An Emily Post

 

 First day of sixth grade.

 Emily took an interest in dollhouses after we went to the copper mine a couple of months ago. She saw a miniature display there and got really excited about it.

So we found her a good beginner dollhouse kit to put together and we've been working on it during her off track time.

She's been very patient and is really doing a good job on it. But she is excited to get to the decorating. Can't blame her there. That's the fun part after all.

We've also been working on small projects in her room.

She really wanted to paint each wall a different, BRIGHT, color. Oy!

I can't handle that yet. I'm still basking in the nice, clean, neutral walls.

She also really admires the umm...shall we call it...eclectic wall decor at places like TGIFridays and Buca de Beppo.

I am trying to find ways to bring in all the bright colors she wants and a slightly toned down eclectic look.

Here's what we've accomplished so far.

We found a way to hang her purple guitar on the wall.

The rooster is a wrapped canvas print that I had made of a photo of a mural that was in her room at the old house. Phew! 

The rooster has great sentimental value to her as it reminds her of her Grandma Marsha and their phone conversations when Emily was too little to talk on the phone yet. ;)

I made the memo board from an old picture frame we had hanging around.

 Emily bought the red lips bean bag chair with her birthday money.

 I think that the bed net and the sheers on her window satisfy her need for lots of bright colors without involving any paint. Win/win.

 A couple of weeks ago we bought some orange fabric with white circles on it to make a pad for her window seat. I was going to wait to make this post until we got that finished but time is slipping away.

Take, for example, the fact that Emily is in 6th grade already. Where did that time go?

100 percent contained

See the single line of lights to the left and just at the base of the mountain? That's us!
Thank goodness we couldn't see the fire from this perspective on Sunday night. That would have increased the fear and anxiety by about 1000 %. Somehow seeing it close up was LESS scary.
But the good news is that the fire is 100 % contained as of today.
The last of the evacuation orders was lifted Wednesday afternoon.
According to news reports, the National Guard is being extremely proactive about paying up for the damages. I don't mean promises either. The story is that they were cutting checks and handing out cash to the families whose homes were damaged TODAY. I'm impressed!
Plans are already underway to get the mountainside reseeded to try and prevent flooding during the coming wet seasons.
Area businesses have donated SOO much to help the residents and the emergency responders all week long.
Have I mentioned that I love where we live?
I really do.

Rough night.

Remember the pretty reservoir in our new neighborhood?
I shared this picture back in June. Looking toward the north.

Our city caught fire and burned through the night last night. 

Here is the view last night.

A few families have lost their homes. Hundreds were miraculously spared.

We were just at the edge of the evacuation area so we stayed home last night. But it was a restless night not knowing if we'd be told to leave.

The entire county is hard at work trying to get it put out today. 

It seems most of the danger has passed.

I can't. I'm canning.

I think I might have DADD.
Domestic Attention Deficit Disorder.
I had a list of things I wanted to get done around the house last week.
~Make roman shades for Kenzie's room.
~Replace the curtain in Jaxon's room.
~Make a pad for Emily's window seat.
~etc, etc, etc.
But last Saturday Roger and I drove to Fruit Way and came home with a half bushel of these beauties.

So big! And so sweet! Just a half bushel. Not too much. Enough to eat and maybe make a batch (or two) of freezer jam.

And there were the roma tomatoes. A half bushel of those. Not too much. Just wanted to try making salsa again. It's been a few years and the last time my salsa was so thin and runny. More like lumpy V-8 juice. My friend's family loved it. So I gave it all to them. LOL 

It turned out better this year.

But a little too mild. So I made another batch.

This one was a little hotter. But still not as hot as we like it. so I made another.

Perfect! Ohhhh....but maybe some PEACH SALSA would be good.

Yep. It is delicious! 

By now it was Wednesday or Thursday, I forget. the days run together once I get an idea in my head.

What to do with the rest of those peaches? Hmmm...Peach chutney!

mmmmm.......

That finished up the tomatoes and the peaches. Now what?

Could have gone back to that list I mentioned earlier.

But now I'm in the ZONE.

I have all my canning supplies out so maybe I should do something with all those cranberries in the freezer.

See? I wasn't even planning to can anything this year and then all the sudden...this.

I guess that list will wait till next week.

Except I went back to Fruit Way yesterday and came home with a bushel of peaches, a half bushel of beets and a case of raspberries.
Within hours of being home I made raspberry jam.

But no dinner. 

Let them eat peaches!

I guess that to do list will have to wait another week.

Projects for 3 bedrooms over the past 2 weeks.

Sorry for the long absence!
I've been busy, busy, busy with bedroom projects and haven't even taken the time to blog them. Bad blogger!
I'll catch you up now. Might take a minute.
hmm..where to start? It was a kind of circular process so I'm not even sure where the beginning really is.

Let's start with the master bedroom.
We got a new bed! YAY! My back is so happy! All new mattress, box spring, comforter and a beautiful new sleigh bed frame.
And I finally got some pictures up on the wall in there. I am getting tired of all the blank walls now. It was kind of visually restful for a couple of months after we moved in. But now I need some stuff to look at!

Kenzie got our old bed. It was a big improvement over the one she had been sleeping on.

There was a problem though.

Remember when I reupholstered our old headboard last year? With that yummy purple fabric? Remember?

Pretty! But it doesn't work for Kenzie. She has her own ideas about decorating her room. The nerve!

So I reupholstered it again. This is the third time. We've gotten a lot of mileage out of that FREE headboard.

I covered it in a blue fabric with brown flecks to match her room.

And while we're on the subject of Kenzie's room...
She had a Walmart Fall Apart dresser that, well, fell apart.

So we brainstormed a way to store her clothes in a way that takes up less space in her room, since it's a little crowded.

Roger and I followed THIS PLAN for a 3 cube bench on Knock Off Wood and we built it. Ourselves! Go us! 

It isn't perfect. We learned even more than we did when we built the spice rack a few weeks ago. But Kenzie loves it and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

I painted it with Benjamin Moore (Mink) which I got for free with a "Welcome to the neighborhood" coupon that came in the mail.

I upholstered the top of it with the same fabric as the headboard. Trimmed it with some jute braid trim.

Tah dah!

The whole thing cost us about $40 and $20 of that was for the baskets. Can you even get a Walmart Fall Apart dresser for $40 these days? I don't know. Don't care. This is cuter. :)

After some long overdue repairs to the broken box spring (bad parents!), Jaxon got Kenzie's old full size mattress and box spring set. 

Remember last year when we changed his crib into a toddler bed?

Aww....*sniff*. 

Well, not even a year later and his head and feet are nearly touching each end.

For the past year we have been moving along, fully confident that when the time came we could convert that toddler bed to a full size bed, AS ADVERTISED when we bought the crib. Which is, incidentally, the most expensive bed frame in our house. Counting the new one we just bought for ourselves.

But guess what? A full size mattress and box spring DID NOT fit. It was too big by about 1 inch.
By the time we figured that out, all the other beds had been re arranged and Jaxon had no place to sleep. grr! With no money to buy him a whole new bed, and realizing that we would not be able to use the bed frame anyway, we decided to put our new found woodworking confidence to work for us and we altered the bed frame so it would work.

Ahhh....that's better. Makes him look tiny again too. Bonus!

You can see the strip of wood where we altered the frame. I need to stain that to match. For now, I covered it with a dust ruffle that coordinates with his room. So now no one will even know. Except me. And all of you.
Notice how he immediately welcomed the new bed by sprinkling his toys all around it? Nice.

That concluded the great bed shuffle of 2010. 

Emily got robbed. Her words.

But I did do some work in her room in the past couple of weeks as well. I'll share those in another post.