Different Blue Chair

A picture is worth a thousand words. So since there are about 14,000 words, I will limit mine.

Before and "In Progress" Photos of our 1st Love Shack!
Please tell me you can tell the difference between our Befores, and our "In Progress" right? Ok, whew!

By the way, that is different blue recliner. Scout's honor. Even though I wasn't a Scout, I can give you Scout's honor because I ate 2 whole boxes of Girl Scout cookies in January and February. There I go rambling again.



Apparently, microfiber couches do not photograph well. Like they make us look filthy, but they are clean!



Valentine's gifts from Gardener Guy and Daddy!

Sloppy Joes for dinner!




In Progress love and all of mine!

Land Lord's Daughter

think: Coal Miner's Daughter. Even Bubby thought that was pretty clever so you should too!

As much as I would try to deny it, I am a Land Lord's Daughter. See this was the diamond in the rough we started with a year ago.
I have primed, painted, and repainted, schlaked and accent painted, primed,and painted a lot in our Love Shack.

This summer, Auntie J helped me paint our Living Room and hallway Tea and Cream. We left two walls Country White until I could decide on an accent color. You know when there is a giant sock pile in the middle of the room and it's horrendous, but after a few days you get used to it so it stays there? You don't? Well that happened many-a times growing up. But that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, I grew to ignore the 2 white walls until the past week. Last week we had a snow day and I worked up the courage to paint it by myself -- Gardener Guy despises painting. What do you know? Paint's frozen. Apparently, you can let it thaw out once. So I took today off for a much needed mental health day. Paint was thawed and ready to go. I used every last drop of the gallon finishing up those two walls and it looks great! I have a little too much tan going on right now so I'm looking for cream colored curtains to go with my Robin's Egg Blue drapes, and to break up the tan on tan action. Wish my legs had too much tan going on, but why go there?

BUT before I could even paint today, I got out my Land Lord's Daughter kit and showed mold who was boss. You see, our furnace went ka-poot. So we installed a wall unit that hooks up to our gas line and heats our house wonderfully. (And I don't have to carry in wood for the wood stove.) The down side to the wall unit is that it puts a lot of moisture in the air. So each week, I take my clorox mix and scrub scrub scrub our baseboards where the moisture collects and grows, well, mold. "BLACK MOLD!!" Just kidding, I'm a good tenant, right Daddy?

So mold is cleaned up for now and paint is drying! I also am working on painting a small shelf in our dining room and searching for inspiration on how to decorate it, without cluttering it. I hate clutter.

Gardener Guy promised me a trip to HomeGoods tonight, it will be my first time and I am hoping to be inspired!

And just to prove to you I bear my title, Land Lord's Daughter, in good nature, here is a picture of the Land Lord with his clean-up crew away from fighting mold.
Yep, my eyes are closed. :)

Land Lord love and all of mine!

Psst. I saw on a blog this week where the grandkids called their Grampa, Coach. How absolutely adorable is that. He's not really a Grand-pappy Papa Poo guy anyway, he's a Coach.

We're On the Map!

Get a load of this!

We're on the map, minus a small spelling error, but still! How neat is this pillow?

Enter to win one here.

Home town love and all of mine!

Young House Love(r)

Do you read Young House Love?

John and Sherry are a husband and wife blogger team that are DIYing their 2nd home. They are fabulous and funny, and their daughter Clara is just a doll baby.

I love their style and have been working on saving design inspiration photos and projects. Here is their Projects Page. Also, they are all about designing on a dime and saving up for splurges -- just what I need to be reading about!

Don't tell Gardener Guy but I have bookmarked the Baby Business tab in their projects. Hehe.

Young House Love and all of mine!

The To Do List

Life to do list.
(Don't be confused, this is not a "bucket list", but rather a survive before you can thrive list. )

-Find a job. Check

-Find a home. Check

-Finish Student Teaching, successfully. Check.

-5 year anniversary with Gardener Guy. Check.

-Dinner with sorority friends. Check.

- Pedicure with HayBee. Check.

-Graduate. Almost check.

I feel like I have been looking forward to May 7th all year, honestly. That was to be the last day of Student Teaching, my 5 year anniversary with Gardener Guy and prepping to graduate. I haven't had time to reflect on this semester, year or college experience to really let it sink in that I will be moving on to adulthood. Real adulthood, with bills and a paycheck (!!).

Tomorrow, I get to go home to work in the garden and get it ready for the wedding with Gardener Guy's direction. When planning for the wedding, I always thought to myself, "Self, the wedding soiree will sink in when it is close enough that you can plant in the garden." Yippee it is here!

***
This just in. (As is just popped into my mind!) In my midst of getting out Save the Dates, Wedding Invites, Graduation Announcements and passing the word about Showers, I have not had the time or creativity to create Graduation Party invites. If you would like to come out for the festivities, you are MORE THAN WELCOME!
***

Who: You and your family!

What: Graduation Celebration

When: May 15th. My graduation is at 11am, GG's is at 2:30. We will have light lunch in between and BBQ after his.

Where: Manhappy: Bramlage Coliseum and GG's house

To bring: A lawn chair for each rear that would like a place to sit! Your presence is gift enough!

RSVP: If you can plan in advance, that's great. If not and you show up, we'll be around back of the house! :)

Graduation love and all of mine!

Dad's Army

I went browsing through Mama's list of blogs and read through Old Centennial Farmhouse.

I identified with her story of working on her Dad's "army".

So much more gratifying working on my own house now!
Gardener Guy and I are so excited to see all of the work that has been going on the past 2 weeks!

It will be a big Wedding/Nesting/Birthday/Easter blowout this weekend so look forward to pictures!

Clean up love and all of mine!

What a Coinky Dink.

My Guy and I need (ok, "want") some patio furniture for our new home.

I found these on Target. I couldn't decided between white, yellow or red. Guy said white looked the most classic. So we added the set to our Target Wish List.

I'd like to spruce them up with some of these.


Our mudroom/summer kitchen/Jasmine's bedroom will be decked out with red gingham curtains and terra cotta pots growing green herbs and topped with a red ribbon. I think this bistro set on the back patio will be a great way to tie together indoors and out!

Waiting for that coinky dink connection?

Today, I was reading Snippet & Ink a favorite wedding blog of mine for inspiration, Kathryn posted this inspiration board:
Red Bistro Chairs.

Inspiration from Snippet and Ink.

How lovely.

Nesting love and all of mine!

Spring Break: Kansas Style

Spring Break: Kansas Style includes bi-polar weather, pulling honeysuckle roots, snuggling with doll babies and paint fumes. And, last but not least, crossing things off of my To Do list!

Here is a picture book of my Spring Break:

Chapter 1: Home and Yard Renovation at Northview

Mama "Marie" in Daddy's coat, so don't judge her. "Helloo!!
She's sneaking up to the Love Shack to survey the damage.

South of Northview (See: Love Shack) before My Guy showed the landscaping who's boss.


Daddy and I rocked these outfits for 4 days strong. On Friday, the weather was warm enough to take our sweatshirts off!

Shiver me timbers this gives me goosebumps.
Word to the wise: NEVER plant honeysuckle.
We worked well together. He was the coach, I was MVP.

Daddy felled limbs, Mama and I dragged them to The Pile.
These punks? They sat around and took a long break.
Baby Lisa was a pretty good Water Girl though.

I work hard for the money. So hard honey, honey.


Daddy and My Guy felled a lot of trees as this was the small pile.
Hope Rent-a-Son is up to the challenge!
Let's move on from Northview, shall we?


Chapter 2: Wedding Decor

Spray painted shepherd's hooks for the Unity Candle in the ceremony.
Spray painted old chalkboards from Mama's classroom

Upcoming project:
Spray paint this gate white and use clothes pins to clip pictures of B & L.
See the legs at the bottom? We will shove those in the ground so that the gate stands up tall.
Don't forget about the pomanders!


Chapter 3: Playing Dress Up
Baby Lisa, Spiderman, Hay Bee, and Baby B
We bribed Spiderman to try on his suit for a bite sized Snickers. It worked.
One day when Aunt L isn't looking, Hay Bee and I are going to take him back to college with us.
No pic of Baby B as she was, uh.. petrified.. of the tutu. Rats.

Bear on the other hand "loved this". Would you agree that she has King in her blood?

"I love this. Mommy love this."
Her Daddy J taking a pic for Mommy S while PaPa and Big J are looking on.

Speaking of Big J, he was not a fan of the suit. We were prepared with chocolate again and after some sweet talking from his Mamaw, he was dressed up.

Epilogue: Only because I am assuming you have stopped reading by this point.
Sick of the picture book?
If not, enjoy these out-takes that didn't make the picture book chapters.


I think we were about to bust a move.
That would be me and Hay Bee, not My Guy. Remember, he doesn't dance.
Yep, there she goes.
Then, she went all Khloe Kardashian on me. I was walking back from the shed, she literally jumped on piggy-back and then brought me to the ground. Apparently she didn't do enough manual labor if she had enough energy to jump on me.
And tickled me. The WORST torture ever.
Harley is licking my wounds.
Didn't even phase My Guy because this is a regular occurrence with Hay Bee around.

She tackled me right into a big pile of mud, dirt, leaves, roots, branches and probably cigarette butts from the old tenant. Barf.

On a similar note: I am terrified of the toast she will be giving at the reception.
Little does she know that we will have a kill-switch for the mic.


Here is a shout out to Harley, Z's bird dog.
Harley will be My Guy's Golden Retriever, Jasmine, Personal Trainer to get her back in shape.
This dog had been cooped up all winter (that's what you are supposed to do with bird dogs) and when we let her out to run, she held no resentment for the long winter's negligence.
Got to love dogs.
Plus, when you say "Kennel Up" she runs to the gate to pen herself up.
I guess Z has trained her.

What did you do with the Spring weather?

Spring Break love and all of mine!

The Countdown Continues.

3 months.

14 weekends.

92 days.

I don't even want to open up my The Knot page to see how far behind we are on it's suggested to-do list.

It was 41* at 6 o'clock tonight. It will warm up before June, right?

Countdown love and all of mine!


PS. The renovations commence this weekend for the wedding garden and our new home!

Peace and Quiet

I recently saw this picture on a blog about this house in Iceland. My first thought: peaceful.

My second thought was driving with my parents through Western Kansas and passing abandoned farms and homesteads to which Mama is all but in the fetal position. Somehow her mind gets going about the good ol' days and homesteaders in Kansas trying to make it by on their farm. Until that one the day that cannot make it by anymore, so these families leave the homesteads.


Sometimes I wonder if there are not families that secretly live in these homesteads and enjoy the peace and quiet. Yep, they have escaped from the hustle and bustle to the peace and quiet.

But then again, they are not as lucky to live so close to Frank and Marie. And Robert.

I know, this post is neither here nor there.

Black Ice

Sometimes I live vicariously through Daddy and Aunt Joyce's stories about growing up. One of the many stories I have heard is about my Grandpa and Grandma (the GP's) and all four kids loading up in the car and heading West to Denver to visit family. Between reading Little House on the Prairie stories and a few, "Mom! Rod stinks!" I am sure that there were many trips to remember. My dad tells of one blizzardy, wintery night the family took out on I70 West. Icy roads and snowy conditions I'm sure made my Grandma about as nervous as riding in a rowboat without a lifejacket. The storm worsened and my Grandpa hit a patch of ice to which my Grandma yelled, "BLACK ICE!"

Winter weather makes me nervous! A couple years ago, my Corolla Lola was hit by a snow scraper truck in Manhattan and took months to get through the body shop; to which 4 months later was in a hail storm and needed a whole new face lift. Poor Lo!

Lola is a fair weather fan.

Back to Black Ice. Black Ice is the story of my travels this semester. Every time I try to head home or back to Manhattan it is either snowing, sleeting, ice remains or a chance of a blizzard is looming. One particular night, I had to drive home in Haley Beth's Silverado Sylvia with no heat with windchills below zero and icy country roads, answering my Daddy's calls every 13 minutes making sure that I was not in a ditch somewhere. I made it home, only to be nearly attacked by Zach's precious pooch Harley.

Have I told you that Zach brought home a puppy and he was the hero of the family? I haven't? Well that is another blog another day friends!

Zachary B and Harley Bean. Bird in there.

Today, Blake and his sister Amanda, and I headed back to Manhattan to meet a wintery mix and more than a few cars in ditches (including one snow scraper --ruh roh!) We made it safely and I am working on not "nagging" his driving skills.

He should drive with my Grandma.

Here's to hoping for warmer weather! All my love!

Peddle your crazy somewhere else, we're full up here!

Do you watch The Bachelor? I only watch The Bachelor when he is down to the last three or four ladies and goes on hometown dates and the last few final rose ceremonies. With this being said, I did happen to watch the first few episodes of The Bachelor: Jake season. Each week I was astounded that he kept "The Crazy" aka Michelle. The poor guy just wanted a few minutes of fame to date America's top bachelorettes, why was this crazy pouring on her crazy a bit too soon? Doesn't everyone know not to let your skeletons out of the closet too soon in a relationship?
Michelle "The Crazy" Bachelor 2010

What in the world does this have to do with Backyard Chic? Well, today I am feeling much better after a few prayers, a night to sleep on it and a good day of teaching!

You, my few and fabulous readers are Jake, just looking for a good time in this blog. I apologize for "pouring on my crazy a bit too soon" and promise to blog about all things love and marriage, (and a baby carriage for you Grandma T... wayy after June 12th!) For those of you who were at Madden Christmas Extravaganza, we are still not expecting a baby next Christmas :)

As my Auntie J would say, "Pedal your crazy somewhere else, we're full up here!"

PS. My mama can vouch for many a emotional breakdowns and letting the bathroom mirror hear about it. But why go there...?

I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Unto the Hills...

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. Psalms 121.

It's been one of those days where I am blessed to temporarily live in Manhattan, in the middle of the Flint Hills because, well I needed to "lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help". Today I found my help on the Top of the World Observation Point near my apartment.

I'm trying to take one day at a time and make it to graduation so that I can move back closer to home..uh, I mean in my front yard. I miss my family and miss living in a house full of people. I'm blessed to have Blake and Haley Beth in Manhattan with me, but I also miss seeing my friends on a regular basis because of Student Teaching. Today was a tough reminder of this coming home to an empty apartment.

Here's a look at those hills, whence cometh my help.

Top of the World Drive.
Pictures via my new BlackBerry.

Dry your eyes Mommy, I'll be home Friday.