mirror love

the kids are all very sentimental but emily and taylor tend to show it more. i keep a dry erase pen in the bathroom to write reminders on the mirror but the kids, especially emily, have taken to leaving notes quite often. i love walking in and receiving a surprise message.

 here are a few recent favs.

emily

taylor when he was leaving to go to mccall for the weekend.

this one made me laugh out loud.

rob wrote 'happy ♥ day' on valentines day and when i went to fix emily's hair i found her reply.

emily's latest...'i ♥ you dad and mom'

staying alive

i thought it would be fun to document some of my favorites in life. 

movies, music, food. anything that makes me me.

i have been wanting to do a blog post on this movie for a long time but just never got around to it so this will be my first favorites post.

one of my all time favorite movies is staying alive.

a fun trivia fact about staying alive:

it was written by sylvester stallone. yes THAT sylvester stallone. he actually makes a brief appearance in the movie.

my aunt introduced me to it when i was about 7 or 8.

she used to take me to her house and we would get round table pizza(mushroom and black olive), m&ms, green tea ice cream and dr. pepper and we would watch this movie over and over. 

i started taking dance classes when i was in preschool so i could sort of relate to the movie. 

it's something that, as a very young child, i could see me doing with my life. 

i was in dance...why not be a dancer when i grow up.

i could just picture myself in the opening number.

the leotards, the leg warmers, the head bands.

the tryouts where everyone is judged and only the best of the best get through to join the show.

intertwined in the quest to follow their dancing dreams is a love story. 

the girl who is best friends and, on again off again, dating the boy. 

the jealous boy who likes her when it's convenient but really has eyes for the lead dancer in the show.

the girl who is tired of being put last and has to tell him through song.

when it all comes down to it she loves him  no matter what.

when he needs help practicing for a part there is no place else she would rather be.

he gets the lead part(spoiler, i know) and the training starts.

i still think this would be so awesome.

then there is the final dance number. what they have all worked so hard for. 

boy and girl have decided that they love each other and this is what they've waited their whole lives to do.

it's their turn to be in a broadway show.

the last scene in the movie is what it's all about. 

he has everything he wants and all he wants to do is strut!

no matter how cheesy, corny or downright goofy this movie is it will always be one of my favorites.

whitney through the years

whitney houston died last weekend and it almost feels like i lost an old friend.

i remember when i first met her. my parents had some friends, the whitney's, and they got together frequently. they had a college age daughter named jennifer who was kind enough to let a ten year old girl hang out with her while our parents visited. i will never forget the first time i heard whitney houston sing. i can still see the orange cassette cover and her toga like dress. let me get you a picture...

she was beautiful.

and the songs...i was ten years old and had every song memorized within a week.

fast forward and her songs were with me throughout elementary school.

my favorites we so emotional, where do broken hearts go and didn't we almost have it all.

she followed me through high school with the bodyguard.

oh the bodyguard...

the movie was good but the soundtrack was so much better.

of course everyone loves i will always love you but my all time favorite from that album was i have nothing.

i spent many an afternoon belting out "dooon't maaaake meeee clooooose one more door!"

she sort of fell off the grid after that album but she wasn't done yet.

she came back in my early adults years with the preacher's wife.

i love a good black choir and when several songs included the georgia mass choir it was like candy to my ears.

i played hold on, help is on the way over and over and over.

 the first words speak a great truth

When you're down and in despair 
Don't be uneasy because he'll be there 
Say don't you worry, no don't you fret 
The Lord has never, never failed you yet 

but my favorite lines in the song are:

He may not come when you want him
But he'll be right there on time

again i didn't hear much good about her for a lot of years.

i had been going to the gym for a couple of years at this point and decided to try a step class.

who do you think sang the second song in that class? she was back again singing me through life.

million dollar bill was the last song whitney would sing to me and believe it or not it is my all time favorite song to do in step. go figure.

it's so heartbreaking to see a life cut short but it was all put into perspective when a friend wrote this on facebook:

The world has lost another great singer, whitney houston. The thing is... whether you are rich, famous, and talented... you will face the same eternity as everyone in this world. I hope someone spoke Christ into her life. 

i hope the same.

loving it

so here it is in all of it's low light glory...my new bedroom!

i love how much bigger it looks now that it isn't dark blue.

i love that it is calming when i walk in.

i love that everything looks so clean and fresh.

i have some more decorating to do. not sure what i want to do above my bed. i had some ideas but when i got the shelf up there they didn't work so now i am scouring pinterest looking for other ideas.

this was an old headboard. i got it from a store in nampa several years ago. it was yellow and, even though i didn't know what i was going to do with it, i knew i had to have it. well several years passed and it hung on my wall as a headboard. a big yellow headboard with legs and a place to put side rails if we saw fit someday. i had had a couple people tell me i should use it as a coat rack. i liked the idea but never did anything about it cause we were content hanging our coats on the knob at the end of our bed. classy. i decide  yesterday was the day that the transformation would happen. i knew i would have to use rob's miter saw to get the job done, which was a task in itself. i went back and forth deciding whether i should use it by myself. i could only imagine the things that could go wrong and how bad that would be with no one home...so i got my cell phone. i figured if anything happened i would, hopefully, have enough left in me to call someone before i passed out from blood loss.

moving on.

i got my ear plugs, well one ear plug and one kleenex wad cause i couldn't find another ear plug, my safety goggles(sun glasses) and leather gloves cause i figured that they might be harder to get through in case the saw decided to bite. i lined up my cut, turned on the saw, and away i went. it was awesome. like a hot knife through butter. and within two minutes i had cut off both legs with not problems. yay me! a couple coats of coral spray paint and it went from this...

to this...

Here is the other angle. Like I said, I still need some stuff but it's good for now.

i got these baskets at goodwill for $5. i went in with an idea in mine and was blown away to find five baskets that were exactly the same just different shapes. i snatched them up and another idea was born. the chandelier was painted lime green before.

after five years i am finally getting my type drawer out to use. i would like to put a few things in it and do something else under it to use a little more of the space but i love it on the wall.

now taylor wants his room painted. oy! he has even taken everything off his walls and moved it all to the middle of the room which means i actually have to do it. guess i know what i am doing saturday.

painting

made my first spinach smoothie today. i got the recipe from budget bytes and used it as a guideline but pretty much did my own thing. my includes a banana, blueberries, strawberries, frozen cherries, spinach and almond milk. it isn't like drinking a chocolate milkshake, it's definitely something that i will have to get used to, but it's not bad

i am hoping it will give me the energy to tackle my bedroom. decided to paint last night and went out first thing this morning to get the paint. it's a big job but i am hoping to have it done today.

i chose martha stewart's enamelware color. guess i better get started!

projects

i have a lot of projects that i need to get done around the house. between thrifting and pinterest i have about a million things i would like to do...

easy stuff like painting the pantry door

or doing board and batten in the living/dining rooms.

i would also like wood floors 

and lots more windows.

but until we have the money(still waiting for that money tree to start producing) and the time to do those things i will stick to the little things that will make me feel like i'm making progress.

i have two lamps that i got for $3.75 and $3, respectively, that i need to get painted and put somewhere or sold. the first is small and i already have a shade for it so it just needs painting. easy peasy.

i love the shape of this one! i need to get some paint and get her done too so i can enjoy it in the house instead of looking at her occasionally as i pass through the garage.

i got this cabinet off craigslist for $20. i think this is a fixer upper and sell cabinet but i will have to make that decision when it's all done. 

this is a head board/foot board that i got for taylor at goodwill for $19. he is the only child that doesn't have a double bed and he was beginning to feel left out. it needs a little work where the rails attach to the head board but once it's painted i think it's going to be awesome and, like the lamp, look much better in the house than in the garage.