my vintage friend

When we first moved into our home little over a year ago, I met our neighbor Eileen who lives across the street. She met me at the mailbox one morning and we began to introduce ourselves. A few quick exchanges and before we parted, she asked me the question that would forever connect our lives. "I see you leave Sunday mornings....do you go to church?" she asked. "Yes we do!" I replied. And throwing her hands up and looking to the sky, she said, "Praise God! I was praying for Christian neighbors!" I knew from that moment on that we really did hear from God when He told us to rent this house.

Over the months, we have really gotten to know each other. She is a spry ol' woman, 86, with a heart of gold. In the recent months, we have spent almost every weekday morning having coffee together. I bring her her morning paper after the kids get on the bus and we sit and shoot the breeze. Lately, things have been hard for her, as her husband is going to be placed into a nursing home after falling and breaking his hip. He just celebrated his 91st birthday. I enjoy running errands for her on occasion and even had a chance to take her up to see Ed at the rehab center a few weeks ago. I joked with him and told him he needed to hurry and get well so he can come home and cut our grass....of course I was just joking around, and he quickly responded by telling me he wants a Dixie-Chopper. It's sad that he really thinks he is going to get to come home, and he isn't. Eileen has decided to move to an apartment June 1st, and I get tears in my eyes when I think of her not being across the street anymore. I will be going to see her a lot when she's gone. Who knew one of my best friends could be 30 years older. I love her.

Her son, Mark, was here from Boston for a week helping her prepare for the move. He worked hard at cleaning out all his father's belongings from their shed, and found so many treasures in doing so. Elieen knows how much I adore antiques and treasures, and set aside many things for me to have, including some cute furniture that I am refinishing, and toys for the kids. She even saved out a bag of old fabric scraps she thought I may like, and boy do I! I don't think I would have ever bought polyester, but these scraps are so great! Inside this big dusty trash bag of pant suit remnants, was an old JoAnn Fabrics paper shopping bag, and an old robe pattern. As I was leaving the other day, Mark pulled out this beautiful quilt and looked at me and said, "you wouldn't have use for this old thing, would you?" He was about to put it in the pile to go to Goodwill. I about fell over!!! He didn't know who he was talking to! Me? Want a vintage quilt? Are you kidding me? Uhhh, YES!!!!!!!!!!!! I took it home and washed it up well and it came out of the dryer smelling beautiful, feeling soft, and looking brilliant!

Look at how old this JoAnn bag is!!!

I refinished the small five drawer table and painted it a cute turquoise. I am really thinking of turning my kitchen turquoise and red...and this would be a great addition to the workspace. The old black desk is going to be fixed up for Ellie's room.

We have been so blessed to get to know our neighbors. God sends the right people at the right time, that's for sure. I am so thankful for all she has done for us. I will miss her dearly.
This is my little tribute to my friend and prayer partner, Eileen.

My cup runneth over......

reveal

new typepad blog reveal coming soon...as well as some goods for sale!!! stay tuned!

Weekender Bag

Okay, so I decided late last night that I wanted to make something for myself...a weekender bag to take out of town this weekend to Brown County. So this morning I got up really early to start it. I was done by 10am! I used this gorgeous Amy Butler Fabric and even made my own pattern; it was a pretty easy design. I just love how it turned out and I can't wait to fill it up with goodies tomorrow for our trip!

Kids Art Swap

My 8 year old daughter just finished receiving all the trading cards from the Kids ATC Swap this week! She loved participating in this and thought a lot about what she wanted to create. After the first batch of 'not so creative' cards, we picked another, more juices-flowing-kind-of-day, to start another round... i am LOVING these, and she is loving getting cards from Cali, Illinois, Oregon, UK, and Denmark! Thank you to WISECRAFT for putting this all together! There were over 900 kids that wanted in! It was so fun to see her in her element....just like momma! Visit the ATC Flicker Group here to see hundreds of childrens' card and creativity!

my sweets

i cannot believe how long i have waited to blog. i used to have the excuse that i had no camera, but my sweets bought me a super amazing camera that i love; well he keeps saying it's for the family, but i think it's mine. i just have to say that i have a whole lot of blogging to catch up on. however, i wanted to write tonight about my husband and how much i love him. he is playing a show tonight (drumming) and i am without him. it's good sometimes to have time away even though i miss him terribly when he's gone. it's like i just don't know what to do with myself......but in a good way if that's possible. we have been learning so much about love and sacrifice and commitment lately, forgiveness and grace. i can't imagine what my life would be like without him and i am so darn in love i can't stand it! so i just thought i'd put him first in line of all the blog writing i hope to catch up on soon. i love you more than you'll ever know Joel. i can't wait to see you tonight...i've missed you.

Snow day!

My friend Amy tagged me in this blog game to post 5 things you did today...here you go!

1. Woke up to all this snow and had to get some pics!

Growing up in Wisconsin, 11 inches of snow was the norm. Here in Indy, not so much...everything and everyone was shut down. It was a beautiful sight; one that I miss. It was a good day! The boys have off tomorrow too, so we'll see a snowman up tomorrow that's for sure! Today wasn't quite packey enough. I watched my sweets shovel the driveway. I think when he remembered that we have 4-wheel drive on our van, was when he decided to stop shoveling and just barrel through it...and it worked!

2. I had to rummage through the garage (a nightmare!!!) to find snow-pants and boots for 4 kids. I don't even think that they have ever actually used them, so they didn't know what to think. I have a system for getting dressed for snow, which is methodical, but works well. It always results in them sweating before they get out the door, and dry feet when they come in. It's the little red wrists where the snow gets between their mittens and coats that always makes me sad...



3. While I was searching, my sweets was online pricing DJ equipment for the business he is launching. It has been going on for weeks now. I hope that in the end he gets a great deal. (it's the bargain shopper in me- sorry). I think he needs something like this...




4. I had to come up with something warm and delicious for the kids to have for lunch after the snow-play. So I threw some chicken broth, carrots, onions, celery tops, and alphabet pasta into a pot and voila!





5. I printed the rough draft of the invitations to
our.....oh....wait, I can't tell you.....but I can tease you with a pic! More to come later!




So all in all it was a great day! Hope you enjoyed yours!
Ezra says, "OUT!"

New year, new me, new us!

It has been an awfully long time since I posted; I don't have a digital camera unless I borrow one, so that explains it! A lot has happened in our home since then, and I thought I'd share a little. First off, Joel and I are on a road to building a better marriage which is a beautiful yet sometimes painful process. I encourage you all to keep your eyes on God and don't take them off of him for even a minute. Watch for any breakdown in communication with your spouse and fix it immediately! The enemy is like a roaring lion, and is out to destroy marriages, and fortunately in my case, he didn't win! We will celebrate 10 years of marriage this coming June, and have a special announcement coming soon.....so stay tuned!

For Christmas, my parents gave us the gift of painting our home, via the help of my mom, who came to Indy from Wisconsin for a week of cleaning, painting, redecorating, and of course, Goodwill shopping! My beautiful-inside-and-out friend, Sarah and her funny-funky hubby, Dustin are often invited over for haircuts and the standard eggs-with-bacon, made famous by my sweets, and my biscuits-and-gravy, made famous by me.
She was kind enough to bring her camera over this weekend to take pics for me to blog. So she gets all the credit for the amazing pics, and I'll take it for the choice of color. My mom gets the credit for keeping me moving that week we painted and for her military like encouragement to finish painting 4 rooms in 3 days. We had a blast, and have to say, my home finally, after a year of living here and talking about painting, actually feels like HOME!

I bought these all-white curtains on clearance at Lowe's and painted this retro-funk
pattern on them with craft paint mixed with fabric medium....i likey!

OUR HOME: