Merry Little Christmas

So last week I went Christmas tree hunting. I heard that Home Depot had great trees and when I went there I wasn't disappointed, however they didn't quite have a tree that would be small enough to fit in our place. The kind sales guy said he would be glad to top a tree for me but the tree would still cost around $20. Since I didn't totally love it I decided to keep looking. My good friend Sally posted on her Facebook page that her son's Boys Scout Troop were selling trees in town. I decided to take a look there. This young Scout approached me as I parked my car and asked if I was there to buy a tree. I said, "well I hope so". He showed me all kinds and then I told him "I'm really looking for a small tree". He took me across the parking lot where there were some other trees. There were some trees not so well displayed, and Tyler, (that's his name) said, "well those are the Charlie Brown trees". I told him, "well let's take a look". Immediately I found this Silver Tip tree about 4-5 feet tall and said, "that's the one". Since it was still a little too tall, they were kind enough to take about a foot off and then went out of their way to limb the part they cut off into bows. The whole tree $10 bucks! Great price. Mr. Tyler was such a great salesman he carried and loaded the tree into my car, I couldn't resist and tipped him a Five. He said "thanks" and put that Five in his pocket and wished me a good day.



I decided to put up a second tree, if you can call it a tree and decorate it with whites, silver and blues.

Settling in Small space

After many painstaking hours, we finally have settled into our little place. It's amazing of what you can live with and live without. I love interior designing, if I can say that. It's great therapy for me. Some people love gardening like Mr. Home. Me, I love puttering around inside. It's a great love of mine. I have found when you do have a small space it frees you up to doing other things, I hope to do.


From this view you are standing at our front door looking in to our little space.
My Glass canisters are here at our entrance because it was the best place to put them. I like the color of the oats and flour and sugar they go well with the pattern of our throw cushions, don't you think.


This is our small foyer. This shelf was originally from our girls room when we lived in Pleasant Valley. When you don't have lots of space you have to multi-task your space, like this one, you can see I am keeping some of my grains here along with cookbooks and our calendar. Underneath the bench are stored shoes.


Every nook has to serve some type of purpose. I wanted Mr. Home to have a place that he could let his creativity flow and maybe even mine, so here this is.


This is our "Media center", behind the desk is Mr. Home's comfortable chair where he can relax and watch his games. I can watch too while I'm sitting at the computer and even from our bed.


Our dinette, this was actually one of our patio tables and the chairs were leftovers from an Old Togo's from our town that is no longer there. I have been storing these for quite a while, I knew they would come in handy, I have two more of them.


Looking into "the suite".


Our comfortable place for sweet dreams.


Our Micro kitchen. This Cabinet is part of the original cabinetry of the main house probably from the 40's. It's been moved so many times I have lost count. When we painted our little bungalow we decided to paint everything one color and we finally painted this cupboard and cabinet.

Purples, whites and tans

Our Master bath, this dresser was a local antique find.


Spring time Tulips

Family room for family time

Dining room from a different vantage

It was a misty foggy morning, like any morning on the coast, except it was here in the foothills. I loved it.


Looking out to our front porch, with a peek of our cedar weathered rocker.

Faded Cedar, sea grass & sand = nostalgic smiles

If I can't get there now, I can at least dream about it.


I just love the color of Cedar after it has faded.


I want to go where this leads to............


This reminds me of the simple life that one dreams about.

Inspiring Blogs

I love Willy Wonka, because he was able to see things and create a world his own with his imagination. Whomever created this world the Internet was a genius. I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting these girls through their blogs, *see my favorite buttons and blog sites on right sidebar. It has opened a world that I never imagined and awakened the things I truly love, such as interior design, photography, creating things from things in my own home. I am a closet, vintage,garage sale gal. I love old stuff, I guess I really do, because my house is old. I love take something old and making it new or usable again. So I am an amateur camera girl, one of these days I may take a class or two, but until then I'll keep pointing and shooting what I enjoy. Here are so"Fotos" just around the living room. I love everything that reminds me of the ocean, beach, sand, cool breezes, smell of the salt air, cotton, whites, blues, and so on. It all reveals a laid back relaxing being.

White lace & pinks

They say the "cheapest" way to change up your interior is to splash a dollop of paint on something. I love it when I recieve my PB magazine in the mail. It gets my creative juices flowin and I look for ways to duplicate the look within my meager budget. So this past week as I was perusing the pages I decided to change up my dining room and went to town to painting a couple of my dining chairs. I have had these 4 chairs for about 10 years I paid $25 for the 4 of them at a yard sale. I wasn't able to start on the two of them until late in the evening Last Thursday. I knew it was going to take a couple of coats to cover up the dark brown. And sure enough it did. After I painted them, I was still in the mood to paint, so I took our old worn out bench that sits near in our entry way and decided to put a fresh coat of Benjamin Moore's White lace on it too. It took me probably a good couple of hours to do the first coat. This is the before:

This is during

In the wee hours of the morning when I'm half asleep, I started planning my day in my head. It was a Saturday morning, first thing to do, take the chairs and bench outside in the sunshine and put the second coat of paint on them so they will have all day to dry. While I'm at it, paint the chair that's in my bedroom that needs a sprucing. Then clean house. Oh and have hubby do two things for me. That's how I present it to him. I say, honey I just have two things I would like you to do for me today and then you can do whatever you want. He's pretty good about complying. And to his credit, he did those two things. So here is the:
After


I love fresh flowers in the house so after the chores I went grocery shopping and bought these beauties.

Spring pastels and lazy days

whitewash & pinks so soothing, I love spring.

One of my favorite places, the beach, wiggling the sand between my toes, heaven.

Dream a little dream, a place that suits me.

Gratitude

Sunday evening I was trying to plan a simple Family Night, I don't know about your family but our family has a very short attention span. As I was reading March's Ensign I read a few articles on "Gratitude" and that was it. I made this jar presented to the "fam" and instructed them each to write something that they are thankful for. I told them it can be anything. I placed it in the kitchen and mentioned that it would be nice if each day they would take a moment and add to the jar. It's been 5 days and as you can see it's getting filled. "I'm thankful".

It's been a while since I purchased something from Potterybarn, so I was thrilled when this vase came out in the Spring catalog. They were only $17 dollars and to top it off I had a 10% online discount and it was free shipping, so what does a girl do? but get two! I just love it, it's so cute. Doesn't take much to make me happy. I couldn't wait to fill it up with these white Tulips, they're so cherry. Chow for now!

Revamped

Today was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and warm and it was Fast Sunday. I got home from church and I told myself I wasn't going to end my fast until 4pm. So I sat outside and read this month's Ensign magazine, fell asleep for about 45 minutes. I thought I still have about 2 more hours, so I decided to work on my blog. Time just passed very quickly and before I knew it, it was 5pm. I don't know about you, but I was very thankful. Made dinner and enjoyed the rest of this evening tweaking my blog. I have found some great sites that I have fallen in love with. As you can see I love the beach, coast, etc. This new site (see button for abeachcottage) I totally love, I can really relate to Sarah who lives in Australia. I love her taste, simple and clean. Check it out, you may feel the same way. One great thing about working on my blog, I'm not snacking, a great appetite suppressant. Enjoy.

Sisters

I love my sisters so much!
Some of you may know, my sister who is 2 years older than I, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had her FIRST mammogram February 5th, her 2nd mammogram February 9th, biopsied Febuary 11th and diagnosed Febuary 12. Her Mastectomy February 26th.

And through all this,and many Priesthood blessings, prayers, Ward fastings and prayers were heard. She is doing remarkably well and we her family, friends are very hopeful. She feels at peace, and so do I. I believe we are all being comforted. You know it's funny she and I don't always see eye to eye, but as soon as this happened, and if there was anything amiss, it all went out the window and that's because she is MY sister and I love her so much.
My younger sister, Rhonda and I spent the weekend with her after her surgery, Rhonda cooked, I cleaned, it's the best combination. We talked and talked till after 2 am one night. I felt so thankful inside, because I knew if it was the other way around they would be there for me. Sunday was especially sweet, when her husband, my brother-in-law came during church with his Home teaching companion and served us the sacrament. As he blessed the bread, my sweet brother-in-law stopped briefly, over-come with emotion as we all did. I think we all felt so much gratitude for the Priesthood and the blessing that my sister was doing so well and with hardly any pain or discomfort from her surgery. It just makes me feel so appreciative of what we have.

Real Estate

So, yes, as most of you know, we have decided to try and sell our home (ourselves). Don't know what the outcome will be, but it won't hurt for trying. The market is not well right now, in fact, medically speaking it is in ICU on life support. But we are going to give it a try and see what happens. Our plan is to stay here in Placerville. Life it seems, is changing very quickly but then again it seems as though it is happening in slow motion. It's all good. Most importantly is our family. So if anyone knows of someone who is looking to buy here in Good ol Placerville, referrals are greatly appreciated. Here is a link to information on our home. www.3130sacramentostreet.blogspot.com

Regards

P

Out with old, in with the New Year!

David and I don't normally exchange presents. Although I did get him an MP3 this year, Mackenzie helped me by putting some of his favorite music on it and we presented it to him. David and the kids always asks me what I would like and they know my pat answer is: peace and harmony and us just being together. Honestly that's all I want. I have no wants. I have no other joy, than to be with my family. I love us just hanging out and talking and laughing. My adult kids love to tell me things they use to do when they were younger because they know I can't do anything about it. Sometimes I plug my ears and start singing la la la la. Cecelia will want to chime in and share, but then I will warn her kiddingly "hey you still live at home I can still ground you". LOl. Pretty soon she too will leave the nest. But until then I can still enjoy having her home. We thoroughly enjoyed Chloe. She is getting so big. We have found out that she loves men. She was not shy at all when she got reacquainted with David, she climbed right on his lap and settled in. It took a few minutes before you got use to me. It didn't take long. Christmas eve night she allowed me to sing and rock her to sleep. I think I sang Eensy weensy spider and Your are my Sunshine at least 20 times. Grandchildren are Grandparents rewards for not killing their kids. It is all worth it.

White Christmas

If they can't bring Christmas to us, we will bring Christmas to them, and that's what we did. Of course that was the plan anyways. All I wanted for Christmas was to have the whole famly together. We left at 4:15am December 24th- Christmas Eve for our destination, Lehi Utah. We decided to take Hwy 80 instead of the 50 route thru Carson City, and it was actually quicker to my surprise. After an uneventful trek, we rolled into Cheri and Chris's home at 3:15pm. After all hugs and kisses especially to little Chloe, Luke and Maya showed up and some of us got back into the car and ran up to Walmart to do our Christmas eve dinner shopping. I love being with my kids, they are still my kids. They always ask when I come visit, "are you shopping like Grandma Joan?" the answer is yes. They know they can throw anything in the cart and mom will get it. We got enough food for the eve and the next few days along with some other sundries and what nots. We piled back in the car, got back to Cheri's and Luke and I started preparing our dinner. We did it easy, a couple of rotissorie chickens, fixins for a green salad, mash potatoes, potato salad, (Maya likes this salad), fixins for gravy and forgot what else. I brought my homemade fudge from California and some other candy. After dinner it was time for the"Games". Our family loves to play games. The game we played was a new one called "the game of Things". Someone picks a card and reads the statement like: what you think it would be that would keep you out of heaven. Everyone writes an answer and throws it in a bow. There are no wrong answers. They can be outrageous, made up answers or serious ones. What you want to do is write an answer that no one will know it is you. Then someone reads the answers and everyone but the reader tries to guess who wrote what. It can get pretty crazy. My son-in-law later we found out, wrote killing kittens. We never guessed him, because we never thought he would write such a statement. Luke and Maya left to go home late that night and we headed off to bed. Christmas morning was nice because we all took our time getting up, showering and eating breakfast. The most enjoyable part was watching Chloe open her presents.

Since Cheri and Chris were going to his parents for Christmas dinner, David, Mackenzie, Cece and I headed for Luke and Maya's in Park City. We took our leftovers and ate lunch with Luke. Maya was working. He hung out and took it easy. Later after Maya got off work we all walked around Park City, everything was open and stopped into Main St Pizza and had our Christmas dinner. I don't know about you, but I loved it. No cooking, no dishes, just pure enjoyment. It was bustling with business and everyone there was in a festive mood. After dinner we walked up to "Cows" and had sundaes and hot chocolate. I could get use to this.