First Project of 2015

We've been fairly quiet on the house projects since early summer when we did the hang-out space for the kids.  I've been busy with lots of sewing projects and we've had a fair amount of just regular life happening around here.
Since we generally have a two week vacation with Christmas and New Year's, Steve wanted to tackle something good sized with the time.  He knocked off quite a few smaller projects last week and this week we did a really fun photo wall in the living room that I just love and then we started working on painting Jessica's bedroom.  This might be a record... we started on New Year's day in the afternoon and I finished it today (Jan 2nd) just before dinner time.
Of course I don't have before or after photos because it was a marathon of painting and I didn't stop to take any.  Bad excuse, but I'll try to get some shots after we put the furniture back tomorrow and update this post.
The one fun thing we did tonight was this neat little art photography project.

Photographs of signs by my amazing hubby

Sorry for the really awkward picture, but I took it with my phone and it's on a tiny wall just by her door that is awful for trying to photograph.

Steve went out this afternoon and photographed all the street signs in a few different towns and we printed, framed and hung them tonight as a surprise.  She actually hasn't even been upstairs to see it yet.  Hopefully she's going to like it. :-)

Her room done is the 8th room painted in the house and leaves us just 2 more rooms and 2 hallways to paint - all since we moved in less than 2 years ago.  I'm stunned at the progress we've made in such a relatively short space of time.  

Actually her room wasn't awful as it was painted and was fairly neutral in color, but she wanted a light, brighter color on the walls as a backdrop for her eclectic style.  She chose the same light color she'd had in our Merrimack house (Creamy Buttermilk - by Glidden) and we had the very nice paint guy at Home Depot color match it in Behr paint for us.  

Now to figure out some window treatments, and get some things hung on the walls.  Then Steve is going to build her a custom book shelf & storage unit against one of her knee walls (she has a windowed dormer on one wall).  A great way to start the new year and the last semester of high school! 

Praying that God blesses all our projects in 2015 to be as fairly easy as this one. 

Blessings on the journey~

A Hello

Late last week I lost my much loved cat Grace after 10 years.  As sad and heartbreaking as the loss of a beloved pet is, we are thankful that it was a swift and peaceful goodbye after a long love-filed life.

Because my dear husband knows me so well and knows my heart needs often better than I do, Steve took me to the Monadnock Humane Society on Friday afternoon to look around.  These are the wonderful people we thank for Ben's little fur-baby Fender.  It's an amazing place and the staff is outstanding.

In my head I thought we'd look for a long-haired kitten, as we had seen with Fender and Saffron that a kitten introduced into a new household is a fairly easy thing - albeit a lot of work on our part for care and supervision, etc.  They only had one little bitty baby (short-hair) and she was on hold for another family.  So we wandered all around the facility and discovered several good sized rooms full of adult cats.  One room seemed to have an abundance of long-haired beauties lounging around, so we went in to visit.

We read bios taped to the wall and matched name tags on the fuzzies to their stories.  Then a volunteer came in and explained to us that this large group had only come to the shelter at the beginning of December as a transfer from Canada.  There had been about 100 cats seized from a hoarding situation and they had been held as 'evidence' in the legal case for a very long time.  The wonderful people at MHS had taken a portion of the group to find loving forever homes for these beautiful cats.

After petting and holding a few, we found her... they called her Tabouli, but I call her Gypsy and she seems to like her new name.

She is very petite (just over 7lbs) and has green/gold eyes and beautiful black fur marbled with caramel colored markings.  They say she is a black & orange Tortoiseshell but I think she's just plain pretty.  Adjustment is going to be slow for everyone, but I think we are all going to get along just fine eventually.  

A Christmas blessing to swell my heart from the man who loves me so and always wants to make me smile.  I am a most blessed wife.

Blessings on the journey,