Birthday Fun

Today I am 27! That seems like such an adult age. But I don't feel any older. I have thought several times today that in three years, I will be thirty. THREE years. How in the world did I get here so quickly.

My birthday celebration started Friday night with a trip north to see my family and continued all the way until tonight as I had dinner with some of my favorite ladies. Pictures and details are coming soon I promise.

Not tonight though... I still have to do my homework so I can teach class tomorrow. :) I am looking forward to teaching next year. I will have all my power points made. Right now I make a power point, sometimes two, every night. Wears a girl out!

The husband had to leave this morning for work. I'm not fond of the fact that he had to leave on my birthday, but neither is he.

Pregnant?

Nope not us! But it seems like everyone else.

About a month ago I read a post on Courtney's blog about submitting to your husband. In her post she stated that if you and your husband ever disagree about something you should let your husband lead and make the decision. The Lord immediately brought to mind the timing of children. I am ready to start having children, but Andrew isn't quite there yet. No sooner than He had brought this to mind, I began arguing with him. If I let my husband make this huge decision then I wouldn't get my way. We would be waiting to have kids. I even questioned my husband's ability to seek God's will and not his own on this decision.

I fought the Lord on this for several days and then just sort of forgot about it. A week later the Lord brought it back to mind. Only this time when He did, I wasn't arguing. I had complete peace about submitting in this area. God showed me that it wasn't up to me anyway. I never really had control over the situation, nor does Andrew. By submitting to my husband what I'm really doing is submitting to my Father.

The Lord was also good to remind me of several times in our marriage where the husband made a big decision with me in mind. Those were times when I felt such a deep love by my husband.

He also showed me that I needed to seek forgiveness in this area. I had made the statement on more than one occasion that this time next year I was going to stop taking birth control and the husband could do with that what he pleased. God helped me realize how disrespectful this was of me.

Through all of this, primarily the beginning, I questioned whether or not this was really God speaking to me or me just making this up on my own. Before I shared any of this with the husband, I shared my feelings with my sister-in-law Joy. I knew that she would give me good Biblical advice. I knew what she was going to say before I even spoke to her, which is why I didn't share with her in the very beginning. I was fighting and wasn't ready to hear it.

With her encouragement and a conviction from God, I finally shared my heart with Andrew. It wasn't easy for me. I don't know why, but I found it very difficult to share all this with him. It was especially hard to admit that I was disrespectful and ask for his forgiveness.

But I did. And I've had such peace about not having children yet since then. I know that God's timing is perfect. And I trust my husband to seek God's timing in this.

Since all of this happened just a few weeks ago, I've learned of six people who just found out they were expecting. I have been able to truly be happy for them. I wonder why it's the right time for couples who have only been married a couple of years and it isn't the right time for us when we've been married almost 7 years. And then I think about how rough our first year or two of marriage was and how much sweeter it is now. I imagine how much sweeter it will get as we wait to add to our family. God is still growing us as people, as Christians. I see that and realize waiting is well worth it.

The Tour

If you are interested in the tour of my 2010-2011 classroom and learning more about the stipper pole closet mentioned in the previous post click here.

Just remember when you see the signs that I'm not artist.

Busy Busy

I have been extremely busy lately. I have felt even busier than I've actually been. My stress level hasn't exactly been low lately.

Why?

School starts in less than 48 hours. Thursday is the first day of school for the 2010-2011 school year.

I do not feel ready. AT ALL!!

I blame some of this on the fact that we have a brand new middle school building. Sure it is GREAT! It comes with some very exciting technology that I can not wait to use. But there are some downfalls as well. Like it still isn't completely finished. I have walls hanging out of my wall still and my stripper pole closet (more on that in a later post) doesn't have a door yet.

All of this I could deal with it if that was the only issue.

But I'm not ready with lesson plans either. Math intimidates me. I'm not even going to lie. I have no idea what I'm doing. To be honest I've been very much like my students putting off my to do list thinking I had all the time in the world. But I don't. Thursday is right around the corner.

I haven't been too concerned because for this week I'm just going to be in survival mode. Getting to know my students and letting them get to know me. We have all these students and the possibility of hiring new teachers so I figure their schedules will be changing over the first few days. That makes it hard to start too much.

But enough about school. Through my quiet time God has given me a verse to live by for the year. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13 I am definitely clinging to that.

I am really looking forward to the weekend. I am going camping with my parents. I haven't done that since I was a little girl. It is going to be some awesome quality time with the parents and some yummy camping food. I don't know why but everything taste better when you are camping. My daddy is going to cook me scrambled eggs and bacon one morning. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it and there aren't many foods that do that.

Okay now that I type this out I feel like I'm not that busy. Maybe overwhelmed is a better word.

P is for Paint

The husband and I have spent the weekend painting. Saturday afternoon we finally chose a new color for the dining room to cover up that bright yellow. I was determined for it to be gold so we went with a deeper shade. Let's just say attempt #2 was just as bad as attempt #1. It was darker, but still awful. I'm going to spare you from having to see a picture.

My mother-in-law stopped by and weighed in on the great paint dilemma. After much debate with her and between ourselves, we decided gold was just out. There is no shade of yellow or gold that goes with the color on top. It just wasn't going to happen. We talked about pulling a color out of one of the paintings I'm having done, but I really didn't want to do that without seeing the paintings. We finally decided on just a darker shade of the color on top.

So...no gold! But we ended up with the "hat box brown" and I love it! I think it looks great. My pictures will had plenty of color when they are all finished.



The only problem is the new color has caused me to love our current curtains and artwork. Now I'm not sure I want to put the new paintings there. I still want them, but now I'm unsure as to where there home will be. We'll just have to wait and see. There is a chance they will match the curtains and look great there.

After we finished the kitchen FINALLY, the husband did some touch up work in the guest bathroom that I painted back in May. While he worked on that, I did some paintings for my classroom. I'm decorating in school colors (red,black,&white) and wanted everything to match. That meant new posters to replace old ones. I'm going to wait and show you my "beautiful" artwork when my room is finished and I can show you everything. But let me warn you now....I'm no artist by any means!!!

Today we bought paint for this monstrosity.


It's been ready for awhile, but I couldn't decide what color. I really wanted purple, but the husband had me doubting so I've been searching for something different. I finally decided on this pebble color because I figure it will look good no matter what room this desk is in in the future. I'm hoping it will be finished in the next couple of weeks. I've told my husband that is all I want for my birthday...to have my desk finished and set up.

Back to the paintings I'm having done...I got a glimpse of one of them tonight. There are three! I am so excited about them. I LOVED IT!!!! Amanda is doing an excellent job, which I knew she would.

And on a non-painting note...while she was here my mother-in-law gave me an early birthday present. She bought me a beautiful ring with my birthstone. I LOVE IT!! I had been looking and wanting something with my birthstone.

Thank you again Momma B.

Projects Gone Bad

The husband and I attempted a few projects this past weekend.

I attempted to make tie-dyed curtains for my classroom. I'm decorating in our school colors this year. That means red, black, and white. I was originally going to buy some cute fabric and try to sew a valence. Then I decided it would be cheaper and fun to buy a flat sheet, tie dye, and make it into a valence. When I was searching online for a how to video, I realized I could have full length curtains using the sheet and no sewing would be involved. Sounded great since I don't really know how to sew. So I tie dyed my sheet and I hate it. It looks cheap, which it was. I'm not using them. I'm back to my original idea or buying a valence if I can one I like. However, a couple people requested to see the tie-dyed curtain so here is a picture.


Sadly I think it looks much better in this picture than it does in real life.

Together we put up and painted chair rail in our dining area. I love how it looks! BUT then we painted below the chair rail. I picked out this beautiful gold. Then I put it on my wall. YUCK!! I'm not sure if our dining area looks like it belongs in a Spanish restaurant or McDonald's Playhouse. Either way, I hate it. We will be trying again.

Let The Decorating Begin!

You might remember awhile back, I told you I wanted to decorate our kitchen/dining/ & living area. I haven't been totally happy with it since moving in four years ago. It has always just felt so blah to me. There wasn't much color and what color was there was very matchy matchy.

Friends, blah is no more! We are moving in the direction of color. Due to budget it will be a gradual move, but that is okay. I'm so indecisive about all this that it would probably still be a gradual move even if our budget was limitless.

The color began with three paintings that I found online. I loved them right away. Then I wasn't sure. Then I loved them. Then I wasn't sure.

Told you I was indecisive. :)

Finally after much debate I bought three canvases for the project. The ones online are out of my price range, but I have a dear friend who is going to recreate them for me at a much more affordable price. Don't you just love good friends!

I can't wait to see how they turn out. I'm going to wait until then to reveal the design to you.


I have been wanting to wait on the living room because I knew we would be putting a TV in there soon and that would change the whole dynamic of the room. Friday night the husband and I were discussing said TV and how we would display it. I didn't want it hanging on the wall. I wanted a good substantial piece of furniture to put it on. I wanted something that could be a focal point in our living room. We discussed our visions for the TV and quickly discovered, we had very different ideas.

Saturday afternoon we wondered into Pier 1 as a way of killing time while my car was being taken care of next door. We NEVER go into Pier 1. Some time ago, I deemed it as one of those stores I couldn't afford to even browse in, which was probably true during our first few years of marriage. But there we were browsing Pier 1. And that is when it happened. We stumbled across the perfect compromise of a TV stand. It was different. Not like anything either one of pictured, yet we both instantly loved it. Then a saleslady informs us that she has one in the back that she can discount because it was a return due to a small scratch on the back left corner. We are not opposed to scratches. We knew if it was in our house long enough, it would be scratched anyways. When we saw it and the scratch, we both agreed that that scratch didn't bother us in the least little bit.

We mulled it over for a few minutes and decided to go for it. What do you think? Isn't it a beautiful piece of furniture?



These pictures make it look much brighter than it really is. There is black paint that shows through the red, so it actually a darker piece.

I love it!! But I was a bit concerned about how it would look. Our living room is predominately blue, green, & brown. I knew it would look okay with our furniture, but I was concerned about our rug. Maybe that is silly, but remember I'm knew to this decorating. The rug is a huge part of what makes it predominately blue, green, & brown. It's not even a year old so we really don't want to get rid of it.

Rug ain't cheap!

We discussed other ways to bring in more color such as pillows. I wandered over to look at the pillows in Pier 1 while the husband paid for the TV stand. I found this pillow that I thought was perfect.

The husband liked it too when he saw it, but it was more than I was willing to pay for a pillow. So the birds stayed behind. I looked at pillows every where we went for the rest of the afternoon, but nothing came close to my bird pillow.

The TV stand actually stayed behind as well because it wouldn't fit in my car. The husband and nephew went to pick it up Sunday afternoon. When they returned home they had the TV stand and the bird pillow.

Talk about excited!! Can I just say I have the best husband. Later I told him I couldn't believe he paid that for a pillow, and he just said, "You wanted it." :)

Seriously!! He's the best!

When we bought the stand we knew it would be without a TV for a few weeks. We weren't planning on purchasing a TV until next month. However, the husband couldn't resist.

Sunday night we bought a new TV for the living room. 50" of HD bliss. I cannot wait for football season to start. Hog Party at our house! All are invited. :)

Today the husband was looking at our TV online and discovered that if you buy it online you get a free flat screen 19" TV. So tonight he returned our TV without returning the actual TV, ordered it online, had it shipped to the store, paid for it again and got a free TV. The baby TV will go in my scrapbook room. SCORE!!


So we've been rearranging our furniture and rearranging it again trying to decide where to put everything. I think we have finally made a decision for now. :) It may all be different in a week.

Decorating still stresses me out, but I'm learning more about what I like. I'm figuring out what my taste is and the more I do that the less stressful it becomes.