Has it REALLY Been That Long?!

Once again, I've abandoned blogging for a ridiculous amount of time. I haven't given up on the counting of my blessings though! So many times during the day I'll find more and more things to be thankful for and think for a fleeting moment, "Hey, I haven't blogged in forever" Then the moment passes because someone poops or breaks something, or needs something and I go about my business. Poopy diapers and sweeping up broken glass? I was made for this motherhood stuff. I've been so wrapped up in being a stay at home mommy and wife that blogging just seems less important. I will say though, in the crafting department, I have been a very busy bee. I've gotten a few requests for tutorials, so here's a sneak preview of what I've been up to the last few months. Hopefully tutorials will follow soon (like... less than 3 months before my next post this time!).

When DIY Goes Bad- Turning a Fail into Fabulous!

 Sock Elephants!

 Making the most random and ridiculous hairbows

 Did I Do That?! Cheats for painting a mural.

 Nail Art Redemption and a DIY Photo Booth!

 Halloween Decorations for FREEEEEEEEE!

 Mod Podge Pumpkins

 Putting a Musical Spin on the Dining Room Ceiling

Infinity Scarf Pattern

...and that's not even everything! So see, I have been keeping busy with things other than blogging :)

Fingers crossed I can get the first tutorial up before the end of the week!

61-90

61. My baby boy's tushie in BIG BOY UNDERWEAR!
62. Joshua's dimple
63. Sparkly nailpolish
64. Finding awesomeness at the thrift store
65. Naps on the beach
66. Trips to the zoo
67. Perler beads
68. Knowing what I'm making for dinner
69. Braids
70. Sleep
71. Bows
72. Laughing at TV with my family
73. Talking about books with my husband
74. Silly dancing with my Benjer
75. My niece's creativity
76. My nephew being a helper
77. Rejoicing when I can't sleep
78. Q-tips (seriously, I couldn't live without them)
79. Wicker baskets
80. Lilies
81. Blanket forts
82. Sock slippers
83. Surprises
84. Chick Corea (long story)
85. Records
86. Spray Paint
87. Laundry hot out of the dryer
88. Getting everything on my list at the grocery store and being way under budget
89. The way Benjamin says "Marshmallows"
90. Catching the sunset over the water by coincidence

Corners: The Hallway

Our 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms are all down this hallway. This long, dust-bunny attracting hallway. With the lack of wall space in the living room, a lot of stuff ended up getting hung up here. I've mentioned before that when I moved in with Josh, there was nothing on the walls. Even though his walls were naked, he did have a lot of art hanging around waiting to be framed and hung. Here are some of my favorites...

Okay, so this one isn't courtesy of Joshua, but still. It's the entrance to Benjamin's room. One of my favorite photos of us (thank you, Renee!) from his newborn photo shoot and a giant B I found at Kohl's on clearance when I was pregnant with him. Oh, and the thermostat. Lest we forget the thermostat.

This Invisible Monsters poster isn't technically part of our hallway. It hangs just outside the kitchen (hello, orange!). It's one of Josh's favorite books and it's the first book I read at his recommendation. It reminds me of when we were first dating, so of course, it makes me smile.

This one is another print from Kevin Tong who also did our Invisible Monsters poster. This one has some metallic gold ink in it- so pretty when the light hits it just right.

This one hangs right across from our main bathroom door. Who doesn't want to be greeted by Neko Case after a morning potty?!

My mom hates this one. She calls it "the dirty picture" due to the visible side boob. It's by one of our favorite artists, Tara McPherson. We have her illustrations hiding in random places around the house. Stickers on Nalgene bottles, screensavers on our massive computer, her coffee table book... she's amazing.  Josh also have a set of limited edition original prints but I refuse to hang them (visible naughty bits and all). So they live safely tucked away in our linen closet, haha.

And here's where it starts to get a little messy...

I plastered one large section of wall with a ton of mismatched frames. A lot of them came from Josh's Dad (thanks, Dad!). In this pic, you can see Father Farnworth's Navy photo and under that him with cutie baby Josh.

When my Papa died, I acquired a bunch of family photos. Photos of my ENTIRE family from the early 80's and early 90's (I need to frame a picture of all of us from our family reunion a few years ago). I also snagged some large prints of my family of 4's pictures. This end is just outside our bedroom door. Every morning I'm  greeted by my family's smiling faces and 90's fashion. I'm so thankful for the family I have. I have a special place in my heart for my Aunt & Uncle in California and my cousins in Vegas. So many excellent memories. Seeing these photos every morning always seems to dig up a new one. Also a fav on this side is the picture of Father Farnworth holding baby Joshua up by a foot- like a fish.

I've thought about painting all the frames to match (maybe white), but so far it's just one of those things I haven't gotten around to.

And last but not least, when I said there were owls in every room of our house, the hallway is no exception. This is a layered collage I made when I was pregnant with Ben. You can't really see the detail (thanks, iPhone) but I promise it's cuter than it looks in the photo.

And that's it! Our bookshelves also live in our hallway but I didn't take any pictures because they are overflowing with books. Literally. I need to clean them out. Again. Both Josh and I had insane collections of books. After combining them and purging what we were willing to part with, we still ended up with a ton of books in our storage unit and more in the house than our shelves can accommodate. Perhaps we need to watch an episode of Hoarders and try cleaning it out again. Either way, our kids will be inheriting some pretty awesome books when they're older.

Yarn Art

I've been seeing a lot of this online lately...

So cute. (By the way, this image came from this tutorial). The other day, I decided to make my own and learned a few things in the process. I started out with a piece of wood that has been sitting in our carport FOREVER.

It's part of a desk we dismantled and has been collecting cobwebs and all kinds of nasty. I gave it a quick clean with a paper towel and some cleaning product and spray painted it with a can of blue paint I already had on hand. I freehanded a heart on it with a pencil and it was super lopsided, so I put several pieces of paper on the board, taped them together so it was the same size as the board, folded it in half and cut the heart out. After taping the heart down, I grabbed a box of nails and started hammering away. Next, of course comes the yarn. The finished product looks like this:

To be honest, I am not super stoked with how it turned out. Because I only used supplies I had on hand, it was free. However, next time I attempt something like this, I will do the following things differently...

1. USE MORE NAILS! A free project has some drawbacks. When it came to nails, I had a limited number so when I used them all, that was it.
2. Use shorter nails. I had to be careful not to hammer through the wood since my nails were pretty long.
3.  Use more yarn. Yarn I have in abundance but once the nails were out of room for twisting, I had to cut the yarn short and call it good.
4. Keep tweaking my template until I LOVE it. My heart looks wonky instead of the cute one I had envisioned.

Over all, I want to try this project again. I don't know that I'll take this one apart when I have more wood and I want to use different nails and a different template anyway. This is one that will have to wait for one of my stretches of solitude. Hammer + nails usually doesn't = toddler friendly. Especially when you have a toddler that loves tools AND helping.

41-60

41. My Divorce
42. Fake Mustaches
43. Too many pairs of sunglasses
44. Finding things I forgot I had
45. Grass on bare feet
46. Painted toenails before they get chipped
47. Benjamin's eyelashes
48. The way Joshua's eyes change colors
49. Snuggling under the covers on cloudy days
50. Benjamin's tiny hand absentmindedly tickling my arm
51. High fives
52. Jumping on the trampoline and not peeing my pants
53. Welcoming my husband home after work with a hug, a clean house and a hot dinner
54. Couple's Devotions with Joshua
55. Yarn
56. Awesome thrift store finds on half price day
57. Chocolate
58. The first cup of coffee in the morning
59. Sleeping in
60. Conversations with toddlers

The D Word

First of all, I would like to say that as a Christian woman, I'm not an advocate for divorce. I would go as far as saying I don't believe in divorce either, but being a divorced woman, that seems a little hypocritical. But I do want to talk about divorce. Not the events that lead up to mine; that is a very painful and very personal story.

I've been asked before if I knew then what I know now if I would go through it again, make the same choice. My answer, without hesitation, is "In a heartbeat." The time span from the day I left my ex-husband to the day we signed final paperwork was over two years. Two of the most hellacious, joyful, life changing years of my life. I became a mother. I met the man of my dreams. I cried a lot. I worried a lot. I learned a lot. And best of all, I rebuilt my broken heart and broken life around Jesus.

One of the things I learned was to throw my expectations about people out the window. People you trust will let you down. People you expect negativity from will surprise you. Coming from a Christian family, I expected a lot of criticism when word got out. I don't know if it's because my family knew what I had gone through in my marriage or if it's just because they love me, but I received a ridiculous amount of love and support. I remember being so nervous seeing my Papa for the first time when I moved back to Washington. I was preparing myself for a lecture. Instead, I just got a hug. He held me while I sobbed and just said, "You did the right thing, baby. " It was exactly what I needed to hear. When I miss him the most, I remember that moment.

While my family and friends were supportive, I have run into my fair share of scrutiny. There were a lot of rumors. From the ridiculous (No, I did NOT poop on the floor of my house before moving out to spite my ex- seriously, I heard that one more than once), to the expected (No, I did not have an affair). While I was certainly not blameless in the situation, I don't think I heard one rumor that was even a shadow of the truth. I think the most surprising thing is the comments from the beloved "peanut gallery". Those comments that are said near you, but never to you- that judgemental sweep of the eye to make sure you heard what was said from someone who knows very little about you and nothing about your situation (except of course, the fact that you are indeed divorced). Several months ago, I encountered just that. The comment (which was almost more of a full on speech) was something to the effect of that the person was proud of the people in their family for not getting divorced and feeling sorry for people (like me) who felt that path was ever an option. Wow. I am still thanking God for giving me the grace to stay silent in that moment. You should've heard the internal dialogue happening in my brain; although I'm sure it was burning red hot on my face at the time.

The reason I bring all this up is blessings. If you've been reading, you know I'm actively counting my blessings with the goal of counting up to 1,000. I count my divorce as a blessing. And so it seems less odd when it pops up on my list, I'm going to explain. God delivered me. Changed me. Saved me by His mercy and grace. Someone once explained to me the difference between mercy and grace in a way I've never forgotten. Mercy is God holding back from us the things we deserve as sinners. Grace is God giving us that which we don't deserve. I have received a lot of both in my life. One of the reasons I will forever be thankful for the experience of divorce is the overwhelming appreciation it's given me for the life I have now. It's not hard to count my blessings because I see them everywhere. I know what I want. More importantly, I know what my worth is in Christ Jesus. I know that I never, ever want to experience going through a divorce with Joshua.

I will admit, I am still recovering. I am still healing. I am still praying every day to be flooded with forgiveness and brotherly love for the people surrounding those circumstances that made a difficult situation almost unbearable. But most of all, I'll say it again, I am thankful for the experience. Thankful for the ways it changed me.

And now, the PSA portion. Marriage is hard. No matter how much you love someone, sometimes it is hard. If anyone thinks divorce is an "easy way out," I'm sorry, but that person has not experienced it. At least not in the way I did. In my opinion, staying in a bad relationship, no matter how toxic, would be easier. It is hard to imagine the level of torment you go through during a divorce if you haven't been through it. It is not a decision to be taken lightly. It took me YEARS to make it for myself. Before you even utter the words out loud, go to counseling. Talk to someone you trust. Be honest with yourself. And above all, pray. Pray without ceasing. And understand that even after it's over, it will still be difficult. Make absolutely sure you have exhausted every other option first and be prepared for the consequences. They will be many.

I am by no means an expert on divorce. This is just a piece of my story. And although I feel exposed (and relieved that very few people actually read my blog), it feels good to tell it.

Lastly, I'm going to share a scripture that I repeated over and over and over when things were the hardest. It is etched on my heart and I still say it to myself pretty frequently. As comfort goes, it's better than a pint of Ben and Jerry's.

Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. -I Thessalonians 5:16-18

Corners... The Kitchen (or- That's A LOT of Orange)

Our kitchen is orange. And when I say orange, I mean ORANGE. Take a look...

 It was that way when Josh bought the house and he loves it. I have to say it's grown on me. It's certainly not my least favorite thing about our kitchen. I have a lot of complaints about our kitchen. Mostly the pitiful storage space. Of course immediately after I moved in, I started plastering things on the walls.

I found these wooden signs YEARS ago. When I moved back to Washington from California, I literally left with my clothes, some of my craft supplies, my dogs and some stuff off of the walls. These signs made the cut. I love them. I found them at Ross for super cheap.

This is another Ross find from before my move. 49 cents. Seriously. It's made out of aluminum I think. I heart it.

This bad boy is another Flatstock find. We still need to get it framed. Until we do, it hangs out on the side of our refrigerator.

These ceramic measuring cups are another Ross find. I got these shortly before I moved in with Josh because they would match the orange walls. They live on top of our microwave and I use them often.

Since we have really pitiful storage, as I mentioned, we picked up one of these magnetic strips from Ikea for our knives. The orange clock was here when I moved in. It is almost exactly the color of the walls. I call the orange knife "the camouflage one." It makes me giggle.

Owls in every room of our house. No really, every room. This guy hangs out on the oven handle. Thanks, Kohl's.

And... my plants! I have a notoriously black thumb but my mom gave me both the hanging plant and the potted plants in the windowsill a few years ago and they are still alive! Wahoo!! Another thing I don't exactly love about my kitchen? The view from the kitchen window is into our neighbor's sun room/junk room. Gorgeous.

So, not the perfect kitchen by any means but we're making it work. For all of the faults it has, there are things I love about it. I have learned to love cooking meals in this kitchen so no matter where we end up, I have a feeling I will always have fond memories of it. Orange and all.