Hey Friends!
I hope you are having a great weekend!

I just wanted to let you know about a fantastic sale one of my sponsors is having.

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Here are a few of my favorites…

 

 

 

               

 

 

          

 

          

         

 

 

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It has been almost two months since our move.

We’ve moved to a smaller home on more land.  And boy am I “feeling” the smaller space!

Guys, we are squished in here like sardines!

One problem is that our furniture from our previous home does not fit in this home (more on that in a later post).  :)

So I am having to come up with new ideas for furniture and how to create more storage space.

One thing I have discovered in my new home is I HAVE to have an office.  Unfortunately, we do not have an extra room for an office.  So I have given up space in other areas to make sure I can have an office (desk area).

Since I was going to be creating a new desk area, I knew that I would need to create as much storage space as possible.

One way I thought I could do this is by creating a skirted desk.

The skirt will hide all my “uglies” like my printer, paint and craft supplies, paper, my silhouette, etc.

So I am busy making my skirted desk, but until I share it with you, here are some beauties I pinned on Pinterest for you to enjoy!

 

Look at this adorable way to store the printer and such.  And I  am loving all this red!!!

Loving that Chandy!  Do you think I need one of those?

 

Here is one I love from Holly Mathis Interiors…

 

And I few more I love…

I know this next picture is from a laundry room, but isn’t it great?!  I love the wood top and burlap skirt!

If you do not like the gathered look  for a skirt, here are some beautiful pictures of straight skirts…

I LOVE those wood floors!

 

 

Love the board and batten on the walls…

 

Okay, I love that blue lamp, and could I please borrow that cute little jacket?!  Please?…

I see chairs like the one above at Goodwill all the time for about 6 bucks.  Just spray paint it white and cover the seat, and you’ve got an adorable chair to go with your skirted desk!

Well, that’s all for now.

I have to work on my skirted table today for a guest post.

Have a great day!!!

Well, we have already had a busy Saturday morning here!

I don’t think I have mentioned it on my blog yet, but we are preparing to add a two story addition to the side of our home.

We will be adding it to the right side of our home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But there was one thing standing in our way…

A huge cedar tree!

See it standing there (this is the view from the back of our home before we moved in)…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From inside our home, the cedar tree is visible right outside our sliding glass door.

(This room did have our king bed in it, but it was way too big.  So we had to downsize to a queen bed and put it in the other room of our “master wing”.  Now this is going to be an office room for the time being.  More on that to come in a later post!) :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soooo, this morning we cut that baby down!

Cy has a friend that likes to help with odd jobs around our house sometimes.  So he came over and cut the tree down.

It was a little nerve-wracking watching it fall.  We didn’t want it to hit our house!

But it fell just perfectly!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wish you could “smell” these pictures.  I took this picture all the way from the other side of my house (using my zoom lens), and I could smell the cedar from all the way over there!  It was amazing!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at that beautiful cedar wood!

We posted on Craigslist that we had a huge cedar tree that needed to be moved, and anyone could have it if they would haul it off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So next week, there is a man who needs some cedar posts for his cabin, and he will be hauling off our cedar tree.

But until then….

Let the fun begin!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The boys thought they’d died and gone to heaven!

Instant Playground!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eli tried and tried, but he couldn’t climb up.  He said the tree was “poinking” him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bless his precious heart!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I tried to help him up but the branches kept hurting him, and he wanted down.

But Luke and Adam were off and running!…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a view from the front of the house so you can see how big the tree was…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you see Luke and Adam walking down the tree trunk?

When they made it to the end, they jumped off and started all over again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poor little Eli still couldn’t get up that tree!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This coming week, we will be having the crawl space dug out and the footer laid to our new addition.

I wish I could say we will be building the addition right away, but it may take awhile before we have the funds (if ya know what I mean!)  :)

 

Monday, I will share with you Mandy’s blue bathroom makeover!

It looks amazing!

So, what have you been up to this weekend?

 

First of all, I have to thank all of you who have left me some of the most precious comments on my past two posts.  I want to write each of you back and thank you, but realistically, I know I will not be able respond to over 150 comments.  Well, unless I could get rid of my boys for an entire day, but that’s not gonna happen. :)

So if I do not get a chance to email you back, please know that you have touched my heart, and I truly appreciate your kindness toward me and my family.

God bless you!

Today, I wanted to share with you a blog that I found a little while back ago, and I love it!

It’s called Our Vintage Home Love.

And Diana is the owner of this fabulous blog!

(Doesn’t she look like Hillary Swank?)

I love this girl!

She and her husband live in this beautiful older home, and she has done some fabulous decorating throughout.

She is so super talented and isn’t afraid of using power tools.  :)

Look at this great Rustic Kitchen Table Island she made!  And she shows you how to make it too. :)

 

I also love this little desk she made, especially because I am wanting to make one similar for my own home soon.

Click HERE to see how she made the desk and check out the rest of her beautiful living room.

 

And Diana also broke out the power tools and made this beautiful Barn Door headboard for her master bedroom!

I tell ya, I love this girl!

I could spend all day showing you all the fabulous things she has made and decorated around her home, but I need to wake the boys up so we can go yard sale-ing today. :)  Plus, I want you to head over to her blog and browse around for your own enjoyment :)

But I will leave you with two delicious recipes she shares.  My husband has requested that I make both of these SOON!!!

Blueberry Crisp with Homemade Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

And since my hubby is from Georgia, he especially wants me to make this one…

Stuffed Peaches with Homemade Whip Cream!       Oh, yeah, Baby!

 

I highly suggest you click on over to Diana’s fabulous blog, Our Vintage Home Love, and start following.  (Tell her I sent ya!)

I know you will enjoy it.  I have subscribed to her blog through my emails, and I have loved each post!

Thanks, Diana!

 

I hope you have a wonderful day, and wish me luck trying to yard sale with 4 boys!  Watch out! :)

 

 

 

Gosh.  This is the hard part…trying to put into words all the emotions I have felt about my dad getting remarried.

I don’t really even know where to begin.

In many ways, I am still dealing with the emotions of losing Mom.  She will have been gone 2 years this coming September.  I still miss her terribly.

She was my very best friend.

Her influence on my life is everlasting.

But the hard truth is…my mom is gone.  I will not ever see her again on this earth.  And that hurts.

Bad.

But I have the promise that I will see her again in heaven, and I am so very thankful.

And so life must move on.  Slowly at times.  Painfully at times.  But it moves on.

My boys are growing.

My niece got married and is expecting her first child.

I’ve moved into a new home.

Seasons have passed.

Holidays have been celebrated.

Mom’s still gone.

One of the hardest parts of loosing Mom has been watching my dad live without her.

When Mom passed away, he moved in my with sister and her husband.  He never spent a single night in his old home without mom.

There is no way he could have.  Her fingerprints were on every inch of that house.  The curtains she had made.  The pictures she had hung. The dishes she had washed.  The furniture she had moved around a million times. :)

Living there without her would have been impossible for Dad.

When Dad first moved in with my sister, he was surrounded with so much love and support.  Meals were brought to him, cards were sent to him, everyone was spending time with him.

But then something happens.

Life moves on.  The cards stop.  The visits stop.  The meals stop.

The day to day life without Mom had begun for my dad.  And he was lonely.

One thing you need to know about my dad is he is a big, loveable teddy bear!

He loves BIG!  He loves to love and loves to be loved.  His family is everything to him.

Nothing makes him more happy than spending time with his family.

Whenever we were together, you would almost always hear Dad say at some point, “Life doesn’t get any better than this.”

Dad never needed the riches of this world to make him happy.  His wealth was found in the loved ones around him.

Dad lived a year and a half without Mom before meeting Janet.  To some that may seem like a short amount of time.  Dad was married to my Mom for 44 wonderful years, so I cannot help but think that a year and a half without her must have felt like an eternity to him.

This past winter, my sister and I were really worried about him.  He wasn’t himself anymore.  He seemed so depressed.

We wanted our dad back.

And then gratefully, Dad met Janet…

 

There were many circumstances around Dad and Janet meeting that made me realize that God was up to something.

My sister, Cyndi, actually called me a few weeks before Dad met Janet to tell me that she had met the sweetest lady at her dentist’s office.  She even said, “She reminded me so much of Mom.”  (Yep.  She was talking about Janet.)  :)

A couple of weeks later, a church golfin’ buddy of Dad’s mentioned that he should ask his sister-in-law out.  (Yep.  He was talking about Janet.) ;)

Dad called Janet that week, and they went out for the first time on a blind date.

There was a instant connection, and they were inseparable from that point on.  And I know why.  Janet is so much like my mom it is unbelievable!

To find out Dad was dating someone was hard.  But when I saw how happy my dad was, it made it easier.

And then when I met Janet, I knew.  Again, I knew that God was up to something.

Ya’ll, I cannot even begin to express what an amazing woman Janet is.  You only have to spend a couple minutes with her before you fall in love with her.

She is warm, gracious, loveable, classy, fun, sensitive, compassionate, and loves Jesus with all her heart.

But she knows great loss too.

Janet  was blessed with two sons.  However, her youngest son was killed in a car accident on his 16th birthday.  I cannot even imagine the depth of grief she has endured.  And I know that her life experiences have brought her to a place where she can love and support my dad in his grief.

Dad told me about a time when they were dating that they went to get something from the storage shed where he was storing some of his belongings.  Dad found an anniversary card from my mom and showed it to Janet.  He began weeping.  The pain was still there.   Dad said Janet put her arms around him and began weeping with him.

She knows and understands loss.

How great is our God?!  To put two such people together to share in life’s journey.

I have to tell you honestly, that I have never felt more loved by God than I have  during this time.  Dad could have lived his remaining years on this earth sad, lonely, and incomplete.  Or he could have married someone out of despair, someone that wasn’t right for him or our family.  I have heard stories of a parent remarrying to someone who splits the whole family apart.  That would have been devastating.

But God in His goodness does not just give my dad just anyone, or someone “good enough”.  He gave my dad (and my family) His very BEST when He gave us Janet.

She loves my dad so much.  She loves me so much.  She loves my boys so much.

She has filled up a hole in our family.

Don’t get me wrong.  She has not replaced my mom.  Not ever.  And Janet doesn’t want to.  She wants to honor my mom by loving on her family.

She told me she wants to talk about my mom often so that my boys have many memories of her.

The other night, Adam and Eli spent the night at Dad and Janet’s.   Before the boys went to bed, Janet read some books to them.

Eli, my 4 year old (whom I am afraid will not remember my mom), said, “Miss Janet, my nana used to read me books!”

To which Janet replied, “I know she did, Eli.  And you know why?  Because your Nana loved you sooooooo much!”

When I heard that, I cried.

How good it felt to know that Janet was reminding my son of my precious mother who loved him sooooooo much.

See why I feel so loved by God?

So how did I feel when Dad got married?

Well, that day before the wedding, I felt fine.  I was busy getting me and the boys ready for the wedding.  When I arrived at Janet’s home, I was able to meet Janet’s side of the family, who are so kind and loving as well.

When the ceremony began, I felt a little nervous for Dad.  I could tell he was nervous (even though he said he wasn’t). :)

Then it came to the part of the ceremony where they exchanged their vows, and I began to cry.

I began to hurt deeply. 

Happy for my dad and Janet, yet angry that my mom was gone.

It should have been MY MOM up on that deck renewing her wedding vows with my dad in front of her children and grandchildren!!!

I could just see Mom on that deck, and her sweet face looking over her shoulder at all of us and smiling.  SHE LOVED HER FAMILY MORE THAN ANYTHING!!!

I must have swallowed a million times, desperately trying to swallow down the tears.  I didn’t want to lose it in front of Janet’s family, or Janet, or Dad.

I wiped the tears away as quickly as I could, and pulled myself together.

After the ceremony, I went onto the deck to hug Janet and Dad.  My heart was truly rejoicing for them.

Then I slipped into the house and headed to the bathroom to get some tissues.  On my way down hallway, I saw my sister.  Our eyes caught each other, and without saying a word, we knew.  We knew what the other was feeling.

She followed me into the bathroom, and we began sobbing.  Sobbing out loud.  We missed our mom.

Then I told Cyndi we needed to get it together!  We were hurting, but we had to stop!  We had to go back out and celebrate.  Mom would have wanted us to.

We freshened up our makeup so it wouldn’t look like we had been crying and went outside to take some wedding pictures with the rest of the family.  I was able to keep it together the rest of the time.  It was such an honor to spend time with Janet’s family.  She has 3 grandchildren of her own who are the light of her life!  Janet’s mom is still living, and she is the cutest thing ever.  (See her in the pink blouse in the middle of the picture?  Precious!)  I loved being able to get to know her better too.

It was a beautiful day and a beautiful ceremony.

 

Before Dad and Janet left, Janet handed me a hand-written card.  She actually handed one to me, my husband, my brother, his wife, my sister, and her husband…one for each of us.

If you have followed my blog since Mom’s passing, and have read my Wednesdays with Wanda posts, then you know what a beautiful writer my mom was.  And you know that my mom wrote me many, many letters from when I was a child until I was an adult.  And you know how much my mom’s hand-written notes have blessed my life since she has passed.  They are treasures to me.

For Janet to give me a hand-written note on HER wedding day reminded me of Mom.  She would have done the same thing.  And it was just another reminder of how much God loves me.  He has placed someone in my life who loves to write me notes. :)

I asked her if it was okay for me to share it with you and she said, “yes.”

I wanted to share it with you so you could see Janet’s beautiful heart.

How could I ask for more?

Thank you, Jesus, for caring about every little detail of my life and loving me so much!

Thank you, Jesus, for Janet.

 

 

If you are new to my blog, I need to tell you the reason I started blogging two years ago.

My mom encouraged me to start a blog because she thought it would be a fun outlet for me to share my DIY projects around my home.  I would often get discouraged being a stay-at-home mom, and my mom thought the blogging community would be uplifting to me.

Boy, was she right!  (as usual) :)

Little did I know that 7 short months later, I would be sharing with my blogging community about the struggles I was facing when my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 gastric cancer.  And then 7 short weeks after that, I would lose my mom to that awful disease.

It changed my life forever.

My mom has been the greatest influence on my life.  She was an amazing woman.  I wrote about my mom every Wednesday for a year after she passed away.  The posts were titled “Wednesdays with Wanda”.  To me, they are the most special posts on my blog.  And if you  really want to know me and my heart, you will find it in those posts.  There is a tab above my header dedicated to those posts.  You can also read them HERE.

It has been almost 2 years since my mom passed away.  And I still miss her terribly.  There are so many things I want to tell her and share with her.  She was my biggest cheerleader.  I don’t think she could have ever imagined how much my blog would have grown or how big of a part of my life it would have become.  Although before she passed away, she encourage my sister and I to keep on blogging because she could see how much encouragement we were receiving from it.

It has become one of the greatest gifts Mom left me.  Thank you, Mom.

I know that many of my readers were surprised when I announced that my dad was getting remarried.  Some may have even been shocked.  And I totally understand.

If you missed that post, please read it HERE so you can understand where my heart is on the matter.

But more than anything, I want everyone to know that I love Janet so much and consider her to be a huge blessing to our family.

My dad and Janet were married on June 11, 2011.  I have been wanting to share it with you for a while, but I kept putting it off because I knew I had so much to say, and didn’t know quite how to say it.

So I decided to break it up into two posts.

Today, I just want to share a video with you of pictures from the wedding.

In my next post, I will share my heart with you about the wedding.  There are so many emotions to share.

Both Dad and Janet were so cute the day of their wedding.  You could tell they were both nervous.

My brother-in-law is a pastor, and he lead the ceremony.  It was only family in attendance, and it was held in Janet’s back yard.   This is the home that Dad and Janet now live in.

Janet was beautiful and gracious as always, but more on that later.

May God’s goodness shine in this video.

Untitled from Beneath My Heart on Vimeo.

 

Hey guys!

I just wanted to let you know about a great little series going on at OneProjectCloser.

Each summer, they host a Before and After contest supporting Habitat for Humanity.

I entered my Back Patio Makeover last summer and was one of the weekly winners.

Then my wonderful readers rallied around me, voted, and my Back Patio was the overall winner of the summer!!!  Woohoo!

 

I love this series because OneProjectCloser donates money to Habitat for Humanity in the honor of each weekly winner.

 

Here are the contest guidelines that I copied and pasted from the website:

 

How it Works

You submit pictures and a story from a home improvement project you* worked sometime over the past year. Projects can be anything from a simple room makeover to a complete landscape overhaul. Every Sunday from June 21 – September 22, 2011, we pick the most compelling entry and post the story on our site. If your submission is picked, you get a $50 gift card to either Lowes, Home Depot, or Amazon. And, the best part – we make a donation of $100 to Habitat for Humanity in your honor!

At the end of the Summer, voting begins, and the best before and after wins a bonus $150 gift card to one of the three stores above.

*You (including your family and friends) have to have done at least 75% of the work on the renovation! No contracted jobs for this contest!

How to Participate

There’s a couple ways we are asking people to participate including entering the contest, telling your friends and readers and displaying one the badges below.

Your Before and After Story
You’ve put in the blood, sweat and tears, and now it’s time to show off your amazing makeover. E-mail us your submission at [email protected]. Your entry can be in the e-mail itself or attached as a Word document. Make sure to number pictures in order so it’s easy for us to reconstruct the story. Please attach the pictures as JPEGs even if you also embed them inside the Word document.

Keep in mind that good before and afters include interesting pictures (before, during, and after) and a descriptive “how to” story. Check out the 2009 winners and 2010 winners to see examples of winning submissions from prior years.

Remember, there’s nothing special about the folks who submit entries. Our previous winners generally are not professionals. They’re average folks like you and us!

Tell your Friends
This series is only a success because of the great submissions we receive, and telling your readers about it is the best way to spread the word. Please consider writing an article on your site letting everyone know about the contest. One thing is definitely true about this event: the more submissions and comments, the more fun!

If you’d like to support us throughout the Summer, check out all the badges below. If you don’t see the color scheme that will work with your site, just shoot us an e-mail at [email protected] with the colors you want and we’ll be happy to make one up!

Supporting Habitat for Humanity

Habitat is a nonprofit that is extremely dear to us at OPC. Here in Baltimore city, we’ve seen how they transform communities. Just check out some of the pictures on our new Facebook page. We started this event three years ago as a new way to help raise awareness for Habitat, and support their mission to provide decent, safe and affordable places to live. We also commend the way they go about it (by requiring those receiving assistance to put in sweat equity into their own homes and other homes in their communities). Habitat is an international organization, and we encourage everyone to volunteer with their local chapter.

By the end of the Summer, we’ll have given more than a $1000 to Habitat. But that’s really just the beginning! We hope that you’ll partner with us along the way. Each week, we include a short fact about Habitat’s activities around the world (like their work in Haiti, for example), and we ask that you commit to partnering with them financially by making your own donation online.

The Prizes!

Along with a donation to Habitat in your honor, we’re sending a $50 gift card to Home Depot, Lowes, or Amazon for each weekly winner. Make that gift card go further with our Lowes Coupons and Home Depot Coupons to save some dough off your next purchase!

Doesn’t this sound great?!

Now go on over to OneProjectCloser and enter your best DIY Before and After project…and Goodluck!