Who knew a cheese sandwich could cause so much drama?

Hubby and I spent last night in the ER...

Hubby was the star of this particular drama and I was a supporting cast member. I'm joking about it now because we're pretty sure he's going to be okay. It wasn't funny last night, though. It was pretty scary. I came home from shopping and picking up dinner to find Hubby lying on the floor of our bathroom!

He'd apparently collapsed and couldn't answer any of my questions and finally grunted out the words "9-1-1." Strangely enough that scared me more than finding him on the floor because Hubby is not a go-to-the-doctor kind of guy. Seriously...he could be standing here with his arm mostly severed and hanging on by a single artery and say, "If it's not better by tomorrow, THEN I'll go to the doctor."

I called 9-1-1 and the dispatcher sent out an ambulance and a fire truck. Of course, all the commotion got the neighborhood buzzing, but I was and remain so grateful for all of their help and support. My friend, Amy, took Miss Priss to her house so she wouldn't be afraid and my other two neighbors, Lynne and Peggy, followed us to the hospital so we would have a ride home. Have I ever mentioned how blessed I feel to live in this neighborhood? I LOVE our neighbors!!

The EMT's asessed Hubby and determined that he needed to go the hospital. That was kind of scary especially when Hubby yanked off the oxygen mask and vomited all over himself. He kept saying, "food poisoning, food poisoning" but the EMTs thought that was unlikely since all he said he'd eaten that day was pancakes (which I made and we all ate, but wasn't the source. Whew!) pretzels and a cheese sandwich.

He'd played golf all day and was as red as a beet, but his skin was ice cold and clammy. He was disoriented and couldn't form complete sentences but the EMTs said his vitals were all good and they actually showed me his EKG. It was perfect, beautiful actually...all symmetrical and evenly spaced...an EKG to be proud of! They quickly determined that he wasn't in cardiac arrest, he hadn't suffered a stroke or an aneurism but seemed to be presenting the symptoms of heat exhaustion.

When we got to the hospital, they lined us up in a hallway with two other patients who had come in in ambulances at the same time we did. One was a woman who had been severely beaten by her husband (I know this because I glanced down at her chart thinking it was Hubby's because her EMT had carelessly set it by Hubby's feet) and another older woman who appeared to have Parkinson's Disease as evidenced by her tremors. She must have taken a fall because she didn't appear to be in any real distress.

Both of those women were put into rooms before Hubby which, strange as this may seem, gave me some comfort because I felt like if Hubby were in any real danger, they would have moved him into a room STAT!

While we were waiting in the hall, Hubby got sick again and was shaking violently...almost like he was having a seizure. I thought maybe he was in shock and asked the EMT if he thought so too. He said no, that violent shivers were to be expected with heat exhaustion but Hubby kept saying, "No...it's food poisoning. It was the cheese sandwich."

So the EMT started asking me about the cheese sandwich.

EMT: Where did he get the cheese sandwich?

Me: Our house, I guess. Maybe the club...he played golf all day. He could have eaten it there, but I don't think they serve cheese sandwiches. It's more of a buffet-type thing.

EMT: Do you know what kind of cheese it was?

Me: If he made the sandwich at home, it had to be either American or Swiss...maybe mozarella because he's on a diet and the mozzarella is low fat, but it was probably American cheese.

EMT: Did he have it with any mayo or mustard?

Me: Probably Miracle Whip. He doesn't like mayonnaise and mustard doesn't go with a cheese sandwich. Do you think the Miracle Whip was bad? I read somewhere that it actually has properties that fight food poi---

Hubby (writhing in pain on the gurney beside us): Would you two PLEASE stop talking about food?!!

And then he threw up again. Oops...poor Hubby.

So, they put us into a room and the waiting game began. We got to the hospital sometime around 7:00 but didn't see a doctor until about 8:30. They put Hubby on some medicine to stop the vomiting and gave him something for his dizziness.

After that, we didn't see a single soul until about midnight when the doctor came back in and said Hubby appeared to have positional vertigo that was triggered by heat exhaustion and/or dehydration.

He was discharged around 1:00 a.m. with three scripts (one for dizziness, one for nausea and Valium, which the doctor said was a last-ditch treatment for dizziness). We went to a 24-hour pharmacy, got all the scripts filled and then made it home some time around 2:00.

I gave Hubby his medication, then I took one of the Valiums for myself and we went to bed. Strangely enough, thanks to the Big V, I had one of the best night's sleep I've had in ages. I wonder if you can get that stuff on the street?

Pink Stinks!

Don't get me wrong...I haven't always hated pink. In fact, pink and me have never really had any problems. It's an okay color...not grody like orange or lavender. I mean, I prefer yellow, blue or green, but I don't mind pink. It's great for things like lipstick, fingernail polish and the occasional cosmopolitan.

But recently, pink and me have been on the outs. Why?

Miss Priss, of course. Pink has become her absolute favorite, numero uno color of choice. At first, I didn't mind. I even thought it was cute. I mean, seriously...what is more adorable than a two-year-old girl in a pink tutu with a pink hairbow and pink ballet slippers standing in a pink bedroom painted especially for her?

Not much, man. Not much.

Only now, pink is the ONLY color Miss Priss has deemed worthy of her very specific tastes. EVERYTHING has to pink...absolutely EVERYTHING!!! Her sheets, her underwear, her socks, her shoes. AND NOW?!??

She'll only go pee pee on a pink potty!! I'm not going to lie to you...this has set our potty training efforts back by like two months as the pink potty resides at her grandmama's house. Our potty here at home is blue and white and therefore unworthy of Miss Priss's pink-preferring tushy.

The sofa is apparently her toilet of choice now because it's red and therefore in the pink family.

So, yes...pink very literally STINKS!

The Problem

WHAT?!?? How can this beautiful angel..this gift from God EVER be considered a problem? Well, I'll tell you. This same wonderful darling turns into Satan's minion every morning at exactly 6:00 a.m.



Take last Thursday morning, for example. Miss Priss's grandmother gave her a plastic box that contains about 1,500 small rubber bands in varying colors and sizes. I awoke that morning to the feeling of those same 1,500 rubber bands being sprinkled onto my face.

Not cool.

Unfortunately, since we've made the switch from crib to big-girl bed, Miss Priss is now free to get up and wander into our room...at 6:00 a.m....every morning.

Not cool, indeed.

So, Hubby and I got the brilliant idea to buy Miss Priss a little TV/DVD player and set it up in her playroom. Our plan was to teach her how to turn on the television in the hopes that she would bypass our bedroom and maybe, just maybe go into her playroom and watch television for about 30 more precious minutes every morning.

The only problem was we didn't really have a safe place to put the TV. Also, I also wanted a stand with wheels because television in our house is a privilege and I wanted to be able to remove it easily from her room if we have to. But, of course, I wanted to pay absolutely nothing for it and I wanted it to be pink.

I didn't realize what a tall order that would be. So I hit the thrift stores and here is what I found...





Well, it had wheels and it was a TV stand...two out of three ain't bad.

BEHOLD THE POWER OF PAINT!!!





What kid wouldn't want to give mommy a break and watch a little TV in the morning with a set-up like this?



Oh well, a mom can dream, can't she?

I'm Just Sayin'...

I have this theory that's been percolating in my head for awhile. It's about kids and their parents.

Doesn't it seem like whatever your particular hang-up is, you have a kid who does EVERYTHING they can think of to fly in the face of it?

Seriously...if you're a scaredy cat, your child will be fearless! If you're a person who is content to stay at home and just hang, you'll have a child who always wants to be on the go. Conversely, if you're a person who likes to go go go, you'll have a child who just as strongly DOES NOT want to go.

Like to shop? Your kid won't.

Hubby and I are really struggling with this. What's our hang-up? Tidiness and the fact that we don't have that anymore. We like things neat and orderly...a place for everything and everything in it's place. That's our motto (or at least it used to be). We LIKE to leave a room in pristine condition and return to find it untouched.

Miss Priss? None of the above applies to her. She thrives in chaos and mess. Is that pee on the sofa? No problem, she'll lay down in it...maybe even lick it, if you're watching. If you clean up a room? Well, the joke's on you isn't it? She'll have it trashed in record time.

Why is it this way, you ask? Well, the answer is God. I think He does this to remind us who is REALLY in control...plus I think He thinks it's kind of funny.

The Bats In My Cave, Part IV

5. I ran my first 5K on the Saturday before I left for St. Louis. My time was 34 minutes and I was pretty proud of it. HOWEVER...there was a girl also running the race that I sort of know through my husband. We see her and her husband occasionally at parties and I know her to be a very competitive person because of a game night that got ugly a few weeks ago.

Anyway, right before I was about to cross the finish line, she ran up behind me, said "Hey" and then sprinted ahead to beat me by like two seconds. Seriously, chick? Of course, now I have no choice but to shut her down at our next match-up as she has now become my evil nemesis.

4. Hubby got sworn in as a board member of the Alabama Mortgage Bankers Association this week. I'm so proud...and to think when I first met him, his biggest accomplishment was inventing a drink called the "Parrothead Shooter." It was blue and smelled like suntan lotion. He's come a long way, baby.

3. I was sitting in my kitchen this morning, sipping my coffee and relishing in the fact that I was finally home and had a long weekend ahead of me with nothing to do and nothing to worry about.

Then the phone rang.

Remember the event I told you about that WE decided not to do? Well, the board decided to do it after all, only now I have TWO WEEKS to put it together instead of four. I'm happy to have the opportunity to earn the fee because I spent a little too much money in St. Louis this week, but it's going to take some prayers, good luck and good karma to pull this thing off in two weeks. I'm thinking I should increase my fee and maybe steal some paperclips to make it worth all the stress and drama that I know is coming my way in the next couple of weeks.

So if you don't hear from me for awhile, say a little prayer for me. There's a good chance I'm in my closet in the fetal position, sucking my thumb, and calling for my mommy.

2. My aunt Debbie and I took Miss Priss to the mall this week. We decided to go in through J.C. Penney and when we started to walk out into the mall, Miss Priss stopped in her tracks, sighed like a desert wanderer who just found an oasis and said, "The Mall!" It was like she'd just stepped into her own personal Xanadu. She comes by it honestly, I must say. Shopping is in the genes for the women in our family.

1. And speaking of the mall, this mall in St. Louis had every conceivable kiosk for personal grooming I've ever seen. They had an eyebrow waxing station and a teeth whitening station. Seriously. They had six dental chairs and a nurse sitting right there in the middle of the mall. I told my aunt that it would be luck that I'd be sitting there with the contraption in my mouth and an old boyfriend would walk by because that's just how my life works out sometimes.

Debbie Does Decorating

My aunt would probably kill me if she saw that title, but she doesn't read my blog, so it will be our little secret, k?

I just got home from St. Louis where I went to see my aunt Debbie. She has been on me for about a year now to come help her decorate her living room and I finally got a window of time and the nerve to make the 9-hour drive with Miss Priss. Here are the pictures of what we did...


This is my aunt's house. As you can see, it's a pretty traditional style for St. Louis...a typical center-hall colonial. As you walk into the front door, you step into a small foyer. The formal living room is on the right, the dining room is on the left and the stairs are straight ahead. We were working on the formal living room.


This bookcase was our jumping off point. Debbie bought it about a year ago because she wanted more places to put books and pictures. Thankfully, she had already picked out a paint color she liked and had the room painted before I got there. She also had her window treatments up, so all that was left for us to do was shop!

And we did...we were shopping maniacs for two days.

As with any room, we had some challenges to overcome and decisions to make. You can tell from the picture that the room isn't very large so of course, that always limits what you can do. Also, Debbie and my uncle Doug are very casual people...so a formal living room wasn't really working for them.

Still, it is the first room you see when you walk in the house so it needed to look nice. They have a large den right off their kitchen so they didn't need this room for watching television and they have a home office upstairs, so we didn't need to worry about that either.

Debbie is an avid reader and she'd recently bought this painting that she really liked...



Given the bookcases she'd already purchased and this painting you can see it was practically a no-brainer. This room was going to become a library!







What this room needed to do:

Debbie and Doug have a 19-year-old who is still living at home and two grown daughters who live on their own. Their oldest, Kylie, has just had her second baby so, of course, the baby pictures are rolling in. Debbie needed more places to put pictures and books, so that's why she bought the bookcases and why we bought three tables for this room.


I think nothing looks better than a smattering of family photos placed around a home. It says, "A happy family lives here."

AND not forgetting that my cousin is still living at home and the house is always full of teenagers (and I mean ALWAYS), Debbie really needed a room that was all her own where she could go and read in relative peace and quiet. The only thing we couldn't address was the smell...teenage boys stink!

The Breakdown:

We bought the chairs, the round table and the library table at Value City Furniture in St. Louis. Our original plan was to buy two matching leather club chairs, but when we saw these, we changed our minds. Debbie liked how the chairs didn't exactly match, but coordinated. We also thought we got extra style points for the masculine and feminine look of each chair. The bigger chair was $180, the smaller chair was $150. The library table was $250 and the round table was $150.

We bought the lamps and the clock on the library table at HomeGoods and most of the picture frames, accessories and the smaller three-legged table at Hobby Lobby.

The gold sconces on either side of the bookcases were mine, but when we saw how good they looked, I had to give them up for the cause because I'm sweet like that.

Lessons Learned:

Power shopping with a 2-year-old is a byotch! But Miss Priss was a real trooper, bless her heart!

When we bought the furniture, they originally told us it would be six-to-eight weeks for delivery. We didn't have that kind of time, so we asked if they would sell us the floor models and they said yes...and not only that, because they were the floor models and one of the chairs had a little ding on the leg, we got it for a discount!

It never hurts to ask for what you want. In this economy, people will do almost anything to make a sale and the worst they can say to you is "no." We've all been told "no" before and went on living, so don't be afraid to ask.

Wordless Wednesday: The Final Touch

I know you guys probably didn't need the closure, but I thought I'd post some pictures of Miss Priss's finished beds.





Then I found these ballerina sheets yesterday...



And all was right with the world. :o)

The Bats In My Cave, Part III

10. I'm killing time right now waiting for rush hour to be over so I can go to Target and buy treats. Miss Priss's school is having a year-end party tomorrow and I am in charge of the treats. I have no idea what that means, but I'm sure I'll think of something at Target. Target inspires me.

9. I've been working on an event for a client recently. We wanted to have it at the home of an individual who owns one of the largest private collections of museum-quality artifacts in the world. His house and grounds are awe-inspiring and his collection is just amazing. Among his many treasures, he has Egyptian ceremonial masks from before the time of Christ and a punch bowl that was used at FDR's inauguration ball. It's massive...the diameter of my kitchen table!!

It was going to be an AWESOME evening and we were going to have curators from the local history and art museums come out and give tours of the house...BUT we just couldn't get the numbers to work out.

By the time we paid for catering, alcohol, tents, waiters, valet parking, a band, security for the private home, printing and etc., the amount of money we could reasonably expect to raise wasn't going to cut it. Not even close.

Everyone knew it, but someone had to say it...so I did. It felt like telling a room full of children that there is no Santa Claus. We're all disappointed because it would have been a fabulous party and I'm doubly disappointed because I'm losing out on the fee to plan the party, but what can I say? Times are tough and it wouldn't have been fiscally responsible.

I hate being fiscally responsible. I want to go to the party.

8. Hubby just casually mentioned to me yesterday that his boss is coming into town for a conference next week and he's going to stay at our house. Seriously? Did I tell you that our guest room consists of a mattress and box spring that sits on the floor?

I guess I need to get creative and figure something out. Right now, my plan is to tell Mr. Boss that his room is "college retro"...specifically designed to make your guest think he's gone back in time to the days when EVERYONE'S beds were on the floor. Nightstands were basically a stack of Playboy magazines and your only chair was early American bean-bag.

Yeah...I'll keep working on it.

7. Last Wednesday, I had 4 out of the six primary symptoms of swine flu, but it only lasted one day...kind of like Swine Flu Lite, I guess.

6. This Saturday, I'm running in my first 5K race with my friends Becca and Stacey. I'm excited and nervous about it. My expectations are that my time will at least be faster than the power walkers.

5. Then on Sunday, Miss Priss and I are leaving to spend a few days with my aunt in St. Louis. I'm VERY excited about going. My aunt and I are very close and I miss her alot. When I was first out of college and working at my first professional job (making a whopping $17,000 a year), I lived with my aunt and uncle. In exchange for room and board, I helped them with child care for my cousin, Kyle, who was in kindergarten at the time. He's 20 years old now, but I still feel a great protectiveness for him. In a lot of ways, he was my practice kid...poor guy.

4. I noticed the other day that I only have one more payment to make on my car. I'm so excited!! It may have a small dent in the driver's side door from when I hit the garage door and smell slightly like stinky feet from three years of spilled sippy cups, but it's almost mine...ALL MINE! My plan is to drive that sucker 'till it strands me somewhere. Oh, and buy some stock in Febreze.

3. And speaking of suckers, I took Miss Priss into a shoe repair shop with me today. We had gone there SEVERAL months ago and the lady gave Miss Priss a sucker. She remembered that sucker and actually threw a fit when the man who helped us this time didn't offer her a sucker. How do you explain to a 2-year-old that a sucker isn't always a given?

2. And speaking of Miss Priss, she will now exclusively wear ONLY tutus...the only exceptions are school and church. You should see the looks we get in public. It's pretty funny.

1. Hubby and I went to see Star Trek this weekend. I'm not really a Trekkie, so I wasn't sure what I'd think of the movie. I actually enjoyed it immensely and I gave it my own personal four stars. Live long and prosper, people!

Steeplechase 2009

Well, another Steeplechase has gone down in history. This year's event can be summed up in one word...Mud.

Look at this!!! You had to go through this mud to get to the bathrooms. It was added element of drama this year, that's for sure.

Here's Hubby and me...and yes that is a boob on his necklace. The boys brought them back from the bachelor party in New Orleans a few weeks ago. It's amazing how when you squeeze them, they make the EXACT sound a real boob makes when you squeeze it. You know, that high-pitched squeeky sound? Uncanny, I tell you.

Now, most people who know me know how I feel about Jessica Simpson. I think she's a moronic twit with the intelligence of a can of hair and I hate that she's the closest thing to a role model that some girls have. That being said, she makes a pair of sandals that matched my dress perfectly, so I decided to lift my self-imposed Jessica Simpson boycott and buy the shoes only to opt for these at the last minute.

They were the more practical choice, that's for sure...but dang! I really want to rock those shoes this weekend.

Here are some more pictures from our tent this year...

STEEPLECHASE, BABY!

Today has been a busy day. I went shopping, came home and cleaned the house. Then I sorted, washed, folded and PUT AWAY (step 4 always eludes me for some reason) three loads of laundry.

What has lit the proverbial fire under my butt?

STEEPLECHASE, BABY!!

It's this Saturday in Nashville. Hubby, Miss Priss and I are headed out tomorrow morning. We're meeting my mother-in-law at our usual half-way point to reluctantly hand off our precious darling to her grandmama for the weekend.

Bwahahaha! Did you see that? I couldn't even say it with a straight face! Whew! Tears.rolling.down.my.face. Sniff!

Seriously...the scene would be more accurately described as Hubby and I barely slowing the car down long enough to hand off our kid to grandmama and then hitting the pavement like two bats who have recently been paroled from hell.

It's not that we don't love being parents...we do, but Steeplechase is a sacred tradition that we have vowed to carry over from our DINKS days. It's the one weekend out of the year we look forward to the most. It's a chance to get together with old friends, wear cute clothes and sit in a field and drink mint juleps and ice picks all day. Honestly, I can't think of anything better, can you?

Earlier, I thought maybe I was a little more excited than your average Steeplechase goer, but then we got this e-mail from one of Hubby's friends. Skippy wrote a couple of poems dedicated to Steeplechase. Here they are...

Haiku
Steeplechase, girls, horses, cold beer
My favorite day
Port-O-Potty smells.

Elementary Poem
Roses are Red, Violets are Blue.
That guy is wearing ass-less chaps, how about you?

Unfortunately, the one about the ass-less chaps was based on a true story. Believe me, it was unfortunate for ALL of us. It wasn't a very nice ass.

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What is Steeplechase?

For a few years now, Hubby and I have gotten together with some other couples and rented a tent at the annual Steeplechase horse races in Nashville...all of Hubby's friends from high school and college who live out of town, usually come in for the annual pilgrimage.

It's a big deal, especially for the girls. It's like tailgating, only everyone dresses a lot better. A new dress is simply a MUST and you HAVE to wear a matching hat. For the boys, it's just another excuse to drink and gamble, but again, they're dressed better.

At the beginning of the day, everyone looks as though they stepped out of Town & Country Magazine...strutting haughtily by in their best finery. By the end of the day, those same people stagger back to their cars looking like drunk, sunburned war refugees. The once beautiful hats are crumbled and all askew and some of the dresses are torn and muddy thanks to an ill-advised run down a makeshift mudslide.

And EVERYONE smells faintly of Port-o-Potty from many repeated trips to the only bathroom facilities available on the green.

Parenting Observation #232

Ask any parent to tell you what the hardest thing about being a parent is and they will tell you that it's not the back-talking, potty training, messy messes or even public temper tantrums.

No...it is the simple the act of getting out the door.

I mean it. Miss Priss has to be at school by 9:30 and I have learned that I have to START trying to walk out the door by at least 9:00 if we want to have any chance at all of making it to school on time.

A snippet of what I mean...

9:00 - "Okay, Miss Priss time to go to school!"

9:01 - Look for Miss Priss's missing shoe that she had on not even five minutes ago.

9:05 - Find the shoe.

9:06 - Look for Miss Priss who has now gone off somewhere to play while Mommy was looking for the above mentioned shoe.

9:10 - Find Miss Priss, put on the shoe and head toward the door.

9:11- Look for car keys that I set down somewhere while looking for the missing shoe (or did I have the keys when I had the shoe and set them down while looking for Miss Priss?)

9:14 - Find car keys. Check Miss Priss...Does she still have her shoes on? Yes? Good. Head for door.

9:15 - Start heading down the stairs toward the garage. Realize that I left Miss Priss's snack in the kitchen. Say a curse word...then cringe when I hear Miss Priss repeat it.

9:16 - Say a silent prayer to God that Miss Priss doesn't repeat said curse word at her Presbyterian Mom's Day Out.

9:18 - Retrieve snack and head for the door. Where is Miss Priss?

9:19 - Find Miss Priss in the den watching Sesame Street.

9:20 - Send my kid into a crying fit because I turned off the television in the middle of a song about the importance of washing your hands.

9:23- Negotiate my kid out of a temper tantrum with the deftness of a U.N. negotiator and head for the door.

9:25 - Get waylaid by Hubby who wants to give Miss Priss a kiss and a high-five before school. Think to myself for the millionth time how incovenient it is that we have to pass Hubby's office on the way to the car.

9:26 - FINALLY make it to the car. Toss Miss Priss's book bag, lunch box and snack into the passenger seat. Look around for Miss Priss.

9:27 - Find her standing at the door of her dad's car and saying she wants to go with Daddy today.

9:29 - Coax Miss Priss back over to my car by reminding her that she's going to school today and going to see all her friends.

9:30 - Buckle up Miss Priss, climb into the driver's seat and check the time.

9:31 - We're late. Shit.

9:31 (and maybe 20 seconds) - Hear Miss Priss behind me say "Shit."

Motivation Monday: What Motivation? Where?

I worked out for the first time in two weeks today...that's if you don't count climbing up the ladder and down the ladder and chasing a paint roller around for two weeks as exercise.

I'm feeling a little nervous because my friends Stacey and Becca and I have signed up to run in a 5K at the zoo in two weeks. I THINK I can do it, but I'd feel more confident if I'd kept my work outs up last week and the week before.

I just couldn't do it though...

Since I've become a stay-at-home mom, my ability to multi-task has suffered dramatically. If I'm working on a big project (work or otherwise), I can do that AND keep my child alive...and that's a little dicey on some days, if I'm being honest. Everything else is gravy. Nice to have, but not a necessity.

This is not a good way to think when you're trying to make real change in your life like I am. I need to find...no, MAKE...the time to exercise and eat right.

I've noticed that minus my work outs (which I like to refer to as my "me" time), I'm not the most pleasant person to be around. I had grown to enjoy my 45 minutes a day in which I was free to not only exercise, but also think, pray, ponder and plan.

I'm hoping that now that life is back to "normal" in the K-mom household, my motivation will return, but I have to say it was really difficult to get the motivation to put on my running shoes today. I'm glad I did it, but dang! It was hard...very hard.

A Precious Room for a Precious Girl

BEFORE...

You can't really tell from this photo, but this room was painted the exact color of a band-aid. Blech!

In fact, the whole house was painted this color when we bought it. It just sucked the life out of every room along with any shred of happiness you might have brought with you. My mother-in-law called it a "Dementor" color. I have been slowly eradicating it from my house. I have one more room to go before it's all gone!

AFTER!!!




Here is a close up of the painted dresser. I love how the hardware turned out painted white. I was going to "antique" the furniture but my neighbor and I agreed that it turned out so well painted creamy white that it would be a crime to change it.

The cording still isn't ready for the beds. My project apparently isn't the biggest priority. That's cool...I can be patient (sorta).

Hubby built this cornice board! Can you believe it? His grandfather was a carpenter, so it must be in the genes. I still haven't decided what to do about this window. I was thinking of doing a balloon valance with the leftover material from the headboards and I still might, but now I'm thinking some half shutters would be cute. The problem with this window is that when you look outside, you look down onto the roof of our screened-in porch. The shutters would hide that but still allow in the natural light. In this picture, the blinds are pulled up and hidden behind the cornice board.

Hubby also did the crown molding! I LOVE this man and his mad wood-working skillz.

Okay, here is the deal with the artwork. I have been looking and looking for ballerina pictures for Miss Priss's room for about a year now. I didn't want anything that looked like a poster and I didn't want anything that looked overly precious. Real watercolors are every expensive and I didn't want to make the investment in case next week Miss Priss decides she's into roller derby or something else. So I went into clipart, searched for the word "ballerina" and came up with these two images. I printed them out onto watercolor-quality paper and then painted them myself. If you can color, you can do this project. I bought the frames at Hobby Lobby (50% off), painted them to match the room and had the mattes cut to fit ($6 a piece). In all, I think I have about $20 invested in each picture.


This lamp is a testament to never throwing anything away. I bought it several years ago at a flea market and then never did anything with it. I liked the femininity of it, but didn't really care for the brass base. I painted it pink, bought a new shade and then hot glued the feathers around the edging. It looks so sweet in the room and to think, I almost took it to Goodwill in January, but changed my mind at the last minute.


Can you tell which one of these drawers was missing the veneer?


This one! I found this amazing product. It's a wood putty that comes in a jar. You smooth it over the boo boo with a trowel and then scrape it until it's smooth and even with the rest of the wood. Sand the whole thing down with 220-grit sandpaper and VOILA! No more boo boo. I wasn't sure I was going to able to fix it, but I'm so glad I tried.

Here is Miss Priss in her first night in her "big-girl room."


Sniff! She looks so big in her bed...she's not our baby anymore!

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THE BREAKDOWN:

The wall paint was from the Eddie Bauer Home Collection at Lowe's. It's called "Taffy". The trim paint for the crown molding, cornice board, floor boards and doors is Valspar Signature from Lowe's in semi-gloss. The color is "Whitwashed Oak." The ceiling was also painted with "Whitewashed Oak" but in an interior flat.

The furniture is painted with Valspar Signature from Lowe's in an interior satin called "Cream Delight."

The bedding is from the Rachel Ashwell "Shabby Chic" collection from Target. The duvets are also from her collection, but I bought them brand new off of E-bay for about half of what they were charging at Target.

The material for the upholstered headboards is named "Polka" and is manufactured by Waverly. I found it for $7.98 per yard at a fabric store here in town. It took approximately one yard per headboard. I recommend buying a little extra than what you need in case you mess up (which I did). You can always find a use for the leftover fabric. I'm going to use my leftovers to make throw pillows for each bed and I'm going to have each monogrammed.

The artwork was painted by yours truly.

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LESSONS LEARNED (Learn from my pain, people.)

When painting furniture, use an interior satin finish. It doesn't leave brush marks like gloss or semi-gloss paint but the finish is smooth enough that you can wipe it clean. In fact, if you take the time to go over your paint with 220 grit sandpaper in between coats of paint, you will get a factory finish that will be less likely to chip.

If you want to paint furniture white, don't go with a stark white. It comes out looking too institutional. Try to find a white that looks closer to a glass of milk. Cream looks so much more expensive that stark white.

For the best outcome, take the time to sand all the nicks and dings out of your furniture with a 120-grit sandpaper and then prime it. This will help the paint adhere better to the wood and will make it less likely to chip. Then let your paint cure for several days before you use the furniture. It may feel dry to the touch, but paint really does take several days to dry thoroughly.

Use at least two (but really three) thin coats of paint to avoid paint globs. Nothing says "bad paint job" like paint globs, so watch out for those! If you find them, sand them out and then lightly touch up the spot.

A Little Tip From Me to You

When taking on any home improvement project, it's important to have yourself a little mantra. You know, a little saying to help keep you motivated when you're tired of all the mess, tired of all the work and, well, just plain tired.

I have two...

(1) The two P's: Patience and Perseverance, and...

(2) If you're going to take the time to do a job, take the time to do it right.

And today, I added a third...

(3) Don't kill your husband. You need him to pay the mortgage for the house which includes the room you are working so hard to decorate.

I'm just kidding about #3...sorta.

We're almost there, folks! Miss Priss's "big girl" room is almost complete and pictures are coming soon, I promise.