Secret Prayer Pal

I belong to a group at church called Secret Prayer Pals. Over the course of a year, a gaggle of us women hold up a special and secret pal in prayer and send them little cards and encouraging words through the mail. At Christmas we all get together over breakfast and reveal our secret pals and exchange a gift with them. I do believe that my secret prayer pal reads my blog, and so thank you thank you thank you to her for the gift left on my front porch on my birthday!

It was lovingly wrapped in a fabric bag (some of the little gifts inside were in smaller fabric bags) and tied with fabric trims of rick rack and lace. Here are the pretty contents, all so very personally chosen! (Not included in picture are some lavender lotion and a roll of kickin' purple packing tape).

Birthday Gifts and a Big Boo Hoo

Here are a few gifts from the weekend, the biggest gift being my Harleigh Barley coming home. She and two girlfriends drove from Statesboro and arrived Friday evening at around 5:15. I had a poo poo platter waiting for them and we stood around the kitchen island talking and eating. No sooner than they arrived did they have to head out to the Braves game where they were meeting about 30 other GSU students in the Baptist Campus Ministry (BCM); the whole group — including Harleigh, Anna and Tannis — had planned the trip weeks ago. After the game (and the must-do grease-grab at The Varsity), Anna and Harleigh came home to Chateau Gahan, while Tannis went to the BCM at Georgia Tech, who was hosting the GSU group for the nite.

Saturday the three of us shopped, had lunch, visited my grandmother, and topped the evening off with a dinner at Grace 17.20. I hit the sack at 10:00 and the girls stayed up laughing and talking with some visiting home-from-college girlfriends of Harleigh's. She and Anna got up this morning, packed the car, and headed to meet Anna's parents at their home church. From there they went back to "The Boro."

And then . . . this emotional pillar of strength who has stood confident and tear-free since dropping her baby birdie off at school, turned into a big, mushy pile of pathetic boo hoo. Someone told me that them coming home on a visit and leaving would potentially be WAY harder than the initial drop-off. Couldn't be more true. I loved hearing her laughter throughout the house. Smelling her shampoo and perfume. Seeing the bed all rumpled with quilts and clothes. The running here and there. Calling her pet names out in public. Having her grab my hand and squeeze it as we walked to the car from lunch. Talking about everything and nothing. And then . . . she was gone.

I faced the emptiness (of the house and my heart) and took Gideon for a long, long walk, talking to him almost non-stop, about everything and nothing.

On to things that aren't gonna make my eyes well with tears . . .

Such a lovely outpouring of love for my 50th birthday! The office gave me and a co-worker (her birthday is the 9th and mine the 10th) a surprise breakfast party!! We both turned the big 5-0. Lots of flowers and gift cards, sentiments and hugs galore. I truly felt loved.

When I came home on Friday I had a fabric-wrapped package waiting on the front porch. From my secret prayer pal at church. The fabric wrap and ribbons gave way to lots of little surprises. I'll share more in a later post. But here is just one of the lovelies inside. This Napco bud vase. This secret lady knows what I adore.
Kathy, unknowing that I'd been lookin' for something to corral my mail, got me this paint-by-number-esque letter holder. She filled it with baby's breath. I switched out the baby's breath for real mail, and relegated the white flowers to my ceramic basket on the living room sideboard.

Some of the many flower bouguets got turned into little ones. Here, one in my bathroom.
My sister Karla stopped by on Friday afternoon (she works in the same office complex I do) and gave me a gift she got for me awhile ago: when she saw these tile coasters she thought of me. This is often the case in our family. We'll see an item, get it, and sock it away for the next birthday or Christmas. These are soooo me.

Chapter II

Despite the hecticness at work and the myriad of volunteer commitments, I've managed to take this week and focus on slowing down. And I've succeeded in creating a calm. Tomorrow I turn 50. And I've promised myself (and now many, many others who will hold me accountable) that I'm going to lose all the weight I've gained in the past 10 years. And this peace-of-mind that I've worked all week to achieve is helping me to ease into weight loss and the reality that if it took me 10 years to put on, it will take some time to come off. I vow to not only get myself healthier physically, but to grow mentally and spiritually. Yes, I've reached the ripe and mature age of 50, but I still think I have long strides to make in becoming a better person. Why not now. And Harleigh going off to college has been a huge encouragement to make this change in my personal life. I see her, where she is now spiritually and socially and I wish I had reached that stage earlier in life. I think it would have made a difference in the decisions I made. So, why can't a middle-aged woman look to an 18-year-old and know that as much as she's shaping her daughter, her daughter can shape her. Welcome, 50, with open arms.

Groovy Lamp Redo

Harleigh will be coming home this next weekend and so I've been doing little things to make her bedroom and bathroom feel like home despite a good bit of her personal belongings being gone and in her new room at college. Her bathroom's been begging for a lamp for awhile and so I decided to do a makeover on a lamp I've had tucked away. My mom gave me this lamp years and years ago. She had it in her kitchen and I've since used it in mine. The shades have seen their last day; it's impossible to get them any cleaner.
So I spray painted the lamp base orange and then tore off the paper shades. To make new shades wasn't an easy feat since the shade frame isn't one solid piece. Rather it's two separate pieces — a double ring at the top and a single ring at the bottom. I cut the old shade off and made a pattern. With some scrapbook paper and ball fringe, the lamp has gone from beachy country to groovy bohemian. And I see more redos of this lamp in the future!

Harleigh Who?

There is one beating heart at Chateau Gahan who has loved the transition to empty nest. With Harleigh no longer here to take Gideon out in the afternoon, we now have a dog walker. Gideon is in heaven. Jennifer goes to my church and has a dog walking business. She squeezed me into her rotation and now Giddy has an hour a day in the afternoon for walking and play time. But the best part is that Miss Jennifer often brings over other dogs she walks for play dates. Gideon especially loves Sam the Portuguese Water Dog and Bullet the 12-pound Pug mix rescue pup.

Yesterday Jennifer was babysitting Bullet and asked if she could bring her over to show me how much they adore each other. My boy, gotta admit, is a gentle giant. Their play was sweet and tiring in the afternoon heat. They both plopped down, pooped, after running, and Gideon proceeded to put his paw on top of hers. OK, so not intentional, but it had a Lady and the Tramp feel to it.

Every day Jennifer leaves me a cute note about what they did. Being a mom to a child is no different than being mom to your dog . . . it warms your heart to hear good things about your "child."

Mailbox Inspiration

This Waverly ad has my mind racing with ideas for how to pretty-up my mailbox. Somethin' crafty is sooooo gonna happen. And Henry will be most appreciative of a mailbox that makes him smile when he delivers my mail.

Ch-ch-changes

Harleigh's room will certainly stay intact. It's not going to become an annex to my craft room, a place to store stuff, or an office. Gideon still likes to sleep on her bed since her room is the only one with a ceiling fan (I know, I know, Giddy, looking out the window endlessly won't bring her home from college).The only change-up I'm doing in there is to move in my maple bench from the ken. I found a drop-front maple desk at my favorite thrift store and am setting up office in the ken. I've attempted this once before and failed badly. The problem with using a table as a desk is that there's no place to store anything.

And so the drop-front desk is now where the bench used to be. I've got some nesting to do to make it look like it belongs, but that'll happen soon enough. The icky part about it all is that I have to keep my stinkin' file cabinet nearby in order to use the desk efficiently. Oh well.

Connecting

My weekend in Statesboro was the big goodbye for me and my girlie, but also an opportunity to say hello to some wonderful new friends!

First of all, Jackie over at Empty Nest Full Life emailed me after seeing the Georgia Southern sticker on the suitcase at Harleigh's graduation open house. She has ties to Georgia Southern and lives about 45 minutes away. Needless to say, we wound up having lunch, meeting for the first time. This is the first blog friend I've met (aside from readers in the co-worker, family and just-around-the-corner-friends categories), and it was such an easy friendship to go from blog posts to face-to-face conversation. It's amazing to me how well we get to know each other through our postings. Thanks, Jackie, for being a friend, and for offering up your home when I visit and to Harleigh if she needs to get away. Generosity and heartfelt prayers define you.

The second connection was through a friend at my church. Clarice's family lives in Statesboro and so she hooked us up. Her parents Barbara and Paul met us on Saturday morning for breakfast at local digs Snooky's. A wood paneled restaurant steeped in the '70s with Georgia Southern paraphernalia on the walls, cash-only, one meat and two veggies kind of place. At the center of the restaurant was a large round table of only men, drinking coffee, talking politics and stocks . . . so old boy Southern. Needless to say a handful of the men stopped at our table to say hello to Barbara and Paul and meet us. Harleigh left with a list of phone numbers for the best dentist, doctor and auto mechanic in town, invitations to church on Sunday and to sing in the choir, a promise that she'd call any one of them if she needs anything, and . . . well, a family in Statesboro. She also got to meet Clarice's sister and her family, and is babysitting the three girls of Clarice's brother and sister-in-law this evening.
God is good.

Window Bulletin Board

I've had this old window around forever, figuring it would find a home somewhere, perhaps in a re-fashioned state. Well, my daughter was heading off to college, and we'd been struggling with what kind of bulletin board we should buy. Hanging stuff on college dorm walls alone is a feat unto itself since we're limited by the dorm restrictions. Then when she spied this window leaning in a dusty corner of the garage, a light bulb went off in both our heads.

So I gave it a good cleaning. All the glass was intact but one piece; no biggee. I covered the back of the 7 pieces of glass with scrapbook paper. Then in three of the panes I glued (to the front of the glass) a piece of foam core covered in corkboard (which I wrapped around the foam core so the edges are finished). For the pane with no glass, I screwed in eye hooks on the reverse of the frame, ran string across, and clipped on a miniature clothespin for hanging notes and memorabilia.

To take the craft factor to the next level, I made pushpins using vintage earrings.

Empty Nest

First of all, Harleigh is safe and sound at school. We said our goodbyes with lots of smiles and I'm proud to say, few tears on my part. And for those of you who know that I cry at the drop of a hat, I'm so proud of myself. She was never more ready to enter this chapter of her life. And I think her confidence in her ability to tackle the workload and all its distractions, her ease with the transition, her overall joy . . . she's going to love college.

During our weekend in Statesboro we withstood one of the hottest days I've ever lived through. Move-in day was so humid that I had to stop several times to wipe the sweat out of my eyes because I couldn't see. But once she got into her suite, met her roommate and her family, and we started unpacking, the nesting began. A trip to Kmart landed us much needed kitchen shelves. We made a trip to the Super Wal Mart for groceries. And everywhere we went we ran into other parents and students and gabbed: strangers all with one thing in common, our children leaving the nest. It made us all family.

Here is Harleigh's room. (I didn't get pix of the living room, dining room, bathroom or kitchen because there was still lots of move-in going on.) Harleigh and Rebekah each have their own rooms with doors that lock. Double bed, nightstand (which Harleigh put in her closet), chest of drawers, desk and chair. We put the bed up on risers and added this Japanese lamp. The wall pix are decals that peel off.
Here is her desk. She brought her baby blanket, Quilty, which hangs on the back of the chair. The bulletin board "window" will be a separate post (not used here the way I intended it, but this isn't my room, so I had to bite my tongue and let her do it her way).
She's using her chest of drawers as a nightstand. We will need something on the wall above it. There are mini blinds at the window but Harleigh wanted something softer (but not curtains, since the room gets very little light) and so we opted for an accordian paper shade and pulled the mini blinds all the way up ; this shade goes nicely with the Japanese lamp and can clip up for full sun or be let out to reach the bottom, which gives the room a soft light .
I found this baker's rack at a yard sale a few weeks ago and it wound up being a great catchall in her room without looking out-of-the-box dorm room.
She loves her room, and I like that she has privacy, yet the experience of a roommate sharing the common areas.

What I miss most already: talking to her about what she's doing. I want to text and call her every hour and ask what she's doing. I know, I know, too much. But I want to hear every detail. When I left, she already had plans to shower and then go to the Baptist Youth Group open house. She was already making plans for church this morning and hadn't quite cemented what last night would hold. Ahhhhh, this is killin' me. Letting go has wound up being far less emotional for me than I had anticipated. What I didn't expect was the separation anxiety over communication.

I'm sending a telepathic message . . .

Harleigh call me.

Harleigh call me.

Harleigh call me.

Harleigh call me . . .

The Final Days

We leave for college this Friday. In the meantime there are prescriptions to be refilled, new tires on her car, emission and car registration to tackle, packing and more packing, laundry, last-minute shopping, some life-guarding gigs, lots of time with friends (camping, off-roading, movies, tubing). She's squeezing the last bit of childhood into her last week at home. I'm holding it together, watching her happiness, her confidence, her humor, soaking in her smile, hugging her and stroking her hair, being an absolute idiot over my only daughter.

Onto something non-emotional. Yesterday we went to Goodwill to find her some tennis skirts. We found a Prince skirt with the price tag still on it ($49.99!?!?!?) and got it for $2.09. Dang, are we some smart girls.

And this white ceramic basket made in Italy for $5.05 was too pretty not to bring home.

Ripple Afghan and a Big Snuggly Boy

When you find linens and knit goods at Goodwill, they're often taped up and difficult to see in their entirety. Such was the case with this ripple afghan. When I got it home and untaped it, it wound up being big enough for the foot of my king-sized bed. I love that whoever crocheted it pieced two sections together. Not to mention the fact that it contains every color imaginable. Happy ripples, to say the least.


This afternoon I undertook a craft project for Harleigh's dorm room. Will share tomorrow. I have a denim chair in the craft room where Mr. Gideon often naps, a prime spot to catch up on some ZZZZs and keep an eye on me. I adore the head between the paws.

The Newest Cage

Back a few posts I talked about the courier bag I got at a yard sale. Well, the darling lady seller was getting rid of many items that I fell in love with. This vintage bird cage by O.L. & Co. out of New York was quite the find at $2.00. The lady and I got to gabbin' about bird cages and she took me inside to show me all of her decorative cages. She must have had 50 of them. Some were more TJMaxx kind of finds, but others were true vintage cages. Gorgeous! We chatted a long time about our collections and what joy we find in them.

I did some research on this particular cage and it's an all-brass Art Deco cage that dates to the 1920s (and appears to be worth way more than the $2 I spent on it). Such a sweet find, especially with my thrift-store ceramic parakeet inside!
And here is the cage in its new home on my living room shelves.

What the heck?

Was thrifting with my girlie this weekend when I came across this bag of Russ Trolls for $3.00. Put it in my buggy, Harleigh questioned my sanity, and I checked the buyer's remorse gauge . . . yes indeed, I would regret not buying these freakishly fun vintage treasures. So the trolls followed me home.

What the heck am I gonna do with them?

So Little Time Left

I'm savoring the last days of our summer. The fridge is covered in all the weekly camp pictures from Harleigh's summer of camp counseling. We're doing the last-minute packing of dorm needs and scheduling all her doctor appointments before she heads out of town. I've got the dog walker lined up since Harleigh won't be home in the afternoons to take Gideon on their daily afternoon stroll through the neighborhood. The laptop is purchased. There's lots of time being spent together doing absolutely nothing and enjoying simply that. It doesn't seem real that I'm in this phase of life. It crept up on me so quickly. Savoring, that's what I've got to do these next two weeks.

Dressing Up

I've posted before about my obsession (one of many, thank you very much!) with dress-up clothes. I plan ahead for lots of things, but this one is rather specific. You see, I would adore a granddaughter someday. I'm such a girly girl when it comes to my home and my lifestyle. I could make Marmie's house into a super fun girl retreat. If nothing but boys come my way, I'll make do in other ways, but for now, collecting dress-up clothes is too fun to consider stopping for the obvious reasons that 1) my daughter is a mere 18 and not close to marrying age much less motherhood, and 2) if no grandchildren or only boys come into my life, I've got big ol' tubs of vintage negliegees, boas and high-heels cluttering up my attic space.

I started collecting dress-up clothes when I was pregnant with Harleigh, and they were one of her most favorite things to play with! Hours and hours of imaginary play. Loads of great picture opportunities. And all of that collection has been saved, and that is what I'm adding to. Here are four new dresses I found on the $1 rack at a thrift store this weekend. They're all smaller junior sizes.



This is the back, with all the lace and the two ribbon roses.

Things I'm Loving Right Now

Apparently this stylin' plastic lace-like bicycle basket has been around forever but I've just discovered it. And for $24.95 at The Container Store (plus an additional 20% off), I picked up one for the Candy Spelling Gift Closet and one for me! I'll use it just to haul stuff back and forth from car to house. Ain't it darling?!?!?


Chairs. I'm obsessed. Chairs remind me of dollhouses. Why? Have no idea. When I see them at a thrift store, they always seem to be saying to me "Take me home." Help me. I only have so many opportunities to sit in my own home. These two are some of my favorites.
Nests. Found ones. Empty. Sometimes with a long forgotten egg nearby. This one is especially sweet as it's on the tiny side.