Oh, Miscellany Monday…

… how I look forward to you!

You give me permission to write without lines, without boxes, without categories.

The leaves on our trees finally turned colors, and then fell. This tree is grasping to only about a dozen leaves now, having let all the others fall around it in a beautiful yellow-ish carpet. And I swear that tree is just as beautiful bare as it is full of green or yellow leaves.

I was originally disappointed because the first few leaves to change on that tree turned red. I LOVE red trees! But then about a week later all the other leaves turned yellow. But you know what? The yellow took my breath away. Joyful and warm and calm. I’d step outside just to stare at it… (now if only I could find that picture I think I took…)

I love raking leaves. Eli wasn’t so much into the leaf pile, though… maybe next year.

Our church is having a Sevens game and Cupcake War soon. I had no idea what Sevens was until today, but apparently it is the most popular game nowadays. Apparently I’m not very in-the-know. Are you?

As a result of this announcement, my mind has been on cupcakes and how I can create them so that they fit into a “seven” theme all day.

My cat is still driving me crazy. He wanders and meows at night. My son sleeps through the night but I do not still because of the cat. Someone suggested a harness and leash so we could sit outside with him to satisfy his desire to be outside. So far, we’ve had two escape-artist-cat acts. I am starting to think about praying for cat-repelling snow.

Linking up to carissa graham at lowercase letters

art on the wall

My husband and I have been working on redoing our master bedroom for a while now (it is not easy to paint with an 11-month-old who wants to do everything you do!). We painted the walls, moved the dresser to the inside of the closet (I am working on moving all clothes to the closet only. Eventually our old dresser will be moved to Eli’s room). We rearranged the furniture. I added some new storage to the bathroom. We rearranged the furniture again, after which we decided the furniture will stay as it is because we want to start loving our bedroom and not be in this in-between-ish phase any longer. And so finally I felt like I could start putting some things on the walls.

You don’t understand… this is a big deal for me. I almost never put stuff on the walls. And if I do, it stays there. Forever. And is never changed. Call it an irrational fear of making a mistake.

Emily Freeman explained it in her book Grace for the Good Girl, and as soon as I read it my heart said “that’s me! Oh my gosh that is me…” She said

“Other parts of life where there are no rules at all, I become irritated and slightly irrational… Perhaps that is why I had such trouble allowing myself to be creative in my house when I was first married: I didn’t know the rules.”

Emily Freeman, Grace for the Good Girl

It is scary how true that is of me. It was true when we had our first apartment – I cried over hanging pictures in the wrong place. It has been true recently, too – I cried over buying the wrong duvet cover for our bed. But slowly I’ve begun to realize that not having rules shouldn’t be scary – it should be freeing. Which is why I painted a tree in my son’s bedroom, and why I painted my fridge, and why I painted my kitchen backsplash, why there are a couple of funky-shaped drawers on the wall in my bathroom, why I hung a Max and Ermas bag and some old book pages in my living room…

… and now it is why I taped corkboard on the wall over our bed.

our wall color didn’t come out quite right in the picture… so the color of the corkboard and the wall color goes together a bit better than what it looks like in this picture. Click here to see the paint color.

…and apparently the cat wanted to be in on the photoshoot…

I have two corner floating shelves to hang in the corner… but I’m still trying to figure out what I think about these corkboard squares. Do you like them? Should I pin things to them, leave them blank, try to paint them? Move them to a different wall? Opinions, please! :)

Linking up with Jennifer at StudioJRU … and also with Transformation Thursday for the first time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miscenaneous-ness

I have WAY to many ideas of things to make with tree branches. I have two sticks laying on my counter right now waiting to be used for something and I think visitors might think I am crazy.

 

tree branch art by mrsbarney on polyvore.com

Sock monkey hat… I don’t know if it will ever be one. It is still just a gray hat with one half a monkey ear.I truly just have too many ideas, period.

I’m tired. The cat has decided two  mornings in a row to cough up a furball in the hallway, waking both me and the baby. The night before he walked up and down the hallway meowing. Sometimes I think I’d like to just grant his little kitty-sized wish and let him go outside. But then I think about how much I’d miss him if he never came back.

(That’s an old picture of me hugging the cat. It’s here to remind me that I love him).

Linking up with her for Miscellany Monday

talking to birds

sat outside this morning ♥

Eli played with dew-covered grass ♥

it makes me think of Fireflies, “cause they’d fill the open air and leave teardrops everywhere” … but why would fireflies cry? ♥

My cat is talking to the birds outside ♥

I have coffee! ♥

Oh… you got me my very own bed!?

So… on Tuesday I had lunch with a friend who sold me her babies’ outgrown bassinet, along with the pads, sheets, and everything else I could ever imagine and never knew a bassinet could come with. Since it has wheels, I succeeded in bringing it into our house and placing it in the baby’s room :) YAY, besides the dresser, this is the only piece of baby furniature that is entirely put together so far! And it came that way (for me anyway)!

A few hours later, I walked back into baby’s room, ’cause, well, I just wanted to look at the bassinet one more time, and found this:

Andre in bassinet

Andre, our fuzzy, moody, adorable, cuddly-only-on-his-terms kitty cat, looking quite comfortable in what he thinks is a new kitty bed for him.

I left him there, knowing that any attempts to try to keep him out of the bassinet were probably going to be futile… and he looked so cute… and we’ll deal with persuading him that it is a bed for the baby and not for him once November comes. More than likely he won’t be thrilled about sharing it with a wiggly, squirmy baby boy anyway.

**Update: After talking with a friend, I learned that orange peels (or clementine peels) keep cats away from areas you don’t want them to be in! So far I haven’t seen Andre in the bassinet or crib again… but I now know what to do. We also learned that there are also these nifty things called crib tents. Who knew?