a board for their heads

ok ok so i know your all anxiously awaiting a house update right? ok well i have no house pictures even though i can say that its finally changed in a dramatic way. my laundry room brought me tears of joy the moment i saw it painted. its stunning art. and finally love is emerging from my heart for our home and project. but for now you get only a simple project that i found to be hugely successful.

so the girls will be sharing a room. i have been vintage shopping for matching beds for them and cannot find what feels right. i kept picturing something more simplistic and less little girly yet still vintage and young. then it dawned on me. all they really need is headboards to go with their beds. matching ones. and that they indeed should be made by me. so this little project has been on my to do list for a few weeks and its finally been accomplished. and i couldnt be more pleased. it was simple really .....

they are not attached to the wall yet (duh) or the beds (duh) so a sort of imagery needs be used with these pictures.



what i needed ....
staple gun
staples
batting (i spent $14 on batting per headboard. i really wanted it soft)
fabulous fabric (i spent about $11 each per. joannes, home fabrics)
wood (nate picked me up a big old sheet of plywood for $6)
hot glue/gun
Buttons/beads/ or something else ..(i shopped & shopped ended up with jewlery components. spent $6 each headboard on this)
so total $ spent $37 per headboard. mind you i still need to buy brackets so my guess is around $45 total. you'll have to tell me if you think its worth it.

this is really an easy inexpensive easy headboard. really.

unfortunate events that make us fortunate afterall

a series of unfortunate events ....

this is one of my favorite films of all time. until recently i have never really strongly identified myself in this film. but now i cant help but watch it with tears feeling like i am just in a series of unfortunate events myself. i see those children much like my own, one very mature daughter, a strong smart & loving boy, and a baby who needs them but is also the light in their relationship. my kids dont seem to think that their life has any parallel to this movie, for which i am grateful but sometimes the picture seems not so far off to me.

the best part of this film is the end. when the children realize they are not unfortunate at all, they are truly fortunate and blessed because they have each other. and i too feel this immensly. how would we get through without each other?

i know your all anxiously waiting an update on surgery and that is really why i am taking the time to post midweek. to start a tiny bit of background. saylor does not respond to conscious sedation medications. not only do they not work for her, they cause more anxiety and heart problems. the procedure she needed (a chait tube change) is really rather simple and older kids can easily do it without any sedation at all. but saylor she is a different breed. especially recently. there has been extensive discussion about what to do and how to sedate her for this procedure and lots of confusion & chasing of tails so to speak. it has lost me hours of time and an immense amount of patience. but all in the name of my precious angel so i do it. but it just infuriates me that it has to be so difficult. isnt it more simple then that? anyhow we arrived and the radiologist was terrified to do it without general anesthesia but we said we were willing to try it. he decides to use a sedation drug she has never had called fetanol. then he proceeds to tells us the reason she has never had it is cause they dont give it to young kids cause sometimes they react with rigid chest syndrome and stop breathing. FANTASTIC! i think. what am i doing? well no rigid chest for her but once it again it did very little to calm her down and had very little effect on her. she never went to sleep, nor did she stop screaming or moving or being aware and of course she remembers it all! but we got it done. we did it! and we hope for a good long break but arent expecting it so we arent let down.

she is doing well this morning. had some pain issues in the night and last nights first flush with her new "door" was about as bad as the first cone flush several months ago. but that first one is under the belt and we hope it just gets easier from here. My cute SIL told saylor yesterday that she hates accessories not found at the mall too! i thought that was darling and hilarious.

one of the most profound moments in all this has been saylors attachments to storie & stockton. it really clarifies the bond we have as a family. that we do this all together and when we are not whole, we are not WHOLE! she cries for them consistently.


in the midst of the last 6 weeks of unfortunate events i read this book. perhaps not the best read for this period of time in my life ... or is it? a really interesting perspective for a parent of a "not healthy" child. granted cancer is not running through saylors veins but once again i found some pretty deep parallels and could relate so well to this family. really sad and interesting read. provokes thinking. i like that kind. would it provoke thinking for others as much as me? or as a parent like me? or a sibling of a sick child? i dont know. probably not though. and what i found here was a real look at where things can go and how to be a better parent in my circumstance. what to look for and how to see things, with a perspective more acute. it also taught me about that bond... the one that resides between sisters. i dont really have that myself with no biological sisters but i see and feel that in storie and saylor and i am so glad i get that participation and that it exists at the level it does.

onto reading about hitler ... and to more unfortunate events in my fortunate state!

PS we have a driving force now to add to the mix. serious buyers on grandmas house so now the schedule has become more affixed ... just what i needed!

just when you think it cant get any worse ...

So i hate to be debbie downer & i have no pics to provide so i have wondered about wether to even post an update from last week or just let it go. yet here i am for all you who are voyers in my life.

house: last week was supposed to be a week of promise, of catching up to our schedule and we came so so so close to doing so. first let me say there is nothing behind the deadlines or schedule beyond what nate & i have deamed ideal. and even at that we differ! i am super grateful for no driving force stronger then "hans & frans" yet still disappointment rains when we get more and more behind schedule and instead of catching up. we worked hard all week and all day and night friday and saturday morning began with a glimmer of hope that we may just catch up. but then the wallpaper fell. there is so much blasted wall paper in this house. i have said before I HATE WALLPAPER but even more so now. we had stripped what we thought had to be done weeks ago. nate had tested a large spot in every room and deemed a few of them unnecessary of stripping that they could be textured over, (nate has done this before we arent total idiots) a few weeks back. that was until sat morning when it became very clear that we needed to strip. so no more caught up and a few steps back. what it really comes down to we bought an old house we are renovating. this is renovation reality ... there is much hidden work to be done. so this week begins with more wallpaper work and a hope that by sat we are painting and are only 2 weeks behind. except for now we have new deadlines. so are we really behind?

Me: this has been a busy week full of highs and lows. first off i have really been discouraged about skool. thinking i am crazy. i run a great business and i own a kraft i excell at so what the H am i doing anyway? skool is hard and so slow for me and there are so many reasons not to. until that is... i got my midterm grade back. about two weeks ago i took my english midterm. i way have been struggling in this class with a professer thats hard for me to understand and though i really felt like i did my very best on this midterm its my first test in the class an didnt feel like it would be a better grade then the B that is stamped on my forhead. somehow i got an A not only an A but 100% so i guess this means i plug along. reassurance i suppose. so next is a research paper. my chosen topic is germam resistance. anyone have good titles for me? on the studio stems front, i was published on a blog recently. nate thinks at this point all my work gets published but it aint so. but i am proud to say a lot of it really does. i also was involved in a very marie antoinette photo shoot by retrospect studios that i cant wait to see the results on. and i am dead tired with of course not enough time in the day. chandelier is done. now i have the girls bed project ahead amongst other things. oh and i had a campus adventure at BYU library, that was comical! the finish of my week was chemically burned eyes! thanks again to that wallpaper stuff, vintage glue in your eyes = pain!!!!

Storie - has been an adventure. both storie and saylor have had mild colds or something in their little systems and then storie had some sort of problem that really has not been resolved. i noticed a bump on her head sunday morning. then withint a few minutes a rash, then a few min later her whole right side of her face red, swollen and blisters forming right before my very eyes. all in about 30 min. then puking so off to the docs we went. first doc didnt know what to think, not all of her symptoms and characteristics match one specific thing. she called in another doc. he seemed duped as well. not cool. so she may have shingles .. maybe. she may have a spider bite ... maybe. she may have something neurological going on ... maybe ... or she maybe is having a sever allergic reaction to something of which we do not know the origin ... maybe. oh so comforting. anyhow she is on meds to cover about all those bases. and she seems a little better today. other then that she is well and so my littel helper. she loved helping me with the chandelier and i love to see her take joy in the things i do as well. and in the things i dont, like violin ... what a girl!

stock - doing great. little fish with muscles a growin. he cant decide if he wants his room to be BYU or wrestling. i am not really cool with either but whatev. as long as i can do the theme in my style then what does it matter? haha. his dad says he is "yoked" i love that he is my little lawn boy now and mows both laws every week.

saylor - is getting ready for surgery on wed. mostly by getting ready i mean her whole emotional physchological pattern as the days come closer. i am anxious to get it over with but also know they may not do it since she hasnt felt her best. though today she seems fantastic. we hope that it will be same day surgery or one night stay at the worst.

nate - well nate is nate. the horse in the fam. strong & stable and enduring. oh i love him. what a champ! he must think we are all from another planet. how did he end up in this mess? hope he thinks its beautiful.

so people are asking me if we have fallen into a routine. well yes we have. is it normal? no. do we even do normal? no. is it permanent? better not be! how soon will it change? fall i hope! and it consists mostly of ... sleeping, eating, working, studio stems, english, biology, swimming, movies, library, cathing, cathing, cathing, flushing chait tube, and then flushing again, DS games, fans going to keep us cool, fires started, then put out, stripping wallpaper, building, going to home depot for nate, banking, paying bills, praying, reading, cleaning, wondering, pondering and so on and so on.

love you all!

burnt to a crisp!

so i have been promising a house update and so here it is ... WARNING .. NOT VERY EXCITING!

so first off the first reason why the headliner for this post ... this week for the second time in my life, an oven caught fire for me. i word it that way because in neither circumstances was it my starting of the fire. we are staying at lo's for the summer as many of you know and her oven is a little vintage. While cooking some pizza with my girls the heating element just decided it was done. created a nice fire, but was gracious enough to stay under control so i could avoid another emberassing run in with the fire department.

2nd reason was Lo's ashes tried to arrive home to me this last week. not sure what i think of that and am glad i was not here at the right time in order to avoid this very strange akward circumstance with = akward emotions.

3rd was this beut ..
she has really been through sooo much. i cant decide if she should retire or not. so we got her about 8 years ago from the rc willey outlet for i think like $200. not a bad deal. she once was our main dining table, then a work bench in the floral room, and then we decided to reinvent her for the new house. we sold the table we were using at our most previous house because it didnt really work for the fam, it was one of those tall ones, not so great for saylor but we got it before she emerged so what ya do. anyhow we decided rather then spend money on a new kitchen table that this one would do fine and that we would just sand her down and refinish her, give her a new maybe even better life. so i spent many hours over this last week sanding her down. then saturday i started restainging her. this resulted in not good things that started us problem solving and at the end of the day, she looked burnt. truly like she had been in a fire. so all that for nottin. not sure now what. we could paint her ... with like paint. which i kind of dont dig. or we could just say goodbye and give up the dough for a new one. what you think?

so this little story is sort of a good example of how this last week went for us.... not so good. lots if discouragement and a little more behind schedule every day.






i dont think the pics are all that exciting. the last few weeks have been sooo much work and not a lot to show for it! just a lot of inside guts kind of work. so slowly but surely we progress i suppose and i hope that i can pick up a better mood about it all sometime soon. Lo's house is just to blasted HOT without AC! i cant stand it any longer. but then i have to, and of course i will and i am grateful to have a place to stay! we are working on the shelving and texturing, drywall stuff this week and hopefully moving onto painting before too long. nate has been so ADD about this project. he plans to do one whole job at a time, like all the electrical, then the whatever and so on and so on. he is not following his plan, all over the place. he jumps from texturing to building shelves all spontaneously, then all the sudden he is doing something in the yard and he gets so mad at me cause i am not doing what he wants me to do but i am not sure what that is even. i think its all getting to us a little and this may go down as the worst week in the project. there has to be one i guess. i have those feelings, those endless hopeless feelings i have had with every other home project we have done before! but this too shall pass.

we did watch the SOF from our house and it was splendid with the most perfect view! but it took me 45 min to get from sumac to lo's, thats what half a mile or something? kids are well and enjoying swimming and fun stuff. i am still hacking away at school reluctantly and then there is my studio stems that draws out my energy. i am working on the table, a chandelier, some fun fabric projects on top of it all.

saylor's next surgery is in 10 days. so i am trying to enjoy what few non hospital days i have left before that.

hope you enjoyed my promise ... please do comment so there will be some sort of motivation here.