Getting Out The Pretties…

I went to a tea party last night.  I haven’t been to a tea party in AGES.  It was great fun! It was to welcome a darling girl from the Ukraine to her new family here in the states.  A bunch of us brought our beloved teacup sets and all had a lovely tea party together.  The young lady was even given her own teacup and saucer to start her collection.

I have a collection of nearly 40 teacup sets. Both of my grandmothers had “teacup showers” when they got married, so when they passed away my sisters and I inherited their teacup sets. Two of my sisters didn’t want theirs, so I took their share too.  I LOVE these teacups.  They are so beautiful.  In cleaning up after this party, I even found my grandma’s initials written on tape on the bottom of one of the cups we didn’t use.  I thought that was so cool!

Here are a few of the sets that I inherited…

When I got home from the tea party, I was SO sad to put these all away again.  I have started storing them in a beautiful teacart that we inherited from Andy’s Grandma, but there is a cupboard on it and no windows for display. I really want to be able to see them.  So I decided to display three teacup sets at a time on top of the teacart.  Only two of these current sets belonged to my Grandmothers. The pink set closest to the camera came from the hospital gift shop where my dad had his heart valve replaced.  It is the only one I have purchased myself. The cup and saucer are both in the shape of a heart, and when you pour your tea it is heart shaped also.  I saw it in the window and HAD to have it.  I bought a lighter pink version for a friend who is very dear to my heart. Get it?

Closer shot of the pink heart set and inside the cup…so pretty!

     

When it came time to put the teacups away today, I decided to make a change.  I moved all of the Christmas dishes out of my china cabinet, and into the cupboard on the tea cart that used to hold the teacup sets. I only use them one season out of the year, and don’t really need to display them.  Now all of my teacup sets (besides the three on top of the tea cart) are on the bottom shelf of my china cabinet, and I can see them EVERY time I walk by.  With the Christmas dishes moved to the tea cart, I also had room to spread out my wedding china collection. As I was doing that I realized that I just don’t use my china enough.

When I was young and we were attending a bridal shower, my favorite thing was to look at the bride’s registry and see what china pattern she had picked out.  I even picked out a pattern when I was in my late teens for my “hope chest.” I didn’t end up getting married until my late twenties, so the original pattern I had picked out was discontinued.  It was fine, because the pattern I ended up picking is SO much more beautiful, and is named after a place that is very dear to my heart. I thought that was much more fitting. I couldn’t wait to register for china, and was SO SURPRISED when I got every piece I registered for, and then some.  I ended up returning several place settings and still ended up with 13! It was crazy.  I got the lovely tea/coffee pot and several serving dishes in my pattern as well.

As I said I just don’t use my china enough.  I’ve decided to change that. Once a month I’m going to cook a special meal, and I’m going to serve it with a nice tablecloth, candles, and my good china.  I think it will make some beautiful memories for the kids, and will make Morgan want to have some china of her own someday. I hope so….

The top shelf of my china cabinet (matches the tea cart and was also inherited from Andy’s Grandma) hold my good crystal goblets,  the coffee/tea pot and my china tea cups…Our German wedding cup is also there. Isn’t the pattern so pretty? It’s called “Ontario.” I love the shape of the teacups as well.

                    

The middle shelf holds all of my plates, serving dishes, cream/sugar dishes, salt/pepper, and two gravy boats I received…

And now the bottom shelf holds all of my beloved teacup sets. I just can’t stop walking by and looking at them.  I can’t wait to have some friends over for tea sometime. I only had to stack a few cups, otherwise they were all able to fit on one level.  The plates are all stacked at the other end of the shelf. 

I am so excited about this change today! I don’t know about you, but every time I rearrange like this, I feel like I have something new.  I found a few things I don’t need/want anymore, and that will all be going out in the next purge. So it was a good change in many ways….the main way being I can see my teacup collection any time I walk into my living room now. The second way is that I’ve remembered how much my china means to me and I want to use it more.  I’ll post pictures the first time we have a fancy dinner!

What A Difference A Day Makes…

We had our staff Christmas lunch at a friend’s house this year.  We had great food, great fellowship, and some seriously funny games to play. While at her house I noticed a really cool wall hanging in her kitchen. It had all of the names of her family members, their birthdates, and her wedding date. At the bottom was this phrase, “What a difference a day makes.”  I just loved it.  I asked my friend if she made it, and she said she had it made somewhere. I should have asked more questions.  I took a picture of the wall hanging, and when I got home I sat down at my computer and tried to make my own.  I didn’t have the same fonts, and couldn’t get the spacing between the entries as close as on my friend’s wall hanging, but I really like what I came up with.

My family bought the lovely frame for me for Christmas, and this is now hanging on my kitchen wall.  I really love it! I plan on changing the fonts once in a while, and maybe even changing the color of the background paper once in a while.  I think I especially love this and it means so much to me because Madison is included on it.  That always makes me happy.  It is clear here that she was our firstborn, and I love for people to see that. I was so excited to hang this up!

A New House…And A Tour

I don’t really have a new house, but I feel like I do! I mentioned in my last post about the the great purge and spring clean of 2013.  It is almost finished.  I just have my bedroom, kitchen, and office area to finish, and we will be done.  All of the other areas of the house have been purged, cleaned, and organized.  It really feels like a new house to me.

A friend of mine mentioned her basement being a place of chaos this morning, and that is how I felt about my entire home.  We had accumulated so much stuff, that we were bursting at the seams.  I couldn’t clean the way I like to, because there was so much clutter.  The kids were having sleepovers in the family room because their rooms were terrible.  We were coming dangerously close to being the next contestants on Hoarders…well not that bad…

I have been wanting to purge the house for quite some, but my Beloved really struggles to get rid of things.  I waited for as long as I possibly could, and when he saw how much stress the clutter was causing me, he agreed it was time to do a purge.  He was really amazing the both weekends we worked on it.  He left the rooms when it was hard for him, but he was a great help hauling stuff out for me, and I’m so grateful he agreed to let me do this.  I think he feels better about the house now too! We were able to bless several families with things we no longer used, and several more through stuff we took to the Salvation Army.  That was a great feeling to me.  Even more so, was the ginormous amount of garbage we hauled to the curb last week.  Our garbage men took every bit of it when they picked up garbage!  Yay!!!

So though we aren’t finished, we are finished enough for me to give a little tour of my home…here we go! These are all pictures taken from my phone, so not the best quality

One end of our family room with our huge sectional couch…

The other end of the family room….I love the pass through to the kitchen with the bar stools…

A view of our eating area from the family room…(also our classroom ) That bin on the right next to my homeschool shelf is full of old curriculum that I will be getting rid of. Yay! I love the pitcher and large dish on the table. 

The window to the right of the kitchen table is fully shaded now by trees that have grown so tall outside.  I love this window…

Another view of the eating area from the kitchen, and out the window…

Looking into the family room from the eating area…one of my favorite rooms in the house, where we spend most of our time…the chair with the ottoman closest to the fireplace is where I am sitting right now to type this post.  It’s my “spot”. You can see my laptop sitting on the ottoman

Looking into the kitchen from the living room/office area toward the eating area… Morgan’s and my aprons hang there in the doorway.

Looking through to the living room, and our newly painted front door…

I don’t have a foyer, so it was very important to me that this entryway was cleaned up and organized.  There is not much space there.  I had a rack for our winter boots, and just exchanged the boots for flip-flops and summer shoes! My Beloved let me buy the cool umbrella basket, and that really made that area look neater.

Here’s another view of the basket…I really like it! We got it on clearance at Pier 1 Imports, and it will be great for umbrellas and ice scrapers (since we don’t have a garage)

One more of the basket next to my lovely piano…we are actually housing this for a friend who had no place to put it, and we’ve had it for over ten years. I’m hoping it stays a lot longer!

Relaxing in my clean living room, stress free! Now I actually enjoy playing that piano again!

Another favorite spot in our house.  This is a table that sits in front of our front window.  It holds pictures of my Lovies, and our dear Arizona cousins (who are the only ones that provide us with pictures), and the plants that my daughter is raising.  It is so lovely, and even more so now that it is clean and uncluttered.

That is all for now.  I’ll take some pictures in the kitchen, office area, and maybe a couple of my bedroom once it’s all done.  I have a beautiful doorway to my master bath that has two large windows in it.  I have been meaning to make curtains for years, because the poor person in the bathroom has no privacy, and the light shines right into the bedroom if someone goes in there during the night.  I got the idea to cover the windows with a pretty patterned contact paper that matches the doors, and I’m going to do that this weekend.  It will give the room privacy, and no blaring light during the night. So I’ll share a picture of that when it’s done.

Thanks for coming on my home tour! I really love this little house now, and I’m content to stay here for as long as the Lord would have us do that!

I hope you enjoy the new look on the blog too!

The Refiner’s Fire…

My husband and I (well ok…I did) decided that this weekend would be spent purging our house of all of the clutter that has accumulated over the years.  I wanted to purge and clean every room so it would not be hard to maintain. I knew it was going to be a hard job, but I didn’t realize how hard it would be…

Sometimes God has to purge our lives.  He takes us through the fire, like gold and silver when they are refined.  The process can be hard and painful, but when it is done the results are beautiful!

In the process of purging my house, I found a box of things I had saved from an extremely difficult time in my life.  Next to the death of my daughter, this period in my life was the worst.  I cried and ached as I went through each piece I found in the box, especially a journal my sister had written for me when she was taking care of my kids.  My heart ached over the level of sin I stooped to, and I don’t say that with pride, like how could I do it.  Apart from the grace of God, I’m capable of any sin.  In 2005, when God called me out of that sin…quite literally actually, I knew the cost could be great.  Relationships would suffer greatly, or even be lost.  That all happened, and it was EXCRUCIATING…some of them the dearest of relationships to me.  That purging and refining HURT.  But I knew that if I was sincere about my repentance, and truly wanted God to change my life, I needed to take all of the steps necessary for Him to do that.  It about killed me…but I had to be obedient.  There were consequences for my sin, and in my case one was the loss of a relationship I treasured…a best friend.

My pastor quoted yesterday that “if God permits consequences for forgiven sin, they are NEVER proportionate to the sin committed”.  Isn’t that GREAT news? I haven’t been able to get that out of my head.  If they were, I’d be in BIG trouble!  I’m so grateful that God doesn’t work that way.

I’m also grateful that what God took away, He has replaced a hundred fold.  I had a very difficult relationship with a person that is now my dearest friend and sister in life.  We have been through so many similar circumstances, and never knew it.  A really painful situation brought us together again, and now we are “sisters” for life.  I truly adore her, and I’m so grateful to God for her in my life.  We share the same first name, and for many years had the same last name.

Nearly eight years after the refining, we are watching God “restore the years the swarming locusts have eaten”.  It’s been amazing to watch it all unfold, and our family has tightened our grip on each other, and on God.  There are no three people I love more and enjoy spending time with, than my people right here.  We have all recovered from the painfully difficult years, and are stronger for having gone through it as a family.  We have learned to hold loosely to “things”, and hold onto each other with all that is in us.  We’ve learned the grace of God, and his forgiveness in ways others haven’t, and we wouldn’t trade it for ANYTHING.

So many lessons have been learned in the purging, and I reflected on those lessons this weekend as I purged my house and “refined” it.  It was hard, tiring, painful in some ways, and a LOT of work.  But it is nearing the end, and I feel like I have a new house.  That is such a joyful feeling to me I can’t express it.  And the “painful box” was thrown into one of the bags of garbage, never to be brought to my mind again.  12 bags of trash later, and nearly the same amount going to goodwill, I’m a happy lady!

To save myself the embarrassment, I won’t be showing before pictures, because they would be horrendous.  But, two of the rooms that needed a major amount of purging were my kids rooms, and I’m proud to show pictures of them!

Morgan’s room now…

And Parker’s room…

Every closet in the house was purged, and I know were everything is now.  It is such a great feeling to get everything purged, cleaned up and organized.  I’m so glad my husband was willing to humor me this weekend, and help me get it done.  It’s a hard process for him, but he knew how much it meant to me.  I’m so proud of him, and grateful for his help!

I leave you with the words to this song that have been running through my mind all weekend.  Steve Green sang it, and it was always a favorite…

There burns a fire with sacred heat
White hot with holy flame
And all who dare pass through its blaze
Will not emerge the same
Some as bronze, and some as silver
Some as gold, then with great skill
All are hammered by their sufferings
On the anvil of His will

The Refiner's fire
Has now become my soul’s desire
Purged and cleansed and purified
That the Lord be glorified
He is consuming my soul
Refining me, making me whole
No matter what I may lose
I choose the Refiner's fire

I'm learning now to trust His touch
To crave the fire's embrace
For though my past with sin was etched
His mercies did erase
Each time His purging cleanses deeper
I'm not sure that I'll survive
Yet the strength in growing weaker
Keeps my hungry soul alive

Deck The Halls…

My blog needs some Christmas decorations! It’s December 2, after all! I’ve been celebrating my birthday all weekend, so I’ll be back tomorrow to deck the halls.  I may even share some pictures of us decking the halls at home.  I love all of the decorations! If you give a Christmas tour of your home, left me know! I love to see how others decorate!  See you soon!

I Love Fall!!!

Haven’t been around the blog for a bit, so I thought I should pop in and say hello! I’m cleaning my house today, and FINALLY getting my decorations out…all 3 of them! :) I’ve never really collected fall decorations, so what I have is just from gifts I’ve been given.  Here are a couple pictures of what I put out today.  These tables are both in the family room, which is where we spend most of our time.

I don’t even know where I got that little apple, but it’s cute just sitting on that table with my littles :)

The apples on the next table I got from a “Secret Sister” that sent me a whole package of fall stuff one year.  These sit on a hope chest in our family room that sort of serves as a coffee table/foot rest.  That is my favorite fall candle from Yankee Candle in the middle.  It’s called “Autumn Leaves”.  Next to my very favorite which is “Cinnamon” at Christmas time, I just love the smell of the autumn candle.  It’s so beautiful…

I was moving some stuff around today and found these coasters.  I received them as a Christmas gift years ago.  I love them, because each coaster has a place for a picture under the glass. I have been filling them with fall 2010 pics  of my littles, and they are so much fun to see when I go to use one with my cup of tea.  I moved them into the family room today, and set them on the table that is next to my favorite chair.  Now I will see their smiling faces each time I have a cup of coffee/tea! I love them!

 

Post some of your favorite things, or fall decorations, and I’ll come and check them out!  Happy fall everyone! Can you believe it’s October??? :)

A Few Lovely Things…

I don’t often have fresh flowers around, and certainly not many plants because I have been known to kill them :(.  Occasionally Morgan will go on a walk with daddy, and will bring back some fresh flowers from her travels.  She did that yesterday.  She decided to put them in a little glass pot that was sitting on our kitchen counter, and then made a pretty little centerpiece out of it with a couple mason jars she found in the pantry.  I’m going to try to find some colored rocks to fill the jars with that match the tablecloth.  Until I do, I think it looks lovely as is…I love her creativity.

I got some lovely vintage juice glasses from my Grandma’s collection a few months ago.  I only got four of them, and I’m so afraid they’re going to break that I don’t use them often. :(  I got them out for breakfast this morning… aren’t they lovely?

I’m trying to get more creative in making our house lovely with what we have, and not spending a ton of money to do it.  I love that Morgan has some great ideas too!