Happy Thanksgiving and Lazy Black Friday

Yesterday was a beautiful day for Thanksgiving.  The air was chilled just enough and the sun was shining brightly.  The food and company were excellent.  I usually do not brag on my cooking but I will say that I will never buy a frozen turkey again.  This year we splurged and purchased an organic, free-range, never frozen, fresh turkey from Harry's Farmers Market.  OMG it was SO good.  Yes, you can tell a difference!

19 lbs. of pure yumminess! 

Hanging with dad!

Cheesing with mama.

Princess approved dinner!

Even the little one ate all of her turkey this year, which was a big improvement over the 1+ hour show down we had last year with her and her dinner plate.

As for today, the infamous Black Friday, it is nothing but the great chill out for us.  I thought about heading to Target for their midnight opening but fell asleep during the 11 o'clock news at some point. Dear husband did have to work a few hours this morning since he is in retail but the afternoon and evening will be spent relaxing and snacking on leftovers.  To me, it sounds like another absolutely perfect day.

Hammer and a nail

I did it! I put some holes in the wall and I wasn't even tearing down sheet rock!  The first set of tiny little holes went into my kitchen ceiling.  I collect friendship balls or witch balls as they are called in some areas of the country.  Mine come from a variety of locations - some are hand blown from artisans in Savannah, Georgia while others come from New England.  The witch ball is a hollow sphere of colored glass hung in the window of a house to protect it against witchcraft. The webs of blown glass inside the ball are there to catch the bad spirits. As best as I can tell, they originated in the 18th century.  Friendship balls do not have the webs and have been around since the 20th century.  I love them as they are each unique and are mesmerizing.

I was agonizing over where to put them and finally went with a corner of the kitchen eating area.  I was hoping for a place with more light but this is remotely familiar as it is about the same location I had them in our former home.  I still have a few more to put up and I am not sure where I'll put them but I must say it is nice to see them again.

So Thankful...

It is hard to imagine that Thanksgiving is this week and it will be our second family celebration of this holiday in our home.  Last year, we moved in most of the first floor just in time for the big dinner.  As I sat on my front porch this afternoon, soaking up the beautiful fall sunshine and mild weather, I still feel like I need to pinch myself.  We live here now. This is our home.  Funny how a year can go by and it still feels like we are living in a dream.

Maybe it is because we still own our other home. Maybe it is because we still have boxes in storage. Or maybe it is because we are still trying to figure out who gets to put a nail in the wall first (or to attempt to use the picture railing and frame hooks that we have!).  Who knows why it feels like we are living in a dream.  I really don't care because I know that I don't and won't ever wake up from it!  

This evening, I was browsing through some old photo files and found pictures from our first Thanksgiving in our 1910 dream home.  Can't you smell the turkey? I hope you and yours have a blessed week of many thanks! 

Paul and I stayed up late the night before Thanksgiving, hanging curtains and rods.

First bird in the new house! I think it was about 18 lbs.

Cooked!

Table dressed and ready to go.

Sweet treats are icing on the cake!

Life in Scaryetta

We had so much fun with Halloween this year.  Here are a few pictures of our haunted house.  Can't wait to see what the child wants to do with it all next year.  She picked out the spiders herself (eek!).

Take this rug and shove it....

I don't want you any more!!!  Well, that is an exaggeration to some extent.  Remember when I posted about that beautiful runner we finally found for our stairs?  We had it installed and we have been miserable ever since. Not because the rug is ugly or poorly made but rather due to the install.  I knew the day the flooring guys arrived at the house and I spoke to my husband on the phone that he was not a happy camper.  You see, at the top of our very old, narrow stairs is a very unique shape called pie stairs.  We happen to have three of them.  When the consultant came out for the first inspection and measure, he was very confident that the installers would be able to accommodate our pies.  Ha! Not so much...

So we now know we love having carpet on the stairs as it makes it much easier for all of us (animals included) to get up and down the stairs with ease.  However, the pies are an eye sore since the carpet pattern is all out of whack.  Thankfully, The Home Depot is a great company that stands by its word and they have refunded our money completely.  We have now located a carpet company that is more than confident that they can do the job.  They have shown us examples of pies they have done which has raised our comfort level. Unfortunately, we are back to the drawing board on what pattern to pick.  We attempted to look at samples this past weekend at the showroom but every pattern I seemed to touch belonged to the wool family which runs about $68 a square foot.  Yep, you read that correctly...SIXTY EIGHT DOLLARS.  We are going to try and get back there later in the week to search through the many, many books of samples to see if we can find a match.

Halloween is just around the corner!

My husband and I have this huge "to do" list to complete before Thanksgiving.  Sure, we could have been doing a little along the way but we are true procrastinators.  We will tackle it all in little over a month!!! (Or so we hope!)

But wait! Halloween falls in between now and then.  We've had so much fun this year decorating the outside of our house with our four year-old.  She is really into the spirit this year and it shows. Thanks to some wonderful friends who drink way more milk than we ever would, my daughter and I worked on a DIY Halloween project last night - Ghost Lanterns made out of milk jugs.  They are turning out to be oh-so-cute.  I wish I could say it was a product of some designing brainstorm I had late one night but alas, I found it on my new Web addiction, Pinterest.  Here are the steps if you want to make a set for your yard.  Below is a picture of the first step, drawing on the boo-tastic faces.

Once upon a time...

There was a girl who found the home of her dreams.  It was in the neighborhood in which she had been raised and it was where she wanted her daughter to grow up.  She and her husband took a risk, put in an offer and sat back while the banks did their business.  Five months later, she closed on the short sale and called the 1910 lady all hers.  Then, she decided she would blog about her adventures and all the things that she and her family would do to put their fingerprints on the home that they never thought they would have.  


Then reality hit!

Thankfully, I can say the above story is mostly true.  Indeed, my husband and I thankfully own the home of our dreams.  Our now four-year-old LOVES her home complete with her pink and purple room that we have decorated for her.  Alas, the blog...it has not been well kept as I would have liked.  It all started with the pesky home computer problems and uploading of pictures.  Part of me feels like you cannot blog if you do not have pictures to show along with the words that you find interesting.  So I am slack.  Some would say I am over extended.  I have one girlfriend who questions if I ever sleep! Yes, I am a busy body.  I love to volunteer and do things...getting out and about is awesome!  Part of my itch to do something was this blog. I am going to do my best yet again to get back to it.  I will post pictures...I owe the World Wide Web something for starting up this domain, don't I?

So if you stumble upon this blog or you have bookmarked it because you are my friend, continue to peep in from time to time.  I promise, I will start to write again and see where this dream continues to go!