Spring Has Sprung!!

Wow, it's been SO long since my last post. I've been busy, VERY BUSY!! Do you remember last year when I chose my Word for the Year..... Re-create? Well, that is exactly what I have been doing!

Shortly after the first of the year, we began work on a dining room door that was rotting out. The new door led to a new and BEAUTIFUL wood floor, new dining room furniture and paint. That looked so pretty we decided to extend the wood floor into our living room as well, which, you guessed it, has now also gotten a new "feature" put into it to help with an ugly stair situation we had and will also have some new furniture. I'll be sharing the "before and after" with you in another post. I can say everything feels so fresh and new. I'm loving the place I live in!

I've learned that to "recreate" you have to really dig out the old, sometimes down to it's most basic parts, mend those things that aren't quite right or are broken, things are strengthened, next, a new coat of paint, stucco or exterior treatment is put on and, VOILA! A beautiful newness from the inside out.

I also learned just how powerful positive thinking and planning is. At the end of last year, these "remodeling" ideas were just that, a concept, an idea. One Sunday morning I woke up and started making these ideas more concrete. A file was soon full of pictures, paint chips, lists of things we would have to do to make this idea come to life. We had a "no money" shopping day where we went to the stores with a camera and a pad of paper to "shop" before we shop. Once the tax money came in, we could just run back to the stores and pick up this list of items. Before I knew it, I had this wonderful idea turned into reality.

And people.... wow, I've really seen some good things in people lately. I cannot even begin to touch on how talented my son-in-law, Mike is with carpentry. Wow! Hubby was right in there too, hauling old carpet, scraping off linoleum, installing new light fixtures, wiring.... a super helper. My other sons-in-law and son helping with putting the furniture together in a night. AWESOME!! My daughters helping put on the spread of food to feed "the masses" as they all congregated to work on our little projects. We had a very nice visit with my niece, Carla, and her family and were able to eat around the new table, visit and "share the love." We are still finishing the living room work and I'm taking loads of pictures to share with you!

I feel really blessed, VERY thankful and very much at peace.

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.”

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