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Monthly Archives: July 2012

Pinterest Favorites

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My sweet, Halle, has been sick for the last couple of days so we’ve been stuck in the house. We’ve been running here and there first thing in the morning for a few weeks and I really like it because it makes our days run more smoothly. It makes it difficult to blog but the time I’m investing in my kids is priceless. Since we’re stuck in the house though I thought that I’d share some of my favorites from around the web today. You can find all of my favorites by following The Button Casa on Pinterest.

I like this built-in eating area. I’ve always envisioned one for our house since we’ve got a small kitchen. I thought it would be nice to have the benches and use them for storing linens and things. Mine would be less modern, more cottagey and I’d replace the map with some fun art but I like the concept.

Houzz.com

And for the gardening geek in me…a carryall for garden tools using an vintage milk bottle carrier. Seriously, if I ever find one of these things for a reasonable price I will be one happy camper.

Along the lines of simple and brilliant ideas, I present the toilet paper/twine holder.

BHG.com

Twine is one of things that we have “somewhere”. You know that vague “somewhere” that means you’ll never find it again so you just buy more. Yeah, that’s how we roll. Ahem.

I found these chalkboard labels at The Messy Roost and I just love them! I’m thinking of using something like this to label food for a dinner party.

I’m also loving this pretty ottoman. I bought an ottoman for $2 at a garage sale many moons ago that is in need of some serious love. I don’t usually sew but I think I could get away with just stapling the fabric and reusing the liner that’s already in the ottoman because it’s in fine shape.  A fabric like the one covering this one would be fabulous.

BHG.com

I’m also feeling the love for these pretty blue chairs.

Houzz.com

And I love this mudroom. Apparently, the homeowners turned a little used entryway into a makeshift mudroom.

BHG.com

I love the idea of a mudroom especially since we get so much rain and some snow in the fall and winter. The kitchen floor gets *so* gross.  I’ll just have to chalk it up to my “someday” dream file since there’s definitely no room for it here.

I hope you enjoyed my little post of things I love.

Have a great day!

Amy

 

 

 

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A Mini Makeover Part 2

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Once we got the new media console put together and set up, I realized-again- that the beige walls with the brown sofa, beige chair, brown side table, brown dog crate, brown piano and the brand-new brown media center was making me crazy. So I decided to paint- again.

I went to Lowe’s and they have some pre-mixed samples in bottles that you can see through so I just picked two that I liked.

One in blue. Is that too predictable?

And one in green.

I’ve been thinking lately that I should just have other people pick colors for me. Mostly because I choose the same type colors over and over and never actually find a winner. I would have never thought to choose this green if I’d only seen it on the paint chip.

It’s the lighter color on the far left. I don’t like the other two greens so I wouldn’t have even picked it up. I think it looks fabulous on the wall though. I never even tried the blue color since the kitchen and master bedroom are blue, plus I’ve been dying to get some more green in here. Although, now that I look at it the color seems a bit blue-green. But I like it a lot…

Next my hunt for accessories and whatnot began…

A couple of days later I stopped in at a local antique junk store that I’ve wanted to visit but never have. Here’s the thing about junk/antique shops in Franklin. We’re a bit of a destination for such things and people selling junk in Franklin typically know what out of towners are willing to pay for the junk and so IMHO, it’s all overpriced.

The nice pipe-guy assured me there was a “big sale” though.

I found a great cabinet…

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Or two…

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And this seemed like a real junk store since there was at least one place that I literally couldn’t walk through. I couldn’t even carefully step over the junk to get to some interesting milk glass cups. I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

I thought these were interesting and might look good on the new accent wall and they were reasonably priced- maybe $30-$35- but I wasn’t sure about them.

 

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The most interesting thing I saw was a goat cart for $495. I’m not sure what I’d use a goat cart for but I do like it. Mostly it makes me giggle.

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Unfortunately I got a call from, Amanda saying that the smoke detector kept going off so I had to head home quickly to make sure the house wasn’t going to burn down. It wasn’t. We just had a really old smoke detector. Did you know you’re supposed to replace those things every 10 years?

So my hunt for art and whatnot is still on.

A Mini Makeover

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When Amanda got home from college a few weeks ago I was so excited! We hadn’t seen her in more than two months which is the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing her in her whole life- and I don’t really like it. We prepared for her arrival by moving Chloe and Halle back into the same room and gave Amanda her old room back. But I wasn’t prepared for how.much.stuff. she has. I mean, she’s the host of RAW TV and she has the shoes to prove it! This little rancher is just not able to hold the amount of things that 3 adults and 2 kids have. So we purged. And I was a bit of a wreck. I have handled the lack of space pretty well and when confronted with the question (always from Travis), “Where are we going to put it?” my answer is always, “I’ll find a place.” And I have to say that I’m pretty good at it. Now, the place I find for said item might drive Travis crazy and he might move it somewhere else (ahem) but a place is always found.

Except this time. Apparently I’m only good at finding spots for one thing at a time. Like the drink dispenser I *had* to have for Mother’s Day.

When I’m trying to find a space for just one thing it’s easy. At the very worst I can just get rid of something that I’m not using anymore. This time though we had a truck load of things to find a spot for. Plus we couldn’t continue to use one dresser for Chloe and Halle. That was possible when we first moved in and Chloe was 5 and Halle wasn’t quite 2 yet. They’ve gotten bigger and so have their clothes so their room was just awful. Trav’s solution was to give Chloe the dresser he’d been using which made her very, very happy. Me? Not so much. It meant that Trav’s clothes were in piles and shoved in plastic bins. That was the time that I broke down and sobbed on his shoulder…at 1 am.

We’d put off making any type of furniture purchase because we couldn’t really agree on what we wanted. We finally decided to repurpose the armoire that had been housing the TV in the living room and use it in our room for Trav’s clothes- for a couple of reasons. First of all, it wasn’t meant to be a TV cabinet so the doors didn’t retract in and you couldn’t see the TV from some seating spots in the living room. In fact, we’d taken the doors off at Thanksgiving when Shane and Angie and the kids stayed with us and never put them back because it was easier to watch TV. Secondly, the armoire matches the rest of our bedroom furniture and while I don’t like the finish, it at least brings some cohesiveness to the bedroom. It also gave Travis a lot more space for his clothes than he had originally.

Then each of us had to give a little. I wanted a fancy piece of furniture that would hold up for the long haul so we wouldn’t be looking for another media cabinet in a couple of years. Travis wanted something more modern that would eventually hold a flat screen (we don’t have one now). After I measured the armoire and how it fit in the room I realized that what we really needed would be less than 50 inches wide and put my furniture piece out of the running. The one Travis wanted didn’t have enough storage and I didn’t want to have to store the metal bracket that came with it until we get a flat screen. So we headed off to Target to see if there was something suitable that would also not break the bank.

First we saw a traditional-ish console with two drawers and an espresso finish.

I’m typically a fan of the espresso finish but since we have a chocolate brown sofa, a brown dog crate, a brown-ish chair, and the walls are beige I just wasn’t feelin’ it. The drawers didn’t seem strong enough to store much of anything and we had to have room for all of this…

Yes, we still have VHS tapes. Why? It’s mostly because if I got rid of those tapes it would be like throwing Amanda’s childhood in the trash can. I’m weirdly sentimental like that. Plus some of them are really good movies that I like having and don’t want to replace right now. Swiss Family Robinson, Alice in Wonderland (Disney), Toy Story…you get the idea.

The next one was too black…

These were too black and too much glass (we didn’t want any glass because of the kids and Daisy)…

Too traditional…

This little cabinet was fabulous though and I’d love to find a place for it… it’s not for a TV though. Bummer.

Finally we chose this…it’s the only one I didn’t get a picture of (hangs head in shame).

We chose it because we already have a mission style side table in the living room so the finishes look nice together plus it has sliding doors instead of drawers and the storage space is larger. There’s no glass and it will accommodate a flat screen in the future.

I do have pictures of the assembly process though.

Aren’t they cute?

Travis is calling out the parts list to Chloe who keeps track of all of the nuts, bolts, doodads, thingamajigs, and whatsits. The assembly was pretty easy and I was happy that a lot of the cabinet is actually wood rather than completely particle board. Not bad for $139.

Stay tuned because next we paint…

Garden Goodness

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I can’t even believe how long it’s been since I’ve known where my cable to upload pictures was. Really. I found it a couple of days ago and it’s very sad that I’d taken 97 photos- all intended for blogging- and I’ve posted none of them. So here you go…garden goodness.

It takes a lot of determination and sweat to dig a garden spot. I knew this and yet I decided to do it again. On the upside my back has never been stronger.

 

My goal was to plant the sunflowers that I’d started in pots and I envisioned having a veritable forest of different varieties. Unfortunately, I waited a bit too long to plant them and the drought didn’t help any so I’ve got a lot of really small sunflowers.

 

See?

My usual sunflowers are faring better although they’re a few feet smaller than normal.

I’ve got a truckload of basil so I see pesto on the horizon for us. Plus I found a recipe for pork chops with basil, garlic, and lime that sounds promising.

I was going to plant my hydrangeas here:

But as I dug I found a lot of bricks and rocks and just didn’t feel like dealing with it so I need to find some pots for them.

Halle and I were lucky to each have a blueberry before some neighborhood deer snagged the rest- I was disappointed. Someday I plan on having about a dozen plants so maybe there will be some for the Buttons and also for the deer…unless I can talk Travis into getting a fence :) I really don’t like sharing my garden even though I like deer.

I wouldn’t call this summer a huge win for me but honestly, I can never call any growing season a huge win. A few small wins are enough to keep me going though. Now I’m dreaming of what I’ll plant in the fall. Anybody else dreaming of what you’ll grow in the fall?

Cupcakes, Salvation, and Healing

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I’ve already told part of this big rebirth that the Buttons have experienced lately but in order to tell my part of it I’ll have to back up a bit…to the end of April. I was praying one day, April 28th, and I knew that the Lord was asking me to let go of distractions, mainly social media, for a month. I decided that I would and the next morning the Holy Spirit reminded me that He’d asked this of me before, only it was for 2 weeks and that time my life fell apart shortly after. Which sent me into an immediate panic. I figured if things were that bad last time then surely this time somebody was going to die or something like that. So, during that time of laying aside distraction the Holy Spirit and I dealt with some things…like fear. I also went on a very, very strict diet. I ate no grains of any sort, no gluten free bread and not a single grain of rice for the whole time. Part of it was to lose weight and I was desperately trying to get healthy but it was also part of the focus that I needed for that time.

On May 19th, I was sitting on the couch and I heard the Lord say, “I want to heal you of gluten intolerance.” And my first response was, “Why would you want to do that?” I’d become accustomed to not eating wheat, it was normal to me. I didn’t have cravings for anything and I really didn’t care if I ever ate wheat or bread again. It had been about 6 weeks since I’d even eaten a piece of gluten free bread so it just wasn’t something I thought about all that much. But I know enough to know that when God is offering then I need to take Him up on it. I said, “Lord I don’t understand but I receive your healing.” Then He told me to have my husband anoint me with oil and pray for me.

I have to say that I felt embarrassed asking Travis to pray for me. I wanted it to be his idea. But what I quickly realized is that it was my own pride that was keeping me from asking him to pray for me. So I did ask him to pray on Saturday and of course, he was more than happy to pray for me. In fact it was Travis that God spoke to 2 1/2 years ago and said that He was going to heal me completely and he had believed it ever since. I thought that maybe it was God’s intention to heal me through not eating gluten but Travis never, ever believed that. He believed that I would be healed of gluten intolerance. So, he anointed me with oil and he, Chloe and Halle prayed for me to be healed. And as they did, I immediately confessed my pride and repented. Afterwards, Chloe said, “Mom, maybe you’ll be able to eat pizza by my birthday!”I asked Travis what he thought-should I eat something with wheat- but he wasn’t sure so we kept doing things the same way as usual.

About 3 weeks later- clearly we weren’t in a hurry- we were in church and I heard the Holy Spirit whisper, “Don’t continue to abstain.” Abstaining? Is that what I was doing? I never really looked at it that way before. I saw it as, “I cannot eat that”, but I guess that’s what abstaining is. Anyway, I immediately determined that I was going to submit this to my husband and I wasn’t eating anything unless we were both certain that we were hearing from God and this is what we were supposed to do. Because what I ate didn’t just affect me. It affected my husband and my children, it affected our relationships and the places we went, or didn’t go, it affected what we did and how often we were at church together as a family. It affected us spiritually when we couldn’t make it to meetings or Life Group or worship. This gluten intolerance affected every area of our lives…and I wasn’t about to go it alone.

We talked about it after that service and Travis said that he felt that the Holy Spirit was speaking to him about it too but he wasn’t sure and wanted to pray about it. So I left it alone and let him pray about it. I’m not sure how long but it could have been 2 1/2 weeks, something like that, and I finally just asked the Lord to speak to Travis clearly in a way that he could understand so we could put this behind us. And He did.

I think that Travis was still nervous but one night when we were hanging out with our friend, Amanda, she made dinner for us and I had some sauce that she’d made for some Kale (completely delish by the way) and I immediately tasted soy sauce- it’s typically made with wheat. I didn’t want to make a fuss so I didn’t say anything until Amanda went into the other room and I said to Travis, “That sauce has soy sauce in it.” In kind of an “oh shoot” sort of way and he said, “Don’t worry about it.”  I knew then that he was getting ready to give me the go-ahead. If there is anyone that has fiercely guarded me the last two years in regards to food, it’s Travis. He would pin people down, asking questions to see if something possibly had wheat in it. He didn’t care if we walked out of a restaurant or if he made people uncomfortable, he was going to make sure any food that crossed my lips was safe. I appreciate that about him.

So fast forward to our celebration of Halle’s rebirth…

I knew it was time so I told Travis that I wanted to eat a cupcake and he was okay with it. During the last two years I’d said, “Would God heal me just so I could eat a cupcake?” I’m sure it’s not just so I can eat a cupcake but it made me smile today remembering that. So, I had a cupcake with turquoise frosting and a butterfly ring on top.

And I knew that I had done the right thing.

In 2 years of being gluten free I was completely unable to heal myself. The very best that I could do was to keep the symptoms at bay. I was always one food choice away from being sick. But He healed me. I feel better now than I have in…well, longer than I can remember. I worked out today and it was amazing working out without feeling like I had 20 pound lead weights strapped to my chest. It wasn’t hard to breath. I didn’t feel awful. Because no matter that I’d not eaten gluten in 2 years, I never felt normal.

So why? Why would God do this for me? Why would He give me this amazing gift when I wasn’t even asking for it and didn’t think I needed it? I can only answer with a scripture that came to my mind when I was asking that question,

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”

The second part of that verse says:

Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1

And I have to tell you that the second part of that verse is really speaking to me today. Being gluten intolerant and not knowing it was like I was confined to a cot in a prison cell. There were days and weeks and months that I was so sick that I couldn’t even move. There were beautiful days that I laid on the couch and cried because I was too sick to get outside and enjoy it. Not eating gluten was like still being in prison but I got to get out into the prison yard. I could see the sun, I could see the grass, I could feel the wind on my face but I was still imprisoned. Being healed is walking out of those prison doors, not on parole, but being free.

Blessings,

Amy

P.S.- I haven’t only had a cupcake- I didn’t have room in the post for all the gluten-full things I’ve eaten: Cupcake(s), pancakes, PB &J, pizza, fried chicken, chips with gluten listed as an ingredient, pita chips and cake. I don’t plan on eating those things all the time but it was really yummy :)