Spring is Upon Us

Can you believe Christmas has already come and gone? I feel like it was just December and my husband and I were watching Christmas Vacation 20 times a day. If you're anything like me, you spend the majority of January mourning the loss of your Christmas tree and slowly packing up all the lovely decorations. This year, in new year fashion, we dismembered our Christmas tree and used it for firewood.

If you love something, let it go...

My brother-in-law Justin having a whale of a time! RIP tree :-(

It may still be cold outside, but spring is upon us! I've already started planning for the warm weather, gearing up to tackle our backyard and give it a much needed make over as well as do some spring cleaning!

Before we moved to South Carolina from Texas, we had a huge moving sale...I mean we had a LOT of stuff (my husband will say that it was all mine). We got rid of so much stuff...or so we thought. In the year and a half since the move, we've had another garage sale and sold multiple items on the Facebook buy/sell/trade pages, but we STILL have boxes of seemingly useless stuff! I am super sentimental and it is a struggle for me to throw things away, but I've grown a pair and I'm ready to cut the crap! No more softy, someone give me the trash can!

HGTV Magazine published an article on "The 50 Things You Can Throw Out" (see original article here) and it had to take a good look in the mirror at some of the items listed! I have modified it a bit, so here is my new and improved list!

1. Spare contact lens cases 
2. Broken costume jewelry
3. Expired prescriptions/medicine in the medicine cabinet (they lose their potency and are not as effective...flush them down the toilet)
4. Dictionaries and thesauruses (there's an app for that!)
5. Wrinkled wrapping paper, crushed bows and ribbons that are too short (I am so guilty of this!)
6. Latex paint (if it’s more than a year old)
7. Expired food items (you may have more of these in the house than you think!)
8. VHS tapes (convert home movies to DVD!)
9. Manuals for appliances and electronics (they’re all available online)
10. Cookbooks you’ve cracked open once (copy your favorite recipes!)
11. Old magazines you never look at
12. Old remote controls you don’t recognize
13. Cords for old electronics you no longer own 
14. Scrunchies and bobby pins that are stretched out
15. Incomplete decks of playing cards
16. Bridesmaid dresses (click here for info on how to donate)
17. Take-out menus (everything’s online!)
18. Worn out shoes 
19. Road maps (there’s GPS on your phone)
20. Cassette tapes
21. Unidentifiable keys
22. Single socks that you've never found the mate for
23. Old under crackers (ummm...ya know, underwear)
24. Puzzles with missing pieces
25. Take out sauces (you get new sauce when you reorder)
26. Worn nail files
27. Shred cell phone bills and credit card statements (go paperless!)
28. Wire hangers from the dry cleaner
29. Dusty potpourri
30. Your “fat” clothes
31. Carpet remnants
32. Excess plastic grocery bags (start bringing your own reusable shopping bags or ask for paper)
33. Filled coloring books
34. Dried up nail polish
35. Scratched nonstick pans
36. Anything with an antenna
37. Prescription eyeglasses that are no longer your prescription (click here for info on how to donate)
38. Umbrellas with bent or broken spokes
39. Allen wrenches from DIY furniture
40. Checkbook registers
41. Disposable cameras
42. Musical instruments no one plays anymore (click here for info on how to donate)
43. Business cards
44. Old discolored bath and dish towels
45. Old schoolwork
46. Excess vases that no longer go with your decor
47. The Yellow Pages (do people really still have these things lying around??)
48. Uniforms from places you no longer work
49. Useless promotional items (stress balls, rubber bracelets, stickers)
50. Old, non-working pens and markers

Fall, on the Cheap

Nothing excites me more than walking into Michael's or Hobby Lobby mid July and seeing all the Fall decor smiling at me, whispering "Can't wait to be yours forever". Red, Orange, different tones of yellow and green...I'm getting heart palpitations.

This year, we have a lot of things going on financially, paying some things off and trying to save, so I wasn't able to go on a Fall decor binge like I'd prefer to. My husband is proud. It's not like I didn't buy ANYTHING, I mean get real. I busted out my bin full of last year's goods, took inventory of things I wanted to add, and hit up the Dollar Tree where I found these sort of stiff, crepe paper leaves.

I wanted to do a quick post about this "Give Thanks" craft to share just in case you're looking for a cheap way to spruce up your casa.

10 in a pack for a bone, one simoleon, UNO SMACKER! They had different shapes of the leaves, but these stole my heart. What to do with these, I thought, shall I distribute them irrationally, strewn about the house. Nay, I know they were called to be something greater. I originally intended to make some Fall themed, patchwork bunting (which I will do eventually) but we have family coming in November and I'm busy getting the guest room all done up (post soon to come).

I sat down at the table with the leaves in front of me and I'm thinking why can't I paint on these leaves, when I heard a voice in my head, that sounded a lot like me, say "Paint on them you fool!!". So I obeyed.

(yes, I guess that is my fat finger photobombing...)

This project took me approximately 30 minutes from start to finish. I just used acrylic paint, didn't use a stencil, but you're welcome to. I strung some twine and hung the leaves in place. If you're feeling frisky, you can dangle each letter from it's own separate piece of twine and stagger them for a "falling leaves" effect, whatever blows your skirt up.

Voila! This is officially my 2013 Fall mantel. She's complete. I feel good about it. I'm most proud of my $2 investment at the Dollar Tree (really $1 because I only used half of the leaves- maybe I'll use the other leaves to make another set for my office at work? eh? eh?).


Happy crafting!!
-Candace

One Down, One Hundred to Go

I have multiple projects that I've started and have yet to finish; some from years ago, some from days ago. I find it a joy to get all my craft supplies out and make a mess, and I get a huge thrill from beginning something new. But I'm easily distracted by the other stuff I could be doing as well....like starting another new project. I know, I need help.

I've been looking for a fireplace screen for our fireplace for a few months now and hadn't found any I liked. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Target, but I found them to not have the character I was looking for. I'm hoping that eventually my home will feel 100 years old.

About a month ago, I received a text from my aunt (who was at the Goodwill) saying "Do you like this?"

And for $25, boy did I. While bronze/brown does not match my fireplace, or anything in my living room actually, I knew with just a little bit of paint it could work! What excited me about this screen was that it had a little bit of rust at the bottom, a nice patina on the decorative metal plates and it was heavy. Those are all the tell tale signs of something being older. It's those things that attract me, those things are special.

I had an old can of silver spray paint that I thought I'd try. Side note: I had no real plan going into this...

I laid it on some newspaper in my garage and sprayed the front and back just lightly because I wanted some of the bronze to show through slightly. I wasn't really happy about the way the front looked afterward so I grabbed me some really fine grit sandpaper. 

I gently sanded the whole thing down and tada!

Pretty pleased with how it turned out! 

Now onto the next project :-)

But the greatest of these is Love

In light of the recent unspeakable tragedy in Colorado, I feel the need to share something. I wish the my vocabulary housed the words to describe how baffled I truly am at the shooting of innocent people at that movie theater. I just had a gander at a thesaurus to see if there were actually any words to describe my sheer astonishment at how hateful people can be, there are no such words.

As Americans, we ask ourselves, "How could someone be so disrespectful of the freedom our ancestors, friends, and family have fought so hard to protect?". As humans we say "How could one person do this to another person, let alone a room full of families?". And as a Christian, my heart thinks "Where is the Love?". How has it gotten so out of hand that people sit at home and plan destruction on others? Psychologists and psychiatrists will clutch their pencils in their teeth and try and decode the human mind and behaviors and try to explain chemical imbalances people may have, but that won't appease most of us. 

As a nation, we grasp at straws trying to find an immediate solution to the problem, but is there any? I read on one of the news websites, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York said "You know, soothing words are nice, but maybe it's time that the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it, because this obviously is a problem across the country." He goes on to suggest that the presidential candidates squeeze in "more strict gun laws" into their campaigns. I agree, I have always thought it was a little silly that guns are so accessible; however, guns are not the reason for the crime, it's hate. Take away the hate, you take away the crime. Bullying in schools comes from hating people you don't know how to accept because you yourself don't know who you are yet. Terrorist acts happen because one nation disagrees with another, but what happened to "agree to disagree"? The list goes on and the motive is always hatred.

Lady Gaga, however bizarre you may find her, has introduced one of the more productive campaigns, I think: Anti Bullying. Her angle is empowering youth and teaching them to accept and love each other for who they are and were born to be, and I so admire that. We're on the right track if we can teach our youth to be secure, courageous, and upstanding citizens because after all, aren't they the ones that will soon be adults? But what if we can try to share with today's adults that are filled with anger and bitterness and know not of this thing I call love. What love can do to your soul, how it can make you feel, how it can be passed on to others. This could truly change the world. Maybe if we try our best to infect the bad with the good, soon the bad will be fewer and harder to find. A little bit of light goes a long way in the dark.

As we pray for those families and friends of the victims, we keep in mind the other victims around the world that are suffering in many other ways today and pray for them as well. I hope everyone can savor each moment with your friends and family, co-workers and employers, even the little old man at the grocery store who always says hello to you, because we are not guaranteed our next breath. I know I need to work on this myself. It's not that I hate people, I just rush here and there and don't look up enough to make eye contact with people and give them a little smile. You never know what that person you just passed on the street might be going through, maybe your smile could give them hope.

^{I Corinthians 13: 4-13} 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.Love never fails... And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Am I Settling?

One of my biggest fears in life (along with snakes) is the thought that I might be missing something. Though I may have not been abiding by the theme at certain points in my life, "never settle" has been important to me since I could find importance in anything. What am I achieving? What am I doing with myself? Is it important to me? Is it blessing others? Lately I've been asking myself these things and realizing the weight it holds, especially at this point in my life. It's like I've woken up and suddenly was married and living in this beautiful home that we bought and most of the past is a blur (praise God). Is this life enough?

When I was younger, I was constantly performing for anyone who would watch me. If there was a stick looking object near by that remotely resembled a microphone, you could count on me to pick it up and sing into it as if there were thousands watching. If there was any type of sweater or cloth laying around, I would tie it around my waist and pretend I was Belle. I'd stick my legs in a pillow case and pretend I was the little mermaid. It just came so naturally to me. But as we age, we enter into certain environments and those environments can make us question who we are or who we thought we were. Other people's insecurities are either projected onto us or bring out our own and we second guess ourselves. 

I had a talent agent when I was 9 years old, went on audition after audition and started to think I didn't belong there. Where had my mom brought me to? A room full of girls looking in their little compacts and powdering their 9 and 10 year old noses, teasing their hair. What were they doing? Why was my mom doing the same thing to me as I waiting to be called to go read lines? It seemed silly. Then the audition for Great Expectations came, it was a feature film staring Gweneth Paltrow and Ethan Hawk, talk about pressure. I said to myself "if I don't get this role, I'm done with this charade". I just remember my mom getting me out of school early to go to these things and getting so car sick on the way that I was in complete misery by the time we got there. My agent sent in my audition to LA via VHS (ah, the good old days) and I got a call back, I couldn't believe it! I mean, I wasn't confident in the least. So I go in for the call back, the producers and casting directors had flown out to Dallas for this occasion. I was a little nervous, but seeing how excited my mom was waiting outside for me, I wanted it more for her sake. I went in and read the lines. They said, "maybe now try it without the Texas accent". A British accent with a Texan undertone, couldn't have sounded that great. So I tried once more, then thrice more and went on my way. I didn't get the role. I was a little bummed out, but more for my mom. She never put pressure on me to be an actress, she only encouraged me because she thought that's what I wanted. And it was, at one time. Shortly after that I stopped auditioning and enjoyed my childhood while it lasted.

I pursued and fulfilled a dream to work for Disney, met wonderful people, made life long friends and ended up meeting the man I would marry while living in Orlando. That was my greatest accomplishment in that period of my life. I was actually secretly gearing up for a move to LA when I met him. I hadn't told anyone, not my family, I may have made mention of it to my friends, but I was serious about it and had already saved up money, I was just waiting on the boost of courage to put in my notice with Disney. Then here comes the white horse. The night I met Daniel I saw a beautiful life. I saw us with our children playing in the yard, taking family trips and making lasting memories. At work, I looked at every family I met and thought about how we would some day bring our children here to Disney World and how special it would feel. Now, the guys out there are saying "what a crazy!", the women are either thinking "yeah right" or "how romantic". Nevertheless, something changed in me when I laid eyes on him. I mean...just look at his beautiful face...

We got married...

We moved back to Texas and settled down, we built a house just streets away from everyone in my family. 

And of course the next step is obviously babies. But when I sit at my 8-5 job Monday through Friday, I wonder, is this enough for me? I see all my friends still "living the dream", doing this and that, traveling here and there and I wonder if I should be doing all of that. Truth is, this life that I have is enough for me. No glitz, no glamor, not red carpets, just the creme carpets in my beautiful home with my precious husband. I am insanely happy for my friends who are living their dreams and achieving their goals, but the simple life is my dream, and I've found happiness here. Sure, my life isn't over, and there are a few dreams I still have yet to achieve, but those dreams come in the form of a snow cone stand, writing books, painting, writing music, and babies. 

So am I settling? No, I don't see it that way. I think if you are truly happy doing what you're doing and will be happy doing what you're doing, then that's YOUR dream. I will always have the music in my heart, I will continue to bring that music to life, my audience will just be few and far between. I will still make movies, but they will feature my ever expanding family. If what you're doing is not your dream, change it. It's really as simple as that. I know that whatever may come and go in life, money, things, accolades, there is nothing that can take your family from you. That's the richest and truest blessing.

June Lie Lineth

That’s what I used to say when I was little, when telling people when my birthday was. That day has rolled around once more, marking my 27th birthday yesterday. I thought because my birthday was on a Monday this year that it would be pretty boring (as are all Mondays…the reminder that you’re starting all over again and the weekend is as far away as it can be…) but I must say that it in fact turned out to be quite a wonderful day.

I know everyone has those days where everything just seems to go wrong and one thing after the other are pushing them into a particularly dark place, and sometimes the bad days seem to outnumber the good. I get it, I’ve been there. But yesterday was one of those days that doesn’t come around too often where you just feel truly blessed, I don’t mean just because it was my birthday, but in general…it just happens to have occurred on that day. Blessed to look back at the past generations and see what a beautiful family my ancestors started and from there they had children, and their children had children and then Marvin and Louella Kennedy (known to us as Papaw and Mamaw) had children. One of them in particular, Jacquelyn (my Grammy),

 is one of the most (if not THE most) absolute wonderful, lovely, amazing, gentle, kind, classy ladies on this planet! Her and my grandaddy had 5 kids and thus grew a huge family full of aunts and uncles, and cousins. Last, but certainly not least, I should mention my remarkable parents, my brother and my little sister. Someday I will write about my family history, because it’s worth being told.

And then there’s my husband…. this handsome little gem.

My husband in a precious soul, who I can’t imagine not being in my life. I don’t know what I ever did to deserve him and at times I just look at his beautiful face and think “Why did you choose ME of all people?!” I’ve prayed my whole life for this man to turn up, and turn up he did on September 24, 2009. *sigh*
So, why am I so interesting to even have a blog anyway? I’m not really, but there is one main reason. Her name was Rheagan (Hughes) Leatherwood. She was a family friend of ours who passed away suddenly, and far too soon. One of her friends a few months ago stumbled across a blog she had been keeping and we were all pretty excited about it. She wrote about her life; her kids, her husband, the family trips they would take and her faith. I bet that in her writing she didn’t see it as the words she’d “leave behind” but indeed that’s what it became. I started to think that no one is guaranteed tomorrow, or even our next breath, every moment should be spent expressing your love to other people, and most importantly the one’s you love most.

So that’s the real madness behind this endeavor of mine. I want to share myself with those who care to read it. That’s the beauty of this platform.