Birthday Lunch

In a few short days I will be FORTY!  Wow, when I was a teenager that seemed ancient!!!  I remember thinking that I didn't want to get old, have gray hair or ugly wrinkles; it seemed to me then that life was pretty much over at 40!  Now all these years later I can honestly say that I welcome the BIG 4-O.  Really it seems like life is just getting started!  How much more do we know now?  Gone are the years of insecurity and trying to "find ourselves"...gone are the days of trying to fit in and not be different...gone are the times of trying so hard to be accepted and please everyone else to the point you yourself are unhappy!  To finally know yourself and like yourself is well worth the age! 

Oh sure small print is getting harder to see... laugh lines are more visible than ever.. age spots are popping up from many days in the sun....but that is just part of life.  I plan to enjoy every moment I have left, and celebrate each milestone birthday God allows me to have!

To celebrate some of my good friends and I met for lunch today at the BROKEN PLATE..which is this yummy little Greek Restaurant we all like.  We ordered all kinds of delicious foods that I cannot pronounce.. and ate to our hearts content!

Sue * Michelle * Crysti

Of course after we stuffed ourselves we still found room for delicious desserts!

As if it wasn't enough that they took time out of thier busy lives    for me, they also got me presents!

I really enjoyed the afternoon with my friends. 

Thank you for celebrating with me!  Here's to the BIG 4-O!!

Copy Cat

I like folk art and I like quilts.

So, when I saw this wooden wall decoration from The Pottery Barn it was love at first site.

However, the price tag of $399 made me second guess my true affections.

Thankfully my husband is a carpenter and I have a creative side.

While it might not look exactly like the image above, ours is a pretty good likeness.

It took us an evening of cutting, painting, distressing, and assembling, and then banging in nails for detail.

Our wooden "Quilt Block" proudly hangs on a wall in the dining room.

We are looking for two old wooden shutters to hang on each side to complete the look.

Cal said all in all we spent around $70.00!!!

That is not bad at all.....mmmm...what can we make next?

What's going on

It is almost the end of January...its had its glory with New Years Day and all, but I am ready for it to pass on so that February can take over, and then March, April, May and that means Spring, glorious Spring!  Yeah, I think I have a bit of the Winter Blah's.  Anyway, not much has been going on around here...just this and that.  Cal finally stained the kitchen table and put several coats of some kind of stinky varnish on it...it looks really great even if it does smell!  Cal says in time that "smell" will fade! 

We've found a new little project to work on.  Any guesses as to what my plans are for this?

This picture is just too cute so I had to post it.  Amber and Dave stopped by one day and Juddson got to meet Max the neighbor cat.  Max made himself right at home as usual.  The sad thing is that the real owners have asked us to not let him in our house anymore...which since he belongs to them I can understand.  It is hard to do sometimes when its cold outside since it seems he really wants in with us...we are doing our best to comply...he just happened to sneak in on this occasion for a short little visit!

Day Dreaming

I've had some "down time" thanks to a nasty stomach  flu.  The first day I was so sick I just wanted to DIE...but after things settled down I found that I could take advantage of being in bed to read my Bible and look through books and magazines..and browse my favorite blogs.  I enjoyed napping off and on as much as my body and mind needed....while I was awake, I could day dream.  How long has it been since you've had time for that?  Just letting yourself think of things that you want to do, or places you want to go, finding yourself re-living a memory that fills you with warmth.  I am approaching the big 4-O and while that is NOT old...I can say that time has gone by so quickly that I look back and wonder how did it get to be that my two of my children are already out of the nest, and my "baby" is 16???  We seem to rush through life.  When the kids are young we rush them off to school and sports programs and clubs and events...and when they become teens its a mad rush off to the mall and to jobs, more sports and school events, and add in there your own commitments and your own job...and its a mad rush....then all of a sudden one day you find yourself lying in bed in the afternoon with a quiet house and you realize you are day-dreaming that you could have done so many more things with those days...spent more time talking with your mother while she was alive...spent less time cleaning the house and going on more pic-nics.  Day dreaming of what you WILL DO in the days to come; how to make more out of the time you have left and cherish the relationships you have in your life.

Day Dreaming....I highly recomment it!

Tea Time

In the afternoons I have been making time for tea.  I sit down at my little kitchen table and enjoy the quiet of the day with a warm cup of tea and a little cookie or two.  There is something very calming about doing this...just simply sitting, sipping and stirring in a litte teaspoon full of sugar, and nibbling on a cookie or a piece of chocolate.  I think it might just be the fact that you have to stop all the hustle and bustle of your day...up and down the basement stairs to take care of laundry, standing at the sink doing dishes, bent over the bathroom sink cleaning out toothpaste stains, hunched over mopping floors...and on and on it goes.  Having a cup of warm tea makes you just stop, breathe, think, day dream....just be still.  It has become a really cherised time of day for me....anywhere between 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon now, I make time for tea.

Ta-Da!

Here is our little shelf all dressed up and put to use.

We put it over our little kitchen table where we sit and have breakfast and tea, read our Bibles and chat.

I didn't want the shelf to be "decorated" and just for looks, I wanted it to have a real purpose.  After we put the tea cups and pots and all that goes with that idea, it turned out to look right at home over the little kitchen table.  Not bad at all for someone else's trash!

Someone else's trash...

Never underestimate the fine art of "junking".

As most of you know, I married a man who had been a bachelor for 20 years two years ago.  He was living in a small apartment in the city and did not have much in the way of housekeeping items.  We still have 5 forks...and about 100 coffee mugs...and an old chair with a hole in the seat exposing its stuffing.  I was in Houston, with a house full of housewares, decorations and furniture, but we felt it best to sell all I could since I would have to store them, and then get a huge U-haul to bring them to Canada.  Our idea was that in time we would replace certain items.  Two years later, with a very expensive immigration process over and paid for, and with the downturn of the economy, we find ourselves with only a few purchases to fill in the missing gaps in means of needed housewares and furniture.  I like to decorate, and I have a specific style....not even sure what it is called..perhaps we could just say its country cottagey?  Not frilly lace, and flowers, but more like scratched up tables and old signs, and quilts and candles and loads of books.  Basically if you were to go to a cottage on a vacation you might find a cozy atmosphere, a put your feet up on the coffee table and sit with a cup of tea kind of place.  That is what I like, and what I want my house to be like.  Since we are usually broke, I look for things that can be fixed up, or repurposed so that I can replenish items we need, and ummm, well  that I really want.  :)  Recently Cal and I found a shelf in the back alley that a neighbor no longer wanted.  It was meant to be picked up with the trash, but once I saw it I knew it just needed some imagination and elbow grease.  We scooped it up, cleaned it up, painted it up and now I am distressing it up....getting it ready for a new use in our home!
Once it is done I will take a picture and show you how we used it.  For now here are a couple of pictures showing how we gave it a second chance to be used again.  People who don't garage sale, or "junk sale", or even consider the option of saving a piece of furniture that was meant to be sent to the landfill are missing out.  Like its been said many a time, "One man's trash is another man's treasure".
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Here is how it looked when we found it.

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Cleaned up and getting a face lift.

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Ready to get painted.

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Fresh coat of paint and it looks brand new.

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Once it is done I will post a picture of what we did with it!

Winter Mode

It is January and I am in Winter Mode.  This is the time for me when I like to read, flip through magazines, watch endless amounts of movies and keep to myself.  I tend to be more creative this time of year and get all these wonderful ideas and then try to do them all at once.  Which is really a problem because I also am quite lazy this time of year and tend to go back to reading books, flipping through magazines and watching endless amounts of movies.  I really am content to stay in the house all day...usually in my favorite outfit: pajamas, covered with a warm robe and to complete the ensamble, a pair of slippers.  Give me warm tea or coffee and some sweets and I am all set.  I don't like to do housework, cook, go shopping, or do anything that resembles domestic responsibilities for that matter.  The better part of me knows that I have to, so I do...we do need clean dishes and clothes now and then....  I like to day dream about what my garden will look like this summer and piece together ideas for a new quilt or invision a new use for a piece of scrap wood Cal has shown me.  If I were rich, and the word is IF, I would love to be in a log cabin way out in the woods, next to a river...quiet and recluse.  I would read all day, drink coffee all day, pet my fat lazy cat, watch deer and birds and movies about things of interest and sleep when I wanted and eat when I wanted and stoke the fireplace when it needed stoking and in general hibernate till Spring.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I remember one New Year when I was a little girl my Mom made me go to bed way before midnight.  I wanted to stay up with the adults and celebrate the New Year with them.  I am not sure why I had to go to bed when I did, but I remember I was sulking about it until I fell asleep. 

Suddenly I was woken up with the banging of pots and pans and my Mother yelling "Happy New Year"!!!

My door flung open and my light turned on and I was invited to join in.

We marched around the house banging pots and pans to ring in the New Year.

Those are the moments I hope to never forget about my Mom.