Last weekend…and it's already Wednesday.

Christmas break is officially over and the big boys have headed back to school to wrap up second grade.  How is that even possible?  As if my uterus were not having a difficult week already, after we converted Hampton's bed from a crib to toddler bed, now I realize we are approaching the "intermediate" grades….I  can't even handle it.

Anyhoo, as much fun as we had living in our pajamas and staying up way too late over the break it was time to go back to school.  I could not have watched ONE more movie, played ONE more board game, or heard ONE more time, "I'm hungry."  I love my kids as much as the next guy, but our "family time" meter petered out a good 6 days ago.  It was time.

Last Friday I began to feel a little desperate.  We politely asked {read: begged} Lee's parents if the boys could come there for a night or two because they needed a change of scenery.  That and I needed to take a shower without an audience.

Lee took the kids up Saturday and when that door closed I literally stood in the silence for 5 minutes.  Just listening to nothing.  It was awesome.  I piddled around the house, wrote a few thank you notes, took a shower…alone.

We went to church Saturday night and then met our neighbors, who were also kidless, at a little sushi place in town.  I ordered lettuce wraps and my favorite roll that has, as best we could tell, an asian version of pimento cheese.    We were stuffed by 8:30 and the hubbys said something about watching football, so Tina and I sent them home together and we headed to the TJ Maxx.  Nothing better than a deserted TJ and a good friend.

I found a great club chair {pic below} and decided that it might need to come live with us.  I took a few pictures to show Lee in hopes that we would love it.

Side story: We have a little "keeping room" {it was called that on our house plans…we've "kept" Hampton's toys and dust bunnies in there until now}… to make way for our Christmas tree, we moved a chair out of our den into the keeping room and I have come to love this cozy little spot.  We've always had one loveseat in there from our old house simply to have some furniture in there, but it never felt like a real "space."   When we took the tree down, I was so sad to lose my cozy chair so I had been thinking of buying a chair for that room or for the den.

{Keeping Room before we moved in and wrecked the place}

This chair is super comfortable and a neutral fabric…our TJ does a furniture special each January, maybe yours does too!  You should check it out…I will tell you about that floor lamp in my next post!

Sunday found us taking down Christmas and is it just me or is that not the saddest day?  I think I have a "Christmas House."  My den just looks better with a 9 foot tree in it.  We also went to pick up the new chair, had lunch at Zoe's Kitchen, and went by Lowe's.  Lee and I were joking that it felt like exactly the kind of day we had before kiddos.

Sunday night we decided to go to a movie…Saving Mr. Banks.  Y'all.  First of all, Mary Poppins was my favorite movie growing up.  I can sing every song and recite every line.  I know that shows my age, but it was an "older movie" when I started watching it.  I have been dying to see this movie and I will not give it away for those of you who still want to see it.  If you were a Mary Poppins fan, it is a must see.  And if you can watch through "Let's Go Fly a Kite" without crying we can not be friends anymore.  Just kidding.  But really.

  

Monday I cleaned house ALL DAY and let's just say it stayed that way until the boys got home.  That night I had a meeting, into which I flew like a chicken with my head cut off and perhaps one wing, and then flew to my mama's to celebrate my Mimi's 79th birthday!  She is just precious!  My mom made the Red Velvet-White Chocolate Cheesecake that graced the December cover of Southern Living.  It says this cake takes a total of 13 hours, 45 minutes to prepare.  That is love, y'all.  I just love Mimi's face when she sees the cake!!

So that was our weekend…my next post is going to be on favorite presents from Christmas!  

DIY Grocery Store Flower Arrangements

I mentioned a few days ago that I hosted my family for Easter this year...I wanted to make our table special and "springy" so of course I needed flowers!  I was planning to set my table with my Portmeirion Pomona dishes so I wanted to find something that complemented the colors in my plates. On my grocery store run that Friday before Easter, I found just what I was looking for at the Publix.

Well, there is a little more to the story.  When I first arrived at the store I found a beautiful bouquet.  It was just what I was looking for.  The catch?  It was $26.99.  I did not buy myself an Easter dress this year so I justified the flowers and put them in my buggy {do you call it a buggy?  a cart?}  I ran into my friend Stacey in the store and she even commented on how pretty they were, but as I cruised around the store, that $26.99 price was bugging me.  So I went back and looked again for something less expensive to replace the perfect bouquet.  I needed a big one because I was planning to split it in two to make two smaller arrangements.  I settled for a pretty enough $12 bunch and headed home.

Saturday morning I decided to go ahead and put the arrangements together {mainly to get the flowers out of my sink} so I headed outside to gather some "filler" greenery.  I cut two big leaves from my cast iron plants to go inside the vases and a few other things that looked like ivy that were growing on the ground in the woods behind our house.  I decided to use two matching cylinder vases that I had on hand.  Once inside, I split the flowers into two groups and was ready to go!

First, I put the cast iron leave in the vase to hide the stems of the flowers once they were in place...

 So where is the DIY you ask?  Well, I have seen this idea several time in magazines and online and finally decided to try it myself.  It's a tip for helping you arrange flowers like a pro.  You simply take clear tape and create a grid over the top of the vase like this....

it holds the flowers in place and check out the results! 

 My brother's girlfriend even ask me where I had the arrangements made!  

Success!  

Southern Home

Footings

Foundation

Foundation

Garage

Subflooring

T'was the week of framing and all over the lot,

the workers were pouring sweat because it was so stinkin' hot!

The footings were poured;

the foundation in place;

Even the front steps went in without haste!

I went by this morning to take a quick peek,

and was told we'd have walls by the end of the week!

To Be Continued...