so sweet...

I just had to show you these sweet towels I found in Target on Thursday...aren't they darling?? I'm not one to really get into "decorating" for Valentine's day (I save that for Thanksgiving/fall & Christmas) but when I saw these towels, I thought maybe I'd change my mind about that... :)

Now I'm thinking I'd like to get some kind of "heart thing" to hang on my front door (since I have such a nice front door now). I could definitely have something "lovey" sitting on my coffee table, should I see (or make) something that would be "just perfect".

After all...what the world needs now is love...sweet love...

shop drawers...

Forgive me. I hope you guys haven't given up on me posting any more to this blog... Those of you who know what "line of work" I'm in, you know it's already getting busy for me. That's the true reason I haven't posted in awhile (that and the fact that there hasn't been much going on around the house in the way of projects). I work in a CPA office so I'm up to my eyeballs in quarterly payroll reports, W-2s and 1099s. And it's only going to get worse, so just be aware that my posts will probably be few & far between...don't give up on me!

With that being said, there is one project that's being worked on more frequently than all the rest and that's the setup in Jeff's shop (a.k.a. the garage - where my car should be parked...). You've seen the cabinet structure he's put in place in this post; well, now he's working on drawers to put in for all his "stuff". They're turning out pretty fast because he cut all the pieces first:

Then, he worked on putting them all together, one right after the other:


When you do that, they go together pretty quickly and you end up with this:


Nice, huh? I got him a drawer jig for his birthday in October and it has come in pretty handy with all these drawers he's installing. The drawers give him options and are a nice way to store things since he can pull them out to see what's stashed in the back...you can't always do that with a cabinet.

I'm really proud of how often he's been going out there to work on this project. I know he'll be so glad to have drawers & cabinets in place to put his stuff. He'll have a better handle on where everything is and he'll be able to work much more efficiently on his woodworking projects. What woodworking projects, you ask? Oh, believe me...he has quite a "list" of things...he'll got LOTS of practice on LOTS of different things... :D

drawer pulls...

We accomplished another (very) small project last night...we attached drawer pulls to the 2 drawers we have in the kitchen. Up to now, we've just been pulling on the bottom of the drawer (there's a notch cut out) to open them, but I really wanted to get drawer pulls for them at some point.

Well, we were in Lowe's the other night and Jeff was looking at hinges for some of his cabinets, etc. in his shop. The drawer pulls and knobs were on the same aisle so I just browsed to "see what I could see". I was originally going to go with brushed pewter/nickel because I really like that look, but I found these brushed copper-colored pulls that I thought would look really nice with the mocha color of our cabinets. We got them home and they were perfect!

So last night we put them on and don't they look nice? I'd really like to have knobs (in the same brushed copper) for the cabinets but some of the doors, if you don't keep a hold on them, they bang into some of the other cabinets and the last thing I want is dents in our cabinets from the knobs! Guess we'll hold off on that for now.

I do love those pulls, though!

Merry Christmas!

"In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn."

--Luke 2:1-7 (esv)

...she gave birth to our Savior, our Redeemer...Jesus, the Christ...the Son of God.

I pray your Christmas was full of blessings, surrounded by loved ones and friends...and may we carry this Spirit all through the new year. God bless each of you!

in the Spirit...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! I've had my decorations up for awhile (since the beginning of December, actually), but I haven't been able to get many decent photos of them for the blog. Lord knows, I've been trying! Sometimes my camera really frustrates me...

But here are a few photos to give you an idea of what the new house looks like with our "old" decorations:

Christmas goodies...

Well, this is a far-cry from anything to do with the house, but I want to post it nonetheless. I've decided to do some baking this Christmas season for various activities and for gifts. We have a few parties we attend every Christmas season and we have lots of friends.

Well, now we have new neighbors! So I thought that some homemade goodies would be a nice way to wish them a blessed Christmas. Here's what I've been up to:

Chocolate Crinkles

(these are Jeff's fave!)

1 cup cocoa

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

Combine ingredients, mixing well, and refrigerate overnight. Form balls and roll in powdered sugar. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. Yield = 3 1/2 dozen

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

1 1/2 cups self rising flour

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1/4 cup plus 2 tsp sugar

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 large egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Mix flour and salt together in small bowl. Mix butter, brown sugar and sugar in a separate larger mixing bowl. Add egg, peanut butter and vanilla. Mix well. Add flour to mixture and beat until it resembles batter. Fill greased mini muffin tin wells with batter almost to the top. Bake at 375 for 8-9 minutes until almost done. Take out and press one mini reese's peanut butter cup into center of batter in each well. Put back in the oven for another minute. Yield = 3 1/2 dozen

I actually made one other recipe, M&M Cookies (with the red & green M&Ms), but I didn't think to take a photo of those before I put them into these bags...

Aren't they cute? I hope they like them.

I found it!

Finally! I found a long lost box in the storage facility today! For awhile now, I knew there were some dishes that I hadn't unpacked and I couldn't imagine where they were since (I thought) I'd gotten all the kitchen boxes out of storage & unpacked them. I even checked with my mom (more than once) to see if I'd brought this one corningware dish/lid I was missing to her house and left it. She said no (more than once).

I was also missing a small pottery piece that I use to hold my splenda packets for my coffee...couldn't find it in any boxes I'd already unpacked. I just had no idea where these things could be...

I went to the storage facility today to get my Christmas "tub" and the tree so I can decorate the house and while I was there, I thought I'd check through the boxes to see what was still left. It was mostly boxes of books (3 to be exact - geez!), but there was a box underneath one of those boxes that wasn't labeled on the side like the rest; only on the top. So I had to lift the box on top up to see what that box said and the label said "Glass Bakeware & Cookware - Breakable!" (pretty much every box was labeled "breakable" cuz you just never know...). A-ha! And when I opened it - ta da! There was my "lost" stuff! Hooray! All is well once more...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, All! I sincerely pray you all had a lovely Thanksgiving, as I & my family did. We headed to Lexington (NC) on Wednesday afternoon to see my family. My mom & dad, my brother & his wife AND my mom's parents (Gram & Buppa to me!) all live there so we were able to spend some time with all of them.

One thing we got to do that was really neat for me was to take a ride in my Daddy's truck. Most of you know that he has become a truck driver, driving big semis, tractor-trailers, whatever you want to call them...the big mamma-jammas! Anyway, I just think that's the coolest thing and he was able to take me out in the truck while we were home. He has a really nice truck with US Xpress and I was able to get up in it and see where he stores his stuff, where he sleeps, where his TV and everything is...it was just a really cool thing. I enjoyed riding in that tall thing and I really got an education because Daddy told me tidbits about the truck and how different driving it is while we were out.

We usually have our Thanksgiving meal as dinner on Thursday since my brother & his wife have Thanksgiving lunch with her family. I kinda like it that way because we don't have to get up at the crack of dawn to have everything ready by lunch. We can take our time and not spend all day in the kitchen (although it always ends up feeling like that...). Our meal was wonderful. We had a lot of traditional dishes, like green bean casserole and mashed potatoes/gravy, but we also had a couple dishes we don't normally have, like sweet potato casserole and pineapple cheese casserole. We had tons of desserts including 3 pies and a new recipe I tried, Butterscotch Apple Crisp. Everything was very tasty and we all ate WAY TOO MUCH.

Friday, the 3 of us (me, Momma & Gram) headed off to Seagrove in keeping with what has become one of my favorite traditions. I don't get into all that is "Black Friday", but I do enjoy shopping the day after Thanksgiving in the "pottery capital of the world". We had a great time just being together and finding the neatest things. I was able to get some Christmas gifts, as well as a little something for me. :) The fall foliage was absolutely GORGEOUS and I loved every minute of the drive around Seagrove. We actually were able to watch a potter creating what they call a brie baker (you can see for yourself here), so that was really neat for us.

We came back on Saturday night so we were able to be with our friends today in church & Sunday School. That was important to us because we are so very thankful for our friends here, who are really our family since both Jeff & I live so far from our families. We are truly blessed in every aspect of our lives, and we pray the Lord would help us to remember that and keep us content with all that He has given us.

God bless you all throughout the rest of this holiday season!

"And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom...with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

--Colossians 3:15-17

documenting the milestones...

Most of you know that I'm a scrapbooker. Well, I finally started the house scrapbook this past weekend (part of the reason I haven't posted in a while). My Creative Memories consultant, Jill, held her 2nd scrapbooking retreat this weekend in Ocean Isle Beach, NC. I was able to go to the first one in April and had an all-out blast so I was really looking forward to this one. We had a larger house this time which means we had more room to spread out. It was so much fun! There were about 14 of us total and we all got a lot done. We ate tons of food, had lots of conversation, scrapbooked gobs of pages/events...and we managed to squeeze a few hours of sleep in there. :)

I got about 13 pages done in the house scrapbook which is not NEARLY as many as some, but I'm very pleased with how all the pages turned out. I took my time deciding on color schemes and how I wanted to showcase each day of progress. That's usually how I scrapbook anyway, but I think I took extra time just because I could (no where to go for 2 1/2 days!). I really enjoyed myself this weekend. I'm up through June 13 in the album; needless to say, I have a ways to go to complete it, but I have a feeling I'll be continuing on with the scrapbook after the house is built, similar to how I've done with this blog.

Happy Birthday, Babe!

Today is my wonderful husband's birthday (yes, on Halloween). He's turning a young 32 and every year, I think he just gets better & better.

This morning, I got up early & made him blueberry muffins (his favorite) for breakfast. Today he was able to take off early from work and do some things that HE wanted to do. Then tonight we went to Outback Steakhouse, his favorite restaurant, for dinner to celebrate. They sang to him & gave him a free sundae (which we were both too full to finish).

I asked him on the way home tonight if he'd had an enjoyable birthday...he said yes. Happy birthday, babe! I love you bunches and am so proud of what God is doing in and through you. I see more evidence of it every day...

"shop"-ing around...

I want you to see what my husband has been doing...the garage has become the "shop" - we knew it would. At our other place, Jeff had a nice shed in the backyard where he could go to "play". He did all his woodworking out there, had all his tools out there, his radio-controlled airplanes were out there, etc. We don't have a shed here. So he's been working on organizing his stuff and building this or that to house it all.

He put up these nice shelving brackets so that he would have a place, out of the way, to store his wood boards for future projects. He likes to purchase his wood from a place in Wilmington called Anchor Hardwoods. They generally have a pretty good selection of wood to choose from and Jeff can usually find what he needs at a decent price. On his shelves, he has a little bit of everything from pine & walnut to cherry & maple. These "shelves" are on the left side of the garage if you're looking inside from the driveway and they sit above the water heater there in the corner.

He's also put up some of the wire shelving, that you can see here, for some of his "tubs". My husband is actually pretty organized when it comes to his stuff. He organizes things in tubs like these so that it's all together in one place. He has different tubs for different things: a tub for all things electrical, a tub with things he might need when he paints (brushes, rollers, etc.), a tub just for caulks & silicones...you get the picture. All he has to do is remember where he put the tub that has the stuff he needs in it! So these shelves kinda help with that. And these he put up right to the left of the door leading into the house from the garage.

The biggest project is the "wall 'o' cabinets". Jeff is building all different sizes of cabinets/shelves, some with doors, some with pegboard, some open to house his stuff. He's building "shells" to fit shelves in and then he'll enclose those with different door fronts. The photo at the top gives you and idea of what I'm talking about. He's also including a desktop area where he can set things to work on or put his computer on for some tunes or woodworking ideas. Underneath the desktop will be some cabinets with drawers, etc. for more of his stuff. It's really coming together. You can see the start of the desktop in this photo.

It's a work-in-progress right now. I hope to show you more photos in the future as it becomes more complete. Once he finishes this project, he'll have a lot more room in the shop to work, which means he'll be a lot less frustrated and be able to just crank those woodworking projects out! And maybe there will be room in there somewhere for my (little bitty) car. Maybe. :)

attic floor...

I know what you're thinking: I suppose you could say I'm about as slack as a blogger could be, huh? SIXTEEN days since my last post??! That's pathetic.

But in my defense (because I don't think anyone else will come to my defense), I have been super-busy lately. Work has been pretty involved. I've had lots going on in recent weekends. And my nights haven't been my own with Jeff's softball games and cards needing to be made (of course I enjoy that but you know...). So here we are at the 19th of October. Jeff's last softball game (other than the rain-out and the tourney) was Tuesday and no one's coming to visit this weekend. So there you go. Time to post to the blog. :)

I do want to say that I did have house guests last weekend; my mom (finally) and her parents, my grandparents (affectionately nicknamed "the grands"). They all loved the house and we had a wonderful time together. Mom & Gram went to my bible study with me on Saturday morning while Jeff and Buppa hung out (in the shop for a brief time, but mostly at Harbor Freight since Buppa doesn't have one close by). We mostly chilled the rest of the weekend and just enjoyed being together. It really meant a lot to me & Jeff to have Gram & Buppa make the trip because it was a big deal for them to come all that way. They're not "spring chickens" anymore (and I say that in the most loving way!) and for them to make the trip to see us and the house tells a lot. Thanks, Grands! We loved having you! And you, too, Momma. Always!

Now, just a brief part about the house (since that is mostly the point of this blog). We've had the attic flooring down for a while, but it's such a boring thing, I only now decided that I'd post about it. There's not much to say about it except that Jeff's buddy, Henry Olds came out to help cut & put it down and they both worked their butts off one Saturday (thanks, dude!). We don't have much space up there, but it's nice to have flooring down to store things like fall/Christmas decorations, clothes, spare a/c units (?), closet shelving that we took down at the other place, etc. It's helped us clean up the living part of the house so we don't have so much clutter. It's not climate-controlled, obviously, but it does have light. Jeff helped ME install a motion-detection light up there. It pretty much comes on as we start going up the ladder to the attic, which is nice.

Stay tuned for more...and hopefully, it won't be another 16 days before I post again.

my fave season...

Can you smell it? The scent of fall? That glorious season God created? Fall, or autumn as some call it, is my favorite time of year. It's the time when things in creation start to change - the temperatures become cooler, the daylight gets shorter, the colors of the leaves turn...ah, fall. I love it!

It also reminds me of the time when families gather together to reminisce on all of God's blessings and what they're personally thankful for in their lives. We usually spend the Thanksgiving holiday with my family in Lexington since they're so close (and I still don't have any desire to attempt to cook a turkey!). My mom provides the house and the kitchen and I usually put together the menu. Then we work together to get the meal cooked and on the table. It can be a little hectic, trying to get everything to be done all at the same time and stay hot until we eat it with only one stove and one microwave, but I enjoy it all the same.

It's become a tradition the last several years for the girls to head to Seagrove, NC the day after Thanksgiving to do some shopping. Seagrove, for those who don't know, is the pottery capital of the "world" (as far as I'm concerned). I love the atmosphere around that area at this time of year. There's a slight chill & crispness in the air and everyone has their studios/work areas decorated for the holidays. Most of the potters usually have some celtic music playing in the background...oh, I just love being there. It seems like a different era when I'm there. And, of course, I don't get to go shopping with my mom very often so that's always a bonus!

Anyway, I didn't mean to get off on a tangent, but I do so love this season. I really just wanted to post a photo or 2 of some of the fall decorations that I've put up around the house. I have almost as much decoration for fall as I do for Christmas! I have a wreath hanging on our front door which I'm so excited about (we couldn't do that on our other front door). I also have some fall scented candles here & there. I have a fall colored table runner on our kitchen table and a matching table cloth on the "steel table" in the kitchen (that won't be staying in the kitchen...). In the center of the kitchen table is a basket arrangement of fall leaves, pinecones & ribbon. On the entertainment center, I have some ceramic punkins and a fall basket arrangement with some "sprigs" of fall "stuff" (that's the best I can do - you can see a little of the "stuff" in the photo above). I would've normally put that "ensemble" on the fireplace mantel but since we don't have that now... I also have a garland of fall leaves above the cabinets in the kitchen...very festive.

Take the fall season of 2007 to really think about all that God has blessed you with. And be thankful. There are so many who have nothing...we are TRULY blessed. Happy Fall, Ya'll!

first house guests...

My brother, Daniel, and his wife, Brandi, came for the weekend - our first house guests in the new house!

My brother and I share the same birthday, September 28, so we celebrated this weekend. He was celebrating year 27 and I was celebrating year 29 (ouch). It was nice to be together for our birthdays (but not the same as sharing a birthday party - we used to do that when we were young enough to not like each others' friends). They got to the house around 3pm on Friday and left tonight around 8pm.

Friday night we opened gifts and then grilled out pork chops for dinner. We watched a movie later. Saturday, Daniel went to Jeff's bible study with him and Brandi went to my bible study with me. Then Daniel & Jeff got to work putting in surround sound speakers in the living room. We used to have that in our apartment in Wilmington when we first moved to the area...I'd forgotten how nice that is! We took a break and went to the beach for a brief time (until we couldn't stand the black flies anymore - ugh!). Then we came back & grilled out burgers for dinner. We drove into town to get ice cream at ColdStone Creamery (did you know you can sign up to get a coupon for a free "love it" on your birthday? click here to check it out) and then went back to the house to watch a movie (with our new surround sound). Today, we went to Sunday School & church and then out to lunch at Two Guys Grille (yum!). We came back to the house & lazed around (after all, it IS the day of rest!).

It was an enjoyable weekend with family. So glad to have you in our new home, Daniel & Brandi!

our (new) living room furniture...

At long last, I'm posting our new living room furniture. This is the major purchase we made in the process of moving (aside from the house itself, obviously) and we're pretty happy with it. Most of you know we had a sectional sofa before, with 2 recliners and a pull-out sofa bed. Well, there was NO WAY that was going to fit in our new living room. Believe me, I measured & measured, this way & that! I loved that sectional and was really sorry to see it go but our new living room area is more square than the area we had at the old place so it just wasn't going to work. So we set about looking at several furniture places, including Rooms To Go which is where we found our purchase. It's called "Thorne" and we got the sofa, loveseat, chair/ottoman & rug in the set. It's pretty dramatic, but you know me...

I'm a big fan of having lots of seating for our guests on those rare occasions when folks make the "trek" out to our place [ :) ]. We also opted for the sleeper sofa so that we'd have a 2nd bed for guests/family if we had that many at one time (it's been known to happen). And Jeff wanted the chair & ottoman. I kinda dig it myself...

As you can see, it's a dark green color with a khaki piping around the cushions, which I think really cleans it up - makes it look crisp. The chair & ottoman are a geometric design with (lots of) accent pillows on the sofa & loveseat in the same fabric. It's a good color that doesn't show Kassie's hair too much; we had that to consider when looking at the fabric/material it was made of, too.

I'm pleased with how the furniture fits into the room. We thought it was going to be a push to fit it all in with out it looking like it was just crammed into the room, but it worked out pretty well and every time I come in the front door, it looks better & better.

You should come try it out...see how comfy it is! ;)