It's a Woman's Prerogative...

to change her mind... right?

The past couple of nights I have laid awake unable to fall asleep and among the countless ideas, problems and items to put on a to-do list that roam through my mind while I lay in bed, I keep coming back to the topic of the curtains in our living room.

I haven't received the swatches of dupioni silk that I ordered from The Online Fabric Store yet, and I just can't stop wondering if the whole stripes thing is going to work in our living room... or the orange thing for a matter of fact... or the fact that dupioni silk is $18/yd. I'm also worried that the silk is going to look too formal against the rest of our very not formal furnishings.

And then there is this very laid back, fun fabric that takes me back to thinking about my college days that is on sale at Jo-Ann's Fabric. A linen blend... $5.19/yd and I have a 10% off coupon for President's Day week-end. And I think it would blend right in with a new color scheme for our living room. I think it would feel fun, light-hearted and finished. Looking at this fabric just makes me smile!

Doesn't it make you smile?? I'm not sure what my husband will think about a floral print, but our living room is in desperate need of a print anyway... I also wonder what he would say if I wound up not liking them in the space. Would he be okay with giving them to someone else as a gift??? Hmmm.... probably not ;-)

I usually really dislike decorating in red also, but this print is truly making me question that!! I can just see these red floral curtains going up and hanging some punchy black and white photos on our walls, and adding some turquoise, and primary color type accents to liven up our calm light blue walls. Okay, so here is the hard part... Asking for feed back!

I would love to know your opinion about which curtains you like best.

So you don't have to scroll back to the other day's post, here is the picture again of the other option.

And here you can find what my living room (sort of) currently looks like. It is not as dark as it seems in these pictures (they were all taken at night) and of course I would switch out things like throw pillows and possibly even wall-art with the changing of the curtains. That means basically I am starting out with a clean slate again except I am keeping the blue walls.

Side note: I. heart. my. blue. walls. The color is Blue Persuasion by Olympic Paint. It is the happiest any paint color has ever made me. With the exception of maybe my daughter's nursery. Which is Tranquility by Valspar.

Okay, so lay it on me... Which do you like better? Orange stripes or red floral?

P.S. Can you believe that is how you spell "prerogative"???

Update: I went online to try to buy the red floral fabric from Joann's and I must have waited too long to make a decision. I needed 7 yards of fabric to do the windows in my living room and there were only 3 available. Now I guess I will just wait on the dupioni silk fabric swatches to get here and keep my eye out for more good deals on inspiring fabrics!

We've got bugs...

Two kinds of bugs actually.

No, not the little creepy, crawly type of bugs. And not the kind of bugs where someone is listening to your conversation without you knowing it. (We did watch Duplicity with Julia Roberts for Valentine's day though... what a good movie!)

One bug is a crazy stomach bug. Everyone in my family has gotten this terrible stomach bug. It started with our foster son a week and a half ago, then moved to my daughter, my husband and today, it hit me. Hopefully this will be the end of it's run. (Sorry about the gross pun.)

I have spent all day with my trash can, my toilet, drinking 7up and laying in bed. Only in the last couple of hours after taking some Tylenol have I even been able to watch some TV or browse on the computer. Not a fun day.

My husband was awesome and spent the day at home with our daughter so I could rest and recover. I am hoping that tomorrow I feel normal enough to Lysol everything in our house and get it functioning again.

For some time now, our life has seemed arrhythmic- like we cannot get into a normal flow anymore. It seems that every other day brings some new thing that makes us need to have an abnormal day.

In fact, abnormal days have become the norm for us. I am hopeful that soon things will go back to normal for us (we can't stay sick forever can we?), but part of me wonders if we will ever get back into a good rhythm. Which brings me to my second type of bug... Things about our previous life-routine that I have loved, and not having them is bugging me.

These are the things I have been missing lately:

- My non-traditional housekeeper
I hired a girl who was out of high school working lots of odd jobs to clean once a week and she was great. I made a list and for $10/hr she would basically do anything I asked. Cleaned my bathroom, mopped my floors, even helped me catch up on dirty dishes and folding laundry. I am pretty sure that regular cleaning services don't function this way, so I really enjoyed having her.

- Regular date night
Christian and I used to have dates on Tuesday nights, eating pizza and cookies while watching Biggest Loser after our daughter goes to bed at 7pm. It was our night during the week to relax and take a break together. I have joked that we should re-instate date night on Monday's so we can watch the Voice together. He laughed but did not commit... I'm not sure what's up with that.

- Melody going to bed at 7pm
In the last few weeks it seems there has been something almost every night that hinders us from getting our daughter to bed by 7pm (which has basically been her bed time since birth). Her 7pm bed time has shifted to 7:30... some nights even 8pm or 8:30pm! Every time I start thinking I really want to move it back something happens, like her throwing up- or my husband throwing up, or me throwing up... you get the idea.

- My washing machine
My washing machine has only been broken for a week, but let me tell you, my washing machine and I are best friends. I do an insane amount of laundry every week to keep up. Between cloth diapers for my daughter and clothes, towels and sheets for 3 people (and for a couple of months there were 4 of us!), I use my washing machine A LOT (which is probably why it broke). Now the laundry mat a few blocks away from our house is becoming my new best friend. Except I don't like it is as much. It is expensive and I don't have the ability to do a load or two a day. It is much more time management savvy to save up our laundry once or twice a week and go. That is one or two entire nights out my week JUST TO SIT AT A LAUNDRY MAT... okay I am stopping now about this one.

I apologize for all the venting, and I guess when I re-read everything I just wrote, most of the things I am having trouble with are fixable.

I do have a girl coming on Thursday afternoons to watch Melody while I do my own cleaning.

I am sure there is no good reason Christian would not have date night with me on Mondays.

Fixing Melody's bed time is something I have done before and can do again.

The only real problem that will take some effort to contend with is our broken washing machine. And actually if I give Christian a few hours on Saturday to poke around with it, I am sure he can figure it out.

I guess all I can say at this point, is thank you for lending an ear. Do you ever do this? Begin to tell someone about your problems only to realize they aren't as bad as they seem?

No? Just me?

Well, anyway, thanks for listening. I think I see my sanity on it's way back to me, that in a few days our bugs have a good chance of being gone.

Love, Rachel

Giddy About Curtains

Yesterday, I mentioned that the creative part of my brain has come back to the surface after several weeks of a lot of anxiety as foster parents. I had a great time yesterday reading blogs and browsing pinterest. It was wonderful to think and plan and doodle my time away just letting my creative ideas flow without limits.

Today I came back to reality though and looked around some of my rooms that are already "finished" in my house. When I decorated my living room I bought very cheap green curtains that worked, but were definitely not my ultimate favorite choice for curtains. For awhile now, I have had a picture like this one in my head for what I would want curtains to look like in my living room.


For some reason I have it in my head that dupioni silk is the perfect texture for these curtains in my living room. Today I went to a fabric store desperately in search of dupioni silk or similar styles of curtains. I came back with swatches of beautiful fabric (maybe they will be nice pillows one day!), but nothing like the picture in my head.

I searched and searched and finally I have landed on a couple of possible candidates for making striped curtains!

At the online fabric store I found dupioni silk in two colors, honey gold and cream.


Aren't they beautiful?!

I have already ordered my samples so I can tell if the colors work together and work in our living room. I am giddily awaiting their arrival!

Virtual Vacation

Welcome to February. How did we get so far into the new year so fast?

I know why it went so quickly for us, but it is still hard to believe that it is almost the middle of February. The last several months have been a roller coaster. Since December, we have taken on an 11 year old boy through foster care, dealt with 7 weeks of adjusting to being a family of 4, one week of which included a hospitalization for our foster son, and finally yesterday we said an emotional, tear-filled good-bye.

None of this was easy. We did not expect to say good-bye so soon. I cannot begin to describe the number of completely insane experiences we have had or the amount we have learned about children who have been abused and neglected.

With our foster son gone, it is strange to be back in open waters again so-to-speak. My brain has been in crisis mode for 7 weeks and is now relaxing. Creativity, while it has been stifled, is now flooding my mind again. It is almost crippling how many ideas have overpowered me in the last 24 hours just knowing my life has returned to a state of normalcy. I am sleeping better, I am relaxing, but I am unsure how to proceed. We are still dealing with the loss of someone very special to us. We know as he moves on, his life will not be as easy as ours is (or has ever been). And there are still things to do. Boxes to pack. Budgets to reconcile. Bathrooms to disinfect. Family time to have. Church commitments to fulfill.

I want to shut down, but can't. I want to go on vacation, but that would be unwise.

So instead, I am giving myself a couple of hours today to let the creativity in my brain to flow. No commitments. Just blog reading, pinterest surfing and idea-writing-down. None of which I have done in months. Later on today I will do what I have to do, but right now I am taking a mental vacation.

It feels good to be back. I have missed you.

Love,
Rachel