Moving back in

The reconstruction of our downstairs is almost complete!  The painters are here today putting the finishing touches on the trim work and repairing a few "dings" that took place during this humongous project.

We went for a darker finish on our floors than we had before and we are in love with how they turned out.  The picture below shows the true color of the floors.

 Here is a picture looking in from the front door.  Here the floors look much more orange than they really are, but I took these pictures with my phone since I have not yet located my good camera in all the boxes.

 Here is what things really look like around here.  I'm up to my eyeballs in boxes and packing paper, but hopefully, I'll get this all cleaned up soon.

In the midst of unpacking, I'm locating treasures that I forgot all about!  Look at this cute bunny tea pot I found - and just in time for Spring and Easter.  :)

I've been up to some fun stuff too - another class with Jackie, a Spring swap, and a few other things.  Hopefully now, I can catch up on some blogging that I've missed, so if you'd like to see what else I've been up to, be sure check back in a day or so.

Roughing it

 Things are still very much a mess around here.  This morning, the guys showed up to demolish our fireplace.  Ugly ~ isn't it? But the good news is that now that the fireplace is removed, the guys are here putting in the subfloor and starting to put things together again. This week floors, next week put our kitchen back in and *hopefully* finish the floors the weekend after this one.

As of this weekend, we moved out of the master bedroom and into the guest room.  Awesome...

We are pretending we are visiting friends who are hoarders.  Take the pile of pillows off the bed and put them on the floor. In the morning, take them off the floor and put them on the bed. I can't find a darn thing since everything is either in storage,  or stacked in piles in the closet, guest bedroom or the garage. UGH.

I sleep on the right side of the bed, smooshed up against the fridge, and at night, the dogs in the stacked cages.  - Stack 'em deep and sell em' cheap!  (Just kidding)  ;)

Poor babies, they are tired of all this commotion and mess! Us too.

We are guessing another two weeks or so.  Pray that we make it...

What A Mess!

We moved into our home about 4 1/2 years ago.  The day we closed, this is pretty much how the house looked as we walked in the front door.  Lovely faux paint, gorgeous hardwood floors, nice open space. It's been a very nice place to live until just recently.

 See these gorgeous floors and that beautiful stone fireplace?  Well, they are about to be ripped out.

 My island, my stove top, all my countertops have to all be pulled out.  Torn up. Gone. No stove, no refrigerator, NO KEURIG!

 Really??? Yep. We had what we thought was a minor water leak with our hot water heater.  Turns out, water travels much further and faster than you ever imagine and our entire living space downstairs is being packed up today so the demolition can begin.

Oh, and I work from home.  And all of my office has to be packed up and moved to storage...I can keep what I need in a few small boxes - What!!!??? It's my office! And it's time for business taxes, and I need my client files, and, and, and....Ugh. How do I decide what is absolutely important and what I can live without for possibly up to 6 or 8 weeks?  

I know me, and I'll keep out all this stuff I think I need (never to touch the entire time!) and pack up the rest and that is exactly the file, or whatever that I'll really need. Can anybody else relate?

Doug and I will be moving into our tiny little guest room that also has to house our four dogs, along with all the items the restoration people don't think should go into storage (art, TV's, etc)  Oh yeah.

Really, just what a mess.  So if I'm a little cranky and a little preoccupied - please just say a prayer for me.  I know in the grand scheme of things, this is really just an annoyance.  We really are blessed beyond measure and nobody got hurt, nobody died, we didn't lose any of our possessions (although we could stand to rid ourselves of so much stuff!).  It could be so much worse....

After Christmas 2012

It's a cold, cold day here in Tulsa.  There are flurries flying outside and I'm soooo thankful that I'm home, inside where it is warm.  Out my back window, I have a whole bunch of cardinals and black-capped chicadees.

This time of year, the male cardinals are such a vibrant red. Just beautiful! 

 I've counted at least 7 males and a bunch of females too.  Although I'm inside where it is warm, I've taken these through the glass with my zoom lens.

 On a snowy theme, look at these adorable snow people that my sweet husband bought me for Christmas!  Don't you just love them?!?  I won't be putting these away when I put Christmas up for the year.

I'm going to add them to my small, but growing collection of snow people.  I found these at a craft fair earlier this month.

 I'm spoiled most of the time, but I really got spoiled this Christmas.
When I'm home, I love my slippers.  I never walk around barefoot or in socks - I *always* wear my slippers.  Douglas bought me three new pairs for Christmas.

 In addition to my snow people and my slippers, he also gave me gift certificates for a massage and facial, to Hobby Lobby, to Starbucks, to Sephora, and to Barnes & Noble!

I thought I would have my decorations down by now but I'm still enjoying looking at all the lights.  Plus, it's so cold that I can't even think about lugging the containers back up into the attic.  Maybe I'll do it over the weekend...

2012 Christmas Tree and Ornaments

This year I went with a white tree with mulit-colored lights and lots of my favorite decorations.  I love it!

 A few weeks ago, Doug and I went to the Tulsa flea market and I found this sweet vintage little Christmas bird.  There was no way he was staying there so he had to come home with me!  I love his chippy paint and his precious eyes.

Of course, everyone remembers Precious Moments.  My mom bought this angel for me while I was in nursing school.  I had just gotten my own apartment, I was totally broke and had just started collecting Christmas decorations.  Most of what I had that year was homemade (which I still love!) but this ornament has special sentimental value to me. 

 Look at this squishy owl!  He is brand new to my collection this year.  Doug and I went to a local nursery to check out the decorations and Doug bought this sweet guy for me.

 Remember the island of misfit toys?  We joke that our home is that island and I love this sweet little doll.

 Isn't this cute - a little fawn kissing a snowman.

 And finally, a bunny on top of an icicle.

I love looking at all my Christmas things!

This past weekend the Home and Garden Show was in town and of course, with lots of thoughts of projects in my mind, we headed off to see what kind of trouble we could get into.

The plan for the back patio is still on, we've just been trying to decide exactly what we want done and how much we want to spend. I think we have got that project narrowed down and just yesterday I emailed the contractor to get us scheduled.

Our other plan is to replace our front door. We have a beautiful wood front door as seen in this picture from when we were buying the house. The problem is that it doesn't let in any light. We've been here 2 1/2 years (?already!?) and we have talked constantly about replacing the door and looks like we are finally going to do something about that - maybe. I have an email to our homeowner's association finding out what kind of approval we need to do the work. We have picked out a beautiful custom iron and glass door. Once we give the go ahead it will take between 6 and 8 weeks to get it made.
I'll be extending the gardens in the back but I'm waiting until the patio is complete because I have a feeling the back yard might get torn up during the construction of the patio and I don't want to have to do the work twice.
I haven't done much crafting in the last couple of weeks and I'm starting to feel really stressed. Maybe this coming weekend I can get up to my studio and work on a few things. I am currently taking Christy Tomlinson's She Art class and have started a canvas which I think is coming along pretty cute. I'm a week behind in watching the videos but I hope to catch up this week. Some of the canvases are so adorable!

Birds out and about in the snow

Doug got me out of the house for a little while today but the roads were NOT good. I would not and will not be driving on these roads any time soon so I'm lucky that I don't mind too much staying home - even if I am getting a little crabby these days. We had some lunch and tried to go by Barnes and Noble for a few new magazines but they were closed.
Here is our neighborhood:

By the pond:

On one of the main roads by the mall we even saw a firetruck get stuck while turning the corner trying to respond to a call.

I'm having fun using the giant lens on my camera and taking pictures of birds. It's exciting to see all the beautiful and different birds and I'm thrilled with how good the pictures are coming out even though I'm taking them from inside the house!

We have multiple sets of these gorgeous cardinals and finally I'm seeing some bluebirds!

These birds are enjoying some tasty berries.

Look at this little guy - he looks MAD - kind of how I feel these days.

I am so thankful for heat and electricity and plenty of food to eat.
Hope you are staying warm and staying safe!

White Christmas Tag Swap & Connecticut!

It's been a crazy day here trying to finish up my tags for my White Christmas Tag Swap, refinance our mortgage loan, and pack for Connecticut. Plus, we had to take the dogs to Camp Bow Wow - which is always a nerve wracking experience as Phoebe barks/whines the entire ride.
Anyway, I finished my tags and printed out the mailing address where I needed to send them only to read in the directions that we were supposed to do variations of whites and creams. OOPS! Yeah - probably should have read that closer *before* I made all those tags. Let's just say this is *MY* interpretation of a White Christmas ;)

I think they are cute and I got them in the mail today so they will arrive before the deadline. There is no time to redo them since we head to Connecticut first thing tomorrow morning.
No time to work on my unfinished Silver Bella projects either - those will have to wait until I get back home.

The vacation that wasn't...

We have been planning a vacation "home" to see my family (in Connecticut) for about six months now. My cousin Christopher was getting married, my sisters are both having babies, and we thought it would be a great time to spend a couple days in NYC then head on up to Connecticut to visit my family. I haven't seen my family in over a year and Doug and I were both looking forward to our trip. Well, to say things didn't go exactly as planned is an understatement.

We were all excited to stay a couple of days in NYC at the beginning of our trip. We had it all booked when Doug got a call from his employer and got the news that a meeting was scheduled for him to be in New Jersey on our planned days in NYC. Bummer that some of our time was going to be infringed upon by work commitments but hey, you do what you gotta do. We would have some other time to enjoy NYC prior to setting out for Connecticut.

We arrived on Tuesday afternoon and we walked from Times Square all the way to Soho. I wanted to visit Kate's Paperie and Doug wanted to visit Supreme - a skateboard shop (which ended up not being open). We ate at Simply Pasta and it was wonderful!

Tuesday night we saw "Rock Of Ages".

On Wednesday morning Doug went off to his meeting and we got the news his mom was back in the hospital with pneumonia. It has been a rough go since she fell back in July and from what we were hearing we realized we really needed to get to Texas right away to see her. We changed our flight to fly out as soon as we could and spent the remainder of the week in Texas.

Over the past couple of days she has "clinically improved" but she is still very, very sick. Any prayers for her and for Doug's family would be much appreciated.

We didn't make it to Connecticut to see my family and we missed my cousin's wedding but it was more important for us to be with Doug's mom. Right now we are back in Oklahoma and not exactly sure what the next few days are going to bring.

Good To Be Home

After spending the week in Connecticut, I'm home and it feels so good to be here. It has been a stressful and heartbreaking week for our family. Despite that, it was good to be around my family. I miss them being so far away. Sometimes I feel like I'm totally out of the loop on everything and sometimes I feel lonely. I'm envious that they can meet for breakfast anytime they want and that they call each other all the time. I want to be a part of that but I'm so far away.

However, I really don't think I could ever move back there. It's too cold in Connecticut for me.

Nice to be home...

While it is great to get away and get a break once in a while, it is always nice to return home. We got back Sunday night to a quiet, empty house. The dogs were still at Cathy's and I could hardly wait until Monday morning when I could pick them up. Boy, were they happy to see me! Usually they go a little crazy in the car but when I picked them up they all seemed to know we were heading home and everybody was so well behaved while I was driving. When we got home, I had four little shadows following me everywhere I went. I love those little bears...

Too, while getting away is nice, the work left behind always piles up. I've been working like crazy all week to catch up. I just have to remind myself that everyone else's "emergencies" are NOT my emergencies. However, I like to make people happy and I like to get things done so I let little things stress me out. I have to remember to take time to breathe.

One giant project I am happy to be done with is getting my personal and business tax records to my accountant. I'm praying I don't owe taxes this year. Last year, I got hit with a whopper of a tax bill and it took me quite a while to recover from that. I'm hoping for the best this year and I'm just so happy to turn my records over to him and let him deal with it.

The weather is supposed to be in the 70's for the next couple of days and I plan to take full advantage of that. I'm meeting my friend Phyllis at PF Changs for lunch tomorrow and I am so looking forward to seeing her and catching up. I'm not sure what Doug and I will do this weekend ~ maybe a trip to OKC to take care of a few things. Savastano's has opened their new restaurant (finally!) so we might try that. I heard that last night there was a wait to get in. We'll see how it goes.