Gettin' my list on...

This is gonna sound nuts.

Truly.

I'm finally gettin' into the Holiday spirit.

I know, I know.  Ridiculous!

I've had my decorations up for a month, and my shopping is all done, and I can't wait to give the kids their gifts...

But tomorrow is the last day before school break, the last day I work before break, and I'm finally feelin' it.

There are no sporting events over break.  Thank you.

There are no practices anyone needs to be run to.

There is just peace.

Glorious, welcome peace.

Of course, I have a list.  I mean, I ALWAYS have a list.  But I have a list of things to finish over break.

However, today I want to show you my WISH LIST.

Like the list I would make if I could put some hot ticket items on my Christmas list...

THIS is the list I would make.


#1.  THIS coffee mugs cracks me up!

I am a reader (you all know that...) and it reminds me of the 90's song...I like big butts...(you're singing it now aren't you!?).  I would totally use this mug every day for my morning coffee.

#2.   Flower bracelet.  (found on pinterest with no source...)

It's my favorite colors, it's very simple yet bold...I LOVE it.

#3 & #4.  Any kisslock enclosure purse, but these are my favorites.

(The second one is Coach, and both are being sold on Ebay.)  I just love a kisslock purse.  Not sure why, except for the fact, my purse is CONSTANTLY falling off the seat in the van, and this would hold everything in!

#5 and #6.  Books.
I love books of all kinds, and I need some new ones.  These interest me greatly.

#7.  Pearl necklace.  Pearls make anything look fancier.  I love the bulky versions to dress up a sweater and blouse underneath.

(etsy.com  shop:  Eienblue)

#8.  Embellished Journal.
Now, I can make this myself, but it's so much nicer to have someone else make it.

How much nicer to have a To-Do list that's pretty.

#9.  Old swim baskets  (found at auctions, antique malls, etc.)

I love these for everything.  Organizing craft supplies, books, material, out of season clothes, etc.  There are a million things you can do with these!

#10.  Lace footies.
Are these not the cutest things you've ever seen?  (coccolareboutique.com)

and finally...

#11.  Toms wedges.
My fallback favorite.  I own a pair of Toms and they are the most comfortable shoes ever.  I love wedges, so I'm assuming these would be comfortable as well.  Love the herringbone design.

I could've had a nice round number like 10, but I couldn't help myself.

Now, what do you wish for?

I was gonna talk about...

So, I started out this morning wanting to talk about Valentine crafts...since, well, you know THAT season is coming up (thankfully that whole stressful high school time with finding who your valentine will be for that ONE day is OVER) and I got sidetracked by this little picture.

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I have NO idea how this came into my search criteria.  Maybe because it's pink.  I don't know, but then the looking for Valentine crafts thing just kinda went through the window, and it was all about searching for the perfect menu planning board.

I saw this...


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 which is cute and all, but maybe a little plain for me.  Don't get me wrong...I LOVE the gold.  That's my new favorite color, mustardy gold...but we're getting off the subject again.

I saw the pair of these...


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 which were more my speed.  I liked the pocket for favorite meals, which by the way are laminated.  LOVE THAT!  I also liked the pop bottle top days of the week, and the header.  This might be a possibility, and then I saw this...


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I loved the fav's, fast, and new meal choices.  Because sometimes that's how life is.  When I'm planning out my meals for the week (cause I honestly do every week...don't understand some people who don't...) I need some "fast" meals for the times the kids have a late practice, or church, or games.  It's not easy to work all day, and then come home and immediately start a meal.  I have to be prepared!

You see, I might boarder on the side of obsessive in many things in my life.  I don't like that word though...I like PREPARED, or ORGANIZED, or EXTREMELY FUNCTIONAL.  Those sound so much better.

Whenever I get my grocery store sale flyer in the paper (usually Sunday) I sit down and prepare, based on the sales for the week, my coupons on hand, what's in my freezer, and sometimes what's in my pantry...my menu for the week, and all in one breath, my grocery list, which, I might add is in order of how the store is laid out.  (Ok, THAT might be OVER THE TOP, but who wants to run back and forth from aisle to aisle to find things on your list.  I personally don't have that kinda time.) 

My menu plan is currently a sheet of lined paper on the fridge, and my frequent list of meals/side dishes is in my recipe binder.  Not really cute to look at.  BUT, it is effective.  My kids always know what's for supper, and I am NOT A MEAL NATZI where I never change a meal...sometimes I don't feel like fixing what is stated for the night, so I might switch with another.

Either way, it does take a lot of preparation, and planning ahead if I need to defrost something. 

I just would like it to look a little cuter in my kitchen.  So, it's going on my to-do list, which miraculously gets bigger every time I check out pinterest.com.  Hmmm...

So tell me, based on the above...which is YOUR favorite, and if you feel so inclined, tell me how you plan your week's meals.

They sure do know how to tempt me...

For Christmas, my sister, as one of her gifts, bought me this book.

I read it in a day.  It was great.  It was radical.  It was what I've always wanted to do, but don't know if it would really fly in this part of the country.

This woman, very much like a Pioneer Woman kinda story, was a "city girl."  Manhattan to be precise.  She went on a interview to talk to a young farmer.  They fell in love, they started a farm, they did everything themselves with horse labor instead of tractors.  They started a CSA and sold shares to people who got produce and meat and eggs and milk in return.

Whew.  I'm tired just thinking about it.  It was a great book.

I've read books like this before, in fact, I'm reading another one from the library right now, but the one thing all these books have in common for me, is it makes me want to be self sufficient with my garden, our animals, etc.  It brings out that deep-seeded desire within me.

Low and behold, guess what ended up in my mailbox the day after I read this book cover to cover...

Those seed companies really know what they're doing.
The glossy pictures.  The pictures of fruit looking like it's ready to burst with juiciness, the flowers at their peak...
They TOTALLY know what they're doing.
If you'll notice in the picture, I have A LOT of tabs at the top of the catalog, marking things I'd like to purchase for my own garden.

I really don't know why I bother.  I haven't been very successful at starting plants from seed.  I can't quite get the transferring part out to the garden down quite right.
But just look at the pictures!

Crazy beautiful.
So, that's what happens to me every year at this time.  In fact, I've gotten two more seed catalogs in the mail in the last several days.
Cover to cover man.  I'm tellin' ya, I can't help myself.
Next job, mapping out the garden for this year. ( If you change placement of plants each year, pests don't seem to follow as much.)
And we're starting a whole new patch, separate from the garden, for our sweet corn this year, so that's more garden space for me to plant.
Now I'm getting itchy for spring and winter hasn't even really showed itself yet!
Oh well...that just gives me months to plan!
Hope you all have a very Happy New Year!

For the love of a flower

Have you noticed how flowers are all the rage now?

Maybe they always have been, and I've just been outa the loop.

But they seem to be everywhere you look.

They are in home decor

and blankets.

They are even on front doors, (wreaths are mine)

They are on bags

and jewelry.

They even appear on swoony craft projects.

I've made many myself.  Including bobby pins (tutorial here) and flowers for wreaths and purses.

It's addicting.  You can use all sorts of media like material scraps, denim, felt, etc.

It's the new fad.  I didn't think at my age I would be back into the "in fads" but I guess this is a little different.

Go ahead, search all over Google, Etsy, Pinterest, and any blogs you may like.  Everyone is all about FLOWERS.

You know you want to be in the "in crowd" again.  Go for it!

Look for a GIVEAWAY in the near future.  It's coming.  I'm working on it now!

Design Time

The first week back to school has been chaotic to say the least, and even the nights have been busy.

Doesn't lend itself to any free time for decorating, or rearranging, or even feeling creative.

However, I was talking to my friend Amy last night. Her and her husband are building a new house. (Lucky ducks.) Anyway, she was talking about decorating her kitchen. My inner creative self started doing somersaults.

You see, this is all I had time for this week at my own house.

I finally hung up the scrolly (made up word?) bracket I got at the antique mall back in... March! Its new home is by the kitchen window.

I did, however, find some things on potterybarn.com that if I were to be the one building a new house, I would love to use somewhere.

First...these colors are great. All are Benjamin Moore, and all would go well pretty much anywhere...

Stonington Gray.

Chalkboard paint that is all the rage now.

Bennington Gray. (yeah, I said gray, looks tan to me.)

And finally, Providence Olive.

I would also add this accessory to my kitchen. Cause I DIG coffee!

These would be on my drawers because I'm a little overly anal in my organization.
This would hang in my entryway.
And instead of using this in the bathroom like it was intended...I would use it for bedside tables with books underneath.


I know there are 100's more possibilities out there...but with my time constraints this week, this is as good as it gets.

Anyone wanna come over and do my endless loads of laundry or cook my meals so I could just surf the internet for design ideas all day?

Didn't think so...

Have a great weekend anyway!

If I had a MILLION dollars...

If I had a million dollars...heck, if I just had $100,000 I'd already have it earmarked.


You see, combined, my husband and I don't make a ton. Surprising, I know, but we don't. We've always been careful with money, however, and we're not frivolous spenders.


We WANT to be, but we're not. We've followed the Dave Ramsey budget for years. We're paying our bills every month, we're saving for retirement, and we have an emergency fund, but that's about it. Unless we each save our weekly "allowance" for weeks, we don't buy anything big.
We've decided being able to go on a family vacation every year is more important than some other things.


Now, I'm not complaining. We have a happy life. A "homey" home filled with used/borrowed/hand-me down things. Things we've chosen for ourselves. But we don't have the extras.


Try to keep your shock under control when I mention we don't have a Wii, we don't have ANY flat screen tv's, we don't have a gaming system, and cable/dish is just a long-forgotten memory.

Guess what, we're alive. We actually walk among the living without having any of the above things.


Now, don't get me wrong, we would probably enjoy many of the above things, but our kids know they are ok to live without them.


However, it doesn't mean we don't WISH or WANT things.


I get all these wonderful catalogs in the mail, and just drool over the pages. I mainly get the catalogs for ideas. I know I can replicate many of their things on my own, for peanuts, but I like to dream people.


Here are some of my current wants....you'll see what I mean.


I was looking through the Garnet Hill catalog the other day. Beautiful catalog, beautiful website, beautiful ideas.


So, if I had a million/$100,000 to blow, I would probably buy the cashmere sweater in the top corner. (Just for the feel alone) It was originally $178, and on clearance it's still $68. The grey sweater is more my speed in price. It was $88, but now retails for $24. Manageable. The skirt, however, is my FAVORITE! It was $138, and is now $39. A possibility....but I'm currently looking for patterns to see if I can make it myself. The rings, lastly, are very cool, but on clearance for $98 a piece, is ridiculous.

I have also long dreamed for a bathroom that I LOVE. I don't have that. Our 3 bathrooms are passable at best, but here's what I found in Pottery Barn. These are much more my speed, if I could only wrap my measly budget around them....

Then, the living room and bedroom.....ah. Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware once again captured everything I've been dreaming of.

The vintage gameboards, the armoire, and the colors of the bedding. Beautiful. You see, we've been using the oak tv cabinet my husband made in shop class in high school. It's 20 years old, and I have a feeling if my husband has anything to do with it, it will die along with us.



And lastly, outdoor ideas have been flashing through my head for the last 5 years we've lived in this house. I would love a flower garden out back, and a pea-gravel patio area or deck with wicker furniture, etc. One of the problems, we have no trees and live in an area surrounded by fields, so things are windy around us. There is no wind break, and I could just imagine wonderful wicker chairs flying all over the yard on a regular basis. Can't help but dream about it, though.

The set with the red umbrella from Pottery Barn is ONLY $699 on sale! And the sconce for the front porch is only $80 on sale. (without the extra cost for numbers). I'll just go right out and buy these tomorrow!


Now, remember, I'm not complaining. I'm NOT. But you can't help but feel a little green every once in awhile.


I have to keep remembering, we can't take any of this when we're gone. We can't. But sometimes it would be fun to have some just for a little while.

Why do we always want?

Have you ever thought about why we always want something we can't have? Or maybe we CAN have it, it would just take so long to save for it, that you just can't WAIT!

There are many things over the years that I've wanted, and just had to wait for or just know I can't have it because it's WAY beyond our budget.

There are also some things, and right now the actual item escapes my memory, that I've wanted so badly, got, and then realized, why was this so great after all?

Here are some things that are on my list.

I don't even remember where I saw this, and I DEFINATELY don't have a solid wall in my kitchen where this would work, but I still secretly want it. It's beautiful to me.

This I've wanted for at least a year. It's in the Garnet Hill catalog, and I think it goes for close to $198. Seriously. It would look great above the sink in my laundry room. Really, it's meant for that. But alas, I'll just have to drool over it, and keep it in my dream photo folder.

I've always wanted one of these phones too. It's from the pottery barn catalog or Sturbridge Yankee workshop catalog, I can't remember, but it's adorable. Maybe I just want it for the sentimentality. We had a gold one like this, but with a rotary dial when I was growing up. It had a LONG cord we could wrap into another room, or if we wanted privacy, into the closet.

I wanted these from the first moment I saw them. These are from Restoration Hardware, and cost WAY too much. I would have to sell a lung to be able to afford these. I am going to try to replicate these all on my own. I'll let you know how that goes.

This I would like for the look alone. I have plenty of old yardsticks, but don't want to part with them for a project like this. Although, I really would like one to hang somewhere.

If I would have to choose from all the above pictures, this would be the one I want the most. I want this in my foyer. I have the perfect place for it, and can't stand to look at this picture for fear of crying, they are so great. I would hang all our coats, backpacks, etc. in it because our coat closet in the hallway is a joke! It's from Pottery Barn, which has wonderful ideas at outrageous prices. I would save my weekly allowance on this, but it would take years, and I couldn't do it. I'm secretly wishing someone I know is reading this post (hint, hint, Brent) and thinking....I could make those for my wonderful wife! (ain't gonna happen, I'm sure.) A girl can dream can't she?

And lastly, this living room from Restoration Hardware.

Love the clock, love the sectional, love the pillows, and the perfectly grey walls. Love the bookshelf in the back, and the spotlight (although WHAT IN THE WORLD would you do with a spotlight in your living room?)

Why do we want something we can't have? What is it you've always wanted?