five pretty things

Five things I like this week:

1.   {the italian coastline}

(these colors are gorgeous, no?! pintrest pic, not my own vacay-bummer).

2. {anthro print}

a little moroccan, a little italian, a little perisian-mmm.

3. {my red directors chair}

always adds a lil pop of color

4. {zinc bistro truffle fries}

you must try to understand…truffle oil on fries. go to pheonix kierlands commons, soon.

5.   {dessert in a pretty dish}

Is there a nicer way to end a post?

(pic from cannelle-vanille’s blog)

the old stone house

road trip!  on a quest to earn my ‘visit an old stone house’ merit badge.

Mr. Bossy, Camille, and I took a little road trip to Helena, the capital state of Montana, to be with friends for their daughter’s graduation from Carroll College.

Here is what we saw on the way.  My dream stone house.  It has been my dream stone house for as long as I can remember, but this was the first time we took the hike to it and got a lil tour of the inside.  My friend Krista and her pop love this house, too.  We have a lot of similar dreams that way.  I may weep through this post as I cannot stand how good this house is or how beautiful it must have been in its hey day.

from the road                                                       getting a closer look

(which is usually all I can get a shot of

b/c Mr. Bossy is a destination kind of a guy)

front door header detail…wow.                                   curved window; not as easy as a square                                                                                                     one, but this was a detail guy

Anthropologie, eat your heart out…you’ve got nothing on a 100 years in a Montana winter for the aging process.

plaster with lots of layers and lots of weather to get this amazing effect

old bits of peeling wallpaper…there aren’t words

lath ceiling and lath and plaster walls with only the stone outside wall peeking through. Brrrrr…..only bits of the hay insulation are left.  Those would have been cold winters!

tears of joy

complete with gate (that is open) and the always present hunters warning

would I be able to live in a city?  And give all of this up?  I think not.

Take away:  when trespassing on railroad owned land, be sure to be related to someone who built the railroad 100 years ago(can be good conversation starter) and smile to the truckload of workers as you pull away(just in case you want to come back–maybe they will remember you as friendly).

‘visit an old stone house’ merit badge complete!

breakfast fly-in: Willsal, MT

Easter @ our house 2011

Easter 2011 agenda:

1.Wake up to treats

2.Get ready and go to church

3.Eat a yummy lunch with grandparents and friends

4.Hide and find eggs

*5.  See what happens to eggs when lit on fire, etc.

*addendum to the regularly scheduled activities

I know most people have pictures of beautifully dyed eggs, sweet children, and green grass for their Easter photos.  I have those too….but then I have these as well.  It’s like the before the hunt and then what to do with the eggs after.  Egg salad sandwiches?  I think not.  Batting practice and gasoline with a golf club…yes.  I don’t have words.  I was thinking a nice game of Bocce ball in the back yard would work.  Don’t let your young boys see this. Mine is already going to need therapy.

As it turns out, gas is volatile, as we all learned in chemistry 101.  Don’t worry guys, my brother was there to get raw footage, so we’ll let y’all know when it’s on utube.

Moms out there, don’t judge me.  You never really know who you’ve married until the holidays come around…and maybe mid-life comes knocking.  Maybe I shouldn’t post this.

starting over & happy easter

Grace.  Diplomacy.  Perspective.

This is how I want to look as I deal with the fact that in the two weeks this blog has been up and running, about half of its short life has been crashed in one major way or another. First there was the unheard of server crash in Salt Lake that downed not only my site, but many others with it(bad,bad,bad hackers).  Three day delay, ok…we’ll switch and start over.  Then things went smoothly for 5 or so days and then the spam started rolling in at an obnoxious rate….and then nothing.  Or should I say ‘forbidden’ which was all you could find on my site because once again hackers had come along to use my site to spread spam like wildfire, then to delete all of my uploaded images–yes, even those great ones in the why WHITE post–so they could cover their tracks and the feds couldn’t find out who they are or how they did it.  Never mind that I am a brand new blogger, getting my sea legs and trying to play ‘catch up’ and get these little posts put together and out to the world.  So instead of losing it, I decided to focus on the peace in it.

I love this picture for this post b/c Audry has this wry little look of hmmmm.   It’s the little twinkle of knowing and not being tainted by what she knows, she just knows, is cute about it and goes on.  So, on the eve of this beautiful Easter day, I find myself happy for so much.  I didn’t have to watch my son die on a cross to carry the world’s sin, and it is a time for the renewal and rebirth of so much.  It is also a lil time for the renewal of my blog, its look, and for me to keep the focus on what I want to share and not on the perfection of the world and all that is in it.  Maybe these little lessons along the way are my reminder to let perfectionism die and to let peace grow up in its place.  I still don’t like hackers(mean) or the fact that I have little question marks where all of my images once were, or that we are paying for everything to be redone, but I am grateful for small reminders to keep it real and to keep sight of my motives.

Happy Easter to all.

These old post cards are my favorite decorations for holidays.  Fun to give them a new life as decor.  Sweet words.

Here’s to being thankful for Jesus’ greatest sacrifice for us and for rebirth and renewal and for all that is lovely and true.

….and here’s to plastic horses mixed into your simple little easter table arrangement by your 8 year old…..life is good.