Happy New Year!

I’m sure my sister is expecting my New Year’s Resolutions list but I’ll spare her the monotony of reading it…. I do have a list though. Tonight I’m sipping champagne and eating shrimp and waiting for the New Year to roll in. Then I’ll go to bed and wake up with a renewed spirit and intent on changing all my bad habits and developing all kinds new healthy ones.

Until later….. Have a Happy New Year!

The Man Cave

This year the best thing my husband heard was when I presented the idea of no gifts. We decided to purchase a plasma TV instead. After discussion about where to put a large screen TV we decided to clean out the “extra” room that is a junk room/project room and spare bedroom. On Saturday we moved the furniture from the sunroom into the man cave and moved the love seat that was being stored in there into the sunroom. I purchased a slip cover for that and am still tweaking it.... How in the world do you get a slip cover not to look so much like a slipcover?

So I worked all day Saturday putting junk away and trying to make the room look presentable. I still have a week to work on the project but I’m showing the before and after today even though I still have curtains to hang and more junk to put away, etc. You get the idea.

The "before" photo was taken when we had all the excess junk from the recent bedroom closet makeover in there so there is quite a bit more junk than usual in the photo!

Christmas 2009

Our Christmas was very nice, Molly came home Christmas Eve and sang a solo in church and spent the night with us. We opened packages in the morning. My sister, Lindy and her daughter Megan had brunch with us and then later in the day, Lindy’s son’s and their families came over as well as my brother and his wife. We all had dinner together. I made a triffle for dessert and it was a big hit. Here is the photo. This was so simple to do and it looks great in a triffle bowl. I baked a chocolate cake and then made chocolate instant pudding but instead of 2 cups of milk, I used 1.5 cups milk and a half cup of Kahlua and after a layer of cake and half the pudding I added cool whip and then more cake, pudding and cool whip.

The batteries in my camera died so I don't have any more photos of Christmas! But we had a nice day and it's over for another year.

Holiday House Tour

I had a productive day today and am organized and I think I'll be ready for Christmas! Today I finished decorating the dining room and finished the gift wrapping. I also made a list of what I need to get yet from the grocery store and another list of things I must get done each day.

I took photos today of my house and would like to invite everyone to my house tour today!

Feeling the Stress

I've got a bunch of boxes cluttering the kitchen and living room.... I haven't finished the decorating yet nor have I baked a cookie. I bought chocolate for dipping a couple weeks ago before the stress kicked in and haven't dipped anything yet. I still have shopping to do also... I haven't done any decorating in the dining room yet and since some of us will be eating in there in one week's time I feel the need to clean and decorate in there. I just don't know when it will all happen.

I am busy at my "big girl job", our secretary retired last month and we haven't replaced her so I'm doing her job as well as my own and since I am working full time now, I am finding that I sure don't have as much time at home to just "play" any more! I am going to leave early tomorrow and hopefully finish up my Christmas shopping and start on the grocery shopping. The weather is also going to be part of the challenge of the next week. The weatherman said it will be nice tomorrow and again on Saturday and next Tuesday....it is a 30 minute trip to a decent grocery store and the mall, so I have to plan that around the weather reports.

I still manage to have time to read blogs and saw a beautiful collage on one last night, it inspired me to make one of my own, I don't have anything special on my coffee table in the sunroom (I was planning on a pink poinsettia that didn't happen) and so I put this together. I wrote Christmas cards earlier this week when I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep! How does stress affect you? I've never been good at sleeping.

Ok, I'm off to tweak the grocery list...is anyone else having trouble getting it together this year?

Bedroom Reveal

I have been working on this project all summer, for those of you regular readers you will remember that I painted all my furniture white and then painted the walls....we needed new floors and when I spilled the gallon of paint on the floor that sealed the deal and we had new floors put in last week. Now I am at the point where I am putting everything back together but I need help!!!

I am thinking white semi sheers at the windows that go to the floor or are at least to the bottom of the sill. I need some stuff for the walls. I hung a couple pretty plates on one wall but ran out of hangers so I'll have to wait to get a few more of those. I'm sort of looking for a pretty picture for one of the walls too but not sure what.... so I'm putting it out there to my blogger friends to make some suggestions as how to finish the room...

Laurie are you getting motivated to finish yours yet?

Photos of before and after...

New Chandelier

My floors are finished and I started putting things back together last night. I thought a new night stand would be a good idea so I went to the local furniture store to see if they might have something. All my furniture is white so I'm rather limited and around here everyone still loves country so shabby chic is unheard of! I struck out with the night stand but I did see a cute little chandelier that I thought I could find a place for. I brought it home and decided that it might look cute in the kitchen above the sink. But before we hung it I decided I needed a differnt set of curtains in there so today we went shopping. We shopped all day and I didn't get a single Christmas gift. I did get a curtain that turned out to be to long, I think it would look better with the rod dropped about 12 inches or so and the curtains should be rehemmed. I'll put that on my "to do"list.

Editor's Note: When I said I want to drop the curtain rod... there are 2 curtain rods one for the valance and one that is a cafe style curtain underneath the valance. That is the one I thought should be shorter but my sister says she likes it as is and that saves me some work so I guess I'll leave it and maybe add a tie back on either side of the cafe curtain.

Bedroom Update

Remember the gallon of paint incident? Finally the men came today to pull out the carpet and replace it with a laminent floor. The dressing room off the bathroom had the same ugly carpet so we decided to change that floor and while we were at it, may as well do the bathroom floor. So this is the week that it all happens. When I come home from work tomorrow I get to put everything back in place.

Right now there is bedroom furniture all over the house as well as everything from the closet... our house is a mess and I can't wait to get everything put back where it belongs. Tonight of all nights the neighbor from a couple houses down stopped in to visit! I don't know if she has ever been in our house before and she got to see it at its worse! I guess Murphy's Law is alive and well.

Stay tuned for bedroom updates. I need curtains yet and have no idea what to get but I'm hoping to soon start pulling it together...