Flea Markets and spray paint... OH MY!

Ok, so I've become a little bit obsessed with spray paint lately. Honestly, it's one of the best products EVER! It is simply amazing what you can do with a little time and paint.

We went to the New Years Day flea market here in Louisville... it's the largest one of the year and rightly so. It's held in the Expo Center downtown and admission is free... it was a great way to spend New Years day. We found one booth that held tables and tables of stuff all marked $2. I picked up a TON of nifty items. One of which was a set of wooden sconces that were ok, but they just didn't match my decor... enter spray paint. I went to Wal-mart and picked up a couple of cans of spray paint and WALLA! Beautiful sconces that now look like metal.. and that NOW match my decor. And I did all of this for less than $5... much to my husbands happiness.

Here are the finished sconces:

Well, since I had the spray paint out and ready I started thinking about the bedroom furniture in our guest room... and the fact that I didn't really LOVE the color. So you guessed it... SPRAY PAINT!! I went and picked up several more cans of the nifty stuff and Bill and I proceeded to "re do" our furniture. We spent the better part of two days applying coat after coat to our furniture, but the end result was worth it. Here's a pic of our handy work:

I will say one thing about spray paint... wear a mask and make sure that you have PLENTY of ventilation... But beware... even with a mask you might encounter the dreaded "black nose" ... See below:

We look like we've been playing football.... but even with the mess, it was ALL worth it.. and what a fun memory :-)

Sweet tooth

My husband has a bit of a sweet tooth... I know this and I try to limit the amount of baking that I do. But, every now and then I indulge him a bit and make his FAVORITE thing... CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE Brownies. Now I don't mind making these because I don't eat them... I'm not a HUGE fan of overly chocolate things.

But Bill LOVES them and will eat the whole pan if I'm not careful. So I usually remind him that one brownie at a time is a normal serving.

Well the other afternoon as I was coming down the stairs this is what I saw.....

Here's my husband caught in the act indulging his "sweet" tooth:

He didn't finish the whole pan in one sitting, but he did finish the whole pan in two days... What can I say, he loves sweets!

This was his final indulgance of 2008... He's planning to run in the Chicago Marathon this October, so I figured one pan wouldn't hurt too much...

Christmas fun

This was our first "Married" Christmas and it was sooo much fun. We had a leisurely, lazy day that started with a big breakfast, then on to opening presents and finally on to our SCRUMPTIOUS Christmas dinner of prime rib. I've never made a prime rib before, but I plan to do so again... it was GOOD! I even made homemade horseradish cream... YUMMY!!

This is our Living Room all decorated for Christmas... that's a 9 ft Christmas tree... It was HUGE!

And here's Murphy giving Bill Christmas kisses...

I think we just made the best deal EVER!!

I am an avid follower of http://www.craigslist.com/. It's a nifty site that you can pretty much find ANYTHING that you are looking for. It lists garage sales in your area, estate sales and just general items that people have for sale. I am currently in furniture seeking mode, so I have been checking it daily trying to find a few very specific pieces. We are in dire need of a dining room table...right now we eat off of TV trays in our nice big living room. It's not bad when you have a fire in the fireplace, but it does make candle lit dinners a bit difficult.

We also need a new couch and accent chairs. I'm leaning toward leather, but don't really like the price tag associated with it. So that's where Craiglist comes in. I check each day and scroll through all the new listings just hoping for that really good deal.

As far as a dining set goes, I have very specific qualities I'm looking for. First, I would like a pub height table. I would also like it to have a hidden leaf...no need to go searching for said leaf when company comes. I would really like a cherry finish, but I can pretty much work with any color...it might just require more work on our part. And lastly, I would really like it to be solid wood...none of this veneer stuff. I want it to be good and solid...we tend to be a bit hard on furniture.

So yesterday here I was searching on Craigslist and I came across a posting for a pub height table with 6 stools....and a hidden leaf. There was a picture listed, but you couldn't really make out much. So I made a quick call and we decided to go see it last night.

(Insert glorious music here) When we walked in and saw the table I knew right away....this was THE ONE! It is THE table that I have been dreaming of. It's beautiful...and it was only $200...WITH the 6 stools included. Seriously, God gave us this table. I had prayed about it and He blessed us. And to top it all off...the sweet people we bought it from also delivered it to our house for us...we didn't even have to rent a truck.

It's SUPER heavy...the legs alone weigh about 30 pounds each. The woman's son had gotten some type of stain on the table top, so she stripped it down to bare wood. She was going to re stain it cherry like the rest of the set, but just never got around to it. So I think I'm going to re stain it a glossy black to match the rest of our kitchen. So the legs and trim will be cherry and the top black... We have black iron light fixtures in the kitchen along with cherry cabinetry...I think it's going to be fun to make this beautiful dining set our own. I kept walking in to the kitchen last night just to look at it... I'm so proud that we waited on the Lord. We had gone looking at several furniture stores, but we never found anything that we just loved.

And what we did find was ridiculously priced. So I started praying and thrifty shopping. I think I've been to every garage sale, Church rummage sale, and Craigslist posting out there. And low and behold we finally found THE ONE.

It's quite a lesson for me....to wait upon the lord. And I don't really know why I still get amazed when God works through our obedience... He always blesses you when you're faithful. It's become a little game for Bill and I, to give a little more here and there to see what God does. I can remember watching my parents write checks to the Lord all the while knowing it was the last they had in the bank...but not worrying because they knew God would bless them, that He would provide. And I'm here to tell you, that is THE TRUTH.

Bill and I did a little experiment not too long ago. We write our tithe checks every two weeks...that's how often we get paid, so we tithe accordingly. Well, Bill had accidentally written tithe checks two weeks in a row.... and we talked about it and decided to just let it ride. And I actually said, "oh don't worry honey, if there's one person I don't want to short, it's God. So let's just make that an extra gift to God. He says to test Him in this, so let's do and see what happens".

Now all the while I was saying this I was thinking to myself....I don't really see how God could bless us with any extra money... We don't have any refunds coming and there's really nothing for Him to use. But in spite of that, I wanted to see what God would do. And within a week, we got a check in the mail. I honestly thought it was a joke. We got a $500 check for some type of insurance refund that we had overpaid when we bought our house.

Some might say that was just a coincidence....but I know better.

No seriously...you didn't notice that???

Let me start out by saying how much I love my husband...he's a true blessing, but that man is NOT observant. I've spent the last week cleaning the living room and preparing to get down and dirty with the decorating. So this weekend I've been rummaging through all my decorative items that I packed back in Chicago. And low and behold I find JUST what I've been looking for....my two matching vases that will be PERFECT for the fireplace mantel.

I get everything cleaned up and put up and am just dying for my husband to get home....I mean the entire living room is transformed now that it's been decorated. It really looks like a lived in house now.

So I wait....and for those of you who know me, you know it wasn't patiently :-) And in walks my sweet, CLUELESS husband. We say hello and I start getting dinner organized...all the while I'm watching him like a hawk, just WAITING for him to say something about the BEAUTIFUL living room.

Twenty minutes go by...still nothing. He's telling me about his day, etc....I even see him look around the room....specifically at the fireplace, and still NOTHING.

Forty-five minutes go by and I've had it.....so I say, "HONEY! What do you think of the living room?" And what do you think he said???..... "What about it?"

I look at him as if he's lost ALL his marbles and I ask him, "What do you mean WHAT ABOUT IT??" "Did you not notice that it looks completely different?? It's now clean and decorated."

And my wonderful husband looks right at me and says, "oh sorry honey, I thought it always looked like this."

SERIOULSY! How could he POSSIBLY think it had ALWAYS looked like that?!?! But that just goes to show you how truly different men and women are.

We truly speak different languages. And I'm learning to LOVE the differences between us. We truly cannot understand each other sometimes, but it's SOOOO much fun trying to figure the other out. We have learned to just laugh when Venus and Mars rear their ugly heads. And I have to say, I don't ever want to know EVERYTHING about my husband...that little bit of mystery provides just the right amount of spice :-)