The end is in sight!

Just a little bit more pink...

We're still working on Emma's room. The walls are done, along with one wall of woodwork.

Here are a couple of pics...more to follow once everything's done and the room is put back together.

Three walls are the light pink on the left and just one wall is the darker pink (thankfully!)

This is the woodwork issue we were working with. The beadboard is white and the moulding across the top is white. But, the woodwork around the door, closet, windows and bottom of the floor is dark brown. I decided to try my hand at painting it all white. Luckily, Ryan has informed me that his can stay brown!

Here's a corner with the two paint colors and the woodwork complete. You can
see the that moulding along the floor on the dark pink wall is not yet white.
Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow! Thank goodness for rainy days....

Razzleberry and Cotton Candy - A Preview

Oh yeah! We're lovin' the pink!

More pics to follow soon.

Off to paint!

Friday Favorites

Fairies that climb trees.

That wonderful swath of sunrise that makes the perfect morning destination.

Bet you can figure this one out! Gotta be the Brach originals.

The gentle sound of the windchimes that Bob and I bought on our honeymoon...still hanging faithfully 11.5 years later.

You can't beat this sky!!

The promise of beauty soon to come.

The promise of inside...

...and outside projects.

The view from our back upper deck.

Enough wall space to fit in a few of my photographs.

Letters from school...the good kind!

A fridge covered with works of art.

Kid photgraphers

Discovery!

Emma and I headed out for a walk/ride this afternoon.

We had to enjoy this BEAUTIFUL sunshine!

Right about here I realized that we'd forgotten her helmet!

Whoops! We've forgotten a few things over winter.

Ah, that's better.

Emma and I discovered this nature area a couple of weeks ago.

It's just down the road from our house and destined to

be enjoyed for many hours this spring and summer!

The "daddy duck" was sticking his bum up in the air, so

Emma was trying it out, too.

Here are just a few of the thousands of geese that decided to stick around

this winter. We hear them at all hours of the day and night as they fly over the house.

I hear something!

This is what I gotta do...

(Can you guess whose room is next?)

But, oh, is this ever calling me!

I must resist!

Finding the fence

I've been thinking about fences lately.

You hear so much about sitting on the fence, finding yourself on the wrong side of the fence,

and how the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

I've learned that, in order to know whether your sitting on the fence, on the wrong side or wishing for what's on the other side, you have to be able to first see the fence.

The kids have colds, but we decided that spending time outside in the warm sunshine

would be good medicine for them. Since I was doing yardwork, they asked if they could too.

This little plot of land is going to be our garden this year (much larger one next summer), but it's shaded by the neighbor's shrubs growing over the fence.

Yep, there is a fence in there.

They've been discovering treasures all over the yard, but only after

they've dug, trimmed or raked.

Now that the fance was visible, Emma had to take a rest and, just maybe, direct a little
bit of the work being done by Ryan.

They've also been learning that, when you dig, trim or rake, the work isn't quite done.
It's finished once the debris is in the brush pile.
(Thanks so much to Adam and Jamee for this wheelbarrow...it's so easy to use that Emma
can push it over to the pile and empty it all by herself.)

Climbing up for a view of what's on the other side.
(Do you remember this fence from a few posts ago?)

This was my fence.

When we moved in, you couldn't see the fence through the horrible, detested vine that was

slowly choking the lilacs and the cherry tree.

The photo above it after working on it for an hour and a half earlier this week.

And here it is after three hours of grunting, pulling, cutting and sweat yesterday.

It amazed me how the vines wove in and out of the fence and over into the neighbors trees and then back into ours.

Because it was our vine that was encroaching on their space, I had to pull it back up and over the fence and out of their trees...that was the hardest part of the job because there was also the five years of dead, wet leaves that had accumulated with the vines. It did teach me a lesson about how our time is best spent on our side of the fence. It's much too difficult to care for or strive for something on the other side of the fence; our arms can only reach so far.

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I think that the trees just look happier!

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Back to the fences....

I recently heard a wonderful thought about the grass being greener...

If you think that the grass is greener on the other side, water your own grass.

~~

Happy weekend to all.

We're going to spend it at home nursing colds and sinus infections, with the hopes of warm afternoons spent outside getting some Vitamin D.

These are a few of my favorite things

my favorite breakfast...on lazy mornings, it's the Scottish version for an extra treat

~~
fresh flowers...color picked by the pink-lover of the house

(sitting next to my new lamp...on clearance at Freddies...yep, I've been
bargain shopping!)
~
the smell of bread baking
(although it's not the best thing if you're trying to eat better...
on the other hand, it is whole wheat!)
~
taking a bit of time from work to create
(even better when I can combine stamping with sewing!)

(my first care of 2010...can't believe it's taken this long!)

~

wrapping gifts in something besides paper.

here, it's a placemat and cloth napkin

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my tea drawer

my favorites are the Stash Moroccan Mint Green Tea and

the Orange Spice Black Tea

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new bloggers

this one is my best friend from high school

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the rest of my Goodwill purchase that I mentioned here

this was brand new, still shrinkwrapped...for $5.99

do you see the fun?

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this song, shared on Kristen's blog

thank you to all of those that serve

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this author that Emma found for me.

when we go to the library, she can hardly wait to go

downstairs to the children's section. So, she helps me find books.

Amazingly enough, I've liked every book she's picked for me.

This author created Mrs. Pollifax, a lady in her 60s that decided

she was tired of belonging to committees and having no excitement in her life.

To change this, she walks into the CIA's office and offers her services as a spy.

She, quite accidently, gets taken up on her offer.

I've read the first in the series and thoroughly enjoyed her writing.

~

Lastly, my favorite thing from today was rocking Emma to sleep. It doesn't happen often, but she's been sick with a cold. This afternoon, I wanted her to take a nap. She sat in my lap, I read a story and then sang to her. Then, I put my cheek against the top of her head and waited for the sure sign that she's asleep...the slurp as she tries to continue to suck her thumb as it's trying to fall out of her mouth. Afterwards, I just sat and held her, listening to her breathing, knowing that this won't happen too many more times.