I must be awesome (or something)!

Ok, so I have been looking high and low for a bookshelf for the nursery. I tried Toys R' Us and their Baby cousin, various furniture stores and warehouse stores.

I hadn't been having any luck until this past weekend when I pulled in to a shanty shack selling used crap-o-la and spotted THIS (gasp!!!) in the back of the store (on it's rungs were VHS tapes from the 1980's for sale).

So I ask the toothless lady "How Much?" and hold my breath. She hems and haws and gums and chews and says "Wellllllll...... it's real wood an' all...... it came from my own house an' all...." and I'm thinking "Ah darn, it's going to be too much!" and she says "I couldn't take a penny lessen $25. Nope. Couldn't do it."

Woo Hoo! I said "SOLD!" so fast she spun around like a top as I rushed to the car for my wallet.

She was probably cursing herself for quoting too low a price, but that's one of the benefits of keeping a dirty car filled with dog crates... people assume you are either crazy or poor. Or both.

So the weekend was spent painting.

Here we are at 2 hours (oh, and I went to the car wash immediately after buying the piece: Crazy, perhaps, poor no longer!):

4 hours:



6 hours (done):



And here, from various angles:





And VOILA! Am I awesome or what?!?!? I used the templates that my neighbor's mom used on the famous mural and I think it turned out GRRRREAT!

What do you guys think? (Click on the picture for larger and more details.)

O.M.G! Can it GET any better?????

Some seriously wonderful things have happened this week!

Of course, number 1 is passing court and becoming Charlie's mother.

Followed closely by, in no particular order of importance because I think all these things are EXCELLENT!

My mom gifted her frequent flyer miles and the two of us will be using 280,000 miles (yes, that's TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY THOUSAND miles) to fly to Addis and back! Hurrah, Mom! Massive savings! My mom has been working as a tour guide for decades and I think we are using a large portion of her career miles here. Thank you, Mom.

And THEN tonight my neighbor Sally calls me to come over as her mother, Laurel (of this mural fame) has "something she wants to give you". So I walk over and....


TAAA-DAAAHH!!!!!!!!!!
Please click on it for details.

LOOK at this BEAUTIFUL quilted wall hanging that Laurel sewed! From scratch! I wish my camera was better with colors, it matches the mural and bedding perfectly. It's so gorgeous! I'm thrilled to the tips of my toes! Charlie is going to have the best nursery ever!



And THEN (wait It's not over yet!) Laurel presented me with this HAND-CUT (out of wood, she cut it herself) gorgeous mobile!

That also matches the nursery theme and she added a green dragon fly (I love dragon
flies) and a yellow bee, just to make it more interesting for Charlie when she's lieing underneath it.
I tried to take a picture of it, but it's really hard to get it all in one shot as it's a good size and moving and not hung up correctly yet. You can probably get an idea of what it's like.


It's like Disney World on a sunny day! It's colorful and bubbly and fun and moving and crazy and JOY FILLED! I'm just beside myself with gratitude. I must be the luckiest person on earth. To be Charlie's mom, to have a relatively free flight there and back, and to have (not only) talented but GENEROUS neighbors as well.

Stay tuned for more pictures of Charlie. Just because :-)

Word Art

I created this using the ImageChef website. Fun times. Having this image I can now go to CafePress and create T-shirts, coffee cups, tote bags, or whatever I want with this image on it!

If I can figure out how to print it out in top quality, I might even frame it for Charlie's room... I was able to match the nursery colors so it would look good, I think.



What do you think? T-Shirt or wall art?

Look at my nursery mural! Yay!

Remember, this is what I started with (above).

Laurel came over this morning and by noon, she was finished. It looks GREAT! I'm so pleased!

Again, the colors are not true as I had to use a flash to get the focus correct. Here is the "work in progress":

And the finished product, taa-daaa!:

(Again, click on the picture to get a larger version with more detail.)

What do you all think?

Fabulous, right?

Tomorrow my neighbor's mom, Laurel, is coming to start work on a mural (or maybe that's too big of a word...) she's coming to start working on painting a piece on the nursery walls.

To get in the proper mood, here are some other murals I think are outstanding!

The Balcons de Barcelona is a mural of 450 m2 on a dividing wall of a building, where by means of the technique of trompe-l'oeil, it imagines a group of outstanding personalities in the life of the city at different times from his history such as Joaquim Blume, Cristóbal Colón, Santiago Rusiñol, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, and many others. It was created in 1992.




Hide and seek







Wall painting in Quebec, Canada.



A street artist who works with abstract forms consistent with typical graffiti vocabulary and vertical surfaces that are highly taggable, Daim adds a vivid three-dimensionality to his work that makes it seems to pop off the wall before your very eyes. He has worked in spray paint but has also used virtual reality devices to craft amazing three dimensional works in virtual space.






Thanks to Oddee.com for the images and summaries. I love that site. Take a moment to check it out. Or take an afternoon....

Been shopping!

I know some PAPs have been shopping since they signed on the dotted line, but I always told myself to wait until I passed court. As you can see I almost made it, at 25 days prior to court! Some things are just too cute to pass up! They might not be there anymore in 25 days from now! Carpe Diem!
This is a casual summery look:

This is a shirt and brown pants (should I be writing descriptions for fashion mags or keep my day job??)


Here is a Wal-Mart special that I loved:


And this piece de resistance is from my parents, a lovely accent lamp that matches the "Butterfly Meadow" theme and has a butterfly on the post. The colors are not depicted accurately... I think it's time for a new camera.

If you click on the picture you can see it much larger and in more detail.

(5 pts for the first person to post the author of the famous poem "carpe diem")

Ahhh! New floors!

This post needs no words..... except thanks to my parents who stayed home to supervise all day in the mayhem, so I could save my leave for the maternity type and not the floor installation type!

Ok, what is with the orbs in all my pictures? Ghosts? Notice they are never in the same spots (no pun intended!)

If you recall, this is what the nursery used to look like! So there is a major improvement!

and the corner area:



And I also got my room done too, because what the hey! It's not like I haven't spent my life savings on this adoption... or my surgery... so why not drop some more bills?





Oh and just a gratuitous pic... this is how tired everyone feels!

Beulah's exhausted from barking at the workmen ALL. DAY. LONG. And Mom is tired from cleaning up behind the workmen.

And here are some tulips, just because it's spring and they are out!

Ok, 10 points for whoever can tell me what the orbs are, why they are never in the same spot (if it was dust they would be in the same spot on the frame) and why they only show up inside the house and not on outdoor shots.)