30 Years and 30 Minutes (My First 5k)

My brother and his wife were planning on coming up for Thanksgiving this year, so I had this bright idea to sign Daddy, Bubby, Sister-in-law, and myself up for the 6th Annual 5k Turkey Trot. So, this morning we got up, put on our running shoes, and gave it our best. For the last six months I have been attending a boot camp for women and getting in shape. I have never run more than a mile or two at one time in my entire life. I thought, let's see if I can handle 3.2 miles without stopping and see how good of shape I am in. Amazingly enough, I ran the entire 5k and finished it in exactly 30 minutes 21 seconds! I amazed myself! I know some of you might think that's not very fast, but it was a good time for me :)

As I was running this morning, there were some moments that I thought I just can't do this, I need to stop and just walk the rest of the way. I would quickly pep talk myself and say "You can do this! You can persevere!" So, I would keep pressing forward. Sometimes I think our Christian walk is just like a race. At some point we let Satan tell us lies and try to convince us that we can't be disciplined to follow God and we should just quit, yet as Christians, we are so fortunate to have the Holy Spirit (if we allow it) to pep talk us and encourage us to pray, read, our Bible, & worship God. When we do these things, our relationship with God flourishes and we are able to persevere and stay in the race. So, when you feel like your Christian walk is too much of a trial and you want to give up, remember this scripture to help you finish the "race". . . "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him." James 1:12


Here I am getting all excited about running my first 5k ever!

Sister-in-law, Bubby, Daddy, & Miss Priss, proudly wear their "I Survived The 6th Annual Turkey Trot" shirts.

The Twelve Trees of Christmas: Day 2

On the 2nd day of Christmas the Tree Fairy gave to me, a tiny little blue & white Delft tree. . .

This little tree is on a small round table in my guest bedroom. . .

This bedroom is yellow and blue with Delf accents. I will have to share pictures of the room with you sometime. This tree is decorated with blue and white ornaments from Gardent Ridge, blue and silver ribbon from Hobby Lobby, and little Delft shoes and a Delft tree topper.

The Twelve Trees Of Christmas: Day 1

On the 1st day of Christmas the Tree Fairy gave to me, a tiny little teacup tree. . .

So, I know you will think I am crazy, but I put all of my Christmas up Halloween weekend. We still have our outside decorating to do, we actually wait until after Thanksgiving to do that (Don't want people to think we are weird or anything like that!). On Halloween we started getting all the stuff out of the attic and my kids thought that because the Christmas stuff was out that they had missed Halloween. They thought they were not going to get to trick-or-treat that night. I had to explain to them that it was actually still Halloween and that I was just getting a head start on Christmas. So, over the next month or so I am going to blog about the twelve trees of Christmas, and they will either be all from my house or others I have decorated other places. I started with my teacup tree that sits in the middle of my island because I have had several requests for it. Have you put any Christmas decorations up yet?

I would like to thank the academy for this honor!

Girly Stuff has bestowed this award thingy on me.It is such an honor!

I am just beside myself! Ok, I have to stop right now! I am making myself laugh out loud :)

The rules for the award thingy:

1. List 5 things I love

2. Tag 5 other bloggers

3. Link back to the one who bestowed it upon you.

5 Things I Love:

1. Me (No Surprise there!)

2. My family (Daddy, E.T., Baby Girl, and the rest of the crazy people lucky enough to be related to me!)

3. Working out (Boot Camp kicks my rear 3 days a week and I love it! I can't get enough of it!)
4. Shopping for absolutely EVERYTHING!!!

5. Decorating for myself and others.

6. Organizing

7. Spending quiet time with God.

I know, that is 7 things I love! Sorry!

My Tags:

1. An American Girl In Tokyo

2. Cutie Patootie

3. ?

4. ?

5. ?

I can only come up with two tags :( Girly Stuff just might want to take my award thingy away from me.

Swatches Come To Life

Here is another room I worked on for my Dad. This is his step daughter's room. They gave me an idea of the colors they wanted in the room and we went from there. So, after collecting fabric swatches at the fabric store (Interior Fabrics), these in the picture above are what we narrowed down too. Then I picked a paint color for them to have the room painted and I took the fabric swatches to the seamstress to get a yardage estimate and labor estimate. Finally, ordered the fabric and about 6 weeks later. . . .

Presto-change-o! Here you see the life that has been breathed into the tiny little fabric swatches I started with. While the seamstress was working, I was shopping for pillow forms, accessories, etc. Look at the cute little bench I found at Ross and had the seamstress recover to match the headboard that she made. She made the duvet cover reversible. The reverse side is the same fabric we used for the shower curtain you will see later. . .

All accessories you see were found at Ross or Marshall's. To the left of the dresser, there is a bulletin board I covered with fabric scraps we had. To the right of the dresser there is a flat screen T.V. hanging on the wall. We used a brown cord cover from Hobby Lobby to cover the ugly wires hanging down from it.

We made the drapes out of a smooth silk. They are lined and interlined to add extra body to the fabric. There is also cute tassel trim on the inside edge of the panels.

Here is the bathroom shower curtain I had made out of the fabric from the reverse side of the duvet cover.

Here is a picture of the really pretty tassel trim we put at the top of the shower curtain to give it a little something special. This shower curtain hangs from a curtain rod just like we hung the drapes in her bedroom on. It really gives it a more elegant finish. So, there you have it. . . that is just one of the other rooms I did for my Dad this summer . . . more rooms to show you later.