I Promise I Will Be Back Soon.......

My activities for the last week-

-Worked Wed. & Thurs. 10 hour days

-Friday, worked at the new house, volunteered for dress rehearsal for the girls ballet recital from 2:30-8:30

-Sat. worked on finishing items for store, volunteered for the girls ballet recital from 2-9.

- Sun. worked on more inventory for the shop. Also went to the new house to help with some of the kitchen planning and the new deck on the back. Computer not working as husband shut off when he had cable installed at the new house????? Ack!!!

- Mon. Took girls to school, gathered all my items for store and brought them down to display. All moved in except for a few items that need some tweeking. Yippea!!!

- Tue. took girls to school, cable guy came and hooked the cable back up- sheesh...., cleaned the house that has been a drop zone since Wed., went grocery shopping, volunteered at youngests school from 1:30-3:30, went to new house for more brainstorming, picked up dinner for hubby, helped girls with homework, went to bed.


So now you know why I have not been blogging. I swear, when things calm down I will be back up to my normal posting pace. Life is just taking over at the moment.

I have pics of my little space at the shop and will upload them for you later today. If the deck gets done today I will get some pictures of it to share. Thanks for checking in even when the posting is slow. Miss you all.

The Place Where I Come From......

These images represent some of the reasons why we moved here. I grew up here and wanted my children to experience the same quality of life that I did growing up. It was one of the best decisions we have ever made.

1. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href= Falls Bend Oregon, 2. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href= the Bend, 3. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href= Rock Sunrise, 4. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href= over the edge, 5. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href= Landing 3, 6. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href= Lake, 7. DSC00619(1), 8. Hangin'" Out At Sparks Lake, 9. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href= Schwab Ampitheater flowers, 10. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href= the trees, 11. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href= rock behind the pumpkin patch, 12. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href= Top, 13. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href= for fall colors, 14. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=, Oregon, 15. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href= are we, 16. Untitled

Teacher Appreciation Week

It was teacher appreciation week last week and these are the little bouquets I sent from our garden. I will really miss our garden when we move. It is exactly like I want it now. It will be a lot of work to get the new cottage into the cottage garden mode. Wow do we have a lot of work to do. Just in case I hadnt mentioned that before. Sheesh!

The New - Old Cottage

Here is your first peek at our new cottage. It is in need of tons of TLC as you can see. Isnt the purple just fabulous? LOL And the pink trim makes it even better. What were they thinking? I believe the renters were trying to annoy the owner and it worked! It annoyed the neighbors too. We have had many neighbors ask if we plan on painting it, and yes we do. Right now I am thinking classic- gray, with white trim and black accents with a deep red door.

This house definitely needs more than paint though. There is no yard, only dirt for the most part. The roof needs to be replaced. Paul already got all the dead birds, mice and one dead cat out of the crawl space in the basement. All petrified, yuck!

Oh and stay tuned.......wait until you see the inside. LOL Mind you I took the inside pictures after we cleaned up quite a bit. It was the dirtiest house I have ever seen. I have no idea how anyone lived there. I am talking disgusting. But I will leave that for another post.

It will be fun to share the before and after with you all. Send us your happy thoughts as we need to be able to move in by June 1st. Not sure how that will go? YIKES!

A Story of Hope and Love

I would like to link you to an interview that was posted at the Etsy Cottage Style blog and challenge you to become a part of this charity event. Jewel is the woman organizing this and she is an inspiration to all of us.

http://etsycottagestyle.blogspot.com/

Barack Obama

He drove by about 3 blocks away from our house on his way to have a town meeting at our local high school. I got goosebumps when I realized who it was.

Every time I see this video I cry. Maybe I am a sap, but I can't control myself. I believe he is the JFK of my generation. I believe that we CAN make a difference with one little vote for him.

Happy Mothers Day

"A woman who is loved always has success."
-Vicki Baum

I hope you all have a wonderful mothers day. We will be spending it with my mom and sister and family and then off to the new cottage to finish painting the kitchen cabinets! Wooo hoooo! LOL Quite the mothers day plans wouldn't you say?

French Bulldog Love

This layout sort of just happened accidentally. The Fun Friday Challenge over at Etsy Cottage Style was the colors brown and seafoam green. I seriously had a hard time with this as I only had one peice of seafoam green paper in all the paper stash that I own. I never had thought of putting it with my fav go to color brown. Anyhow, I have recently been doing some scrapbooking again and this is what came out of my head today. I may do another creation for the challenge but wanted to share this with my Frenchie friends as I know how you all LOVE our frenchies. These are some of my fav pics of my Frenchie Bruno. He is just the sweetest, most loving dog on the planet. So he gets a whole layout all about him.

Funny Little Kitty

Found her in the dryer about 5 minutes after I had unloaded a bunch of clothes. It was nice and warm in there and a great place to hide from the Dog. LOL

Flood in Our Basement, AARRGGGHHH........

Well, the title pretty much says it all. It was my first day of watering the back yard and I guess one of the pipes to the spiggot broke in the basement. I had been watering for about an hour and just happened to start cleaning the back deck off of stuff that needs to go to the Thrift store. I decided to put some of the stuff down in the basement, thankfully, and came into about 5-6" of water.

Lets just say first I had a bit of a panic attack and started taking my most prized antiques from my Nannies house up the stairs. I then realized I better turn the water off, DUH! Then I called my husband crying and he came to the rescue with his shop vac and my brother. They vaccuumed out the basement and there really wasnt much lost. Mostly stuff I was going to give to the Thrift store anyhow. Phew! So we now have a dehumidifier going to make sure everything is very dry. My prized and most loved stuff is on the back deck in fine condition and I was able to save some of the girls baby clothes that got soaked.

I just feel like I was blessed to have the notion to go down there and find the flood right away. My little angel was talking to me as usual. Taking care of me and my family. I believe that angel is my Nanny and sometimes my Poppy. My mom has said that I have had an angel on my shoulder since I was a little girl. I just havent always listened, LOL!

So the really good part of the flood was that one of the boxes that did get wet was a long lost box of some gorgeous vintage stuff I brought back from my Nannies in Connecticut after she passed away. And as you can see this little coffee thermos/carafe is now coming in handy on our counter. Isn't it great? There was also my silverware, two Roseville pottery pots, salt and pepper shakers, a couple of silver trivets, a lace doily my Great Grandmother made, and a couple of old vases. What a box of treasures. All wet, but dry now.

Scrapbooking, What is That???

A look inside my frig. I thought this was a fun challenge over at the Overlooked challenge blog- http://www.thoselittlebigthings.blogspot.com/ So I joined in. I never would have thought about taking a pic of whats inside my frig. Sort of weird thing to scrapbook, but also could be interesting some day to look back on.

This is my coffee mug shot. With some journaling. I have not scrapbooked in probably over 3.5 years so it was a challenge to get in the right frame of mind. I don't think I am quite finished with these yet. Especially now that I see them up here on the computer screen. They are lacking a bit of something, just not sure what it is yet.
So now you know some more fun facts about me and my life. I also have the next challenge to attend to which involves the T.V. I have a photo or two and will work on the journaling next. I'll be sure to share it all here as the challenges go along. It is only one theme a month so that keeps it doable with all the other challenges I am trying to be involved in. Not to mention the rest of my busy life. Sure is fun though. Salut!

Turning Trash Into Cash- 1920's Style

This is an article in that awesome Vintage Magazine we found in the wall of our little cottage. I thought it was very timely with the current reduse, reuse, recycle theme we have in our lives nowadays. Isn't it wonderful?

That is another thing I love about vintage items and shopping at Thrift Stores and Flea Markets. It helps me feel that I am shopping in a more earth friendly manner by reusing old items maybe in a different way, or maybe just recycling them by using them in my art work. It is my little way of helping to save the planet. Along with the major recycling we do with our trash at home. I also like this way of shopping as it is my way of staying out of the American Materialism of more is better, and if I have more I am a more worthy, powerful person. I really despise this about our culture. I know despise is a strong word, but after my trip to Europe it made me even more aware of how materialistic our society is and how that greediness is really killing our planet.

Does any of this thinking ring true for you?