Life has curve balls

Well, this is just a word to let bloggyville know that life's about to get crazy here!  We are all gearing up for the wonderful holiday season and everyone is getting too busy to even stop and take a breath.  Everyone is showing off their gorgeous decor, giving ideas freely, and receiving in return.  I have been getting Christmas out and getting it ready to make the house come alive.  I have family coming for Thanksgiving so I have been staging in the garage.  The second they leave every trace of fall is outta here and Christmas is moving in!  Last year we went out of town for Christmas and had just moved into this rent house in Sept.  The unpacking was complete, but I just never got around to decorating for Christmas, so this year I was going to do it up right!

Then came the curve ball!  Isn't life just full of them!  You have to laugh!  Really, what's the option?  Wallering in self pity?  Complaining and having a hissy fit?  No, we're trying to take the whole thing in stride.  We opened a letter this week from our mortgage company that turned out to be not a letter for us, but a letter for the owners of the home we rent!  Oops they have the same mortgage company!  This house is going into foreclosure on 12-03-09!  So we have to start packing!!!  Fortunately our property manager has another home coming available in this same neighborhood on the first.  I'm going to check it out today and make sure it is wheelchair accessible enough for the hubby.  If not then we will really be scrambling for a house to move to.  We know that there are probably things we could do to stay longer, but really if we don't have to deal with the drama we don't want to.  So now, instead of decorating, I'm packing.  We really hope to be moved completely by the middle of December and be able to at least enjoy the rest of the season!

This has cemented the plan for selling our home in Houston and buying down here.  We want to put down some roots and not be worrying about paying rent to a home that's not being paid for!!  This next year is going to be a wild ride!!  I think I will need this blog to be my sounding board, just to think and process what all is going on!  As soon as we sell we hope to build.  The idea of that makes me super excited and makes me want to throw up! LOL  But the idea of having a home built that is perfect for us is so awesome!  After living for 15 ish years in homes that are minimally wheelchair accessible we can have it done exactly right.  We can choose all the fixtures and it will be just how we like it in every way!

Our home in Houston was a typical rancher and we did so many remodelling projects just to make it livable for the hubby, and to make it less 60's and 70's velvet wallpapery!  Living with half the house in the garage, or no shower for two weeks!  I'll be thrilled to have a home that doesn't need updating!!

So you can be sure that there will be pictures!  My poor little craft room/office makeover will have to start all over again at the next rent house!!!!  And I will have to figure out all the furniture placement and where to hang pictures.  There will be lots of pics here and lots of what do you think....should the couch go over here?  LOL  My hubby hates when I ask him those kinds of questions!

Okay ladies!  Let the Thanksgiving madness begin!!!!

You can go home again

Who says you can't go home again!  Last week I spent the week sleeping at my momma's house and hanging out with my family and  friends, both old and new.

I grew up in the suburbs of Houston and growing up I always considered where I was born home.  Home was an itty bity town outside of Fort Worth.  After I was grown I always thought longingly of my summers spent visiting my Granny and Papa.  Going out to my Papa's home place and playing with the smelly cow dogs, picking fresh veggies from the garden and hanging out in the trees in the evenings as the day cooled down.  I was an only child there, the only granddaughter of a granny with two sons and four grandsons!  My granny taught me to sew, bake, quilt and to starch a pair of jeans until they stood up all by themselves!  My papa came home everyday from working in the trainyard filthy stinky dirty, but he left every morning with fresh clean starched and line dried work clothes.

Now that I've moved away from where I grew up, I have those same nostalgic feelings about Houston.  Tuesday night I went to "my" Beth Moore bible study with some of the girls, then went to eat afterwards.  Beth was right on and I laughed until I thought I would wet my pants and wished I would've worn steel toed boots from all the toe steppin' she was doing, just like old times!  I spent the next day visiting with my sister in law and my niece and nephew.  We went to the fire station and visited with my brother in law and let my niece play on the fire trucks.  My niece is going to be two in January and I promise you, she's the smartest girl on the earth right now!!  :)  She came and stayed the night with me at my mom's.  Mom watched her for a couple of hours so that I could meet up with a few friends from school.  The ladies that made it were girls that I had gone to school with since kindergarten!  Very fun!  We talked for hours, then it was back to moms to tuck in my little sweetie pie.  She went shopping with me and my group of girlfriends from church.  We had such a good time at lunch.  Then we went shopping!  Boy have I forgotten how much work it is to have a little one with you!  She was so good and only had one minor meltdown.  The meltdown ended as soon as I turned onto the shoe aisle.  She lifted her little head off my shoulder and said, "Shoes!!  I like shoes!"  Yep, you guessed it ,shoe diva in training!!

Saturday morning I had coffee with another group of old friends and saw another friend from high school.  As I headed home to my hubby and youngest son I was feeling homesick.  I needed to see my guys!  My boy shot his first deer while I was gone.  He texted me immediately!  But, I missed them.  When I got home we piled up in my bed and the boy unloaded.  He talked for an hour straight!

 Yep, you can go home again.  It's true, home is where your heart is.  When I visit my Granny, I feel home in my heart.  When I visit my parents, I feel home in my heart.  However, when I'm with my hubby and my boys I just feel home.  Where ever we are, if we're together I'm home!

Creating Vignettes

Hi y'all.  This morning I'm getting ready to head off to Houston for a few days.  My son turned 22 this past weekend, so I'll be taking him and his precious other half to dinner, I'm going to hook up with my Bible study girlfriends and go to Beth Moore's bible study tonight and tomorrow I'll be going to dinner with some girls from high school that I haven't seen in 23ish years!!  There will also be serious snuggling with my brand new nephew, can't wait to meet him!!  I will also be dragging my mom and possibly son's girlfriend all over Houston shopping at the stores we don't have down here!  Any bloggers in the valley that need Houston provisions speak up! :)

I wanted to post a few pictures I took this weekend.  A post on Maria's Blog a few months ago about vignette's inspired me and I've been kind of playing around with doing it.  I'm not good at it, it's something I've always had problems with, you know, the finishing details.  Maria's post made it seem simple enough.  Let me disclaimer this by showing you a picture of how the table by the couch usually looks

Of course the boy is in school right now so his glasses and most of his pens aren't there, and I did throw away the empty dinty moore can before taking the picture!  Now here's some pics of a company's coming side table.

You southern girls will recognize my secret little habit in the background!  Me and Sonic, we are like that I tell you!  Isn't this picture so much better than teenage boys nightstand?  So peaceful!

The flowers are in my granny's baby bottle!  I thank the Lord for her packrat ways!!  I have so much family history from her!

This is the other side table.  This table was my Papa's night stand, it's scratched and beat up, I've gorilla glued the heck out of this think, it was in pieces when I got it.  I will probably paint it the same color as the other side table when I get around to it!

Y'all be sure to notice my little violet plant!  This is the first one I've ever been able to keep alive!  Despite my cats best attempts to kill it!!  It just keeps blooming and blooming! :)

This is my old, but new to me gateleg table in my breakfast area.  I've been sanding away, little by little.  It should be done by Christmas, I hope!  But I wanted it to look nice and have a focal point so I put this together.

So, you like?  See any tips that would make any off it better?

One more thing, this is to show nannykim what my new spray paint trigger looks like, I think hubby bought it at Walmart, but I know I've seen them at Lowe's!

Love this thing!!

Alrighty, I'm off to load the car!!  You ladies have a good week! :)

Met Monday Makeover!

Why??  Why, oh why, didn't anyone tell me?  I mean, I've read about it.  Others have raved about it, but I just didn't think it was for me.

I'm talking about spray paint!  My new BFF.  Every time I have used it my finger just can't hang with the can.  I cramp, I just don't have the finesse that I need with that stupid can!  My dear sweetie has heard my complaints and brought home the most amazing trigger for the spray paint!  I have to run and give him a kiss every time I come in from the backyard after applying a coat!  I have been spray painting like a mad woman!  I'm making up for lost time!  All those years?!  I've got several projects going that I need to finish before the entire family shows up at my from door at Thanksgiving!  My office will be my sons temporary quarters while he visits and it has to be done!

This brings me to the second installment of my office redo.  I am doing this on a zero budget.  I am revamping and restyling.  So, here's a before picture of my chair and a bonus peek of what my desk area looks like when I'm in the middle of a project!  I have to have everything I need all around me so I'm just keeping it real!  You can see my new spray paint stash, every bit of that is used up now! :)  My chair has been around!  I bought it used from craigslist about two years ago and it's been used daily by me and the kids, it looks tired here, dontcha think?

Now for the amazing after!

Isn't it great??!  All spray painted and recovered!  I purposely didn't take the pictures in the office because I want to show it all off  when it's done! :)

Stay tuned, there's more where this came from!!! I'm participating in Met Monday at:






Be sure and run over to Susans and check out everyone's fabulous metamorphasis projects!!!
Night y'all

Soul Searching

So, where have I been??  I've been regrouping!  I have been focusing on some God details in my life.  I started this blog at a time when I was desperately struggling.  Desperately struggling in so many areas of my life.  Honestly I had been in that place for several years, it came upon me slowly and built.  Very sneaky!  I felt very removed from life outside my home.  My home didn't feel like my home, I felt lost.  I started really working on making my home feel loved it, not just lived in.  I felt that blogging about it and being conscious of the changes would help.  It didn't help, because my blog is brand new and haven't found my voice or any real focus I didn't have much feedback.  This just made me feel more lonely.  I was looking for a sense of community in the wrong place.

In June 2007 my little family up and moved 350 miles from our "home".  We left behind my son, my parents, my brother and his young family, my husbands parents, three of his siblings and all of our nieces and nephews and their children.  Plus, my very tight knit group of girlfriends.  You know that group of ladies you raise your children with.  The ones who you swapped babysitting and carpooling duties with.  Our move happened very quickly.  About six weeks after we found out; we were moved lock, stock and barrel.  I was in school full time and had a son struggling with a drug problem.  It was very simply like the Jerry Springer show at our home at times.  But it was the home we lived in for 18 years and our community was there.  Moving away separated me from my support system, and my beautiful son, my oldest, when he was in the depths.  I know now that was God's doing, he needed to "lose" our support to find his own in that battle he faced.

The stress of this entire situation caused my fibro to be severe and all of this side effects that come with it.  I had begun to feel that everything wrong with life right now was because of our move.  Because I moved with the conviction that God was moving us here, I felt guilty about feeling this way!  Financially, emotionally, physically, mentally...all of it.  It was all messed up because we moved away.  In the last few weeks I've spent some serious time soul searching.  Searching for God, searching for my life back!  It's said that when you feel far away from God that it's not Him who moved.  I had not walked away from God, I had just not spent time on the relationship, the most important relationship I will have on this earth.

For the last few weeks I've been seeking God's face.  Really seeking change.  And...I found it!  I have crawled back into God's lap and in the process, I found myself again!  I've found my passion again, I've remembered why I was passionate and I have discovered that for me, God is life.  Everything is just too hard to do it alone.  Even with my husband supporting me in every way he could, it was still too hard.  It's not his job to be my God, it's his job to be my husband and he does this very well.  It is also not my children's job to be my God, or my friends, and none of these people can even help me in my relationship with God.  It's just me and Him and I need to find Him, and hold on tight all by myself.

Now, I want to continue this blog.  I do love doing all the fun decorating and sewing and crafting, I love sharing and getting feedback and ideas.  I still need to find my voice here.  I will, I used to write.  It's in here somewhere!

Thanks for reading and allowing me to be transparent and I hope that this encourages someone out there in blog land to spend a little time soul searching!