a bit of my friday

We were all up before 8:30 this morning.  That's unusual around here.  We went for really nice morning walk.  Great way to start the day.

Here are a few shots from my day. 

{BLT for lunch}

{fresh, local cherry tomatoes}

{Callan is a crawling MACHINE}

{patriotic dining table}

You guys remember Callan's room reveal, right?  Do you remember the plane decals I put on the wall over his crib?  Well, we picked those up at Target sometime last year - months before Callan was born.  They were too cheap not to.  $14.99 marked down to $3.74.  Gotta love those clearance prices!  So, we bought them just in case we went with a plane {theme} or he ended up liking planes sometime down the road...

ANYWAYS

The way Callan's room is oriented, with the windows and doorways, we aren't left with much wall space.  So we have left over planes.  The big planes are left {two mid sized, one large}, as well as some airborne cargo.

Do you know a little boy that likes airplanes?  For his room?  For a playroom?  Well, I'd love to give them to you {for him}!   

Be the first to leave me a comment telling me that you have the perfect little boy in mind, and I'll send them your way.  

{Mind you, each of those sheets measure 12x24 - that biggest plane is pretty darn big.}  

{you'd be getting one of the planes on the top, and then two of the ones on the bottom, plus the parachuting cargo}

My goal this weekend is to clean house.  I've been so distracted with projects lately that stuff is starting to pile up and it's really getting hard to work around, let alone look at every day.   Here's to a productive weekend!  

Hope yours is lovely!

kitchen sink bath

 Because Callan looked like this after dinner last night,

 he got a bath - his first bath in the kitchen sink. 

He had so much fun.  And it was so much easier on my back.  Win-win.

During nap time yesterday I finally got my Father's Day cards put together.  I'll share them with you next week after the grandpa's get them in the mail.

I'll leave you with an outtake.

frame worthy

Hardly.

Yesterday, I shared with you what I snagged at the thrift store.  One of the last frames I grabbed before checking out, was this one: 

I grabbed it for the size and the thickness of the frame.  I didn't bother to read the print inside, not important.  

At home, when I was pulling the frames apart to clean them, I did stop to read the poem in this frame.  Here's what it reads:

 If the print is too small for ya, here's what it reads:

"One Little Rose"

I would rather have one little Rose

from the garden of a friend, 

Than to have the choicest flowers

when my stay on earth must end.

I would rather have the kindest words

from those folks I love to see, 

Than flattery when my heart is still, 

and this life has ceased to be.

I would rather have a loving smile

from friends I know are true, 

than tears around my casket

when this world I bid adieu.

Then bring all the flowers today

whether white or pink or red,

for I'd rather have one blossom now

than a truck load when I'm dead.

L.S. Williams

 Uhm...?  

I turned it over to find a personal note on the backside...

It reads:

"To Jean and Cliff Nickels  4/16/89

With all my love and appreciation for your tolerance and friendship, I pray it will be a long and happy association.  'Just be patient with me God isn't finished with me yet.'  Lloyd Williams"

The frame looks lovely with a fresh coat of paint.

This little bit of poetic history has said it's last good-bye.

Roll in the truck load of flowers

weird, right?

frames

My project list feels like it's forever and a day long.  I try to start one project and finish the same project, but I find myself starting something, setting it aside, starting something else, going back to the other something...

It's a vicious cycle, I suppose.  I guess this is just the way I "project".

Here's a simple project I finally put together.

I downloaded the print from here.  Isn't it too cute?  All I did was paint the frame with chalkboard paint and put the print behind glass so it could be easily written on and wiped off.  Easy peasy.  And it keeps me a little bit more organized in the kitchen.  When dinner is already planned, the day goes a little smoother.

Earlier today, we went over to our favorite thrift store to see if I could pick up a few small{ish} frames for my gallery wall.  I got 6 frames of various sizes and that wire magazine rack/table for $6.56.  Not too bad.

When Callan went down for a nap, I cleaned up the frames and got them primed and ready for a coat of paint.

With a fresh {2} coat of paint, the frames are ready for just the right picture.  Once I order the prints I'll be one step closer to crossing this project off the list.

And hopefully have a wall that finally looks "finished".  We'll see.

mish mash monday

We went down to the city this weekend to take our laptop to the doctor.  You know how you have to make an appointment for anything Mac to be seen by one of the guys at the "genius bar".  Let me just tell you how much I despise the Apple store.  Smart move by Apple to locate themselves in a mall - they get oodles of foot traffic.  But it's a nightmare for those of us that ONLY have to go to the Apple store.  And forget about walking from the front of the store to the back of the store with a stroller.  Good grief.  Ok, anyways, long story short, they told us it would cost us $500 to fix the computer.  No, thanks.  It's up on E-bay as a parts computer.  Hopefully we'll get something for it...  At least we still have our desktop.  

So after we left the mall, we grabbed lunch and then headed over to pay our dues to Target.  Target is like our home base.  It's where Callan gets a diaper change on the way out of the store and we sit in the parking lot while I feed him.  He got to stretch his legs in the front seat with Dad for a little bit before we strapped him back in his carseat to head home {in a severe thunderstorm; it was INSANE}.

One of my favorite things to do on the weekend is to take a walk as a family.  It gets us out of the house and we get to check out the other houses in the neighborhood and verbally express our lawn envy as we pass by 2801.  Callan enjoys our walks as much as we do.  

Late last week we had a RIDICULOUSLY crazy windstorm with a 10 pm to 6 am power outage.  Reports say that we had gusts of 60+ mph winds.  There were a few branches down throughout the neighborhood, and our fence suffered a little.  Mind you, the fence is in need of replacement anyways {we knew this when we moved in}, but this storm really did a number on it.  A whole section of fence was on the ground in the morning.

Travis rigged it "back together" the best he could with what we had on hand.  As soon as we have a little extra cash, we'll be replacing a good chunk of the fence. 

Last, but not least, I discovered my new weakness this weekend.  Pretzel sticks dipped in "Nutella".  I put "Nutella" in quotes because it's an off brand of it that we found at Aldi.  YUM.

Not the most exciting post, but when the weekend borders on lame, Monday's post borders, if not crosses into, lameland.

**lame = uneventful**

gallery wall . coming soon . probably .

Gallery walls are kinda "in" right now.  This isn't something new, though.  My grandma has had family photos displayed in her hallway in a gallery fashion since, probably before, I was a little girl.  Yours probably does/did too.

Ever since I finished my stenciled wall in the living room, I've been looking at it, head tilted to one side and with a big question mark hanging over my head...as if to say, "it looks good, but it seems unfinished..."

So I'm taking a cue from my grandma.  Yes, I'm jumping on the gallery wall band wagon.  Hmm.  Let's not say "jumping"...how about "cautiously hopping".  Jumping sounds too decided, and to be honest, I'm not 100% this is the route to take.  

But I'm totally excited to see what comes of it.

Here's what I found in terms of inspiration.

{sources: gallery 1, gallery 2, gallery 3, gallery 4}

I like what I see in these images.  But...

Here's my problem.  

My stenciled wall is busy as it is.  Adding a multitude of frames will either:

a) cover up some of the busyness and make it feel a lot less overwhelming {good}, or 

b) make it feel more busy {bad, duh!}.

So I'm debating.  

{man, this was taken a while ago.  thank goodness that yellow in the hallway is long gone.}

Yesterday, on a whim, I decided to wing the frame hanging.  No rhyme or reason - just started hammering nails and hanging frames.  I'm kinda digging it aside from the fact that I need to thrift a few smallish frames (4x6, 5x7, maybe even an 8x10 or two) and pick up a can of spray paint.  I have brown frames and black frames, so adding a bit of cohesiveness, in that sense, will really make a difference.  White or color?  I'm having a hard time deciding.  {White might blend in too much...not sure if that's what I'm looking for.}  Wait, I think I might have just made up my mind.

I'm thinking that to make the tv seem less, "BAM! here I am" against the wall, a gallery seems like the best solution.  {?}  It will blend in as if it were just another piece of art.  {It wouldn't really, but you know what I'm saying.}

Do you have any other ideas?

Anyways, that's my latest project.  I'm hunting down photos to enlarge and working on a few other crafty things for the wall, as well.  We'll see what comes of it.  

Hopefully I can get some input/opinions from you guys, too!

Hope your weekend is inspired!

Oh, and welcome to summer, all you teacher people out there :)

father's day wreath

 I'm excited for Father's Day this year.
{June 19th!}
It's Travis' first, so it's pretty special. 

In the spirit of Father's Day, I put together this wreath with a few of my grandfather's ties, as well as some antique linen that belonged to my great-grandmother for the flowers. 

Every time I look at it, a fond memory of my grandpa comes to mind.   

He is missed.

I love the manliness of the ties, paired with the feminine linen flowers.  

A happy balance.

I think I'll keep it up through the 4th of July.
It is patriotic in color, after all.