Nasty Bookshelves - RIP

Another reason for me being scarce these past few weeks is that the house has been turned on it's head for the past 3 weeks. It's dRiVIng mE cRAzy! I can't stand the disorderliness (is that a word?)

It all started with the decision to finally get a TV mounted over the fireplace. You'd think that would be no big deal but you would think wrong. These are the bookshelves before (the fireplace in the middle is cropped out of this picture)

So you see...when we remove the TV from the current location we're left with a huge, ugly, gaping hole that really can't masquerade as a decorative shelf or anything else. The only solution was to redo the bookshelves on either side. So this was a major undertaking.

After three days of banging, demolition, drilling, pneumatic nail gunning, sawing, dust, paint fumes, a freezing house (since windows were wide open lest we suffocate), and sparse naps for the wee ones while all this was taking place, it is all DONE. And now we have respectable-looking bookshelves and cabinets. Praise the Lord forevermore.

Here are the new bookshelves....

But, wait...ugh! too plain! too white! hmmm....

since I can't leave well enough alone I must add my little touch to them....I must gLorify them. I took a deep breath and declared to Kyle: I have a plan and I'm going to glaze the cabinets....and I'm gonna do it TONIGHT and no one will stop me.

So last night after 3 hours and a tremendous buzz from paint thinner fumes that almost prohibited me from sleeping I had this:

I am quite sure I lost more than a few brain cells from those rags dipped in paint thinner BUT those wonderfully antiqued little crevices are so worth it. Is it OK to love a good glaze job? Oh, Glazed Cabinets, will you be my Valentine?

A kind message to the ugly black stone fireplace surround: Watch your back....I've got you in my sights and your days are numbered now. The only thing standing between me and a nice-looking wall is you and your ugly face.

Canton and Other News

Oh, it's been quiet on the blog here but don't let that fool you....it hasn't been so quiet in real life.

Last weekend I went on a girls trip with my pals, Emily and Kim. This was my first ever girls only trip since having kids and, boy, was I hot to trot! Kyle kept John while my mom kept Anna. On Friday the girls and I headed out for First Monday Trade Days in Canton, TX. Pretty much Trade Days is a once-a-month gathering of vendors selling wares for home, kids, garden, furniture (anything you could imagine). Think Nutcracker Market but BIGGER! We were in heaven.

Unfortunately for us we underestimated the weather report. 40 degrees and sunny seemed manageable with a heavy sweater and boots. But as we were getting ready on Saturday morning the news reported that the temps with wind chill were more like 17--oh, and it was cloudy drizzly. We even saw a few light snow flakes. Yeah, the sweaters weren't cutting it so we hightailed it Wal-Mart to buy jackets and gloves and as we arrived on the Trade Day grounds we noticed almost every single woman wearing those wool knitted headbands with a knitted flower on them. You guessed it, we all bought one too. It was the uniform that weekend. Sooooo bitterly cold! But worth the precious company and conversation that moms don't usually get to have when wrangling toddlers...

So blame it on the weather or the lack of sleep from rearranging items in my house, I got terribly sick last Wednesday with a fever of 103.7. Not good. I had flashbacks of Kyle's spell from pneumonia that had him down for 3 weeks and was a bit worried. Thankfully I bounced back in a few days.

In other news, the kids are great. Anna is crawling and cruising. I'm just waiting for her to start taking some steps although, in reality, I really can wait for that. She's got a spunky little personality but thankfully, after two straight months of ear infections, we haven't had any more issues. The ear infections were turning her spunky into just plain funky. The little lady was quite a screamer for that time period.

OK, gotta run...I promised John I'd play some puzzles with him and he is presently trying to body-slam Anna!