We are over

Winter, I am so over you. 

Just plain cold? I can handle that. 

This snow, then sleet, then below zero temperatures followed by window-rattling gusts for what feels like a month straight?0 I am just plain over it. 

I am over freezing in the shower. And chill bumps...oh, the chill bumps. I just want to shave my legs, y'all. 

I am over this dry skin situation. So. Over. It. 

So, Winter...we are over. I am done with you. If you need me I will be under my heated blanket dreaming of green grass, the smell of dirt, and times like these:

xoxo,
Katie

Home love: A new series

So I posted last week about some special things around my house, and I have shared a few things on Instagram since then. I decided it was a worthy enough cause to start my first ever blog series. I make no commitment to how often I will post, but I do want to continue to document the things I love about my home. These things may not always be cute and tidy. Some days they will be a mess like the pillows and blankets on my couch that are pretty much never neatly arranged [gasp!] like one would believe from my Instagram shots. I love this because this means our couch is being used to snuggle and watch movies and [more often than not] eat dinner. It is where we live, and I want to remember the memories made here. 

Today as I was folding laundry and making the bed, I was thinking about all the memories and meaning in this one little corner of our bedroom.

The biggest piece, the dresser, is both sentimental and a labor of love. This is not only the dresser that my sister and I used in our shared bedroom as long as I was at home, but it is from my father's childhood as well. When I was a kid it [and the matching chest of drawers] was a light green until we made the mistake of doing a horrible creamy white paint job. When I got married, Daddy and I spent hours in his shop sanding, scraping, and cleaning these two pieces so they could be stained. I am still thrilled with how they turned out. 

 

 

On top of the dresser sits the larger owl that my sis got me for my birthday a few years ago, and the small owl is from my mister on our first Christmas after we were married.

This gold, floral tin belonged to my great-grandmother, and it is one of my favorites pieces that belong to her.

This oh-so-practical-not-so-fancy shelf is another thing I made with Daddy years ago [if by "made" you count watching, holding things, and rubbing on some stain]. I have used this more than I ever imagined I would, and I will always cherish it because of the memory behind making it. It holds all some of my hair goodies, necklaces, sunglasses, watches, PLUS the beaded doll that was my great Grandma Pearl's, the little blue bird she gave me when I was a little girl, and the airplane pin from my mister when we were just dating [and he was still flying!].

It is sometimes easy to overlook these things that surround me day-in-day-out, but I have so enjoyed bringing these things to the forefront for a bit.

Do you have any treasured, sentimental items or areas of your home? I would love to see them!

xoxo,

Katie 

Home Sweet Home

Disclaimer: this is going to sound totally cliche, but I mean it 100% totally and completely. 

I have really been doing a lot of thinking lately about how very blessed I am. Like, seriously. I mean, I have my days just like everyone does where it is so incredibly easy to compare myself to others instead of realizing the great qualities I possess or the things that I have in my life. It is so easy with all of the gorgeous images online, the creative blogs, and the fabulous products to feel like you can never keep up or even get caught up with how beautiful and amazing the people and their spaces are. The clothes just seem to be getting cuter and the houses more incredible and creative. Those days of comparison actually happen a lot more often than I would like to admit. I actually hate that I have these feelings, but oftentimes they consume me.  I think maybe that is why it makes me that much more grateful when I think about the wonderful things in my life.

 A couple of weeks ago I posted this photo on Instagram when this idea was starting to formulate.

 

You see, I was cleaning house and dusting off my treasures when I realized how much I love all the pieces of my home. My house is not fancy...far from it in fact! It is definitely not perfectly clean, there are scuffs on the wall and dings in 100 year old hardwood floors. Most of the things I use for decor are either homemade or were someone else's before they were mine, but these are actually the things that make me love my home so much. No one came in and did a clean sweep with all new pillows and linens and matching table lamps. My home has been a labor of love [literally from the bare bones, but that is old news] made up of my collections of meaningful gifts and sentimental treasures. For example, in the image above, the hankies are from various antique excursions with my mister, and I treasure those times we get to spend together doing something we both enjoy. The accordion wheels are some that I created for my precious niece's first birthday party, and the chalkboard is an old baby bed that the mister helped me drag home from the side of the road. The worn and crooked chair belonged to my mother's grandfather, and the frame attached holds a photo of him. It sat on my parents' front porch for as long as I can remember until my mom gave it to me, and my daddy and brother took turns helping me weave the seat of the chair. The gallery wall is made up of images and mementos that are special to me such as wedding photos, a wedding shadow box from my sis, photos from my trip to Italy, and a print from the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum where my husband took me for my birthday a couple of years ago. 

Almost everything in my home has a story, and it seldom starts with, "Well, I was at Target and...". Don't get me wrong. I love Target as much as the next guy, but I wouldn't trade all the sentimental goodness of my home for all the gorgeous, trendy pillows in the world. I love that as I look around at the items in my home I could write page after page of stories from all the lovingly chosen gifts, childhood memories, or hours spent sanding in the driveway. I know that these things are just that: things. I don't mean to idolize them, but I am so thankful to be surrounded by things that I think are beautiful and hold so many beautiful memories and feelings. 

I think I will start taking more care to document these things and record their special meaning. Some days it may be on Instagram. Other days it may be a lengthy post such as this, but I only get happy feelings when I reminiscence about these things, so why not? Maybe I will try to come up with a clever name and make it an "official" blog series. Who knows? I just know I am ever so thankful for this warm and loving space that I am blessed to call my home. 

xoxo, 

Katie

What a week...

This week has been somewhat trying. I have been blessed to get to stay home most of this week and get some things done. Nothing major has been accomplished, but it has been a nice change of pace. The mister, on the other hand has not been so lucky. He started back to school on Monday, spent the biggest part of the day on Wednesday at a job interview [then drove back to school for a later class], and worked the majority of the week. Earlier in the week we discovered that our digital outdoor thermometer that we use ALL THE TIME without even thinking is apparently broken. Keep in mind that this is our second one in the whopping 3.5 years we have been married. I am not sure why we cannot keep one of these things. Wednesday afternoon I was on the treadmill and tried to adjust the incline when all of a sudden the control panel wouldn't work AT ALL. I had to pull the emergency cord thing to get it to stop! So big bummer there because it is only a couple of years old, and I was finally getting into the groove of things and feeling good about my accomplishments in that department. I am hoping that we can get it fixed soon without having to buy a part that costs almost as much as a new treadmill [like crossing fingers big time]. This is also the day that the mister discovered that the temperature gauge on my car [after $218 in repairs] was still not working. Another bummer. THEN on Thursday I was in the living room when I heard a strange noise that I thought was the wind that has been blowing like crazy. When I got up to investigate I opened my basement door to discover water shooting out of a pipe across the stairs and soaking the basement. Luckily, my heroic father-in-law was in town and came to the rescue, but I still had to go down there and dry a bunch of stuff that was dripping wet. This was one time that I was actually glad we do not have a nice finished basement so that the water could just go down the drain and drip off the cinder block walls without us having to repair a bunch of water damage. So, like I said...it was an interesting week. 

 All that to say that it had a pretty good ending. It was also nothing major, but the mister was off on Saturday. That is almost unheard of these days, and I have been itching for a day when the two of us could stay home together. We did go for a walk [which turned out to be a less than great idea when we got out and realized it was not quite as warm as we thought], and he had to do quite a bit of homework. But at the end of the day we had our "date night" which, for us, consists of snuggling on the couch in our pajamas, eating pizza, and watching movies. These times are few and far between, so we cherish any opportunity for uninterrupted time together. Also, the thermometer is not something we cannot live without, the treadmill is not a true necessity, the car still works and it could have been much worse, and the water situation caused no real damage.

I know I have talked about it many times here before, but I am so thankful for my guy. He is so good to me and works hard so that we can work towards furthering our dreams together as a couple. I feel like I could never do enough to make up for all the long hours and late nights he works with homework in between. And then he sits on the couch with me and balls all my skeins of yarn. What a guy! 

Sometimes circumstances can make it a little difficult to see the blessings in life. Other times they just help to point them out. I have much to be thankful for.

xoxo,

Katie

January what?

Holy smokes, where did the last [almost] two months go? I would love to say that I have accomplished great things and met goals and feel refreshed and renewed, but instead I worked my butt off, let my house get to an embarrassing state of dirty, and gained 5 pounds. With that said, I have made some positive changes since the new year to my eating habits and exercising...in that I am actually exercising again! Heading back to work came way to quickly for me, so I did not get a lot of things on my list completed. I did, however, manage to do a lot of celebrating with family, spent much needed time with my fabulous mister, and got mentally geared up for the new year. I am not much of a resolution gal, but I do like a fresh start so I am still working on cleaning out closets and purging of unnecessary junk. The problem is I keep getting distracted with yarn and my granny square project. It is an addiction with me. I cannot occasionally crochet. It is all or nothing, baby. But as a result I have nine squares already completed since last Wednesday! That may be nothing to brag about, but I am pumped since I had never even made a granny square until last week. Plus the progress is SO pretty! I think I would almost be satisfied if I just kept a bag of granny squares laying around. I love them!

I do have several things that I want to work on around here. I have had so little time for personal projects, that I can hardly wait to get started. But at the same time I cannot happily work in a messy space, and...well, let's just say I have some organizing to do. When I do get to that point I want to: 

• finish up my granny square blanket/throw project [not really sure exactly where it is going]
• make Georgie a table cloth for her little table [complete with crocheted edge]
• add some glitter or sequins to my bargain wooden hangers
• work on more prints and send out some samples 
• make some springy garland
• revamp my gallery wall

I am sure there a ton of other projects that I will think of before I even get started with these, but right now I am working like mad on my 2013 photo book because I have a $20 off coupon!  Only a handful of pages to go! 

xoxo, 

Katie