transforming the so-so

with all this moving and changing and cleaning out, i put my creative cap on and decided to enjoy these last few weeks in our home, and turn our house into a work studio! one of the things that i love about moving, is that it gives you the opportunity to re{design} starting from a clean slate. our house in CO = clean slate. And some of the pieces of furniture we have, I love and am keeping, but feel they needed just a bit of an updated look.. i'll post some before and after pics of the chair, but i couldn't wait to show it's final outcome. can't wait to find a good spot for this beauty.. i'm pretty pleased with the results.

one of my other favorite pieces that i transformed was the beautiful dresser that i happened to have in the guest bedroom of our home. i knew it wasn't going to be coming with us to CO, so I decided to give it a new look and sell it to someone that will enjoy it! turns out, i sold my first piece this afternoon.

this weekend, i took a break from sanding in the heat and blake and i got to attend a going away party held in our honor {and the pacillo's honor} over at sean and laura g's house. it was a perfect way to say goodbye and close the door on our "nearly newly-wed's" small group. we will love and miss them all dearly.



all the men from L-R: Trent, John,  Blake, Nick, and Sean



 

girls L-R: Candice, Lauren, Elizabeth, Me, Cori, Laura

b and i feel some incredibly blessed that cori and john aren't just going away too, they're also moving to Colorado, just a mere 15 minutes down the road. we're looking forward to having some familiar faces to spend time with and grow together as southern folk in a foreign {hippie} land.

and lastly, there was another little going away lunch held in my honor :) or at least i like to think so, with all of my high school girls. jillian and i have been leading a small group of some of the most amazing girls for awhile now. i remember when they were just freshman, and starting next month, will already be juniors! yesh! we've come a long way together. i love them all dearly...leaving such sweet people makes me have to press into the Lord even harder and remember He always has our best interests at heart! He always has what's best for me, no matter where that may be.. We're going to Colorado, because it's where we're being called. I have to remember that there is another season awaiting us in CO.

i will miss them though..

AND HERE'S TO THE START OF NEW TRANSFORMATIONS, NEW LIFE, NEW CLIMATE, NEW CULTURE, AND NEW SEASONS!

{me and cori, my moving buddy}

07.14.11 {loves}

so, we finally found out yesterday that we can paint the inside of our house in CO, and i might shamefully admit to dancing around my house about it once we found out! it didn't take long for me to start researching color schemes and color palettes i want to test in our home!

what i'm loving today:



harbor haze - by benjamin moore



lookout point by benjamin moore



{i want to find a creative way to encorporate this phrase in our home... it's so true}



Jackson, A Great Memory

Basically everyone {all the important people} is gone from the office today. So I wore shorts = BEST. Thank the Lord for today. The husband is returning from a 9 day hiatus in Hong Kong tonight and I absolutely cannot wait. 7-1/2 days just about did me in.. so these last 1-1/2 days have been, well, semi unbearable. I don't think it's the fact that he's actually gone that's been tough, but merely the fact that our home is becoming just a house again. All of what makes it cozy is drowning in boxes. I started getting pretty emotional about it a night or so ago. Just sitting on the couch looking at the emptiness and all the memories here in Jackson, are slowly and surely being packed away.

I've lived a lot of places. Gosh, lemme see here: Portland, Little Rock, Hattiesburg, Stuart, Columbus, Starkville, & Jackson. Geez. Just a couple of those places I feel I was too young to really appreciate. Some places I've lived, on the other hand, come with some pretty painful & sad memories that unfortunately overshadow the time I lived there. And others seem to generate the remembrance of fruitful lessons learned along the way; so I guess they make for both wonderful and somewhat difficult memories. One thing to say about Jackson, is it is the first place I really feel like I was about to ground myself, apart from being around family. It was the first place I was able to establish my own home.

I have been richly and abundantly blessed by the Lord during the 3 years I've lived in Jackson. I have developed friendships with amazing godly people that will forever remain in my life, despite distance. I can see how much I've grown up. I can see the Lord's handy work and his provision over my own life- How He's protected me from things, how He's blessed me with things and taken things away, for my own growth and refining, how He's opened and closed doors along the way...He's shown me He's always faithful and works on my behalf despite my impatience and lack of trust- despite my own knowledge, He's always up to something, good. I found my husband, not quite here in Jackson, but during my life here. And I've got journal pages of proof that God cannot be stopped and will make what is supposed to be, happen, even if it seems kinda crazy and far fetched. Mountains were moved, Amen. Praise the Lord.

Jackson will always be a special reminder of a sweet season of life- that, Lord knows I don't deserve, but He was so good to bless me with anyway. July 23rd will be an emotional moving day, but the Lord has filled my cup to the top with wonderful memories made here.. and now it is time to experience a new season of His fullness and grace and love upon my life. Jackson will forever be a home to me. And I will miss it, and all the people it holds.



{our home}



{mentor/dear friend}



{Lu Lu Bugs Nap Sessions}

  

{the great MS snow}



{first date}



{great food...yes, that is an egg inside and two slices of bread on top}

 

{first job}





{sun bathing beauty}







{the engagement}



{putt putt matches lost.. love the ensemble + shoes.. such a cutie}



{our bedroom..haha, and blake's good read}

{a friend and her baby :) }

this list of pictures could go on and on..  but here's a look at what's to come:


{our new CO home}





frame it

although i have a sick obsession with pictures, i'm not one to purchase frames, because i can never get my frames + pictures to look as good as these examples. but, once we move, i have my heart set on a few walls i'd like to get my hands on and conquer making a cool collage once and for all! reading through a few design blogs, i got some good techniques on how to approach achieving a photo collage- my favorite piece of advice: throw in some rando objects that juxtapose the collage. i honestly love anything that breaks up symmetry and monotany in most design!

{picture sources unknown}

on another note: i spent the entire independence day weekend being lazy and sanding/painting furniture. pictures coming later. my hopes of checking furnitures pieces off as "complete" was an epic failure. i sanded and prepped our coffee table to paint it a nice lovely benjamin moore "decorator white". it was all going smoothly until i began applying the paint. within 5 minutes of coating the table, this brownish hue started appearing in splotches around the table. i gave up after 2 coats, in hopes of letting it cure a couple days, and then will reapply a couple more coats later. so frusterating. i'm not sure if it's something in the wood that the paint is pulling out or what? but i need to figure it out, or else my coffee table is dunzo.

hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! and let me know if you have any ideas as to what is going on with my coffee table!?