Winterscape

I'm pretty proud of every component of this table setting.  There's still more to be added, but it's coming right along.  Each piece has a story.  Well, mostly...  Really each piece was just a lot of fun to find.  I didn't know what I would be using some of them for until this display just kind of fell into place.  The stump looking candle holders have actually been used in just about every season except for Summer.  They were part of my Easter centerpiece in a tray with moss and pastel Easter eggs; they were part of the previous Fall centerpiece with the clear canisters filled with leaves and pinecones; and now they're part of this Christmas, wintry centerpiece.  This whole thing was done in probably about 5 minutes or less.  

    We had company coming over.  So naturally, we hurriedly spot cleaned the house.  (Husband said we should have company over more often because it caused us to tear through the house de-cluttering and cleaning.  Maybe when it comes time to clean house again we will invite people over before we start so that we have a little motivation to clean faster.  

This table display was just the icing on top.  Previously, I had Christmas decor that was waiting to be dispersed just flung all over the table.  Very messy.  So I whipped that stuff away, gathered the remaining things that didn't have a home, gathered up the china and poof!  Instant table decorations!  I've been told before that I have an interesting way of helping clean.  Storytime:  Back when I lived in Edmond with 3 other girls in a cute little 1910 farm looking house just a couple of blocks away from campus, there was a night when we were all cleaning to have people over.  I think we were going to be holding my recital reception there.  I had bought my first white pumpkin, or ghost pumpkin that year and loved it.  It matched everything!  The girls had been getting onto me about needing to throw it away.  It was after Thanksgiving, bordering on December, (well now that I think about it, if it was that time then it wouldn't have been for my recital.  Must have been cleaning for a Christmas party!) I wasn't quite ready to let it go.  So...I sat down, got out my painting supplies and painted a nice little snowy scene with snowmen on it.  My best friend walked by, looked at me and said "you sure have a funny way of helping clean!" I smiled at her, finished my painting, cleaned up my supplies, (that counted as cleaning, right?) and set the pumpkin back where it had been.  Voila, Fall decor turned Christmas decor!!  

This was one of those same instances.  Except we'd actually finished cleaning already before I started on this.  And the timing couldn't have been more perfect.  Just as I was setting the last plates, our friends pulled up in the driveway.  Couldn't have turned out more perfect even if I'd planned it that way!

This is our wedding china.  I got it at an antique store in Atoka, on our way to Texas.  We love it!  Perfect for Christmas.  And absolutely beautiful.

What are you all thankful for this year?  I'm thankful for a loving and supportive husband, a precious puppy, a great job with a fantastic boss and coworker, friendly clients, a roof over our heads, supportive family, new family, fun friends, old friends and new friends.  I'm thankful for coffee, breakfast, coffee, decorating, cold weather, coats, running water and indoor plumbing.  (Could you imagine using an outhouse in this kind of cold weather??)

Trip Time!

This weekend was such a fun weekend!  It was filled with family, laughter, shopping and good food.  We Forrester/Henderson/Linde women took our bi-annual shopping trip to Frisco, Texas where we stopped at IKEA,  Sam Moon, and Trader Joe's.  It was a little rough start with Mom and I both having left our purses at my house.  Luckily we'd stopped right down the street to get some dinner on the road so we were close enough that Husband could bring us our purses.  Since Mom couldn't find her driver's license once we got there, I got to do all the driving.  Surprisingly, I maneuvered us around town pretty smoothly.  Even deviated from the GPS to find us the most direct route to places.  I felt like mighty driver. Hoo-ha-ha!
  

  Sunday, we got to spend time with our dear family friends from Philadelphia.  (Originally from here.)  I got to meet my newest niece, who has the most precious round chubby cheeks that make you just want to pinch them!  She and I had a rough introduction to start with her crying as soon as I approached her.  I chalked it up to her being around a lot of new people and just didn't know what to do.  Later I got to hold her, tears free.  Than Husband and I went on a date with the momma and daddy, my best friends.  They don't have Hideaway Pizza in Pennsylvania, so we try to go there together every time she's in town.  

{Some cuddle time with Bandit before leaving town}

 {Lunch in Texas at In-n-Out Burger}

 {Grandma and myself outside IKEA}

{These little carts were so much fun to push!  So maneuverable.  They could turn on a dime.  I of course had to jump on the back and scoot myself around the store.  Too much fun!} 

{Texas shopping centers were all decorated for Christmas.  It was very cheerful and briiiiight.}

I hope you all have a Happy Monday!  Thank you for stopping by today.

Being Thankful

Well folks, it's happened!  After all this waiting, all this preparing myself...94.1 FM has finally started playing all Christmas music!  Now, not only can I listen to Christmas music all day at work, thanks to Pandora, but now I can listen to it anywhere I go in the car!  It makes me happy.  You can't say that you've ever listened to Christmas music and been anything but happy.  Except for that Christmas Shoes song.  Makes me cry every. single. time.  No lie.  So I generally change the station when that song comes on.  My eyes are actually getting that welling up sensation just thinking about it.  Moving on!

 Our house is beginning to look more and more like Christmas has arrived.  Now, I know what you're thinking: Sarah, you can't skip Thanksgiving, what about Thanksgiving??  I have my handmade wooden Turkey and fall centerpiece still sitting on the dining room table (surrounded by all of the Christmas stuff I'm still trying to find places for...) so don't worry.  And I'm being thankful a lot.  I'm thankful for such a wonderful husband.  A wonderful husband that put up with me starting to decorate for Christmas the day after Halloween.  A husband who is so kind and patient with me.  A husband whom I love very much and enjoy spending time with.  Sometimes I wish we worked in the same office so I could see him all day every day!!  Too much?  Nah...
(also, the nerd in me came out when typing this.  When typing nah, my caps lock accidentally got pushed to where it said NaH.  My first thought was that it looked like a periodic symbol.....  So I had to look it up.  Sodium Hydride: "NaH is a representative of the saline hydrides, meaning it is a salt-like hydride composed of Na+ and H- ions." Makes me feel so smart.  Also reminds me of a time when friends and I thought this guy in our church play was a hot guy.  We couldn't very well going around calling him 'hot guy' for the whole world to know what we thought!  He would know!  So we started calling him Hg, which for those of you that don't know is the periodic symbol for Mercury.  Thus, the nickname Mercury was born!  We all thought we were so clever.)  Anyway, I think I have way way digressed.  I have chased that white rabbit to his rabbit hole and beyond!

Anyway...here's what our house is looking like for Christmas so far:

 Those bottles I am actually going to start selling in an craft mall about the first week of December.  I am pretty excited!  I've been itching to get a business started, so this will be just a small taste to get me started. Also, the hanging owls probably aren't going to stay.  I think I was a little delirious from being sleepy and it being past my bedtime.  I just decided to play around with them a little.

Y'all just thought I was going to put of some pretty pictures for you to look at without my narrating.  For a second, I did too!  But...I just couldn't let that happen.  I like talking too much.

This is an assorted ornament trough that's on our coffee table.  I love it.  Put it together last night before I went to bed.  As I've mentioned before, when Husband and I moved into the house it came with a shed FULL of stuff.  All but the silver ornaments were in a small box inside one of the boxes in the shed.  I wonder if they did something similar with them or if it was just a box of random stuff that they'd bought at a garage sale.  The later seems more plausible.  I like the mixture of the red, silver and gold.  I also had to throw in the little guy on the horse just for diversity.

This is just to assure you all that I do still have thanksgiving out.  I'm not completely bypassing it.  It's just currently coexisting with Christmas.  

Thank you all for stopping by today!  Happy Thursday-almost-Friday!!  Tomorrow, Mama, Grandma, Sister and I are going to Texas. On Sunday, I have a long overdue reunion with my best friend in Philadelphia and her family!

My Weekend and Me

This is the beginning picture of a future post about these cookies I found in Pinterest called Swig Cookies.  They sounded delicious!  They are a nice thick sugar cookie.  I actually think they came out thicker than intended since I might or might not have used half bread flour on accident.  I can't tell them apart!  But they still tasted amazing.  All I lack is the colored frosting to go on them.

 My weekend Christmas craft!  They actually turned out better than I thought they would.  They look even better from a distance. They match the bright vibe that I am going for in the dining room. There will be many more crafts to come.  Especially since I will be getting a booth at a craft mall.  Finally!!  I found one I liked that is going to be opening in Sapulpa.  All I need to do is get my inventory up.  We will be selling decorated bottles, Christmas-y things (during December only of course,) and David's photography, and really anything else we fell like stuffing in the booth.  I am pre-tty excited!

It always cracks us up when Bandit sites like this. We were getting ready to leave and he went in and sat in his 'my owners are getting ready to leave' perch.  It was so cute!  Sitting like a human.  I just can't get enough of him!  I wish I could take him to work with me, if I knew he wasn't going to bark at people that came in.

Mmmm Sunday dinner at Grandma's: bacon wrapped pork tender loin, sweet potato casserole (for me, since I will be out of town for Thanksgiving,) mashed potatoes, green beans, salad, and for dessert, pumpkin bread pudding!!!

A really fun and intense game that I was introduced to this weekend when I met some friends for coffee: Pandemic. a 2-4 player game in which you try to  find the cure and eradicate the diseases from the world before time runs out.  Each person has a different role and you work together to rid each country of the raging disease.  There are outbreaks, infections and epidemics.  It gets pretty intense!

Why did the chicken cross the road?  To get away from me!  My parents' neighbors have a flock of chickens and roosters in the middle of a city neighborhood.  They're a lot of fun to watch.  I wish I could have gotten a still picture of mister rooster.  He had such pretty coloring!

Happy Monday everyone!!

My Week at a Glance

As I move into having been at my job for a year next week, I get overjoyed at the little things.  Things that make my job easier.  Such as this headset that i got to set up yesterday.  I was a little skeptical at first, but after that first call from a client, I was in love!  With the headset.  Hands-free.  Mostly.  I do have to drag my finger up and push a little button on the earpiece to answer the phone.  That's ok.  It gets my little finger some extra exercise aside from typing on the keyboard all day.

    After one call, I was hooked!  There's a little box with an arm on it that attaches to the phone and lifts up the receiver when I answer it.  Caught me off guard at first since it was my first time to use a headset and didn't know what to expect.  As I said, it's the little things.  It allows me to immediately start typing when a client calls in without having to juggle the phone on my shoulder at the risk of dropping it. (Which I've done a couple of times.)  Plus, I think it makes me look a little more professional!  What do you think?

Tuesday was a very important day: voting day! My voter registration was the last thing I forgot to change when I got married.  Luckily I smarted up the day before and thought to get a temporary voter i.d. and update everything so I could vote.  

Last night was a fun night!  Husband, Grandma, Sister and I got together for dinner at Mexicali in downtown Tulsa.  The food was, as always amazing!  I got the breaded tilapia fish tacos with cabbage relish, avocado, pico de gallo and a delicious, sweet mango pico de gallo.  Ah, it makes my mouth water just thinking about it!  Grandma, Sister and I then went and saw Irving Berlin's White Christmas at the PAC.  It was a wonderful show!  Great music, beautiful staging, costumes and lots of dancing!  They had spectacular tap numbers that made me want to get up and dance...if I knew how to tap or dance...

  It was a good time spent with some of my family.  I enjoy doing that a lot, spending time with family.  Our parents were on a cruise, having left last Saturday and getting back last night.  It was good being able to welcome them back after we got back after the show. I miss my family when they are gone!

  I hope you all have a happy Friday!!!

Dumpster Chair 2

  Happy Wednesday!!  Do you all remember my Dumpster chair from a few months ago?  (You can refresh your memories here.) I've been dragging and dragging my feet on finishing it.  I knew all the elements it needed: a little paint
             a seat
             padding
             and an eye catching fabric to cover the seat.
It was just a matter of getting all of these things together.  For the eye catching fabric, a friend gave me a whole bag of upholstery samples that she got for free from a fabric store.  Score!  That bag happened to contain the perfect swatch of fabric that was the perfect size for the seat!

 

{ I bought a piece of plywood for the seat.  Husband let me use a power saw to cut out the circle. But first, I got to make my own compass out of a nail, string and mechanical pencil to draw a perfect circumference for the seat.  And in case you're wondering, I always wear a crown when I craft.  Makes me feel like a crafting princess.  I then cut out a few circles from an old comforter, stapled it onto the seat, stapled the fabric over it, then trimmed off the excess fabric.  And........

                                                Here it is!!

Thank you all for joining me today!!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

 {This is an idea I saw on Junky, Funky, Rusty, and Re-purposed by Sue's Facebook page.  This is my version of it.  My favorite thing about this display?  The wine glasses,  and ornaments were from the Dollar Store. (As are the candles and greenery in the next picture and numerous other things I'm using.  They've really stepped up their merchandising game!!)  So far, our formal living room  is the only common room not yet decorated.  I thought I would do a different style of Christmas decorating for each room, but so far they're all kind of blending together.  For the most part a lot of our decorations are rustic.  I'm trying to incorporate a few new things.  The rest is just a wait and see what I can find!}

{I'm pretty proud of this centerpiece on our kitchen island, however it's missing something for the middle.  Any ideas??}

 {I just love these little snowflakes that I hung up!  I want to add a little more.  What do y'all think?  I got these curtains at Dollar General.  $5 a panel!!  They're our new Winter/Spring curtains.  Husband and I think they really lighten the place up!  Our Summer/Fall ones are from Bed Bath & Beyond and are orange with brown circles.  We love them!}

Happy Tuesday, y'all!!

Dave and Busters Date

As you know, yesterday was mine and Husband's one year wedding anniversary.  To celebrate, we went out to Dave and Buster's, ate some really good food, plaid some games, won lots of tickets and spent them on candy, iPhone speaker and a to go coffee cup.  We had so much fun together.  Just being in each other's company was enough for me.  

 {We know each other so well that we ended up getting each other the same card!  There's actually a really funny story behind these possum cards.  One that makes me kind of hate possums.  It involves a dead possum, a crawl space and lots of crying.}

{This is a dress that I've had for months!  I got it at Tiger Lily in Edmond while killing time before a friend's wedding.  I couldn't resist.  As you all know, I'm big on sales.  This dress was originally $40.  I got it for $10!!!  I've been keeping it safe in the backseat of my car ever since July.  And it still fits!  I wanted to wear a special dress for a very special occasion.}

One Year of Bliss

This may be my longest post yet.  I have so much to share, so much for which to be thankful.  A year ago today I married the man of my dreams, my best friend, my partner in crime, and the love of my life.  I feel so blessed to be able to call such a wonderful man Husband.  All of our family and friends were in town, (some of which [family] I was meeting for the first time.)  It was such a joyous moment and one that brings a smile to my face and butterflies in my stomach every time I think about it.  I'm excited to see where this God-given journey takes us in the years to come.  Looking forward to sharing many more memories and making so many new ones.  Thank you to everyone who has helped us along this path and who helped make this day so extra special for us!

                               {I love this one of Mom putting on David'd boutenniere.}

                                        {How many girls does it take to put on a wedding dress?}

 {That's right.  Part of my dress fastenings broke as we were putting it on and I had to be pinned in!}

 {Hand-made invitations. Mom and her group of friends put so much effort into them.  They even made the clay leaves themselves.}

 {Some of my wonderful friends whom I am glad could be there.  They sang one of my favorite choral songs in the wedding: Where Your Barefoot Walks By David Childs. (See a YouTube video of the song here)}

 {Our photographer Ruth Reese told the bridesmaids to pretend like they were throwing their pumpkin at David.  One bridesmaid actually threw it and Ruth caught the pumpkin mid flight!}