Wednesday, June 22, 2011

what makes you mad?

i am wondering what makes people mad. i think sometimes i blow things out of proportion... ok i know i do. and often. i don't try to. it generally happens when i am either stressed or super hungry. apparently i am more irritable at those times. well today my poor husband caught me at both.

i am working on the guest bathroom today and a couple other little things around the house. i have been working since this morning on getting all my curtains wrinkle-free. i have also been painting and some other things i will blog about soon on here.

well last night i had to chop up all our chicken. we get a huge thing full of chicken breasts at the grocery store and before i freeze them, i cut all the fat off and if i know it'll go in something like a salad, i chop it in little pieces. if i know i'll need a whole breast i trim the fat and call it done. then i put each meal's chicken in it's own freezer bag. well last night we had chicken breasts and i spent extra time chopping up chicken for a chicken salad we were to have tonight. i decided i would just cook it real fast while the other chicken cooked, then i could save it in the fridge and make it today. easy...

about 30 minutes ago i went to make my chicken salad. now, let me explain. i HATE spending lots of time in the kitchen. i hate chopping things. i hate cooking them. i hate doing dishes after i do that. i hate it all. i don't know why. i blame my teeny tiny kitchen. also, i plan every meal in advance before we go shopping. i make sure i have just enough for each meal so we won't spend extra money and waste food. well, as i am sure you have guessed, my chicken was gone when i went to make the salad.

"where was it?", you ask. in my husband's lunch at school. so many things wrong with this. 1) he took plain chopped chicken in a container for lunch. 2) i now have no dinner for tonight. 3) i labored chopping that chicken and cooking it. okay, maybe i didn't work THAT hard, but i sure hated doing it. and i have nothing to show for it and no dinner. sheesh. 4) a whole dinner is gone out the window, so my budget is totally off now. dang it. 5) i can't think of a fifth reason, but there probably is one.

now, i don't blame my husband at all. it's not his fault. i should have told him what it was for. it's just situations like these that make me feel upset and mad. why? i don't know. it's just some chicken. who cares, right? well for some unknown reason i care. that is why i am wondering, what makes you guys mad? what's something you feel like is irrational but you don't care, it makes you upset just the same? please tell me and make me feel better about being angry over chicken here people. : )

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

the ol' to-do list.

awhile ago i posted a list of things to do around here. they were things i was hoping to get done pretty quickly.... yah... some of these things just didn't work out that way. but i figured i should do a little update. 1) so everyone is kept in the loop and 2) because maybe it'll help get my little tooshie in gear. i have lots of plans, but not a whole lot of action. one reason is because of the ol' money situation, but the other is because i just don't feel like doing some of these things. i wish i could just wish them done... hmm.. i don't think that's gonna work.

here we go, here's the update

**note: the fonts and sizes switch around in this post. i have NO idea why... i tried to fix it but it wanted to be this way. so i just let it. don't judge, it was being difficult. it's late. i don't know why i'm writing a blog at 10 o'clock at night because things like this happen... hopefully it won't make anybody cancel their "following" to my blog. my little heart would surely break. if it's really upsetting maybe i can try to edit and fix it at a time when my little eyeballs have had rest and aren't frustrated looking at crazy sizes and fonts that aren't supposed to be there.. : )

1. this month i am finally going to put the knobs on my dresser. i mean it. this is happening people. it must. it has been way too long waiting for this to be finished. it just drilling some holes and screwing knobs in jessica. get with it.
hahahaha this cracks me up. not because i am funny but because this is STILL not done. the knobs are, you guessed it, STILL sitting on TOP of the dresser waiting to have their little selves installed. i have to drill holes first. i have no drill. i have to borrow it from my stepdad. in order to do that, i have to remember to get it while i'm there. there is my dilemma. apparently i have no memory while i am there. sheesh.
2. i want to change the guest bathroom around... put new color in there. maybe paint. i don't know. i like everything to be painted even though i have to paint it aaaaall back when we move. but i can't help it! oops... this is a to-do list. not a place where i defend my paint-crazy. anyway, i have chosen colors i think but i don't want to say just yet. maybe it'll be a surprise once it's done. i just found a crazy awesome color combo that i am so in love with, but i am afraid it's getting popular and then everyone will have it. i know that is silly, but i don't want my home to look like every other person's home in the world!
this is kind of done!! i painted the walls and took all the red out (go a few posts back if you don't believe me!) but i feel like it is unfair to call it done. it doesn't really deserve a line through it because i have quite a few things to do in there yet. mainly my favorite thing, accesorizing! once again, the money (or lack of) prevents this from being accomplished but guess what july is. go ahead guess! it's MY BIRTHDAY!! yep, my birthday and anniversary at the end of july so guess what i am doing. making phil take me to the atlanta IKEA for the day and buying all KINDS of lovely things!! yay! bathroom things are already on the list : )
also i have chosen a color scheme for the bathroom and it isn't just grey and white. it's gonna be gor. geous. for real.
3. i am going to put lamp shades on these guys:
if you click the link at the top to see the list in all its glory when it was first posted you will see this is speaking about my track lights on my ceiling in my living/family/dining room. i don't like them and i would like drum shades on them. or some totally awesome giant huge drum shade big enough to go around the whole thing. how awesome. i would most likely have to find a way to make it though considering something like that would come with a hefty bill. needless to say, this isn't done yet. : /
4. i want to put some sort of scripture or something on this wall
yah. not done. BUT it's because i've been thinking of painting the builder beige walls a light grey. change it from yellowy-pink to a cool lovely grey. in order to do the scripture on the wall, i would have to paint everything first. which means my entire living space basically. you can see why i am putting this off, right?
5. create artwork for both bathrooms... i have an idea for this! i am excited!
one bathroom is done! now just to figure out what to do in the other one... tricky. all these projects kind of overwhelm me so i am thinking about just buying something from marshalls or something like that. i don't know. maybe i'll get with it and make it. i need to be inspired first... waiting inspiration! come hit me please!
6. finish/fix the horrendous job i did on our sad office chair. this is thankfully in process now. i ordered something (!!!!) for it to be fixed, and i sure hope it works.. if it does i will be so happy!!! and it'll be really cool.
this is totally done! remember emily my cute furry sassy little chair? yep, aaaall finished! finally one i can cross off the list! geesh!
7. finish the kitchen cabinets. sadly i must admit that i have not finished these yet... i am being a bum about it. there are only two little sections left! come on me! hmm... i just don't feel like it. tomorrow morning i am recruiting phil and we are finishing it. end of story.!
oh you KNOW this has been finished. yep, you can look here and see for yourself! : )
8. finish the headboard... there might be a light at the end of this tunnel! this might also get some work done on it tomorrow. we'll seeeeeeee : )
ummm. there is a reason this isn't done. it's called that the "headboard" has to be cut down about 6 inches because there is a window next to the bed. it was too long so it was overlapping with the window. if i could cut it myself it would be done. however i cannot cut it myself. so it is now in my parents' basement (sad!) and has been there since this original list post. yep. waiting for my extremely crazy busy stepdad to have a spare minute to cut it. hasn't happened yet : ( it will soon though, i am determined! i paid for the thing, i have the paint and everything. just the cutting needs to happen. i will have to bribe him with some cookies or something... hm..
9. buy and hang new curtains for bedroom and sunroom.. this consists of buying new rods to fit the large windows... which usually costs a good chunk of change so it might not be happening for awhile.
this will be done by the end of this month i think. don't quote me. i found cheap sheers and rods, i just have to get the money together to make the purchase. exactly. i would make them but well, i don't really want to. some nice people told me how to make my own rods and i have seen a few tutorials but in the end i would rather just buy rods with all the pieces. i found some super cheap ones at IKEA (of course) so i think they will do just fine. come on, money!
10. buy new and way more awesome throw pillows... just because i want to. : )
i have my little eye on some ; ) just waiting for you-know-what. i am sensing a terrible theme here....
11. make a side table and perhaps some sort of coffee table. i have some inspiration for both of these projects.. now just if i had some money..... hmm.. where can i get some of that?
i think i changed my mind about this. i liked my ideas but maybe at a time when i have more money to spend on craft-y things. right now i just want to get a cheap, nice-sized table for the living room. i am just afraid the ideas may not work out and i would have wasted that money and now is not a time when i have ANY kind of money to waste.
12. get cheap glass tops (somehow... how do i do that?) for our dining room table and our side tables next to the bed.
i still want to get a glass round for our dining table. i found some at pier 1. who wants to send me the money to get it? : ) i changed my mind about the tops for my bed-side tables though. i have a cool idea. super excited about it! best part? it's gonna be waaayyy cheaper than glass. yessss : )
13. paint dining room table.
i want to do this but i might wait until i've painted more pieces of furniture before i trust myself with something we use EVERY day. plus, i would like to have the glass top to protect the paint job before i put the work into painting.
14. do something about our little tv stand.... it needs assistance.
i just got a cool idea for this as i was typing. it seems like a fun project so it might actually get done sooner  than later. yay!
15. take backing off of the book shelf (it's some kind of poster-y paper-y substance that is torn) and replace with something cool.. maybe beadboard... then paint it a fabulous color perhaps. who knows.
i am calling this done for now. mostly because i wanted to be able to cross another thing off my list so i didn't feel so bad... but it is done for NOW anyway. when it gets important enough to get put on a new list then it'll be a totally different separate-from-this-one project... yah, i'm not fooling me either. but i DID do something about this. not as much as i wanted to, but it looks a jillion times better. you can see here that it may not be the project i would have liked but it's totally working for me.

so here it is.. my sad list i made like, 2 months ago. still not done... *sigh*. but i guess it's a good thing since i love doing these projects. i mean, what would i do with myself if everything was done? that would be a weird day... thankfully i don't think i'll get to that day any time soon : )

Monday, June 20, 2011

bandwagon.

i really hate doing things that a billion other people are doing. it's kind of annoying that i am like this because i am not the most creative or original person alive. i just can't help it though! if i see something i like but i know about a zillion other people have already done it, i feel the need to avoid it like the plague. okay for example, garden stools are the cutest little things under the sun. i love them! i think they are completely adorable and i would like about 7 of them. however, every woman blogger and her mother has one. so i think to myself, eh it's been done. i don't want to get one since every other person in the world has one.... lame, i know. but true. i just don't want my home to look like ever other person on the planet's home. i also don't want to be like every other person on the planet. i want to do different things. too bad i'm not awesome enough to actually come up with all those things. oh well.

so all that being said, when i saw people joining pinterest all over the place i said, i am so not doing that. (this is also the reason i don't have a twitter account. also because i don't think people need to know what i am doing every moment, but that's just me.) but then the other evening i was looking for inspiration for my guest bath and some artwork. then i was looking around for some baby nursery inspiration (not pregnant, i just like to look forward to when we are someday!) and i realized i really WOULD like a place where i can save all my inspiration easily without saving it to my actual computer (space gets used up quickly!). so i told myself to stop being a sassy little brat and i requested an invite. i heard it takes awhile, but about 20 minutes later i was pinning things to my account.

i am not writing this here to you "follow" me on pinterest. i just found some things that inspire me and i thought y'all might like them too. the LAST thing i need is another competition of whose "something" is better that somebody else's "something" and who has more people following "it" and who can be the absolute most inspiring. to me this website is not about that. it's about a place where i put my inspiration and things i really want in real life so i can remember it all! i see great ideas, then forget all about them. well not anymore! HA! so that's my schpiel. i so do not want to make this website into "hey she has more people following hers" or "oh man, her inspirations are so much better than mine!" or "oh i should be inspired by the things that inspire her because she is a better designer than me". no way. fun and inspiration only! this should never be a stressful competition because that makes it not fun. and what is the purpose of design and decorating for me? it's fun!! zero stress allowed. : )

can i just mention though, after one night of pinning things i like i have realized a major trend..

check it out and see if you can tell what the trend is : )

Thursday, June 16, 2011

a bookcase makeover.

so i recently showed you guys my living room mini-makeover. basically consisting of taking everything i had that was the color red and quarantining it.



i realized in this picture actually there was something i still didn't "love". something was making me go "hmm... what's wrong here....?" i had decided to paint the back of the bookcase to just bring in a little more color. i got rid of the red, but i mean the room seemed a little flat without some sort of color (i don't think i'm the type who will ever have an all white room.. even though i love the look. i love color too much). so i moved the bookcase onto a sheet in the sunroom to paint the back. i guess i should have taken a picture, but when the thing was out of the corner that corner totally just brightened up. i realized i liked having a lighter color in that corner. then it was decided. the bookcase would get painted white and the back would still be painted the persimmon red color i chose. (i know the color has the word red in it, but i promise that is misleading. it is definitely NOT red.)

so here is my poor sad bookcase before his makeover:

yep that is a big fat rip in the backing. i meant to just rip the backing off and get posterboard (or some sort of thick paper-y type substance) and add the new backing but i got really lazy. i didn't feel like putting a new backing on, and once things are on the shelves you really never see it. so i said, eh whatever. mister crack will stay with us awhile longer. plus what i would like to do is replace the back with beadboard but i didn't have the money to buy any. maybe someday... eventually... there are much more important projects to get done before that, okay? : )



so it was time to pick another paint color. i know people spend all KINDS of time and energy choosing colors. i don't know, it's not that difficult for me. not because i am super-awesome-color-chooser-girl, but because i guess i just make a decision and stick with it. plus i don't look through EVERY single paint supplier's samples before i choose a color. honestly, martha has done me well so far so i think i will stick with her awhile longer. so i got out my trusty martha stewart paint chip book thing-y and this is how i chose the white paint color. now, i have seen people agonize over the right white. i'm serious. don't believe me? read around blogs for awhile and you'll see... i don't think it should be THAT difficult. to be fair to these people, i was just painting one little bookcase and many of them are painting whole rooms that they have to live in. so okay, it's a tiny bit understandable.. but here's how i did it. i took ONE paint supplier's paint sample booklet (i think you will go crazy otherwise) and held up the paint chips of the other colors in my room to each different white. martha stewart has at least 4 or 5 different whites (if not more) so i knew i would find one in there. i liked the way her "picket fence" looked with all my paint chips, so picket fence it was. tah dah!! done. i am not even looking back. check me out. : )

so i went to my nearest home depot and asked the nice people to color match my picket fence white into america's finest paint (much cheaper than martha... i wouldn't always recommend this for a piece of furniture but i figured for my old ripped bookcase that we practically got for free, it would be fine. i won't be heart broken if it doesn't last forever.) and i came home and painted the sucker. i never prime anything. i know i should. i probably create more work and frustration for myself by not doing it, but i'm lazy. and cheap. and i don't want to buy primer. no police have showed up to arrest me yet for not priming. of course i can never tell my stepdad because i think he really might have me arrested. he is serious about things like this. i guess i didn't learn enough from him yet. : ) so anyway, it took 3 coats of paint. it could stand a 4th but... whatever.

here it is after the white was applied

i decided a coat of white on the back would help the persimmon to look better. i guess it was kind of like a primer. look at me, priming stuff kinda : )


by the way, i realized i never mentioned i used semi-gloss for the white and persimmon. i wanted it kinda shiny. i think once again that may have made things a little more difficult (putting glossy paint on a slippery surface) but it was worth it. hey, i like shiny things!

there was one slight headache... i took the shelves out to paint and when i went to put them back in, i guess the 3 coats of paint made everything not fit as well because this happened

yah.... not really what you want. so i just painted over those parts with my brand new beautiful paint brush that i am somewhat in love with, and it was all fixed. it didn't make me any less aggravated when it happened though. darn too-fat-shelves...

then i very carefully painted the backing of the shelves (because it has a rip and also so i didn't get persimmon all over my white shelves) and after drying time (for about a day) i arranged my books in my new favorite organizational method; by color!


notice all red books were placed on the bottom shelf. it may be discrimination, but i don't want to see red anymore. too bad red. deal with it.

looks better in that corner, huh? yep. sure does. (i answer a lot of my own questions. it's a bad habit.)







you can see my painting is definitely not perfect, but these are close up shots. give me a break! nobody will ever notice it just walking by it. can you tell i am so NOT a perfectionist?

before (even thought it says after. i know, kinda tricky.)



after



i have said it before, and i will say it again; i LOVE paint! you should too. : )

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

oh me of little faith.

so i am not really sure exactly how this post is gonna go yet. i just know that God has been doing something so completely awesome that i feel the need to share. He has been building my faith in Him like crazy this past year. i guess i will start where it all started.

when phil and i first got married (almost 3 years ago) i had been going to a spirit filled church. at first i was kind of like, umm this is crazy. i came from an ultra conservative background so speaking in tongues, prophecy and certain spiritual gifts were completely unknown territory to me. in fact, i thought it was fake at first. God forgive me, but i really did. i had been taught that these things had passed away with time and there was "no need for them any more". well, i am not here to convince anybody right now so i won't get into all that, but God has shown me that theory is completely and utterly false. the only place where it says "tongues shall pass away" is where it talks about love never failing in 1 Corinthians. it also says knowledge shall pass away in the same verse and clearly we know more today than we ever have in history. so how can we say well, sure knowledge is still here but tongues is gone when they are in the same breath? that was so convicting to me. i realized most of what i was experiencing wasn't "being right" about something i had been taught long ago, i was experiencing fear because i didn't understand what these gifts were. phil didn't either. we were both somewhat lost and confused about it all, so i guess we thought it better to just dismiss it. but something had already happened to us.

before we were married i was at church one sunday when we were talking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. once again, i won't get into ALL that here but i had never even heard of that before. even though it is spoken of in numerous places throughout the Bible, i had no idea what it was. but i realized that being a Christian was so hard for me. i never heard from God. hardly ever. i didn't feel close to Him. i never felt His presence so strongly in my life that i could sense His heart and His direction. i wondered how other people had that relationship with God and He seemed so inaccessable to me. then when the pastor was preaching about the baptism of the Holy Spirit he said something like, "why wouldn't you want God to be close to you? you know what i mean, those times when you're in your prayer closet and you feel God's presence so strongly you feel like you could reach out and touch him, he's so close"... this broke my heart. i had never ever been able to feel God like this. i cried and cried and it honestly still brings tears to me eyes. i desperately wanted to experience God, not just know things about Him. i wanted what they had, which seemed like basically more access to God's presence. it seemed so much easier for them. so i went to the altar unsure if i wanted to be baptised in the Holy Spirit, but knowing i just wanted the most of God i could possibly get. i didn't care if that meant i was making a decision about something unknown and kind of scary to me, i needed to know God. that decision changed absolutely everything.

once phil and i were married, we moved away from georgia to st. louis. we were going to a great city church, but i knew something was wrong. there wasn't a passion and a longing for God there. the pastor is such an awesome Godly man and the church serves that city like crazy. i loved the church, but i knew that i had been to a church where God was sought after like crazy and where His Holy Spirit was free to move among His people. it made all the difference. when the Spirit is free to move, that is when you get to know God's heart and truly feel His precence. because He IS the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is Him. how can we have one without the other? well, i couldn't anymore. we lived in st. louis for 2 years and during that time God put a longing in my heart to go back to georgia and go back to the church where He had started His work of drawing me to Him. we didn't know where we would work or where we would really live, but we decided to go where God was calling us. it was so hard. phil wasn't feeling the pull like i was, so it felt like i was all alone in this step of faith. and if i was wrong then phil was trusting the wrong person. i thought if i was wrong about this, i could be ruining things for us big time. we both had jobs, a nice cheap apartment and were doing okay in st. louis. we had friends and a pretty good church, and we were stepping into something completely unknown. toward something we weren't totally sure about. but i prayed and prayed and fasted. in the end we both decided God wanted us at Covenant Life Church of God in georgia. so we packed up everything.

it was about a week before we were moving and phil had no job. we were putting all kinds of money into moving and we were getting a little nervous. we kept praying and suddenly phil had 3 interviews over the phone. one of the best school districts (if not the best) in georgia offered phil a job having never even met him in person. the principal of his school said she was taking a leap of faith and wanted to offer him a job in Cobb County school district. we were both just praising God for His faithfulness and the confirmation that we were doing the right thing. ever since then God has been leading us one tiny step at a time, not really showing us too far ahead. it is so difficult to follow Him feeling like you're just walking blindly. we just have to put all our hope and trust in Him because for this last year we haven't really had a clue what He has been doing.

after we moved, i went on an interview for a job that was almost a guarantee. they said they didn't have anything for me. i sent resumes and applications. i called places like crazy. part of the issue was we only had one car. we had bought a somewhat newer car before we left missouri. our other car needed repairs that were more expensive than the actual car, so we gave it away. we were left with only one car, so i had no transportation for the first 2-3 months we lived here. we prayed for a way for me to get a job. it never came. then God laid it on my heart to stay home. this was a huge exercise in faith. our bills have been more than our income every month. we ate through our entire savings. it seemed like i must have been wrong, that maybe it was just me not wanting a job. no way would God let this happen to us. why would He just want me at home? but there it was anyway, me feeling like taking a job was just the wrong thing to do. i prayed about it all the time. every sunday i was at the altar trying to figure out if i was hearing God right. it was confirmed to me a couple times in different ways through different people praying over me. even so, i still sent out my resume and searched for jobs like crazy. nothing came. then phil's uncle passed away. he left a very old car with a relatively new engine in it. we paid phil's grandparents $1 for it : ). seriously. we bought it for a buck. so we had given away an old broken car and God supplied a (still old) car with a much newer engine in much better shape. He never fails us. so i started looking for jobs again. still nothing happened.

during this time a woman from our church kept praying with me. she would pray with me every time i was at the altar. she was telling me some of what God was doing in me, but our financial situation was never explained to me. or when we would be out of trouble. every month we wondered if we would be able to pay all the bills. i struggled through feeling guilty for not working, wondering if i was listening to God or just myself. maybe i was just hearing what i wanted to hear, not necessarily what God was telling me. during this time the desire to have a child overwhelmed me. since we got married i've wanted a family and kids.. eventually. but last fall i was suddenly drawn to my knees in tears, begging God that He would give us a way to start our family. i didn't even know if that was the right thing for us right now. long ago i had dedicated my life to the Lord and His ministry. i didn't know exactly what that meant, other than i will go where He says go and do what He says do. i thought i would probably be a missionary, but i had no desire to move away. i received a prophecy that i would be doing my passion someday, working with girls. in some way. i don't know how or when, but that is what the Lord has made me passionate about. i wondered if i had a right to want a family now, or if it was time for me to start my ministry (whatever it is). i just didn't want to do anything outside of God's plan for me. i prayed that His plan might be for me to be a mom soon. i fasted and prayed like crazy. all this year. our finances have looked pretty bad all year. it seemed like the answer was no and i was so heart broken.

people kept praying for me and over me at the altar. my mom was explaining to me that of course God wants me to have kids. babies are a blessing from Him and it's something i desire so passionately, so why would He not want that for me? He wants all good things for me. i should know this. then i asked the woman who has been praying for me and interceding for me since the time i first started coming to the church to pray about it with me. she started praying and told me there was nothing in her spirit of God saying no to me wanting to start my family. i felt the same way, except for our money situation. then she came up to me after church a couple weeks later and said i need to stop doubting and hesitating (which i totally was). i still wondered if it was the right thing. is God really that good? that He will let me have the strongest desire of my heart? she said to me that God has ordained me to be a mom and to go forward with starting my family. well since we have been literally scraping by each month and our entire savings is gone, it still seems pretty impossible.

during this time phil has been finishing his masters degree in special education. he will complete it by the end of this summer. also, being his 5th year teaching, he gets a raise for that too. we realized to pay for insurance (the good kind that will cover doctor visits and hospital delivery and stay) we need at least another $240 a month. phil gets a $5000 raise next year. that is about $400 a month before taxes. then we realized we are paying about $50 a month paying off our sofa (which we have about $150 left i think) and we spend $130 a month on our car. that is a bit more, we owe about $2800 on that. phil gets a 12 month salary, so we realized that if he gets a good paying job this summer we can get all that paid off and with a raise, we will finally be out of the red. we will have the money we need to get the insurance i need and then the money to raise a baby. so of course i have been praying like mad that God will bless us and give us the money necessary to pay off our car this summer.

we wondered what God was doing because phil couldn't find a job anywhere. everything we thought was going to work out fell through. then the school called him and said they had a job for him at summer school after all. he might be able to take the job of parapro or they may still have an opening for a teacher. they contacted him and told him he would be a parapro. i was so upset. we needed to make at least as much as we owe on the car in order to pay it off and a parapro would only make about $1200 over the whole summer. so i started praying again, asking God to help us. i know it was He who put the desire in my heart to be a mom, so He will have to make it possible. when phil went to training the next day they found out they had more kids than they originally thought, so he was promoted to teacher. he is making double the parapro salary. praise God for His provision! because he was originally a parapro, he is a co-teaching with another teacher from the school so that cuts the stress of preparing and teaching in half. i know that was God's purpose because phil has already been so completely stressed finishing his last 2 masters classes (apparently the 2 hardest classes were saved for last. sheesh.) so now he will have half the stress of teaching than he would have originally had if he had just been placed as a teacher in his own class. God knows what He's doing. i seriously need to remember this now. how many times does He have to prove it to me? geesh.

God has taught me so much about His faithfulness, about perservering through trials, about the power of prayer, about fighting for your desires and being a strong praying woman of God, about His knowing what's best for us and that He will always bring it about. i have learned how to live on a strict budget. i have learned to be a good stay at home wife, training me to be a good stay at home mom. He also let me stay at home because He knew it's what i wanted, even if i didn't really fully know it. He is so good. He knows what i want before i do and gives it to me before i even realized i wanted it. and He has given me the time and creativity to start this lovely blog you see before your very eyes : ). i wonder if another part of this year was to teach us to live on a smaller budget so we can give more in the future. phil and i both feel passionate about giving our tithes and offerings (which we do now) but we both want to be able to give more. we desire to bless other people as much as 20% or more of our income. it has been impossible for us to do that so far, but i believe some day we will be doing that. and this has been amazing training for that point.

i love God. He has been doing the most amazing things in our lives. even though this has been the absolute hardest year of my life, i am glad He has been bringing me through it. i am stronger and i have a deeper and more intimate relationship with God than i would have if He had just let us stay all safe and comfortable with our money. i have learned to rely on Him every minute, every hour, every day. He is the ultimate provider, my shelter, my strength, my strong tower, my comforter, my healer... everything. He is teaching me that He is absolutely everything i need. oh amen. : )


if you would like to donate to our "pay off our car so we can have a baby" fund just let us know... ; )

Monday, June 13, 2011

grey.. or gray?

i do not know how to spell this color. i like "grey" better, but the color i used (which this very post will be about) is called "cement gray". so i suppose for these purposes i will refer to it as "gray". just know that i am not happy about it. : )

well this past weekend was a hectic one. my wonderful husband knows the way to my heart, so he took me to the home depot to buy paint (yay!!!). it was so hard to choose which paint to buy. not choosing the colors, but trying to decide which project would get finished next. i mean, being on a budget i have to pick and choose which projects get done when i have a little money and it is so difficult to decide which will take precedence over the others (you know what i am talking about here!). so i decided the guest bathroom was next to be painted since i have been working on it lately. i also bought some paint for my bookcase and worked on that, which i will show another day.

so i bought martha stewart's "cement gray" paint for the bathroom. i mean, come on. how could i not jump on this beautiful gray/grey bandwagon and paint that lovely color in my home?! i love it! i think i get it from my mom though (love you mom!) because every time she picks out a color she chooses the ones with a lot more gray (had to) grey in them. so living with her style and color choices for 21 years, i suppose i picked up some of her tastes. hey, if you know her house you would know that is a good thing : ). so anyway, i jumped on the wagon full steam this weekend and painted my little bathroom.

here is the after picture i showed before when i took the red out




and here it is after the little paint job



i wish i had a wider lens to show you a little better. it's a huge change. it's also a little darker then it's showing up (of course, sheesh). i really really like it. *sigh* i love paint. there is still more to be done in here. i have some artwork or something-er-other to figure out but it's really coming along. it's funny how all of this comes out of one decision that everything red must go. decorating is a slippery slope... i need to remember this. : )

Saturday, June 11, 2011

the other de-red-ification.

well. gee. first let me say this; thank you guys so much for all your kind words! i know people are always like, "oh gee it means so much to me" and you think, yah yah. but seriously SERIOUSLY listen when i say it meant so so SO much to me to read all your kind words. it really did make me feel like i am doing a good job on my blog and gave me so much more confidence in it. you guys are the best! : ) for real, you are. if i could bottle up those words and hear them any time i was down, i would so do it. so again, thanks for being the sweetest and best people on earth : )

so yesterday i showed you the bathroom and my process of getting that darn red out of there. i think that sometimes the best time to go about something is spur of the moment. this is how it happened: i went to my parents' house to help my mom paint the office. it was that plain old builder beige that we all love so much and i swear it looks pink. ick! who thought up that color? hmm.. anyway, so it was such a relief to paint over that beige and it just seemed like hey, she is so much happier with this office and i want to feel better about my home too! so when i got home i was bound and determined to stuff all that red stuff in a box. i didn't know what would replace it or what colors i would use but i just said enough with the red already!

that's when i looked around and said, hmm... now what? okay so the red is gone, now how do i get it to look not empty in here? i mean, preferably for free. the answer to all my problems was some paint (of course. what problem does one have that paint won't help a little?) and some creativity. and some fur. and some hot glue. and a couple hours. you add all that together and you get a red-free home! yay!

i started here



i decided i loved my apple too much to just put it away, so i wanted to paint it. i had some green from another project and i said, hey apples can be green. so it got a green paint makeover. then the red flowers got put into a box and may make an appearance on the christmas tree. i wasn't sure what i was going to put into the pretty vase i have there that i stole my mom gave to me and since my budget was zero, i did what i've seen other bloggers do; i went outside and collected sticks. after washing and arranging them in a nice manner (and adding a pretty bird) i was left with this




i love that little apple! well, okay huge giant apple.. but little compared to like, me. so then i decided to change my table centerpiece. i had already changed my mantel and it went from this



to this



so since i had "borrowed" the pitcher from the table, it needed to be changed around too. so it went from this



to this:


feeling so much better already! then this part was a tiny bit sad.. i had made this lamp



from an old purple lamp here. it was one of my first attempts at something like that, but hey it had red on it. rules are rules. so i chopped it apart and changed the shape of it. then i painted the chain and hangy ball and covered the top in fur with my hot glue gun. that things works magic i tell ya. i was left with this little cutie pa-tutie:



so then i wasn't quite as sad : ) it is adorable to me and the most imprtant thing to remember; it's not red. yesssssss. since i love my fur and glue gun so much i decided my sofa called for a furry pillow as well. i took the red pillows off and i used one to cover the front in fur. the back is still red but you can't really see it, so it's not breaking the rules. it's not! okay, maybe... but i'll probably add a backing and some cute trim.. eventually. so after removing hobbes from his napping place (poor guy) i went to work on the sofa.


i was also given some pillows my mom was getting rid of. one was a blue sweater-like texture and has a feather insert. ummm, hello! yes, i will take that thank you! so here is my new living space (red-free!!)



if you see the top shelf on the bookcase, yes that was me seeing if i wanted the back of it painted. turns out i wanted the whole thing painted, but that is another post for another time : ) (yes mom, i know i paint EVERYTHING. she always makes fun of me for this. what can i say? i like painting stuff!)

so lesson learned: if something is bugging you just fix it! shove it in a box or paint it and you will like it so much better. what a good lesson. : )


Friday, June 10, 2011

de-red-ifying.

hey all : ) i am sorry for my slackerness and not updating in awhile. i haven't been super motivated to do projects around here lately. i haven't had much money to work with (hello, who does, right?) and to be perfectly honest i started to feel a little overwhelmed. i know, i know, my blog has been in existence for 3 months. get real jessica. i know. i should get real. : ) i just started to feel like my blog was never going to be as good as somebody like thrifty decor chick or the nester or a billion other amazing blogs.. well it seems like a billion anyway. i kept thinking, man. i will never be them. then i realized, why do i want to be them? i mean, sure i LOVE them to pieces and if they wanted to give me their homes/decorating skills/motivation/creativity/their amazing awesomeness then i would snap it up in a second. but i didn't start a blog to be them. i started it to be me. and to document what i'm doing. so if i only have 2 people (my wonderful mom and sister) who read my blog faithfully then that should be okay with me. (i say should be because i am still working on it... give me a break!) my lovely sister helped me realize this. it's not about having a bajillion followers or being the absolute best or most creative. i should be cool with being me. with doing the things i like. just because edgy graphic modern is in, that doesn't mean i need to do it. while i can appreciate it and think it's awesome, it's not what i would choose to live with every day. so whatever me, stop making me think i need to do things i don't. sheesh. i will never learn. : )

so back to the decor business. i have decided i am sick to deaaatthhhhh of red. i love the color still. i love seeing other people use it. i think it's a beautiful color. i was totally drawn to it for so long, and i think that's part of the reason i am tired of it. i am just ready for the red to be gone from my home. i realized it when i did my summer mantel change that i loved not having red around up there. i have also realized as i think more about who i am and my tastes that i have always been drawn to cool colors. i am talking like, in elementary school when my art teacher showed us a color wheel and i found out that there are opposites ends of the spectrum and all that, yah. since THEN i have liked cool colors. so that's when i said, "red. you are out of here. that's it. pack your things." okay what really happened was i went on a purge of the apartment and grabbed everything red and shoved it in a box in a closet. then i said, "aahhhhh.." : ) what a sigh of relief! so now i am in bring-color-into-my-living-space mode. which is unfortunate because that mode and don't-spend-any-money mode don't get along so well... but they are trying. we shall see what they come up with : )


here is the progress i have made so far in our guest bath.













it feels so much better on my eyes! it's weird but true. all i have spent so far is $15 for the white rug. next i am going to paint in there, add some artwork and i have a project in mind for a new shower curtain. it's amazing how just a few changes really make a difference. this red totally doesn't even stand a chance. : )

by the way, i am not sure of the count but i think this may be the most smiley faces i have ever used in a post. i may or may not be happy, it's difficult to say...geesh.

also i realized i may not be really de-red-ifying. i might need to call it white-ifying. hmm..

and for good measure:  : )