Saturday, December 29, 2007

Christmas? What Christmas?

I really did miss Christmas this year. How? Well, have you ever moved at Christmas time? If you have then you will know exactly what I am talking about.
We started moving furniture the friday(21st) before Christmas. Whew,, and we moved every single day until Sunday. We took a break on Sunday for our family Christmas get together at Mom's house. That was a very welcomed break indeed.
Did I take pictures of us moving the furniture? Uh, no,,,as I was one of the movers. We had my wonderful brother and my dad, Daniel, and my son Kyle, and me. Our old house sat down in the yard and we had about ten steep concrete steps to move our very heavy couch, washer and dryer, and all the other wonderfully heavy furniture to get up those steps. Can you say "ouch my aching back?"
So here it is the saturday night after Christmas and things are finally shaping up in the new house. Still alot of work left to do, but its feeling more and more like home.
So here is a picture of my kitchen. I must remind you that my house is perfect for the HGTV series "Design on a Dime". I had to get very creative with my kitchen. So its pretty much retro themed. HA!!



I do have plans in the long range to completely re-do the entire kitchen. It will be updated as soon as I save up the $. But here it is with the newly painted cabinets. And my sweet little penguin rugs. This is the entire cabinet space that I have which is not much at all. I do plan on getting a nice woodblock Island that has rollers so I can use that for more counter space. But because of moving expenses and Christmas I will have to wait a little longer for that too. So,,,,
I got really inventive and came up with some old pieces of furniture to use in the kitchen.




So here is a old desk with a old credenza on the top of it. And of course the lovely little bird cage that I snagged at a thrift store not so long ago. Yes,,its Retro, but it really doesn't look too bad for the time being.

My bird wallpaper border should arrive any day. I ordered on the internet on Christmas Eve. It will go up above the cabinets and around to the eating area. And I do think it will really look good with the colors and the the makeshift, retro storage that I pulled together.
The floors looks so pretty now. We stripped and polished them a few days before we moved in and they look brand new.
Below is a picture of the "new-age" Christmas tree that we had here in the new house while we were remodeling and moving. We kind of thought it looked cool and others liked it too. In the mean time, my live and decorated tree sat unseen down at the old house(now why did I do that?)




And on Christmas Eve night we stopped for the night and my poor sweet hubby finally got to open his Birthday/Christmas presents. His birthday was on the 21st but he wanted to wait and just combine it with Christmas since we were so busy. My hubby has made this house look so pretty and has worked his butt off getting it ready and moving us in, so I will say that he is the bestest hub in the world!!!!
And last night we took another little break and I got to have a couple of my close girls over to have a little house warming party and some Christmas cheer. It was so much fun!!! They spent the night and we did some karoaking to some of our favorite songs. Now that was just what I needed. My brother came over and we cooked out steaks too and sat around and gabbed alot!!!

They loved the house even though we still haven't fully decorated it yet. And this morning the sweety hubby made us girls a wonderful breakfast and we sat around in our jammies and gabbed some more.
It sure was fun and a well deserved break for me. We still have alot of odds and ends at the old house to move up here and I was down there this afternoon packing more of my art room. My new art room is slowly coming together. I have been tossing alot of stuff while I pack and unpack so that has been a good thing. But whew,,,I never knew I had so much stuff,,lol.
Tomorrow I will post some more pictures of the house.
I just wanted to tell everyone who sent me cards and ATCs for Christmas, I LOVED them all!!! And you don't know how much they meant to me during this stressful time. I will be sending you all something as soon as possible. I have thought about you all, and was so sad to learn that some of you have been sick or had sickness in your family during this time while I was away from bloggerville. You all have been in my heart.
One lesson I learned from this experience? I WILL NEVER MOVE AGAIN!!!!!!!! LOL
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOOXOXOXOX

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Christmas Hoopla


I can't believe I am doing this as my plate is so amazing full right now! More than it usually is this time of year. I am dead-smack in the middle of moving right now. This is my last week of work and its really busy too. Next week I will be off and trying to finish moving and unpacking and doing Christmas at the same time. A Christmas to remember. Anyhoo,,,my dear friend Janet tagged me and I thought "well what the heck" so I am taking a few minutes out of my busy day to do the Hoopla.
Here are the golden rules:1. List 12 random things about yourself that have to do with Christmas.2. Please refer to it as a ‘hoopla’ and not the dreaded ‘m’-word… 3. You have to tag specific people when you’re done. No “if you’re reading this, consider yourself tagged” stuff is allowed…then nobody ends up actually doing it. The number of people who you tag is really up to you — but the more, the merrier to get this ‘hoopla’ circulating through the blogosphere. 4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible. The Christmas season will be over before we know it! Let’s involve as many people as possible!5. Please give Andrea some link-love as the “Hoopla-Creator!
1. I HATE fruitcake!!! My Mom use to make enormous batches of fruitcake cookies for several people, I hated them, hated the smell, the look, the texture,,,I just hated them. I get the willies even thinking about them.
2. I always wish for snow on Christmas.
3. I usually make all my Christmas cards, but not a one this year thanks to the move.
4. Once when I was about 4 years old, my father and brother got on the roof of our house and rang some jingle bells. My other brother was laying down with me trying to get me to go to sleep and he said "OH NO, Santas here and you aren't even asleep yet, he won't leave you any presents." That was the fastest I ever went to sleep."
5. When my children were little I did the same thing to them. But I was even meaner. Every time they started fighting or acting up, I would slip out of sight and ring a jingle bell and tell them that the Elfs were watching them. They would straighten right up. I could only pull that during Christmas though,,darn it.
6. I figured out the Santa thing around 10. We lived in Alabama and the rest of our relatives lived in Tennessee. My parents wanted to go up to Tennessee on Christmas Eve so we had our Christmas early, the day before Christmas Eve. Well, when I was in my bedroom, the doorbell rang and my parents said "Beth! Santa just came by early to bring your presents because he knew you weren't going to be here on Christmas." Uh huh,,right!!! I played along but after that they knew I knew!
7. One Christmas my kids and I all had the flu.
8. I always decorate every room in the house.
9. I put up Christmas lights
10. I think Christmas is way to commercialized.
11. And I will always believe that Jesus is the real reason for the season!
12. I use to really enjoy Christmas so very much! Not just as a child but as an adult too. But unfortnately a few very tragic episodes in my life happenned during the Christmas season. First, I was blessed when my first darling little baby was born on Dec. 2, 1983. She was premature but what a sweetie. We named her Candace Elizabeth and called her our little "Christmas Candy". I think that was the very best Christmas of my life and will always be the best. She was a wonderful baby and she only weighed 4 1/2 lbs but quickly gained weight.
Now the tragic part was that we woke up one very cold January morning to find that she had passed away in the night from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. That will always be the most horrible and extremely terrifying time of my life. We were blessed with another child, my son Kyle a couple of years later and I started enjoying Christmas again, but still had a hole in my heart for my "Candy". While I was pregnant with my daughter Kalyn, I had to watch my father take his last breathe on Christmas day. He had Leukemia and it was a horrible death to watch.
So, Christmas was just really never the same after those 2 horrific events.

Sorry to end it on a sad note. I do try to always remember others during this time of year and try to enjoy it for the reason I state in Number 11.
I hope to be able to post again before Christmas Day. My cable will be hooked up at the new house by friday and hope to have my computer up and running by the week-end.
Now I get to tag some others. I am going to tag- Rosemary, Vicci, and Annie.
Everyone please know that I am thinking of you and hoping all is well.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Christmas shadowbox!

I finally took a break tonight from working on the new house. And decided to share pictures of the shadowbox that I made for my dear friend Jane whom I visited in New York this summer.
I made this shadowbox out of one of those cheap plastic box frames that you can buy at Michaels. I just Love this picture of Santa with the animals. The saying at the bottom says "believe in peace". It just fits the picture. Here are more pictures of it.

The front of the box is covered with a transparency. It looks so much prettier in person and I have bought 2 more boxes in hopes that Mom and I can make us both one before Christmas.
It sure has been a hectic week for me. We have been doing our Gateway testing this week at work. It is an important series of tests that High School students must pass in order to Graduate. The State is very strict with the tests and the testing has to be done in a certain order and then packaged back up in a certain way. Tomorrow is the last testing day, Yay!!!
I came home early from working on the house on Sunday and I put up our Christmas tree. Daniel bought a live tree at Home Depot and for $20 it turned out to be so lovely.

Now for a picture of me painting on my cabinets at the new house. Its rather late on saturday night and I am pretty wore out.
And now but not least is a picture of the spoiled rotten "Santa Rat". I hope every one is doing well and you all are in my thoughts. Bear with me as I make this transition into my new house and I will be back to blogging alot more often.
Xoxoxooxoxoxoxo

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Christmas ATCs!

Even during this hectic and crazy time in my life right now I just had to make some Christmast ATCs. I only signed up for 1 swap in my favorite group. I have worked on them the past 2 weeks in the few spare minutes that I had. Creating Art just has to come out in me no matter what. So here they are, the only ATCs that I will probably create for Christmas.








Below is the inside of the ATC above.


Below is the inside of the ATC above.


Below is the inside of the ATC above.



These were so much fun to make and put me in the Christmas spirit. I also made a Christmas shadowbox for a dear friend of mine. We decided to swap Christmas shadowboxes this year. I will post pictures of it tomorrow. I hope everyone is doing well and starting to get in the mood for the wonderful Holidays that are rapidly approaching!
xoxoxoxooxoxoxox

Sunday, November 25, 2007

A Painted Thanksgiving!!!

Thank goodness this was a blurry picture but I think you can still see how excited I am about scraping the border off my new kitchen wall the wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Actually I really was excited about getting busy on the new house! Thats exactly what we did the entire Thanksgiving holiday. We have most of the kitchen painted and the den, hallway and my art studio.
I Love the color and was thrilled when it turned out to be the color I was hoping it would look like on the wall. We worked till about 8 p.m. on wednesday and came back early the next morning to start again. Daniel got up around 4 a.m. on Turkey day and made the dressing, and prepared the turkey. We loaded up both cars and took the Turkey up to the new house to cook it there while we worked.
And work we did. Daniel is covering the floor getting ready to paint the ceiling.
We worked up till 2 p.m. and loaded the Turkey and Dressing and went next door to my parent's new house to have our wonderful lunch.
Here is the Hubster carving the bird. Is he impressive or what? Not only can he remodel houses and he cooks a mean bird too! Mom's kitchen looks so pretty and the rest of the house too.



Yep, even Mom's furbaby was waiting patiently for some of the good stuff!!!
After a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner it was back to work time. I just love the pictures below of my Hub,,the window in the eating area in the new kitchen gets the late afternoon sun and it looks so cool.


Of course Daniel had to get a few of me too.


Over look my hair,,its called "the painter style", lol.
On friday, Mom and I ventured out to Lowes and I bought some new rugs for the kitchen and den. I also bought a air bed to put up at the new house and Daniel and I spent our first night in the new house friday night. Then we also spent saturday night there too. The bed was comfy and we were too wore out to drive home. We made a hugh dent in painting this week-end and also had a great time. Also,,we celebrated our 7 year wedding Anniversary on Thanksgiving Day too. What a way to celebrate, remodeling our new home.
I hope every one had a wonderful Holiday!!! I am tired tonight and back to work tomorrow, and more work next week-end,,but it sure is fun!!!


Sunday, November 18, 2007

Fall at the new house!!!

Isn't it pretty? I am so lucky to have such a pretty yard and pretty fall trees. We spent all day saturday working on the kitchen and bedrooms. And we will spend most of the Thanksgiving Holiday painting the kitchen and den. We will be eating at Mom's house. Daniel will be cooking the Turkey and Dressing and Mom is cooking the extras. Lots of Turkey for me,,and a couple of bites of stuffing and some salad. I dropped 2 more lbs this week-end, scrubbing walls and stripping wallpaper is great excercise.
Our school system is on Fall break this week, but not me,,bummer. Just me and another guy here at the school today. Really quiet too. I will take Wednesday off and then I am off Thanksgiving and on friday. I earn vacation days now in the new position so its nice to take off when I want too instead of when the system made me take off. If I was still in my old position I would have had 3 days (mon-wed) off with NO PAY,,I only would have been paid for thurs and friday. Now that hurts right before Christmas,,have I said how HAPPY I am that I have this job now? My paychecks went up almost $200 a check too,,it makes working on the new house alot easier.
Well I guess I better go do some filing. Thats about all I have to do this week. Our Student management system is down for the week so I can't enter schedules and that was what I was planning on doing,,bummer.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Monday!!!

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Harry Scarry times!!!!

For some reason I can relate to this picture right now. It definetly represents me at the present time. So many things to do and not alot of spare time to get alot acomplished. I have been working and packing and on the week-ends getting Mom settled in her house. We have been taking small loads of boxes and furniture up to the new house too. This week-end we are going to prep the walls to paint while we are off for Thanksgiving. I am getting really excited about this part too.
We will probably bring alot more furniture up to the house by Christmas. The idea is to empty out our present house and get it ready to sell by March. I am planning on moving in the new house after the first of the New Year. The hub will stay at the old house and work on it and of course I will help him on the week-ends but I have alot to do at the new house. We are not that far apart in distance so we will see each other all the time but presently this is the best plan for us.
I just wanted to say HI to all my Blogger Buds and tell you all that I am still trying to visit your blogs when I get a spare moment.
Oh, the picture above is one I found at this web-site http://pennypostcards.com. It has some great and free victorian images.
Hugs to all!!!!

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

A little bit lighter!!!

I have been doing low carb dieting for the past 2 months and today when I weighed this morning I have lost 15 lbs. WOO HOO!!! Now I have to start excercising, yuck! Of course I after a week-end of moving heavy furniture was a form of excercising as I was so sore afterwards. I am determined to have 50 lbs off of me by next spring. I have been doing great and have made it through alot of tempting times. Yesterday at work we had a meeting during lunch. They brought in alot of Papa John's pizzas that smelled heavenly. But I didn't eat one single piece. Now I just have to make it through Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanksgiving will be easy except for not being able to eat dressing, but can eat alot of Turkey. Maybe sneak a couple bites of dressing. Christmas will be a little tougher what with all the candies and goodies that are sure to be around, but I have determination and will power. Just had to post my first bench mark. Hope all is well with my wonderful blogger buds!!!

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Flowers, farms, fawn and storms!



Yesterday was a beautiful Fall day. Temps got up into the 70s. I had to go into town to the store so I took my camera and went in on the back roads. This is a nice horse farm on the way.
When I got home I went outside to take some pictures of my flowers that were still looking pretty.









Also some pictures of the Fall sky. The trees are not as pretty this year because of our severe drought.



And of course some Fall Leaves too! I looked across the street and my neighbors had some visitors in their front yard.
Then the storm clouds came rolling in. We had some pretty strong storms and alot cooler weather has arrived today. Freeze warning tonight so no more flowers with this major cool down. I hope every one has a great day. Back to work for me today.