Making A Home

What do I do during the day? What do I have to show for my work at home? Why do I really like looking at pretty fabric to hang from our windows, or choosing plants to bring some fresh air into our January house? Why am I so obsessed with making a comfortable, inviting, warm space for our girls to grow and learn and share?

I read this today and just have to say a big "YES!!" This is how I feel about my home. The Nester says it exactly the way I would have wanted to if I even had the time to complete a good thought. But her kids are a bit older than mine, so maybe in a few years, I can hope to at least finish my thoughts. Then later on after that, maybe the laundry. Click on the link to read her thoughts. Maybe it'll make you say "YES!!!"

Setting the Stage

Our Friends the Pattersons

Our friends Natalie and Josh have been at the hospital all week with their daughter, Adri. Nancy and Adri are only 5 days apart, Natalie was at Clemson with Ryan and me and they are highly involved in our church here in Greenville.

I will try to make it brief, and if you want more information click on the links that will take you to Adri's site and Josh and Natalie's site. At the beginning of the year they noticed Adri having what seemed to be "absence seizures" and scheduled an EEG to monitor her brain activity. The night before the EEG, they were to keep Adri up as long as possible, but she began seizing and they rushed to the hospital, where an MRI revealed she has a brain tumor the size of a tangerine. This morning was her surgery to remove the tumor.

Please be praying:

That Adri will recover fully to her spunky, talkative self

That the tumor is benign

That the doctors removed the entirety of the tumor

Relief and sleep for Josh and Natalie

In the midst of all this, they were in the process of moving houses and Josh preparing his dissertation for his PhD. Also pray that these things will not be things that are overwhelming to them but that they will trust God's timing in all things.

Which Pink Do You Think?

UPDATE:

I think this is harder than I thought it would be. Right off the bat I liked the dark pink better, just because it is fun and unexpected. The light pink is a Pottery Barn Kids color by Benjamin Moore. But I don't want the room to look Pottery Barn-y (Barney?) I do like the pros of the light: easier to paint over, flows with the other colors in the house, and once all 4 walls are pink, that will be a LOT of pink. It's hard for me to escape the $45 we could use towards other things in the room - there are lots of other things we want to paint (including 2 bookshelves, I'll be asking your opinion later for that one, I can go overboard with color or being too coordinated) and things we want to do to "finish" the room, and $45 could buy some fun stuff on my list.

The actual inhabitants of the room are split: Kate likes the light one, Nancy the dark. The problem with the above/below chair rail thing is that the chair rails is white, the bunks are cream. That drives me crazy, and I feel like with 2 pinks and then white rails and a cream bed....well, that's more than I can handle. Any suggestions for that railing? Oh, and those pink pillows on the beds? Horrible photo; the small pillow in front is actually almost exactly the same as the dark pink on the wall. The large pillow is just a sheet, we'll buy shams after we decide on the wall color. So don't let that sway you, either.

Lemme just say, I have LOVED the opinions. I hate making decisions like this, wish I could be breezy about stuff but I often treat simple things like this as a do-or-die situation, and have really enjoyed hearing which you like and why you like it. Wish we could have all done it over coffee and dessert!!

Without crazy bright spotlight, and I decided to make the beds.

Crazy bright spotlight.

We are in the process of finishing up the girls room this winter. Our task this week: Choose a paint color. The dark one on top is "Margaret Ellen" pink, or a mis-tinted, returned color that was $5 for a gallon. The lighter on is Pink Begonia. Try not to let the $45 we would save by using the dark pink sway your opinion, I want you to tell me which you prefer and why.

I never in my wildest dreams thought I would paint my daughters' room pink.

Sorry for the Blog-Log

I am way backlogged with blogging. Blog-logged. Like the Navy patent mary janes from Land's End I tried my darnedest to order for Kate for Christmas. Now that Holiday Fair is over (we sold OUT of ornaments!), I'm no longer laid up on the couch nauseous and exhausted (I call October "The Lost Month") and the holidays are done and picked up and swept out to the curb, I am updating all our Fall happenings.

We did do stuff, even though you couldn't tell it by the blog. Most of it is for me to remember a sequence of events (like which family we celebrated Christmas with the year before, what Nancy looked like at her 2nd Birthday, and yes, I really did homeschool Kate and have the pictures to prove it.) I'm hoping I can just list the links to the new posts and you can click on them and browse as you have time. My plan is to start with Christmas stuff and post in order of events, so those will be posted individually soon. Happy New Year!

5th Annual Sky Top Trip

Ryan's 30th Birthday

Children's Museum Visit

Halloween x 4

Homecoming in Clemson

Thanksgiving

Fall Smatterings