My Humble Home....

A few years ago I received a letter from the city manager saying our house was picked to be in our towns' historical and architectural walking and biking tour brochure. It was made to celebrate the varied and unique architecture and history of the towns neighborhoods. It divided the town in their historic sections and gave a little bit of info on the house. Needless to say I was happy to hear our humble little Queen Anne cottage was picked! Unfortunately when the brochure came out, it had an very old – mid 1970’s photo of the house!

circa. 1890 This Victorian cottage features fluted square piers supporting corner portico;
1/1 DHS windows; a hipped roof dormer on South side; shingled gable; and a sunburst in front gable.

The house when we bought it in 2004:

Today it was announced in the paper that they will be having a walking tour of our neighborhood next week! I'm so excited!!!

This is what they will see today…………….

It continues to be a work in progress Last Fall my hsb got the cement walkway out and put pavers in. The winter came earlier than we had expected, so we didn’t get to paint the house like we had planned. This summer we will be painting the front The blue on top will be an olive-ish green. The starburst on top will be brick and gold The deep blue will be an eggplant color. It took me months to decide on the colors, now hopefully I’ll like what I picked. Below is my sketch:

HELP!!!

I’ve got a dilemma – When we painted our old house there is a lot of paint on the side of the windows left from prior residents. At this point I don’t want to strip all the wood work – except for the side spills they are in good condition.

I have been cleaning it w/ oops! And it has come off some w/ scrubbing w/ green pads. It is taking forever to do and it has been frustrating – not to mention the I have 13 door/windows to do. Does anyone else have a better method – something that takes the old paint off but not the underneath finish? Anyone have experience w/ goof off? All words of wisdom will be appreciated!

The Prom

On Saturday the prom was held in our small town. It was such a beautiful day out; we couldn’t have ordered a better one. It seemed like an endless day of primping and last minute plan changes. My daughter, Devon went with her boyfriend Ben. Her dress was a midnight blue on the top that gradually got lighter. It had silver glitter dots all over. She liked it because it reminded her of the night sky with stars. Ben wore a black tux w/ a blue vest that matched her dress. If I have to say so my self she looked stunning. (I’m not at all biased when it comes to my kids –lol) She reminded me of Audrey Hepburn.



After going to the city park to take pictures (everyone in town goes there for the background) Then we took them to her girlfriends house so a group of them could go “in style” in a black limo. From there they were off for dinner at a place called The Pub.

We went home until 7:30, and then we were off to the fairgrounds where the prom was held to watch the parade of gowns with all the other proud parents. Of course that is where we took a whole bunch more photos. What surprised me was to hear that some of the women there didn’t have children going, they just wanted to see the dresses. I guess this is our small towns fashion show. There were so many beautiful dresses - this year it seemed to be lime green, burnt orange, turquoise and white. I was surprised at the lack of black – esp since this group a couple of years ago was the emo/grunge group. There were quite a few white tuxes – with red accents! One guy even had red shoes and socks that matched his cumberbund!



After I had pushed the limit of taking pictures – only could say” just one more “ for so long! The theme this year was A Black Tie Affair. I was told that they had chandeliers hanging down and that it was very elegant inside. The prom lasted until midnight. They had an after party at a local rec center, where they could ice skate, play games, get airbrushed tatoos, henna and of course eat. It lasted until 5:30 and the kiddos came home and crashed.

The prom was important for me since I never went to mine. I was married – yes, I got married the first time a month after my 15th birthday and no, I was not pregnant - I chose to get married. That’s a whole separate story. I didn’t think at the time I would miss it, but I did and do. How about the rest of you –what is your prom story/nightmare?

Antiquing

We started out our adventure in a small town in 

southern Ohio called Lebanon...unfortunately

 not much luck there. I did find things I liked

 but the prices were waayyy to steep, so 

we went down to Cincinnati to our 

most favorite antique mall..

They have the best items at great prices. 

You can spend hours and hours here. They

 have all kinds of items from furniture to clothing

 to knickknacks and jewelry from time peroids.

 As you can see rows and rows of items:

They also have shopping carts!

 I didn't find much that was on my list, 

so the trip was sort of a bust. We had fun 

looking and I got a lot of ideas though. We 

did stop at a store called GardenRidge 

and I actually found a loveseat for my family 

room I liked, for a price I liked even better. 

We also found 2 new places to eat, 

o all in all it was a great day............Jo

Ready...set...go.....

....The van is gassed

The Wishlist is written

Money from the bank

YUP, I'M READY............

..............to go antiquing!

Another Milestone.........

Tonight I sat down and addressed graduation announcements for my youngest. Seems odd, I have been anxiously waiting these days when all my kids were grown and off celebrating their lives. Some how it seems like now that it is here I wish they were still young – not that I want to go through the teen age years again - but I do miss the early years. I miss the evening bedtime routine. I can still smell the freshly shampooed hair and the snuggling around the book that was picked out to read. How life seemed so simple then and how easy it was to protect them. I guess the hardest thing about them growing up is you have to let them go at the same time all you want to do is keep them safe. You hope that they remember everything you taught them and that you taught them everything they needed to know.

Have you ever had one of "those" days that you wish you just would've stayed in bed? The day seemed to start out ok - the sun was out - after multiple rainy days it was a welcome relief. I started up my computer and oh no where was all my "stuff" I had that awful feeling in my stomach. My computer has been acting up lately but didn't think it would dump everything! After going thru things I did find my "stuff" when looking in explore - everything is out of whack. My computer is almost 4 yrs old so the dilemma - do you take it to be fixed or just by a new laptop? Then I had ordered carpet thru Lowe's and the detailer called me to tell me no way, no how could they accommodate our schedule and measure the rooms in the evening, so we wouldn't have to take time off from work! Hard to feel sorry for them when they are turning away $. Thanks to Buddy's for working with our crazy schedule! In the big scope of life nothing drastic happened but why does it seem like when one thing goes haywire, it seems like it sets everything else off?

My 1st post!

Well, I finally stopped lurking in the background reading everyone else's blogs and decided to jump in and create one. So please bear with me on this journey. I've enjoyed reading various blogs and getting decorating and craft ideas. I look forward to meeting everyone and sharing the trials and tribulations of my crafting/creating life - I hope you enjoy sharing it with me........Jo