Pretty, Pretty Things

I always get myself in trouble when I go to Hobby Lobby. I go there looking for inspiration... and then I end up finding TOO MUCH inspiration... and then I make questionable decisions, like going next door and buying a plaid hat with ear flaps.

No... I'm not kidding.

I went looking for a table, but I got supremely distracted by the art. As many of you know, I'm not a painter, but I would really like to learn. So when I see lovely art, I want to study it, touch it, and figure out how on earth do people DO that.

My northern roots are showing a little I think... because the first thing that I saw and loved was this painting of the horse. And then the buffalo. And then I walked around the store documenting every pretty thing that I saw, and then 15 photos later I peeled myself away to return to my functional life.

Why I'm Throwing in the Towel on Perfection

I'm sitting in my living room, staring at my white walls, attempting to decide on a color to paint them. I've put it off for nearly two years, because its a rather tall room, and I really liked the white just fine, but recently I started feeling as though the holes needed to be patched, and a fresh coat of paint might be in order. This is one of the many reasons that I hate spring. My spring cleaning/reorganizing/painting gene explodes after its winter hibernation, demanding that I organize EVERYTHING. Paint every available surface. And chastise myself for not doing so already. Oh, and the tornadoes. I don't love that about spring either.

When I'm in search of design ideas, I always turn to Pinterest. Because that is what Pinterest is for- to house your creative thoughts and provide tutorials on how to make salsa from scratch, and match your pillows to your bed in a subtle yet beautiful way. Pinterest is home to all of the answers to my questions, but it is also home to the most doubt inducing images that one can find on the internet.

Pinterest advertises perfection. This isn't Pinterest's fault, by the way, its just doing its job. I love it and use it for everything from recipes to recording party ideas for my alter ego, who actually throws parties. But when it comes to my house... looking at Pinterest leaves me with a sense that my taste isn't good enough. That my house isn't good enough. That the things that I like must be innately incorrect, because there are articles entitled things like "Uhoh. How to decorate with that brown couch" and "How to mix patterns the RIGHT way." You know what you don't find in decorating articles? Permission to combine the use of pillows that feature animal heads, plaid, paisley blankets, a turquoise antique telephone, and your family Pendleton rug that you adore in the same room.

I closed Pinterest maybe three minutes after opening it, which is a record for me. And I came to a conclusion that I probably should have arrived at a long time ago. Perfect isn't universal. Perfect for me is going to be 100% different than perfect for someone else, because I have different tastes and demands on my life. Because I am a unique little snowflake who likes animal head pillows. And because my husband is a techny little snowflake, and needs to have copious amounts of space for computers and gadgets and things that plug in and make weird sounds. I'm not going to find another couple like us that I can steal ideas from. But that doesn't mean that my idea of perfect is any less valid. It just means that perfect for me is perfect for me.

And when you see it, if you know me, chances are you won't look at it and think "Oh good grief. Didn't anyone tell you that its a major mistake to use those prints next to each other?" You'll probably think "This looks exactly like you." And you'll think that it looks just the way it should in my house, because I am a little cloud of chaos and you wouldn't expect anything else. And you'll make sure you never ask me for decorating advice... which is probably for the best. Because I believe that plaid does indeed belong in every room of the house. And on all of my favorite clothes...

Math Dreams and Mouse Spotting

Yesterday was not for writing. Some days are just like that. I'm the same way when it comes to creating new designs for the shop; sometimes I can spend an entire day trying to put something on the page, and sometimes the ideas bubble over more quickly than I can stop them.

Yesterday was not for writing. The harder I tried, the less progress I made. I finally gave up around 9, and sent myself to bed early, hoping to combat the scratch in my throat that I'm desperate to avoid becoming a full fledged cold. Three hours later, when the smartest came to bed, I was still awake, agitated with myself for not being able to use the time in my evening more successfully.

I had stress dreams all night. Usually I have pretty specific stress dreams, but last night it varied from cooking a chicken dish and trying to determine if it was done, crunching numbers on a spreadsheet that I didn't understand (ahem- also known as any spreadsheet, ever) and various Viking death practices. That I'm pretty sure my brain made up in response to a Hulu ad. Usually I dream about missing tests and being attacked by bears, but I was left with the same annoying tightness in my chest. I eventually woke myself up, and decided that this was just ridiculous. Math? I'm having nightmares about math?

I rolled out of bed and stumbled across the room to relieve myself. I flicked the smaller shower light on, because once the smartest and I encountered each other in the dark, each thinking that the other was in bed, and that was a petrifying experience I'd rather not repeat.

And there, in the shower, a little brown mouse darts out. He stares at me, with an expression that I like to think of as "Busted!" He darts back to the corner of the shower where I can't see him. I calmly close the door, and then shove a bathmat along the bottom crack, to make sure he doesn't get any bright ideas about visiting the bedroom.

I woke the smartest up, startling him half to death in the process, and informed him that there was a mouse in our bathroom. He agreed to buy a mousetrap today. We both stayed awake for entirely too long after that, me listening for the telltale scratch of the mouse picking his way out of the bathroom, the smartest probably wondering why I would wake him up in the middle of the night to inform him of a problem we couldn't presently fix.

I eventually did fall asleep. And dreamt that there was a class that I had forgotten to take. Ah yes, the return of the normal stress dreams. No bears, though.

Yesterday was not for writing. It was for close encounters of the mouse kind.

House Update: The Incredible and Remarkable Artist Parents

Today I interrupt your regularly scheduled programming of absolutely no blog posting to gush about the artist parents.

They came to town for a couple of days over the weekend to spend some time with the smartest and I... and to conquer all of the house projects that we just couldn't seem to get done ourselves.

No. I'm not kidding. Every. Single. One.

In a span of 3 days, here are the things that they accomplished (ahem, with less help from us than you would think):

1 mantel hung
1 gargantuan fence-eating bush removed
2 enormous dead trees felled
6 pillows & 1 cushion sewn
2 cozy scarves constructed
2 stools revamped, painted and turned into tables
2 chairs spray painted
12 trees pruned
30 feet of vines removed
3 strands of ugly lights removed from porch
1 fearsome hard water stain completely conquered
10 items of clothing purchased at Goodwill
1 baby shower banner made
1 sweater shrunk beyond all reason (by yours truly, of course)
1 puppy spoiled (yes, she pouted all day after they left)

I can't even begin to tell you have incredible it feels to have our to do list shortened by so much- thank you mama and papa artist!!

Here's a sneak peek at our new mantel:

House Update: The Shop

The smartest and I had a busy weekend. With our semi- annual big trash day on the horizon, we cinched our belts and decided it was finally time to tame the shop.

Since we have moved in, the majority of the shop has been dark, dank, and filled with items that didn't belong to us. Some of said items were kind of cool (like an old metal sled) and some of them were sort of weird (shopping cart, anyone?). But most of it was just gross. Gross and filled with mice nests and snake skins, as it turns out. There was even a nest that I'm pretty sure belong to a velociraptor (guys- it was HUGE).

We started the day with this:

And 9 short (and by short I do mean painstaking and long) hours later we had this:

I want to bite the muffin man

The smartest and I are on a health kick. I know, I know, we health kick every couple of weeks it feels like... only to be slowly seduced and led astray by soda, chocolate and the all important Chili's chips and salsa with ranch.

The smartest and I decided that we were in need of a bit of a life style change, so we decided to start a new eating regime in September (notice how I didn't say "diet", because the word "diet" sounds nowhere near as awesome as "eating regime"). We are trying some new things, including tracking our fitness and having a bit of competition between the two of us.

Shockingly, its actually been pretty fun so far. Something about being in competition with each other reminds us to be a bit more active, so we have been swimming more, playing soccer, and even ran a 5K last week (in the pouring and rather chilly rain), just for fun. Though my calves STILL aren't sure it was fun.

We have also opted to limit the grains/sugar/carbs that we consume. So we are trying to stay on the meat/veggie/fruit side of things. No bread. No chocolate. No snow cones. Here's what our house looks like these days after I hit the grocery store:

Shockingly, I haven't chased a bread truck down the street yet. But don't worry... it is still early. I may yet find time in my day to bite the muffin man.

A couple of things that we have discovered so far:

- The smartest likes mangoes
- I like grilled squash
- When you don't eat sugar, ripe fruit really does start tasting incredibly sweet
- Between the 2 of us, we can consume roughly 10 bananas in one week
- Friendly competition is an excellent motivating tool

We are definitely seeing some results- I, for example, can feel that we are eating less salt because my wedding rings fit the way that they did when we got married. We both feel quite a bit better most of the time- which isn't to say that we don't also feel hungry ALL the time, but we definitely feel better. Here are a couple of the recipes that we have tried variations of and liked:

Chicken tenders with avocado sauce  
One Pan Chicken 
Squash


Wish us luck as the Halloween Candy starts sneaking on to the shelves!

House Update: Sectional

A couple of Saturdays ago, in order to get out of garage sale-ing with me on a particularly warm day... the smartest offered to take me to a furniture store. Since we moved, we have been slowly adding to our furniture budget- knowing that our big ol' living room needed a big ol' comfy... something. Bean bags... ball pit... blow up pool... all options were discussed. Eventually we decided that a section was probably more practical, but we hadn't been brave enough to venture to the very overwhelming furniture area of town. Until a couple of weeks ago.

We went. We sat. We wandered. We sat. We photographed. We drove. We sat. We wandered. I almost bought some art. We sat.

The next weekend, we went... we sat... we avoided a VERY annoying man determined to be friends with us... we sat some more... and decided that we had found "the one". We probably sat on 50-75 different couches, sectionals and chairs on our quest, but only 1 really stuck out to us and was worth revisiting.

Ta-dah!

Meet our lovely new sectional. Perfect for our big ol' room, our great big family and our friends who lovingly come to visit regardless of the fact that we moved 30 minutes away. All that saving was absolutely worth it- we are super excited! And after we snagged the rug and the couch, I snuck the papasan chair into the room in the dead of night (just kidding- it was the dead of afternoon). We have some lovely canvases we want to hang over the fire place- more on that soon hopefully!

A couple other little nooks that will probably evolve a little bit in the next year or so:

Naturally, the puppy loves it, because she blends in perfectly:

Next... I will add photos to the walls (you can see my butcher paper in the background of some of these as I decide what size will go where). Just for fun, here are a couple photos of the living room right after we moved in:

House Update: Country Photos

Since we have lived in this house, I have taken an excessive amount of photos of the sunrise/set/yard/clouds. I'll admit it... I have a problem. There is just something so exciting about getting to see a new piece of the sky, that I just can't stop documenting it. As you may recall from this post... its quite a problem. And today, as I make you wait for the big living room reveal, I thought I would share a couple other photos from around the house as of late. Mostly of the sky... and one of this weirdly large bird/small pheasant that has taken to scaring the living daylights out of me by jumping on the bench outside my window.

 

House Update: The Rug Life

This has been a house of many firsts. My first turtle experience... my first snake experience... my first cabinet space plethora experience... and my first rug experience. Last month, the smartest and I bought our first ever rug. Can I just say that rug-buying is way harder than I anticipated? As it turns out... I'm a tad picky (who's surprised).

I started browsing rugs back in May, when we realized that in addition to needing to warm up our living room space... that the puppy couldn't jump from the wood floor to the furniture. She kept running full speed into things, which didn't seem awesome, so I decided to bump purchasing a rug to the top of the priority list (all because my dog, like me, is uncoordinated) I hunted around online, looked at all of the cheap places I could think of, but I just couldn't find anything that was the size we needed. Which was big. Because the living room is a large space (yay).

When the BHO and I were purchasing the door that would later become the painting for my office, we stopped by the Lowes rug section. Lowes and behold (pun intended) we found not one, but 3 rugs that I actually liked. Cue angels singing.

After dragging the smartest there a couple of days later, we decided that we did in fact love one of the rugs, And that it needed to come home with us. In our teeny, tiny car. Which has a magical ability to fit all manner of things that you wouldn't expect.

We got the room all set up, and rejoiced in how happy and colorful the room felt.

Note that the puppy has already climbed to her designated couch perch in the photo above... she is fond of the new rug.

Little did we know... a big living room furniture change would occur sooner than later.  More on that soon!