The End of a Great Year!

I've been in my home for a year now, well a year and a month or two.  When I first bought my home I had first home buying jitters.  You know... did I do the right thing?  Is this the right house for me?  The longer I am here, the more I love it.  The house and neighborhood has really grown on me and I'm hoping to stay here for a while to come.  I have so many exciting new ideas I want to do with my home, but I'll share those later.  Now I just want to look back at a few things that make me the happiest about my house makeover.

I must say, my living room is my favorite room in the house.

It turned out almost exactly like I envisioned it would.  

I love my fireplace and the beautiful walnut mantle my dad made for it.

The fireplace has kept me warm many a cold night!

 I think I got the most emails about my library closet,

 this seems to be the favorite room of those reading my blog.

The laundry room was the most drastic change that took place in the house.

The room before was quite cold and I wasn't sure if there was a lot of hope for it.

When people come visit my home in person, my butcher block counter tops seem to be a huge favorite.  I must say, it is one of my favorite things I did to my house.  I have no regrets and I wouldn't want anything other than butcher block. I like it more than I even thought I would.

It's now a far cry from the very first day we walked into the house.

I had a vision and made it happen.

I'm a happy homeowner!

Thank you to my family and friends for helping with all my projects and thank you for all the amazing compliments and inspiration I received from all of you!

I'm ready to tackle another year!

Fresh Orange Juice

I'm going to admit, the OJ was too frothy by using the juicer.  If you like it frothy that is great I guess, but I like it more smooth.  From now on I will just juice my Oranges by hand with my wood citrus reamer.  It's going to take some practice finding out what works and what doesn't.  It may very well be the kind of oranges I bought, maybe I should try to juice them again sometime with different oranges.  I will also say, it was lighting fast to juice them with the juicer as opposed to juicing them by hand.

I drank it and it tasted fine and I still got all the nutrition from the fresh OJ.  Here was my breakfast... eggs with salsa, oat grain bread with home made blueberry jam.  Pretty good!  :)

Green Drink with my New Juicer

My first drink with my new juicer!  I love it! It completely blows the other cheap little juicer I had out of the water. It would take about 4 or 5 apples to get a drink this size from my other juicer and I only used 2 apples for this one.

Green Drink Juice

• 2 Apples
• A handful of spinach
• A handful of parsley
• Couple of drops of lime juice (to offset the sweetness from the apples)

I have so much experimenting to do.  Oh and it tasted great!

Winterizing the Mantle and My New Toy

Here is the adorable little antique sewing machine I received for Christmas from my dad.  It's actually really old and was a toy used to teach young girls how to sew.  There's a needle in it and you can thread it and sew with the machine. It still works.  You turn the knob on the right hand side of the little machine and it makes the needle move up and down.  I love it!

The garland I decorated the mantle with dried out and was turning brown, 

so I've already changed out my mantle decor.

I kept the winter theme though.

I moved the new painting I got onto the mantle. 

It seems to go better here since it's a picture of an old wood stove and all.

I think decorating my mantle is one of the things I enjoy most about decorating my home.

I love seeing all of the creative ways people decorate them.

I'd like to decorate the mantle with some old antique books one day. There's an antique store up in Virginia with tons of old antique books I keep thinking about.  I may purchase a few and see how I can get creative with them.  If you have any photos with mantles decorated with books, please pass the link to me.  Also if you have any favorite mantles you have photos or links to, I'd love to see those as well. Thanks!

Opening Christmas Presents

[Above]  This was the tree on Christmas Eve at my parents home...  

(So calm and beautiful)

 ...and this was how it looked during the chaos of Christmas morning.   It's so fun to just rip open everything and throw the paper aside and tear into your new gift! I'm such a kid!  

I got a juicer! Woohoo!  I have an old cheap juicer that's the pits and have really been wanting a better one for quite a while.  I can't wait to go to the grocery store to get me some fruit & veggies so I can have some fresh juice.  I'll be blogging my juice recipes as soon as I start. I got an amazing drill bit case from my dad, you can see it there on the table in the yellow plastic box. There are soooo many different drill bits in it, I'm going to be able to do all sorts of projects around the house now!  Thanks to my mom, dad and great friends for all my gifts... I got some other great things like a small antique sewing machine (I'll be posting that soon), some pottery barn decor, lots of jewelry, handmade goodies, hats, dvd's, candles, and a bunch of other little goodies!  Little Foot even got TWO stockings full of toys.

Oh and I found Johnny Depp in my stocking!  MMmmmm

Here's my mom's pretty dining room all set up for Christmas dinner.  All in all, it was a very cozy and happy Christmas.  I am going to start Christmas shopping in January and be done by February this next year though, I was out still grabbing gifts for people on the 24th!!  I will not let myself do that again, haha.

I probably won't be working on any projects until after the New Year.  One of the first things I want to get started on though, is that blue armoire in the guest room.  I'm going to put an antique glaze on it to give it a more rustic look.  I'm not happy with how it turned out.  Hopefully my vision for it will look better than it does now.  :)   Do you have any projects you're starting the new year out with?  I'll get a list going so I can post that for New Years Day, my 2011 To Do list.  I almost got all of my 2010 list checked off.  It was a busy year!  Whew

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas 

from my

home to yours.

We got our white Christmas!  The above photo is one I took of a little church down the street today.  Everything is dusted in White and it truly turned out to be a beautiful Christmas.

We went to Christmas Mass last night and had communion, then went home and had a little get together at my parents with some friends.   This morning I woke up to a country breakfast cooking and then we exchanged gifts.  We had a lovely Christmas meal today of ham, pork roast, stuffing, olives, black eyed peas and potato salad.  Then I went to a friends house and spent some time with them.  It is a wonderful Christmas.

The creek that runs through my parents farm.

  I can't stop looking around outside at all the beauty.  

God is so good.

God Bless!

Dreaming of a White Christmas

Thursday Dec 23, 2010

Day 46 

The little dog above is named Corky. She's 12 years old.  My dog I use to have named Gator use to play with Corky all the time. Gator was a small dog just like this and looked a lot like Corky.  Gator passed away around 9 years ago. When I'm around Corky, it makes me feel close to Gator again.  She's so sweet.  Oh and yes she's dreaming of a white Christmas because it's suppose to snow Christmas Day! Yay!

All us kiddos are getting excited about Christmas!

It's almost here!!!

*I took the photo of Corky above with my friends Sony Cybershot 10x zoom, I forget how many megapixels, seems like around 10 or so.  Anyway, next year I want to get a new point and shoot because I have a really old Sony Cyber-shot 5.1 MP 3x zoom and the camera didn't hold up well.  If you have or know of a really good quality point and shoot please let me know.  I want to do some research this time before I buy one.

Mayberry Mall

Day 45

Wednesday Dec 22, 2010

Yes folks, we actually have a shopping mall!  This is it. You're looking at it.  I'm not kidding, what you see here is all there is to this mall. You can stand here at one end and see the other end in the distance and that is all there is. There are 2 department stores, a JC Penney and a Belks.  I was just doing a little last minute Christmas shopping yesterday.  Hope you're enjoying the holidays.

Christmas Festivities in a Small Town

Day 41

 Friday Dec 17, 2010    

The Andy and Opie statue at the Andy Griffith Playhouse.

(Andy was born and raised in Mount Airy)

Day 42

Saturday Dec 18, 2010

Lazy Jammies day. Haha

Day 43

 Sunday Dec 19, 2010

A Christmas Carol

A play put on by a small church.

The singing was heart touching.

Day 44

 Tuesday Dec 21, 2010

Children perform in an orchestra. It was amazing and sounded so professional.

The beautiful view right outside the Rotary Club.

The ponds have iced over.  So pretty.

I said I was going to post the 365 Day Project on Fridays, but since Christmas is coming up, I'm not sure if I was going to be able to get them posted or not.  So here is what I have so far! 

Where Do You Display Your Cards?

Last year I hung my cards across the living room wall on a ribbon because at the time, my living room was so empty, I was just trying to fill space.  This year, I wanted a place to display them, but couldn't find any space in my living room this year at all.  Amazing what I acquired over a years time!  So, I put them on my bulletin board in the master bedroom.  Thanks to all of you who have sent me cards!  Little Foot even got his own  Christmas card this year from his doggy daycare. :)

What other ideas have you seen that are neat for displaying your cards?  How did you display yours this year? I need ideas!

I also bought this piece of art at an antique store last week.  I had the painting my grandfather painted here, but have moved it to a wall in the guest room.  This is a painting I had seen at the antique store and I kept thinking about it, so I ended up going back to get it.

I moved the sofa table that was under the tobacco basket into my master bedroom as well.  That is where I'm wanting to put my work desk so I can start working out of this room instead of the laundry room.

Four more days until Christmas!!!

Do you have all of your shopping done?

I still have a couple of more things to get.  

I'm usually one of those people shopping right up until the day before Christmas.  

Beauty on the Countryside

The 365 Day Project

Day 38

This horse has the most beautiful eyes. The front half of them are blue and the back half are brown.

He came right up to the fence to let me pet him, so friendly!

This is a horse ranch down the street from where my parents live in Lowgap, NC.

Day 39

It looks sort of warm out with the bright sun and all in the photo above, right?

Noooo, it was so cold and windy my eyes were watering while I was trying to take this picture, then I ran like a mad woman back indoors. 

Yes, the cows are looking at me like I'm CrAzY!

Day 40

I was iced in all day, what a better time to be cuddled up by the fire and eating warm yummy cookies!

Project 365

I started Project 365 on October 27th this year.  As you can see, if you do the math, I should be MUCH farther along than what I am. I'm only at Day 40 and it's December 17th! I have fallen behind because I haven't been taking a picture every single day.  I had originally wanted to do this project to study up on photography and improve my photography skills.  Plus I thought it would be neat to look back at the end of the year like a diary in photo form. See what Project 365 is here.  I've been tempted to give up quite a few times, so I told a friend of mine if I start saying I want to give up, to keep encouraging me to carry on.  I love a challenge and I will say this is more challenging than I expected. I just don't know how anyone can keep a camera with them at all times and be prepared to take a photo at any given moment.  I am always forgetting my camera and to make matters worse, the new cell phone I got takes horrible photos. 

I've decided to keep calm and carry on, but I'm going to start doing it a little different.  Notice in the photo collage above there are photos of house projects half done and things that really aren't -photography worthy-, so I'm not going to use any house decorating or project photos for Project 365 anymore. (They will be posted in separate posts)  I like the way the photos came out that were actually intended to be a photography shot.  The one that looks best above I think are all the colorful gourds... and the fall tree ... and the church... you get the idea.  I'm also going to try to post these every Friday, that way I can take pics throughout the week and just post them all at once instead of trying to get one on here every single day. (I'll post my house projects throughout the rest of the week. Those will pick up more at the start of next year.)

If I tell you I'm quiting, just smack me!

Got Snow? Let's go Sledding

Ok it's a really old sled, but you never know, it could still work great.  They use to make things to last back in the day.  My friend had this old sled at her house stored away that I kept seeing and finally I told her how much I loved it.  So, she gave it to me!  It's so adorable.  It needs to be cleaned up a little.  I've even seen where some people refinish them and put a new coat of stain and sealer on them and paint the metal.  I was thinking I could do this, but you know me, I love the OLD character it has.

It's been snowing a lot already this year here in Mt. Airy.  It's snowing today as a matter of fact. Well, it's all white outside, but it seems to be little ice crystals coming down instead of actual snow.  I guess that is sleet? Sorry, I'm just a Florida girl and don't know all this cold weather lingo. lol  The photo above was from when it snowed a couple of weeks ago.

Some more decor...

Here is my little miniature Christmas tree.  

Well, I HAD to get a real tree after all.

Some of the garland left over after decorating the mantle. 

There was about 25 ft of this stuff.

My computer is still getting fixed, I'm borrowing a computer for now until I can get  mine back. 

I sure hope he's able to get the virus off without losing any of my files.

Computer Issues

I've got a virus on my computer so I'm not sure when I'll be up and running again.

Just in case you're wondering why I'm MIA for a while.



Wood You Keep Me Warm

I did a little rearranging over the weekend.  I have all my firewood piled up outside in the carport and with these below freezing temperatures we have been having already this year, I thought it would make more sense to have my wood inside instead.  I've thought about doing this for a while, but wasn't sure it would look too great with a pile of wood in my living room.  Keeping warm is higher on my list, so in came the wood!

I cut a plastic garbage bag to put under it to catch all the debris.

I'm just keeping it like this for the winter, then I will put my sofa table back again.

Oh and before you get scared that some bugs may have snuck in with the logs, the freezing temps lately have most likely kept a lot of the bugs away. I hope. My mom was afraid I would bring a snake in! 

Domino Magazine

I have actually seen this a lot in magazines and websites where there is wood piled up near a fireplace.  Here's a photo I stumbled upon recently that I thought looked nice with the wood.


For those that have non-working fireplaces, decorating the inside of the fireplace with logs is also an option.  I think this look is really creative.

Photos from Apartment Therapy & Tony Hutchinson

Stay warm!