The post in which we dance and sing "Kumbaya."

Rick and I have this little event coming up soon called "Closing On a House." {Insert spastic celebratory dance here that may or may not be to the tune of "Omigod You Guys"--Legally Blonde: the Musical.} 

Virgin house buyers that we are, we have no idea who will be in attendance at this auspicious occasion, what it will look like, where it will occur, or what we will do. Well, I know what I'll be doing: I'll be spastically dancing. And Rick will be pretending that he bought the house with someone else, perhaps even someone whose dancing experience exceeds prancing across a stage wearing a faux elephant head and a pink tutu while "Baby Elephant Walk" rumbled in the background.

Since we don't know what to expect, then, we've amused ourselves by coming up with unlikely possibilities. Here's what we picture The Closing looking like:

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We (us, our lawyer, their lawyer, our realtor, their realtor, the soon-to-be non-owners, our parents,my first grade teacher, and my cats) all gather around the house and hold hands. Our lawyer will ceremoniously present us with the title of the house swathed in grosgrain ribbon, then give an elaborate toast to our victory. The realtors will sing a duet (we're torn between "Kumbaya" and "People (Who Need People)") while I do an interpretive dance with scarves in the background. The crowd will cheer jubilantly as the song comes to a close, and not because they're glad my dancing was over. We'll then go around the circle and say one thing we loved about the closing ceremony before making snow angels in the yard. Finally, we'll invite them all inside for cannoli and raspberry chai, which we'll dine upon until we have to fork over our life's savings our down payment, at which point we'll pry uneaten cannoli out of their hands since that's all we'll be able to eat for the next several months.

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Yeah. With the exception of the money-changing-hands part, we know The Closing is not going to happen that way...unless by some strange chain of events our realtor morphs into Raffi or Barbara Streisand, in which case the odds would be much greater.
 

Weirdly doctored photo courtesy of too much time on my hands and this website.

Anyway, until That Happy Day when we finally learn what exactly is entailed in this mysterious event, we'll just keep entertaining ourselves with visions of cannoli and snow angels.


And oh--if you happened to have stumbled on this page by googling the real answer to "What is closing?" I sincerely apologize. May your closing be much less dramatic than my fictitious one. Please do let me know, though, if Barbara Streisand shows up to yours. I'd like an autograph.

The post about 2010.

My little blog has not yet celebrated its 1st birthday, nor even its half birthday, but I thought I'd participate in Southern Hospitality's 2010 round-up just for fun anyway. So without further ado: The Top 5 Things Erin Learned about Decorating in 2010. I was going to take on a Top 10, but David Letterman must have more list-making stamina than I.

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5. Reupholstering is not a one-day gig. A mildly "duh" epiphany, I know, but we have always been overly ambitious/impractical, whichever way you want to look at it. The makeover of this hideously gold velour chair was mostly accomplished in one day, but slid to a grinding halt when a mildly serious battle with the sewing machine impeded our progress. Not to mention that it was past midnight when we finally looked up from our tack strips and fabric.

4. Flat paint is a bad idea on furniture, unless you never plan to clean and/or dust said furniture. I never wrote about this desk that Rick repainted as a display for our wedding photos and mementos (I think it occurred BB--Before Blog) but the nasty gray streaks ground into the formerly white finish (which I couldn't, sadly, adequately capture on camera) will haunt me forever. Or at least until we repaint it. Whichever comes first.

3. It's perfectly acceptable to hang garbage on the wall.  Not that you should take your packed Hefty bags, however, and mount them above your fireplace. I do, in all seriousness, love this perfectly weathered ladder that I Rick dragged off the curb. I'm pretty sure it is going to join us at our soon-to-be new house (!) as long as I can smuggle it into the moving truck without Rick noticing.

And those bottles were dragged off the curb, as well, before being coated with some fun aqua and pear spray paint.

2. My Cricut can be used for more than just cards and scrapbooking. I made this die-cut frame...

...these silhouettes...

...and the accents for this basket collage that I hung on the wall...

 ...all with my Cricut. Who knew?

And the number one thing I learned about decorating in 2010:

1. I couldn't do any of it without my wonderfully patient partner in crime. I think he's even learned a few things himself, like what I mean when I say "good lines" and "trust me." He may have also learned that you shouldn't attempt to reconstruct a couch unless you know what you're doing.

Fortunately, this particular couch was a freebie hand-me-down that A) we didn't want and B) had already been loved a lot, so we didn't feel too bad about putting its sad dismantled skeleton out for garbage day after completing taking it apart and realizing we were about as clueless as the student who asked me, with utmost seriousness, how to spell TV. No, that is not a joke. Yes, I teach ninth grade, aka 14 year-olds who have seen TV spelled for approximately, well, 14 years. Yes, I did have to refrain from laughing and/or fleeing from the room in despair.

Anyway, back to a less disturbing topic: Rick sporting his super stylish safety goggles and gloating about how he had just used his brawn and sweat to remove the rusty springs from the couch. When I consider how triumphant he looks in this picture, I figure that all was not lost.

See what I mean? Couldn't function without him. They didn't teach me how to remove springs from couches in Girl Scouts.

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So, that wraps up a sampling of our experience in 2010. Happy New Year, and here's to another year of learning and laughing!

The post on Christmas Eve.

We've had a busy Christmas Eve day, full of centerpiece arranging...

 

...chocolate cover pretzel making (I swear we didn't intend for them to come out looking like they would glow if we held a black light over them)...

...final gift creating (more on the latter after I give it to my parents)...

...and emails about SALE PENDING! Yes, that means our offer on a house has been accepted, signed, and sent to all those wonderful people that help us through the tedious part of this process. Says our realtor: "Rick, how will you ever top this Christmas gift for Erin ever again?!" We are now 60+ days away (God willing!) from being the official owners of an amazing old house that is near our families, has enough room for several sets of twins (hi Mom), and needs some decorating TLC...which is exactly what we wanted!

This chocolate to drizzle over our chocolate-covered pretzels, however, is not exactly what we wanted:

Not sure what happened, but for some reason the food coloring made the chocolate really thick and non-drizzlable. So, I had the brilliant idea of adding milk, thinking it would thin the chocolate out. Right?

Wrong.

Garbage can, meet our latest DIY disaster.

This is why I blog about crafting and not cooking.

We're praising the Lord for our marriage, our families, all of our many blessings, food on our table that looks nothing like that mess above, and the most perfect gift that He sent us so long ago. We're doing our best to keep Christ at the center of this Christmas season, as we do in every season!

Merry Christmas!

The post with the house hunt + a chicken.

I already shared some of our house-hunting adventures in this post, but have just one more moment of amusement to share:

Yes, that is a chicken. Parading through the backyard of a village home (we weren't out on a farm or anything!). And yes, this is Rick strutting his stuff behind our new friend.

I couldn't get a better picture because the fowl thing (ha, ha) kept moving.

We checked the MLS again, but nowhere did it say anything like Exterior Features: garage door opener, patio, vinyl siding, chicken. 

Guess we just got lucky. :)

The post in which we have a good laugh in Goodwill.

That's right, folks, Rick and I have a hobby, and it's not typical like jam-making or crocheting. (I tried crocheting when I was in Girl Scouts. Let's just say that "a child's blanket" ended up looking more like a potholder. I don't think I got my badge for that one.) No, our hobby is much more amusing (and doesn't involve yarn). It's name is Goodwilling. We like to visit the said thrift store to A) see what real bargains can be snatched up and B) have a good chuckle about some of the odd treasures that make us say, "Why would anyone want that?" But, what is one man's junk, I suppose, is another man's treasure.

Or just another man's junk.

Here are some of the treasures that we found while touring Goodwill with our camera. :)

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1.  This ghost. As if ghosts weren't scary enough: now we have them posing seductively. As you can see, Rick was particularly enamored with this little beauty. I guess I know what to be for Halloween.

2. This owl. While I do like repurposing, there's just something about repurposing teeny shells into a sculpture that screams "Tacky Southern Tourist Gift Trap." The good news is, there was a whole collection of these fine-shelled feathered friends, so you could buy one for all of your family members!

3. This frumpy lampshade. Enough said.

 

4. This little boy sleeping peacefully on a moon. Aww, how sweet. Wait--is he naked??

It reminds me of Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen. If you've never read it, I highly encourage you to check it out of the nearest library. Not only does it contain stunning graphics, but also contains a great moral about why we have cake every morning.

If you have a blank expression of your face, you're not the only one. Read the book. It will answer alllll of your questions. :)

5. This rabbit. I tell ya, if you're looking to make your kids forget about the Easter bunny, just tell them he looks like this. I doubt they will want this guy creeping into their rooms at night to leave Peeps and chocolate eggs. And what is that thing on his chin?

6. And last, but not least, these elderly painted mice. Rick predicts that this will be us in 50 years. Only he says we won't be sitting in rockers crocheting: we'll still be marching (wheeling?) around Goodwill trying to find weird stuff.

 

In case you were wondering if we got anything useful out of our trip, we did! We left the store with an array of cheap goodies:

 Exciting, right? I know they don't like like much now, but they will. Just give me time. And some spray paint. :)

Anyone else like to have fun in stores? What's the strangest or best thing you've ever found at a thrift store or yard sale? Feel free to share!

The post in which Rick runs off with Betsy Ross.

We the {melting} people...

Rick and I were recently on vacation in southern Pennsylvania, where we spent one day touring historic Philadelphia. Our shining faces in the photo accurately suggest that  Philly was slightly cooler than a person sipping hot chai while snuggled up in a wool blanket. In a sauna. If we hadn't forgotten the marshmallows, we could've roasted one on the sidewalk and gobbled it up for a delightful afternoon snack.

But enough about the temperature. We had a wonderful day despite it: so there, oven-like heat wave! One of our stops was Betsy Ross' house, in which we met Betsy herself--I know, weird, right? --hard at work sewing a flag in a replication of her sewing shop. What most amused us about her sewing shop, though, was not the fact that Betsy Ross has apparently been fooling everyone about being dead all of these years, but, rather, the material surrounding Betsy.

Question: how do you know when you've spent too much time in Joann Fabrics? Answer: when you recognize the fabric in Betsy Ross' "sewing shop" and can rattle off the following not-so-historic facts: It was mass-produced by Waverly. The retail price is $39.99 a yard. It comes in black, red, and blue. Betsy was so impressed with Rick's knowledge of fabric that she asked him to join her staff full-time. Obviously, he had to decline, mainly because he just couldn't stand the thought of leaving his little wife to pick out fabric at Joann's all by herself.

Besides, Betsy was just not his type.