My secret to keeping it white is to keep a folded white sheet at the end of the bed. The dogs don't go to the bedrooms until we go to bed, so before the dogs come to bed I lay the white sheet on top of my bed. Keeps everything bright white! I wash the sheet 1-2x a week when I wash all of my other bedding.

Here is a better picture of J.D.'s green room. I did the white plates above her walls in here too. As I look at this picture I think I need to change up the arrangement. What do you guys think? Do you have any suggestions? J.D. is also going to get a door hanging sideways on her wall... another Nester trick. We found it outside of the Lowe's lumber section for $5.00! They had a lot to choose from. It had been returned because someone didn't hang it properly. There are some notches in one side of the door but that can either give it character or be hung so it doesn't show. Once it is painted and hung I will post pictures!

So our house is constantly evolving. I love the process. The den has gone from a room that I couldn't stand to be in to being our favorite room to hang out in. I have to say that the best feeling comes when people walk in to the den and say "wow, this looks amazing!"

P.S. In the first picture, we left the window a wood stain. Should we leave it or paint it white?