A Beautiful Set

My WONDERFUL husband bought me a brand new set of dishes that I had been coveting for the past few months.  For some reason, we always agonize over purchases like this because we want to still be in love with what we bought twenty years down the road.  I had been wanting to get a set of dishes for company and when we saw these for the first time, both of us thought they were perfect.  We still waited awhile to buy and we're glad we did.  They are beautiful!!  The best part about our purchase was the 20% off coupon we had.  GREAT deal!

We set them up when we got home this evening because, guess what?, we are having company tomorrow!!!  Yea, we get to break those dishes in and see how yummy they make my cooking taste. : )

Gotta love a chance to be creative!

My friend, Amber, and I just finished a VBS bulletin board for our church.  Aside from seeing the end result, the best part was our trip to the DOLLAR TREE.  We spent $18.00 and got almost everything we needed.  You really have to be creative when you are getting everything from the DOLLAR TREE.  Don't you just love that place?!!!

Yesterday was spent tracing and painting characters for the board.  Then today, we spent three hours putting it together.  We fell in love with it more and more after each item we put up.  All the hard work paid off because the final look was just perfect.  So MUCH FUN!!

The treasure chest was the most difficult to figure out.  It started out as a box with a separate lid and we cut it down until it had just two sides.

We used styrofoam for bubbles

Precious memories; how they linger.

I took a walk down that beautiful but sometimes tear-jerking path we call memory lane TWICE today.  I played the piano for our high school graduation this evening and couldn't help but think back to the time when I stood on a similar platform amongst my peers and turned the proverbial page to the next chapter in my life. Only thinking about how excited I was to be done with school, I didn't realize how precious the memories I was making at that moment would be to me years down the road.  Graduating and leaving home was leaving one life behind and entering a completely new one where there would be no turning back time.  It's a vapor, this life and there is only one chance at any given moment to make a memory.  I'm glad I have a whole host of amazing ones to look back on and laugh, or sometimes cry, over.

Trip two down memory lane was a short but sweet one.  I was talking on the phone to my mom tonight.  We talked about everything and nothing.  Somewhere in between, we talked about Grandma.  The worries and emotions that always accompany having a loved one who is getting up in years seemed to weigh heavily on Mom's heart tonight.  Immediately, I thought of last summer.  Grandma was able to make one last trip out to Washington for Mom's birthday.  We had a wonderful time just Grandma, Mom, and me going to Mt. St. Helens.  Grandma bought me a little Mt. St. Helens Eruption flip book that I still have.  I love it! We took all kinds of pictures....including about a dozen where the camera was set on video instead of snapshot, so each video is about 5 seconds of us just staring at the camera smiling.  I'm laughing and crying just thinking of it now!! I'm so glad thankful for those precious memories.  I don't know how many more I'll be able to make with my Grandma, but those I will never forget.

We do not remember days; we remember moments.
 ~Cesare Pavese, The Burning Brand

Let The Sunshine In

My husband and I just moved into our new home a couple of weeks ago and everyday I find another reason why I absolutely LOVE living out here in what I like to call the "semi-country".   It's just far enough outside the city limits to feel like you should own a tractor or build a barn and raise farm animals.  I always enjoy a little "awww!" moment when I drive past the pasture about a minute from our house full of mommy sheep taking care of their little lambs. Rustic and cute!! 

With spring around the corner, I'm eagerly searching out every fresh bloom I can get my eyes on.  The Dogwoods are beginning to awaken and little buds everywhere are starting to blossom.  Imagine my surprise when one morning I walked outside our home and saw dozens of gorgeous yellow, WILD daffodils scattered all across the right side of our yard.  One of the few areas that wasn't excavated when they cleared the land to build our home, this part of the yard is covered in bushes, briars and trees, but those little bits of sunshine are so colorful and beautfiul they make me smile.  I've always dreamed of being able to cute fresh flowers from my yard and bring them inside.  Here are my first ever!....and I didn't even have to plant them.

And my ideas lived happily ever after...

Lord willing, my husband and I will be closing on our newly built home on Feb 23rd. Yippy! It's difficult to contain the excitement.  My daydreams and nightdreams are overflowing with ideas.  Where should we positon the couch?  Here....or here?  What style of bookshelf would look best in this room?  That gorgeous color I saw on Design To Sell would be perfect in the guest bath!!!  Ahhh....too much design brainstorming.  Got to take it one inspiration at a time.

Luckily, I have my fantastical, faithful friend who keep me sane when there is a decor overload. 

#1 by my side: The Ultimate Home Journal and Organizer

This book alone has the power to keep my budget-blowing, overly-eclectic mumbo-jumbo of ideas at bay.  Best design investment of my life.  

There is a worksheet for every room in the house including "other" worksheets. Each worksheet has a detailed chart for the project and a budget and comment page.  There is also a section for pictures. I inserted my own photo pages to hold any pictures or magazine cutouts I found inspirational for that room. I also inserted page protectors for any documentation or receipts.

A pad of graph paper for room dimension and furniture placement.

Small furniture punchouts with dimensions to place on your graph paper. Does it get better than this?!

Project calendar

Catagorical Folders

All in all, a great organizationl tool for the haphazard thoughts that flood my brain from day to day.  I think it will only get worse once we move but then I can actually execute ideas.

Pandora Adore....because I don't own an ipod

Alright, laugh if you may, but I admit to the fact that not only do I not own an ipod, but I also don't own an MP3 player.  No portable music playing device whatsoever.  A couple years ago my husband bought me a Walkman MP3 player but I absent-mindedly left it on the airplane on our way to visit my family in WA.  GRRRRR!  Well, I honestly didn't use it all that much on a daily basis but it was nice to have when I didn't want to turn the radio on or blast our TV speakers so I could hear Music On Demand throughout our house. Having small pieces of plastic shoved into my ears just isn't comfortable to me.

The answer to this problem is my mini-obsession for Pandora Radio.  With the use of a laptop and wireless interent, I can have beautiful music playing in any room at any time of anyday.  As if that weren't reason enough to be in love, Pandora let's you choose a genre of music and creates a "station" playing only that style of music. If you don't like a particular song, click on the thumbs down and you'll never hear it again! I've discovered so many new titles and artist that I had never heard of before.  There is endless variety and it's free up to 40 hours of listening per month.  They play a 30 second commercial every 5 or 6 (can't remember exactly) songs, but it's so much better than regular radio. 

If you've never tried Pandora, DO!  If you love music, you'll be hooked. 

http://www.pandora.com/

SO many books, SO little time.....or just SO unorganized.

While searching through Barnes and Noble's gift/stationary/journal/etc,etc section for a 2010 Gallery Leather Desk Planner (which they DO NOT carry in February!!), I stumbled accross an interesting journal amid the innumerable, ridiculously stocked journal shelves. My mind goes bonkers when I have to choose ONE journal that I "?like?" when I'm looking at 200 different designs at once.  Okay, rabbit trail.  This journal, whose cover title has slipped my mind, was designed for you to be able to record all of the books that you want to read.  What a great idea!   I didn't buy the $10.75ish journal but it did start me thinking about a way to get organized with my reading .  How many times have I said to myself, "Someday, I've got to read that book!"
There aren't enough hours in the day to read everything on my wishlist, and my husband certainly wouldn't appreciate me spending all of my free time trying to knock out one book after another, but I could definitely use some organization.  I get sidetracked from books sometimes, jumping from one to another depending on what mood I'm in and as a result, books are forgotten until months...or years...later when I have a flashback and think, "Hey, didn't I start reading that one time? Did I finish it?"  Not good! 
Although it would be a bit more romantic, you don't need a fancy journal to catalog your readings.  Just a steno pad would do.  I would definitely like to start writing down books to read in the future.  Why haven't I thought of this before? 
I walked out of Barnes and Noble without a desk planner but certianly with a plan.

PS: As I was writing this, I became more and more curious about the actual title of this journal.  I found it on Amazon.  There are several other interesting looking journals that have the same concept.  I'm not huge into journals but this is just for making lists, right? Different.