Before & After - Orange You Glad It Looks Better???

As most of you know, our house burnt down about a year and a half ago and we rebuilt a new beautiful home last June.  We are still kind of in the process of replacing things especially furniture.  I am not the kind of person who wants to just go buy a bunch of new furniture to fill my house.  I like to wait until the right piece comes along.  This means I still have some holes to fill, but hey, at least when they are filled they will be filled with something I love.

I have been looking for a chest for our basement for awhile and I decided to start looking at our local Craigslist in hopes to find some good deals.  And then about a month ago it was as if all of the furniture stars were aligned!  Hubby and I took a trip to Lexington, KY (Go CATS!) and I found this awesome little shop that sold Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint and that was the first I had seen of it (yes, slightly behind in this neck of the woods...).  I was in love!  When we got back home I discovered that I couldn't buy it around here so I decided to just wait and get some one day when a project came along.  Well, wouldn't you know, that week I found a nice big chest on Craigslist for $70 and I bought it!  I knew then that I HAD to use some of the Chalk Paint on it.  After much debate I decided to go with Barcelona Orange.  We are not afraid of color in this house and I have a great picture to hang above it with some orange in it so why not?  I ordered my Barcelona Orange Chalk Paint and some clear and dark Annie Sloan wax to go along with it.  The chest was in decent shape but had a lot of wear and tear to it.  But the fabulous thing that I had read about this paint was that there was NO prep work.  No need to sand, no need to prime, nothing.  SOLD. 

Here is the before-just your typical chest with old hardware

I removed the hardware, cleaned it up and got ready to slap the first layer of paint on.  After layer one dried (quickly I might add) I decided I wanted to add another coat.  This all just depends on what kind of look you are going for.  Here is how it looked after one coat:

After two coats of paint I started the sanding process.  This paint is awesome for sanding off spots to make it look distressed.  It comes right off!  This was kind of the fun, artsy part of the process.  Here is how it looked after the sanding.  Ready for the wax!

After a clear coat of wax and dark wax in the spots where I wanted it, I let it dry and added the new hardware that I purchased on Ebay for cheap.  Oh, also, I lined the drawers with pretty liner paper that I scored at TJ Maxx for cheap.  Love me some cheap items in case you couldn't tell.  HA

So finally, viola!  Finished product!  I really enjoyed this whole process.  This chalk paint was amazing to use and I highly recommend it if you are going for this distressed look on furniture.  The no prep work is to die for.  It was a quick and easy project and I love the difference that the paint made on this chest.  It looks perfect in our basement now!

BEFORE & AFTER!

Spring Flowers!

Just a little post for me to show off my flowers that have bloomed so beautifully this year.  It's been an awesome first Spring sober - as some people say, "It's like the blinders have been taken off."  I really appreciate all the bright colors, the floral smells, the nice breezes and the evenings that are staying lighter later and later.  I have learned that I like "playing with" my flowers as I call it.  HA  So here we go!

Aren't they pretty?  Now if only we would get some rain so I wouldn't have to water them every single night!!!! 

One Year Later....Hoppy Toads and Lightning Bugs

I am laying in bed after an awesome day.  I was able to go visit my best friend Erin and see her precious baby Lincoln.  I then picked up the stepkiddos and came home to grill out for my Mom and stepdad who came to visit.  This evening once it got dark, the kids and I played out in the yard until 9pm.  We had flashlights out looking for hoppy toads (and catching them!  Not me, not me....But Tabi and Will did!), catching lightning bugs, and making clover flower necklaces.  Barefeet, crickets chirping, and a beautiful late spring night...these are the things that I am grateful for tonight.  I am VERY grateful that this year I am in a place where I can have Friday nights like this and TRULY feel blessed and enjoy them.  I would not have wanted to be anywhere else doing anything else with anyone else tonight.  Life is good! 

As I mentioned a couple of posts back, on May 2, I celebrated one whole year of sobriety - yes, including nights, weekends, and holidays.  :)  I never thought I would see that day.  I never even thought that I WANTED to see that day. I thought drinking would always be a part of my life, I never thought I would want to quit because I had liked it so much.  Until I didn't.  Know the feeling?  Loved it until it wasn't fun anymore?  Loved it until it had made your life completely unmanageable?  Yeah, that was me a year ago.  Actually, a year ago from this very day I was in Nashville in rehab.  My life was absolutely unmanageable but I was hiding out in a cabin with a bunch of awesome ladies trying to get my head screwed back on straight so I could come home and start a new life.  Become a new person.  Clean up the wreckage.  Love life.

And you know what?  Now I do love life.  I have become a new person.  I did start a new life and I have been cleaning up the wreckage.  Sunday, May 2, 2012 I went to my home group with my mother and my husband and was given my one year chip (it really IS heavy metal!  HA!) by my sponsor who I love and respect beyond belief.  The fact that my mother and my husband were there with me was so awesome.  How blessed am I that they stood by me through everything and probably love and respect me even more today for all the work I have put in and will continue to put in to grow as a person and never be the person that I was a year ago?  (Major run on sentence, but whatever.  It's my blog people...HA)  How excited was I at the end of the meeting when my sponsor said, "All those who have a year or more of sobriety, raise your hand to show the program works," and I got to raise my hand!  It DOES work.  It works if you work it...that sounds trite in the beginning maybe but the rewards are so beyong anything you could ever imagine.  It's WORTH it.  You are worth it. 

I have also acquired my first sponsee.  I am so lucky to have her in my life.  I've known her since she started this journey and even when she had a bump along the way she instantly came back.  She is so excited and so ready to change her way of life. She reminds me of myself when I first started this journey and my sponsor even said the same thing.  God puts people in our lives for a reason and I truly believe that.  I have to remember that I can't get anyone drunk and I can't get anyone sober.  I am here to share experience, strength, and hope and I look forward to being with her as she learns more about the beautiful person she truly is. 

I could probably talk all night about how happy I am to have that big one year chip in my book cover now but I think it's time to turn the lights down and read another awesome book so I can tell you all about it.  :)  Hope everyone has a great weekend!!!

Let's Talk Books!

As you know I love to read.  When I was a little girl I would save up my allowance to buy books - The Babysitter Club books to be exact (weren't those awesome?!).  I still love books but now I use the library for most of my reads.  Though I have found a couple of websites that have awesome books giveaways.  I have won 4 books on Goodreads.com and I also found this awesome Chick-Lit blog that has giveaways and it's fun to read - Chick Lit is Not Dead.  I've won 3 books on there so far!  Woo hoo!  Here are my most recent wins from them:

 

I cannot wait to receive these books and start reading them!  I will definitely let you know how they are.  I have read some awesome books recently though so let me tell you about those so you can go pick them up!

First, let's talk Kristin Hannah.  I cannot believe that I had never read any of her books before.  Why I had I not heard of her???  Her writing is awesome.  She easily sucks the reader in to the stories and you really feel like you know the characters.  I am reading anything of hers I can get my hands on right now.  The most current one that I finished was called True Colors.  This was such a good read.  From Amazon: 

"True Colors is New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah’s most provocative, compelling, and heart-wrenching story yet. With the luminous writing and unforgettable characters that are her trademarks, she tells the story of three sisters whose once-solid world is broken apart by jealousy, betrayal, and the kind of passion that rarely comes along."

I also read all three of Mary Karr's books that began with The Liars Club and ended with Lit.  I have to say that I liked The Liars Club the most out of the three of these books.  Lit was a close second with Cherry being the least favorite.  Cherry wasn't bad but in some parts it just seemed to drag on a little too much for my liking.  Mary Karr is a great writer though - her memoirs are very descriptive of her sometimes insane childhood upbringing all the way through her getting sober in her adulthood with Lit.  I really recommend The Liars Club especially if you liked The Glass Castle.   The books are somewhat similar in their writing. 

I am currently reading another Kristin Hannah book "Night Road" and it is AMAZING so far.  I don't want to put it down.  It's a tear jerker but again, her writing is amazing.  If you haven't read any of her books I highly recommend you go pick one up.  You won't be disappointed!

Pretty fabulous summer fabric

I wish honestly sometimes I could just have someone transcribe my thoughts onto this blog because it's so hard for me to sit down sometimes and write - yet I like doing it.  So who knows....my mind works in crazy ways as we all know  :)  I do have a lot of stuff to put on here though - projects I've been working on, books I've read, baby sister's prom, and celebrating one year of sobriety just to name a few. 

Last night I had an insomniac night.  Up until 3:30 am.  Lovely huh?  I wasn't worrying about anything and nothing is going on - my brain just decided it wanted to be the Energizer bunny and there seemed to be nothing I could do to stop it.  Therefore, I am exhausted today.  Hopefully that means tonight I can get to sleep at a decent hour!

So since I'm so tired I'll start with an easy post to try to get me in posting mode.  As you know, I've started learning how to sew.  I really honestly enjoy it and I never thought I would say that.  I used to always say, "I have no desire to learn to sew.  I don't like it."  Well how did I know I didn't like it having never tried it?  It was fear.  It was me being an alcoholic and having fear - fear of not being able to do it perfectly, fear of not being able to learn how to do it, etc.  But today I know that it's okay if it's not perfect.  I am doing my best with it and enjoying learning so that is really all I can ask for. 

I really wanted some pillows for our front porch so off I went to JoAnn Fabrics with my coupons and picked out some really fun, bright, summer outdoor fabric.  I was a little nervous because I decided I was going to sew in a zipper on the pillows also to make covers so I could wash them.  Maybe getting a little ahead of myself thinking I could sew in a zipper but I thought, what the heck.  Why not?  I let it sit for a couple of days until I worked up the nerve to start the project.  But once I started, I had two beautiful pillow covers in just one afternoon's worth of time!  I absolutely love them and they are so pretty on the porch.  I did manage to sew the zippers in and though they are NOT perfect, they are functional and they look pretty okay.  :) 

 My "not so bad but not perfect" zipper  :)

 One of the pillows hanging out in the porch swing.  The other one is in the rocker.

So after making two pillows I had enough fabric leftover that I knew I wanted to do something with it but I wasn't quite sure what.  I have been obsessively looking at sewing ideas on Pinterest and had seen a lot of tutorials for tote bags and they looked pretty easy.  And can you ever have enough tote bags?  I think not.  I use them for everything.  And the outdoor fabric would be perfect for one since it's thicker than the average home decor fabric.  I realized I didn't have enough fabric for the body of the bag and the handles so I had some thick ribbon laying around that I used for the handles.  It turned out really cute!!  I love it.  So glad I let go of the fear and just did it  :)

As I said, I have a ton more to write but not a ton of time today.  I'm going to try to write every day this week even if just a little bit so I can get all of my thoughts out and get updated with our life on here!  Hope everyone is having a great week!

Celebrating ONE year!!!

I'll definitely write more when I have time but just wanted to say, happy anniversay to me!  Celebrating one year of sobriety today.  Life is good!