Some New Furniture!

“I would rather lie on a sofa than sweep beneath it” -Shirley Conran quotes

We got some exciting new things this week - a living room sofa and end tables! For those of you who don't know, our house has an informal den and a formal living room. The formal living room had been relatively sparsely furnished until recently, but we had pledged to "get a few things as we went along." We recently acquired some beautiful chairs that had been in David's family, so this week we set out to get a sofa and end tables. Success! And we are keeping up the frugal mindset in the process!

We got the sofa off of Craigslist on Tuesday evening, and the end tables we bought yesterday from a consignment store here in Greensboro (the are antiques, even better!!!). We are so pleased with the way things look! So now all that our living room really lacks is two lamps (one for each end table), a little chest for one wall, and maybe a small coffee table. Things are coming along! Until we have a chance to go lamp-shopping (hopefully soon), we are using a beautiful antique lamp that was in David's family (once we get new lamps on the end tables, I'm going to use this antique lamp in a different part of the room). I always wanted a house with a formal living room and formal dining room, and now that I have both and they are slowly getting furnished/decorated, I couldn't be happier!!!





Love the way things are coming together! :-)

Back to Frugality!!!

"Have nothing in your house that you don't know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." -Author Unknown

Many of you may remember that months ago, back closer towards the summer, I promised to start adding creative and frugal living ideas to the blog. After a couple of such posts, life got busy, and I stopped having time to put tips out there. But we have most definitely still been living frugally! There is as much sampling, couponing, electric/water/natural gas saving attempts, etc going on at our house as ever! So, with economic times still tight for many people, I am going to try to refocus my efforts on adding my thoughts and the cool things I learn.

One thing I am interested in hearing from people - do any of you have tips on making your own everyday items? Share them please! I know many, many, many frugal living bloggers out there have come up with incredibly creative and resourceful ways to save money by making things they frequently need rather than buying them. I have friends who make their own baby food, for example. Cheaper and healthier! And I have read tons of recipes "make your own" things such as laundry detergent, shampoo, even make-your-own marshmallows! A blog I read recently actually shows you how to use the artwork from old wall calendars to make your own SUPER CUTE envelopes (what a cool idea!). I am relatively new to this aspect of frugal & creative living, but am excited about learning more. A couple of weeks ago I made homemade salad dressing for the first time, and I think it was every bit as good as store-bought. :-)

So anyway, among my personal posts and other frugal posts, look for new make-it-yourself ideas that I have discovered. Some undoubtably will be disasters I am sure, but I'm hoping to find some really cool tricks among it all!

New Year's Eve!!!

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." ~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

I can't believe it is already 2011! Time flies! We started out New Year's Eve by going to our favorite restaurant, Green Valley Grill, for dinner...







This was the tree in the courtyard of the O. Henry Hotel (same building as Green Valley Grill), where we had our rehearsal dinner in October 2009 . Beautiful!



We went to our friends Marsha and Brian's house to hang out for a while. They are in our Marriage Foundations Class and we love them dearly! We look forward to another year of friendship with them in 2011. We thought Brian's sombrero was very...well..festive...



Sadly, I wasn't feeling well that night and so we had to leave Brian and Marsha's house early. :-( I did manage to stay up to watch the ball drop, though!!!

Happy 2011! Can't wait to see what the Lord does in everyone's lives this year! :-)

Christmas and David's Birthday in Greensboro

"This, the spirit of Christmas, that forever and ever endures. May it leave its richest blessing in the hearts of you and yours." -Author Unknown

The day after we got back from Mississippi (the 27th), we had another Christmas with my family in Greensboro. We got up early that morning to open presents...





My favorite gift from our Greensboro Christmas was a Swedish (here I go again with my heritage obsession) Christmas decoration called a Tomte. My mother actually ordered it directly from Sweden! Legend has it that the Tomte is a "little person" who is sort of a "barn elf." He lives in the barn (or in our case I guess it would be our storage building) and watches over the livestock. On Christmas Eve, one is supposed to leave porridge out for the Tomte to eat. If you do, he will continue to take good care of the animals and the land . If you don't, he is likely to get very irritated and play tricks on the family. We think it is a fun story and plan to let our kids in on the fun one day while telling them that it is just that, a story ( we are afraid to let them think it is real - we think that having them go to school and telling everyone that they have a "barn elf" living out back is a sure fire trip to the mental hospital for them and us). Anyway, I really LOVED the Tomte and can't wait to display it next Christmas!



After presents, David, Mom, Dad, Uncle Chuck, and I had Christmas lunch. It was delicious and fun to have ANOTHER holiday meal!!!





After a great Christmas, we had more celebrating the next day! My parents took us out to dinner to celebrate David's birthday. Afterwards, we came back and had some cake and a fun little celebration. Happy Birthday, Sweetheart! I'm so glad you were born!!! :-)





We were so blessed to have so much to celebrate over the holidays! Thanks be to God for our wonderful family and friends and, most of all, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Christmas and David's Birthday in Mississippi

"Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord." -Luke 2:11

We had a really great Christmas trip to MS. On Christmas Eve, we got to see some of David's extended family...

This is David's aunt, Mary Jo, holding our nephew Anderson...



And in the afternoon we all got to go see his great aunt Barbara and Great Uncle, Lewis. Barbara made some wassail tea and other goodies for us...she is such a perfect Southern lady. This is Lewis in their backyard with our nephew, Ryder.



Later that evening, we had David's Mississippi birthday celebration (his birthday is on the 26th, the day we would be driving back home). His sister, Lindsay, made him a beautiful cake...she is so talented! We had a great evening of cake and watching him open birthday presents...





Anderson seemed to enjoy the Christmas Eve/Birthday celebrations, too!



Christmas morning, we got up and opened Christmas presents with David's parents. We got some wonderful gifts! One of the best was a pearl necklace from David's parents...very special. We feel so blessed that we have such wonderful families on both sides!



Then, David's sister and her husband and our nephews came over to continue the present opening. Here is Lindsay with sweet Ryder...we love them!



We got to watch Ryder open his presents...so cute...


He loves trucks and fishing, so we gave him a miniature truck pulling a bass boat...


And he got a toy shotgun, which "Uncle David" demonstrated for him...



Anderson seemed to have fun on his first Christmas as well!



The Christmas lunch meal was delicious, and we had a great time hanging out with family the rest of the day!

The next morning, we got up early to drive home in, you guessed it, SNOW! Not only was it snowing, but we were pulling a U-Haul trailer full of some furniture we were bringing back from MS. Our normal 11.5 hour trip took 15 hours! But we had some good together time and it made for a fun memory. This is the snow while we were going through Alabama...





Thank you, Lord, for a fun and safe trip to the Deep South and a great time with family!

New Orleans Trip

“Way down yonder in New Orleans, In the land of dreamy scenes, There's a garden of Eden...You know what I mean.” -Louis Armstrong

Since we were going to be in Mississippi for Christmas Day this year, we went a few days early and David's parents took us to New Orleans for the day! New Orleans is a little less than 3 hours from Jackson, and so David got to go there quite a bit growing up. But I had never been! So, our first full day in Mississippi, we piled in his parents van and headed down to the Big Easy.

We got there around lunchtime, and our first stop was the famous Galatoire's (http://www.galatoires.com/) restaurant for lunch! It is a beautiful, old restaurant on Bourbon Street. I (being the great lover of old buildings) loved the black and white tile flooring! It was a beautiful place. We had a fantastic waiter and the food was so good! I had a chicken dish and it was delicious, while David and his parents got seafood. This is a picture of David and I right outside before we went in to eat.



After lunch, we walked down Bourbon Street (and all over the French Quarter) to see the sights...



Including the Royal Sonesta (http://www.sonesta.com/RoyalNewOrleans/), the hotel that David's parents spent their honeymoon at years ago...







A few streets over, we saw a street band, a common sight in New Orleans...



We headed down towards Jackson Square, to see the St. Louis Cathedral (http://www.stlouiscathedral.org/). We got to go in and see the amazing architecture and detail (especially the beautiful ceilings)...









Then, I got to see the Mississippi River for the first time ever! Got to see a steamboat that was actually using its steam pipes to play Christmas music. Cool!



Then we went to Pat O'Brien's (http://www.patobriens.com/patobriens/), the famous Irish pub...



And to Cafe du Monde (http://www.cafedumonde.com/), for coffee with chicory and beignets (sadly, my camera battery was getting low and I don't have pictures from here).

We walked down to the French Market to do a little shopping, and got a fun picture on the way...


We wrapped up the day with dinner at Antoine's (http://www.antoines.com/), which was gorgeous!!! Our waiter even gave us a personal tour of the whole place after we ate!

We had so much fun! Thanks to David's parents for such a wonderful day trip!!! :-)