Spring is in the Air

It is not unusual to have an early Spring in Atlanta.

This year our spring has seemed to arrive earlier than ever.

It's as if we went right from fall to spring without a winter in between.

That's fine with me, we moved south from Ohio for a reason.

One sure sign around here that it's Spring is the blooming of our Cherry Blossom tree.

Hubby and I love this tree.

It blooms such beautiful delicate flowers.

If the wind blows too hard, these delicate flowers will fall from the tree like it's snowing.

My son thinks it's funny to kick the soccer ball into them and purposely knock them off.

After the first rain, they will mostly fall anyway and will leave behind a bunch of green leaves.

The leaves aren't near as pretty.

I love the view it provides from the window in the 2 story foyer.

I'm always so sad when the white petals fall off but we certainly do enjoy it while it's here.

Pantry Cleanup

A few weeks ago, I had decided to jump on the 40 bags in 40 days bandwagon with Ann Marie over at White House, Black Shutters.

I started off really good then life just got busy so I hadn't done anything in a while.

My daughter's softball team is having a garage sale to earn money this weekend.

I decided that I need to get busy coming up with things to put into the sale and it's a perfect time to get rid of stuff that I have been hanging onto forever.

This is my pantry/laundry room.

I hate this room.

Every time I walk into this room to get something, it gives me a headache.

We are supposed to one day move the washer and dryer to the basement but I seriously doubt that will ever happen.

One of my biggest problems with the room is that I can't reach the shelves.  Every time I need to get something, I have to get on a step stool to reach it.

It's just as difficult to put things away.

Everything just ends up shoved up there with no rhyme or reason.

Things get shoved to the backs of the corners and I can never find anything.

I have several small appliances that I don't use anymore, that need to be given for the garage sale.

At one point, for a reason that I don't understand, I put my spices and baking things on the 3rd shelf.

I think I did this to keep the bottom shelf for snacks and items for the kids.  They really aren't able to reach all the way up to the 3rd shelf.

So I just jumped in.  I got a box from the garage to put in the stuff for the garage sale.

I got a trash bag for things that have expired that need to be disposed of.

I wiped down the top shelf, it was really dusty up there.

Here is how it looks now.

I like to have all my food together so I know what I have and am able to find stuff.

I also moved my spices to the bottom shelf.  This right there will make my life so much easier.

I love how it turned out.  I love how all my cans and jars are lined up and facing forward.

We'll see how long it lasts.

Because it is also a laundry room, I do have to have laundry supplies in here.  I moved a stand up from the basement that works perfectly.  It also gets my detergent off the shelves with the food.

So, that's my pantry and laundry room all cleaned up.

I managed to get 1 bag of trash and 1 box of stuff to get rid of.

A big box.

 

I'm linking up with these parties...

Living room progress...

This is my living room.

If you remember, it's on my list of DIY home plans for 2012.

I has originally wanted to do board and batten in this room.

When I factored in how much time and money would be involved, I decided the best thing to do if I wanted to make a change quickly would be to simply repaint.

I love what a can of paint can do for a room.

I was really tired of the dark colors.

I loved it when I first painted it these colors but it made the room so dark.

So I set out to pick colors for this room.

I picked up a couple of samples at Lowe's.

And painted a small patch on the walls.

I love the light blue but not for a formal living room.

Hubby and I both likes the darker blue/green color.

We decided to go with that for the whole room then we are going to accent with the gold color that I picked out.

I also went and picked out some fabric to make curtains.

I started by priming all the walls.  Since I was going lighter over a darker paint, I wanted to make sure none of the darker paint shows through.

There was no turning back now.

By the time I got all the walls primed and went to the store to get my paint.  I had already changed my mind about the wall color.

I want this room to be really bright and airy and I also want it to look formal.

I decided to go with the gold color that I had chosen for the accent color.

I'm so glad I did.

I went ahead and got the walls rolled with their first coat today.

I now have to wait for hubby to come in and do the cutting in.

I am horrible at cutting in paint and so I have to leave that up to him.

I'm painting the entire room this color then we are going to do the trim rectangles at the bottom, like in our dining room; then I will paint the inside of the rectangles the blue/green color.

I'm sure there's a name for that technique but I don't know what it is.

I already love how much it lightens this room up.

Stay tuned for the finished product.

The paint colors I am using are: Shoreline Haze and Lyndhurst Duchess Blue.  They are both available at Lowe's.

 

I am linking up with the following parties.....

Travel Softball

For anyone ever wondering what a softball field looks like at midnight, this post is for you.

I have mentioned that my daughter plays travel softball.

This is her 3rd year.

They don't play a "regular" season, they just play tournaments.

The tournaments can be anywhere.

Most of ours are about an hour away from home.

We had a tournament this past weekend that was in Watkinsville, GA.

It was about an hour drive from where we live.

Hubby and my daughter were up at 6:30 to get ready to leave.

They had to be at the field by 8 for the first game at 9.

I had other things to do, so I stayed back and then went to our sons baseball game.

My daughter's team made it to the championship game that was suppose to start at 9:30 PM.

In the meantime, there was a gap of about 3 hours so hubby came home and got me and we all went back to the championship game together.

When we got there, they were finishing up another game, then they had another game that needed to be played before the championship game started.  So now we were almost 2 hours behind.

I think the championship game finally started at 11:30ish.

I tried to take some pictures.

They are all dark,

it's midnight!!

 

 

 

Second place, again!

Another trophy.  How many does that make us now? 50 million.

Not sure what we are going to do with them all.

 

 

How about next tournament, the trophies are a little bigger?

How about maybe 1st place?

Oh the life of the parents of travel ball players!

 

 

 

Formal Living Room Ideas

This is my formal living room.

We've done a few things to it over the years like add the chair rail and paint.

We started out with white on the top and a green on the bottom.

It stayed like that for several years, too long actually because it wasn't even a pretty green.

When my hubby took a business trip to Germany for 2 weeks, I made it my mission to paint the room while he was gone.

We ended up with this.

It was a nice change but the huge credenza was taking up so much room.

We then cleared everything out and installed hardwood floors.

It was a weekend project and we were so glad to get the carpets out of there.

After we got the hardwoods installed and the furniture put back, I convinced hubby that the credenza needed to go to the basement.

It just didn't fit in this room.  When I think of a formal living room, I think it should look formal

.  Not be a combination living room/computer room/work room.  It's where you should sit when company comes over and have a nice cup of tea in the afternoon.

Oh, we also had hubby's stereo in there.  Yea, all of that had to go.

This is the room cleared out of all excess furniture.  We have so much more room and it's able to stay nice.

I've been tired of the dark paint for a while now.  I loved it when I first did it and that chocolate-brown was in at the time.  Now, it just seems dark and dreary to me.  I've been looking for ways to lighten it up.

I've seen people all over blog land doing board and batten in their rooms and that was what I originally wanted to do in here.  I thought it would look fabulous.

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I have been sick for the past 2 days and so I've had some time to hang out in my bedroom and do some thinking.  Pretty much what I came up with is if I want to make a change in that room, and soon, I was going to have to do cheap and easy.  I just don't have the resources or time to do the board and batten right now.  Not to mention, as soon as I get it finished, it'll be out and something new will be in. That's just the way it always goes.

So I have been spending some time at everyone's favorite site pinning ideas and fabric for this space.

I love this look.  It looks so clean and bright.

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Or even this one.

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I really want to reupholster the sofa and love seat in a white fabric.  I know that is a huge venture so I'm going to have to put some serious thought into it.  I'm tired of the big flowers and the white would brighten up the room like I'm envisioning.

I love this fabric.  I'm going to look for something similar locally and pull my paint colors from it.  I just can't decide if I should do the lighter paint on the top or the bottom.  I'll have to keep looking for inspiration.

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So, that's the plan.  I'm going to forgo the board and batten and just do a quick paint and maybe the sofa redo.

Wish me luck.  As soon as I get my energy back, I plan to start.

A fun day...

Leap Day 2012

An extra 24 hours in this year.

I had a pretty good day and a little luck.

Early in February, I went to my favorite quilt shop to get zippers.

I go to this quilt shop specifically for their zippers.

They carry tons, in lots of fun colors and they are only a little over a dollar each.

My daughter's birthday was that coming weekend and we were having a surprise birthday party for her.

I invited 7 of her friends and decided to make each of the girls a goodie bag.

A goodie bag that looked like this.

I made 8 of them in all different colors.

I also got the pattern from the quilt shop.

Well, when I was checking out; they gave me a red envelope as part of their Red Envelope Extravaganza.

The deal was I had to bring the red envelope back on February 29, Leap Day, unopened and inside could be a prize or a discount coupon.

I put it on my calendar and decided that I would go back to see what was in my red envelope.

You just never know.

I also knew I would be needing some more zippers.

When I got there, the first thing I did was have the lady check my red envelope.

Low and behold, I was a winner.

I was so excited, I never win anything.

I figured I would just get a percentage off my purchase, which would have been plenty for me.

Not this time, it was my lucky day.

I won this:

My mom has one of these and they are so handy to keep in the craft room.

I had been wanting one since I saw hers.

I also got to do a little shopping.

I found another pattern.

I love this one and can't wait to get started on it.

I got enough material to make 2 of the long ones.

The pattern seems a little more complicated than the bags I made for my daughter and her friends but I'll just have to take my time.

I can't wait to see how they turn out.

So, I had a great Leap Day 2012.

How did you spend your day?