"Are You My Friend?

I've been working on this topic for a few weeks. I found this list online and thought I'd share it with you! Enjoy!

Things a friend does:

1. You give me time
2. You listen to me - and you listen without making me feel judged
3. You're quick to remind me that I have strengths
4. You help me heal when I'm hurting
5. You tell me the truth when it will help me; you don't tell me the truth when it won't help me
6. You show me by your demeanor, tone, and smile that it's important to you that I feel secure, comfortable, at ease
7. You show me that you're sorry when you hurt my feelings; you allow me to show you that I'm sorry when I hurt your feelings
8. You don't abuse me. EVER. You make sure that I know you seek to protect me.
9. You make small surprises for me
10. You find words that support the best that is in me
11. You let me cry when I need to
12. You encourage me to tell the truth to you and to admit when I'm afraid

Yes, you are my friend. And, I need you."

http://www.life-with-confidence.com/signs-of-a-good-friend.html

Flower Girl

Brown be gone

First, we taped off, removed switch plates and put down a drop cloths because we are messy with paint, we've come to realize.

We filled in the grooves with Kilz primer and cut in the trim before we rolled on the large parts of the walls. Kilz is amazing.

Isn't he cute?

(Before)

3 coats of primer and one coat of "lemon edge" Valspar paint and some custom stained trim by my beautiful hubby and voila!

(After)

a mile of mullion

I washed the walls with my favorite non-bubbly detergent, Mr. Clean as per the directions from the internet. I love Mr. Clean. The yellow kind is the only kind that will do for this ole' girl. I guess I could tolerate the orange but anything else is gross. Anyway, so the walls smell fresh and clean. I started taping off the trim and the areas to be painted. After much debating and research. I decided to go with latex primer just because I did not want to deal with mineral spirits to clean up with kids around. The walls aren't too slick since they were last stained, oh about 42 years ago.

This is about how high the mullion trim will be. I am hoping the antique white paint we do above the line will add a very subtle and clean architectural interest. The nice thing about painting this room is that it is big enough to just pull the sofas away from the wall and work behind them.

Aren't we cute? We have matching scarves from Justice. Matchy, matchy!

The sectional saga - part deux

So, we sold the sectional. We sold it and I made 30 bucks for my pain and suffering. I was out shopping all day for a new sofa set when I got an email from the buyer that he did not want to keep the sectional. He said they did not measure properly and they wanted me to take it back.... To my understanding, that violates all of Craigslist etiquette so I chose not to justify it with a response.

I know, it's horrible isn't it? I had promised I wouldn't damage your retina's didn't I? Sorry...

When my full day of shopping yielded nothing but a sofa I liked with no matching loveseat, I decided to just stop looking and be patient. I happened about these being sold from an estate. The house was immaculate and it spurred on some other decorating ideas. I felt sad though. Most of this lady's things were sold except for a few momentos the family was keeping. She had amassed decades of treasures, only to have her "Grandma's Blessings" photo albums and treasures boxed up to move to a storage shed some place in one of her grown children's sheds or something. It was me so very sad and moved me to tears... Life is fleeting. Pause a moment to contemplate this...

On to the lovely couches we bought from her son.

It is uncanny but they actually match a cushion on a rocking chair that I received from my grandmother years ago.

I have some sort of weird sickness that makes me ill to purchase something new unless it looks old. I actually get physically ill. Can you tell? So here is my decorating plan. I will be putting a rug back down when our puppies are grown up a bit. I will be hanging a large piece of traditional art on this back wall. I am going to have my oldest with sewing skills make some blue toile pillows to go on the couch, a fireplace cushion and make a cushion for this old wooden desk chair in the room also. Hopefully, they will match this vase below. Since I sold the leather monstrocity and bought two couches for $200 less, I can fund some further decorating in this room as shown below. WOO!

Also, for the big huge project of the season, we will be adding a chair rail to the living room and be *gasp* painting the top 2/3 of the paneling. I know, I know, I said I refused to paint it. I have come to realize that it is the only way to make the space light unless I try to rip off the paneling and drywall the top portion. I am not willing to go there, so this is our best alternative. The estate that we bought the sofas from had done it and it looked so incredibly pretty that I can't not do it now. I am excited! We already have some like it. My hope is that it looks like this in the breakfast nook (pictured below). All of the wood in this house is custom stain and it all matches. I am hoping that it will make the project look more seamless!
Can you picture this in the living room behind the couches??

The Sectional Saga

For those of you who know us well enough to keep contact with us weekly, we have a drama unfolding before us over the past 3 weeks or so. A year or two ago, we had some very generous friends who gave us a nice couch and matching love seat for our rental place. Through a random series of events, the pieces were separated for a year, then magically reunited with us again when we bought our home. We loved them where we lived before but I've gotten somewhat of a wanting-to-make-it-my-own-taste bug and so we set out to buy new ones (okay, not new, used-remember who I am after all). So I started searching Craigslist (if you know my sister, she will be hopefully be writing her Craigslist escapades some day). Seriously, you can find ANYTHING there. So, I had searched it every couple days to see if something caught my eye. It took awhile to find what I wanted. Consider me a champagne-taste-on-a-beer-budget gal. So, I find this great leather sectional. 100% leather with recliners. It was a steal so I asked my sweet husband to go look at it because there was a conference at church I had to do sitting for... I really wanted it and I didn't want anyone else to swipe it. So I sent him. He looked at it and he liked it <> It was very "man-cave-y" and I am very light-and-airy- shabby-sheik-like. Not two seconds after it was being carried in the front door, my stomach knotted up and I realized it was a horrible mistake. It has cupholders. I refused to sit on it for a couple days, choosing to sit on a hard wooden chair instead. I was embarrassed to have people over. I can't host Christmas like this (yes please eat anywhere you want to - you can even let the kids play with that Christmas candle on it...). When my sitter and our tutoring students came over I demanded they avert their eyes from it. I was sad about it. To make matters worse, some kind of horrible animal hair (don't make me guess the species) starting falling out from underneath in clumps. CLUMPS! So I told my husband that I would not really be happy until I sold it again and got something else more traditional. He was very understanding though he likes the couch still. So I reposted it on Craigslist a couple weeks ago. I had a couple people try to send me a money order and scam or trade but no real buyers. I decided it was time to post it again today. I had two people fighting over it! One lady tried to talk me down $100 so I was playing to two off each other. So, finally, there is a guy on his way now wanting to pay the full price. Now, lets see if he shows - then I can go and spend a ridiculous amount of money trying to get something I want this time. We will probably be sitting on a rocking chair and patio chairs in the mean time.

*There will be no pictures in this post to protect the innocent eyes of my readers*

So.... who wants to sell me their blue couch and love seat? Preferably leather. Thanks.

A few random things in picture form

At the Fair!

Hello there Bloggies! I was informed via email that my email was a bit too...hmm, honest (not quite the word that was used..). So I decided to post a few things that happened with our family over the last month in picture form. No more bleeding heart posts for awhile, I guess!

Enjoy!
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Our Sunday School at church threw an "80's Rad Roller Skate Party" and I was priviledged to be able to help plan it. It was.... RAD!

Me and my friend Laura

Note the awesome pink legwarmers. I couldn't find a banana clip or a BeDazzler..

Rock me Amadeus

Every rose has it's thorn

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We went to the Great State Fair of Texas. We each had the obligatory Fletchers Corny Dog. All except the high maintenance wanna-be-vegetarian kid. She had fries..

Elsie. :-)

So apparently, there isn't a picture of the oldest kid eating a corny dog here. Probably because she had a chicken fried steak sandwich... So it wasn't only the high-maintenance one that didn't have a corny dog.

'Till next year Big Tex!