I Love A Challenge

I JUST realized that I haven't blogged about my goodwill lamp spruce-session! How I managed to forget that, I have no idea, but it's never too late, right?!

Right!

So here she is.

And she had a sister, too. Momma Bear and I found these little soon-to-be-beauties at goodwill and I was SO stinking excited. I had been scouring (scowering?) the local stores for some cheapo neglected twins to call my own. To put my stamp on. To call my own and make beautiful again.

And behold, there she was! Her, her sister, and all of their ugly pre-Princess Diaries-esque makeover glory. They SO went home with me!!

The plan was to make them pretty, rewire the electric, and then recover some old dingy lamp shades to finish out the project. Then wah-lah. They would be mine! Muuahaha ha haa!

Okay. Sorry. I got caught up in the memory.

You see, I have a bit of a problem. I see too much potential in the household items at goodwill. It gets to the point where I'm put in some form of a goodwill time out, now and then. Just ask my momma - she will vouge for me. But with Studly out of town for the week (thank you Air Force!), it was the perfect time to take advantage of goodwill time with Momma and score something amazing, all in time to surprise him with something he thought I bought. Booyah!


So I took it a step at a time. Now, I don't have step-by-step pictures (becuase I'm a bad blogger. *smacks hand*), but here's the low-down:

Step #1: Removed old wiring. This is when I remembered to take the before picture shown above.

Step #2: Clean the lamps. I used my Shaklee all-purpose cleaning mixture and it worked fabulously. (love this stuff!)

Step #3: Spray-paint lamps in a beautiful stainless steel color.

Step #4: Clean off bad spray-paint, and try again... this time in a timeless Satin White.
Now, I'm all about full disclosure. So let me just say that the stainless look spray paint did NOT turn out correctly. I mean, it wasn't even paint. It looked like a steel-wool scrubber and killed it, then sprinkled the remains all over the lamp. I don't know how it happened, and I don't have a picture (dang it!), but it was nooot cool. I know that I followed the directions - I shook it 50-million times before spraying, and blah. The good thing, I guess, was that since it was so piecey, it wiped off and re-cleaned in no time. So the next coat of paint went on seamlessly. Looking at it now, you'd never know there was a problem. Heck - you'd never know they ever used to be a different color to begin with!

And that, my friends, is what I call... SUCCESS!


Now back to the process...

Step #5: Re-wire the lamps, using an easy-peasy lamp wiring kit (I bought mine at Lowes, since McStudly's Dad is a Disctrict Manager up in the Mid-North area... I guess you could say we're a little partial). It comes with everything you need, and has super easy instructions to follow. Anyone can do it!

Step #6: The shades.

Again, I'm all about full-disclosure, so I should tell you now that I ran out of time. I was working on these lamps while also cleaning the entire house and tryign to get things re-organized before McStudly got home. I started the lamp project Sunday afternoon, and his plane was due to land at around midnight that night.

I'm a sucker for a deadline. What can I say?!

Anywho - I say all of that to say this: I didn't do some crafty DIY lamp recoverring. Instead, I ran out to Lowes (again... we're partial, and the size lampshades that I needed were cheaper there than at our Walmart or Target) and grabbed some super cute this-will-work-for-now shades instead. Oh well. A girl's gotta cut corners SOMEwhere. Do ya blame me?!

So finally I arrived at... *drumroll please*

Step #7: My favorite of them all. This is the step where you plug everything in and admire your finished work in it's final home.


Aren't you eager to see what these ugly ducklings turned into? Well, just to remind you, here's the sure-leaves-a-lot-to-be-desired before shot, one more time:

And now, without further adeue, I give you - the finished product:

And here they are, in their new homes:

They sure did come a long way from their brassy befores, didn't they? Well, we love them, and use them EVERY night before bedtime... and our toes are ever so grateful to be spared.

Mission accomplished.

Her Wittle Dress

A while back I made this dress:

It was super fun to make, though it took me several days to finish (and I didn't have a pattern, so there was a lot of trial and error)... and I loved the end result! I was so stinking excited to give it to my newest little buddy that I even made it in a newborn size so I didn't have to wait to see it on her! (ha ha ha... I'm so lame!)

My only problem with sewing is that I'm end-product focused, so I want to spend all my time working on a project until it's finished. McStudly's usually okay with this because it means more Xbox in it for him, but Austin gets a little lonely and lays at my feet the whole time, sometimes accidentally triggering the motor by laying his head on the foot pedal. Oops!

Anywho - today was a big day. I got a text this morning from Momma Laurie that Baby Abby was wearing a special dress to church. I turned to Studly, who was making molasses yawn with his prep-speed, and told him "You've GOT to get ready. Abby is wearing a special dress today and I HAVE to see it!" Oddly enough, he finished getting ready (though he wasn't exactly moving with a sense of urgency, if you know what I mean), and we headed off to church.

Sure enough she was wearing her little one-of-a-kind dress! Little does she know how much some people (you know... the ones with money to burn) are willing to spend on such a dress... and boy did she work that thang. She was so stinking cute (of course...)!!

Now, you know I couldn't tease you with such a story and not have pictures, so here you go. Lil Abby in her very own SP dress:

And of course I have a few pictures of us together:









So there you have it. She's just a skosh over 5 weeks old already. Can you believe it?!

PS: Get a load of all that hair!

Honor Flight

McStudly got voluntold to do Honor Flight bright and stupid painfully freaking early on a Saturday morning.

If you don't know what honor flight is, here's a small synopsis of what we did that day:

There were several flights arriving at our local airport carrying quite a few war veterans along with their typical plane-load of people. But we weren't there for anyone but the veterans.

At each gate, when the door opened, the normal everyday passengers were the first to deplane. I could tell by many of their faces that they had not-a-clue what was going on as they entered the airport surrounded by lines of men and women in uniform (yes, this happened at every gate where an honor flight was arriving, that day).

Once they cleared out (though some stuck around to see what the hubbub was all about), the veterans began to slowly emerge from the gate, escorted by loved ones and airline staff. And if you weren't paying attention before this point, you most certainly were now!

Roars of applause and cheers greeted them.

The men and women who are currently serving our country were hootin'-n-hollerin' for the men that had gone before them. Shaking their hands. Thanking them for their service.

...and every single one of the veterans were just BEEMING with pride!

I cannot even begin to tell you how hard it was for me to fight back tears. I was standing next to a pregnant woman, the wife of one of McStudly's pals, and even SHE didn't seem to be struggling as much as I was. Call me a sap all you want, but something about that kind of patriotism just gets me every time.

We had an amazing time. It was SO well worth the early morning we'd had. Seriously.

But even better, for me, was the end of the morning. As the men from the Honor Flights boarded their charter bus to DC, escorted by men on Harleys the entire way there...

...all of the men and women that are currently serving sent them off with a proper salute.

It was so beautiful! If you EVER get the chance to be a part of an Honor Flight near you, DO IT! You'll be so glad that you did and you'll never forget it.

PS: Check this guy out. He still fit into his uniform after 20+ years.

You know I had to get a picture with him and McStudly. Look how handsome!

Feetsies

Here's a pic of Baby Sierra Grace's booties and matching headband.  

What do you think??

I took it to her parents while they were still in the hospital, and she put the headband on her - it was too cute!!  I love this new-found hobby of mine.  It's a blast to make the stuff and then get to see them on such wittle cutsies!!

Okay - moving on to another project... this one is going to be slightly more adult then the  others.

Here she is:


My first blog award, from Lindsay at Laugh Along The Way. Is that awesome, or what?! Thanks Lindsay!!


"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award!"


Now I have to pass it on (in Alpha order):
~ Aiyana at Word
~ Brittany at Evolution of Brittany
~ Carrie at Momma Bowyer
~ Malia at Lia Marie Fotographie
~ Melody at Simplicity
~ Lindsey at Learning to Be a Wife
~ Terri at The Peters and the Point
~ The Mrs. at Trying Our Best


So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen! I'll be commenting on all of their pages to make sure they see that they've received the award. Thanks for your awesome blogs, ladies!!

Memory Lane

Years ago, I used to go to an annual Youth conference called "Premier Winterfest" with our Church Youth Group. It was a blast! It was a Friday through Sunday morning kind of thing and you stayed in a Hotel along the beach in Ocean City (in February, though...) and went to services and had a BLAST! It was SO much fun that even after I graduated High School, I stayed working in the Youth as a leader, and would go as a chaperone. Yeah - it was that awesome.

Most of you have probably heard of such events, if you haven't attended one yourself. Every year it was different, but somehow the theme involved being "Hungry": "Hungry for God", "Hungry for More", "Still Hungry", "Starving for Jesus", "Dying of Starvation", "Seizing for Spiritual Food"... (okay, so I made those last 3 or 4 up, but that's what we were all starting to think!)

Well, along with awesome speakers and amazing worship, we always had a concert on Saturday afternoon. One particular year, Tait came. That's right - Micheal Tait, in all of his former-DC Talk glory - along with his band, came to OUR youth event! It was fabulous.

The best part? It went something like this:

*dusting off an old memory*

Micheal Tait began his set by coming out to "Electric Avenue". You know... that really funky old song? Yeah - it was rockin' good times. (I sound like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not - it really was good!) Then he sang another two songs that some of us knew, but not all of us... and then finally he decided he wanted to pull some people up on stage to sing with him.

FREEZE!! *taking in the memory....* UNFREEZE!!

Anywho - I start jumping. My volleyball skills, that somehow were never really present when I actually played volleyball, kicked in and you'd think I was spiking balls into the face of the 2008 Summer Olympics. (I found out later that my sister, and possible a few other people, were actually assisting in my "air"... but I didn't know this at the time)

Long story short - I GOT PICKED!!!! It was FABULOUS!!! Seriously, though. I got to run UP onto the stage and SING with MICHEAL TAIT!!! Check it out:

They start playing "Blessed Be Your Name" and he picks some guy out of the audience. The picture above his him introducing me. (I know it looks like we're fighting over one microphone, but he's actually holding a cordless in his hand) Then they began playing the music, and I was supposed to sing the first verse. I ROCKED it!! And other than trying to harmonize with MT, when he wasn't singing, like I thought he was going to, it turned out AWESOME!! Then comes the second verse. He goes over and introduces Dingbat... (Oh - I'm sorry. I forgot his name) and then tells him to sing the second verse. *Insert goofy look here* He didn't know it! So MT said something along the lines of "Take it, Sarah!" And I sang the second verse, too. Then we harmonized over the chorus and bridge. It was a ROCKIN' good time!!

*sigh* What a good memory. That was my 15 Minutes of Fame - even if it did only actually last about 5. ;-)

What was yours? Have you had it, yet?

Letting it All Hang Out

So I did it. I finally got to the point where I shared one of my songs with a few other people. *GASP*

It's true. First my best girlfriend, Ashley... then My Husband, and then our Worship Pastor. Glad that I finally did, because it's only getting better this way.



This was a BIG step for me. Aren't you proud??