And Finally the Pictures

I thought I'd sneak in a photo of Amanda and my cousin Jake playing Guitar Hero and a get together we had while I was visiting my family in B'ham a couple of weekends ago.


But on to the important stuff. Should I complain again that Amanda's camera takes blurry photos most of the time? I'd take my little 3.1 MP Kodak Easy Share anyday- if it worked.


I'm so happy to be able to hang some of my artwork. I actually find it amazing that I have original artwork in my house. I never thought that I'd paint for sure, but I couldn't have imagined that I'd have friends that were artists either. These two in the black frames are lino cut prints from Tisra. I think that the black and white look stunning against that yellow, don't you? I also hung a couple of coffee cup hangy-things that Mary bought for me ages ago. I hung them in our last apartment but we had 9 foot ceilings and I think that dwarfed them a bit. I hadn't hung them here because, really, what was the point until I painted? And I'd like to say that my "yellow as a colorful neutral" is working quite nicely. I also hung Convergence and Sunflowers in the hall and they look great in their new homes. Yellow paint is a finicky thing though. It looks different in all three photos. I'd say that it looks most like the picture of Tisra's pictures though.

We still have to paint the yucky paneling but since we're leaving this weekend for our trip there just wasn't enough time. There are now white curtains over the window and door but they make me yawn every time I look at them. I plan to add black gross grain ribbon to them to make tie up shades. Granted I've never seen any with the loopy tops that these have but I think it will look nice anyway. As it stands right now they look like they're a weird length. Like clam diggers on short people with curvy hips(like me). They should be either shorts or capri's otherwise they just look strange. I also thought of embroidering some type of simple design in black but then I remembered that we're not staying here forever, that it would take me about 100 hours to do it, and they'll most likely be left with the house when we leave so probably not. Or I could buy these-later- when they're in my budget. Yes, they're inexpensive but my budget is really, really small.

So now I'm off to do more cleaning before the big graduation party and vacation- yay!

Holy Cow

Whew! That was seriously the hardest work I've done in my life. And while the walls we skim coated and sanded and sanded and sanded are done, they're far from perfect. Which really drives me nuts. It seems to me that if you work that hard on something it should be perfect. But it is what it is and the yellow paint is perfectly perfect. I do have to say though, that I never, ever, ever want to go through that again. There is drywall dust in every nook and cranny of my house and couple that with the tree pollen that's floating around here and you have one miserable Amy. I've been sneezing my head off for the last several days and I woke up about four this morning to find that my right eyelid is swollen like, I don't know, about 4 times bigger than normal. Amanda's graduation is in *two days* and then we go to FL. I cannot look like this for those occasions. Am I being vain? Um, yeah. But it really, really looks bad. If I ever think about buying a fixer with wallpaper everywhere, please stop me.

I will post some pictures of the perfect paint as soon as I wake Amanda up and abscond her camera :)

Nearly There

Yes, I'm nearly there. After hours upon hours of the scoring, spraying with vinegar water, stripping, repeat of wallpaper, and then skim coating with drywall mud I'm almost done. Yesterday I took down (with a hammer teehee) the baseboards that the previous homeowners had framed the kitchen window with and I have just the space behind the computer desk and a little touching up to do and then I can sand. And sand and sand and sand. Then prime and paint- yay! But I have to get off my butt and finish it so that I can take Tisra's tools (that she so graciously lent to me months ago) back to her. It seems that the renovation/completion of projects bug has bitten us both at the same time.

But since I never showed a picture of Amanda all dolled up for prom, here you go. Her dress was custom made by someone on Etsy, she has on $200 dollar Betsy Johnson shoes (that you can't see) courtesy of her date, and her hair is by Matt from Dion's. All for what she described as a boring prom with lame music. But at least she looked stunning.

Kyleigh's Blocks

I'm getting closer to the completion of Kyleigh's blocks and it's a good thing since we're heading to FL in two short weeks. So I thought I'd show you my progress. Why am I doing this when I should be packing? Well because I *hate* packing, of course. If you ever embroider and don't have one of these nifty little fabric markers you should totally get one. Goofs don't matter and I even modify while I'm embroidering if I don't like what I drew exactly as I drew it. One quick dunk under water and all the blue stuff is gone- seriously, it could not be any easier.

I've got the letters of her name in weird order on the fabric but her initials are KRJ. I intended for it to not look perfect, just hand drawn and shabby chic-y. I think I'm getting the look I wanted. I'm really having fun with this :)

Getting Dusty

K, real quick I'm going to put up some renovation pics. We finally decided to put everything aside and work on the house like crazy. When we moved in I started with vigor, ripping out stuff and painting, etc. But when Travis started working two jobs we sort of lost motivation so, we're motivated again and here's what we've done. And by the by, I've been using Amanda's camera and I have to say that when I buy a new one it won't be one of those. You have to push the button half way down to focus it and I really don't understand why it won't focus correctly- anyway my picture is blurry but you get the idea. Sooo, we're pulling out the remaining wall heaters in the house. One which almost burned our house down when we first moved in, did I tell you that story? I don't remember, anyway. So 3 heater holes, one medicine cabinet hole, and a hole that I knocked into the wall to determine what in the heck the damage was to our walls was. Well, to determine if the damage went all the way through, was it water damage, etc. So there is lots and lots of dust throughout the Button place these days.


And I don't think I ever mentioned which resort won out. It just so happens that we'll be staying at the Key West Resort for two days of fun and sun and whatever other fun we can have there.

This evening we'll be headed to B'ham to see my grandmother. Things have worsened and she's in hospice care now. The estimates that I've gotten give her two to four weeks to live but you never really know. And since this is Mother's Day we figured there's no time like the present to go. We want to see her while she's still with us.

Happy Mother's Day!

Convergence

A few days ago I was praying and in that time the Lord showed me several things that I needed to lay down. And as I was working through all that I saw a very clear picture in my mind of all of the paths of our lives coming together and converging into one straight path and purpose.

In the old testament when the Israelites miraculously crossed the Jordan river they took 12 stones from the river and set it up as a monument to what God had done in their lives so that when they looked at it they would remember everything God had done for them. And last night I felt very impressed that I should paint a picture of what I'd seen. So here is Convergence.

Since it is symbolic I'll explain it to you. The background is clearly a rainbow which signifies God's promises to us upon which our journey is built. The black at the bottom of the rainbow signifies death and sin and everything that God saved us from. The rainbow is in a particular order and signifies the order in God's kingdom that is constant. The lines going upward signify our lives and the different paths that we've taken. There seems to be no order in the color of these lines and that indicates our lack of understanding and seeming disorder of our lives. The yellow/orange indicates the fire of God that propelled and also guided us from within and the yellow outer layer signifies the hand/power/provision of God that kept us on a path that to us was uncertain. Then the colors converge into one clear path of our destiny still surrounded by the hand/power/provision of almighty God. I hope this ministers to you as it has to me. I have often thought that I'd like to set up a monument to what God has done but thought that setting up a rock altar would be impractical at best. But this is something that will hang in our home as a constant testament to God's goodness, his faithfulness, his provision and his greatness.

Amanda's Birthday and Stuff

Well, I fully intended to write about this sooner than now but things have felt topsy-turvy lately and I haven't gotten to it until now. Amanda's 18th birthday was great. The day started out with home made cinnamon rolls. Travis had the day off and Chloe had been sick with a stomach virus so nobody was planning on getting up early except for Amanda because she had to go to school. I did manage to roll out of bed just before 8 o'clock to wish her a happy birthday. My parents arrived about noon-ish and we decided to do lunch at Logan's instead of dinner. Mostly because we were all starving and Amanda was ditching us that night for "church" (really for some guy she likes that would be at church. But at least we're not making her go anymore). We hadn't been there in at least a year but we did go there quite a bit when we lived in Birmingham since it's one of my parents faves- and Amanda's. I'd like to add here that, in case you didn't know, Amanda is known around here as a carnivore. Ribs and steak are her absolute faves, she doesn't really like chicken and she has a 23 inch waist. Seriously. So this was her choice and she was *really* looking forward to it. Lunch was nice and for the *first time ever, ever, ever* Halle stayed in her seat and did what she was supposed to do without any scolding. She was actually delightful to have at the table. It gives me hope that maybe we could go to an actual restaurant with her in FL with the relatives. And, as another aside, I really, really hate country music. Which was blaring in the ladies restroom that I had to visit 3 times because of little girls with little bladders. It's not like I've never been someplace that they've played country music. In fact, my family used to frequent Po Folks quite often when I was a kid but for some reason it was driving.me.nuts. But that's probably why I've never had any sort of inclination to got to the Opry House even though we live so close.

OK, enough about that. So with Amanda's newly found birthday wealth, we headed to the mall to blow it. Coincidentally it was a tax-free weekend and she wanted to make sure she took full advantage of it. Which I totally don't blame her for since she's saving close to 10 % on everything. The rest of the afternoon was spent with all six of us following Amanda around the mall, which is exactly what she wanted. So in that regard I think her birthday was a success. Later, we celebrated with a triple layer chocolate cheesecake by her request. It is her absolute, all-time fave. And I have to say that it's my favorite cheesecake out of all the ones my mom makes. Of course, she did tell me that I have the recipe in one of my Southern Living cookbooks and I think that's a hint that I should start making them. I'm not sure I see myself tackling cheesecakes yet though.

And that concludes our tour of Amanda's 18th birthday. Stay tuned for pictures of prom, house renovations, embroidering for Kylie and a finally completed painting.