There is a Man in my Shower

(and it's not my husband) and other happenings around the house this week.

You know how some people see shapes in clouds, can read your palm or tell your fortune from tea leaves, etc.? Well, I see people and animals in tile and other surfaces. This is the man I discovered in my shower. He is in profile facing left.

If you aren't a whack job like me and can't see The Ayatollah Kramer, I have attached a picture with some notes on it.

I went to Lowes last week and when I opened my bag I found this flyer in it:

Maybe I am just narrow minded but I am trying to figure out the appeal here. Ants aren't cute (unless you're an animator at Pixar or Disney) and have you ever been stung by a teeny, tiny fire ant? It feels like a tiny match is burning you. I'm not a scientist or entomologist or anything but I am pretty sure that being stung by a 30 foot fire ant would kill you and if it didn't it would certainly hurt like a mo fo. Maybe that's what they mean by "plus other fun surprises!!"?

I already had a tomato ripen on one of the plants in my garden. It seems early but I'll take it. It's small because it's a "Patio" variety but dang, it's cute and I grew it all my own self.

Photographic evidence that a little person was in my house this weekend. A perfect hand print on my bathroom mirror.

Etsy Friday

I'm sure a lot of you have seen this poster:

During World War II the UK was being bombed constantly. The British War Ministry put out this poster in 1939. Lately, it has been shown in homes in designer-y mags and such and has become quite trendy. I hate when that happens.

My first Etsy shop today has an awesome spoof. This calendar is from Little Brown Pen. I think my favorite months are February and July. This girl is some kind of funny and very talented. Her printable stationery is an awesome idea. Check it out.

Next is Lady Bird Land. I heart Allison Strine. I purchased three of her prints for the nursery so I have been in contact with her because of this and she is an absolute sweetheart. I felt a bond immediately. Below are the three prints I purchased. I haven't received them yet but will post a picture of them in nursery when they get here. She also sells pendants, notecards, etc.

This one says: "She's sassy, classy and a little bad-assey".

This one says: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single trip to the shoe store."

And this one says: "Candy corn is her favorite veggie."

This is Nea: Jewelry and Wall Wear. I have had this shop bookmarked forever. I thought I had posted it before but don't see it on my other blog. I ADORE her cross-stitching. Who knew it could be so modern & cool? Check it out.

And last, but certainly not least, is LoveMely. Take a gander at these awesome headbands. You aren't going to find anything that looks like these babies down at Target.

Happy Friday.

The New Nursery

I always seem to work way better with a deadline and too many things to do. Being a woman with no children who doesn't have a job outside the home is probably not the best combination for me. I don't accomplish much because I have a lot of time and not a lot to do to fill it up. I am looking forward to a new baby in the house making this current situation I'm in to become a non-issue! The reason I bring this up is because I got more done around my house in the week before the home visit by our social worker than I did in the month previous. I hung a curtain rod (in the spirit of full disclosure, my husband hung the rod), bought and glued 8 yards of pink pom poms to curtains to go on said rod, painted a tree in the nursery and finally unpacked, put together and decorated one of the last remaining rooms in the house we moved into in November.

Our social worker came out to the house on Saturday and she was totally awesome. I was comfortable with her from the moment she walked into our home. She made a situation that could be awkward or uncomfortable feel like meeting a new friend. Our home study should be ready by the end of the month. I finished putting together our adoption profile and really enjoyed the process more than I thought I would. I thought I would totally stress out about how it would look and what I would say. I mean, for the most part this document alone is what a birth mother bases her decision on. No pressure there! It turns out that the creative process was a lot of fun (I haven't done any digital scrapbooking in a long time) and as I was going through photographs and writing about our life it just made me appreciate my husband and the life we share even more.

Now that we are only a week or two away from being fully ready to start the adoption process, I have been downloading applications and such from several different agencies. Egad! More paperwork and most of it redundant. I am hoping that most agencies will take what is already in the home study and not make us recreate it just so it's on their letterhead. A girl can dream, can't she?

I am attaching a couple of pictures of the finished nursery. The tree I painted this time is more whimsical than the one from the last nursery. I don't know if I like it better or not. I think the last one suited my design sensibility more but I didn't want to create the exact same room, although I did use the same items as last time. I found the tree I used (painted using an overhead projector) at The Shabby Shoppe. It was included in the digital kit called Yours Truly. If you like digital scrapbooking at all you should check out this site. They have really cute stuff.

Here is the nursery before: (not from the last house just before I painted the one in this house)

After:

Here is the nursery bath before:

And after. I still need some new towels and such but I am just using what I have for now.

Spring Forward

I live in Texas so winter here is not a big deal. We barely get to wear our sweaters, much less coats but I know it has been a very different experience for a lot of other people. Snow, snow everywhere and I know my friends are sick of it. Here is a video I saw on another blog that I think you will relate to and it will give you hope of what's to come. The song is lovely and the animation is so sweet I can barely stand it.



And it anticipation of Spring, here are some fresh items from Etsy.

From Paloma's Nest. I think this would look great on a table in the entry hall of a house. Maybe my house, hhhmm ...

Here is a whimsical necklace from Bionic Unicorn. This would look really great with a crisp white shirt. All of the jewelry here is very "happy".

Check out the pretty, fresh paintings at Gallery Zoo Art.

Now these from Lori's Place Gourmet Delights look good enough to eat. Wait a minute ...

And a little spring happy from my house to yours. Azaleas are in full bloom here.

Happy Sunday everyone.

And now, a word from our sponsor

I lurve this commercial. It makes me laugh out loud every time I see it.



Here's another one:



This one makes me tear up every time. They made a couple others after this but none of them move me the way this one does. I LOVE the song, I love that some of the gestures are so small and I love that it comes full circle.



Do you have a commercial, new or old, that makes you laugh? Or cry? Or just moves you in some way (insert lame DanActive yogurt comment here).

What I Did on my Summer Vacation

Since I didn't post for many, many months I thought I would try and give you a synopsis of what has occurred since last July.

Just because we FINALLY got an offer on our house in Austin didn't mean things went smoothly. Our buyers getting approved for their financing left us sweating through the whole freaking process. Thank God for our buyers because our house sat on the market for 7 long months but damn, we weren't 100% sure their loan was going to go through until they were actually sitting at the table in the title company in Austin. The closing kept getting delayed and considering we don't have WADS OF CASH LAYING AROUND, we couldn't close on the new house until we closed on the old one. The close in Austin was scheduled for the 8th so I had all of our worldly possessions packed on 2 moving trucks on that day with the plan they would bring it to Houston the next day after our close there. Well, our buyers didn't close on the 8th. Or the 9th. Or the 10th. They didn't close until late Thursday, September 11th (like that date isn't dire enough). This whole time I am having to tell my movers in Austin don't bring my stuff until I don't know when, having to tell the builder in Houston we are postponing our close until we don't know when all the while trying to find and stock up on bottled water, batteries and canned tuna since Hurricane Ike was roaring straight towards Galveston. I was worried we were going to close before the Hurricane and our new house would be blown down before I cut the tape off of one box and I was also worried we wouldn't close before the Hurricane and we would be screwed over by some sort of penalties. Bottom line, we didn't close on the house before the hurricane. So we went to look at the place after the storm and it had water through the roof, onto hardwood floors etc. Although the hurricane caused part of this, it also revealed that the house was not properly sealed and had mold already growing in it from water getting in BEFORE the storm. We told the builder "no thanks" we weren't going to buy his leaky, mold-infested house. Although this time period was more stressful than I can really express, it turns out that all of the delays in closing and Hurricane Ike saved our butts. We would have bought a house that would have had continual problems. Who needs that? We ended up getting stuck in a one-bedroom corporate apartment with two dogs and no clothes or shoes to speak of (it was a dire, dire fashion meltdown) for two months but did end up getting a much better home that was less money to boot. Here is a photo montage:

Sold this:
Thought we were going to by this:

Then this:
And this happened: So we saw this:
And bought this instead:And not to confuse the issue too much. We may move here for a year:

And hoping we won't have too much of this: