Our Home & Garden in November

11/30/2009

These photos were taken November 21, 2009.

We haven’t/hadn’t yet had a frost so our banana tree is still alive and at least 12 feet tall.

All the rain has caused some beautiful moss to grow in one of our bamboo plants.

Our fire pit has seen some good use this year.

The giant pine tree in our front year provides an endless amount of pine cones, pine mulch and shade. The lavender is still going strong. Although I’ve seen a few birds go in and out of our birdhouse, no one has made a permanent home there.

I love this frosty blue-green sage. Lucy, our chocolate cocker spaniel, just turned 5 and has been scaring us a bit with some strange health episode.

We are so crazy about her. Isn’t she just adorable? She’s as sweet and as soft as she looks. (She found a new “bed” in the throw blanket storage box behind the couch.)

The heavenly bamboo out front is producing lots of pretty red berries.

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Phone Photo Friday

11/27/2009

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Thanksgiving Part 2

11/26/2009

This year I have been truly overwhelmed with gratitude when I think of all that Jason and I have been through and all that the Lord has done for us. I can’t get into details here but I can tell you with certainty that if it wasn’t for God’s grace and mercy and favor and blessing and influence in our lives I wouldn’t be happily married (I’d probably be gone, honestly), I wouldn’t still be at this job that I love, and Jason wouldn’t be successfully self-employed. Things could have been so so different. But, GOD IS SO GOOD! Everything that is going right and good in my life – it’s all because of Him. It makes me want to shout Hallelujah! Thank you Jesus!

I’m not generally a big Shane & Shane fan but I love this song and they do it justice and this video is pretty:

When I Think About the Lord
(Hillsong)

When I Think about the Lord,
How He saved me, how He raised me,
how He filled me, with the Holy Ghost.
How He healed me, to the uttermost.

When I Think about the Lord,
how He picked me up and turned me around,
how He placed my feet on solid ground

It makes me wanna shout,
Hallelujah,
Thank you JESUS,
LORD, you’re worthy, of all the glory, and all the honor,
and all the praise…

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Thank YOU!

11/26/2009

Happy Thanksgiving!


I love taking this time of the year to reflect on all the blessings I am so thankful for:
my God
my husband
my family
my dear friends
my church & my pastor
my job
my home
my doggie

and YOU – my blog readers! I’m thankful for you! Thank you for taking the time to read my updates. It’s so fun to be part of the blog world and I love love love getting comments and suggestions from friends and strangers. Thank you for sharing this piece of the inter webs with me.

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Bathroom Renovation Stage 6

11/25/2009

Moving along on the bathroom renovation one Saturday at a time. Last weekend we put up more of the tile. Eight sq ft are now up. Only 112 more to go. Can you see why this is going to take a while?

Also, we finished up all the concrete board. (I use “we” very loosely here. I wasn’t feeling great but I am excellent at providing moral support.) We covered the curb so now the concrete shower pan can be poured at any time:

On one side of the shower we built in 2 shelves for shampoo, conditioner, soap, shaving cream, etc. (As the woman of the house and the obsessive organizer, I’m taking credit for this idea.)

Things to do in the near future: pour shower pan, install rain shower in ceiling and plumbing in wall, install recessed light in shower, install ceiling shower fan, put up 112 more sq ft of tiny tiles.

Trying hard not to lose momentum here!

Where we started:

Bathroom Renovation Stage 1

Bathroom Renovation Stage 2

Bathroom Renovation Stage 3

Bathroom Renovation Stage 4

Bathroom Renovation: Tiling!

Bathroom Renovation Stage 5

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Go On – Touch the Screen

11/24/2009

Have you seen the commercial for the new HP TouchSmart PC? As a devote Mac-user, normally an HP (or any PC) commercial would not excite me. But this got my heart a-racing! Mac has been using touchscreen technology with the iPhone for years now so I don’t know why a touch screen computer like this caught me by surprise.

Can you imagine the possibilities for an artist/designer? Envision Photoshop that you can manipulate with your fingers on the screen. After years of doing art and graphic design through a mouse cursor controlled by one hand, I’m so excited about the idea of getting both hands into my work, so to speak. We’ve perfected the scroll ball, the subtle right hand movements and fingers on the track pad; how cool would it be to get to use our fingers to actually draw, paint, cut, smudge, shadow, enlarge/shrink, turn …

Does this potential excite anyone else??

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West Street: Christmas Shopping for Me

11/23/2009

I love surprises but I’m picky. Kind of a catch-22, huh? I offered to my husband that I could buy myself a Christmas present this year AND buy him a Christmas present. He seemed pretty relieved to not have to shop so that was our plan. When I found out my gift was on sale last week, I convinced my mama to go shopping with me after our weekly lunch date.

If you know anything about my mama, you know bundling up her kids in cozy layers is a top priority. Warm sweaters, warm socks, warm slippers, warm hats, warm scarfs, etc. The fact that we’re all self-sufficient adults doesn’t change this instinct a bit. So naturally she jumped on the opportunity to buy this warm coat for me for Christmas. Sweet!

Now what to get myself for Christmas …

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Phone Photo Friday

11/20/2009

Morning quiet time = all green.

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Blue Bowl & OJ Pitcher {mcm thrift store finds}

11/19/2009

Over the weekend we stopped by a couple of thrift stores and came away satisfied by these 2 finds (for about $4 total):

This pretty blue bowl that Jason spotted.

And this funky glass orange juice pitcher that I found.

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Bathroom Renovation: Tiling!

11/18/2009

I’m not calling this a stage because it’s not really a stage change in the bathroom. The tile arrived over the weekend and on Monday, Jason and I decided to put up 2 square feet to see how it looks. We have 2 different colors of .75″ x .75″ tile that come in 1 sq ft sheets and it’s up to us to pop off 50% of the tiles (112 per sheet) to make a random pattern.

Let me just say that this process sucks. It takes a lot longer than I anticipated and the mesh is like sandpaper on my fingers! But I know it will all be worth it. Jason and I are really pleased with how it looks once the 2 colors are randomized together:

It took us 20-30 minutes to make 2 sq ft. So … multiply that by 60 (120 sq ft total) and it looks like we can plan on 20-30 hours of tile popping. That’s not counting installing the tiles on the wall.

… Putting each tile we popped off back into the other color sheet …

… And making sure they’re all straight and flush. But it’s going to be SOOOOO worth it! I can’t wait to see how it’ll look when the whole shower is done.

Meanwhile we still have a couple of sheets of concrete board to hang and the shower pan to pour. Once we realized how long the tile is going to take we figured we’d better get started right away so we can takes breaks to do other parts of the process.

Yes, I know we’re crazy. Did I mention we got a really good deal on the tile?

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