Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness

Some photos I took on my way to the show last week.  I'm not a morning person, but I do love the way the world looks at that time of day. 

Bored outta my Gourd

Better Late than Never - Happy Holidays!

When the Frost is on the Punkin'

and the marigolds
and the impatiens

Mattie

My Mattie turned 11 yesterday.
It's hard to reconcile the 11 year old with the smiling pink little bundle I brought home from a Boston hospital...the baby who was so angelic that I had to ask my mother if I should wash her clothes when I changed her into her pajamas because they were still so clean...the baby who slept through the night from about the first night on...who sat with a basket of books at age one and amused herself for hours...the little girl I cannot remember ever throwing a temper tantrum....who loved school from the moment she began at age four...who had the cutest imaginary friends named Curtsy, The Stinker, and the the Skunk Family....who is so remarkably good she has only gotten in trouble at school only once...who makes me laugh with her fantastical ideas...who is as cool as her father and as creative as her grandma, who just this week asked me if she was normal because she is always done with her schoolwork first and fastest....well....maybe its not so hard to reconcile after all. It just went by so fast.  She is such a help to us...unloading the dishwasher ever night, watching her siblings, helping at church, learning to cook.  I was determined to give this sweet girl a wonderful birthday present:

So I planned her surprise room redo. The minute she left for school, I dug in to the plan.  But by 10 a.m. I was ready to sit down and cry.  By then, a bagel had gotten caught in the toaster and sent plumes of sickening black smoke through the house.  I realized with disgust that the upstairs air conditioner was broken...again.  The paint I chose to paint the ceiling...and painting ceilings is something I detest...was all wrong....it clashed with everything.  And the desk I was trying to spray paint was covered in runs.  At that point, I was pretty sure there was no way I could possibly finish on time and I was utterly discouraged.  Running to the store for more paint meant getting cleaned up and wasting more time.  It didn't look good.

But, I knew I had some white paint left from the walls and if I used that, I might be able to rush the paint job since I wouldn't have to worry about cutting in.  I asked Robb to get me more paint on his lunch break and I dug into painting the dresser drawers.   By three thirty, I had the dresser and the desk and the ceiling painted, with the air conditioning man installing a new fan motor.  A roast was in the oven and the birthday cake was made.  Painting without the air conditioning was miserable, but I think I sweated out the last of the virus that has been kicking our bums all week.

Robb came home early to help me load in the room.  I had uncharacteristically planned where everything should go so I could bark out orders while hanging the bulletin board I made from a ceiling tile, and positioning the paper lanterns I found on clearance at Pier One. New bedskirt, sheets, and the bedspread I dyed the day before, plus the pillow cover I sewed really came together on the bed, and the new plants look super cute.  The end result, as you can see, has a great retro vibe that is not to little -girlish and not too grown up.  Her dad is tempted to hang out in the seating area  to watch an old movie with the kids and I am tempted by the craft table.   All of the bright colors she loves pop against the white walls and ceiling.

She was so thrilled and surprised, she could hardly talk.  She said her knees felt funny.  Then she said she would be staying in her room permanently and that I should bring her meals on a tray because she was never leaving.  She said she was the happiest girl in the world.

Little did she know that before she had birthday cake, she would open her very own cell phone.  We probably went a little over the top, but this sweet girl deserved it.

Quickly Becoming a Favorite Spot

I snapped this photo as a
preview of some of the things
that will be in the etsy store
sometime in the near future.
But I have found myself sitting in this chair pretty often lately,
enjoying the huge window
and my rose bushes just outside.


And yes, Mom, that IS a Clarice Cliff plate and I am most definitely keeping it!

Some Stuff I'm Growing...

tonight

 

I can't believe I spent the whole day....

working on this new blog stuff. I made it all myself. The wallpaper is my bedroom curtains. The photo of the butterfly is from my studio, through the viewfinder the the Brownie camera I sold already on Etsy. I've been longing to create something but I haven't had the mojo for any more mosaics just yet. I'm not particularly tech savvy, and it took a lot of reworks, but I'm thrilled with the final result. Or the current result anyway....

So Sad

The three trees in March 2007.
















So, with not enough paint to effect the kind of magic-wand change I was hankering for yesterday, I went outside to whip up a batch of Vitamin D. That led me to observe the state of my yard and garden. Which led me to the sad discovery that the three trees that had escaped the wind storm and the ice storm with no damage whatsoever were DEAD. So dead that one of them pulled out by the roots. I noticed that these were looking poorly last summer when they started to loose their leaves, but I don't really know what they are and I was hoping they would bounce back. I don't know what happened to them, but all three of them just inexplicably croaked.

I need you to understand though, the comedy of me cutting these trees down all by myself with a bow saw and a hack saw, a hammer and chisel, and the sweat of my girly brow. Just because one came out by the roots, don't think that removing the other two was a simple job. And I may have mis-estimated the size of the largest one, which is going to need a little trim before I can drag it past the air conditioner...but that will have to wait for a day when my arms aren't like sticks of butter...or if the chain-saw fairy arrives. Picture the most comedic moment with me rocking the largest tree loose, ripping a hole in my sleeve, wiping my forehead with a leather glove, that I realized too late, I wore while picking up dog poop out of the yard.

My jeans fit better today, though. And that's all I'm after, really.

Dark and Cold

We got our power back on yesterday evening, but I couldn't get connected to the internet until today. I thought, rather than trying to describe it, I would just show you the pics.

Robb is home now, too. (He flew out on Sunday to Nashville for work.) He came home Wednesday night with a bag full of fire-logs as that was what we were running out of. On Monday, I got a new propane tank to cook on the grill with, and a box of firewood, but we quickly burned through the wood. It was not too bad, but the temp on Tuesday night was supposed to be about 10 degrees and I was worried about the pipes freezing again, as was my landlord! I just turned on the fuacet a bit to drip. Being in town, we still had water, which I could heat up on the grill for tea and hot chocolate. The kids loved having a fire in the fireplace and spent quite a bit of time cozied up there, while I was out looking for more stuff to burn. It's going to take me a little while to get out of the mode of looking at everything asking "Could I burn that?"

It was kind of exhilarating matching wits with the storm, fighting off the stomach flu, keeping kids warm and fed. But when Robb got home it all kind of hit me, and I was pretty much asleep five minutes after he got home. I cleaned up as soon as the power came on, but I'm a little sorry he didn't get a chance to see the bow-saw by the fireplace, furniture moved helter-skelter to accomodate doing all our living in the living room, and keeping the space in front of the fireplace clear to prevent a spark from doing more damage.

Things are a little tense right now. We've gotten news that our house in MI needs extensive repairs and has not gotten the kind of TLC we've given this house. It makes me really sad. It's going to take a few days to start to feel normal again, let alone deal with what has to be dealt with up there.

I know lots of others don't have power, though, so keep praying for them and for us as we deal with the aftermath.

Dang Robb, welcoming storms. Dang.

Before the Power Goes Out

I'm pretty sure if it keeps coming down like it is, the power will likely be lost, so I am scurrying to put up some of the pics out my windows this morning. We've already lost the tv satelite and I could hear the branches cracking like mad when I let Sid out this morning. For my part, I'm back in bed after being up all night with some kind of vicious stomach flu. Thank goodness we don't have to go anywhere! Hope everyone's doing ok out there!

My Friend Arlo

My friends, Arlo and Aley came to play the other day and we had a good time. A nice lady in Australia bought this 1972 silhouette picture from my Etsy shop and I was getting it ready to ship out when I noticed a little resemblance!

Pathetic

Here's what's left of our tree. I guess I'm glad it's not a stump, but this is as pathetic as a blind, diabetic, three-legged dog with a skin condition.