Friday Funny: The True Meaning of Christmas

Today I am frantically trying to get all of my holiday decorations up and my house cleaned before my adorable cousin, Britney, and her equally adorable family come visit tomorrow.

We can't wait to see them!

In the meantime I give you a Kid History video about the True Meaning of Christmas that is just good, clean fun!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

 

 

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

 

 

 

The Wee Tree

Since Thanksgiving Day my son, Stone, has been begging me to get the Christmas decorations out of the attic.  

After dinner yesterday I was finally able to find a spare hour to accomplish this task and Stone even helped me carry those very heavy containers into the living room.

I could tell he was very excited about the holiday hoopla and he immediately started looking through the dozen or more giant containers that now littered the hallway, living room, dining room and entryway.

I was certain he was searching for some wonderful ornament or decoration he was particularly nostalgic about or maybe a special stocking he wanted to put up right away.

 

But no.

The only decoration he cared about was this:

A wee tree he purchased for $1 at a garage sale over 5 years ago with nothing but a few tiny plastic ball ornaments and a strand of gold plastic bead garland that is hot glued in place.

Maybe we should just put presents under the Wee Tree this year?

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

 

 

 

The Best Part of My Day

The best part of my day today was when I put everything aside to shoot some hoops with my son after school.

He even let me beat him at D-O-G!

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

 

 

Enjoying the View

When we bought our house one of my favorite features were the cathedral windows in the kitchen.

They are really tall and let in tons of natural light throughout the day.

The previous owner had metal mini blinds installed in them when we moved in.

And they were lavender.

(Someone really should have been shot for that!)

And don't even get me started on that tacky wallpaper and green tile.

Obviously this is the BEFORE shortly after moving in:

The windows face the street so I kept those ugly blinds up for a while thinking I needed the privacy and knew I would eventually install 2 inch white wood blinds.

(Which would have to be custom ordered so each one would cost me one arm and one leg and probably another useful organ or two.)

One fine fall day I was painting around those windows and realized that the tree just outside them produced the most beautiful fall colors.

The leaves also helped obscure the upper 2/3 of the view from the street for most of the year.

I decided that white linen cafe curtains hung on small tension rods on the bottom third of the windows would provide enough privacy from any creepers while still allowing lots of light to pour into my kitchen (that's a good thing.)

AND... I would be able to enjoy my beautiful tree as it changed from summer green to red, orange and gold in the fall.

This is the view on a late fall afternoon:

And this is my view this morning from my kitchen desk.

This is the summer view:

Do you have a favorite view in your home?

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

Painted Table & Chairs

Happy Black Friday, everyone!

It really should be a holiday in itself, don't you think?

Today I am staying away from the mass chain stores and visiting one of my favorite 

'fleas and 'tiques' shops in Whitney, Texas.

It's rare that I leave there empty handed.

Before I head out on this glorious day, I wanted to share what I have been thinking obsessing about lately.

It's painted tables and chairs.

I'm thinking a coat of paint may be just what my table and chairs need to make them a little less country and a little more 'rock and roll.'  

(Yes, that was a reference to a really bad Donny & Marie Osmond song from the 70's.)

Here are some my inspiration photos:

 

 Design Sponge

 Little Green Notebook

Dwellers Without Decorators

Elle Decor

Elle Decor

Indulgy

Design Sponge

Pepper

Pink and Polka Dot

The Sassy Pepper

Tia Zoldan

A Punch of Color

Eclectic Revisited

From Scandanavia With Love

SF Girl by Bay

Vintage Revivals

For my set I am thinking high gloss black with satin white painted chairs.

What do you think?

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

 

 

 

Chic Cheap Chairs

Check out these pear green chairs in this room from the Dwellers Without Decorators blog:

I could definitely spend an afternoon reading in one of those!

You could, too, if you snatched up these guys from my favorite thrift store that I saw yesterday:

There are 2 of them and they are selling them as a pair for $200.

The arm on these is a bit more curved and taller than the ones in the room above but I think that makes it easier to get all comfy in the corner of it...

after a serious upholstery steam cleaning, of course.

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

Some Findings

Much of my weekend was spent perusing ideas for my house.

As much fun as it was, I am also left with a sense of frustration.

You see, I have become rather fond of a couple of fabrics that I would love to use in my home but they are very much out of budgetary reach for me.

First, is this gorgeous floral fabric, Misia, by Manuel Canovas.

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It's only available 'to the trade' which means that only a decorator can get their hands on it.

Not that it matters because the fabric is $400 per yard!

And, no, that second zero is not a typo.

 But, my very most favoriteist is this Schumacher fabric that I am seeing everywhere in the bloggersphere:

Chiang Mai Dragon in aquamarine.

It's like a Chinese rainbow of awesomeness.

And it would literally go with EVERYTHING in my house.

I want it real bad.

Again, it's only available to the trade.

Unless you find it online for "cheap."

(And yes that was sarcastic.)

Because it's still $140 for a yard.

That's a lot of clams.

Bleh.

Do you know what I could buy with $140?

A whole bunch of other cool stuff.

Like a yard of this Duralee Ponderosa fabric for $25

AND...

a yard of this Robert Allen Latticescape fabric for $10

AND...

This red Parsons sofa table from my favorite thrift store for a mere $50

AND...

two of these brass lamps for only $50.

Yes the shades are ugly but I would still have $5 left to buy some black spray paint and I would spray the ugly right out of those shades until I had more money to buy some new ones.

It's good to get some perspective, right?

But I do still LOVE that Chiang Mai fabric!

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

Friday Fun

Happy Friday everyone!
Today I am dragging my husband to see Breaking Dawn part 2.

Which means he's paying money for a 2 hour nap surrounded by a theater full of women.
And a few men who dress really well.

Yes, the Twilight movies are especially cheesy and Kristen Stewart displays about as much emotion as a dishrag but if I don't see the 'epic finale' then it will be one more thing to add to my list of things that are unfinished. 

Which means that if I were to die before seeing it, I would probably be sentenced to come back as a ghost because I have 'unfinished business' and I would have to haunt people and watch all the Twilight movies over and over in some never-ending-unfinished-business post death loop or something.

I just can't risk it.

Whether you're an actual fan of the Twilight series or not, you really should watch this Edward and Bella Bad Lip Reading Youtube video.

It makes me laugh like a hyena every time I watch it.

Sort of like Kristen Stewart's acting.

Early Christmas Gift

Whew!  It has been a busy week around here.

I have been decluttering and organizing absolutely everything since catching the tail end of a Hoarders episode over the weekend.

Nothing like a woman living in her own excrement to make you want to get rid of everything you own!

I did, however, take a day earlier in the week to go shopping with my mom.

She is not only beautiful and stylish but she is the most creative person I know and if she was homeless and living out of a box it would be the nicest box under the overpass!

She is also one of my very best friends and I am so lucky to have her.

We had such a great time being goofy, often laughing like a couple of little school girls.

Mostly at other's people's expense.

My mom and me a bazillion years ago

My mom and me somewhat recently although I don't recall exactly when because that was a really big margarita and I might have blacked out for a few days

She also spoils me all the time and she bought me an early Christmas gift that I am so excited to share today!

About a month ago my friend, Tracy who is also a blogger at Relish Decor, showed me her pair of brass and glass etageres that were a beautiful Ikea hack project.  

Sort of like this one I found on Pinterest

and this one.

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The clean lines and open shelving were exactly what I needed in my living room to replace a heavy dark cabinet that I already had.

Dark cabinet

I started checking out other etageres and decided that was definitely the route I would go in my living room.  

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Last weekend while out running errands I decided to stop into a nearby thrift store and to my amazement there was a chrome and brass etagere with glass shelves just waiting for someone to snatch it up.  

And it was only $45!

I about died.

Several days later my mom and I were at the same thrift store and the shelf was still there.  

As I approached it and saw the price tag I let out a HUGE GASP!

I totally startled my mom who thought I had seen a snake or something.

(Really, mom? A snake in the thrift store?)

The shelf had been marked down to $30!

She bought it for me immediately.

Which was probably because she had all that adrenaline coursing through her from me scaring her.

But I would totally scare her again because here is my fantastically awesome $30 chrome, brass and glass etagere:

 

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney

Gooey and Delicious

It's cold outside.

Light up your fireplace and make some s'mores.

Because they are gooey and delicious and your kids will love you forever.

Or maybe just for an hour until the sugar rush wears off.

Here are some other things that are gooey and delicious.

These chairs...

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and these velvet damask fabrics...

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À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney