Twinkle Lights

Just a few days after this past Christmas, as I was taking down the Christmas tree and all of it's magical twinkle lights, my youngest came in the room and told me how sad our house looked. 

"Can we still leave soooome of the lights out mom?" she asked. 

I agreed that the house did look rather sad without all the sparkly lights of Christmas. 

So I packed all of the twinkle lights away until next Christmas, except for one strand. 

I draped the strand around the sliding glass door in our dining room. 

Magic. 

The house sparkled again with the faint glow of just one little strand of lights. 

I thought that after the depressing cold months of winter had passed, we'd take the twinkle lights down.

But more than four months later, the lights are still there and we love them!

They are so peaceful to look at in the evening when we're all tuckered out and hunkered down inside for the night.

They make kind of a sweet night light after every ones in bed too.

Twinkle lights are the best!  They can be used all year long and are worth every little penny.

Our Fixer Upper

*Page in Progress

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Welcome to our home! 

I post updates on our fixer upper all the time around here, but I thought it was high time that I group all of the before and after pictures of our home's progress in one spot.

So here we go:

Our fixer-upper is a classic nineteen-seventies split level.

We bought it in the summer of 2009 and have been slowly wittling away at fixing it up ever since.

I don't think a single room is completely finished.  But we do have plenty of retro "before" pictures of each room and some pictures of each room as they are "now" to share with you. 

Take a look...

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The Stairway 

Before:

 Now: 

The Living Room 

Before:

Now:

 The Kitchen 

Before:  

Now:

The Dining Room 
Before:

 Now:

The Upstairs Hall Closet 
Before:

 Now:

Hallway
 Before:

Now:

Master Bedroom 

Before:

 Now:

Master Bathroom 

Before:

 Now:

Bedroom Number Two 

Before:

Now:

Bedroom Number Three 

Before:

 Now:

 The Basement 

Before:

 

 Now:

 

 

Guest Bedroom
Before:

Now:

Laundry Room
Before:

 Now:

Display Quotes That Inspire

I love inspiring quotes.  Quotes that make you want to be a better person.  Quotes that make you think.  Especially easy short ones that are easy to memorize so that they easily stick in your mind.  I have two large chalkboards in the main living areas of our home.  One is on the pantry door in our kitchen, and the other one is made out of a large board that leans into a corner in our dining room.  Over the last six months or so, I've been writing down inspirational quotes on these boards.  Some of the quotes we have worked as a family to memorize.  And some we don't repeat together at all.  They are just there to be read on their own.  I want the things on the walls in my home to matter, to make a difference in our family's life, to inspire.  I have always hoped that by writing down meaningful words for my family to see, that hopefully someday these words would sink in to their minds and they would be of use to them.  

Last week, as I was tucking my oldest (now ten year old!) into bed, we were talking about something (I can't remember what now), and I told her, "Just try..."  As soon as I said the word try, the words that I have written on the chalkboard in the picture above, came into her mind and she said, " ...a little harder to be a little better!"  And I said, "Hey!  You've been reading that quote I have on the board in the dining room!"  I was so happy and pleased that those words were now in her mind and that she was putting them into practice as we were talking about something that she needed to try harder to be.  Someday I hope to have a whole gallery wall, maybe in our basement family room, full of quotes that inspire our family to be better, to be Christ-like, to be the best kind of people we can be.  

I love adding to my collection of quotes on my "Quotes" pinterest board.  (Found here.)  If I ever get that gallery wall full of inspiring quotes made, I'll be sure to share it here.

Do you have any quotes that inspire you or your family?  If you do, please share!

Six Cleaning Motivation Tips

I believe that our homes can be a heaven on earth, our peaceful place from the whirlwind of the world around us.  But for me, if my home is messy, cluttered, and dirty, I don't feel very much at peace.  I can handle a certain level of messy, but after a certain point, I start to feel crabby.  

As the wife and mother, I play a major role in setting the mood around my home.  If I am crabby, other family members begin to feel crabby too and that doesn't lead to a peaceful home.  So I try to keep my home clean to a point.  Not a pristine magazine kind of clean, because there are people who actually live here, but clean enough that there is a sense of order.  

However, even though I want a clean orderly home, there are days when I am just not in the mood to clean.  On some days, chores feel monotonous.  Like, hey, didn't I just make that bed, wash those dishes, sweep that floor, clean that mirror, wash those clothes yesterday?!  Why, yes, I did.

Do you ever feel that way?

When I'm feeling unmotivated to clean my home, these are some of the things that help inspire me to get to work:

• Play Music:  Music makes me happy, it lifts my mood and it increases my energy level so I can get to work.  I use Pandora to find the right music to energize my mood.  Sometimes the vintage sound of Dean Martin gets me moving and other days the young sound of Taylor Swift does the job.

• Pretty Scents:  Sometimes just lighting a pretty smelling candle or cleaning with pretty smelling cleaners, like Mrs. Meyers line of cleaners (the basil scent is my favorite!) makes cleaning more pleasant.

• Before and After Pictures:  I'm pretty sure that most of us like before and after pictures. We see them everywhere on blogs and in magazines.  A couple of times I've taken a picture of a room I'm cleaning when it's dirty and disorganized and then taken an after picture when the room is all clean.  It's fun to see the difference.

• Call and invite a friend over:  I don't know about you, but if I know someone is coming over, it totally motivates me to clean.  So if I'm not in the mood to clean my home, inviting someone over for a lunch date or a play date, quickly sparks my motivation to get to work.

• Reward yourself with a piece of chocolate:  this kind of motivation probably isn't the best kind for me, but when push comes to shove, I bribe myself with chocolate.  If I load the dishwasher, I get a small piece of chocolate, if I fold a load of laundry, I get another piece of chocolate, and so on and so forth.

• Make a list and cross things off.  This can make cleaning a dirty house seem less overwhelming as you get to visually see all the progress you're making when each individual chore is crossed off.

Do you have any other motivating tips to clean your home?  If you do, please share! I'd love to hear them!

About Blogging

Blogging...

At one time an avid hobby.

Now, I guess you could say, more of a favorite past time. 

Other things (husband, children, church responsibilities), have taken priority ...as they should.  

But I want you to know (any of you still out there who occasionally click on over here to read a post or two), that I'm still here.  

I still have blog posts running through my mind as I'm loading dirty dishes into the dishwasher or driving kiddos to their various activities.

I still read blogs.

I still add to my pinterest boards.

I document life on instagram.

I just don't have as much time lately to do projects and blog about them.

We're still continuing to fix up our home here and there

and sometimes we concoct crafty little projects.  They're just not being shared as often. 

But our happy little life still beats on.

I hope you'll still pop by on  rare occasions when I do post projects and stuff.  Because I really do appreciate your comments and your readership. 

Speaking of projects and stuff...

I've been working on a room redo in my sons room that I'm hoping to share with you next week.  (Fingers crossed!)  Super excited to finally have it finished soon.

Happy Easter Friends!

Another Update on Our Basement Family Room

I'm here again with another basement family room update!  However, today is getting away from me and pretty soon I've got kids to pick up from school, a daughter to take to ballet, dinner to make, homework to supervise and so on.  So this post will be mostly pictures.

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{Basement on move in day - summer 2009}

Our latest update has been adding built in bookshelves on both sides of the fireplace.

My husband made these with backer board and plywood.

I think the total cost was about a hundred dollars, which is not bad at all for all the extra storage we benefit from.

This was the night the paint on the bookshelves had dried and I was playing around with how to place the books on the shelves.  To my husband, this should have been no big deal.  Just place books on the shelf and you're done.  However, I wanted the bookshelves to not only be functional, but to be a decorative accent to the room too.  So I had my husband help me organize the outside covers of the books by color.  He may or may not have rolled his eyes at my idea at first, but I think he liked the overall color coordinating affect in the end.  

 {The basement family room today.}

The pennant banner was the finishing touch.  

I love the extra splash of fun color it adds to the room.

This room is finally turning into the room my husband and I always imagined it would be!
The journey has been long but fun.