Happy Monday! Q & A

Why blog?

Connecting with others with same interests, feeling validation, sharing inspiration.

What kind of blog?

I enjoy so many types of blogs (family, craft, journal, humorous) so I have made mine a little bit of all of those.

What challenges have you faced with blogging?

Having the computer suck up many hours, feeling self indulgent everytime I make a new post.

Favorite thing about blogging?

Finding something inspiring everytime I look, "meeting" kind strangers, and knowing that something I do inspires someone, somewhere.

Copy Cat

Photo: the cottage nest

As I was doing my normal "blog jog" I found the above photo here.

At first I commented on the gorgeous windows, but I found I could not get the pictures and their arrangement out of my mind! This picture served as the inspiration for below.

Here is a landing at the top of our stairs. Cute, but so much more potential. I really wanted the frames to look like I had collected them from various flea markets, but did not have the patience to do so. When I want to copy something I want to do it NOW!

After a great trip here I found all of these frames for under $6 a piece. Right now they are mostly empty or sporting the fashionable "picture frame models".

Soon they will have black and white pictures of ancestors. Except for the four on the side walls, which I had elsewhere around the house and grabbed them for this vignette.

I am almost completely happy with it. In the future I would like to:

1. replace pad and pillows with an updated color scheme. I am thinking creams and greens (maybe a slight hint of pink)
2. add chunky moulding around the window
3. collect more gold toned frames to add to the collection
   Hubby has been out of town all week, we shall see if he likes it...

A big thank you to THE COTTAGE NEST for the inspiration!

Happy Earth Day

I hope you are all celebrating Earth Day by enjoying nature in some way. These Cecil Brunner roses have always been a favorite of mine. They are petite, pastel and the most gorgeous fragrance!

While I was taking an afternoon rest I meandered onto the Ellen Show. She had a guest who inspired me. His message today was about love and gratitude. In this day of everyone speaking "green" he said something along the lines of ~ yes global warming is
something we have to fight, but since we are such a violent people we should also focus our energy on getting rid of hatred. Hatred is what could potentially kill all mankind, in war, before global warming will.~ Okay, that was a major paraphrase and he said it much better! Check out the video clip linked and I hope it is inspiring to you as it is to me!

We*re All In This Together

One of the best things about living in the Bay Area is taking BART into the "city" (San Francisco). The kiddos and I took the train yesterday, after school, to see High School Musical ~ On Tour. Hubby just happen to be in the city, so we were able to meet up with him easily.

Great theater! Not so great area!
This was D's first theater experience. E has seen many productions and wants to be a Broadway star!

This show was really, really fun! I had seen a couple of Disney productions and had not been very entertained, but this one far exceeded the expectations! It was really fun!

E's favorite thing to do, besides watch the show, is to wait at the stage door for autographs. I have to admit, this part is really fun for me too!

"Gabriella" Arielle Jacobs

"Troy" John Jeffrey Martin

Ryan" Bobby List

"Sharpay" Helene Yorke

Please come in~We're In The Garden

Here is a little peek at the baby shower we had for a special baby boy that will be here soon!
favors- pacifier candy in organza bags (found at Wal-Mart)
centerpieces- bud vases (resembles antique baby bottles) with blue stones, ribbon and flowers
dessert- a very talented friend made the yummiest strawberry cream cake and pound cake kabobs drizzled with chocolate, YUM!
the menu~
a variety of scones, served with jam & lemon curd
croissants, served with chocolate & hazelnut cream
bagels, served with an assortment of cream cheese
assortment of berries
assortment of cheese

One of my very favorite things to do is to honor the special people in our lives! This friend is indeed that! Congratulations and I hope you had a great time at the shower!

problem ~ solution vol. 2

I do not know what has come over me this week, but I am so tired of things that just do not work around here. So I have taken the bulls by the horns and committed to fixing some more problem areas.

We have lived in our home for five years now. I always disliked the kitchen faucet and to my luck it began to split which meant I would get sprayed all over when at the sink. First, hubby wanted to "fix" it. I quietly bit my tongue while he masked it with fiberglass. Needless to say, it looked horrible. I went straight to the store to replace the faucet. We now have a pretty new one that works perfectly. Oh, and they gave me ten percent off because the box had been opened. Hubby was happy about that!
Sorry for the following long story. Let's just say that electricity in our eating nook was considered a luxury for the past eighteen months. It all started when we took down the chandelier in the nook and put it in the family room (seen here) due to scale. I quickly made up another chandelier for the nook, which blew out the electricity. Hubby went up three or four times to try to fix it, but became too frustrated. A great friend came over and took care of it for us in a matter of 45 minutes. What would I do without great friends and their hubbys?
This is how the chandelier looked when I quickly mocked it up eighteen months ago. YUCK! But since it was this chandelier that caused the whole problem, hubby told me I better use it.

So I climbed up there, got rid of the flowers and green paint and it looks much better. The best part is that it works! Electricity is not longer a luxury!

Problem~Solution

Do you have an area in your home that NO MATTER how clean or how decorated it is your eye ALWAYS goes straight to the spot of imperfection? Below is a picture of our media niche. I have so many issues with this niche, including the fact that is sits above our hearth so a big screen was a must to fill it up, instead of a nice camoulflaging piece of furniture.

This entire wall used to be brick red. Since I repainted the entire room on a whim and could not remove the tv on my own, I left the niche red. Big mistake since it stayed that way for almost a year. The cords are just so ugly too!
I had picked up a role of this beautiful toile wallpaper a while ago, just because I needed to do something with it sometime. So because removing the tv is such a huge ordeal, I decided to "wallpaper" without removing the tv. It was fun and easy. I used staples that are hidden so there was no mess.
I am getting a lot of experience on the miter saw, so I trimed out the niche with a picture frame moulding. I painted the shelf and the moulding the same color as the wall. This was because I did not want this area to compete with the true focal point, the mantel and fireplace, right next to the niche.

Someday I would actually like to wall in the entire niche and use a flat screen, the entire thing just bothers me. BUT I really love this solution, for now. It softens the media crud and gives a little of the unexpected.

Where is your problem spot in your house? Stay tuned for more problems and solutions!

Spring Fluffing Game

I know you have already seen this vignette, but I wanted to join the fun over at The Inspired Room for her Spring Fluffing Game.

Haste Makes Waste

Have you ever made a split second decision that lead to a big mess? Well, a couple of weeks ago in a moment of power I decided to mess with the parental controls on the computer. So many things I do on the computer are just self taught and that is how it was in this matter. So on and on I went putting all these restrictions all over the place, including making myself the sole administrator! Well, I thought I was really cheeky making the password something like "Don't even think about it".

All of this was no problem until a few days ago when we rebooted our computer and it would not take my really cheeky passphrase. The entire computer was locked out because I could not get the password right! Both hubby and I were in panic as the Geek Squad & Microsoft told us we were out of luck. Reformatting was a possible solution, but that would mean losing things. To make a long story short, a good friend (my new hero), worked some magic and erased my password! Such a great relief!

A couple life lessons I learned~

• Sometimes when you think you are doing the right thing, it does not always turn out to be right.
• I will never, ever type in a password without thinking it through & writing it down!
• I spend wayyyyy too much time on the computer! I had to find things to keep me busy instead of checking my email or surfing the net or blogging. Most everything I did in it's place was better for me or my family. Sad, but true!

I hope someone, somewhere, can learn from my mistake!

Headline~ imagination runs loose all over town!

hour 1: subject builds zoo on upstairs balcony
hour 1, minute 17: subject tries to catch bird for zoo
hour 2: subject catches bee
hour 2, minute 15: subject calls friend on phone to recieve bee, friend not at home
hour 2, minute 17: bee is loose in house
hour 2, minute 18: subject's mom dashes upstairs with fly swatter, subject yelling, "don't kill it!"
hour 2, minute 20: bee retrieved without harm and escorted outside, zoo closed
hour 2, minute 30: buckets of mud being transported through house to balcony without subject's mom knowing
hour 3: subject eats apple, mom happy for healthy choice
hour 3, minute 10: subject pours mud on floor of balcony and plants apple seed
hour 3, minute 30: neighbor invites subject and sister over for four square match, dog and sister run through mud and then through the house
hour 3, minute 31: mom says goodbye and is exhausted!