We were all up, and out the door early this morning so we could drop Keith, and Reggie off at the airport for their flight to Wilmington, North Carolina. A whirlwind trip to unload our daughters storage unit, pick up her dog, Tacori, and drive the u-haul home. At about 5pm they were 100 miles outside of Wilmington. I miss them, and will feel so much better when they are home…

So…because it was just Matthew, and I home tonight, and because neither one of us wanted to taste each others cooking, we ordered a pizza, and drove to my brothers work where he was working on his race car and had supper with him.

It is truly the little things in life…

-Jenny

Was so happy to sleep in this morning. My days off are few and too far in between, and it seems like I am entering into another fibromyalgia flare-up again. &^%$#. Keith and I went antiquing, and had a great morning together, and I picked up a few things for our home.

Visited my two favorite antique stores, and was pleasantly suprised to see that Old Things has a new room with a Christmas theme. Not necessarily antique items, but a cute concept and becoming popular as I am seeing a number of antique stores with a Christmas theme section. Was nice to visit with the owner, Sharmaine and talk for a few minutes, and hoping she may be able to assist me in finding pieces to a new collection that I am searching for.

In Search Of: This set is made by Johnson Brothers, and obviously is going to be difficult to find…but I am determined to have this set, and looking forward to adding them to a china hutch.

My sister showed up the other night and we tackled the diningroom together, and she left with a van full of stuff. I have decided to begin selling a majority of my scrapbook/rubberstamp supplies, and have decided to begin with some big pieces.

FOR SALE:

• Antique Library Card Catalog Cabinet. $900.00. Came from a college in Allenstown, PA. One solid, very heavy piece, 60 drawers total, and two pull out surfaces.
• 1938 Vintage Dress Form. $125.00.
• SOLD Martha Stewart Island. $100.00. This was used lovingly in my scrapbook studio, and unfortunately does have a few areas of paint on the wood surface, which does not affect the appearance.

Yesterday was the last day of my class, Managing a Continuum of Care for Positive Patient Outcomes. I am looking forward to my final grade, and excited to have a break. My next class does not begin until September 6th. I have been loading up my Kindle over the past few months, and I am looking forward to doing some fun/no thinking necessary reading.

New books that I’ve added to my Kindle; When I Lay My Isaac Down, Germs, Genes, & Civilization, One Thousand Gifts, Mortal Evidence: The Forensics Behind Nine Shocking Cases, Killing Time, The Stoning of Soraya M., Read This Before Our Next Meeting, and Code Blue.

My husband, and oldest son are flying out to North Carolina in the morning so they can empty the storage unit containing all of my daughters belongs and drive back in the u-haul. Wish I could have done the trip, but difficult to get time off from work, and right now I am aiming for a trip to Wisconsin in October so I have to be careful with my vacation time.

Well friends, for here I am going to close so I can grab my Kindle and begin some reading. Here’s to a wonderful week ahead of us! Until next time…

-Jenny

Day off, and all I really managed to do was make a complete disaster of my entire first floor. All I wanted to do was pull that diningroom together, and it ended up spewing into the kitchen, hallway, and livingroom. [sigh].

I worked on two signs today, and good grief is all I have to say! I’m not sure if the paint was bad [not even sure if that is possible], or if it was due to the weather, but I had a very difficult time [yes, there were a few naughty words used]. Anyways, they are completed, and to protect them I had to seal them, which I don’t typically do. I have made them for a co-worker who celebrated her wedding anniversary yesterday. I hope she will like them.

Keith went shopping this morning and purchased a new laptop for me, as my Vaio had been acting up pretty badly lately. Needless to say, I won’t be upgrading my camera for a while now.

Every once in a while I will notice something odd…and this morning this is what I noticed…

Not sure which of my boys added the smurf to the top of the Hoosier, but when I noticed it this morning, it made me smile, and reminded me how blessed I am…of course, the morning I got into my car and was looking at a huge spider I was neither smiling, or thinking that I was blessed…until I realized that the spider was not moving, and was actually a plastic one left behind by one of my sons.

Well friends, for here I am going to close, and attempt to pick up a bit of the mess that I have made today…until next time…

-Jenny

There were a number of local yard sales today, and my husband, daughter, and I visited a few of them, and found a number of treasures. Here’s a peek at my treasures.

Old enamel strainer, and pot to use on the back deck next season to hold plant pots…

Brand new pillows. Funny story is a woman picked one up and asked how much they were, she made a face, commented that she’d think about it, that she had just painted her livingroom red, and walked away. We made her mind up by picking them up (oh, and for three brand new pillows, I thought $2.00 was a very good price!)…

 A pile of name brand clothes, and two brand new scarves (cost: ten cents each)…

A couple of great books…

A vintage jewelry box, and hobnail glass…

And, finally…a Kenmore sewing machine. I am looking forward to cleaning it up, and plugging it in and beginning a few sewing projects with my daughter.

That’s it for my treasure hunting today.  Hope your Saturday was just as fun! Until next time…

-Jenny

My beautiful daughter surprised me with this beautiful necklace the other day. Getting into the car at the end of a busy day at work, and finding this necklace hanging on the rearview mirror, again affirmed that I am blessed…

I am beginning to doubt that our tomatoes are going to get any bigger, let alone ripen. Hoping to make a batch or two of homemade salsa!

Hard to believe that the summer of 2011 is winding down. Unfortunately Keith, and I have been unable to do some of the exploring that we had planned on, but overall it has been a great summer…especially now that our three children are all back home under our roof. And speaking of children…amazing to think that my ‘baby’ will be 20 years old in eight days. It almost seems like time has sped up.

And, speaking of time. Two weeks remaining of this Case Management class, and I will officially have a year of graduate school behind me. I am so anxious for this journey towards my Masters Degree to be over. I’m tired of school responsibilities, and my never ending procrastination that tends to stress me out, much too often.

Much I would love to do this weekend. Unfortunately I really need to concentrate on that diningroom. Ugh. I look at all that ‘stuff’, and think about all the money that I have spent on a hobby that I have never really accomplished anything, and it makes me ill. Anyways, if all goes well I will have that diningroom pulled together by the end of the weekend…I hope. Especially excited to begin a few DIY projects in there.

Well, I could go on, and on, but a certain textbook is calling me. Until next time…

-Jenny

Today I cleaned out the hallway closet. You know it’s time to clean a closet out when you are leary of opening a door…afraid of what might fall on your head. One full construction garbage bag later, it is clean, organized, and holding only the essentials necessary, and more importantly, no worries of anything knocking you out when you open the door.

I picked up a new throw rug for the hallway, dragged an antique shutter, and an antique wire basket out of the cellar, and I am loving the completed hallway.

As I was taking photos I realized that the Bless Our Home hearts have been in every home that the kids and I have lived in since 1988….

Today we [and when I say we I mean, I supervised while the kids lifted, and carried furniture] moved all of my scrapbook/rubberstamp stuff out of the sunroom [aka The ARt Studio] and into the diningroom, and have turned the sunroom into Toni’s room. Her room looks beautiful. My diningroom…well, it sort of looks like a tornado touched off in there.

I also completed a surprise for a wonderful friend of mine today…for such a quick, little project, it proved to be a pain in the ass! Can’t wait to get this out in the mail, and hoping that she will love it.

Hoping to get a few other things accomplished prior to bed, so for here I must close. Until next time, heres to a beautiful week ahead of each of us!

-Jenny