Does Anyone Still Read and Write Blogs?

 Feeling a little nostalgic and missing this time and space.

Simple is Good

This is obviously not a recipe*. Just an idea. But a really, really good one!

For dinner tonight we had grilled veggies and brown rice and it was soooo yummy!

For 4 large servings I used the following:
1 red bell pepper
1 red onion
1 fennel bulb, sliced
6-8 baby bella mushrooms
1/2 of a small head of broccoflower broken into small florets
20 small brussel sprouts, cut in half
1 zucchini, sliced
1 yellow squash, sliced
cloves of one head of garlic, peeled

In a large bowl, I tossed all of that with about 1/4 cup of olive oil.
Then I put it on this great grill tray that we recently purchased at Sam's club. It has small, square holes all over it so the grilled flavor really gets into the veggies without them falling all over the place. Love it!
I sprinkled on some Montreal Steak Seasoning (a mix of salt, pepper, dried garlic, onions, spices, etc). Use whatever seasoning mix you like.

I held the temperature of the grill at about 400 degrees and stirred the veggies around every few minutes till they were tender. It took about 30 minutes.

We served the grilled veggies over brown rice prepared in my favorite way. Foolproof! No more crunchy rice for use since I found that method.

This dinner was so simple, so delicious, so gonna be a summertime regular around here.

*Even though it's not really a recipe, I'm gonna call it "Grilled Veggies and Brown Rice" and put in the recipe index on the sidebar.

Calypso Soup

I'll add a picture here next time I make it. The leftovers are not as photogenic as the freshly made soup was. ;)
This is a "vegan-ized" version of a previous favorite found HERE. It's quick to prepare, low calorie and super tasty.

Calypso Soup

Makes 4 servings

8 oz mushrooms, sliced
1 teaspoon oil (I used coconut oil)
2 cups peeled and diced sweet potato
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 teaspoon curry powder (I use more. We love curry!)
2 Tablespoons flour
1 can vegetable broth with water added to equal 2 cups
1 can (15.5 oz) black eyed peas, rinsed and drained
1 can (13.5 oz) light unsweetened coconut milk
2 cups packed fresh baby spinach leaves
1 teaspoon dried thyme

Brown mushrooms in oil in large nonstick dutch oven over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes. Add sweet potato, onion, bell pepper and curry powder. Cook 4 to 5 minutes or until onion and peppers are crisp-tender, stirring occasionally. Stir in flour; cook and stir 1 minute.

Stir in broth and water mixture, black-eyed peas and coconut milk; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5 to 8 minutes or until sweet potato is tender. Stir in spinach and thyme. Cook 1 minute or until spinach wilts. Season with salt and black pepper, to taste.

Almost Vegan Spring Pasta Toss

This is a vegetarian (almost vegan) version of an old family favorite which previously included chicken and alfredo sauce. I have plans to try to eliminate the dairy and make it totally vegan next time I make it. I'll post here if it is successful.

Spring Vegetable and Pasta Toss
 
Makes 4 large servings - approx 475 calories per serving

Ingredients:
12 oz of Barilla Whole Grain Rotini
2 medium red bell peppers, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 medium yellow bell pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 pound of asparagus, woody ends removed, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 small head of cauliflower (approx 2 lbs) cut into 2 inch pieces
3 oz shredded parmesan cheese
3-4 cups of vegetable broth (I used broth made from the powder here )
2 Tablespoons water
1 Tablespoon oil (I used coconut oil)
1 teaspoon pepper ( you can go easy here but I think that pepper is the key to the alfredo like flavor)
salt to taste

Place cauliflower and enough vegetable broth to cover it into a saucepan. Cook until tender. Drain, reserving the broth.
To make sauce, put cooked cauliflower in blender and puree until VERY smooth. Add small amounts of cooking liquid if necessary to get it moving in the blender. 
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to boil. Cook pasta according to package directions.
While pasta cooks, In a large skillet over medium heat add oil. When hot, add red and yellow peppers and asparagus. Saute for 2-3 minutes. Add water and pepper, cover, reduce heat and simmer about 5 minutes. Until veggies are crisp tender.
Stir cooked pasta, cauliflower sauce and Parmesan cheese into skillet with veggies. Stir over medium heat until hot throughout and cheese is melted. Taste and add salt as needed.

The patient has a pulse!!!!

My family is on a new path for health. Many of us are moving toward a plant based diet. Some are going strictly vegan, or taking a long term "challenge" of that sort.
As for our household, we are not committing to total vegetarianism or veganism. We are currently about 95% vegetarian with a very large portion of those meals being vegan as well.
We are feeling great! Roger and I have lost most of the weight we had gained back since our initial success with Weight Watchers.
We're also using MyFitnessPal as a tool for keeping our calories and nutrition requirements in check. It's going GREAT!
I am working to develop a meal plan of about 20 meals that we enjoy so that they can be in regular rotation so I don't have to put so much brain power into dinner every night.
To that end, I am going to resurrect the blog now as a place to keep track of those recipes that I try and are family approved.
I am still VERY much enjoying hand making books and journaling with paper/fabric and glue so there will likely not be much about the family on the blog anymore. But know that they are all doing so great. We are as close as ever, the family is growing by leaps and bounds and our days are full of loving our lives together.

Welcome to my pity party

My lower back has been hurting for...umm... ever. I think I have a pretty high tolerance for pain and have pretty much just been ignoring it and pushing through life.
On Thanksgiving Day it was particularly bad. Maybe I twisted funny handling the 25 pound bird or something. I don't know. But for whatever reason, it was unbearable that day. I not only took a narcotic pain reliever (which I never do!) but I washed it down with a couple of glasses of wine for good measure. And I got through the day.
I realized that my pain was also making me generally unhappy, impatient and grumpy all the time.
The next week I finally went to see an orthopedic surgeon. He took some xrays and also sent me for an MRI.
The xray showed degenerative disk disease at L5 S1. It's pretty common. Lots of people have it with no symptoms at all. And lots of people have lots of pain, like me.
So I had the MRI to make sure there wasn't anything happening as far as nerve damage. And I started physical therapy a couple of times a week.
Yesterday I had the follow up visit with the ortho doc. He said that the MRI doesn't show any significant nerve impingement. He also said that cortisone injections would not be useful for this problem and that surgery has what I consider to be a low success rate. Even he, who would benefit financially from doing surgery, does not recommend it in my case even though I am supposedly a candidate that he would expect to be at the higher end of the success chart.
So, what it boils down to is that I just need to scrape some hours out of my day to take better care of myself. Stretching and conditioning of my core muscles will take some of the burden off my spine and reduce my pain.
It's all up to me.
So after that I went to my physical therapy appointment where I proceeded to break down in tears.
The poor physical therapist. *sigh*
I pulled it together and got the work done.
Afterwards I thought about why I broke down like that.
It's totally irrational (I know!) but I think I wanted that MRI to show something specific and fixable. I wanted the doc to say "So it turns out that you actually have XYZ problem and here's what I can do to fix it and you will be good as new".
Ha!
Maybe I would have handled this better if I hadn't waited till December to take myself to a doctor. There is so much going on this time of year. Christmas, Kenzie having preterm labor and needing my help, working on the nursery for her baby, big school projects for the kids before they go on winter break, and being there for my kids and grandkids for things that come along in life like needing help with sick kids and surgeries. I'm not one of those people that says YES to everything and then complains about being too busy. I have no problem saying NO to things that are not important to me just for the sake of appearing to be Super Woman.
More than one person has suggested that my problem is procrastination. They have said it in humor and out of love for me.
But it stung. It contributed to the tears yesterday.
It isn't about procrastinating.I haven't made a conscious choice to put off doing any of the things I've been doing.
But I suppose it is about time management and prioritizing taking care of myself. Which sounds and feels selfish to me, even though I would advise any of the people that I cared about to do just that for themselves.
And I'm not even going to go into the frustration of  hearing people tell me how much worse they have it than I do. I know there are worse problems to have and worse pain to endure. That doesn't make mine less real or valid. I really want for NONE OF US to hurt, in any way.
To really recover from this back pain I need to spend about 2 1/2 hours a day on exercising.
TWO AND A HALF HOURS
Who has time for that?!?!
Of course we make time for what's important, for one reason or another, to us.

gah!
So I guess I will pencil time into my calendar twice a day for exercise. Which will mean saying no to other things that also matter very much to me. But there are only so many hours in a day. And hopefully, once I get my jiggly jello core muscles in shape, it won't require so much time to keep them in shape.
I will take responsibility for making me better.

BTW I have rejected any kind of medication other than ibuprofen and that Thanksgiving Day Lortab.
The pain is the absolute worst at night. I have to almost fully wake up and brace myself for the pain each time I want to simply roll over in bed.
Yesterday I finally agreed to take something non narcotic if it will help me rest.
I took the first Celebrex at dinner last night.
I still woke up every time I needed to move. Out of habit I suppose. But there was almost no pain. So that was an improvement.
Maybe if I can get some rest I will be less likely to dissolve into tears.
That poor physical therapist. *sigh*

Weight-y Issues

I started Weight Watchers in February 2009. I weighed 186+pounds and I had a goal to be "Fit by 40". In other words, at a healthy weight (140 was my goal) before my 40th birthday that November.
And I did it! With Weight Watchers and encouragement from a few friends who were also WW members, I achieved my goal relatively easily. In fact, I got a little below my goal which made a total loss of almost 50 lbs.
I felt great!
Staying healthy and staying under the radar of Western medicine is important to me.
But so apparently is food.
So I back slid. All the way back to 174 a few months ago.
I'm back on the path now.
But it is SOOO much harder now.
Still I plug along....

I have reset my goal to 145. I just feel like that will be an easier number to maintain and still enjoy life.
By life I mean food, of course.
15 pounds to go...

I hate Halloween.

There.
I said it.
Halloween goes against everything I live by on every other day of the year.
Sure it's fun to see all the little kids all excited and dressed up.
But when you look past that...
It's about spending more money on a costume than we spend on daily wear clothing.
It's about spending 20% of our grocery budget on candy.
I's about consuming copious amounts of candy.
It's about fighting with the kids over consuming copious amounts of candy.
It's about dragging tired, oversugared, overstimulated kids through the neighborhood on typically cold evenings.
Although that whole global warming "myth" seems to be working in our favor this year. Not so for the East coast.
It's about what has become our "traditional" Halloween meal of chili, corn bread and hot chocolate. None of which fall in line with our current healthy eating habits. 
I'd rather just let the little kids have a costume party and skip the trick or treating all together.
But I don't make the rules. I just follow them.
So I better get back to making that chili.

BFF-less

I have only had 1 "best" friend in my adult life. A friend to whom I could truly talk to about anything and everything. No holds barred. No topic out of bounds. No judgements.
That friendship has dissolved at this point.
No hard feelings. Just fundamental life changes that preclude maintaining a friendship on that level.
These days I have lots of casual acquaintances. People with whom I have some small aspect of daily life in common. In the absence of these commonalities we most likely wouldn't  maintain a friendship.Not because they aren't lovely people. It's just that there are more differences in our lives than similarities.
I have my grown daughters. They are incredible women. I couldn't love them more. But there are boundaries to what we can share with each other. And rightly so, I think.
My husband is also not my best friend. That probably seems shameful in the face of so many sappy greeting cards, love songs and Pinterest postings. He is a good man and I do love him. But I cannot talk to him about absolutely everything. It would be wonderful if we ever achieved that level of friendship in our marriage, but for now it just isn't so.
So that leaves me BFF-less.
Should middle aged women have friends with whom they can share absolutely everything?
Do we need those kinds of friendships outside of family?
If missing something in your life means that you need it, then I do.
But where to begin? Hmmm......

We Walked for Breast Cancer

Roger's company is one of the sponsor's of the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk in Salt Lake City.
Our family participated for the second time this year.
Everyone couldn't make it but those of us who did had a good time.
Kayleigh brought pink hairspray and got us all pinked up.
Jaxon did a fair amount of whining for about the middle third of the walk but then he bucked up and finished strong with the rest of us.
Last night we were snuggling on the couch and he said to me, "I'm tired because I walked so far for breath cancer today."
I'm gonna miss these little verbal mix ups.

We walked
In Honor of:
Jill Payne Brown - Roger's friend from high school, currently in treatment
Sheila Evans - Amber and Crystal's other Mom - 2 years in remission
In Memory of:
Michelle Hall - A friend of a friend - lost her battle 10 years ago

And I couldn't believe I forgot to include Roger's cousin, Mary Ann. She has been in remission for 14 years. A truly beautiful survivor, inside and out!!!

From Positive to Positively Authentic

Change is coming.
From the start of this blog I have claimed that it is a place to journal my journey. That has turned out to be not entirely true. I've mostly used it to journal the pretty parts of the journey, the scenic byways, with only occasional glimpses into the weed strewn side streets.
And I just can't keep that up anymore.
Don't get me wrong, my journey is beautiful. I am blessed beyond what I might deserve considering some of the poor choices I've made in my life.
It is a truly beautiful journey, it's mine and I am grateful for it.
But it isn't always pretty.
So this blog is about to become a more authentic journal of that journey. There will still be posts about the beauty (there's so MUCH!) but there will also be posts about the struggles (plenty of those too).
Of course, I have a few deep darks (don't we all?) that won't be shared here. Or maybe, when those battles have been fought and won, or lost, perhaps they will be shared here. We shall see.
But as of today, the picture will be more complete.
I suppose that beauty needs some contrast to truly be appreciated, doesn't it?
Feel free to unfollow if the new direction doesn't interest you. I will not be offended. I appreciate the page views for all these years, even when I myself fail to even log in.
See ya tomorrow.

Everyone asks....

IT IS OFFICIALLY SUMMER!!!

Friday was Emily's last day of school. And now we are ready for some summer fun!

First up... A trip to the doctor for Emily because she seems to have contracted a respiratory plague in her last week of school. :P
But then, we are off to Lake Powell. We are going to have so much fun! We're going camping and boating with our Dennis and Christy. All the kids and grand kids together for a few days. I can't wait!
And then we begin a summer full of fun ways to pass the time before our BIG trip to Myrtle Beach in August. We will be hanging out at the beach with Grandpa and Rick and Jenny. I made this paper chain this morning to help Jaxon count down the days of summer.

*Note: I took these pictures with my iPad (not so great quality) and tried to make the post from the iPad but it wouldn't let me put the pictures where I wanted them. So I had to finish it up on the laptop. Hmmm...I know people do blog from their iPads so I clearly need to do some research. Feel free to share any tips you might have.

What we didn't do on Monday

 Memorial Day

We didn't visit a single grave.

On Tuesday I happened to pass by a cemetery and stopped to discreetly snap these pictures.

With my cell phone camera. Sorry! It was an impulsive stop. I was poorly prepared.

I was talking about Memorial Day with a friend last week. She visits all the graves of all her family. It's easier for her since all the graves are nearby. It's at least two hours' drive to the one nearest to us.

But, as I told my friend, I'm not sure we would visit them all, or any of them, on Memorial Day even if they were close by.

Stick with me here. It's not that they aren't each loved and missed very much. It's just that...well...frankly, they (my loved ones who have passed) aren't at their graves. 

Their bodies, maybe. But not THEM. Not the essence of who they were, who they continue to be in my heart.

I think of them all the time, unprompted by a date on a calendar.

And if any calendar date does prompt a fond reflection, it is the date of their birth or maybe their death.

And this....

 This goes against every frugal bone in my body.

I don't know what the cemeteries do with all the "decorations" but I suspect a great many of them end up in the trash.

Which is heartbreaking to me considering the spirit in which they were placed on the grave in the first place.

Also, the original purpose of Memorial Day was to honor the soldiers who died while serving in the Civil War.

I'll bet whoever had the original idea never dreamed there would come to be so many more casualties of so many more wars. 

 I kind of think Memorial Day should still be about just them, the war dead.

Not passionately enough to start a petition or write to a politician or anything.

I get that it brings comfort to other families to have this day of the year set aside for visiting the graves of their loved ones. It's just not my thing I guess. I'd rather just have my own (more frequent!) moments in time to think of them and remember them.

While we're on the subject, being buried isn't really my thing either. This will sound cold but it just kind of feels like a waste of real estate and resources.

Harsh? Maybe.

All of this is not to say that I do not visit graves from time to time. If we happen to be in the vicinity of one, I gladly make the effort. 

Later this summer I'll have a chance to visit my Dad's grave in Missouri for the second (third?) time since he passed away in 1984.

And we will visit Roger's Mom and Dad's graves I'm sure.

So my friend wanted to know how she's supposed to visit my grave if I don't have one.

I really want to be cremated.

After the chop shop has taken all the usable parts of me that are left, of course.

And if my loved ones INSIST on having a PLACE to come and visit me, then the cemeteries can accommodate that too.

But what I really hope is that each time one of them travels to some beautiful place on this Earth, that they will take a bit of me with them, to leave there forever.

Maybe just a teaspoon full of ashes.

There are so many loved ones and so many places I'd love to go.
I want to be sure there's enough to go around. ;)

P.S. Mums are on sale today. Cheap. :p

Kindergarten Graduation was very telling of the progress he has made.

Last night was Jaxon's Kindergarten Graduation.
Cuter than a room full of newborn puppies and kittens, they were.
As I sat there watching the children put on the little show they had prepared, I was struck by the HUGE difference in Jaxon from the beginning of the year to now.
Beginning - Insisted that I stay with him on the playground each day until it was time to go into class.
Last night - He ran far ahead of us to the auditorium and went immediately to the stage to join the other kids. No hesitation. No looking back. He didn't even look for us in the audience until quite a bit into the presentation. But when he did see us, he beamed. As did I.

 The class recited a poem they had written. Each child had one line to say. Most of the other children picked up their "cheat sheets" from under their chairs to help them remember their lines. When he didn't pick his up, I thought it was because he was too distracted by all that was going on to pay attention when his teacher told the kids to get the papers if they needed them. That would have been a beginning of the year case. But no, he didn't pick up his paper because he didn't need it. He totally knew his line and said it right on cue.

 I was so worried at the beginning of the year that he would be the kid clinging to me and refusing to leave my side all year. But that was not the case. He needed me nearby for a bit, while he got the lay of the land, but then he was fine to climb out of the car each day and wave me off.
He's a cautious boy, to be sure. And that might keep him from jumping immediately into things, but it hasn't kept him from growing this year. So much!


With his teacher Mrs. Moore and his classroom aide Miss Randi. 

It's Happening Again

Last night we watched another young man propose to another of our daughters. 

It just keeps happening over and over!

Our presence was requested at the local Cold Stone. 

The whole family assembled at Cj's request.

Kenzie didn't know.

Until they walked in the door and she saw nearly her entire family filling up the place.

He suggested that they go to the counter and see if there was a "special".

Of course there was.

A very special ice cream creation topped with a lovely engagement ring.

We had been waiting a while.

Other customers had gotten wind of what was up.

Some of them hung around just to see it go down.

She said yes.

There was much applause. By family and strangers too.

There is to be a Fall wedding.

On a related note:

There is to be a New Year's baby.

It is safe to say that this was not the plan.

~for either of them~

I was a big fan of Kenzie's original plan.

~nurse midwife~

So this was a bit of a shock.

But you know what they say about making plans...

LIFE (sweet and beautiful and blessed) happens.

So this is the new and exciting plan.

The previous plans will be/have been adjusted as necessary.

And we are all happy to welcome Cj and grandbaby #9 with open arms.

I vote GIRL. ;)

No Longer i-Less!!!

This could be fun!

Roger and I have FINALLY bitten the forbidden fruit.
We might have been the last people on Earth who didn't own an "i" something. Until now!
Maybe this will inspire me to blog more often. We shall see.

Oh yeah...I've done this before.

A couple of weeks ago I was having a restless night. Tossing, turning, not sleeping.
Pretty soon my thoughts turned to my latest hobby, the journaling. The taking NOTE.
And it hit me! I have done this before!
Eons (or 9 years) ago our family of 8 (this was pre-Jaxon) loaded up in our 7 passenger mini-van and set off on a cross country road trip to West Virginia.
And I prepared a "travel journal" for the trip. I didn't call it a travel journal back then. I just thought of it as a funky quasi scrapbook.
I made color copies of sections of the route from an atlas. Attached them to pieces of paper that were 3-hole punched and put in a 3 ring binder for the trip.

As we drove I took notes of how much we paid for gas. $1.38 per gallon!!!
And where we stopped to eat. Sometimes even what we ate. 30 White Castle cheeseburgers!!!
I collected a bunch of ephemera while on the road. Took lots of pictures. When we got home I added all of these to the notes from the trip and put the pages in clear page protectors.
I never quite finished it though. So it has always been stored away in the craft room.
But this sleepless night a couple of weeks ago got my mind turning. I wanted to finish it but I kind of hated the 3 ring binder thing. So I thought it over for a few days and finally figured out how to remake it.
I used an old hanging file folder and a couple of the West Virginia maps collected on that trip. A little Mod Podge magic and a new cover was made!

It took a couple of days to figure out how to get away from the 3-hole punched pages. But I finally came up with an idea to stitch two pages together with a kind of paper "bridge" which I could then fasten together and into the cover with a stitched binding.
This picture shows how I stitched larger sheets out of two pages each by adding a bridge of paper in the middle.
The hardest part was keeping the pages in the correct order. First page stitched to last page. Second page stitched to second to last page and so on. Until I got to the center two pages. Sounds confusing, right? It worked out!

And then my daughter went into labor and the project got put on hold again while I took super deep sniffs of a newborn baby's head. It's like crack!
This morning I finally bound it all together, same basic idea as the Remains of the Day journals I've been making as far as the stitched binding goes.
And here's the finished project. It's been so fun to relive that trip. So many things change in an eon. ;)

Happy bonus - There was some ephemera left over which will be perfect for the travel journal I'll make for our next road trip to WV this summer. Yay! Can't wait to get that one started now.

These Women - My Daughters

This is not really a birth story. That belongs to Crystal. She'll tell it in her own time.
This is the story of one of my most amazing moments as a mom.
Baby Nash was born last Thursday.
It started just after 1 am when I heard "Mom! I think I'm in labor."
I hope she knows how much it honors me to be her Mom. I hear her talk about me as her mom to other people. She calls me mom on Facebook. (THAT'S validation. Surely!) But in our daily interactions I guess we don't call each other by any name really. We just talk. Which is awesome! There's not a birth story for me to tell about how she became my daughter. But she certainly did - become my daughter. As loved as all the others.
We gathered ourselves up and went to the hospital. Started making the calls to the sisters. And they all started rolling in.
Kayleigh and Heather, together, as an energetic and enthusiastic FORCE through the doors of the labor and delivery unit. All smiles and laughter and loudness.
Kenzie on a 2am 2 hour drive from school, determined not to miss the birth of this nephew.
Emily stayed home with Jaxon, having declared herself too young for this. lol
Roger joined us and for a few hours there was lots of talking and laughing and one or more of us at a time wandering in and out for snacks or drinks or ice chips for Crystal.
But then....then we got down to the last hour and half or so.
Roger, still surprisingly squeamish about woman things for a father of six daughters, left the room.
And Crystal got down to the serious business of pushing.
Something happened.
Something very powerful that I'm still not sure how to put into words almost a week later.
There we were, two of us on each side of her, holding her legs and coaching her through sets of 4 pushes for each contraction. Encouraging her to do this hard, hard work so that she could hold her baby.
And I felt this incredible vibe, energy, connection, UNITY, no...none of those words is quite right. It was just this SOMETHING that I can't even describe that was going on between this group of women that I have mothered for so long.
It was just so moving. Any time one of them would offer up more encouragement than the business of "deep breath in! push! 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 exhale and deep breath in....." it would choke me up with emotion to the point of making it hard to count out loud. I might have miscounted a time or two. lol
And then Nash was here. And he is perfect.

I wish I had the words to describe this intense thing that I experienced seeing my grown girls come together this way for their sister. It was simply magical. There has always been some combination of myself and/or a sister or two at each birth but this was the first time I was there with all of them. Amazing. A week later and I'm still crying about it as I type this.
Our oldest daughter chose to become estranged from our family a little more than 2 1/2 years ago. It's beyond comprehension for me that anyone would choose not to be a part of this powerful sisterhood. I'm sad for her that she is missing out on this and that their group can't be one sister stronger.
I've never had a sister and it never really mattered to me. My one younger brother was my friend growing up and, I admit, the target of my occasional sibling meanness. It never even occurred to me to wish for sisters.
But after last week's experience I kind of retroactively wish for a few.
Everyone should have a team like that.

Fakin' it till I make it.

Our mantel has looked like this since I took down the Christmas decorations in January.

Not even kidding.
Pretty shameful, eh?
I've been busy. Making books, reading books, eating, sleeping, eating. And just generally having no interest in home decorating projects.
Now that I finished the project I was most excited about in the past couple of months (The NC book) I finally got sick of the living room looking like we just moved in.
So today I ran to Hobby Lobby and grabbed a few sprays of my FAVORITE springtime blossom, Forsythia, and put together a simple Spring mantel.

I like it. It'll hold me over till Spring arrives.
I'd like to find or make a mirror with a chunky, white, antiqued frame to lean against the wall inside that niche. To cover the electrical outlets but still keep them accessible. But that's not a "run out and grab it" kind of project. It'll have to wait for later.