Being Grateful...

If you are feeling overwhelmed/overburdened/OVER it all try a trick today: just start thinking of all that you have to be thankful for.  Seriously.  Start with the fact that you are able to breathe on your own without a machine...or that you have hands that work.  Or that you slept in a bed last night.  Start with the basics and build from there.  You will be surprised in less than a minute how much you have to be thankful for.

There are many times in my life where I start to feel like I am drowning under ALL of it.  And then I need a perspective shift.  For me it starts with remembering all that I have been blessed with, all that I have to be grateful for.

Give it a shot.  That's my challenge for you today :)

Glittering Risers

I saw this on Pinterest today and fell pretty hard.  Absolutely LOVE this...

 

Would you do this look?

Besties...

These are my besties.  My girls.  My peeps.  Some of the people on this great big earth who know me best...and love me anyway.





I'm a lucky lady to have these girls in my life.  We all met many many years ago in NYC before we had babies.  Now we have 16 kids and a lifetime of friendship between us.  I am so grateful that we carved out the time to travel from our far flung corners of the country for 4 days together in Rhode Island for our annual girls weekend.  It was epic.  We laughed, we cried.  We did some unmentionable things.  I'll just leave it at that.

Love you girls :)

Love Where You Live

I'm not sure if I have talked about this before...but I absolutely love where I live.  We have been in the Bay Area now for 10 years and each year that goes by I realize I love it more and more.  These are vineyard filled hills that surround my kids school.  The view doesn't get any better than this.

 



It took a good 3 years for me to fall in love with this place.  I was (well...am) an East Coast girl and living in NYC for nearly 7 years had me wound pretty tight.  But now I am fully invested with being a California girl.  There are a lot of uncertainties in life and certainly no day is completely free from problems but if you love where you live it sure helps.

DIY: Backyard Fabric Garland

See those big kids on bikes?  Those are my older two.  They are getting too big.  And see that garland hanging on my back fence?  I made that this weekend.  It is way longer than you can appreciate based on this photo.  I gathered up a bunch of my favorite vintage and colorful fabrics and chopped out some triangles and sewed them to burlap twine.  It was literally that simple and I love the way it looks.

Have you ever made a fabric garland? Are you looking for a use for those fabric scraps in your craft room? You should try this!

Board Books

Check out this incredible headboard made of books.  Perfect for the book lover...or possibly for someone who suffers from insomnia?  For tips on how to make this incredible headboard please visit this website - she will show you how to do it from start to finish.

DIY: Dressing Up the Foyer...

I have been looking for a long time for a storage savvy piece for my foyer.  Now don't start thinking I have a grand foyer; the very word "foyer" sounds grand doesn't it?  Well, my foyer situation is not grand but after lots of searching and thinking and more searching I finally found the perfect piece.

I found this piece at my local favorite flea/antique haunt.  It was olive green when I found it:

 

I knew that it needed to be French Louis blue. I used my favorite Annie Sloan chalk paint and cleaned this old girl right up.  It took a good 2 1/2 coats; I spent the bulk of my painting time talking to Sophie so I quite enjoyed myself. I finished the whole piece off with Annie Sloan wax and allowed a few days to dry completely before I styled it.

Here is this beauty NOW:




The drawers contain ALL of our DVD binders and Wii games.  We still have a whole spare drawer for whatever crops up in the future.  I loved the colors and lines of this piece.  Also, it weighs a TON, so it isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Like, it seriously weighs a ton and I still can't believe that I hauled it out of my car and into my house. If I ever doubt my own strength I just have to look at this giant thing and pat myself on the back.

Pretty Twine

Want to see the prettiest twine EVER?





This just makes my heart go pitter patter.  Like seriously.  I have millions and millions of fabric scraps. This will be the perfect way to use them all!  Got to do this right now...

This quote resonated with me today.





Thank you Mr. Twain.  Those are some good thoughts.

On Gratitude...

 

I have been thinking on gratitude a lot today. I have a child who, despite all he has been blessed with just doesn't GET gratitude.  Doesn't get it.   And I don't know what to do to help him see and understand all that he has.  It is frustrating.  

I have always been a "glass half full" kind of girl.  I don't know how else to do it.  And I am so grateful for that gift alone because I see how others struggle to find the good in the crappiest of situations.  I most strikingly noticed this trait about myself 7 years ago.  My husband and I were in Mexico on vacation when I suddenly miscarried at almost 13 weeks.  It was totally unexpected and devastating.  We had a 2 1/2 year old and 4 year old at home and they both were excited to have a new sibling.  While I was waiting to go into surgery, I was alone with just a pad and paper (my phone had died).  I decided to make a list of the things I was grateful for in spite of just suffering a loss.  It was a silly list...but it was a lifeline for me.  And that simple act of writing down what I was grateful for in a moment of quiet sadness and desperation set the course of how I was to deal with a loss.  It showed me something about myself.  It showed me that even at the worst moment, I am STILL a glass half full kind of girl.

But how do you teach that to someone else?  Is it something they either have or they don't?  Is it a personality trait?  Can you learn it?  If you CAN learn it, does that lesson only come by heartache and hardship?  I truly do not know.

I can see how hard life can be for someone who is not grateful. I don't want that life of "lack" for my children.  This is one of those days where being a human being...just being a parent seems very very hard.

Chalk Painted...Hair!

YES to everything about this!  YES!  Forget about your regular, old ombre.  This is so much cooler.  For tips on how to create this look please visit this website.  Now go!  Chalk paint your hair!

The Flower Crate Strikes Again...

Remember my vintage flower crate that sits in the middle of my kitchen table?  Well...my mom fell in love with it while she was visiting in May and so I shipped it back to Virginia for her birthday.  Then I needed another vintage crate...





Luckily, my friend and neighbor Amber deals in vintage wares and so she had the perfect replacement.  After a stop at Larry's Produce in the "You-Pick" flower fields, my chalk painted jars are now happily refilled in my new crate.  Loving all of the summer colors.