Letting Go

Last October, we learned that I had the option of relocating to Arizona or lose my job. After much consideration, a trip to AZ, and many prayers, we decided that staying in Denver was the best option for us. So in December, I was laid off.

Part of that decision was knowing that we were going to have to let our home go up for sale. Not just because of money, but because of many other reasons as well - decision to stay was to do what we felt was the right thing to do, and that was to be more involved with the people who are already in our lives by moving closer to them. It also meant that we needed more room before too long because of the anticipation that my mother would eventually live with us.

Well, it took it 9 months to get to the point of showing our home. Not that there was 9 months of work. But my husband and I tend to be perfectionists. And deep down, I don't think we were quite ready to get rid of it. But here we are in September, and we actually have our home on the market. Below are the pictures:

Front Exterior:









Even though this hasn't been an easy process, we have learned a few lessons that we will take with us. For that, we are grateful. We will dearly miss this home. We have loved it since the moment we laid our eyes on it. And we can only hope that whoever purchases this home will love it as much as we did.

Cleaning House

My husband and I are in the middle of getting our house ready for market. This has meant a lot of clean up work and painting and landscaping to get ready.

Today, as I was searching for shoe racks to clean up the mudroom, I stumbled on the Container Store sale and ran across these absolutely lovely office accessories. It's from their "Brocade" line:

I could think of several places to place this beautiful waste basket - the bathroom, the office, our bedroom...it's just so pretty without being pretentious.

And could you see a sunny office with shelves filled with these magazine bins?

And of course, they also have the desk pen holder, letter holder, and file trays:

Our yard was a huge task, and for the most part, we kept it simple, because any improvement was a major improvement, since we had only weeds in our front and back yard. We had our friend's company put in over 5000 sq. ft of sod, with 4 variegated Dogwood shrubs that look like this:

We also selected some geraniums, petunias, and one other flower that I can't remember the name of. I will have to post a picture of it when all the flowers are planted this afternoon.

We never really got around to landscaping the yard while we were living here without trying to sell our house because of the crazy expense that it costs to landscape. Especially when you have a double lot. But now that we are selling our home, we can't have weeds as the welcome mat. We also have just one more room to paint before we are finished painting the entire house, and then the only thing left to do is organize the garage and basement and paint the doorknobs, so we can out the doors back on the hinges. this has been a seven month process for us, which is long considering that it really is only a couple weeks worth of work, but with a small child at home, it's hard to get things going sometimes! Needless to say, I will be having a margarita in celebration once this is all finished!

A little bit of this...A little bit of that

Over a year ago, my husband registered the company Nola, LLC for me as a Christmas present, so that I could start a company that I had been dreaming about. I wanted to design and sew home, baby, and personal accessories. This was after purchasing a sewing machine. Unfortunately, I have yet to actually launch the business officially. It's a bit on the back burner, for now.

So far, it seems the only thing I have had time to sew are baby shower gifts for friends. My hope is that I will actually begin sewing other things, not just to learn, but to eventually use or sell.

However, this blog isn't just for the things I am making. I am excited to share other stories about my life with our family or other random thoughts that also come to my head.

For now, I wanted to post some of the items that I have created for friends:

This is a blanket that I made for a coworker who was expecting a little girl. While not one of my best creations, I am proud to say that this was the first blanket I made with a continuous binding.

This blanket I made for a dear friend that was expecting a boy. She always loves things clean and simple, so the fabric just seemed perfect for her. I really love the elephant fabric, and even more so, I love the way the red fabric popped against it.

This was a blanket I made for another friend that was also expecting a boy. The bird fabric is a flannel, and the back fabric and binding are products of Amy Butler. I loved how whimsical all of these fabrics are, and even more so, I'm loving bird prints lately. It was really fun to do this one.

Finally, this is a set of burp cloths that I made for a friend at church. She is the only person who had a girl in the last few years, since I started really sewing. So I was excited to get in some pink fabric. I had purchased the fabric a long time ago with anticipation of a girl. And having been on a budge at the time, it was nice to have something around that I could use. Of course, I'm excited to be able to do another girl project soon in anticipation of a friend's expected arrival. I'll post the pictures for hers soon too.