Celebrating The Agave

I am typically a tight wad. I do not like spending money- especially on NEW things. So this feels like a big SPLURGE. That's why it takes me so long to finish things. I also don't like to buy anything because I'm still trying to get rid of stuff! So if I do, I need to be SURE it will work and it's something I really, REALLY want and love. And that I will like it for many years to come.

It especially feels big because I also recently went to Hobby Lobby- for the first time in FIVE YEARS! It is about 38 miles of city driving away from me! Good thing I live out here, in "the back end of yonder" LOL! I love that store. I found a few things there that will help me to finish my 'Arizona Wall' in the family room. But I'm still working on it so that has to wait.

Now presenting....

The new agave picture!
I am so in love with it.
And so glad that Bill gave me the encouragement to "Just get it!" when I told him I had been agonizing over buying it for months!

For a refresher, here is the wall above the couch 'before'....

The new picture is so beautiful!

I took another picture later in the day- it's so fun how pictures change in different lighting.

I also moved these two down to tie in more with the end table rather than floating randomly on the wall. The indian drawing was made by my son when he was in elementary school and the coppery leaves were my Taimi Grandma's.

And onto the family room.....

Here is the 'before'....

And now my new mirror!
(my AZ wall is a big mess right now so that's why you are only seeing this side hee hee!)

This mirror is perfect! It brings the warmth of wood and an oval shape, plus- it adds some reflective light to a darker corner. With that wood frame, I don't feel the need to add wood planks on the walls anymore. So, in the long run, this mirror was a whole lot cheaper than spending all that money and time on wood! (And I would have had to paint them white anyway- totally defeats the purpose- it only would have added texture.)

I took the mirror out in the bright, bright sunlight to take some pictures. (That corner that it hangs in has terrible lighting.)

You can see the detail of the wood here, but it really isn't that light of a color. The sunlight just makes it appear that way.

I am so excited to finally have found solutions for my decorating trouble spots!

Happy Things

My cactus flower busted out a humongo bloom!

I love line drying clothes....they smell like sunshine!

My lemon tree is growing lemons!!! Amazing.

I love, love, LOVE wearing flannel shirts with a long sleeved tee under.

So comfy! I had one flannel and liked it a lot so last year, I bought two more and this year, three more! I buy them in the men's department because not only are they cheaper, they are also a more heavy weight flannel.

I'm a such a fashionista LOL!

I love reading books but every once in awhile I get burnt out- then it's puzzle time! I have to hurry and finish so we can have the table back. I have a felt puzzle thingie but this one has 2,000 pieces and it's too big for it. 

This arrangement makes me smile inside every time I look at it!
It's kind of a springy-valentines type cheeriness!

(I got rid of my wooden box and started using this vintage metal bread box instead.)

And the runner it's on was my Taimi Grandma's! I love using her things around the house. Warm memories..... :)

A Scare

Our tiny little granddaughter gave us a scare last Friday. Our daughter rushed her to the ER because she had struggled to breathe a couple times after coughing. She immediately thought RSV! and VROOM- off they went. (When they are only 3 ½ weeks old, you don't wait around.) The ER staff did a mess of tests and everything was coming back normal. No RSV, flu, pneumonia, or even fever! After 7 hours, my daughter called and said she just wanted to take baby home!- but yet in the same breath, she told me she just didn't like how lethargic baby was......but she just wanted to go home!!! They decided to keep her overnight for observation and in the morning, the lab found Group B Strep in her urine. This is very serious in babies. Standard treatment is 10 days in the hospital with heavy duty antibiotics. After talking with our beloved pediatrician (she treated our kids and now she is seeing our grands!), the hospital said they could go home on Monday evening because our beloved pediatrician said she would meet  them at her office on Saturday and Sunday to administer the antibiotics!!!! She goes in once a day at the same time because the shot needs to be repeated every 24 hours. This Sunday will be her last dose! YAY!!!!  

This was last Sunday at the hospital....

Poor little innocent babe waiting for her antibiotic shot in her tiny little thigh. We are very fortunate it was diagnosed so early. Infants can become septic in a very short time with this and the situation could have been much worse.

SO THANKFUL!!!!

Needless to say,

....decorating and January purging pretty much stopped.

I have been playing ketchup the last couple days.
But it hasn't passed mustard yet.... ;)

I did at least get the agave picture unwrapped though. It's still not hung because I am waiting for Bill to be able to help....Pictures hanging all wonky kinda irritate me. And I just finished patching all the old nail holes in the wall!-  I know if I try to hang it myself, I will have to buy another tub of spackle! 

Last Sunday I decided to check the weather....

WOWZA!

Sure didn't feel THAT hot out there!

I figured it MUST be a misprint...

And I'm also kinda glad they aren't always accurate?

Decorating Rut Solved

I have been following along with The Apartment Therapy's January cure. They have a lot of clutter reducing tips I like. (I haven't been following their cleaning schedule, though. ;) Still doing FLY Lady)

Anyway, I read this:

Apartment Therapy The January Cure: Assignment 5

And in the article it said:

Do a Mini-Meditation
Find a spot in your home that you rarely (maybe never!) sit in that gives you a view on a room or area that you feel is especially problematic. Take a seat on a chair (or the floor) and just observe for ten minutes.

I right away knew it had to be my living room. Something just feels wrong in there but I have been stuck, stuck, stuck.

 All is fine this way.....

I especially like above the organ.

The color combinations and the mixture of all different types of stuff- it just speaks to me!

Then I went and stood by the front door and looked around.

Okay. That's the problem. The wall above the couch. BLAH. Way too boring. I had found prints and shoved them into frames to make a collage to fill the space but it obviously was not working....

I was standing there staring at it trying to think.

THEN.

I remembered an agave picture that I saw online from World Market that I have been drooling over for months. In fact, I even tried to convince my daughter to buy it for her new house. I quickly asked her if they had decided to buy it or not. The answer was...NOT. Yahoo!

The reason I had resisted buying it was because I already have a prickly pear picture I had made- way back in the day when my living room was blue and I wanted to get more green in there....

Then Bill wanted to paint all the walls in the house white and after, that picture looked awful in there.

I moved it to the family room.

 It looked a little odd so I painted this old 'thing-a-ma-jig'...

....green and hung it above the prickly pear.

It helped, but it still felt off. Then I was thinking I would like to plank the walls on either side of the fireplace but I hesitated because if I had to paint them white..... would it even help? (I am still working on an 'Arizona Wall' to the right of the fireplace- yes, it looks a bit odd right now!)

I had been wanting the agave picture to replace the prickly pear but it is SQUARE. It wouldn't fit in that space at all. But, now I know the agave must go in the living room! Perfect! It will even bring more green into the living room!

But. Now I had a problem in the family room. I needed to get rid of that old one now. I didn't want to have two cactus pictures on canvas....

THEN.

I had to go into town one day so I stopped in at World Market and found a mirror. That solved EVERYTHING.

So I went online and ordered the agave picture. I'm so excited!  I might not get any more work done around here because I will be watching out the window for the UPS truck. :))))