1 first hair cut

4 house guests for 4 days

1 stomach bug for me

(sorry there’s no picture )

12 trees planted (7 right here)

65 birthday party guests

12 mason jars as centerpieces

75ish cupcakes made

0 pictures taken of party

5 garlands made

2 shoes muddied from family photoshoot

2 runny noses (Easton & Mike, no picture necessary)

1/2 of a countertop frame complete

2 heads in a hole at the Please Touch Museum

7 bags of stuff donated to Goodwill (and one closet cleaned!)

2 walking legs

1 one year old boy.

Some of these topics deserve more detail (yes, I’m talking about you, 12 trees). We’re hoping to get some good weather over this 3 day weekend to work on our ongoing landscaping project, snap some pictures of the trees and get back to work on the outdoor kitchen. Also, I’m hoping to summarize Easton’s first year in photos and steal someone’s pictures of his party.

But yes, my baby turned one yesterday. Holy smokes.

I didn’t plan to formally say this, but I also didn’t plan to take a break for as long as I did. So, yeah I needed a blogging break.

I hate to bog you all down with the “I’m busy”, woe-is-blogger type of posts, but I also know that many of you can relate. I’ll start out by saying that being a working parent is hard, scratch that, being any parent is hard. Mommy guilt is a killer. I’ve said it before when my maternity leave ended and it’s gotten better in a lot of ways. But in many others ways, it’s still hard. This blog is one of those ways.

I still struggle with how to fit this blog into my “new” life. Don’t get me wrong, me, myself and I love everything about what I write here. I will always be watching HGTV, browsing Pinterest and coming up with things to change around our house. That is what I love to do in my spare time. The problem is that it’s not about me anymore.

I went down to part-time in about October, but I still work 30+ hours a week. Two weeks ago, I worked full-time for several days and it sucked. I don’t know how many of you do it. I don’t know how I did it for months. My longer working hours contributed to my break from here, as did some family commitments, technical issues, Easton not sleeping well for a few weeks and just being dang tired and it goes on and on. And repeat. You’ve heard it all before.

Truth is, about 3 Mondays ago I started my week as usual, checked my blog stats and started to plan out my projects and posts for the week.

Monday: Photograph weekend project before Easton goes to bed but not after his dinner or when he’s in clingy meltdown mode

Tuesday: After bedtime edit and upload photos, hoping computer cooperates and doesn’t continually freeze, write post

Wednesday: Work on new project after bedtime

Thursday: Photograph, upload and post? Eh I’m short a day here

Friday: Collapse.

Saturday/Sunday: Scope out new project and work on it during naps/bedtime

As I planned out my week, I got mad at myself for not accomplishing enough over the weekend. “I should have painted x!” “Why haven’t we finished the office?” “We need to get those shelves up!”. I stopped myself for a minute. What the hell am I doing?

I wish this blog was my job, but it’s not. I would love to work hard enough that it is my job, but I know that idea is far fetched. I don’t want this blog (or reading other blogs) to make me feel like I’m not good enough– not working hard enough, not crafty enough, not organized enough. I started to feel like that, so I needed to step back.

This blog is fun for me and if it ever gets to feel like work, I need to step back and take a deep breath. My time with Easton when I get home from work is for Easton. I didn’t go down to part-time to blog or for projects. My weekends are for Easton, not for this blog or projects. If some weekends I have loads of energy and I’m inspired to get things done, then great! If some weekends I just want to take a nap with Easton, then I can’t get mad at myself. Easier said than done, but I am trying.

I’d rather give you posts that I am proud of than posts I threw together because I was tired…or because I had a great weekend with Mike and Easton…or because I was busy rolling around on the playroom floor when I should have been photographing in natural light.

When I had this discussion with Mike a few weeks ago, I asked him why I should keep blogging. His response was a) because you like it and and b) because some day, when we look back, we’ve created an amazing journal. Maybe I don’t post 6 days a week like I did when I first started (say whaaa?), but just like real life, this blog has peaks and valleys. Lately, more valleys than peaks, that’s okay with me. And that’s all it has to be.

We also spent some time last weekend at our neighborhood Halloween party. Easton was a pirate.

He had all of the clothes and the day of the party I ran to Michael’s and picked up a solid red bandana and a skull one. I tied the red one around his head with a ponytail holder and used the skull one as a belt. They cost me $1.79 each… Halloween costume for under $4

We planned to post about our Pinterest Challenge project on Monday night, but our power went out at 4:30.

If you saw the recent picture on our Facebook or Instagram pages, this is what we were working on…

Oh yes, those bookcases live on. Mike finally gave them the caulk and paint they deserve. Some areas still need another coat, so we’re not ready for after pictures yet. Oh and the wall is covered in primer because… we decided to change the color of the room too.

Once our power was out, we surrendered and put down the paint brushes. After Irene last year, we were more prepared this year with a small generator, flashlights and candles. We also set up a pack ‘n play in our formal living room, which is on the main floor, towards the front of the house (away from the tall trees in the backyard) and kept Easton as far away from windows as we could. We closed all of the bedroom doors upstairs to keep the cats from hiding up there incase a tree fell or we had a tornado warning.

During Irene, I barely slept all night because the wind, sirens and transformers exploding were terrifying. We knew Sandy was expected to be much worse for New Jersey. Once the storm started to get bad, Mike herded the cats into the former office/soon to be playroom. We wanted to make sure that if something happened to the house, or we had to make a run for it, we knew where to find them. Easton slept in his pack ‘n play and I slept next to him. I was blasting his white noise machine (which runs on battery) so I slept for a few hours.

Thanks to social media, we were very aware of how things were going around the state all night. We were able to keep our iPhones charged thanks to our generator. Once it was daylight and the pictures started popping up in our Facebook newsfeeds, we were in shock. Our yard was covered in leaves and branches, but our basement stayed dry this time. We were very, very lucky.

Our power was only out for a day– less time than it was with Hurricane Irene last year. At one point we were told it would take a week, so we were so excited when it came back on so quickly. We had Easton all bundled and sleeping with us for just a day, since it was cold and we had no baby monitor. Our hearts break for those who weren’t so lucky. And there are so so many of them.

My parents are still without power and the area I grew up in was hit pretty hard. New Jersey is a small state, so it seems that we know people in every badly affected area. My family is originally from Hoboken and I still have family there, Mike is from Staten Island and still has family there, we have friends down the shore everywhere and we spent time with Easton in Manasquan and Seaside this summer.

If you haven’t seen pictures of Seaside, that boardwalk is not even there anymore. Once we got power back I watched the Weather Channel for 3 days straight. We spent much of the remainder of the week hosting some family that didn’t have power and needed hot meals and showers.

It seemed wrong to post about superficial things, particularly our house, when so many people close to home (literally and figuratively) are suffering. We also planned a road trip to attend the Young House Love book signing in Connecticut on Friday, but because of gas shortages and traffic getting into NYC (which we’d have to cut through), we decided not to go. Everything was sort of put on hold last week, including my job, which was without power all week. Seeing familiar areas destroyed really put everything in perspective.

I know we have readers from around the world, so if you’re looking to donate to Sandy victims, the easiest option is to text “Red Cross” to 90999. If anyone would like to give another way or has any creative ideas, feel free to email me and I’ll see what I can do for you

I think I always assume that my readers know me personally (hi mom!) or are the faces behind blogs that I regularly read. But then as I get more emails and scroll through my Facebook page, I realize that I don’t recognize many of the faces there. Okay, I don’t recognize over 400 of the faces there.

Nope, don’t know any of those lovely people. But I want to (in a non-creepy smile, way that is) Funny note though, when I first went to steal that screen shot I had since logged into Facebook and the names that appeared were indeed the few people I do know who like this page. Threw me off for a minute.

Anyway, obviously, our lives and blogging habits have changed in the past four months. While we still have many, many projects in the works and my mind is constantly going, our time for them has decreased. As I receive questions about our crib choices or cloth diapers, I’m beginning to think many of you are new parents as well and in the same boat? But I can’t be sure unless I ask!

(moodboard from this old post about my baby shower)

So here’s your chance to fess up. The questions below can be answered completely anonymously– no email address or blog URL needed. I just want to know who I’m talking to when I type these things, why you come here and what you want to see in the future.

Here goes!

You know what’s funny? My class last semester included survey design. We had to make a survey and pass it around to make sure it was a good survey. You know, that all options were included, the wording was easy to understand, not offensive, that there was one clear answer for each question. I just disregarded everything that I spent 18 weeks learning and typed whatever I wanted. I tried to compensate with open ended questions at the end. My professor would be so disappointed right now.

Anyway, please respond if you’re reading. If there’s anything you’d like to tell me that I omitted, or anything you just want to tell me, please do! I love hearing from you guys, even if it sometimes takes me forever to respond

Last time I numbered them, so why not aim for consistency?

1. We finally hung some shades in the new office.

Please excuse the night time photo I took just a few minutes ago. They’re nothing special, just some Allen + Roth white roman shades from Lowe’s. We obviously didn’t get around to caulking and painting all of the trimwork yet, but at least we ditched the white trash sheet we had hanging as a window treatment.

2. Three years after our wedding, we have an album

Okay so long story short, I started making this book on Shutterfly right after we got married. I made two small books for our parents for Christmas right after we got married (about 2 months after). I started making this and would work on it on and off, when I received a 40% off Shutterfly coupon. Then I forgot about it for probably a year. Shutterfly recently emailed me to say that if I wanted my book, I had to order it by next monday. So I did, I just need an impending deadline to get stuff done. It came in this awesome box which I want to save to frame or something…

I’ve never met an orange cat I didn’t like. Or love. Or wasn’t the sweetest most lovable, laid back animal in the world.

Anyway, the book ended up being 100 pages, each of which I chose photos, layouts and backgrounds for (as well as cropped or hunted down any pictures). Here’s one of my favorite pages…

The pages are glossy so they all have glare in these pictures, but you get the idea. It’s a 12″x12″ book with hundreds and hundreds of pictures.

I was able to fit in a bunch of pictures that most people wouldn’t include in their limited space albums, like this two page spread of the action on the dance floor…

We have every single photo the photographer took on a CD. Best investment ever, and it was included with the price of our photographer. While our photobook ended up not being as cheap as I intented, it was still hundreds less than what the photographer was charging. Plus I saved all of those hours of hard work from being deleted, worth every penny.

3. I’ve been getting a lot of requests for my alphabet print, so I’m thinking of opening an Etsy shop.

Since I’ve always wanted to open an Etsy shop, why not start with that! I would like to make it in girly shades as well as some gender neutral ones. Maybe I can whip up some other sort of prints as well, who would be interested? Anyone have any color scheme or art suggestions?

4. Easton went to the doctor today and he weighs over 18lbs. We need to retire the infant car seat since I can hardly lift it.

5. We’re getting a facelift.

I’ve been nagging Mike for a new blog design for well over a year now. I haven’t added any features or really updated much on the stationary pages because I figured we’d be fixing them up anyway. We looked into hiring someone to do it, but I’m spoiled with custom designs. Turns out they are super expensive even for basic designs, so Mike decided to do it on his own. I can’t tell you when it will be done and up and running, but it’s in the works and he’s doing a fabulous job so far (that entire design was done without a single suggestion from me).

Okay I nodded off 3 times. When number 3 hits it means I have to wrap it up. Third time’s a charm?

1. It gets dark before we get home from work now and the 3 spare bedrooms do not have lights in them. Taking pictures of the new floors all cleaned up has been difficult. Even more difficult when I finally got a spare minute to take pictures and the camera died on me… and the battery charger was missing… as was the extra camera. Here are the lone pictures of the new floors. This happens to be the new office.

2. The future office will soon be getting more action because this weekend we decided to paint it! We picked out paint then proceeded to run a bunch more errands and by the time we got home, we only had an hour before darkness. The color we chose is Olympic’s Denim. Unfortunately I could only find this tiny thumbnail of the color on Olympic’s site…

Hopefully this weekend when we’re a little less chaotic we’ll get some paint on the walls before the sun goes down. We really need to get a light in that room.

3. Speaking of lights! (you like that segue?) We went to Ikea last weekend to pick up a light I wanted for the playroom (the old office). You know, this room with the stripes…

No we didn’t clear the room out yet, but I chose this picture because you can see that we currently have a ceiling fan in there. We need the fan for whatever room the office is in because all of the hardware we have produces some major heat. We decided to take the ceiling fan from the stripey room and put it upstairs in the new office. To replace the ceiling fan, I wanted something fun, but that would still look classy as it will be seen from the entryway. We picked up this guy…

Of course, he still has to be put together and hung.

4. Speaking of lights! Does that work twice? Anyway our Jonathan Adler giraffe sconces arrived early!

I think I have an idea of what I want to do with the nursery and I’m planning to write something up in the next few days. Right now I’m leaning towards giving the baby the room with 1 window, as it’s known around here. This one…

Bedroom 2 is still a consideration. At first I always imagined using bedroom 2 since it has 2 windows and a walk-in closet. I imagined the pretty window treatments I could have, but I think that bedroom 1 has more wall space for a better furniture arrangement. Decisions decisions.

5. While we’re on the topic of window treatments, the 6 white roman shades that we ordered for our master bedroom came last week. We’ll throw those on the weekend to-do list too since they won’t take very long to install.

I think that pretty much catches you up with what’s been going on around here. Thanks for hanging around through the chaos. I’m looking forward to December 21st when I can finally put my feet up. But then we’re hosting Christmas events on the 22nd and 24th… so maybe I’ll put my feet up on the 26th

You already know that we unexpectedly painted our powder room a bold charcoal gray. I knew I wanted some bright white floating shelves, so we picked up some inexpensive ones from Target and we’re currently in the midst of hanging them.

Since the gray was a complete compulsive move, I didn’t have much else planned. The room is dark and needs pops of white (which we plan to add more of with the shelves, frames and some crown molding), but I also feel like it needs a fun accent color.

My initial instinct was to go yellow. Gray and yellow are about as hot as brown and blue were 5 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I like the combo and I’m planning to add some yellow to our living/dining rooms, but it seemed a little not me. I’m just not a warm color person and for the amount of bold I want in this bathroom, it would be a little too much yellow for me. Maybe elsewhere yellow, maybe elsewhere.

Last week, I realized how much charcoal colored clothing I own. It has become my standard neutral over the past year or so. You already know about my sweats and flip flops, but I also have a few other pieces, such as my sneakers (from Target)…

A scarf (also from Target)…

A dress (from Loft)…

As well as a pair of cargo pants and numerous shirts.

As I got dressed one morning last week, I started to browse my color-coded shirt selections for something to go with my sneakers and scarf (please excuse the iPhone quality on this one)

I then remembered this outfit I have pinned on Pinterest and have always loved for the aqua scarf and gray tank.

(via Polyvore on Pinterest)

Does Pinterest make anyone else think outside of their normal wardrobe? I’m suddenly more bold in my clothing choices. Such an unexpected perk of joining that site

So I went for a pale blue shirt to go with my gray scarf.

Then a little light went off in my head. Why don’t I use my Pinterest outfit to inspire my bathroom?

I love the aqua and gray and I even love my take of the light blue and gray, though this other shirt I have is probably more accurate to the Pinterest scarf. 

It has more of a minty green tone to it compared to the light blue shirt, though it’s subtle. 

And so that’s how it began. I figured going with a refreshing, but bright blue tone would incorporate the powder room into the color scheme of the remainder of the house. Otherwise it would scream “hey I’m completely bold and randomly dropped here!”, but I believe it will still be way more dramatic than the rest of the downstairs rooms.I attempted to buy a mirror and some paint this past weekend, but Lowe’s was out of what I had in mind. Hopefully the upcoming weekend will be good to me and I can put this little vision of mine together and show you what I have planned  

ps- I inititally planned to photograph myself in all of these outfits while standing in the bathroom for some comedic effect, but the thought of changing all of those times before it gets dark out in 20 minutes was just draining. If anyone else would like to stand in their bathroom, in outfits that match their walls, please do so for my entertainment And if you’ve ever decided on a color palette while standing in your closet, please share that too!

I love our random deer sightings. It’s amazing how well they camouflage themselves and I’m sure they’re out there more than we realize. Mike and I grew up in a more congested area (we’re from the same town) and deer sightings were rare and always exciting. I love having furry, speckled butt neighbors

I love them so much that when my mother in law was getting rid of these bookends, I decided to take them.

They belonged to Mike’s grandmother and are apparently decades old. But you know what? The oldies are coming back. I figured with a little white, high gloss spray paint these would look like they came straight out of West Elm.

But first, I couldn’t resist doing this.

Yes, I tried to recreate the live deer scene. However, the bookend version was way smaller than I anticipated. But maybe Deer can be our version of the Travelocity gnome and just pop up in random places?

If my neighbors didn’t already know about this blog (yes, secret’s out… hey guys!), then I would have felt weird. But I obviously have no shame and put inanimate objects in my weeds for entertainment purposes.

After I was done gnoming, it was time to get down to business.

I often spray paint in the garage, but all of our outdoor furniture (including a table, 6 chairs, a bench, 2 umbrellas and a fire pit) are still taking hurricane shelter in there. So I decided to use this old Pottery Barn box and spray them in the grass.

I used the short and quick spray method. I confess that I am normally rather impatient and just hold the trigger down, 3 inches away from the object (12 is the recommended) and generally succeed. I didn’t want to mess these up, so I was more cautious.

They look a little more worn when spray painted (they have some cracks) but it doesn’t bother me. Here are the two of them after a first coat.

I went back outside a half hour or so later for a second coat. Even after that, this strange mark keeps popping back up. Chemical reaction or something?

I eventually lost my patience and just sprayed the hell out of it, but it kept reappearing after a minute. Weird.

I have no pictures of my second coat because after the first one, I noticed that this happened…

That is my camera. With a light dusting of spray paint. Ugh. Thankfully, the lens was spared and it just looks stupid. The wind was blowing lightly and I didn’t realize that my camera was laying in the grass, in the line of fire. Therefore, it stayed inside for the rest of the night.

However, my bookends will not be staying inside tonight. I went to pick up the Pottery Barn box to move it inside and the bookends fell over. While soaked. Then I had to use my hands to stand them back up, which not only got me messy but required touch up work. I’m hoping the tacky surface that was left isn’t noticeable, considering I just sprayed right over it. So I ended up leaving the entire box outside for the night. Don’t worry, it’s not supposed to rain. I’m actually more concered with bugs getting stuck to them…

The one time I try to spray paint properly. The one time! ::shakes fist in air:: Hopefully I’ll have true after pictures later this week…

ps- The Office wedding episode was just on and that dance scene gets me every time! Couldn’t help but stop to watch

I could not be more thankful for this post today. If any of you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw my frantic tweets about how we struggled to give Darwin his fluids and pills last night. Quite possibly the hardest night of my life, in terms of frustration and helplessness. It ended with a trip to the vet after midnight to have them give him his pills. But! I am very happy to report that our second night as nurses was a grand success, we got him to take his pills and administered his fluids with ease tonight. There was clearly a learning curve no one told us about.

Anyway, back to Tabatha and how I should be fanning her with palm leaves for posting for me. I first found Tabatha when I saw her glorious bold purple nursery on A Brooklyn Limestone. And the nursery started as a room for her cats. Cats? Sold! Loved her immediately. She will also be sharing her entryway plans with us today!

Hello Lil House readers, I’m Tabatha from Turn Right At Lake Michigan, and I’m here today to help out Rebecca this week. A little about me – I’m 27, and I have five cats, two kids under three, a super-sized Chihuahua, and a husband all crammed into a 113 year old Folk Victorian home (with a whopping 1250 square feet) in Dayton, Ohio, that we’ve been renovating for the past four years. Yes, while we live in it. Yes, I take donations for therapy.

Anyway, as I understand it, we’re talking entryways this week since Rebecca has been working hard on hers, so let’s talk about my itty bitty foyer, yes?

A little background on my home – it survived the 1913 Great Flood of Dayton and was moved further up the hill afterwards (along with several other houses in our neighborhood) to create a flood plain (which later became a parking lot) to where it now resides. Somewhere in the 1960s, it was bought by a Korean war veteran and his Korean wife, and they raised four(!) daughters here, spending over 40 years in the house we now call ours. So our house had seen a whole lot of the same people for a long time.

Now our foyer is a grand 7.5 feet by 5.5 feet, and is not only the first place you enter once you come through our front door, but it’s also the gateway to the living room, the dining room, and the stairs that lead, well, upstairs, to the two bedrooms and full bath that chill up there. It’s also our shoe repository, mail sorting area, leash and key wrangler, purse/baby bag drop-off, and open-plan coat closet. This tiny space does a lot for us. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s start back at the beginning to show what we started with:

This was the front door when we moved in:

And this was the entryway “tile” put down for a yet really discernable reason:

I can be a bit of a perfectionist, so what first bothered me about the tile was that it didn’t match up with the door properly. That, and it was ugly. So the easy solution was to remove all signs of the previous occupants, paint, and cover that tile up with a rug:

Which, admittedly, I was less than thrilled about. The wall color was supposed to be more grey than green, but once that happened we committed to it (even though I HATED it) and found accessories, like that indoor/outdoor mat on clearance at TJMaxx for $10, that at least coordinated.

But as time passed on, the foyer bugged me more and more. We had an unfinished wood bench I never got around to painting. The walls made me angsty. (They continued up the stairs and throughout the upstairs hall area, for reference. That’s a lot of space to hate the color of, especially in our little house.) The coat hooks we installed started to fall out of the plaster walls. The cats climbed the curtains on the door. It was all just too much.

So one day, fed up with it all (and nesting while pregnant with my now 2 ½ year old son) I unloaded the space, got out a crowbar, and tore up the tile and terrible cheap parquet flooring – to find HARDWOODS underneath:

You cannot imagine my excitement. They were under the parquet throughout the dining room and under some vinyl tile in the downstairs bedroom as well. When we refinished those floors we did the foyer too, a nice dark chocolate almost black color, but that’s temporary – and we’ll get to that.

I ended up selling the bench on Craigslist as it was more of a dumping grounds than somewhere to put on your shoes, and I purged a great deal of our coats to keep the clutter to a minimum – or at least make more room for the baby-related clutter. The curtains have moved to the scrap pile of fabric in the basement and have been replaced with this:

A window decal that lets far more light in than the curtains ever did, while still allowing us some privacy. It almost looks like it should be there, right? I also frosted the windows on our tiny decorative dormer window, seen here:

After our next door neighbor informed us he could see into our house from his upstairs window. Not awesome. But now we have a ton more natural light for such a small space, which helps it feel less cramped.

However, obviously we’re nowhere near what I hope the space can become. So I whipped this little inspiration board up for you:

Let’s go over it, shall we?

#1: This is my inspiration photo, found on Pinterest. All of the components are Ikea, which I’m a huge fan of. However, I think I would want to add doors on the shelving units (or switch them out with shallow wardrobe units) so I could hide the mess that will inevitably form. I’m not so fond of the colors, but I can work that out later. Basically this sort of system would wrap around my dormer window, utilizing the height of our ceiling to maximize storage.
#2: I have this thing where I try to work stars into each of my rooms, however subtly. I also have a thing for mirrored surfaces. I’ve long since wanted a Moravian pendant for the foyer, and this one just takes my breath away. So does the price, for the record.
#3: Wherever the cases don’t cover, I really want to use paintable wallpaper to give more texture to the greater foyer/stairs/upstairs hall space. I also plan on adding decorative wainscoting, but that’s for another time. I’m still leaning towards a really great grey color, but I still haven’t really made up my mind. I love this damask pattern though – just the right mixture of traditional and fun, especially if I pick the right paint for it.
#4: I was shopping for tile for my bathroom (which we’re currently building) when I stumbled upon this beauty. I was considering a white-and-black combo similar to this for the foyer – the wood there isn’t in the best shape, and I think tile would not only be more practical, but more beautiful in such a small space. I love that it’s black on black.
#5: I actually own this! We picked it up at Ikea when the old mat had worn out its welcome, and I love it. Even if we did tile, we’d need something at the front door to catch all the gross that comes in on shoes. Again, love the black on black, and the pattern is subtle yet fun in a modern way.
#6: Lastly, I don’t remember how I came across this piece of carved wooden art, but it made me crack up. We’re lacking in art around here (I’ve been kind of busy making babies since 2008) and I think this would just be hilarious by the front door. Double entendres and all that. I’m not sure on the yellow (or the price) but I’m pretty sure I could make something similar in whatever shade would coordinate with what the walls end up.

Sources:
1) http://www.bhg.com/decorating/storage/mudroom/mudroom/?sssdmh=dm17.507987&esrc=nwhi021711&email=2114809685
2) http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280626072722&category=103438&_trksid=p5197.c0.m619#ht_3468wt_905
3) http://www.grahambrown.com/us/product/18628/Empire+Damask+Paintable+wallpaper
4) http://www.glasstileoasis.com/item.asp?item=15669&utm_source=Amazon%2BCSE&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Amazon
5) http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90121823#/40122561/
6) http://www.etsy.com/listing/60873299/shut-the-front-door-18×22-handmade-sign?ref=af_you_favitem

Of course, I would love any feedback you have – the foyer’s a little low on the priority list these days (have I mentioned we’re building a bathroom?) but it’s something I hope to tackle soon.

I’d like to thank Rebecca for letting me guest post for her, and my family and I send out our deepest heartfelt good vibes to her family, especially Darwin. Tell him Bailey, Max, Roxy, Nubbs, Antonia and Cheech give him all cuddles and licks and purrs (well, Cheech doesn’t purr, but you catch my drift …) and we all hope he gets better soon. And thanks to you Lil House Readers for hanging out with me today!

Okay seriously, my guest posters are killing me with the inspiration boards. I have never done one of those. Teach me your tricks please? My readers are getting used to this

I love the shut the front door sign (it obviously inspired this post title) and that wonderful star fixture. I’m also happy to hear that I don’t have the only cat that climbs curtains, as Macky recently pulled our dining room rod out of the wall (that’s what happens when you’re 20 lbs of cat…)

Thank you again Tabatha, isn’t it amazing how she managed to write a guest post with 2 kids and 5 cats AND a dog? I haven’t even found the time to put on makeup this week! Stop by her blog for some more from her!

His oncologist called him an amazing cat today, which we already knew, but to have someone who you are trusting your animal’s life with say that is very reassuring and melts my heart. After getting his updated blood work, she could not believe that he is eating, drinking and playing when he is so sick. My baby’s a fighter and I couldn’t be more proud.

He’s very happy to be reunited with his dadda, his toy, his food bowl, his water bowl and his spot in the family room… despite his little shaved legs and belly.

I’m seriously overwhelmed with all of the responses we’ve received about Darwin and I haven’t had a chance to reply to them. THANK YOU. Seriously. You all make me feel less crazy and make me feel like we’re doing the right thing for him.

I said yesterday that I’m going to be taking it easy this week, but if you miss my house rants, today (I know it’s almost midnight…) I guest posted over at Decor and the Dog!

Who wouldn’t love a blog called Decor and the Dog?? Michelle also has a new construction home and she does some amazing things with it. I couldn’t resist her offer to bring my cat-y self on over. Don’t tell my kids I crossed over for the day…

Since I am forcing myself to stay somewhat away from blogging this week (I’m busy at work, in my last week of summer classes with 2 final projects due Friday and spending time with Darwin), I am fortunate enough to have some amazing bloggers who volunteered to post for me the rest of this week.

I could not be more thankful for every single bit of this post tonight. Thank you oncologist, thank you readers, thank you Michelle and thank you to my guest posters (who will start tomorrow!)