What are your accomplishments for 2017?

This year is almost done and as I sit and reflect on everything that happened for the last 365 days I regret none of it.  The good the bad and the ugly, all of it was worth every laugh, cry, heartache, cheer and stress.

I've spent 41 years on this earth, watching season change, people change, babies growing up and lives happening in fast forward.  I was recently listening to a TED talk with my husband on the way back from out of town.  We were stuck on the interstate miles behind a wreck for about 45 minutes.  The TED talk was about time management and was it possible to grab a few more extra minutes in our day because there is never enough time.  As we sat in the car with NO kids, we both laughed and agreed with what the speaker was saying.  There is only 24 hours in a day, which can seem like enough but when you factor in sleep, commutes and work hours your day slowly melts away until you realize it is 10pm and your high hopes of accomplishments didn't get done and today's To DO list will have to roll over to tomorrow yet again.

The TED talk speaker ask someone she was interviewing would they have extra time in their day and the answer was always NO.  You have work, kids, school obligations, dinner, grocery shopping, clean the house, laundry, bills!! No, I have no extra time in my day.  But as she spoke about how when unforeseen event arise we ALL do find the time to deal with them and amazingly time opens up in our busy schedules.

If anyone had ask me this past summer if I had 3 months of time to give up I would have laughed in their face and ask what they had been drinking.  I had my families summer laid out.  Easy going, lazy summer days filled with pool fun, picking ripe vegetables from our garden, grilling out every night, bonfires, visiting art museums, scout trips, picnics in the park and late night movies.

That all changed the end of June with our house fire and suddenly I was forced to make TIME for something I wasn't prepared for.  I wasn't given a chose and it wasn't up for discussion; it was something I had to deal with and give my time to.  Did I have time for a fire no, no one has time for the unexpected BUT somehow that time is made.  Everything else gets put on hold and we find ourselves shifting our priorities to another focus.  That immediate focus needs our attention.

In the same respect we make time for what we priorities in our lives.  But what are those priorities in the 365 days we have in a year?  We all start with the same amount of days but how we use them depends upon us and the choices we make.  Are my hours going to tick by sitting in front of a tv or my cell phone looking at endless click and bait links, am I unconsciously going to spend hours scrolling through the same old Facebook post about "friends" vacations, work rants, yet another one of their children's achievements?  I've gotten sucked into that loop many times and find my face buried in my phone.  Finally, when I come up for air I realize just how much time I have wasted on such useless things.  I tend to refer to Facebook as Fakebook to my children because we only see peoples lives through the rose colored glasses of their post.  Glimpses of their digital reality.

How do you want to spend your 365 days in 2017?  As suggested by the speaker from the TED talk, instead of writing a resolution list for what you want to try and accomplish, write a list as if it was December 31, 2017 on WHAT you DID accomplish.  Think about the difference in those two statements.  Instead of writing a list of hopeful dreams for 2017, write a list of 2017 accomplishments.  Where do you want to be in a year:  New job, new city, new home........  This time next year where do you see yourself, have you used your days to the fullest or wasted your precious time on blinded priorities.

We are all given precious time, 365 days to face the world with strength, grace and courage.  Take those minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and make them your 2017 achievements!

Happy New Year!  

Cheers to new begins and fresh starts.  

I pray you walk through this coming year with love, grace and compassion. 

 

This Old House Part 2 / Moving Day and Demo begins

   

Even though the fire was contained to a small area just above our stove, the soot, smoke and fire extinguisher powder was in every room.  That required that our whole house be packed up, everything cleaned and then stored while each room was repainted and the kitchen was redone. I've never seen so many people in my house at once.  And not people I even know, complete strangers and they are everywhere and they are all working and packing and seeing all that is to be seen.  I am standing there in the way of everyone and everything thinking to myself, I wish I could bake everyone something, I love cooking and feeding people is how I show them my love...but then I realize, ohhhhh yes that isn't possible because my stove is sitting in my patio burned to a crisp.

There is noise in the air everywhere, cleaning tools and vacuums, and a HUGE Hepa filter running in the middle of my den.  I don't like noise, at all.  I see box after box being packed up.  Thank goodness I packed up my underwear before they started moving things out.....  Lord this is overwhelming to say the least.  I know they deal with traumatic situations every day but I don't and my family doesn't.  Every one is very kind and sweet and very soft spoken when I mention anything about the fire.  I feel embarrassed over all of it, my messy kitchen, the amount of stuff we have in this small house, the ridiculous mess in my son's room because I just shoved everything in his room before the party. (Easy clean up right?) Seriously there was my nephew's baby car seat, hairbows in gallon ziplocks I had for sale, two boxes going to Goodwill and a box of vintage (old) clothes I was getting ready to sell to a consignment store.

Finally everything was packed and in a big truck. I was left in an empty house that was only a sad reminder of the home I built.  BUT I never wavered from remembering how luck we were because it could have been the whole house.  Walls can be repainted, cabinets can be rebuilt and kitchen items can be repurchased.

Demo BEGINS!

We decided to demo our main bathroom during this time also.  My husband did all of the demo work plus a whole lot more work behind the scenes.  We hired all the painting, cabinet building and bathroom reno work out to professionals. 

  Our kitchen was a blank canvas, I'm nervous and excited all at once...

The next few post will be mainly photographs with a few descriptions of the 

process of renovating and redoing the inside of our home. 

This Old House Part 1 / An Unexpected Renovation after a fire)

 

I've never been in a fire, at least up until two weeks ago.  I knew fire safety pretty well because my parents had been volunteer first responders down in Eudora, Mississippi when I was a child.  My dad always taught the classes for all the volunteers for rescue, house fires and other emergency situations.  Little did I know that many, many years later I would plug those lessons into a real situation.  We had a kitchen grease fire that started on my stove.  It went from cold oil to flames in less than 6 minutes, it took the fire department 15 minutes to get there.  15 minutes that seemed like an eternity, I kept hearing the sirens and asking my friends where the fire truck was, I honestly have no idea why it took so long but I knew if I didn't do something I was going to loose my house.

                As soon as the skillet flames up, I ran to the cabinet under my sink and grabbed our fire extinguisher, pushed the trigger...nothing.  Then I remembered the pin, "take the pin out" I remember one of the friends saying.  I angled myself so I wasn't directly in line with the flaming skillets and pulled the trigger of the fire extinguisher.  I can't describe how quickly that all the light disappeared in my house.

 It went completely dark and it was bright daylight outside, all I could see was the glow of the flames.  The extinguisher powder was like the most dense fog I have ever seen.  The fire went out but within seconds re-lite and flamed up even larger.  I sprayed the fire extinguisher again and it went out but a few second later it flamed up again, I threw three or four cookie sheets on top of it trying to muffle the flames and stop the oxygen supply but the flames just came up around the pans and cookie sheets.  I had to go outside to get a breath of fresh air but when I turned around the fire had flamed back up so much it was starting to catch the upper cabinets on fire and the wooden cooking utensils on the counter top.  I grabbed the extinguisher again and empty the last little bit realizing that I wasn't going to put this fire out and it was spreading quickly.  I had no baking soda but I did have a jar of flour.  I threw the burned cookie sheets off the skillet and dumped as much flour as I could on the fire.  It took the flames down a bit but still not out.

 
                  Still waiting of the fire department, still wonder why they aren't here yet, I could hear there sirens and I knew the station was close but they weren't there, WHY??  I told myself that if I didn't get the fire out soon, I was going to see my whole kitchen in flames very soon.  I made the split decision to grab a thick hot pot holder (Love me some William Sonoma Hot Pot Holders) I grabbed the handle of the skillet, flames rolling still and carried it to the back door and threw it.  The cast iron skillet shattered when it hit the concrete patio.  I turned around to see the kitchen utensils still burning and smoke rolling under the upper cabinet around the corner into the den.  I walked back grabbed the handle of the container and walked to the back door, flames and all and threw it out.  I remember the ceramic shattering everywhere but the flames went out.
               The fire was finally out!  I opened windows to get the rest of the smoke and extinguisher powdered out of the house, that is when the reality of what actually happened began to set in.  I walked into the dining room and saw all of the soot and powder everywhere. 

The beautiful red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting I had made that morning, covered in soot and powder, the crackers and other food completely covered in powder.  The beautiful fresh cut flowers and delicate antique dishes set out consumed in a layer of unforgiving soot and powder.  I looked down and saw my footprints in the wooden floor that my husband and I had painstakingly refinished years before.

I ran my finger across the glass topped desk and thought at this point I would completely fail the white glove test if Ms.Manners can knocking at my door.  I had just spend the better part of a month working on this house to get ready for this party and it literary went up in smoke in 15 minutes.  I walked into my bedroom and saw extinguisher powder even in there and realized really quickly there was no way I was going to able to clean this mess up.  I am very meticulous about my house when I entertain.  I love decorating and designing and making my home very personal and comfortable and to see it in this state was almost more than I could handle.

              I kept thinking I was in a nightmare, "Did that just happened", and then thinking my husband must have gotten the call from our security company because the alarms are all going off.  I grab my phone and see (missed call, missed call, missed call....)  I knew he is panicking.  He was in Atlanta for a week on business.  I call him and have to tell him there was a house fire, can you imagine how that feels to someone hundreds of miles away and knowing they can't be there to help.

         In the mean time the firemen finally show up.  I'm outside drowning my face in the water hose and coughing up smoke and powder.  I hear one fireman say, "who put out the fire", I hear another one say, "the home owner"  I think to myself, what choice did I have....  But I am relieved they are finally at my home and checking everything out.  They pull the range out and put it in my patio, it looks like a pathetic excuse of a once worthy kitchen range.  It looks so sad and useless and I am mad and happy all at once because I hated that old crappy range but it has given us some marvelous, scrumptious creations over the years.


                 They pull the vent-a-hood down to check around it and check the wall and socket for any hot spots.  I see them opening every window in my house and smoke pouring out of every possible crevices and crack.  My heart sunk when I saw my son's window opened because he has asthma and I know all that powdered and soot have covered his room.  How am I going to begin this clean up? How?  My once beautiful house looks like a sooty, dusty bowl that has been forgotten about on the top shelf of a china cabinet for the last 50 years.


                 This is going to change our lives, I know that but I also know I am so thankful my friends were not hurt, my kids were not home and I didn't have a burn on me.  God is good even in the midst of a disaster.  I say a silence pray of thanks that my home is still standing, how quickly it could have all been gone.   It certainly puts things in prospective, materialistic possessions are just that POSSESSIONS.  We certainly have enough of those.
                          The scary part is over in a flash of minutes, now the tough part begins.  I pray that the process goes smoothly, that I remain calm even when things seem overwhelming.  I pray that I show grace to everyone around me and most of all patience.  And so on a quiet Wednesday afternoon in the middle of a hot summer in Memphis I begin the long process of making this poor house look like a home again.

I can do this...........

 

Recycling old crayons

We have been collecting broken crayons for about a year and saving them in a gallon ziplock bag.  This summer while the children were at work with me, I pulled out the bag of sad broken crayons and got started creation new HAPPY crayons.

I used fancy tart mini pans that have been sitting in their box unopened for the last 15 years.  Apparently, I was never going to get around to making fancy fruit tarts with them.  What better use than a fun project with my two children.

First tray ready for the oven!

 

 

How to make fun crayons:

Supplies: Broken crayons (paper removed)

Muffin pans or tart pans

Cookie sheet 

Aluminum foil

Oven or toaster oven

Instructions:

Cover your cookie sheet with aluminum foil, just in case your crayons run over the edge and onto your cookie sheet.

Preheat oven/toaster oven to 225 degrees

Lay out your tart pans and start adding the crayons to each pan.  You may need to break the crayons even smaller so they don't lay over the edges.  Pile the crayons pretty full in each pan,  they will melt and fill in all the empty space between the broken crayons.

Pop the tray in the oven and watch, it took our crayons about 10 minutes to melt.  That was the best part, the kids loved watching them melt down and the colors run together.

After they look melted on top and you can no longer see any lumps.  Remove the tray from the oven (BE CAREFUL, the is very hot, you are working with melted wax)  No kid help for this part!!!

Let them cool completely, I think we waited about two hours.  They will pop out of the tart pans very easily when they are completely cool. 

Fun tip:  The kids made ones that matched different holidays, like (Orange,black, yellow) for Halloween and (Red, green and white) for Christmas and even (Pink, white and red) for Valentine's Day.

Let them cool completely!!!

Kitchen update on a small budget

We moved into our first home 13 years ago.  Since the day I moved in, I have hated the kitchen cabinets but our budget will never allow for a kitchen renovation and my husband loved the dark, old stained cabinets.  So for 13 years we have gone back and forth about painting them.   I have researched and read countless articles, book and blogs for tips and tricks for painting kitchen cabinets.  I was so ready to get started!

THEN, He and the children took a trip to visit family and I stayed home.  Here was my chance, even if he hated them there would be no turning back, so the day they left I said a small prayer for guidance and started taking hinges off the doors and scrubbing all the surfaces.  I had four days to get the job finished, big undertaking, HUGE!!!!!!!

Before pictures:

The ugly hinges and handles had to go!

Seriously, what did these people do to these cabinets before we moved in.  Yes, I had contact paper down and YES it was a chore to remove all the sticky mess.....

Lets start painting:

First coat of Zinsser primer, that stain is going to be a bear to hide.

Stain still there..... coat 4

 

 8 coats of Zinsser and the stain is finally gone and I am loving the cabinets already.  So much brighter and clean looking!  And those cabinet doors on the right, yep not going back up, I love open cabinets.

 

Loveliness at it pure form,

 I can't tell you how long I just stood and stared at this cabinet.......at 3 am on day two. :-)

Side two and this is about the time I realize even with a small kitchen it was a huge job and I am having trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.   Husband and kids due home in two days.....

Clearly the inside of the rest of the cabinets will not get done, focus on the outside, FOCUS!!

New hardware!!

I LOVE the new satin finish cup pulls,  Lowe's Hardware

See the lovely lady laying on my dirty floor!  She saved the day, I realized in the middle of night 3 that my husband had taken all of his tools with him to his parents, including his drill and I needed a drill.  She showed up with a drill and stayed a long time helping me with almost every drawer in the kitchen. 

And then it happened...............

They-came-home-early to surprise me...........Oh my.  Ummm no please stay two more days PLEASE for the love of God!!  They got the bigger surprise, cabinet doors everywhere and a half finished kitchen.  I was a little scared and not sure I needed to come home from work that day, but they loved it even in its half finished state.  So to calm my nerves my daughter picked up a screw driver and started helping.  Love that girl!

 

 

How to paint cabinet without leaving streaks:  

The best advice I can give you is how to paint your kitchen cabinets.  there is so much advice out there.  Most say just bite the bullet and rent a paint sprayer and haul all the cabinets fronts outside.  I had no extra budget to rent one or the knowledge to know how to properly use a sprayer.  Besides, you do not need a use a sprayer you can paint them with a brush and roller and get a beautiful finish with no streaks.  Trust me! 

Step 1: Scrub every inch of them to remove all dirt and grease.  We don't fry anything but trust me there is food residue and grease on your cabinets.

 Step 2: Get one of those reusable block sanders that are made out of thick foam and has a thin layer of sandpaper grit on the surface, you can wash and reuse.   Go over the all the cabinets and doors until they feel like glass and smooth.  I know this is a tedious step but prepping your cabinets is key to how they will turn out and last.

 Step 3: Grab your favorite paint brush (Mine is a 3 inch brush from Lowe's)  Paint your first primer coat on, back & forth in straight lines ( not thick), let it dry completely.  Don't forget the edges.

Step 4:  Get your paint color and use the same brush, working in straight lines across the cabinets and doors, while the paint is still wet get a small roller and roll over it in the same directing, don't over roll.  Move onto your next door front.  I worked on 2-3 cabinets doors at a time to make sure I didn't mix any doors up as I went. Working in small section is key to a smooth even surface.

Step 5: Repeat Step 4 (this is your second coat of paint)  Total coats will be 3 counting primer coat.

Step 6: (Optional) you can add a clear coat to your cabinets to prevent chipping on the paint BUT I choose not to and just see how my paint holds up.  I was afraid the poly might yellow my pretty white paint.

See no streaks!

After pictures:

 This is my favorite cabinet, it looks custom build in the after picture.

 

 The window is an amazing transformation, it looks so much bigger.

(Before and after)

 (Before and after)

 (Before and after)

 (Before and After)

 

 (Before and After)  What a huge difference!!

A few pretty details:

I bought these vintage looking canisters from Target about 8 years ago and finally ordered custom labels for them from a lady off Etsy.  

 

My dishes are a mix of new and antique:

The white bowls are Fire King, the large Green bowl is from Target (about 12 years ago) it is a set of three nesting bowls.  The orange plates & ramekins are from Pier One Imports (clearance)  They match my husband's grandmother's antique dishes we use every day.  The soup cups are antique Corelle dishware in the Gold Butterfly pattern.  You can easily find antique Corelle dishes almost anywhere and they are inexpensive.  I love them because they are not only beautiful but very, very durable.  I think you could drive a truck over them!  Plus they are very thin and take up less space in your kitchen.

Old Avon Ruby Red Glassware & and little cup and saucer from a home decor store.

Yes, we have a fish living in our kitchen.  He is very friendly and loves to play chase around his bowl with your finger.

 Don't be afraid to take on a home diy project, you will get more joy out of something you accomplished for yourself than anything someone else could do.

Total cost of this small kitchen update was around $180.  

That included paint a, new hardware and a new rug.  The primer, wood putty, painters tape, and brushes I already had on hand.

I still want to replace the old pink linoleum floor with 12 inch tile, tile the backsplash, replace the countertops and replace the stove with a stainless steel gas one.  That is another blog post and another BIGGER budget.  Time to start saving those pennies again. 

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