{InstaFriday}

by Lori

in Personal Things

life rearranged

I’m linking up with Jeannette for InstaFriday!  Head on over & meet new friends as they share their week in mobile photos. While your at it, load your own & join in!

Glow party!!
Birthday party at Glow Galaxy

It's coming home with me.
I stopped in at a little antique shop I’ve been meaning to visit since we moved with the girls. It was their first venture into such a shop & I’m very happy to report that they really enjoyed it. Made me a bit nervous from time to time when they picked up pretty & very breakable things that caught their interest, but overall they were wonderful. And I spotted this cheery cabinet. I had meant to just browse. but I couldn’t leave this behind. Probably would have given me nightmares if I had. ;)

She said she wanted lot of different fabric! Only 79 more blocks to go. :)
Big Sister is needing a larger bed soon — and obviously a quilt to go with it. She requested a lot of different fabric. I think this should fit the bill.

Computer time.
Since the girls aren’t going to school these days, we’ve started having computer time with them in the evenings before bed.

Pink octopus. Painted by Little Sister. Too cute!
Little Sister painted this octopus earlier this year at school. I just unpacked it & love it as much as ever. It’s just too cute.

My wake-up committee
Most mornings I get coaxed out of bed by this smiling face.

Planning another non-fingerprint paper cutting. :)
An idea for another non-fingerprint paper cutting.

Someone can't sleep. Definitely my kid. Poor thing...
My late night companion. Poor kid has trouble falling asleep. Definitely my daughter.

xoxo Lori Danelle

{ 7 comments }

My real 2012 Word

by Lori

in Personal Things

I changed my Word for 2012. I’m allowed, right?

It’s not that ENGAGE was the wrong word, it just didn’t fully convey everything I needed my word say. After a few days of struggling with it, I realized what was wrong:
my word is LEAP,
not ENGAGE.

I’m afraid of heights. Always have been. I become immobile when nearing the edge of any significant drop to the ground. When visiting Ireland one summer during high school I mustered up all the courage I had to chance a glance over the edge of the Cliffs of Moher, a 700 foot drop. To do so, I had to lay down on my stomach so that all of my body was securely grounded with no danger of becoming off balance & accidentally falling, as I cautiously peered over the edge.

 

I don’t do much better when faced with a 30–40 foot drop, though I am able to stay on my feet. When I first moved to Nashville, we used to frequent a popular group of cliffs at Percy Priest Lake. There were about 3 different tiers you could jump off of into the water.

I would often make an attempt to jump off the higher cliff as I felt like a wimp if I didn’t. But nearly each time, found myself walking back over the the lower cliff to take my plunge.

There’s a moment when jumping off a cliff where you have completely relinquished control.
Completely.
You can’t stop, you can’t go back, you can’t even speed up. You just have to wait helplessly for what’s coming to come.
Completely vulnerable.

I have trouble with vulnerable.

I don’t like opening myself to emotional hurt. To failure. To the unknown. Whether it be in relationships or new ventures & experiences. So while I am still admonishing myself to ENGAGE, first I need to LEAP.  To jump into the uncertainty of friendships despite the possibility of being rejected. To take chances & seize the opportunity to follow a dream in the face of possible failure. I want to live fully engaged & not just peer over the edge watching.  :)

So, I’ve had it stamped on a necklace & am wearing it around my neck as a reminder. And, if there were any doubt to my choice of words, it was recently pointed out to me that this year is also a Leap Year. Coincidence? Definitely not.

xoxo Lori Danelle

 

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{InstaFriday}

by Lori

in Personal Things

life rearranged

I’m joining in something new to me this week: InstaFriday at Life Rearranged! I’ve become a bit of an instagram nut since getting my iPhone, so it seems a shame  not to jump in. :) If this sounds like fun to you, participate by posting your pictures taken on your mobile device (doesn’t have to be instagram or an iPhone) to your blog & link up with Jeannett!

So here we go, my week in Instagram photos!


Saturday family trip to Lowe’s


Been dabbling with some non-fingerprint paper cuttings. Not as detailed as I’d like if I actually had time — but fun still the same!


Picked this couch up from the side of the road about 6 years ago & have been storing it at my Mother-in-law’s — until this week! Now it’s at our house & a step closer to being rebuilt. Yes, rebuilt. It’s going to take some work. . . I’m so excited! Ha!


Took the girls to their first circus. Fun Fun!!!


Came home from the circus to find my Word of the Year necklace by Lisa Leonard in my mailbox. Oh, yeah. I changed my Word for the Year. . .I should explain that one. . .  :)

I’ll call that done for this week, hope to see you over at Life Rearranged!

xoxo Lori Danelle

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The new house; a Before tour.

by Lori

in Creative Things

Here it is. The upgrade to the practice house. We getting started on a few projects around the place, so I figured I’d better show you what we’re working with before too many changes take place.

These are the photos from the seller’s listing. I’m finding it difficult to get all rooms clutter free at the same time in order to take photos, so we’ll just have to take a before picture on each project we tackle rather than doing them all at once. :)

The previous owners lived here for 3 years before selling, but amazingly to me, they did very little in the way of “making it their own”. I mean, all the stickers were still in place on toilets, light switches & even the front door! Paint was applied to a couple of rooms, but mostly it looks the way it did the day the builder declared it done. In some ways that’s good as I don’t have to deal with anything they did that I don’t like, but it still shocks me. :)

So to get an idea of what it looks like now, image the rooms without the stuff in them & you’ll pretty much have it!

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Can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard from the neighbors how glad they are that the non-working green jag. is gone. :)

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We decided not to keep the hot tub, tried giving it away on Craigslist but had no takers. So yesterday Nate pulled out the saws-all, chopped it up & is currently making a trip to the dump. Can’t imagine why no one would want a used hot tub. . .

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This one and the next are of the front living room/formal dining area.

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Kitchen & eat-in space

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View of eat-in space & family room from the kitchen.

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Master suite – which is beyond huge. Our old room was barely bigger than our queen size bed. This one is as big as the 2-car garage below & has a walk-in closet the size or our old bedroom. Serves as a nice reminder any time we start to feel unsatisfied. ;)

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First bedroom which has become Big Sister’s.

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Second bedroom which is now Little Sister’s.

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Open loft/bonus area which on the plans had the option of becoming a 4th bedroom. We are planning to build a wall as this space has become my office/studio & I’m not exactly known for my clutter free, organized work environment. Nate wants a wall to hide my mess. ;)

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Came with the fence in place & is nice and level. So now Nate needs to work his magic and get to landscaping! Ha!

A tad different from the last one, don’t you think? Maybe even a bit bigger? (It’s actually over twice as big as the other AND has sidewalks which allows the girls to finally learn how to ride their bikes, a community pool & splash park & we can’t smell Popeye’s chicken from our backyard or be awoken by sirens & passing bass systems!!) All-in-all we’re pretty excited about this house. It’s still not our dream house, but a very comfortable & nice stepping stone to the next one & we’ll enjoy putting our touch on it as we spend the next 10-ish years here. Don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what it looks like when I’m “done”! Ha!! :)

xoxo Lori Danelle

{ 1 comment }

Overdue House Tour

by Lori

in Creative Things

Now that the holidays are over and things aren’t as crazy, I’ve been itching to start making our new house, well . . . ours. But as we’ve undertaken a few very small projects, I’ve realized that I never shared with you pictures of the Practice House. So, before I get going on the new house, here’s some closure to the old. ;)

My only disclaimer is that I wouldn’t exactly consider this house done in the decorating department. As we knew we would soon be moving, we opted to not spend money on things that may not work in the new house, so if you could keep that in mind, especially when viewing the couch & chairs in the living room, I’d appreciate it! Ha!!

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I really wish I could find the pictures of it before we moved in so you could see just how much we did — especially to the backyard, it started as just an empty, unfenced patch of grass. But I can’t take any credit for that. Credit there all goes to my wonderfully talented husband!

All-in-all, a good little house, but we are so excited to be moving on & making this new house and community our home.

xoxo Lori Danelle

{ 6 comments }

2012 Word of the Year

by Lori

in Personal Things

I would suspect that if you have any engagement in the blog world, then you’ve probably heard a thing or two recently about adopting a personal Word of the Year as suggest by the very amazing Ali Edwards.

I’m no good at setting New Year Resolutions. I can’t commit to anything enough to actually set the goal, and if by some strange act of God, I did manage to write down some goals, I cannot keep them for more than a week. For me, these resolutions focus on the negative & are too finite & easily broken. And if broken, I’ve failed and I might as well give up.

However, I LOVE the idea of a Word for the Year. It’s a reminder. A concept to live out daily. Not a way of denying myself or seeing how much self-control I have (or more correctly, do not have!). Something to invite into your life and all it’s facets, all the time learning more both about yourself & the word. The interpretation may even change as the year progresses.

For 2011, my word was breathe. I had spent a good portion of 2010 overcommitted, overstretched, overworked, under-rested and stressed to the point where I literally had trouble breathing and had very little to give to my family and had become pretty unhealthy both physically & emotionally. So I focused on slowing down. Embracing the moment I was in & setting boundaries on my time — as in I didn’t work all night. :) I focused on breathing wholeness back into my life. And in many ways it was a pretty slow year for me, I had some big events such as selling a house & purchasing a new one, but I laid pretty low when it came to my personal creative endeavors.

And I really needed that.

Which brings me to this year’s Word!!

Last year was about stepping back. This year is about taking what I learned in the last couple of years & actively stepping back into things. Not being afraid or hesitating — of what people might think of me, if they’ll like me, if the endeavor will work out. I have a picture in my head of life I want to live — And I’m not living it. I’m going to engage more in my husband, my kids. My family just moved to a new community & I want to engage & build relationships in this new place, both in my neighborhood & my church.

I’ve put my creative self on a back-burner this past year. I had to. I don’t regret it — but I miss it. I’ve been itching to get going again, but have been too scared as I don’t want to end up back where I started 2011. But now is the time. It’s time to engage in my creativity once again. To be courageous & act.

I am truly excited about the upcoming year! Something that is a bit new for me. My usual approach is to expect more of the same in the coming year, but I just have a good feeling about this year. Can’t wait to see where it takes me & how I grow.

Do you have a Word for the 2012? I’d love to hear it & what it means to you!

XOXO Lori Danelle

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