Thursday Thoughts

The LORD is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life--of whom shall I be afraid? ~Psalms 27:1

My husband and I have been wrestling with a few major decisions for ourselves, our family, and our business. We have had our discussions, I have prayed for the knowledge to understand, and somehow I had not been able to find the peace I was looking for. After Bible study this week I had lunch with one of the ladies and what she told me has somehow soothed my mind and allowed me to see what needs to be done.

I told her of my fears of others thinking I was giving up or thinking of me as a failure. About how much stress I was feeling because even though it was not my intention the business was coming before my family. How dealing with some difficult people had ruined my passion for photography.

She told me, before everything else bring this to God. Allow him to be in control. To not allow my pride and worries of what everyone may think rule my decisions, to only look at how God looks at me. I left her house feeling so many emotions, but above all there was a PEACE that everything would be fine.

Darn you Jerusalem Star

These may look like cute little flowers but they have been nothing but a thorn in my gardening side for the 5 years we have lived here. They are biennials that reseed themselves. To remove them you have to dig up the grass like foliage including all the bulbs. Some of these bulbs are the size of an onion, but most are pea size and smaller. I have spent the afternoon cleaning them out of my shade garden and will work on the other garden this weekend. Here is a large patch in my shade garden. Each one of these bunches has a large bulb and 10-20 smaller bulbs that need to be removed.

It is actually pretty easy to dig them up, most of the bulbs are clumped together and very close to the surface. Some do require a little digging, usually 8-10 inches deep to remove the bulbs.

I read that to keep the star of Jerusalem from becoming invasive in your garden, clip the seed heads from the plant before they ripen. This has not worked so far, but hopefully once I get them thinned out they will be easier to control.

I have to say that they are very beautiful when they all bloom, which I allow in one large area of the yard. After they are done blooming we just mow them off. Here is my niece Miss AllieCat a couple years ago in the large patch of Jerusalem Star.

Garden Shed

Here we have the most uninteresting corner of my yard. You can see all the neighbors houses, the alley, and our ugly fences. We will be installing privacy fence, hopefully this summer. I would also like to include a cute little garden shed in this corner. Big enough to house our push mower and gardening tools. My only requests are for it to have a covered front porch, windows on each side and a big old door, other than that I am open to what ever my husband can put together.

I was able to pull together some inspiration images for him to go off of...

Tendonitis

After almost a week of living with the pain and swelling in his wrist I finally talked Bryan into going to urgent care. The doctor diagnosed him with tendonitis and he is now wearing a splint. Treatment is fortunately very inexpensive, ice, ibuprofen, and rest. Hopefully after 7-10 days he will be back to normal. The more I have read the more it sounds like it was using the sawsall that did the damage.

Sometimes the tendons become inflamed for a variety of reasons, and the action of pulling the muscle becomes irritating. If the normal smooth gliding motion of your tendon is impaired, the tendon will become inflamed and movement will become painful. This is called tendonitis, and literally means inflammation of the tendon. Performing repetitive finger and wrist motions or using vibrating equipment also heightens your risk of developing tendonitis in that area.

Finally finished with the Fireplace

I am so happy to be done with this project. It has taken almost 3 years from start to finish. I am waiting for a day with a little more available light to get some good shots, but here she is. Still a little naked until I can find the right accessories to dress her up, but she is beautiful.

Can you see the hutch on the left of the first image and peeking out on the right of the second image? That's right I painted that with a gorgeous robin's egg blue color. I still need to distress and add the glaze but she is already stunning.

My current project is scrapping the popcorn texture from the ceiling in the entryway. I will then give it a new skim coat of plaster and a coat of white paint. It really is a simple process but oh so messy. After that we can install the yet to be purchased light fixture. We still have not come to an agreement on which style we will be getting.

My dear hubby has been nursing an injured arm all week so he hasn't been able to help out on any projects. At first we thought he strained it while cutting out all the shrubs and the tree on Sunday. As the week progressed it became more swollen and he is not able to make a fist or grasp objects with it. I have tried to get him to go to the dr. but he keeps holding out. We'll see how the weekend goes, but if he can play the Xbox I'm almost certain it isn't broken!

Stocking the antique store

I moved into my booth at the antique store on 17th and I received a phone call yesterday that I really needed to bring in more items. It seems I sold a ton of things over the weekend! I wasn't quite ready to bring in more items, since I had only been to two auctions (one was a complete bust) and hadn't made it to any of the goodwills. I rushed around yesterday finishing up a few projects and priced enough items to take today.

This old bakers rack is definitely not an antique, but with a little bit of sheet music pulled from an antique hymnal it will look great on display.

This cute little plant stand was from an auction. It got a coat of white spray paint, then dry brushed blue, with a little distressing and wax it looks much better than before. Which reminds me to make sure to take those before shots.
I've seen these all over the web and I finally found a set of croquet mallets so that I could make one. It turned out to be a bigger project than originally thought. We broke off a drill bit and 2 screws before we were finished.

I'll try to take a picture of the booth today when I am out restocking.

Spring cleaning

The first day of spring was the perfect day for cleaning out the flower beds, which turned into removing the bushes and tree from the front yard.

After a little bit of this...

Some of this...
Lots of this...
Even more of this....

The front yard went from this...

To this...

We still need to pull out the stumps but that will wait until we can borrow a truck. I can't wait to redo the front garden.

While raking out the gardens we uncovered these!!

Nothing says SPRING more than new crocus popping up!

Flower Bike

I'm on the look out for an old bike for my front shade garden. I love the look of the trailing plants and big beautiful blooms next to the old beat up rusty bikes.

Welcome Spring

I am so ready for spring. Although I am new to the whole gardening chore, I have found that if I am willing to get my hands dirty and not be afraid to experiment I enjoy the task. When we first moved into this house it had beautiful shrubs and hostas in the front, but the rest of the landscaping left a lot to be desired. I have since put in two large shade gardens, a wildflower patch, and tried my hand at a container garden. Two winters ago we had a severe ice storm that broke off all the upper branches on the shrubs that were so beautiful when we first moved into the house. Since they have not recovered we will be removing them. The hostas will also be transplanted. I have been researching what type of plant would do well in the early morning sun and afternoon/evening shade. To my delight I found that one of my favorite plants, the Hydrangea, fits into that category perfectly. I planted a hydrangea bush two summers ago but it hardly bloomed at all last year. I couldn't figure out why until I stumbled upon this amazing website

http://hydrangeashydrangeas.com/

I had planted the bush in my shade garden where it barely got any sunlight. I look forward to moving it and purchasing more for the front landscaping.
This is the Blue Mophead variety that I will be hopefully purchasing for our garden. I still have researching to do but this is probably my favorite.

Six Years of Wedded Bliss

Today Dude and I celebrate our 6 year anniversary. He is the man of my dreams...the one who makes me laugh and holds me when I cry. The one who I can spend hours with and it feels like only minutes have passed. He is the one that I know I can trust and that he will never hurt me. Until we met 8 years ago I feared I would never experience the feeling of true love. Thank you Bryan for being what a I needed and showing me what a real relationship is based upon... Trust, Honesty, Friendship, and Love.

Here I am with the then man of the house, the sweet little boy who walked me down the aisle and gave his mom away to be married.

Love you Badger Boy! How many men do you know of that would open their heart to a single mom with four kids?

I know just how lucky I am to have him in our lives.
He is the type of father that plays soccer and catch out in the yard, goes to all the kids activities, helps with homework, disciplines and loves at the same time, and above all he does this without complaint or the feeling of resentment. He is what a Father and Husband is suppose to be.

Our house in the middle of the street

“It always amazes me to think that every house on every street is full of so many stories; so many triumphs and tragedies, and all we see are yards and driveways.” -Glenn Close

I would love to know all the secrets this house holds. To know the people who lived here and the memories of this house.

I spoke with a man who grew up in this house as a teenager just this weekend at an auction. I asked him a few questions about the house, but he only vaguely remembers. He does remember his step-mom stripping the paint from the staircase, which means that someone in the last 15 years repainted it. He also thought that the trim and mouldings were still here then. I always wondered what made someone think it wise to remove the beautiful trim around all the windows and doors.
We have also been told that our house was once a "nursing home". With elderly women living on the lower level and a family upstairs. I haven't been able to find any record of this.

And Behind Door # 1

Here is what our front door currently looks like. I hate it! The color, the small half circle window, the dings and dents all drive me crazy. I had thought about just repainting it but I think it has to many flaws to live with. I would like to find an old victorian style wooden door, but I may have to settle for a new energy saving wooden door. The one thing that is great about it is since it is metal Little Buddy can put his magnetic cars and alphabet on it.

Here are a few images I pulled from the web to show Bryan what should be on an old house like this.

Let there be light

The next project in the entry is scraping the popcorn texture off and moving the light fixture. For some reason the previous owners placed the ugly fixture off center. We will be moving it over and installing a new light.

This is what we have been living with for almost 6 years! UUUUUUU-gly

This is where Bryan and I disagree. I would like one that is semi-flush with some ornate detail, so that it goes with the rest of the house.


Bryan would like the cheapest flush mount you can find.

I know when to back down and when to stick to my guns, because what I really want is a big chandelier!

What do you think would look best in this old Victorian?

Happy Anniversary to us

Bryan and I will celebrate our wedding anniversary this weekend, but our gift to each other couldn't wait any longer. Our old and overused washing machine bit the dust! We were without a washer for 4 days, FOUR DAYS!! Do you know how much dirty clothing a family of 8 produces in 4 DAYS!!?? It was getting a little crazy around here, kids running around with holey jeans, yelling that they were down to their last pair of clean underwear, I was almost ready to head to the laundry mat! Many years ago I did our family of 6's laundry at a laundry mat every week for a full year, and that is not a chore I would ever like to repeat!!

So we headed off in search for a some what matching washer to the dryer that croaked on us last summer.

Here she is!! What a woman, she was able to get caught up on all the laundry in just 2 days!!

My wonderful husband also decided I needed some roses!