Family Treasures

I don't know if I ever showed this tool box before but it's one of my favorite things in my whole house.  It belonged to my grandfather and possibly was his father's but it is still full of all the machinist tools with dirt, oil and all.  Every time I look at it, I think of my Pa and what a special relationship we shared.  I was the first grandchild and he called me Pa's Doll my entire life.  He used to pick me up when I was a toddler and take me to get an icee which I still love to this day.  

On top on the cabinets is the Owl cookie jar that belonged to my Mamma and sat on her kitchen counter since my daddy was small. I see it and just have to smile.

 

This table belonged to Mark's Grandmother Harris and I just love it.  We have painted the bottom 3 different times in the 27 years we've owned it and it makes the best bedside table ever because it's huge!  It also holds the lamp I made out of a crock jug that belonged to my PaPa's family.

And here's my Pa's toolbox again and it's sitting on Mark's Granddad Harris' old trunk which he's has since his university days.

 

 

 

Here's one of my favorite things which is a 4 year old Mark with his Granddad Harris and dog Cuddles.

 

 

 

These are Mark's bunny slippers

 

I have so many favorite family treasures so I'll post more pictures really soon. 

 

 

 

 

Finally starting to take shape (Pic heavy)

Well guys and dolls, I think I may actually be seeing this becoming a home that we can enjoy.  Wahoo the boxes are dwindling and I can breathe a little easier.  Clarice is getting settled in and just full of playful mischief again but still a little unsettled because she's a lap kitty in the evening when we are watching tv.  She's always been my snuggle bug in the bed but not a lap kitty so this is a little different but I'm enjoying the extra love.

So here's a few pictures of things starting to look like home:

 

 

 

 

I just got these awesome strawberries today from Karen at My Colonial Home.  Aren't they just perfect in this yellow ware bowl?   

alright all my Canadian friends, why haven't I ever heard of Crown Jars? I found this at an estate sale the day before we moved from Atlanta and I love, love it!

 

Also found these 2 butter molds at that same sale.  It was an amazing collector's sale.

 

 

This is my favorite spot right as you come up the stairs.

This is a split level house so there is a lot of open space which is wonderful for light but it's difficult in furniture and décor placement.  Ignore the orange squirt bottle which is Clarice behavior method.

 

Master bedroom

I was gonna move the Hot Flash fan out of the picture but decided to keep it real!  I need for Mark to hang the huge mirror above the dresser.

My laundry closet which has been a huge adjustment to me but I do like that it's in the master bathroom so it's convenient to do laundry.  Oh and I got a new washer and dryer after 20 years it was much needed!

Alright I've bored y'all long enough so I'll get back to unpacking now or maybe I'll just watch trashy tv instead. 

We're Moved!

Well we have closed on the house and officially now reside in Tennessee.
I just don't know if I'll ever finish unpacking us.  My first plan was to only unpack the rooms that we would actually be using (remember the rental home is a third of the size)  but unfortunately the movers don't always pack the rooms in the order you think they should be packed in. We had awesome movers and they worked their butts off to get us moved a day earlier than scheduled so I'm really not complaining.  I had decluttered and squirrel away so much stuff that I really can't blame the movers for not packing it into the correct room boxes because for example family room decor was being stored in multiple chests and trunks in various rooms like guest bedrooms, basement, garage and sometimes in really strange places like hidden closets under the eaves.  I know it's not a race to get it all finished but my attitude improves greatly when I'm settled in somewhere so I really would like to get 'er done.  Clarice is having some anxiety since this move so we both need a peaceful, restful home to reassure us both.  Mark left on Tuesday for meetings in Germany/Switzerland and he'll be home Sunday night so I'd like to be done with at least the first floor.  I'm making good headway because I finally got the master bedroom/bath, living room and kitchen set up properly but I still need to finish the guestroom/bath and his office area.  This is a split level home so we're living on the first floor and using the finished basement and over sized garage as storage space.  We really wanted to store on site to avoid the chance of losing our stuff and also to avoid the huge expense of paying for monthly storage fees.

My sweet niece, Rachel graduated high school last weekend and I'm just so proud of her.  She has matured into a beautiful, smart, funny young woman and I'm so grateful that our family was blessed with her.  She's got a huge heart, musical laugh, quirky sense of humor, sweet soul and I can't wait to see what the future has in store for her.

Just look at that smile

Pretty little lady

Daddy's little girl

Rachel and her Bubba

Ok it's time to get my shoes on and continue getting this house in order.  Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend!

Godslaw

Ok sometimes I agree that my elevator doesn't go to the top as my Granny used to say about me.  Other times I think I'm just too tired to think things thru before I say them but whatever the cause is the last one was a doozy!  Mark and I were headed to grab a bite to eat on Easter Sunday and we were stopped at a light when I noticed the car ahead of us had a vanity plate.  I'm always intrigued by those and what they mean.   I'm studying it and I said "Now what's God got to do with Slaw? And who decides if the Slaw is good enough to be called God Slaw?"  By this time Mark is laughing so hard he has tears running down his face and he finally gets control of himself long enough to say "God's Law not God's Slaw"  oh well that made a heck of a lot more sense!    And as I get older the worse it gets so watch out people 'cause the stories are only going to get better.

We are now officially in moving hell because the packers started this morning.  Last week I moved us from the fully furnished studio apartment into the rental house in Wal Mart sacks.  We had no boxes and I didn't think we had that much stuff at the apartment so it would be a quick move.  Wrong!  How much crap can a couple and one little kitty cram into an apartnment in just a few months?  Well if those 2 people are us then it's about 2 truck loads.  We had no furniture or even closets to stuff full so how did it all fit into that apartment?   Ugh! Mark Harris is a clothes wh@re in the worst kind of way.  I moved no less than 4 suits, 7 coats, 36 dress shirts and don't even get me started on his shoes.  I swear this man could outfit a nation and never miss anything.  I made so many trips up and down those apartment stairs that I gave up counting.  But we're done with that so one down and one to go except that house deal is unraveling. We are suppose to close a week from today.   We had an offer back in March, home inspection and appraisal down when their financing fell thru so move past go and don't collect $200.  Then we entered into another contract, home inspection, financing is good and appraisal is finally done on Friday.  Well it comes in $20,000 less than the appraisal just done in April and $16,000 less than purchase price.  What the hell?????  So our realtor and I started going over this appraisal line by freakin line.  Well the appraiser missed a bathroom and a bedroom so that's a huge error, left off the fridge, wine fridge and bar fridge but also the granite and slate in the house so that should bring the values back up.  Well it's now 3:00 PM and we still don't have an answer from the agent, appraiser or banker as to how we need to proceed.  Mark and I are not unreasonable people and if the appraisal comes in for less than purchase price then we need to work with the buyers to come up with a solution.  But as of now, we haven't heard a peep and to say things are tense around here would be an understatement.  The first thing the buyer's agent said (who by the way is the buyer's mother) "Well you can't count that bedroom in the basement as a bedroom because it has an outside door."  Wait, building code in GA states that any room can be a bedroom as long as it has 2 ways out in case of fire which this one has 3 since you can escape by interior door, exterior door or the 3 huge windows that are in the room.  It has a closet, is fully sheetrocked, painted trimmed and the floor is painted so it's a bedroom.  Then she came back with "It can't be counted as a bedroom because it has no carpeting on the floor".  Hmmmm really so hard wood floors, tiled floors or stained concrete floors aren't allowed in bedrooms? Wow!  I may very well end up having another heart attack just dealing with all this bs.  I may never buy another house again!  Here's pictures to prove we have a bedroom and bathroom down in the basement

Ok enough of a rant for today and just think Mark and the packing crew are stuck in the house with me today.  You should take pity on them!

Wow three posts in one week

so when has that ever happened before....ummmmmm NEVER!  But I wanted to show you guys what I have been stitching on because it's just so pretty.  This is the first time stitching Little House Needleworks patterns and now I ask myself why?  No seriously love, love, love their reproduction sampler line and I forsee a large cross stitch order in my future.  Sorry honey but 2013 was the stash diet so it's time to stash away in 2014!
THE MELICENT TURNER SAMPLER

 

So this is the finished model but I'm only about half way done but it's so pretty.  I can't wait to finish it up and get it framed.  It's even got martini glasses down in that bottom border but I swear I didn't notice that until I started stitching it.

 

 

And I also did the thrift circuit in TN last week and snagged this great little drawer/shelf.  I think I'll paint it and use it in the new kitchen to hold some of my cookbooks.  It was $2.99 so I just couldn't pass it up. It's probably 1960 to 1970 vintage but the knobs are cute and I can't pass up anything with drawers.

 

Happy Easter to everyone!

 

 

 

What a Freaking Week!!!!!!!

Ok so where to start.....hmmmmm, well Monday morning I was showing y'all my new chair and complaining that I had less than a month to get moved from Georgia then I went to take a shower.  Cue the Psycho music now and let me tell you what happened.  I was drying my hair when I got a phone call from our realtor and she had bad news.  The people in spite of having a pre-qualified letter couldn't get financing so our deal fell thru. It appears that they had a short sale in CA just 3 years ago and there is some kind of FHA ruling for CA that they can't get another loan for at least 4 years and these guys are only 3 years and 2 months into that timeline.  I cried, I yelled, I screamed and then I just sat thinking about what a pain relisting the house was gonna be and the fact that I didn't "clean" before I went back to TN last week.  Hey I straightened up but you know scrubbing the toilets and making sure the sinks were all shiny just didn't seem important since the house wasn't gonna be shown again.  Mark and I both were so upset but it's not like you can really do anything about it so we just resigned ourselves to moving on. Our realtor started calling the realtors that showed the house in the last two months  just to let them know our contract fell thru.  I decided to drive back to GA yesterday so I could clean the house and while I was on the road someone called asking to show the house.  I said sure but just ignore any mess they saw and she laughed and assured me that my house was cleaner than any other house she'd ever seen.  Sure thing lady!  Then she dropped a bombshell that her clients wrote an offer on our house the night before and she had just sent it to our realtor.  What???? Yep, they wrote it without even coming back to look at the house again.  Praise the lord!  So by the time Clarice and I drove home we were almost under contract again.  We went back and forth once and now we're closing May 12th so only 5 days after the original close date.  I'm so relieved but of course, they still have to do a home inspection and appraisal but hey, we've already done that this month so there shouldn't be any problems.  What a blessing!  So from just a happy week to a deep dark pit back to optimistically happy again.

And then I got home to find my wonderful swap partners had mailed me goodies.  What a treat that was and I just love my bloggy friends.  Amy hosts the most wonderful swaps and these gals really know how to spoil one another.  I have been blessed by making new friends and what's so wonderful is these friends I get to take with me no matter where I live.  That's the hardest part about moving around because I always leave some awesome friends behind.  Anyhoo, just still feeling a little weepy still so moving on..... I was paired with Amy,  The Grand Poobah herself.  Seriously I was thrilled at a chance to spoil her since she always hosts us.  Check out Amy's blog to see what I sent her because of course, I forgot to take pictures.    http://bumblebeelanecottage.blogspot.com
and look what Amy sent me.

I really don't take the best pictures with my phone but I really don't when I get all excited!  Can you guys see that sweet candle dish with a sheep, a metal crown and star on it.  Those are three of my all time favorite things to decorate with. 

And just look at that awesome Flower Frog (oh my I do love me some froggies) and that sweet little hanging basket but best of all a car air freshener from Yankee.  Now why is that the best you ask, well because I'm now driving Mark's old pickup truck and it smells like a boy!  Seriously has some funky smells so this will take care of that issue.  Thanks Amy!  I started finding homes for my treasures right away.  Isn't that sunflower tuck just so sweet in the dough bowl on the kitchen table with my "tomatoes and strawberries"? 

And just look at how perfect the froggy and picture look on the pie safe in the living room.

 

And these little prim eggs just look right at home on the dry sink.

 

 

Now Amy sometimes has a few extra people and I've been lucky enough in the last two swaps to get two partners.  I was also thrilled to find out that Sandi from www.theprimitiveskate.blogspot.com was also my partner and she also spoiled me way too much.

Just look at these sweet spring pretties. 

This nest is just so adorable. I just love it and it's just perfect in this chippy emanel  ware bowl.

And look at this cute spring sign that she painted.  Just amazing how talented she is and what do you think it's painted on? Seriously so creative!

That's right a record so how crafty is that especially because I'm such a music lover.

See that prim bunny and look at how wonderful the nest looks on the dry sink.

Did you spy the ladybug already in place when I took the pictures of Amy's sunflower? 

And here's the overall shot with my gifties from Amy and Sandi which just make me so happy.   

 

Trust me when I say these gals are all so talented and make every swap a great one!  Amy is so sweet to host it for us and if you don't follow her and swap with us, what's stopping ya?  It's more fun than I ever even dreamed it would be because it's like Christmas and your birthday all rolled into one every time a package arrives.    No wait, it's actually better than that because prim friends really get your style and understand that junk is well loved not to be discarded. 

Stop the insanity!

Wow, time is just flying by so fast and we're now less than a month until the official move.  I've been meeting with movers, selling furniture on Craig's List, dealing with renters insurance quotes, seeing dr's and basically just losing my mind! Oh well such is life and it's not like I haven't been to this rodeo many times before.  I think this time it's just that I'm not working so there is nothing to keep me distracted from stressing about the move.  I didn't even stress this much about the move to Germany so go figure.

Anywhoo, I mentioned that I've been selling furniture but I forgot to mention that I've also been buying furniture.  What???? I found the most perfect chair at Restoration Hardware outlet store and I just had to have it.  It's the perfect size so I can actually touch the floor which is amazing for short people like me.  It just called out to me and said it would become my favorite stitching chair so how could I walk away from it.  Well actually, I did walk away but took Mark back to look at it the next day.  I was so worried that it would be gone because it was 40% off retail and they had a coupon special of $25 off for every $100 spent so it was a bargain that shouldn't be passed up.  LOL!  Mark agreed so we brought her home with us and just look at this amazing chair.   Just makes me swoon!!!!! It's a deconstructed look so you see the wormy, worn wood frame, the burlap under layer, whipped stitching and just looks 100 years old.  Love it!

 

We're headed back to Atlanta on Thursday and I've got people coming to buy our living room and theater furniture.  We're only keeping the den Pottery Barn CL loveseat, Mark's old leather chair and now  my new chair.  See I told y'all I was downsizing!  We sold the pinball machines last week and I also sold a couple small tables that I had stashed away.  Now the sofas, chairs and hopefully all the tvs will be gone by this time next week.  We have several flat screens that require cable boxes so we figured if we sold all of those then we could get a new tv that doesn't need a box for the bedroom.  We're keeping the great tv from the den because it's just so amazing that we can't bear to part with it.  It's been fun listing stuff and it's really fun when people hand me cash and leave the house with the items.  It would cost me more to move and store this extra furniture than it will be to buy new stuff when we find our forever home! 

 

I've been already shopping for curtains, ect for the rental home and of course, already started my layouts of what is going where in each room.  I'm crazy I know but the more the movers can put in place when they deliver it, the less Mark and I will have to struggle with moving.  I went and took measurements of some of the walls last week so I think I'm going to have this thing ready by move in date.  This house is a split level home so we're going to live on one level and use the lower level to store everything.  I just don't like the idea of my stuff being stored by the moving company because 1) It's too expensive

2) There are too many ways that stuff could get "lost"

3) I like to see my stuff even if I can't use it yet in my home

 

Well that's about it for now friends 'cause I need to head to the city admin building to get the utilities changed over and start the post office process of changing our address.  Hope y'all  have a great week and a very Happy Easter!