Crafting with the stars?!?

Yes, I've entered into the running...Go over and check out the competition! Lots of cool crafts!...and join too:)

Mod Podge DOES Rock!!

I finally decided to take a stab at a Mod Podge project of my own. I have been watching all of the fun projects post to a blog I follow, Mod Podge Rocks!. There are TONS of cool and crafty ideas posted on this blog. I've heard varying opinions on Mod Podge but I really enjoyed the project and thought it turned out pretty cute too!


I started out with a small child's bench that the neighbors' little one had out grown. I imagine she probably displayed her stuffed animals on it.  We've been looking at and pricing dog food stands but they are just so darn pricey for what they are..if you know what I mean. So Mr. Bliss cut two holes into the seat of the bench to fit our metal dog food dishes. That was a stopping point for a little bit. I had not decided how I wanted to decorate the stand.


Here it is white and ugly but working perfectly:

I then decided to paint it a shiny black.. improving...

While the bench was drying I got to work on my letters and designs to be Mod Podged onto the back and top of the bench. I purchased a large Mod Podge "Matte" from Michael's, along with a cool pad of pretty paper. Total cost was under $10. I used cheap paper letter stencils(can be found at Lowe's or Walmart) to trace out the names of each dog and then carefully cut them out with my exacto knife.


I then went online and found some dog paw images via google and printed them out as a guide. This part took me the longest b/c I was being very picky and wanted smooth little paw pads. Small circles with the exacto knife were a little bit harder than the letters for me.


Once I had all of my letters and paw pieces cut out I started playing around with the layout. When I had it like I wanted it I pasted the letters and paws onto the back of the bench. I used a 1" sponge brush and some Mod Podge making sure they were secure and exactly where I wanted them. Then I applied coat after coat of Mod Podge, letting each dry completely before applying another, until I thought they were nicely sealed. Lastly, I Mod Podged some trimmed up pages of my pretty paper to the section where the bowls rest..... and voila!!

Our very own personalized dog food stand. Isn't it grand!!


More Mod Podge fun in the works including washer jewelry and a fancy lamp shade:) Thanks for stopping by!

DIY Projects Galore!

The past couple of weekends have been such fun. I began to tackle the DIY projects that have been floating around blog land and hence swirling around in my head. Today I'm here to share my first DIY Success. Old coffee table turned into lovely ottoman.

I have been drooling over many posts I've seen of these circulating on the interwebs and just had to give it a go. My original inspiration came from Little Green Notebook , one of the first DIY blogs I followed. When inspired by Little Green's  post I had only dreamed of attempting any kind of DIY project, but as my blog following became a more serious habit, I was filled with confidence that I too could do this and gave it a shot.

My coffee table of choice is not quite square like Jenny's but VERY rectangle. I was ok with that though b/c its size is better suited for the space it will fill. A definite blast from the past, this was actually my parents' coffee table while I was growing up. When they were through with it she, yes it's now a she, was banished to the garage. When I left my parents' nest and was in need of furniture I found her waiting patiently for me in the garage. I painted her white and she tagged along through most of my twenties. After my last move she was once again banished to the garage....Until now.

Last week I pulled her out and here she is in all of her white-ness and glory.

I then removed her shelves, which I'll save for another revamp project of some sort.

 Next I Removed her under brackets and legs...
 

 
And was left with this...

I have never reupholstered ANYTHING! This was the most intimidating part for me. Rather than spend a fortune on fabric, I used the wonderful advice of Traci from Beneath My Heart about using drop cloths to redecorate. I love the linen look of all the drop cloth projects she has on her blog.



My ottoman took half of a 6x9 drop cloth and that's probably a bit more than usual being that this was my first attempt doing this. For the foam, I was thrifty and used an old tempurpedic-ish mattress topper that was the perfect thickness. I would love to thank all of the wonderful ladies out there who mentioned using a bread knife for cutting the foam. It went through like BUTTER. I washed, dried, and ironed the drop cloth, cut the foam to size, gave her legs a bit of a spray tan and then got to work with the help of Mr. Bliss and my handy new electric stapler. Check her out............she's back:):):)

....and with sexy black legs to boot!!......

Back soon with my next project!!! Thanks for stopping by!

Meditations for Women

Photo borrowed from Sama Baby Blog

I've been receiving the weekly emails from this site for a couple of months and have really been enjoying the daily meditations as well. Here is a link from today's email. I thought it was worth mentioning and sharing:) Have a great Tuesday!   

Ello again!

A catch up on what the past couple of weeks have entailed.....

Lots and lots of gardening and yardwork with spectacular results- beautiful flowers and beds and birds and herbs and veggies...oh my!:)

A tense evening of searching for my best friend...Mr. Clyde..who went on a 5 hour journey of which only he knows all of the details. I know that while he was doing his thing I went from calm, to concerned, to worried, to ...quick put signs up b/f it gets dark..., emergency vet and pound calls, and lastly tears. I'd just given up hope of finding him for the night when the phone rang. He had made it across a four lane highway and quite a few neighborhoods on his big adventure and ended up on a strangers porch unable to walk with bleeding front paws. This led to a trip to the emergency vet that lasted until 1a.m. and finally me making it into bed with this pitiful little guy way past my bed time- It was all worth it just to know he was safe at home in bed and going to be ok. 

 One of the most fun things was my boyfriend and I cooking tuna steaks with our fresh home grown herbs and enjoying the fruits of our labor:):)- Yummo!

Happy Friday! Have a GREAT weekend!

Strangely perfect

While going through my blog reader today at lunch I came across the most "meant for me" post I've ever read. Now to start working on the steps. Had a major lost puppy ordeal last night which allowed me all of 4.5 hours of sleep. I'm starting to struggle on the brain function:) I'll post all about the ordeal this weekend...but for now my Clyde is alive and well and resting up at home where he belongs. What a night!

So check out the blog post here and also check out the rest of Zenhabits. Have a great weekend!

Well Hello!

I'm back! Last Thursday after work I left to go to my boyfriend's and then Friday a.m. we hit the road for a little trip. We headed to Marietta, Ohio, where his family lives. The Weather Channel promised me a beautiful Easter weekend and it was just that! We were very in need of a mini break. We spent some very nice quality time with his family and we had a wonderful trip. We have our real vacay coming up in May. We're going to Pigeon Forge and staying in a cute little cabin...that's pet friendly too. Which is even better because our fur children can be included on our trip:) We will do a day in Gatlinburg, a day at Dollywood, and I'm most looking forward to some porch grillin' and hot tub chillin'- there is even a tv out on the porch so we can even watch the tube from the tub..haha! Just a quick update. More serious bloggin' to come a little later. Hope everyone has a great day!!

Test

Test
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Ok...sorry for the non-blog post:) Just wanted to make sure I knew which method of sending posted to my blog correctly. I've got it!! Yeah!

It's spring baby!

What a beautiful first day of spring. We woke up early to enjoy the morning cool breeze and play with the dogs and then walked up to the new coffee shop, Cafe Soul. The barista was a young guy imported from Louisiana, where he attended culinary school, who made us some delish ice coffees to take on our morning walk. Cafe Soul will be doing live music at 8 this evening, so we may be venturing back this evening for some dessert, coffee, and tunes. We had a nice warm and sunny walk back home and are getting ready to head to Wally World for some bird seed, ect. Hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday! Off to shop:)
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Note that I'm just fixing this. Saturday was my first time attempting to post from my phone. Hopefully it will go more smoothly next time....although I tried so many different ways that I'm not sure which way is the one that worked. Haha.

Moving right along

So here I am and suddenly it's now the 15th of the month. Excuse me, but where did this month go?!? Well it has flown by, but not without lots of great, some good, and a little bit of the bad and the ugly, as well. The past couple of weeks have just been so crazy busy for me. Not just your typical on the run busy, but the all encompassing mentally, physicaly, and emotionally BUSY!! I suppose when you open up your soul(what I feel like happens w/ the coaching), naturally it should come along with a little burn out, right??

In addition to my passion seeking, I am also juggling my New Years resolutions... Go to Jazzercise at least twice at week...which if you've never heard of Jazzercise you should def. look it up here. It's soo much fun! And then there was the get all of the yearly doctors appts. out of the way...not so much fun! I just love getting to wear the backless paper smocks and sit on the cruchy papered exam table..NOT! And even better is that I got to do that twice in less than 5 days. Who knew that when I called to schedule my appointments that the secretary would happily offer me an appointment within the next week. I mean, you take it when you can get it, but come on!!..how often does that happen? Today was the dermatologist. Gotta love getting 2 biopsies done on your lunch break...wheeeee!

I'm lucky enough to have a very kind boss who brought me some food on his run out, and a very kind co-worker who brought me an afternoon caramel machiato(Sooo addicted to those!!) Anyway... So work- the last piece to my stress puzzle. Things have been really busy, which is really a great thing with the state of our economy. But I believe it's almost like everyone has forgotten how to work after it being so slow, and that burden just so happens to fall right on my shoulders. I try not to complain because I'm so thankful to have a great job...especially in these tough times. But things have been hectic to say the least.

Which is why Thursday afternoon I had my first break down at the office, EVER! It's been five years that I've managed to keep my emotions on the other side of those doors. It's normally my forte. Well, it seemed that Thurs. was the day for all the sh*t to hit the fan at the very same time and from every direction possible. Whaaaaa!! My eyes began to overflow at the front desk. I just couldn't hold it back. The same sweet coworker who graces me with the caramel machiatos saw me leaking and offered to watch my desk while I stepped out back to compose myself. So, I stepped out and did just that. I came back in, thankful that no one had even noticed, washed my face in the restroom and bid her adieu. One hour left...I knew I could get through one hour. I was wrong. Just as a client was walking in the door I got a message and it tipped me over the edge. Honestly, even if the email had said there is a chance of rain tomorrow, or something ridiculous, I still would have lost it. I was just at that level emotionally where I was ready to blow. It could have been a dirty look, a stub of the toe..whatever- But I lost it. The poor lady who came in the door looked quite uncomfortable. She needed copies, so I took the paperwork to the copy room, tried very hard to compose myself(unsuccessfully...nothing was stopping this waterfall) and then had to page my co-worker upstairs to take over and I scooted out of the door.

I had to drive less than 20ft away from my office and park the car, b/c I was in such a crying fit that I could barely breath. Once I composed myself enough to drive I took the evening to hide out and gather my thoughts. Friday a.m. I was feeling a little bit more back to normal. I spoke with my coach on my lunch break and the day brightened even more. It's amazing what a different perspective can do for you! I cancelled my Friday night plans to go see the bf, and spent some good quality time in my room with my favorite pup, Clyde. By Saturday a.m. I was ready to go, feeling reinspired and able to tackle the world again:) Phew!! When you've never done this break down thing, you're not really sure how long it's going to be before you're back to normal. Glad it was only a couple of days:)

I do know now that the "stuff" that coaching brings to the surface is very interesting. It really is a personal review of ALL aspects of my life-not just what I want, or think I want. It really has been such an awesome journey though. We're currently learning to master our emotions and re writing our personal patterns to get the outcomes that we desire. It's a very indepth process, but I'm enjoying every second.

I'll leave you with some of my favorite quotes my coach has used over the past couple of weeks:

"Practice does not make perfect; practice makes permanent."

"It's not about changing yourself; it's about being yourself."

"It's not what we get that makes us happy...It's who we become. Know thyself....and then be thyself."

And my favorite...(which I learned my coach has painted on her bedroom wall when we met for coaching-so cool!), "The amount of joy in your life is determined by the amount of uncertainty you can live comfortably with."

Love this graphic

I was reading a blog my friend Nay over at Yesterday's Randomness suggested and love this image and quote!!

How fitting, eh? Another gentle reminder that we all have the choice to be who we want to be:)

I suggest checking out A Life of... Curls and Coffee. Def. going on to my list of favs.

Here we go:)

Slack: Dictionary.com defines slack as slow, sluggish, or indolent. I don't like the sounds of those words and feel they're not quite the fitting description of why my very FIRST blog post has taken so long to appear. I'd prefer the word swamped...(To inundate or burden; overwhelm, ex: She was swamped with work), or even the phrase IN THE WEEDS, a term I was all to familiar with back in my days of working in the crazy world of F&B...and CRAZY they were. Ok, so enough excuses on my tardy blog submission. I was busy, couldn't find the time, blah, blah, blah. BUT here I am and here it is. Yeah!! The burden is lifted:)

I don't know exactly what direction this blog will head or where it will take me. I am on a journey of self discovery and have been blessed with a great friend who has offered to coach me. At the end of our first phone session she came up with homework for me. Questions to answer, and not easy ones! Major thought provoking questions, as well as the assignment to begin a blog. After speaking with me and asking questions about the things that I enjoy, she decided it would be the perfect task. I had only mentioned the blogs I read a couple hundred times(exaggerating) during our hour long phone call:) I do love keeping up with my favorite bloggers.

The name of my game, as my coach calls this journey we are embarking on, is Finding My Passion. I'll go into more detail about what I've done so far on my next post. I've learned some very interesting facts and received some very cool steps to starting this process.

That's all for now. I'm EXCITED!