I'm Leaving....

....on a Jet Plane.

Okay, so maybe not a Jet Plane but I am packing up my SUV and taking the girls to visit their Grandma and Grandpa this weekend. We will be leaving The Husband at home as he has a lacrosse game on Friday Night (is lacrosse season over yet?).

Anyways, what this means is that when I walk out the door, I will be sure to leave a nice long honey-do list for him.

What is on this list? Well, I am glad you asked.

• MOW



• Refinish Craigslist Table



• Hang Pictures



• Fix Curtain Rods



• Fix Gutter



• Touch-up nail holes (I may try to do this before I leave)



• Clean the Screens and wash the windows



• Replace the outlet in the 1/2 bath



• Spray Paint White Wicker Furniture



• Download all files from the old computer



• Prime The Master Bedroom (can you believe we haven't painted this yet?!)

Poor guy, he thinks he is going to have this free time this weekend - NOT!

What's in a Name?

So, I have to confess that I am a sucker for Paint Color Names. If I am trying to choose between paint colors, it often comes down to the name of the color. The best example is the color we painted the downstairs at The Old House. The name of the color was Dockside Haze, can't you just see it? I immediately had a vision of the color that would surround me, IF I lived lakeside, drinking a cup of coffee early in the morning. Kind of like this milky/blue-gray color. Nope, it was blue. In fact it was too blue. But, because it was named Dockside Haze and I liked the name so much we kept it.

Now, moving onto this house - two of the colors we have used: Tattered Sail and Barefoot Beach. Again, I can just picture what these two colors should look like. Fortunately, we were a little more on point with these colors and I am happier that I was with the Dockside Haze color.

But now, there is a whole like of paint colors out there labeled NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION. Well - Of Course - those are the only colors we can buy now, I mean we are trying to preserve a historic home right?

So here we are, painting our door Mark Twain House Ombra Gray and our shed Cincinnatian Hotel Dominica. Not totally in love with the names but that is okay because they are special colors for the NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION.

Jeez, I am a sucker:)

I Agree

So, today I am going to take the lazy bloggers way out and direct you over to some other blogs I follow.

I came across two posts yesterday that I felt I could really identify with and I would like to share them with you. So, if you have a moment I would like to direct you over to:

Gina at The Shabby Chic Cottage

and

April at Funky, Vintage, Lovely

Couldn't have said it better myself ladies!!!!

Rain, Rain, GO AWAY!!

Okay, so I am all about April Showers Bring May Flowers but I am not really sure how much more of this I can take. What we have been a bit lucky with is that after four days of rain we do get a few hours of sunshine so The Girls and I can get outside to play, but definitely not enough sun to dry things out.

The thing that has suffered the most is all of this wetness - our lawn. Wait, I guess it hasn't really suffered because it is quite green and lush right now but it is sooooo...... long. Between our busy schedules and all of this rain, I don't think the grass has been cut in two weeks.

We are supposed to have some Sun this weekend so The Husband has a big day of yard work planned but cutting this grass is going to be a huge job.

Look at this: Let me zoom in so you can get the full effect of it all.

A shot of the back yard:

Zoomin' in again:

On more just in case you were not fully convinced of how long our grass really is.

Happy Earth Day!!

First I would like to apologize for not posting yesterday but we were out enjoying the sunshine - something that we have not seen a whole lot of around here.

So, here's what I want to know....how do you celebrate Earth Day? I don't do much special for the actual day but I do try to treat every day as Earth Day. Leading to my second question...what do you do in your day-to-day life to stay eco-friendly?

Me, I have to say that I follow the standard generic procedure staying eco-friendly.

1) We recycle & compost
2) We use eco-friendly cleaning products and soaps
3) We keep the heat at 68 in the winter and air at 72 in the summer, and the window open as much as possible
4) Every one in our house takes showers and we try to conserve as much water as possible
5) We use CFL light bulbs throughout the house
6) We use recycled paper products, including paper towels and toilet paper (although The Husband would rather not use recycled tp)
7) Since moving into this house I have tried to use as much second hand and upcycled materials as possible

And here comes the confession of things I do that I KNOW are not good for the environment

1) I drive a large SUV and I drive A LOT. I average at least one gas fill-up a week
2) I do not use eco-friendly beauty products, shampoos, etc. I have tried and just haven't found ones that work.
3) I don't buy organic as much as I should. I do buy organic milk but everything else is dependent on price. It is hard enough as it is to keep my grocery budget in check?
4) We do not unplug all of our electronics when we leave for vacation - out of pure laziness.

Whew - thanks for letting me get that off my chest:)

Friday Finds

Check out this awesome outdoor table I picked up from Craigslist for FREE!!! It's a great table but the fact that all I had to do was go and pick it up for FREE makes it even better. Sure it needs a little love but once I paired it with an old table cloth and some thrifted chairs, I think it works out just fine:)

In Bloom

We are (finally) in full bloom! I felt like Spring arrived overnight here in Ohio. We had two full days of rain at the end of last week followed by a beautiful and sunny Sunday - and look what happened!

We, of course, were overly motivated from the beautiful scenery and decided to do something about this:

How can a house that is 175 years old have absolutely NO landscaping! So we got to work. Look closely and you will see the teeny-tiny plants we bought.

They were small, but they were also cheap AND they'll grow.

You can't see them in the pictures but we bought some dormant Lilac cuttings from Aldi for only $2.99. If they do manage to actually grow, I am so excited to see what our front steps will look like surrounded by those beautiful purple blooms.

We also bought some Azaleas to dress up the bed where we transplanted the Forsythia we stole from the old house.

Oh, and, remember THESE? Well, they continued to thrive on my windowsill until I couldn't take it anymore and planted them outside where.......they died:(

That's okay, thankfully I can pick some new ones up on my next trip to Lowe's!

Getting Better

This past Sunday two things happened - it was 87 degrees out and The Girls spend the day with their Nana and Papaw. So do you know what that means??? YARDWORK!!!!! The Husband and I were quite busy. He was busier than I was in that I was still reading a book in my pj's when he went out to mow and fertilize the lawn but I soon joined him. So, there was mowing, there was seeding, there was fertilizing, there was landscaping and then there was painting! We started off painting the shed....

...but our motivation stayed with us and we decided to tackle the outhouse too.

While painting, one of our neighbors came over to tell us that it was "looking good". I would say that we are "looking better" but are still a long way from good.

A Collection?

A few months ago I read the book The Happiness Project. It was a great book and filled with some very insightful observations. I could go on and one about all of the things I learned from this book but instead I decide to focus this post on one very small section. In this book Gretchen Rubin makes a reference to having some sort of collection. I am sorry to say that I don't really remember the exact significance of it but I do remember that she decided to collect bluebirds. Something about the thrill of finding that exact piece to fit your collection as well as then having it in your home to remind you of that feeling. So, I was sitting on the couch with The Husband discussing this part of the book with him when I asked him what he thought he would collect, should he decide to start up a collection. Then I asked out loud "I wonder what I would collect". The Husband then gave me a very quizzical look and said "Don't you collect pitcher?".

Well, I guess I do:)

Friday Finds

Here are some things that I have been admiring lately.

Industrial Wall Shelf

Urban Outfitters

Rope Bridge Picture

Ikea

Vintage Map of Ohio

Ebay

This is a special note to all of you blog fairies out there - please know that I appreciate all of the generosity you have shown me, but please know that these are just items I am admiring I will not be upset if you decide to pass on making any purchases:)

Coffee?

Would anyone care to join me for coffee?? Because I have room for one more... BLOG FAIRY STRIKES AGAIN!

Could it be...Spring?

I don't want to jinx it but I think that Spring may have rolled into town (despite the snow storm we had four days ago). Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day with a bright blue sky - I couldn't resist rolling the windows down in my car and playing the radio really loud, just like I did in High School. The Girls, on the other hand, did not think it was so cool. So, I am sitting here now at 7 am with a slight breeze blowing my drapes and I even think there may be a touch of humidity in the air. The storms are supposed to start this afternoon but that is not going to keep me from enjoying this beautiful morning. I wish you could pass sounds over the Internet so you could hear the bird chirping. Hopefully it is a beautiful day in your neck of the woods too!

What We did Last Weekend

So I thought it appropriate to wait until today (Friday) to tell you about all of the cool things we did LAST WEEKEND. The biggest impact of all is our front door - curb appeal anybody? The original door was black with banged up brown trip and can be found in this picture. We go new hardware for the door so, of course, before we installed it we needed to paint the door. I love the color we chose and hope that, someday, our trim will be white and not brown. However, we were lucky enough to find some of the brown paint in the basement so The Husband was able to pretty that up too. We then moved inside, as you can see our new door hardware is just as pretty from the inside (original hardware seen here). We also found some great hooks to replace our coat rack (seen in this picture) that broke. And we upcycled a mirror that I found in my parent's basement and was from my very first apartment. It used to be a pale green/shabby chic kind of thing so I hit it with some spray paint the same color as our trim. *the real reason for the mirror is because I am a hat person but we did not have a mirror downstairs so I would have to run all the way upstairs to make sure my hat is on right. Vain much? Lazy much? Finally, we hung the blog fairy lamp! We were struggling with how to hang this because the initial idea was to move it so it hung directly over our dining table. With the old wiring and the cheap ceiling we were a bit hesitant to do it so I suggested just replacing the old light with it (in the center of the room). We mounted it as close to the ceiling as we could and I really like how it turned out.

Wait! One more thing....I spent Tuesday all by myself. No kids and no husband. I wasn't nearly as productive as I was hoping to be but I did manage to paint our microwave cart the same color as our cabinets. This was not as easy at you may think. After my third can of spray paint, I finally gave up and brought in inside to finish it off with two coats of traditional paint.

**I am also finally getting some pictures up on our Before and After page so be sure to check that out!