aaaahhhhh, a week in town

felt good to me! We've started putting the bathroom 'back together' and cleaned the third layer of [construction] dust off everything. But most importantly, we're sooooooo enjoying having a bathroom that's clean, and nice, and WORKS downstairs.... I've started a blog post with all the deets - but we're on to glitch #4 with what was supposed to be a simple spray paint of the mirror we found, turning into it growing some sort of bubbly stuff in different places, even after sanding FIVE times - lol. We'll get it done eventually. I have [finally] found the fabric I like for the cushion and curtains... Meanwhile, I've cleaned the wood floors in the foyer and hallway to the bath and oiled them down good and I've planted some things in the 'winter garden - onions, broccoli, and brussel sprouts. Yum. Pay no attention to the ties on my tomato stand - should have gotten those down months ago, but time got away from me. Love the raised beds my sweetie made for me several years ago. I'm determined to win the battle with the squirrels and rabbits this year!
And I've found a Bible Study group I want to join soon [Priscilla Shirer's Jonah] - I soooooo miss my group that's gotten together regularly for the past 5 [10?] years or so...I bought a couple of studies from Women of Faith [ they're having a GREAT sale right now - see the tab on the right,] and I'm doing 'Discovering Joy in Your Creativity' on my own. Love. It.
I enjoyed time with my scrappy friends on Saturday- it was fun to catch up with everyone and see what crafty projects they're working on [we work on all kinds of fun things when we're together.] I worked on organizing 'heritage' photos by families [remember, my mom had 9 sisters and my dad had six siblings;] I'm putting the photos on kraft paper so I can pull them out and scan when I need a one for something.
And I came home and got my brushes out and tried some new ideas - I'm loving the 'look' of pen & ink with acrylics - I'll put a quote on each of these before they're completed. These are 7x7 or so, and I've done two larger ones this past weekend [about 12x30 and 18x18...] that I'm loving too - one has stickles on it - FUN.

And I've been pondering on how to 'upcycle' this little lamp we bought at Dirt Cheap [yes, that's the name of the store] for $1.60 [$16.00 at Target.] Notice the shade is dented a bit... What would you do? I'm thinking something with dictionary pages... or it may go in the 'new' bathroom, so it might need to be something green....