Happy List: #88
Hello! Do you know what I’m feeling happy about today? Routines. I’ll be over them by Christmas, but right now it feels good. A lot of newness all at one time is stressful – for all of us. It feels good for the kids to go to school each day knowing what to expect. It feels good for me to know that they are doing okay in their new schools. I hope to be able to volunteer at school soon to see the kids in their natural habitats, but I have to wait for my fingerprinting appointment! In the meantime, routines for the win! This week I shared my piano room…
DIY Leather Pumpkin
Last year I made a trio of denim pumpkins out of a pair of my husband’s old jeans. I had so much fun cutting up those jeans creating those pumpkins that I decided I had one more (at least for now) pumpkin craft in me. In the spirt of reduce, reuse, repurpose and pumpkin-fy everything, I decided to DIY a leather pumpkin. Yes, leather! Everything else has been used to decorate faux pumpkins. Why not leather too? If you’ve been following this blog for a hot minute then it won’t surprise you that the leather for this pumpkin project came from a pair of old boots that I cut apart.…
Wood Paneled Piano Room
I was messing around with my camera because I need to improve my skills and I happened to shoot a few sort of not blurry photos in the darkest room in our house – the wood paneled piano room. It’s actually the living room, but when you have a ball and chain baby grand piano, you sometimes have to get creative with your living space. I didn’t intend to show you these photos because this room isn’t “done” and I really was just messing around with camera settings. Also, I didn’t dust. Or wipe my children’s fingerprints off the piano. Or remove the crumpled kleenex. Or tidy my piano books.…
Happy List: #87
Hello, everyone! This has been an interesting week for us. My children were off school on Wednesday for Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement is the holiest day of the year in Judaism. This is our first time living in a part of the country with a strong concentration of Jewish people, so it was a good opportunity to learn more about Judaism. On Monday I wrote about Maple Glazed Apple Pull Apart Bread. You should really try it. If I’m not feeling lazy, you can come over and I’ll bake it for you. On Wednesday I shared my latest DIY project: leather drawer pulls! I do hope…
Easy DIY Leather Drawer Pulls
I don’t throw the word ‘easy’ around willy nilly. So if I say it is easy to DIY your own leather drawer pulls without fancy tools, then trust me, it is. Here’s what I used…(I’ll link the relevant things at the end.) I’m of absolute certainty that there are more proper ways to make leather drawer pulls, but I’m all about using the tools I have on hand. Call it a creative problem-solving challenge. If I was going to go into the leather pull business, then I’d invest in leather tools, but for a one-time project, this is how I made it work. And it was actually easy! I purchased…
Would I Make It Again: Maple Glazed Apple Pull-Apart Bread
I’m becoming predictable with these “Would I Make It Again” posts for two reasons. First, I don’t want to be mean. This is a happy place, after all. I’m not going to rip apart a recipe just because I didn’t enjoy a particular food. Chicken feet aren’t my thing, but millions of people seem to eat them quite regularly. Who’s to say they are wrong? Not me. Second, I have eaten enough food in my life except chicken feet that I have a strong hunch of what I will enjoy or not when selecting a recipe. While all the recipes I’ve featured in this series are pretty tasty, I’m on the…
Happy List: #86
Hi! Hello! Happy Friday! While things in my world are normal, I know there are millions of people in the path of Hurricane Florence and I’m thinking of them today. This week I shared our tips for keeping our kids safe while traveling in foreign countries. I’m serious about hearing from others who have tips to share on this topic. Especially as my kids get older I know our needs will change and it is a good discussion to have. I also shared a recent pet project of mine – a dresser makeover. I really love how it turned out and it didn’t give me nearly as much trouble as…
Makeover: Dresser with Brass Details
My love affair with my local Habitat ReStore is still going strong. In early August I found a small dresser with brass accents at the ReStore. When I spotted those brass accents it was like the heavens opened up and angels began singing. Honestly, I need to have this sort of reaction when I find a piece of used furniture in order to go through the herculean effort to get it home and refinish it. We all have our barometers. Mine is angels singing. Totally normal, right? As you can see, the dresser had a hutch on top that I still do not understand. It has the same brass edging…
Travel With Kids: Safety Tips for Foreign Travel
I’m not a safety expert, but I am a mom who overthinks ALL. THE. THINGS. Especially when we are traveling with kids in a foreign country because there is plenty of opportunity for things to go wrong. Specifically, there’s increased opportunity for my kids to get lost. I have two kids, ages 8 and 11, who have already visited 11 countries. We are American citizens who just spent two years living in Dublin, Ireland. It was a big change moving from the U.S. where we NEVER used public transportation to living in a foreign country and ONLY using public transportation – even for going to school. I’ve learned a few things about…
Happy List: #85
Hello, hello. Thank you for thinking of me my kiddos this week. They are such troopers and roll really well with change – or as well as can be expected. It’s been a learning curve, especially on the middle school front, but they had a fantastic week. My son would probably say I’m overselling it with the ‘fantastic’ word, but he’s 8 and school isn’t his favorite thing in the world. On the first day of school I predictably asked him, “How did it go? How was your day?” And he replied, “Great!” Then he followed it up by saying, “My teacher said you were going to ask that and to…
