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Here’s what’s on my list:

• Recovering the drum shade on my not-so-college-dorm floor lamp
• Sewing a new duvet cover for our bedroom
• Pillows, pillows, pillows (Anthropologie has had me drooling)
• Framing wedding pictures
• Giving our sweet little storage chest a face lift
• Closet revamp (fingers crossed)
• Dressing up our functional kitchen peg board
• Finally finding/finishing artwork to go about the awkward space above the futon
• Starting our wedding album
• Finding a place for our grown-up rug
• Hanging pictures that got taken down during the rearranging of our things.
• Painting our desk (maybe)

Oh my! I better stop before I explode with excitement. And just think these are just to projects I’m excited to tackle around my house,  let alone the delightful projects I’ve been dreaming up with my friends, like stenciled floors, faux finishing walls, a dining room table that is just meant to be bright yellow! Yep, this will be a very fun year!

Most recently, the Home Decorators catalog came. If you haven’t seen the catalog or visited their website, it’s worth checking out. I don’t think I’ve ordered anything from them, but the was a coupon for $10 of a $50 order. Tempting…

I’m not in the market for anything new at the moment, but here are some things that caught my eye:

Becca Nailhead Chair

How lovely would this chair be in a bedroom, in front of a vanity? Or at a desk? I think I need at least one piece of furniture with nailhead accents in the house.

Samantha Side Chair

This chair isn’t even my style at all, but I love it!

Sabrina decorative wall mirror

I can’t decide if I’d like this mirror on our mantel (it also comes in white).

Margot Pendant

Love this! A new dining room light fixture is on the list of future projects and this one is a nice blend of traditional and contemporary.

I better stop. I could find something new for every room of the house if I wanted! What are your favorite online home decorating sources?

It’s a beautiful thing to see a community of individuals come together for a purpose. Even when that purpose is simply eggs, a cup of coffee, and a good laugh.

It seems that most small towns are fading off the map, yet New Providence, Iowa, my hometown, has found its niche. New Providence is a small community of 200. The school consolidated and closed down years ago, there are no restaurants, no gas stations, and being a predominately Quaker community no bar. Beyond zip code most of the common shared experiences that tie a community together had left or died out. That was until a little over 5 years ago.

Monday morning breakfasts started out small as omelets over a portable burner and coffee brewed fresh. The idea was simple, give people a meeting place and a reason to come. And as it turns out, that was all that was needed, attendance would range from 30- 60. Soon they started serving pancakes, biscuits and gravy, and cinnamon rolls, and a volunteer wait staff  would make the rounds filling coffee cups and picking up plates.

Cody and I were lucky enough to be able to stay for Monday breakfast the last trip home.  Grandma met me at the door with a hug and quickly added us to the morning count, 1,103 for the morning.  She admitted she might have been at least one digit off.  It’s become a weekly staple for not only the people of New Providence but the surrounding communities as well.  So if you ever find yourself in New Providence between 6 and 9 on a Monday morning, drop in, tell them I sent you and they might even make you a Micky Mouse pancake.

If it was up to our family, we’d spend all of the time sitting around the table catching up on community happenings and reminiscing on old family stories. However, with the induction of my brother-in-law and now my dear husband we’ve officially become a game family.

Here is a collection of some of our favorites:

Card/Dice games

• Uno- Especially using the Speed Uno rules
• Apples to Apples- To up the anty try the Big Apple Varriation
• Farkle
• Jungle Speed (we often apply the Jungle rules to play with standard deck of cards)

Board games:

• Wits and Wagers
• Ticket to Ride
• Settlers of Catan
• Qwirkle

What are the ways your family enjoy their time together? Have you adopted new procedures as the family keeps adding members?

Merry Christmas,

Laura & Cody

Andrea & Adam

Christmas scripture readings:

Isaiah 9.6, Matthew 1. 18-25, Luke 2.4-14, John 1.14

Parasitic, Norse mythology, uninhibited sexuality, gastrointestinal problems, poisonous, Celtic Druids… had enough yet?

Take it from me, just enjoy this delightful tradition.

I know I don’t have a lot of room to talk. I’m the girl who has every issue of Country Home every published, along with 100s of other magazines stashed in crates, under the coffee table and around the house. But at least the magazines have pretty pictures in them. I’m waiting for the day that drawer of random cords come in handy, but Adam promises me they all have a purpose.

There’s never a convenient time to find out a major appliance is broken. I realized the dryer was broken when it had been running for over two hours and the towels were still damp. Meanwhile, there was another load of wet laundry waiting in the washing machine and the temperatures were freezing outside so I couldn’t exactly hang them out to dry. Instead I hung them in the basement, and they got dry, but they were stiff.

We called the Sears repairman to come look at the dryer and it would have been more expensive to fix it than to buy a new one. Too bad we had to pay someone to come tell us that. The dryer came with the house, and was probably 10-15 years old, but we hadn’t really planned on getting a new one so soon.

So we headed to Sears on a Sunday afternoon. I’m the one who does the laundry in our house, and I told Adam I didn’t want anything fancy. I just wanted something to dry the clothes. Adam, who has maybe done five loads of laundry since we’ve been married, thought the steam dryers sounded pretty great. Of course they are more than twice as much as a regular dryer. I quickly convinced him that wouldn’t be necessary.

I hate working with sales people. I kind of wish you didn’t have to deal with them at all. I knew what dryer I wanted (a Whirlpool Duet) and didn’t want to be convinced that I needed a more expensive model. I just wanted to get in, get out and get on with my Sunday afternoon.

This is where it pays to have a husband. Adam is great with salespeople. It must be from the years he spent working in customer service. I wish I could say he got us a great deal on the dryer, but he handled all the paperwork and I held back, avoiding eye contact and making it clear we didn’t want to be sold anything else.

And I have to admit, the new dryer looks much better than the old one (below). Even though it’s in the basement where no one sees it. Almost makes me wish we needed a new washing machine too, so they matched.

It has been a funny week as I’ve asked those around me, “did you vote?” Honestly most people gave me an “ahhhhhh, I was going to do that.” But the best response of course came from my husband. When I asked him what he voted for he said “Oh the Leaf Table Runner of course, it’s vinyl so I don’t have to worry about spilling on it.”  See, you just gotta love him.

Now dear friends it is time for the winner that you chose.

(with this much anticipation I could host American Idol or at least Saginaw Idol)

The Fiesta Hostess Serving Bowl

Now all I have to do is wait for it to show up on my door step so I can fill it with all sorts of wonderful winter candy fruit. Thanks for voting!