But I finally got a photo of the girls together and both smiling:
It Only Took Me 11 Months
4
An Attitude Check
I saw this illustration the other day and I just had to laugh:
This is so me! In fact, I told Peter, “I totally need this on a bumper sticker.”
I really can jump to the absolute worst possible conclusion in any given scenario.
Like earlier this week when Alethea was refusing to eat and was complaining all day long that she was ‘So tired!’ And I start thinking, is it possible that my sweet little daughter is depressed? Or could it be something worse, like cancer? Worry, worry, worry.
Or like how I’ve been feeling so unintellectual lately. With my days consumed with diapers, meals and errands, it hardly seems possible that I actually have a B.A. in Philosophy. I feel that I could be becoming boring to my husband and unable to carry on a conversation about anything other than my children’s eating habits and personality quirks. I feel insignificant and wonder if others think I am too. Worry, worry, worry.
Last Sunday in church our pastor referenced the Fruit of the Spirit in passing during his sermon. It really was a good sermon about a whole other topic, but my mind wandered a bit at that point and I started doing a mental Fruit of the Spirit checklist. I gave myself a passing grade on a few, but that ‘joy, peace, patience’ combo really was convicting.
Today I gave it some further thought and here’s what I decided… Is all my worrying squashing my joy and stealing my peace? Most definitely. Is my lack of joy and peace resulting in a diminished capacity for patience with others, especially my children? Yes, I think it is.
Do I need an attitude adjustment? For sure!
“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” – Matthew 6:34
“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” – 1 Peter 5:7
Apparently I need a different bumper sticker: Anxiety Girl! Able to cast all her cares on Jesus in a single throw!
Seriously, how cheesy would that be!?!?
A better idea perhaps, being more deliberate about making sure other activities and commitments don’t crowd out my daily time of prayer and Bible reading. I always feel so off kilter when I’m not spending time learning and growing in my faith each day.
During this Christmas season, I am resolved that I will not let the business and the fun steal my time alone with God!
Too long for a bumper sticker, perhaps, but I think it’s just what this Anxiety Girl needs.
A Merry Massive Mantel
A.k.a. How I Decorated a Rather Large Mantel on a Budget
Christmas decorating is in full swing around here and I am happy to announce that I am sticking to my self-imposed challenge to reuse, reinvent and repurpose items from around my house to avoid spending money and accumulating loads of unnecessary clutter in my house over the holiday season. I am also happy to announce that my mantel is done and it is my favorite mantel-scape ever. And I have photos to share!
But first, here’s a little ‘before’ pic to illustrate what our mantel looks like (mostly) bare. It is a huge mantel (the frames sitting on it are 2’x3′ just for comparison). I actually figured it out once at more than 150 cubic feet of space (and yes, I did briefly consider throwing a mattress up there and calling it a guest bedroom). In the past, I have found it to be a daunting task to come up with space filling, non budget busting decor ideas.
Anyway… here’s before:
I went around the inside and outside of my house gathering supplies and when I was done, my Christmas mantel ingredient list included:
- An old window found in our basement, bought many years ago at a garage sale
- Wine bottles from a friend’s party (okay, these weren’t actually in my house until I asked her for them, but they were free, so, who’s counting?)
- Pine cones from a box in our garage (originally picked up off the ground during a family vacation in Georgia)
- Green ribbon and dried eucalyptus reused from my 30th birthday decor
- Black candle lanterns with white candles that I already had on the mantle
- Branches from our backyard
- Two pieces of flagstone leftover from our summer landscaping project
- My nativity, a star tree-topper (stand part clipped off with tin-snips) and assorted ornaments (all found in our Christmas tubs)
Put it all together and what do you get?
This!!!!
Some close-ups…
My favorite part is the way the flagstone elevates the nativity, really making it the focal point of the mantel, despite its small size:
My second favorite part of the mantel is that I managed to pull it together without spending even a penny.
I’m so glad my massive mantel is done so that I can use it as a jumping off point for the decor in the rest of the house. (Stay tuned!)
Dr. Puppy, Paging Dr. Puppy
Alethea has two passions at the moment when it comes to play time. She loves toys that make music and she adores playing pretend. Her stuffed dogs and baby dolls go to the park, they take naps, go trick-or-treating and lately, they’ve also been spending a lot of time at the doctor’s office.
Of course, no real doctor would dream of doing an exam without gloves, so naturally Alethea pulls hers on before each check-up:
Yes, those are socks, not latex gloves. (On a funny side note, for a touch of realism, Alethea usually opts for her blue socks when she plays doctor, but on this particular evening, the blue socks were on her feet, so the yellow ones had to do.)
“Hello, Doctor Alethea!” I said.
“No, Mommy,” she replied, “I’m not Doctor Alethea! My name is Doctor Puppy!”
“Dr. Puppy, can you please tell me what’s wrong with Baby Doll?”
After a thorough examination, Dr. Puppy was ready to deliver her diagnosis.
“Baby Doll needs a band-aid!”
Thus saith Dr. Puppy.
Giving Thanks
Sorry for being a bit out of touch over the extended Thanksgiving weekend. We were busy enjoying ourselves at my grandparents’ house in Iowa along with my parents, sister Genna and her fiance James. A good time was had by all. There was lots of lighthearted conversation, some football watching and of course, eating! And because no feast would be complete without pie, Grandma made two, a caramel banana cream and an old-fashioned cherry. Alethea said she liked the cream pie the best, but she didn’t object to scarfing down the cherry either:
Genna, James, Peter and I stayed up late Thanksgiving night to play a hotly contested game of Settlers of Catan. James came out victorious in the end, but if he hadn’t won right when he did, Peter would have won on the next roll and I would have won on the roll after that, so yeah, it was a close one!
I also got some work done on my Christmas decorations. Here’s one of the supplies I was using:
Five points to anyone who can guess what the mystery material is. Five more points if you can also guess what I used it for. (And anyone who was with me in Iowa doesn’t get to answer!)
All in all, it was a relaxing, fun, tasty and surprisingly productive weekend. Hope yours was full of happy things too!
Changing Seasons
The last few days have really felt to me like a shift from autumn to winter. Here’s why:
*Saturday morning, Lydia woke up at 6:00am and wouldn’t stop crying, even with me holding and rocking her. So we went to the doctor as soon as they opened their doors. She’s got an ear infection, in both ears. Welcome cold and flu season.
*Once we got home from picking up Lydia’s antibiotic prescription, she zonked out for hours. Poor baby. But since Alethea spent the night at Gramma and Poppa’s (thanks John and Denny!) Peter and I were child free for the remainder of the morning and early afternoon. We got major yard clean-up done. In fact, I think this is the most prepared for winter our outside spaces have ever been. Goodbye leaves!
*As you can see from the above picture, we didn’t get our yard clean-up done a second too soon. While we were moving the last bags to the curb, it started snowing and kept snowing for most of the night. Alethea was just dying to get out and play in it, so that’s just what we did on Sunday after church. Welcome snow!
*Sunday night I made Sweet Potato and Red Pepper Soup. It’s one of our favorites! Welcome soup weather!
* Yesterday I did some more work on my budget Christmas decorations. This time it wasn’t painting branches though, it was peeling labels off of wine bottles! Welcome Christmas decor!
* That afternoon my mom came over and we took the girls to Menard’s to visit their Enchanted Forest. Alethea and Lydia both thought all the lights and trees were pretty wonderful. And I actually found a lawn ornament that I would consider putting in my yard. Yes, really! Welcome twinkle lights!
Goodbye Autumn! Welcome Winter!
Christmas Decor Challenge
I am taking a Christmas Decor Challenge! Anyone want to try it with me?
Here’s my plan: I am going to try to decorate my front porch, living room, dining room, main floor bath and perhaps some touches in the kitchen while spending as little money as possible. I will reinvent, reimagine and repurpose items I already own to create something fabulous and festive.
Ready? Set? Go!
Here’s my step number one:
We’re planning on getting a fence next year. Lucky me, because that means I have a virtually unlimited number of cool branches available to me on the trees all along our property lines! I chopped some off and laid them out on an old tarp.
Then after a quick coat of white spray paint (that I already had on hand), I put them in our garage to off gas, so they don’t stink up the house.
What’s step number two?
Well, I don’t want to give my whole plan away, but I will tell you that the branches are for our mantle and there will be some Christmas ornaments and objects left over from a friend’s party joining the branches for what I hope will be a crazy cool focal point for our Living Room.
So stay tuned as we all find out together whether I can stick to my own Christmas Decor Challenge! And if anyone wants to take the Challenge too, let me know so we can share ideas and inspire each other!
Have a happy weekend!
Pick a Color, Any Color
I think I’ve finally decided what I want to do for paint in our main floor half bath. But before I reveal my grand plan, here’s a refresher on what our main floor bath looked like before we moved in:
Not a whole lot has changed other than the fact that we hung a round IKEA mirror above the sink and bought a few accessories to make it more colorful and toddler friendly.
A while ago I put together my idea board for the space:
However, I wasn’t really sold on the idea of a plain solid paint color. It’s a small bathroom, so I don’t want to go crazy. But on the other hand, it’s a small bathroom, so adding some interest to the walls wouldn’t be as time consuming to achieve as in a more roomy space. And I figure, why not have something cool for guests to look at when they use the facilities!?!
I briefly considered doing some wide horizontal stripes, which I always love in other people’s houses, but I’m not sure our domicile is a stripey sort of place. I also thought about doing some kind of stencil, but trying to maneuver a stencil around a sink and a toilet sounds like a huge headache, as does removing the sink and toilet to avoid having to stencil around them. So, the stencil idea was a no-go.
Then it came to me… I should do a linen effect!
I’m so psyched about this! It’s subtle enough that you won’t feel like you’re being swallowed whole by a crazy pattern, but it’s definitely way more interesting than plain ol’ paint. From everything I’ve read so far, they say it’s a somewhat lengthy process because you have to wait for the paint to dry on each step (base coat, vertical strie and horizontal strie), but it’s not supposed to be difficult. And fortunately I have the patience for putzy piant applications, so I think it’s a match made in heaven.
Now I just have to get the Peter seal of approval, and I’ll be ready to march out and buy some supplies!
What does everyone think? Any other paint treatments I should consider before giving Linen the thumbs up?
Red in the Face
Today Peter’s mom came over to watch the girls while I ran errands. Alethea, as always, was excited to see her Gramma and everything was proceeding like a normal Wednesday morning. Before I left the house, Peter’s mom and I worked on breakfast for the girls, who were playing in the living room.
At one point Alethea came over to check on our progress. She stood lost in thought for a moment staring at Denny’s bright red shirt, when she suddenly exclaimed, “Gramma, you match Clifford!!!”
Yes indeed, at that moment we all matched nicely: Denny with her red shirt, Clifford (’cause he’s a big red dog) and me, oh yeah, with the bright red face.
Out of the mouths of babes…
At least Alethea said ‘you match Clifford’ and not, ‘you look like Clifford’. I suppose that would have been worse. And fortunately, Gramma Denny has a great sense of humor and was in no way offended.
I only hope Alethea hasn’t ruined that piece of apparel for her. Denny, if we have to buy you a new shirt to keep you coming around our house, we’d be happy to pick one up for you!
Playing Catch Up
I hate being sick. Like this weekend. I spent a lot of it on the couch with a horrible headache and achy muscles. More than not feeling good though, I hate falling behind around the house. What a mess!
I’m glad to be feeling better, but I’ve been playing catch up in my cleaning, so forgive my lack of blogging.
I’m going to go finish washing the dishes and then I’m going to do this:
Nighty, night!