NumberNineteen

The Bestest Christmas Tree Ever

Hi all!  I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving & is enjoying their long weekend.  This weekend is such a needed & welcome break for us.  We haven't had time to stop and just BE at home since school started.  We had dinner at home, just the three of us and then spent the rest of the afternoon napping.  Yesterday, we went to a cut your own tree farm and found the perfect tree the moment that we got there.  Seriously, it was in the first row of trees, right by the entrance.  I walked over, believing that it must not be for sale because how had others missed it?  Not only was it for sale, but was $5 off because the farmer is clearing that portion of the field for another crop.

The eight & half foot stunner is residing in our living room:

I was absolutely gleeful last night, seeing its beauty lit up.  I think that it may be the best tree that we've ever gotten.

Decorating is happening today, along with cookie baking.  There might be some Christmas crafting in there too.  Hope has taken to calling us Mr. & Mrs. Claus.  :)

Year Long Goals Complete!

So, the house is kind of  a disaster.  And, we had what might be referred to in the future as the greatest paint spill incident of the Fleming family.  But, the powder room is painted!  The cabinet is done! Year long goals accomplished!  Wooohoo!  Pass me a cookie as I sit on the couch & recover from all of it. 

Starting with the powder room.  A simple project really.  Paint the room grayish blue, replace the towel rack & paper holder.  Enter a slightly overfilled can of paint, a tip a bit to far to the right & paint e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e.  Spilling onto the toilet, dripping down the sides.  All over the floors, into the hall & kitchen as I attempted to get the paint can in question to a large sink.  We recovered, moved on and the powder room is now painted.  There aren't any "before" pictures -- just imagine a white room with builder grade fixtures & you've got the right image in your head. We are going to replace the light & faucet too, but as Goofy said in one of Hope's picture books, "Slow & steady, steady & slow, that's the way we always go."

 

Now, the cabinet!  You may remember that Glenn was building me a display cabinet for the kitchen.  I was inspired by one of my most stylish friends and companions in vintage shopping (who moved to New York, sniff sniff) who had a large free standing glass fronted cabinet in her kitchen that displayed her collection of antique/vintage baking and sweet making equipment.  Everytime I went to her house, I was drawn to it & poured over it's contents. 

When I decided that I wanted a cabinet of my own, I found this picture on a blog and decided that I was going to do what the homeowners did: buy an old glass fronted kitchen cabinet, add trim & there was my display case. 

source

I even found a perfect cabinet on craigslist & was about to pick it up when Glenn said "I can make that & it will be even better".  It became apparent that it wasn't just about providing a better cabinet for me -- he really wanted to BUILD SOMETHING.  So, I handed the project off to him & the cabinet became his baby, with my only request being that it be done by Christmas of this year.  One month prior to the deadline, we are done!  Here is it, complete and filled with vintage food and cooking items, many of them handed down through my family.

Hope wanted to pose with it.

This week at work is my kind of week -- 2.5 days & then vacation!!!

Sunday Evening Musings

I'm sitting in the craft room, at the end of another relaxing weekend.  Thank goodness for weekends. This past week was a bit of  a mess -- we spent last weekend in Boston visiting my sister & her family (yay!).  Upon returning, we had to catch up during the week on all of the things that we didn't do while we were away (boo!).  By Friday, I was a disaster area of stress and anxiety.  To combat this, I fell back on my tried and true formula -- a day of crafting.  I'm working on bits and pieces of several projects which I'll probably blog about shortly.  Here are a few snippets in the mean time:

I'm kind of excited because I went to a new book club today, specifically for adult readers of young adult books. We met at an Irish pub, ate pie and discussed "How to Say Goodbye in Robot".  It was so cool to be around new people who like some of the same things that I do.  The blogging world is so great because it has made me realise that there are many people out there with the same interests as myself, but I don't get to meet many of you in person.  So, finding some folks right around here was a treat.

My other discovery today (or I may call it a delight) was watching my first episode of Call the Midwife on Netflix this morning.  I'm hooked already -- I knew that I had promised to go to book club this afternoon, but I was very tempted to sit at home & watch one episode after another.  Book club won out this afternoon, but I'll be streaming more Call the Midwife after dinner tonight.