Dining Room

I finally got the etching done by Ernest D. Roth, a distant family member, framed and hung up in my dining room. My grandmother gave my parents the etching and they in turn gave it to me. The new frame and mats make it look much nicer than it was! Most objects in my house are either from an antique store, a yard sale, Craft Country (used to be in Olney till it went out of business), or are family heirlooms. The family heirlooms are my most favorite because they all have stories behind them.

I flanked the etching on the wall with 2 antique folding wood chairs that I bought years ago. I had always planned on hanging them in my townhouse but never got to it. I finally have been able to get them up in the new house. I bought 4 wrought iron hooks from a blacksmith on ebay. I love them. They're extremely heavy and sturdy and have a neat pattern on them. Although, when the chairs are hanging you can't see them. I didn't think of this beforehand.

I love having the chairs on the wall because they serve 2 purposes.... 1) artwork and 2) as chairs! When I have a large group of people over we can use these in either my dining room or anywhere else. Having them on the wall makes them very accessible!

Here's a picture of the new wall in my dining room and a closeup of the newly framed etching:

clouds in the sky... I mean ceiling

Today I spent pretty much the whole entire day painting clouds on the ceiling of our master bathroom. I woke up at 8:30, ate breakfast with Bryce and then Nana and Grandaddy came to pick up him to take him to DC at 9:30. From 9:30 to 10:30 I read some cottage decorating blogs (mainly on tips on how to make signs and refinish furniture) and then at about 11:00 I started the clouds.

I took some breaks through the day to rest my arm and neck and also to eat lunch and dinner but I finally finished up at about 8ish. They look ok. Dave said that he likes them and yeah, they're not bad for my first try but they all remind me of different things. To me one looks like a boy standing on a ledge, another looks like a manatee and yet another resembles a squirrel. There is also a car and a boy up there. Plus, I can see all of the layers of colors I put up there but it's probably because I know how I did it. If I didn't do it they might look differently.

Oh well - like I said, I'm satisfied with how it turns out and for now they will stay. Next comes the 2 palm trees and I also want to make a sign with a beachy quote on it to hang from the wall. That will complete my whimsical bathroom beach retreat!

Here are some pictures so that you can see how they turned out. I used 3 paint glazes (white, off-white and slightly grey) and applied the paint with both a cheesecloth and a paint brush.

I'm Back

Wow - 2 days in a row of blogging. This is a record! We all had an extremely busy day today. Bub and Buckets did "Donuts for Dads" this morning at preschool (although what was weird is that the handout that was given at it this morning said doughnuts - totally not the right spelling!) and they had lots of fun. Grandaddy showed up as well. Bub gave daddy some homemade gifts at the event and they are so cute!

I picked him up from preschool and we went to McDonalds. I don't know what was up with McD's today but it was packed and I was the youngest customer (besides Bub) by about 50 years! After lunch we went to the library, read some books and attended preschool storytime. We then went to Home Depot and after that we spent about 2.5 hours at the local park with our MOMS Club. We had so much fun! It was then onto home for dinner, bath and bedtime. He was SO tired that he actually just fell out of bed (only the 4th time since we took the rails off last year) and kept sleeping. I went into his room and put him back into bed and he never woke up!

Speaking of Home Depot - it was absolutely gorgeous today! I go to the one in Aspen Hill, MD which is one of the largest profiting stores on the east coast. It gets SO much traffic going through it because there is no other HD or Lowes anywhere nearby. I used to be the HR Manager at Aspen Hill a few years before Bub was born for a short while and did all of the hiring for their 2003 spring season (which starts in February for HD btw). I still see a lot of people I used to work with up there. Today I went into Hardware and there were about 10-15 managers (you can tell they were managers because any associate wearing dress shoes and an apron is in management! - you'd have to be nuts to wear dress shoes as an associate working on concrete floors all day!) doing a walk. A walk is basically what it sounds like - you walk through the store and critique everything. So I ran into Steve, my old Assistant Manager, and asked him what was up because wow - there were a lot of shirts! Well, the VP of Marketing for North America was doing the walk along with the Director of Marketing for the East Coast. Wow! Those are biggies. No wonder the store looks fantastic! Everything was organized and cleaned up. The floors were polished last week I was told and there was an over abundance of aprons in the aisles. Today was a great day to shop Aspen Hill Home Depot!

Well, the reason I explained all of this is that Steve mentioned asked me if I missed all of this and to tell you the absolute truth.... I do! I loved the rush of doing walks with the biggies. It was so exciting. In Frederick we had the President of the East Coast come do a walk with us and it was so much fun. I miss the rush of working 70+ hours a week! I know, I do that now... but it was different. There I was always working on something productive. Now, I'm watching episodes of Little Bill.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE staying home with Bub. While I totally miss working and organizing (because that is what I love to do and that is what most of the HR job at HD is) I can't imagine handing Bub over to someone else all day at this age for 1 minute. I would love to have both but with a company like Home Depot - that is just not a possibility. You are expected to work a *minimum* of 55 hours a week if you are in management. And while I also have a fantasy of working part time in paint (it's fun!) that's also not a possibility because to be PT you have to work at least 8 hours on the weekend - and I'm not up for that right now!

So that's how our busy day went. After all of this we then had our small group from church over for our Thursday meeting. Bub went to sleep and we talked about the grace and forgiveness of God. This was actually an amazing small group tonight. It just reminded me of how incredibly excited I am that I have an intimate relationship with God. I know that I am forgiven and that others can be as well. I take that thought for granted so much and it boggles my mind that others just can't accept that sometimes. But I think that should just go into another blog.

It's now about midnight and I really should get to bed. I have a whole day to myself tomorrow! My inlaws are picking Bub up at 9:30 and taking him into DC and Buckets will be at work. I don't know what I am going to do with myself!

Night night and God Bless!

I lost

It's 2:18 am and I lost the auction. Can you believe it?! There were 2 minutes left in the auction I was winning and I went to go read a blog about organizing. I came back and bam - auction done, item lost. Total bummer!

Waiting....

So, here I am... blogging again. I am waiting for an auction on ebay to end and I don't want to get outbid. Unfortunately, the listing is from California so it doesn't end until 2:15 am EST. Normally I would just go to sleep but I do need a new flat iron and I'd rather not spend $100. The one I'm watching is the same one that my hairdresser was using and it is going for about $46 bucks right now rather than the $100 I could spend on it at Amazon. I figure that since David is taking Bryce to school tomorrow (Donuts for Dads program) I can stay up and wait a bit. I do have to admit though - I am getting pretty darn tired.

Today Bryce and I went to a PJ party playdate. It was lots of fun. Bryce was so excited to tell Daddy about how he went to a PJ party! I had changed into some nicer PJs for the playdate but Bryce wore exactly what he had slept in last night. It was great! No arguing getting changed. Although he didn't want his diaper changed in the morning. It was really nice too because after the playdate we just stayed in our PJs all day because we didn't have to go out afterwards!

Ok, so I don't think I am going to make it until the auction ends! It's 1:50 right now and there's about a little over 20 minutes left in the auction. So far I'm winning but I guess I'll just put my max bid in now and hope that someone doesn't upbid me too much! This is what I'm bidding on. Wish me luck. I have to sleep now.

I'm trying it again....

I really would like to be able to blog on a regular basis. I find it so incredibly hard to find the time although I do seem to find the time to look at the most random websites ever. The other night I was so bored but didn't want to go to sleep because I was getting some alone time and that's not so common. So I just randomly started looking up people I've known in the past. I thought about High School and well, Jack came to mind. That's because at my 10 year reunion Buckets and I drove him home because he had drank too much. Obviously, I went to high school with Jack. I was in Marching Band with him (well, I did Drill Team) and I went to Europe with him during the summer of 1994. He was always so much fun to be around. He had a way of always making everyone laugh.

Anyhow, back to my story. So he was one of the people I randomly looked up on Google the other day (I know, pathetic) and it turns out he is in a band that has a myspace page and they're pretty good! I signed up to be a friend and Jack actually wrote back to me himself. It's nice to know that I'm somewhat remembered!

Speaking of being somewhat remembered - the most embarrassing thing happened at my 10 year reunion. I went to middle school and high school with this guy named David. I was in many classes with him and we did occasionally hang out although I wouldn't say we were good friends, but we definitely knew each other! Yeah, well, I ran into him at the reunion and he had absolutely NO idea who I was. I don't think I've ever forgotten anyone - granted, my memory might not always be exactly clear - but I can't imagine totally not remembering someone! That's never happened to me. Well, yup, it is a little embarrassing to be totally forgotten. But oh well, his loss!

Here is the link to my friends band. Give them a listen and let me know what you think! 3fifths


I sat next to Jack on the bus while touring around Europe for awhile. I don't exactly remember how that happened but I just remember laughing so much! Thinking of my trip to Europe made me pull out my pictures. Here's one of Jack taking a little snooze - although I don't remember what country this was in! We toured around and put on musical concerts in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and France.


Here I am with Alyssa (R) and Mandy(C). This was taken before we left for Europe at our going away concert. Mandy played flute and was in the band while Alyssa and I went as band front. We danced to certain pieces and helped out the chorus. I was so lucky to go because they didn't have any violins in the band (the instrument I played) but I was still able to participate! I will never ever forget this experience. It was 3 weeks of SOOOO much fun. My parents remember me coming home and I was crying - they asked if I was crying because I was so happy to be home and I told them, No... I don't want to leave Europe! What an awful thing for parents to hear when their child comes back from a 3 week vacation away from them! But it really was one of the most fun times of my life.

Old Pics of Me

This first picture is of me when I was 5. I'm the older one. My brother is the younger one. He's 4 years younger than me.

The second picture was taken before my sophomore ring dance. I was 15. My date was Bill Beschorner. I sat next to him in Orchestra and we would just joke around the whole time. Our teacher used to think it was hilarious that we could start a conversation, play through an entire piece with movements and then pick up our conversation exactly where we left it. Wow, those were the days. I thought I had things to worry about back then... ha! Nothing compared to what it's like when you're an adult. I had dinner cooked for me, my laundry done, 1 little room I had to keep clean and after I finished my homework I could talk on the phone or watch TV for the rest of the night. What a life!