Adoption update

We have been in the process of adoption for over a year now. Probably closer to 15 months. We are attempting to adopt through our state's foster care system. We have targeted a girl of any ethnicity from age 8-12, for 15 months. No question, no hesitation. Then our hearts broke. We weren't intending to have our hearts broken, in fact we were pretty adamant that we would be the one couple to get through this without too much emotion. 

John and I decided to go to an adoption play event. Perspective parents paired with children available for adoption for 2 hours. The only rule was if you walk through the door and see the kids you stay for 2 hours no matter what. I loved that rule. I was really concerned about kids feeling rejected. We walked through the door and my heart went immediately towards two little black boys around age 5, but then I remembered our mission- we we're here to find our girl. Turns out she wasn't there. So we decided to play with the two boys. They were cute and wanted to be pushed on the swings for hours!  No problem that was our specialty.  Both our children liked to be pushed on the swing so much my husband rigged a pulley system. That's how we put them to bed most nights. Hank especially liked swinging and kept begging for my husband to push him higher.  He was doing really well but then adjusted in the seat a little too much and was suddenly hanging upside down!  My husband quickly grabbed him and then held him while he cried for a few minutes, so guess what?  It's a boy! No one is more surprised then us. 

This was two weeks ago. We called dibs and unbelievably have not had a phone call returned saying whether we would even qualify to parent him. Really!  Two weeks of waiting. We have already been told to not expect him with us for Christmas. How about next Christmas?  I know case managers are overworked but come on people!  

So the waiting continues. I can't post a picture because we weren't allowed to take any, but just know he is the cutest little boy ever!  

I also opened a craft booth at an antique mall. Lots of tutorials and pics next week. 

Lisa

Thrift store tuesday

Every Tuesday I like to head to my local salvation army thrift store.  Around these parts, it's the best.  Our goodwill stinks.  It's basically a dumping ground for target castoffs.  Which sounds good, but they charge more then target does for it's final clearance.  Plus all of their other stuff is very over priced. Everyonce in a while I return, hoping it's improved, but nope.  So off to salvation army I go.  Todays haul was:

5 wool sweaters (cashmere and angora) that I had already felted for this picture.  I love to go on tuesdays because it's half price clothes days and I get alot of my wool from there.  Each sweater on tuesday is 2.50.  The owl bookends.  I had decided to not buy anymore owl stuff, since it's everywhere now.  But owl bookends are pretty awesome.  These will be painted aqua blue and put in my etsy shop soon.  Plus my beloved milk glass, sigh.  I won't buy it anywhere but thrift stores.  People are catching on around here and that piece would have been 20 to 25 dollars in an antique store, but it was 2.99 in the thrift store.  Still more then I would pay in mn, but I guess tx has gotten all fancy, ha.

So New topic.  Do you like grocery shopping?  I'm back and forth on it.  But regardless it's my job.  So a few months ago I decided that I would buy myself a little something everytime I go.  It's usually flowers. I go every two weeks and if I recut the stems after about 5 days and change the water most of my flowers last about 10 days.  Here's this weeks gems.

Closed they were scrumptious, opened they are amazeballs.  I tend to switch between tulips and hydrangeas, sometimes I get plain ole carnations.  Regardless it makes me happy.

This week I went a little farther and got this beautiful pumpkin from whole foods.

I tend to mix 3.98 pumpkins with my stash of fake, but I could not pass this baby up.  It was 9.98, but it's just so lovely and looks beautiful in my messy kitchen.

So onto other news I painted my whole family room polar ice.  Lived with it a week and decided I didn't like it.  So now I am repainted it gray owl from ben moore.  Oh my I hope once its all done I will love it.  I have company coming for thanksgiving and I would really like to like it.  

Adoption news:  It's been over a year so now we have to start redoing the dumb classes we had to take the first time.  I'm not happy about this , but it's part of the process so tonight we got to adoption 101.  Next weekend we are going to an adoption event for kids that are adoptable and families that are licensed, it's in nadogdoches tx and that's about 4 hrs from where we live.  I am not sure how I feel about this event.  On the one hand it's the closest we have gotten to an actual child.  But on the other I'm not sure if they are aware of what is going on and I have no interest in adding to any feelings of rejection that any child might be feeling.  I will try it once and see.  I'll let you know my thoughts when we get back.  Who knows maybe we'll find "the one".  It so feels like a bad speed dating experience.  Any thoughts on this?

lisa

new pics of bat dress

So I redid the dress a bit and took new pictures.  It will be listed in my etsy shop today. 

In the end I decided I didn't like the bottom.  So I took off the extra trim and bought some old navy size 4 black and white striped leggings and I think the whole outfit works now. 

lisa

I'm a mayflower descendent

Did I ever mention that?  Yep from Francis Eaton.  I was born in Massachusetts, so I'm guessing descendents are probably a dime a dozen there.  But in Texas, not so much.  And since there isn't a whole lot to boast about from side of the family I am embracing this with all my being.  If you were my tx friend I would casually mention it at lunch and right before thanksgiving and oh maybe at church.  I don't want to be obnoxious about it, but did I ever tell you......?  Yep I just found out from one of my aunts who is really into geneaology and apparently it is true.

So because of this new found knowledge I have decided to decorate around that theme this year.  I also just painted my family room.  I have one wall left to do and then I will show the whole room.  The new color is polar ice from lowes.  It's a dupe of a sherwin williams color that I can't remember, sorry.  I have found that painting a grey color is tough.  I think I painted 10 different swatches before I chose this color.  A decorator friend of mine also told me that when doing grey it's best to get as close to flat as possible.  I usually paint satin, so I went to eggshell.  I'm not sure why, I think it has to do with the color staying true.

I have alot of indians and pilgrims, but most of them are really orange and since my house is switching to blue, green, aqua, grey and a pale yellow I tried to pick the least colorful ones for the mantle.  I am considering spraypainting the rest of them or seeing if I can make them work on my kitchen china cabinet.

This is my ode to the mayflower.  It's not perfect but it gets the point across.

More blues and earthtones. 

I have alot of fake pumpkins that I mix with real pumpkins outside and will be painting some of them this year also.  Now that my kids are back in school I have lots of projects planned and will be posting more frequently.

So as a recap

1.  The new color is polar ice from lowes
2.  When painting grey it is best to go a little closer to flat then satin.  I won't go completely flat because I like to be able to clean my walls, but eggshell seems to be doing fine.

lisa

new halloween items

Hey everyone.  I am starting to really get into halloween and fall decorating.  So prepare for lots of posts!  This is my first dress for this year.  It's an upcycled halloween tshirt.  Sizes 4/5 girl.

I think I may need to take clearer pics before I list on etsy, but here's a little peek.

and the back

Yep definately need a better set of pictures.
Coming up are some halloween kitty skirt sets and a black owl.  Lots of other stuff too.

lisa

my pretty!

I spent a large part of my summer in Minnesota.  My niece got married and she asked me to be the "divine designer", her words not mine.  But I'll take that title. We spent about 2 weeks cutting burlap and lace and just having a ball making stuff.  My daughter was a bridesmaid and she made some beautiful items for her cousin's wedding.  I was so proud.  I will be showing pictures probably in the next week.  But if you are familiar with this blog you know that antiquing was also on the list of activities.

I have been looking for a vintage chandy for my kitchen for about a year.  I couldn't find anything for less then 250.00.  where I live.  Not a horrible price but I knew I could do better if I waited till this summer.  Well here she is in all her glory

I love her!  I found her in one of my usual shops.  She was 150.00, I know I could have gotten it alot closer to 100, but the shop owner was on the phone crying.  While I was looking around she got a phone call with very bad news about her Dad.  I didn't have the heart to haggle or even purchase.  I went back another day, I've had that call and I didn't want to interrupt.  Not all the crystals came with the chandy, so I will pick up some more on ebay.  But I think she's pretty lovely.

A picture from underneath.  Sigh!

 

What I overpaid for the chandy I more then made up for in milkglass.  I will show those in more detail this week.  It's not the best picture, but I'll take better ones and show them all.  I have been loving my summer display so much it's going to hurt to change it out for fall.  

My next lighting purchase will be 2 vintage industrial lights for over my kitchen island.  I showed some pictures of the redo, but I havent' shown the kitchen in all it's glory because it's not completely done yet.  It will be soon though.  My husband is done with paramedic school and he now only has 2 jobs, so he has more time to help me finish up.  Btw 2 jobs for my hubby is being on vacay, the man likes to work.  

Adoption news:

For those of you interested we are a week away from being placed with children.  A week!  It doesn't mean we will get new kid or kids in a week it just means we've passed our home study and they will start presenting us with kids that meet our criteria.  I would appreciate much prayers.  

lisa

Hiding an ugly problem

Our house has gone through a bit of a reconfiguring.  With 5 bedrooms and only 2 children you would think that we would have plenty of room, and we do.  But we need one room for my husband's office and I like to have a nice guestroom.  We are the only ones that live in Tx on my side of the family so a guest room is nice to have.  I also require a craftroom, not a space.  I sound a little spoiled and I guess I am but really for me it's more of a necessity then a guest room or a diningroom.  At least it's used a heck of a lot more.  My husband realizes this need and has given me the dining room.  It's the perfect solution except that it is open to everyone as soon as you walk through our front door. Not ever a pretty sight.  At first I thought we would put in french doors and I would frost the glass.  But we decided we would probably move sometime this year.  So then I hung sheers across the archway.  A very ugly sight.  I lived with it and then finally came up with a great solution.

Believe it or not it was extremely easy and cheap.  All 5 doors came from the renew store.  Which is the habitat for humanity thrift store.  All things home are donated from homeowners redoing their homes.  All the doors were 5 bucks except for the center door which was 10.  There were all the colors that they are except the far right.  It was off white and I simply spray painted it the grey blue shade.

I changed two of the doorknobs.  The far right and the far left.  Both were bought 50 percent off at hobby lobby.  The decor was stuff that I actually had in my house.  I shopped my house and all of a sudden I had a home theme that hadn't looked right anywhere else.  The home printable is from the blog eighteen25 and it is in many different colors.  Here it is from the side.

You can see a little of the mess it is hiding.

Okay so here's my tips.
 1.  I actually did this all by myself.  It was super easy, but if you can snag someone to help you hold the doors together it would be even easier.

2.  I went to lowes and just bought cheap door hinges.  They were about 2 bucks each and I used 2 per door.  I did not try to reuse the hinges that were already there.  That seemed like it would require too much thought and prep.  I just left the original hinges and put mine above them or under them.  It was very quick work with a little battery powered screw driver.  I just added one at a time and voila!  About 20 minutes later I had this super cute screen to make my house look less trashy.  It truly made a huge difference.

Here it is from my entry way.  I turned my old formal living room into the dining room and the old dining room is now the craft room.  I think the screen does a great job.

Like the carpet stains?  That's my favorite part :) 

lisa