2019!!!

We are now two weeks into the New Year and I totally missed wishing everyone a happy one. A bunch of us spent the New Year in the Pocono's to celebrate my brothers belated birthday (from last year - it was a big one). Good times had for all. 

Happy Winter Solstice

Christmas Traditions

Every family has their own traditions for the holidays. As a family we have a gingerbread house decorating contest, hayride with hot chocolate, decorate ornaments, take family pictures in front of the tree (for cards of course) and we're constantly adding as the kids get older they change a little.

Last night we did the gingerbread house decorating competition and decorated ornaments.

I ❤️ these fun evenings. It relieves some of the stress that can sometimes be felt this time of year. Here are the houses, the ugly Christmas sweater sugar cookie I decorated and the ornaments.

What do you do with your family during the holidays to keep them festive and less stressful? Share in the comments.

Happy Hanukkah

To everyone celebrating, have a wonderful Hanukkah!!

Christmas Decorating

Hi! I'm Laney and I ❤️ Christmas! The decorations, the music, the activities with my family. There is nothing better in my mind.

So how early do you start decorating for Christmas? Do you wait until after Thanksgiving or do you start beforehand because you decorate every room in the house, front and backyards?

As kids, we didn't really celebrate Thanksgiving. We ate dinner at our dad's restaurant together and we would decorate on Black Friday before we knew what Black Friday was.

Now that we're older and a lot has changed, we have a large Thanksgiving dinner with together. We have some family visit from Boston. We do dinner, plan our shopping and head out about 8pm Thanksgiving night. Typically we're out all night, come home to regroup about 3am, grab a bite to eat and either hit a new set of stores or make a plan for later in the morning.

After all the shopping is done we hit our respective homes to decorate.

This year, before Thanksgiving, my sister made a couple of wreaths and sent me a text with them. Got me thinking "why have I never done this before?". I have an entire room in my house set up for crafts and sewing yet I've never made my own wreath.

I promptly hit the store to buy what I needed to make wreaths for the inside of my doors since I already have them for outside. I also bought a 'believe' sign from A.C. Moore that I wanted to paint. My daughter and I put up the tree, the garland and all the other decorations. Then I got to making the wreaths and realized I have two hurricanes in the living room that I normally tie ribbon around with an ornament hanging. 😀

This year I decided to change the ribbon on the hurricanes because what I normally used covered me in gold glitter. It was everywhere!! I measured the ribbon, sewed snaps on the back so next year all I need to do is snap it back on - so easy!!

Check out my finished projects...

❤️ them all, especially the red bow on the wreath.

Share your projects in the comments. I'd love 💕 to see your creations.

Searching for a Reason

It's now a full six (6) months since I was let go from a job I liked.

Let me back up a bit...in 2015 I was let go for a job I loved (long story) and spent 9 months out of work, finally landed a position with a company through a friend. We worked together at the company I was let go from, became friends and when I needed help she was there. February 2018 the company and I parted ways. I knew the position wasn't for me but I kept it because I have a family to support.

I found something else right away, loved it. It was a creative space but still used my customer service/account management skills. I was there 30 days and I was fired. Why you ask. Well turns out they didn't want to take the time to train me. I later found out that the person that quit and left the position open for me to take wanted it back - she hated her new job. That left me out in the cold again for the second time in three years.

I am about sick of the universe kicking my ass! It's been going on for a solid three years. It's about time for it to stop.

Heros

With the 4th of July having just passed and all the talk about heroes, I wanted to talk about heroes too. Growing up, a hero to me was someone that you looked up to that did something extraordinary, invented something necessary or paved the way for others. To me, police, firefighters and the military were all heroes but in a different sense. They were there to help us, save us or keep us safe, they were all on a different (higher) level, at least to me.

The word hero is tossed around now to describe athletes, movie stars, or entertainers of any kinds including bands. To me, they are not heroes, they are lucky people that made it big and a ton of money by performing. They may all really love what they do but they are in no way heroes just because of their profession.

A hero is defined as below by Wikipedia.

A hero (masculine) or heroine (feminine) is a real person or a main character of a literary work who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, bravery or strength; the original hero type of classical epics did such things for the sake of glory and honor. On the hand are Medieval and modern heroes, who perform great deeds for the common good instead of the classical goal of pride and fame.

Growing up my heroes were the three listed below not the popular athlete of the time. They each did something extraordinary and what I imagine they were told could not be done.

• George Washington - lead a new country to find its identity
• Abraham Lincoln - the 16th President, freed the slaves
• Amelia Earhart - first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic
• Clara Barton - a nurse in the American Civil war who started the American Red Cross

These are the type of people we need to put forth as heroes to our children. Even Orpah Winfrey who came from nothing, worked, learned and built an empire showing all little girls out there that you can do whatever you want. Even in this, still to this day, "mans world".

Let's promote the right kind of heroes.

Independence Day / July 4th

While it's debated when the Declaration of Independence was actually signed (July 2 or July 4) it separated us from the British. The holiday has been observed/celebrated every year since 1777 in various ways. In 1777 there was a 13-gun salute in the morning and the evening along with a state dinner for Continental Congress that included the 12-gun salute, prayers, music, parades, and fireworks among other things. Great way to celebrate freedom in my opinion.

It wasn't until 1870 that Congress made July 4th a federal holiday although it was unpaid. Congress eventually changed it to a paid holiday in 1938.

July 4th is celebrated using some of the same events on that first night in 1777 - food, family, friends, music, and fireworks. Wearing the US flag on various clothing has also become a thing and it is not against any law as I've often heard.

I wanted to verify that so I Googled the question and was pointed to the American Legion to their questions page. Below are the question and answer which can also be found on their page - here.

Question: 

Is it permissible to wear an item of clothing that looks like the United States flag?

Answer: 

Unless an article of clothing is made from an actual United States flag, there is NO breach of flag etiquette whatsoever. People are simply expressing their patriotism and love of country by wearing an article of clothing that happens to be red, white, and blue with stars and stripes. There is nothing illegal about the wearing or use of these items.

So go forth and celebrate our Independence with family, friends, music, food, and of course fireworks.

Don't forget to wear your American Flag t-shirt.

Inspiration Comes from Anywhere

I had a phone interview a couple of weeks ago, one question asked is where do I find inspiration. Anywhere!

I picked up a free cabinet, it was in pretty bad shape but it was free and perfect for the book overflow from my office. I had leftover paint from an update done to one of the bedrooms in my house, it was perfect for what I had in mind. The colors leftover from the room is what sparked my idea for this bookshelf and a couple of other projects. 😁
Before bookshelf...the first image is the top of the bookshelf, it stands about 4 1/2 feet tall. The second image is of the bottom front to show the feet.

Feet & bottom of the bookshelf.

Updated bookshelf ready to use - whoo hoo! There are two colors, the inside is a seafoam while the outside and the trim is a blue-gray. ❤️❤️❤️ this color combo.

Perfectly placed just outside my office door with my book overflow and room for more. 👍🏼

I picked up this cabinet for $10 for my office to bring my printer down to where I can really use it (I'm only 5 feet tall and where the printer was it was over my head). As you can see it really needed some ❤️❤️. I also needed to decide if I wanted to put the doors back on or leave them off.

Work in progress - filling the holes, sanding - getting it ready for painting. Made the decision no doors and I bought hairpin legs (which I ❤️ ❤️❤️).

All done! Now I can reach my printer. Colors are the same but reversed from the bookshelf, outside and shelves are seafoam while the inside "walls" are the blue-gray. 😍😍

Can't forget the hairpin legs - so happy I found a reason to use them in a project. Need to find another project so I have a reason to buy and use them again. 😁

My kitchen before an ugly, brown and depressing. Just as a side note this is what the kitchen looked like when I bought the house. (I can't upload a video so unfortunately there can be no before and after). Believe me when I tell you I wanted to blow up my entire house because of how much I hated the kitchen. 
This picture is from when the house was inspected before moving in. It at least gives you an idea of how bad the kitchen was. 

My dog ❤️s the vent when the air is on. This picture gives a bit more for you to see the ugliness of the kitchen. Blah!!!

A few quick pics of it all done.

Remember the doors from the $10 cabinet I upcycled for my office? They were cut down and used in my kitchen - one as a shelf to free up some counter space.

The other door was cut up to make a mail/key station so it could hang using a small picture hanger instead of two screws deep into the wall. Couldn't be happier with how it all turned out.

Final addition to the kitchen - getting rid of that ugly cafeteria like light. New blubs as well, the fixture came with bulbs that gave off an amber-like glow that was just not right for a kitchen. The new bulbs are a soft white. Still to finish is patching and painting the ceiling where that ugly light came from. But overall I am beyond ecstatic about the kitchen update.

If you have a project you want to tackle, plan it out, make sure you have everything and then just DO IT!