Smile Because It Happened...

• Don't Cry Because It's Over...Smile Because It Happened.-Dr. Seuss
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• Natalie came home a couple of months ago and told me there was a new girl in school from Texas and all the boys were crazy about her and she just KNEW it was because boys just liked the new girls!
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  A few days passed and one day Natalie said, "Is it ok if Gracie spends the night?" I said, "Sure! Gracie C?" She said, "No, Gracie G, the new girl." I said, "I thought you didn't like her because all the boys were ga-ga over her?" She said, "I can't help it mom. I just like her."
  
  
  And so it began.
  
  
  The next day I had to meet her mom. I met her in the bus loop of the school and out jumped this beautiful, petite, blonde ball of energy to shake my hand and introduce herself. I sent her an email that next day just kind of introducing myself and trying to welcome her to the area. She seemed nice enough and if I moved to a new place where I didn't know a soul, I would hope someone would make friends with me. It was the neighborly thing to do, after all, right?
  
  
  Then we started having lunch every Wednesday. And we had lots of laughs and talked about serious stuff and silly stuff. I stalked her Pinterest and realized we had so many similar interests and taste (well minus exercise, in spite of her begging and pleading!) 
  
  
  Just like Natalie and Gracie, I liked Brandy, too...and I just couldn’t help it.  
  
  
  We made a date to go to the Flea Market together and while we didn't find much of anything, we made lots of memories. We went shopping in downtown Lewisburg in some of the shops that I had never been in--and probably never would've because they just seemed too hoity toity. Brandy showed me how to confidently waltz on in the hoity toity shops just like anybody else. She had to live through my lack of parallel parking that day. I have no idea how I didn't get towed because I had to have been ten feet from the curb. 
  
  
  She was so proud of me when I sent her a pic the next day of my tires close to the curb with a "nailed it" slapped on it! Ha!
  
  
  We had more lunches and the girls spent  all their free time together. Brandy texted one morning and asked if I wanted to go to Roanoke. Honestly I didn't. I had stuff to do but something kept telling me to just go and have fun and make memories. So I did. And I'm so glad I did.  And we had a blast. We shopped and we did silly things and we told stories and we listened and we ate (I ate a lot.) And I was reminded that spending time with people was way more important than getting the floors mopped.
  
  
  We had WVU tickets to the Texas game. We couldn't go and we asked the Texas natives if they wanted to go and take the girls. They got up early and headed up to Morgantown and had a great time and memories were made.
  
  
  Brandy and I just didn't have to try very hard. We just effortlessly clicked from the beginning and she has become one of my closest friends in such a short time. I have been looking forward to parties and milestones and fun along our way and while I was riding home from a basketball game week before last, Natalie said, "Gracie's moving back to Texas."
  
  
  "WHAT?"
  
  
  "Yeah her dad's job is taking them back to Texas."
  
  
  I started immediately texting Brandy... "Omg are y'all moving back?"
  
  
  "Probably but nothing is set in stone. We wanted to be sure before we said anything.”
  
  
  And then I got kind of frantic and I was mad at myself because if I would’ve known they were going to be leaving so soon, I wouldn’t have let myself get that close. And then it just hit me like a ton of bricks and I cried off and on for three solid days. Natalie and I had a couple of nights where she was crying in one bed and I was crying in the bed next door. And then I'd cry more because not only was I sad that I was losing my friend, but my daughter was losing her best friend. And that is hard at any age but that is SO HARD when you are 13. And watching your child hurt is a whole different kind of hurt. 
  And here’s another lesson--always do things fully and with your whole heart—even if you might shed tears at the end—it’s always worth it.
  
  
  It breaks my heart that we have to say goodbye...and I know that it’s 2015 and we can stay in touch and text and Facetime and even visit but we all know it's never going to be the same. And that's sad and Natalie and I are a little broken-hearted.
  
  
  Gracie stayed with us last weekend and she made a special ornament for our Christmas tree and we sent her family an ornament with pieces of the Virginian Review newspaper decoupaged on it so she'd have a piece of Alleghany County with her always.
  
  
  And while we have our special ornaments, we know that a piece of Alleghany County will always be with them because they will carry it in their hearts and we will have a Texas size hunk forever etched in ours.
  
  
  And I really am happy that Brandy & Jason & Gracie get to go back home to their family & friends. I just wish Texas wasn't so far away.
  
  
  So today, on Thanksgiving, I am thankful for destiny...for chance meetings...divine intervention...call it what you want. I am thankful for the way the universe conspires to bring people into our lives, sometimes forever, and sometimes only for a short time, to leave huge prints on our hearts.
  
  
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You Are Not Your Accomplishments

"If we make our goal to live a life of compassion and unconditional love, then the world will indeed become a garden where all kinds of flowers can bloom and grow."

-Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Late Author of On Death and Dying

Several things this week have had me thinking of “unconditional love”—specifically regarding our children. This week I heard someone refer to their child in terms of their accomplishments rather than who they are. Isn’t that just one of the areas where this whole parenting thing gets hairy?

I read an article this week http://www.faithit.com/5-things-your-kids-will-remember-about-you/ about what our kids would remember about us when they are grown. When you think back to your own childhood, you will probably agree these things are true. What an enormous task we have as parents to not screw up our kids! When I think about how not to screw them up, I always go back to that four letter word…L-O-V-E. 

When I picked my youngest son up from school yesterday, he was a nervous wreck. After delving deeper, I quickly learned that he “got an 83 on his math test.” That normally wouldn’t have caused such alarm, but his teacher informed the students that the test grade would probably pull their six weeks' grade down a letter grade. He was absolutely frantic because he couldn’t remember if his mid-six weeks' grade was an A or a B. We chatted. I asked him if he was struggling in that area. I asked if he was not understanding something. I asked if I could help him with something. He told me that he had made a silly mistake and mixed up the addition and subtraction and that is what caused the lower grade. I told him to stop worrying about it. I told him that we all make mistakes and it would be just fine. He continued to pace the floor looking for his mid-six weeks' report. I went downstairs to fold a load of laundry and within minutes, he raced down excitedly to tell me that he remembered that the only B he had on his mid-six weeks' report was social studies and it was only a point away from an A. He said he remember talking to Dad about how he would pull that up. He was so relieved! He was relieved because he was terrified of making a C on his report card and being “kicked out” of gifted and talented (his words.) Ah!

The same day, my oldest child, who is taking college classes (as a junior in high school) vocalized his frustrations with his Statistics class. As someone who took this same class a few years back (and BARELY passed…and I mean "69.5 rounded up to a 70" barely passed), I understand how difficult the course is. He is planning to get a tutor to try to help him make more sense of the course. If he doesn’t maintain his grades, he won’t be able to continue to take these college courses.

Now. I’m not a participation trophy kind of mom. I’m a work your butt off and earn it kind of mom. Make no bones about that. People who can handle things and maintain excellence are the people who should get the jobs and get the bonuses and get the accolades. I am totally down with that.

I have three children who do pretty great with academics and athletics. I’m proud of them for those things. I truly am. When they work hard for something and achieve it, that makes me proud.

The thing that I want them to grow up knowing, however, is that THOSE THINGS DO NOT DEFINE THEM. Yes I will push them to LEARN THINGS (notice I said learn things, not “get good grades”—they aren’t the same thing.) I will push them to try their hardest and give their all at whatever sport or activity they engage in.  You don’t know what you can achieve unless you push yourself and put in the time and effort!

At the end of the day, however, if you are an All-American or if you rode the pine all year...if you go to an Ivy League school or you go to the local Community College…as long as you know you have done your best…that is all that matters! 

You are NOT defined by your achievements to those who truly love you!

You are YOU! And the most awesome parts of you are not the parts that you list on a resume or a college application. The most awesome parts of you are the things that not everybody gets to see everyday—like the times you used to take a jacket for the kid at school who didn’t have one, or the times you stood up for the kid who was getting bullied, or the time you got to know the quiet kid who had a rough home life.

And that will always be more important to me than any test score.

-lightning Bug

Have FOMO, Will Travel

It’s July and all my friends are on vacation. At least that’s the way it feels. I think I am the only person in my zip code who is sitting at home scrolling through pages of Facebook and Instagram pics of palm trees and sunrises and little umbrella drinks. I have a bad case of FOMO this week. (Fear of missing out) for all of you over the age of 40. I am missing out this week! And it’s driving me bonkers! The good Gemini twin in me is happy that everyone is spending time off and enjoying themselves but the bad one is very jealous and making the “hmph” face in complete jealously that I am missing out on all the fun!

Here’s the thing. The first week of May, my family flew (my first time EVER flying) to Florida and spent a week in Cocoa Beach (our first ever Florida beach vacay) and we had the most amazing time! It was magnificent! But that was almost three months ago! And while I’m sure everyone wanted to kill me while they were at work on a Monday in May and I was posting Instagram pics of the sunrise over the Atlantic...

Well…that was different. Ok, not really. It was the same. Probably worse. That still doesn’t make my FOMO any better this week, however.

My husband has a week’s vacation next week. We blew our summer vacation funds (and then some) on our amazing May Florida vacay, so it’s not in the budget to jet off to the Caribbean next week. It’s not even in the budget to jet off to Lake Moomaw next weekend. I thought I would be happy just relaxing at home and catching up on some projects (I love projects!) but that is no longer doing it for me. I want to be adventurous! So I had an idea.

I made an itinerary for next week. We’re going to be world travelers after all! That’s right. We are going to travel the world!

We start Sunday afternoon in Manhattan at the Tribeca Film Festival. We will feast on NY style pizza and NY style cheesecake and then we are off to the Film Festival (Hull’s Drive In for a double feature of Minions and Max.) 

Monday’s forecast (so far) seems to be threatening thunderstorms, so  we will be heading to Seattle to enjoy morning coffee and then jetting off to Hawaii in the evening (an evening of Hawaii Five-0 reruns, Teriyaki shrimp and rice and Hawaiian shaved ice.)

Off to the Caribbean for a day of sunshine and surf on Tuesday (Douthat State Park.) We may even get wild and crazy and rent a paddle boat. We will wrap up things back home with Caribbean Jerk chicken skewers and Bahama Mamas by the firepit.

Wednesday we are heading to New England to watch our beloved Red Sox at Fenway Park (Salem Red Sox.) We’ll swing by our favorite local restaurant (Red Lobster) for some New England Clam chowder first.

We’re breaking out our passports Thursday and heading across the Atlantic to Italy. The kids are going with Papaw to Cucci’s for lunch and fun and the mom and the dad are going to Roanoke for a movie and an Olive Garden lunch.  We’ll be sure to swing by the Wallyworld on the way home to pick up some creamy gelato for dessert! Ciao!

Friday we will stay put in the 24426 and catch up on things before pulling out the passports once again to jet off to take in all the splendor of the Eiffel Tower! 

That’s right! Paris! 

(King’s Dominion style!)

Not everybody has the means to jet off to all the exotic places they would like to go, but everybody has an imagination! 

Hopefully this will inspire you to use yours and have an exciting vacation even when the budget won’t allow for the “real deal!”

Arrivederci!

-Lightningbug

Griffith Farmhouse Table DIY

Farmhouse Table Materials List:

5- 8’ 2x8’s less than $6/each at Lowe’s)

4-pre-made legs of your choice (mine were $15/each at Lowe’s) or you can use 4x4’s, just make sure you are not using any treated lumber

3 or 4 (depending on length of your table)-8’ 1x4’s (we used 1x6’s which you can use, but it makes a tight fit for legs if you are using standard dining chairs)

2- 8’ 1X4’s for underneath table support

L brackets

Screws

Dark Walnut Stain

Paint (I used Color Place Antique White satin because I had it sitting in my basement)

Latex gloves, dust masks, brushes, and at least a case of beer

I have been oooing and ahhing over farmhouse tables for months now. I love to watch Fixer Upper and My Big Family Renovation on HGTV and and they always feature farmhouse design. It’s the “in” thing right now and rightly so. It’s awesome! It’s warm and inviting  like primitive and country design, but it’s light and airy with a more updated vibe. 

My dining table was bought several years ago and was counter height. Counter height is awesome and I loved it while we had it, but I have just been itching to get a regular height dining table. After pinning and pinning and pinning some more and researching and reading tutorials online, my husband agreed to build me a farmhouse table. He’s a super handy guy, so I had complete faith in him pulling this off.

My daughter and I took off to Lowe’s last weekend and started loading up materials.  I took that opportunity to go all liberated woman on her and tell her how girls can do anything that boys can do and nothing was going to hold us back and we were going to rock this thing out and on and on and on. And then I realized I couldn’t get the 2x8’s down from the top shelf by myself so I had to ask a man for help. Ha! We won’t be burning our bras just yet I suppose.

We began our process by figuring out the length we needed for our table. I wanted 5 ½ feet and my husband insisted on 5 ft., 4 inches. I have no idea why. He’s handy but he is a weirdo. Sixty-four inches it was. Fine by me.  I've learned to pick my battles.

He cut the five 2x8’s down to 64 inch length and then we sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded some more until they were nice and smooth.  After they were sanded, I stained the boards with Minwax Dark Walnut stain. I used a brush to brush the stain on and I set a timer for ten minutes and then wiped the boards down with a rag. After that was done, we waited several hours for the stain to dry and then back to the sander to age those bad boys. Lots of sanding around the edges to really make them look worn since the look you are going for is old barn wood. After the second sanding, we applied Johnson's paste wax until it formed a haze and then buffed.

Here you can see how the wood went from lumber yard to beautiful with stain and sanding! 

Ok, after that, I came inside because it was colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra outside, so the details on the next part are a little sketchy to me, but I do have some pics, so hopefully if you are handy enough to be building this table, you can figure out what he did next.

We decided on how we would lay the boards and he laid them side by side and used 1x4’s to go across the backs. Pre-drill your holes in EVERY.SINGLE.THING you screw in during this project. You do NOT want to spend hours and hours and hours staining and sanding and staining and sanding and then have your wood split. That would suck royally.

Here are the boards for the tabletop laying across our old dining table before we screwed them together.
And by we, I totally mean he.




Underneath the table.  You can see the 1x4's used underneath.

After the supports were screwed into the back, it was time to attach the legs. And I forgot this on the materials list because I was at church when he went and got this GENIUS redneck-fabulous solution to attaching the legs.  A normal person who lived someplace where there is an actual hardware store open on Sundays would go and get lag screws and drill in the leg and attach into the tabletop. MY husband went to the only place open in Covington, VA on Sunday…Wallyworld and got some kind of screws to mount a toilet and cobbled them up and made them work.  As he attached the legs, he also attached the 1x6  “aprons” with L-brackets.  Again, don’t forget to pre-drill.  That’s seriously the most important part of this project.  

Oh and he added those corner braces with scrap wood.

Once all the legs and aprons were attached, we flipped the table over 

then it was my turn to shine!  I had been debating on what color to paint the base of the table.  Shoot, I had been debating on what MATERIAL to use on the base of the table. I had been thinking of using metal because I think the rustic and industrial are AMAZEBALLS together. But I stuck with more traditional french countryside and did the wood legs and decided to paint the base white, mostly for neutrality. I painted two coats of plain ole cheap, grab and go Color Place Antique White satin paint from Walmart (because it’s what I had in my basement.)  

Normal people would let that dry overnight and then sand. I let it dry a couple hours (30 minutes maybe) and started sanding around the edges and just random places to get a distressed finish. You can distress furniture in a bunch of different ways (google it) but I’ve found just plain ole sandpaper to be my go-to way.  I sanded and then I realized I was sanding bare wood, not something that was finished and I was just spicing up. Duh. Here’s your sign. So then I was like…uh. What am I going to do now? See, I wanted nice dark marks to come through when I sanded, but because the wood was bare, I was getting bare wood marks when I sanded (ugly and not visible.)  So then I had to figure out what to do next. I got my Minwax dark walnut stain and I began rubbing it on the places where I had been sanding and then rubbing it off quickly. That began to darken things up the way I wanted them. 

This was a tedious process which could’ve been completely avoided by just painting the base a dark brown before I did the white.  I did all of that and stood back and still wasn’t crazy about it, so then I decided to try one more thing before I chopped the entire thing up for firewood.  I got a few rags and I dipped my rag into the stain and I rubbed it onto the white paint (as you would a glaze I think? I’ve never used a glaze!)  I rubbed it on and then very quickly (like as soon as I got it on) rubbed it off with my clean rag.  I did that process to the entire base of the table and it was THEN that I finally decided I loved it and wouldn’t be having a bonfire tonight.

Our first dinner at our new table!

Today husband built one bench using 2-2x8's and the sides are precut 1'x 3' pine boards (kids are sitting on) 

I still have to finish painting it.

We're going to do benches on the long sides and metal chairs on each end after the snowstorm passes. 

We will have the table and two benches done for around $200 (I think! I stink at math!)

Hope this inspires you to farmhouse out something in your house! You can do it!

-lightningbug

Love Grows Best in Little Houses

My dad stopped by my work this week.  He does this quite frequently. Sometimes I drop everything and chat with him and sometimes I busily and distractedly ignore him.

This week we actually talked. We chatted about homes and money and possessions. Specifically we chatted about “more.” My dad has lived in his 960 square foot house in a modest suburb for 37 years. He had the little house built in 1977 and I lived there with him and my mom for my first 18 years. I made lots of memories in that little house and in that little yard and that little driveway and that little neighborhood. I don’t remember thinking “man this house isn’t enough” growing up. Maybe I did and can’t remember. It was probably on a Sunday morning when all three of us were trying to get ready for church at the same time in our one bathroom. The same thing happens in my own small house, in my own modest neighborhood in our one small bathroom when all five us are trying to get ready at the same time on Sunday mornings. I am certain that I make more death threats and have more evil thoughts on Sunday morning before church than any other time of the week. It’s frustrating.

I watch HGTV, I do Pinterest, I follow home organization pages, I draw plans at home on how to make my house bigger and better and more efficient. I go through spells of house hunting. I drive my husband bonkers. Shoot, I drive me bonkers.

My dad said something the other day that stopped me in my tracks. It’s nothing that I haven’t heard from all sorts of places but on this particular day at this particular time, it was what I needed to hear. He said, “Angela (my step mom) and I would love to have a place out in the country somewhere. We’d love to have a place where we could spread out and the dog could run but at our age”…then he stopped and backtracked as if his dear younger wife was in the room listening and said, “Well Angela’s younger than I am but still...this place is paid for and we don’t have to worry about being in debt up to our eyeballs at our age with a mortgage.”

“Sure we’d love to have a bigger place,” he said.  “Who wouldn’t?” 

And this is where what he said completely resonated with me. 

“Sometimes you just have to stop wanting bigger and better and just be thankful for what God has blessed you with.”

Wow. Totally simple. Nothing I haven’t heard a thousand times before.

But profound for me at that moment nonetheless.

My little house is full of children and animals and Kool-Aid spills and muddy paws and dog hair and ponytail holders and dryer sheets (I swear those dryer sheets multiply in the dryer) but it’s busting at the seams with friends and family and laughter and love. And instead of constantly wishing I have a bigger house or a more extravagant vehicle or designer duds, I need to start being more grateful for what God has blessed me with. That doesn’t mean settling. Nope. The complete opposite actually. It means that I have so much to be grateful for and I need to stop being a brat and embrace it and savor every morsel of my little house and my modest neighborhood and my one bathroom and my LIFE.

(Ok, I’m never going to be satisfied with that one bathroom. What? I’m a girl.)