Since you all know that I am new to the blogging world, I have been trying to find “my niche.” What is it that I want to convey with the few moments that I have to spend?
As my desire for authentic and intentional living unfolds each day, it is so obvious to me what jumps out in my balancing act…both beauty and bedlam. That is my theme, and I love it. It’s SO ME!! I live to “be real,” and so with that I want to be vulnerable and open a door to the blessings that comes from balancing both. Every time I post, look for them…they will always be there!

One of the things that I have been most amazed by as I have entered this bloggy world over the last few weeks, are the unbelievable before/after shots. Guess what….they take a lot of time. No, not the actual projects…we’ve learned how to do those quickly from master tutors, but the posting of those projects…geez! And then I’ve read that you need to “stage” them…that means make everything look all pretty in the picture. THAT TAKES TIME!! If I am going to be real…I don’t have the time to do the staging. Maybe someday I will because it won’t take me 10 minutes to move the stacks of things out of the picture, but for now…I don’t, and I keep forgetting to take those dratted before pics because I have been so excited with some of my projects. My great room/kitchen has the cottagey look going…kind of…sort of. This corner cupboard was found on the side of the road in the trash pile. I happened upon this beaut minutes after my friend had hauled it home, and I gleefully mentioned that I would buy it off her. Now being the good friend that she is…I think she felt guilty since she had just proclaimed her amazement at getting it for free, and thus…it’s in my house. She’s a total ‘Nester #2″ and was the first to astound me with the revelation that gluing a little piece of fabric to an insert could be so beautiful.

Now, if I was staging this, I would have wiped down and repainted the bottom, but remember…it doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful (love that).

Please note that if I had my choice, all purple flowers would be removed. I tried putting them all in the back, but until I find some white flowers…they’ll work.

I am deciding if I should hang some little ‘do dads’ above the flowers…lots of other things going on the walls, so it may be too much. I dabbled with doing a two tone color on the green. Do you see it? Didn’t like it, so just stopped and left it.

Being real….I actually cleaned this out and organized it. So proud!
Now for my cozy kitchen corner (which is also part of the great room).
Found this at a yard sale for $40…love it!! Everything on the shelves are yard sale finds…yipee.
I just saw some ideas about putting scrapbook paper behind the naked shelves. I am going to Hobby Lobby TODAY!!! This may look a little cluttered. I will have to reevaluate what I love on these shelves…a few things can go.

This is my tribute to Kimba and her painted plates. I have turned into a maniac and presently have 20 items that are in some spray paint stage or another…yikes! When I read her post, my first reaction was…NO WAY…why didn’t I think of that? I had just put a plate in the garbage (not even Goodwill) because I was foolish and put this decoupaged plate in my dishwasher…what was I thinking? My crafty friend, Lori, made this for me with wine labels -very cool, but can you see what happened? I am SO ,SO SORRY, Lori (she doesn’t know I have this blog, so I can tell what I did:) Now remember – I have a cruddy $85 digital camera that always glares (even on an angle), so it doesn’t do the before or after plates justice.

I spray painted this white on both sides…. and since I have no patience to wait for the cute decorative piece to put in the middle, I used some of my scrapbook paper, modge podged it, and then stole one of my fake flowers to glue in the middle. I realized that you could completely see the fake stem so grabbed some ribbon to cover it!!!

TAA DAAA!!

Again…I just couldn’t wait for the staging thing. I am in the middle of redoing a whole pathetic wall, but wanted you to see how cute it is going to be with the green. Thanks sweet hubby for holding it, even though he kept saying it would be weird for people to see his fingers (aren’t they cute?) Again…bad camera, poor quality pics but you get the idea.

Now for my true bedlam moment.
Bedlam as defined by Webster’s is “a scene or situation of noisy uproar and confusion”.
This was a moment of confusion.
Can you determine what this is?
Chocolate?
Since there are three girls in this house, chocolate chips have a special place in our hearts…I went to wipe up the chocolate chips, and realized an odd consistency, and smell. I now had it on my fingers, and I thought it was chocolate!!!
Are you tracking? This isn’t for the faint of heart…will you still come and visit? You’re only getting to know me.
I was confused…my dd just turned 5, and she doesn’t have accidents…mostly.
Bless her heart…
she came over and inspected it and replied so innocently, “I don’t think it was me, mommy, but I’ll check”.
And so she did (’nuff said).
It wasn’t her, and it wasn’t the dog….definitely different aroma.
I STILL DON’T KNOW WHO IT WAS!!! And I have asked them all (well, not the other 15 nieces and nephew who live next door…I am on the hunt).
SO GROSS!
Bedlam….SHEER BEDLAM!!
Just another day of balancing it all.