Garden of Eden...

 With this growth of this gorgeous hyacinth bean plant, I feel like I'm in the Garden of Eden

when I walk to my front door! :)

 These beautiful little orange daisy-like flowers (can't remember the name) really struggled in the heat of the summer...they were peaked and tiny...suddenly they have become HUGE and bright and plentiful! We are loving them! Nick planted a small web and bright green spider in them if you can see it in the above photo...

 See the purple bean pods? When the dry out (in the winter) we will collect them, freeze them (give lots away) and plant them all around our fence and walls next Spring and have tons more of this gorgeous plant. At our annual community yard sale last Saturday, some folks walked up (we were participating in selling stuff) just to see this plant! Thank you, dear friend and neighbor, Kate for the 6 beans you gave me in April when we moved in...they have been extremely fruitful!

 Happy AUTUMN!!

Home For Sale!

This is our lovely home for the past almost five years:

We are hoping and praying for the sale of it so that we may buy one more home (cross our fingers it's the last one we buy for some time) in our terrific neighborhood, one that has a game room/teenage hang-out (upstairs, no basements in TX) and a study for our thousands of books.

Enjoy this little tour... The music room Master bedroom/computer nook (which you can't see)

Master bathroom I'm proud to say that when we moved in my neighbor taught me how to make these type of window treatments and I made them for several rooms in the house. I'm about to make some for that music room just posted above...

Kids bathroom in red, white, and blue to remind us of New England. We have a couple of photos of our favorite lighthouse, Nubble Lighthouse, in York, Maine framed in here to the right of the mirror.

Formal Dining Room

Eat in kitchen

Kitchen and bar/counter The white door it to our pantry which I adore as it's a walk in and our former 5 residences (wow!) have never had a pantry of any type (or a garage). Ahhhhh.

Family Room

We have been super happy here and have been surrounded up and down the street with the most wonderful neighbors. We have been very blessed; the home we want to buy is really close, one street over and we know those neighbors from church and from kids' schools--we hope it works out. Homes don't well quickly in Texas, in a GOOD market, so we're paciently waiting and hoping. We've re-painted, cleaned, packed up half our stuff (time to de-clutter!) and had so much help from friends! I even learned how to use my vacuum to shampoo the carpets after owning it for 10 years!

If it's meant to be, it will work out is out motto.

Redo-ing the Bathroom 101

We moved into our new home in March 2005.

I began painting that year; I finished, with the exception of the master bathroom in about 2007, más o menos.

I finally got motivated to finish this room:

before pic. ( with mirrors down and all other stuff taken down)

After! New texture done by painter hired by the homebuilder-un hombre I met the week before. I don't think he knew what he was doing, I had to show him my neighbor's house, how she did hers. Next time, I will attempt it myself! :) At least I spoke his language and we got it figured out. I asked him to cart off the ginormous mirror (like 8 feet long and 5 feet high) and we bought these small, black-framed ones at my favorite home decorating store (inexpensive!) Kirklands. We got them on sale and threw in a coupons, each cost $24. Not bad!! This is my new favorite part of the whole house!! I am in heaven with the new look and now I feel so relaxed when I'm in there; I enjoy the colors, the feeling, the small mirrors, the new texture on the walls...I feel like I'm at my mom's house in St. George, which is a house that makes me feel warm, spa-like, and romantic. Bubbles in the tub, candles, ahhhhh. Maddie helped me use the rollers and got a great lesson in painting. She was very helpful! We had to un-hang (and then re-hang: towel racks, pictures, shelves (which I spray painted black to match the mirrors I bought), and valance. My conch shell, starfish, jars of shells look SOOO good with the new paint color!! After he texturized the walls, I got busy painting. Nick wanted to help, so I gave him my tiny brush for corners and told him to write a message in our small room where the toilet is (separate room/door attached to bathroom). He went right to work and came up with the following: I was CRACKING UP!!