Full of thanks

This post was supposed to be written last week, in preparation for Thanksgiving, but life throws you curve balls that interfere with plans. And that was precisely the point I was going to make. It's how we deal with those curve balls that matter.

I'm one of those -- an optimist, through and through. :) I can't help it. I think it stems from my teen years, which I've mentioned a bit on this blog. I had enough sad days then, and since then I just can't stand to be sad or depressed. It makes me physically uncomfortable, I hate it so much.

That's not to say I don't deal with the bad things in life -- I do. I realized a long time ago, when things are at the lowest, doing something, anything helps -- it gives you power and control back. So when things go bad, my control is to look at the good.

I was going to write about some trivial things in this post last week. Things like when the sitter cancels on your night out with friends or the hubby, and seeing that as a good turn of events -- looking at it as a chance to spend unexpected time with your children. And how many, many people in this world would do anything to have children to spend time with.

Or when the car breaks down and you can't get where you wanted to go -- I rationalize things like that by thinking it was probably best I didn't go. Would you call that fate? I just feel when something like that happens, I wasn't supposed to be in that car, at that time, on that road. I think there's a higher power at work and we often forget that, especially at the annoying times.

I was also going to talk about the more serious circumstances, like when I fell down half a flight of cement stairs a couple weeks ago -- holding my son. It was probably the scariest moment of my life. He hit his head, and I could barely walk afterwards. Within seconds he seemed fine, and after a trip to the ER, we found out he was indeed OK and my ankle (that was triple it's normal size) was only badly sprained.

I felt sorry for myself for about two seconds, and then I was overcome with thankfulness that it was just me that was hurt -- and it was just an ankle. How incredibly fortunate that my son was not hurt worse. The what ifs ran through my head and they were not good. So as I've hobbled around for the past two weeks, I've been reminding myself how thankful I am that that's all it was. I can handle with a sprained ankle any day of the week.

This is the way I deal, and it works for me. But my optimism was tested last week. We got news that my father-in-law was diagnosed with stage three pancreatic cancer. I simply cannot put into words how I feel. I won't even try. For the first few hours after we found out, I could barely breath. It was like someone was sitting on my chest. Then, there were the tears, and tears. And tears. My heart is breaking for my husband. It's breaking for my stepdaughter, my sister-in-law, my nephews, for me. For my son.

And now, this bad, horrible news, has yet again taught me to see the good. It was confirmed today that his doctors think he has at least six months with us -- maybe even a year. My heart is heavy. I want to cry again and again. But I also can't help to think how fortunate are we to be able to spend this time with him over the next year. To do special things, take pictures, to create new memories.

For our son to get to know his Grandpa even better.

Every year my father-in-law cooks an authentic Mexican fiesta meal for us and our friends, usually in the fall. He obviously hasn't been feeling great, so we skipped it this year. But now, we're going to have the fiesta the week before Christmas. We will gather around him to cook our Mexican feast with him, and it will be something I'm sure none of us will ever forget. (And yes, it is as good as it sounds!)

I just can't focus on the bad. It's against my nature. I have to look to the good, and there will be much good that will come over the next year. I am sure of that.

If I can, I am asking a favor of all of you. I would really appreciate your prayers. For my father-in-law, that he feels as good as possible for as long as possible. And for my husband and his sister, that they feel comfort and peace right now. I really, really appreciate it. I am so thankful for all of you.

** I am reposting this in Live Writer since Blogger wasn’t picking it up for some reason. I apologize for the two posts!

Full of thanks

This post was supposed to be written last week, in preparation for Thanksgiving, but life throws you curve balls that interfere with plans. And that was precisely the point I was going to make. It's how we deal with those curve balls that matter.

I'm one of those -- an optimist, through and through. :) I can't help it. I think it stems from my teen years, which I've mentioned a bit on this blog. I had enough sad days then, and since then I just can't stand to be sad or depressed. It makes me physically uncomfortable, I hate it so much.

That's not to say I don't deal with the bad things in life -- I do. I realized a long time ago, when things are at the lowest, doing something, anything helps -- it gives you power and control back. So when things go bad, my control is to look at the good.

I was going to write about some trivial things in this post last week. Things like when the sitter cancels on your night out with friends or the hubby, and seeing that as a good turn of events -- looking at it as a chance to spend unexpected time with your children. And how many, many people in this world would do anything to have children to spend time with.

Or when the car breaks down and you can't get where you wanted to go -- I rationalize things like that by thinking it was probably best I didn't go. Would you call that fate? I just feel when something like that happens, I wasn't supposed to be in that car, at that time, on that road. I think there's a higher power at work and we often forget that, especially at the annoying times.

I was also going to talk about the more serious circumstances, like when I fell down half a flight of cement stairs a couple weeks ago -- holding my son. It was probably the scariest moment of my life. He hit his head, and I could barely walk afterwards. Within seconds he seemed fine, and after a trip to the ER, we found out he was indeed OK and my ankle (that was triple it's normal size) was only badly sprained.

I felt sorry for myself for about two seconds, and then I was overcome with thankfulness that it was just me that was hurt -- and it was just an ankle. How incredibly fortunate that my son was not hurt worse. The what ifs ran through my head and they were not good. So as I've hobbled around for the past two weeks, I've been reminding myself how thankful I am that that's all it was. I can handle with a sprained ankle any day of the week.

This is the way I deal, and it works for me. But my optimism was tested last week. We got news that my father-in-law was diagnosed with stage three pancreatic cancer. I simply cannot put this into words how I feel. I won't even try. For the first few hours after we found out, I could barely breath. It was like someone was sitting on my chest. Then, there were the tears, and tears. And tears. My heart is breaking for my husband. It's breaking for my stepdaughter, my sister-in-law, my nephews, for me. For my son.

And now, this bad, horrible news, has yet again taught me to see the good. It was confirmed today that his doctors think he has at least six months with us -- maybe even a year. My heart is heavy. I want to cry again and again. But I also can't help to think how fortunate are we to be able to spend this time with him over the next year. To do special things, take pictures, to create new memories.

For our son to get to know his Grandpa even better.

Every year my father-in-law cooks an authentic Mexican fiesta meal for us and our friends, usually in the fall. He obviously hasn't been feeling great, so we skipped it this year. But now, we're going to have the fiesta the week before Christmas. We will gather around him to cook our Mexican feast with him, and it will be something I'm sure none of us will ever forget. (And yes, it is as good as it sounds!)

I just can't focus on the bad. It's against my nature. I have to look to the good, and there will be much good that will come over the next year. I am sure of that.

If I can, I am asking a favor of all of you. I would really appreciate your prayers. For my father-in-law, that he feels as good as possible for as long as possible. And for my husband and his sister, that they feel comfort and peace right now. I really, really appreciate it. I am so thankful for all of you.

A Christmas mantel, au naturale

I’m so glad you all loved the mantel inspiration photos! I was so inspired by the natural looks and all the “fluff” – I think it worked for our mantel as well. I spent much of today messing around and having fun with it. I’m so pleased with the final result, I hope you love it too!

I started with natural looking pics of greenery from Big Lots – I used three at $3 each. I just laid one on each end of the mantel, one in the middle, flattening them out as much as possible:

Then, I took the magnolias and all of the glammy (word?) stuff out of the greenery I had used last year (see previous post), then just folded it in half, and it ended up being exactly the length I needed. I laid it right on top of the greenery above.

Because I really loved the look of the long pine needles, I used more garland from Big Lots, for $9, and cut it up into a bunch of pieces, just sticking it here and there in the greenery. Then I cut up some sparkly branches and stuffed them in too:

The BL garland had the huge pinecones in it, but I added a few more of my own as well.

I took my clearance WalMart lanterns from our deck and repurposed them to work on the mantel. I was so pleased with how it turned out…

I was still craving a little somethin’ though – some color! I just can’t do completely natural – it’s against my nature. ;) So I cut up some red beady stuff I had and stuffed it in here and there, and then hung my dollar store stars from each piece of ironwork:

I took some of the beady thingamabobs and sprinkled them on the pinecones in the lanterns:

 

Which was super easy to do, because the blasted things were flying off everywhere anyway. Argh.

The result? Lurve:

I found this little reindeer at HomeGoods and I seriously could not resist him. Adorable. He picks up the red touches in the mantel perfectly:

         

Hang in there – I took a crazy amount of pictures…

   

    

I used dollar store candleholders in the lanterns, and made them a bit taller by putting them on top of blocks of wood. I wanted to put faux snow in the lanterns, but they only open in the front, so it was next to impossible to get the snow in there. (Believe me, I tried.) So I just used my fluffy snow stuff instead:

Because the greenery is so full (sigh), I propped up the lanterns and the tree with books and boxes so they wouldn’t disappear. You can’t even see them when you look at the mantel:

Do you luuuuurve it? Huh? Do ya??

I hope so! I do. I had so much fun with this! One more mantel to go, and I hope to have that up this week. It’s MUCH simpler though. :)

The winner of Pampering Beki’s necklace giveaway is Melissa Howard from Melissa and Cas – please email me and I’ll get you in touch with Beki! I still haven’t heard from Kat at Measuring my life in love who was the winner of the vinyl giveaway – Kat, give me a holler! Enjoy ladies!

P.S. Did anyone watch the Behind the Magic Disney special on HGTV tonight? OMG – it was fantastic. (Popcorn as big as my head! Sixty-five foot trees people!) Check out a rerun if you get a chance! Spectacular!!

Christmas mantels

Hello there! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a lovely day with scrumptious food – all made by moi thankyouverymuch. I done good folks. I don’t cook often, but when I do, it’s pretty darn great. (YES, you heard right Dad, I DO cook.)  :)

I’m getting closer with the Christmas decor – not sure it’s going to happen by Monday, but I’m having fun with it, and that’s what matters most, right? One of my favorite spots to decorate is our family room mantel. It’s an odd shape (corner fireplace) so it requires some thunkin’ on my part.

Last year, I was obsessed with magnolias, so the top picture is what I came up with. I really adored it, but because it’s in our family room, I’m hoping to tone it down a bit this year – I’m thinking a little more natural, a teensy bit more fun, a little less glam. I’m still going to work in the magnolia’s – at least I hope to. They are gorg. 

To get some inspiration, I browsed through the Internet last night and I found some beautiful ideas I wanted to share.

The penguins are the cutest idea yet, and the the other is just classic:

I LOVE the simple glass vases with white “snow” on the penguin mantel – how easy yet beautiful!

The idea on the left below is where my mind is heading…big fluffy pieces of greenery shooting out everywhere (photo courtesy of Country Living). I love the use of ironwork on the one on the right:

   

Again, simple but fluffy on the left. The picture on the right isn’t a mantel, obviously, but I LOVE the swag and vinyl lettering on the mirror, and the snow globes on the candleholders. Brilliant!:

The left below is F.U.N. and sooooo easy to do. The right mantel is classic, but what really drew me to this picture was the huge disco ball (?) ornament (?) hanging from the ceiling, complete with greenery. You know how I love me some greenery:

       

Below, classic yet again (can you tell my style?) – one with just a bit of greenery, the other with a boatload of candles. Both oooooh so pretty!:

    

This one I loved because it could be an ode to my hubs…he would LOVE this. I don’t know why instruments work so well for the holidays, but they scream festive to me, especially when they are displayed like this:

   

What do you think? Love them? Our mantel is coming together in my head…right now it’s just a pile of fluff and stuff. I hope to show you later on this weekend!

Oh, and I haven’t forgotten about the winner of the jewelry giveaway…but the turkey has knocked me out for a second night in a row. I’ll announce that this weekend too.  :)  Patience grasshopper…

Our holiday porch

I’ve always loved my tried and true Christmas decorating for our front porch and yard – it’s simple and elegant. (I told you how I do it back on this post.) But this year I was feeling like it needed a bit more fun…I think it’s because our son is getting older and becoming more and more obsessed with Christmas -- just like Momma. ;)

So I wanted to make it a little more whimsical and colorful this year. I started with the wreath I got on clearance last year at Target. It still needed a little somethin’ somethin’, so I just took a plain greenery wreath and smushed them together with wire, like so:

I love how it gives it a bit more dimension (see first photo). Lurve.

For the rest of the porch, I did my regular deal with greenery and lights, but this year I added some bling and color with $5 worth of ribbon and $15 of plastic ornaments. I just wrapped the ribbon around the greenery and then hung the ornaments from the centers of each with floral wire:

Whew hew! Color! Just want I wanted.

I take the floral pots that hold my mums in the fall and keep the soil in there so I can just plop the little trees in. I added some of the plastic ornaments to the bases of the tree just for fun (and color!):

Not sure I’m loving the little bows on top of the trees, but c’mon, they are pretty cute.

I added some ornaments to the wreath over the garage door and the wreaths on the windows, instead of the sad little bows I’ve always had on them:

PK at Room Remix posted about just twisting some ornaments together with floral wire and I don’t know why the heck I hadn’t thought of doing that! I love how they look on the wreaths!

Many of you have asked about the iron pieces hanging in our windows – they were actually gold “snowflakes” I got on clearance at Pier 1 years ago. I spray painted them black and hung them with fishing wire from the drapery rods:

I took down the blinds we never use on these windows and now you can really see them from outside! They don’t look Christmasy most of the year, but they do with a wreath in the window. ;)

I love how the front porch decor looks through the transom window from inside.

This may be how it looks with the door closed:

But this is how it looks when you open it:

Holy Christmas mess Batman!!

I’ll add some daylight pics of the porch tomorrow…the ribbon looks soooo gorg during the day too.

Did I mention I was hoping to have ALL of the Christmas decor up before Monday of next week, so I can sit back and enjoy it all month? I hear you laughing at me. I can do it, I can. Only 13 more bins of stuff to go. ;)

The hardest easiest DIY wreath ever

OK, so I have seen this all over blogland for the past year, so it’s nothing new. I believe Eddie Ross did it first. Then I think I saw it over at Rhoda’s last year. And Chris shared hers last week. The more I saw them, the more I was mesmerized by them.

Then one of you lovelies (thanks Su!) suggested this wreath when I shared my Christmas dining table last week. I found a huge container of the bronze ornaments at Hob Lob on Friday for only $10, and the stars aligned and I knew it must. be. mine.

If you follow two simple pieces of advice this will be the easiest Christmas project you’ll do this year…listen to me carefully…I’m about to save you some major bad word saying and time.  :)

OK, when Eddie says to hot glue the little tops onto the ornaments before you start, this is not a suggestion. For reals. Oh yes, you can tug at the little tops and think “Pushaw, these are totally fine – they’ll hold great!”

Ummm…don’t listen to yourself. Listen to me. Listen to Eddie. You think you are saving time by not hot gluing, but you’re really going to add another unnecessary 20 minutes onto this project if you ignore him. And me.

It takes two seconds to hot glue one on, so just do it, as Nike would say.

All you need for this project is a wire hanger (insert Mommie Dearest jokes here) and your ornaments. You also want the hot glue, unless you’re gonna ignore me. And a wire cutter of some sort if you don’t want to fill up the whole length of the hanger with ornaments.

  

This is the easy part – you just thread each ornament onto the wire, one by one. When you are done, twist the wire together to close the circle. Then arrange the ornaments so the wire is hidden as much as possible.

This is the next piece of advice you must not ignore – use the cheapest, thinnest wire you can find. I mean, seriously, my hubs must be taking his clothes to the Taj Mahal of dry cleaners cause OMG this stuff was hard to twist up to close at the end. 

I mean, like, insanely, ridiculously hard. It was thick wire – do not use thick wire. Use the thinnest wire hangers you can find, umkay? 

If you follow these two suggestions, I can promise you this will be the easiest, most beautiful wreath you’ve ever your set eyes on. If you chose to ignore, it will be the hardest, most beautiful wreath you’ve ever set your eyes on.  :)

My container of bulbs (shatterproof) had 50 in it, and I used about 15 from my Goodwill stash as well. So approximately 30-something ornaments per wreath for mine – they are small but that’s what I wanted.

I hung them from cream ribbon (per Su’s suggestion!) in the two molding rectangles that flank our windows in the dining room:

 

If I can find a couple more in this color on the cheap, I’ll hang one from the little nails up there. If not, no one will ever notice them.  Except all of you. ;)

 

One ended up being smaller than the other, but I was so over them at that point, I said forgetaboutit. Whateva. But they are gorg, so I got over it fast!

So again, if you follow my warnings advice – this is a quick and easy project! If not…well…don’t come cryin’ to me! OK, you can, cause I’ll cry with you.

Total cost for the two wreaths was $10 for the ornaments. Fantastic!

(Reason No. 329 I love Live Writer – I can add “gorg” and “pushaw” to my dictionary. Hellooo, those are words!)