A Good Day All Around

I have two bits of good news to share! First, Mike will keep his job until August. That sounds a whole lot better than no job after today. He has a couple of leads to continue after August, and will continue pursuing any options.

Second, Brennan has made potty training progress. Yes, I know many of you would rather not hear about my toddler's bodily functions. I'm primarily documenting this information for myself. He has shown that he was ready for training, but personally chose not to participate. Finally, he chose to start working on it yesterday and seems to really want to be an official big boy. He just needed it to be completely his choice, in his time, and wants to be totally independent when it happens. I'll take that! We have a long way to go, but I'm sure if he stays set on it the time will pass quickly.

A Great Mother's Day Weekend!

We've had a nice, sort of quiet, Mother's Day weekend. Our week last week ended with an unpleasant surprise, so a quieter weekend was welcomed. The big surprise was that Mike will very likely not have a job after this Tuesday. Yeah, not the news you ever want to hear, but definitely not when that is your only income. His company is restructuring, again, and the word on the street is they are outsourcing three levels of jobs. He'll know more in the next few days, and we are hopeful that everything will go better than it looks right now. We aren't making any big decisions right now, so I don't really know yet what that will mean for me at home. Prayers are appreciated!

As for our weekend, Mike was out of town all last week so we started it off with homemade pizza and play time Friday. Brennan was so excited to have his favorite playmate home! On Saturday, we went to a super cute Lightening McQueen birthday party for Brennan's buddy Connor. Saturday night Mike took Brennan out for awhile and I had the time to put together the gallery wall I wrote about. Today has been filled with lots of love from my boys.

Their theatrical performance to the Leapfrog magnetic barn music. Ha! Ha!

 Brennan is at a very loving and sweet stage (when he's not being a two year old :). This morning I had made him oatmeal. He said with no prompting,"Good job cooking in the microwave Mommy." I've also gotten lots of I Love Yous and Happy Mother's Days from him. I had gotten my present several weeks ago, which I absolutely love, two large canvases of the little guy.

I had taken the pictures when we were at Fort Morgan last fall, and love getting to see them and remember that trip every day.

Tonight we had a nice dinner with my family at Mom and Dad's house. I've tried two new recipes this weekend. For brunch today I made an Overnight French Toast casserole from my Pinterest board Rise and Shine.

You put it together the night before, which took about ten minutes, and then it cooks for about 30 minutes when you're ready. We all thought it was very yummy! For dessert tonight I tried a strawberry cream pie from my Sweet Treats board.

 It was a little like a strawberry pretzel salad, minus the Jello. It was pretty tasty also. It was good to spend time with family. This was the best shot I got with two wound up toddlers.

Overall, we've had a great relaxing weekend. I think we're ready to take on this week head on, and hope it's good to us.

Happy Mother's Day!

To Honor Mom

My mom has taught me so many things through our years together. One is a love of my home and decorating. She has a lot more style and finesse than I ever will, but I aspire to be like her in many ways. She has always been one to do her own thing and not really follow the crowd. It usually ends up that she is a little ahead of the trend. One trend she beat by at least 30 years is the gallery wall. She has been grouping pictures for years, so when I started to see so many "gallery walls" on Pinterest I had to chuckle. Hers come together so effortlessly it seems. She just sort of throws a bunch of stuff together and it looks great. I still haven't become that confident, but  I did tackle expanding our gallery wall in the living room. I've had a gallery wall of sorts since I had my first house in Minnesota six years ago. Most of the pictures have changed since then but I hadn't added much. This past week I painted our living room (more to come on that), and decided I was ready to mix our wall up a little.

                                          Before

First, I put down a large roll of package paper in the extra bedroom floor. Then, I gathered all the items I wanted to use on the wall and started to lay them out on the paper. I had decided to continue using all black frames but add a few other items besides black and white pictures. I knew I wanted the outline to be a large box, and I knew I didn't want  the middle to be all straight lines. At first I had a center design and spread the rest around it. I decided I didn't really like how "perfect" that was making it look like it needed to be, so I changed it up a little more. Once I liked what I saw, I drew around each picture frame with a Sharpie. Then I measured for the center and marked that on the paper. Finally, I took a picture of the finished layout so that I could refer back to it when I was actually hanging the prints.

Once I had cleared all the frames away, I measured the wall where the gallery would hang to find the center. I lined up the center of my paper with the center of the wall and hung the paper with painters tape. Next came the tedious part that my mother has taught me well. Measuring, measuring again, measuring another way, and kind of eyeballing it to finish up. Actually, Mom can do a lot more eyeballing than I can. I measured from the top of each frame to the hanger, and then transferred that measurement to the drawings. With the paper hanging on the wall, and the measurements I had made, I nailed every nail into place. Then I tore down the paper and started hanging. I'll admit, they weren't all perfect. I had to rehang two, but out of eighteen I don't think that's too bad. The whole process took a couple of hours, toddler free hours thanks to a Mother's Day treat from the hubs.

The finished product! Sorry, it's not the best picture.

I like the look of all black frames, and thanks to six years of collecting and IKEA our gallery wall has grown. Most of the frames came from IKEA, Walmart, or Target, and I paid very little for any of them. That said, next I think I'll try a smaller grouping of a mix of frames. I'm liking that look too.

A few things I've learned:

• Draw around the frames carefully and accurately. You can probably tell from the photo that I didn't do this for every frame but it would have been better.
• Measure the distance from the top of the frame to the hanger for every frame. Even two identical frames may not have the same spacing. 
• Use two nails or a picture hanger so the pictures will stay straighter once your done. 

A Soft Spot

We have a new soft spot in our bedroom, and I got it for a deal. Oh how I love a deal! Did you know that Lowe's clearance price is not necessarily their final price? That's right. If you see one of those little yellow stickers, you can often talk them down from that price. I was looking for a rug to replace the one I had Craigslisted because it didn't really match. Brennan and I were walking through Lowe's one afternoon, passing time and giving him a chance to practice his driving skills, when I spotted this deal. It was rolled up by the other area rugs but had a hold ticket on it. The ticket had a clearance price, and an even better price that someone had haggled. It also said that the rug would be picked up by, let's say, Mary at 5 p.m. It was a few minutes after 5. I asked a worker if it was really still on hold and they said yes. The deal Mary had haggled was the same amount I had sold the other rug for, and it was the exact rug Mike and I had just talked about looking for. I really felt like this was suppose to be my rug. For a second I considered being Mary and walking out with the rug, but soon decided better of it. A couple of days later I decided to stop back by just to check. The rug was still standing there, just waiting for me. After talking to a couple of Lowe's associates, it was mine. Sorry Mary, I hope you didn't come back looking for the rug. But thanks for working the great deal! The plush cream shag is a great contrast to the brown mingled concrete floors. My feet welcome that luxury when they hit the floor each morning.

Another One Bites the Dust

The dust is cleared from our master bathroom. It's still small, it's still not perfect, but it is a little more stylish I think. I wish I could find the before, before pictures. When we moved into the house this bath had a short brown toilet, a dingy pedestal sink, a Hollywood style light fixture, a brown blind, and some type of medicine cabinet (I actually don't remember it). To be able to close on the house, we had to have a few repairs done in this bathroom. At that time we added a new toilet, sink and vanity, and painted. That was about a week before we discovered the problems in the master bedroom, and evacuated this whole area for two years. Here is how it rested for those two years:

This go around we put in new flooring, new lights, a mirror, a white blind, and a linen cabinet to replace a laminate one that was in a little nook. I also made a white curtain to hang in front of the shower doors since they are not my favorite. I had plans to take out this shower and the little wall beside it. It would have been replaced with a tile shower and frameless glass enclosure. I think that would really open up the room. Unfortunately, those glass enclosures are a little too pricey for the budget right now. We opted to keep the shower as is, and come back to this room once again later on. It's a little frustrating, but then I just remind myself that I have my dream job right now. It pays even less than my previous dream job, but is a once in a lifetime opportunity so these sacrifices are worth it. Who knows, by the next time we work on this bath we may have an even better plan. I'm pretty pleased with our spruce up. The chandelier is by far my favorite part. I think it turned this bathroom into a sweet little Cinderella.

Sources:
Paint: Martha Stewart Rainwater mixed in Valspar Kitchen and Bath paint
Vanity: Home Depot
Storage Tower: Target
Mirror, Mirror Light, Faucet, Toilet: Lowes
Towels: T. J. Maxx
Chandelier: Sweet Annie's Antiques
Framed Print: vintage from my great aunt

A Well Feathered Nest

While I've been working to improve our nest, another little lady has been busy decorating hers as well! She also likes vintage finds, and fun patterns apparently.

A robin has built a nest right outside our dining room window, and right by the back steps. She has become pretty content with our coming and going, and I like to check in on her as we go through the day. Today I noticed her little piece of polka dot fabric. Quite the classy nest I'd say!

Hanging Around

Finally, a little update of the bedroom! We have moved in, and are still getting everything into place. One of the first accessories I added were window treatments.

I knew these were going to add a little excitement and drama that I was looking for. I needed ten panels to cover five windows, so something economical was a must. I also needed them to be long since the ceilings are 9 feet, and I'm a big fan of hanging any window treatment high to expand the space. After an unsuccessful trip to Sir's Fabric, I decided to give paint drop clothes a try. I had seen the idea around Pinterest and liked the look. They have the look of linen, but at a fraction of the cost.

I bought 6' x 9' panels for about $10 each. These were some of the easiest panels I've ever done. The drop clothes are already hemmed, so I just made a rod pocket and was done. You could skip the sewing all together and just use rings with clips. I'm very happy with how they turned out.

I did learn a few things about drop clothes in this process. First, the clothes sold at Home Depot do not have seams through them. The first one I bought at Lowes had a seam running horizontally through it. (Sorry Lowes--I like you for most things.) Second, they are not exactly 6' x 9'. They turned out to be a little smaller in reality. If you have 8 ft. ceilings this shouldn't be a problem at all. I had two that were a little short, but because I was using a wire across the bay window that didn't need a very big rod pocket it worked out ok. Third, as I had already read they do wrinkle a lot. I washed and dried them before sewing in case they shrank. I actually kind of like the wrinkles and don't plan to get them all out. Last, they are just meant to be drop clothes so they were not perfect. One edge was a little ragged, and some of the hemmed edges were a little rough. Overall, I'm fine with all of this and plan to use them for other projects I think.

There's more to come on the bedroom, once I get all the tools put away and maybe a new light or two up.