Progress!

I'm making real progress on the family room.  I'm to the mudding the crappy spots on the wall that went down to below the white stuff on the drywall.  I have almost three of the four walls done.  I sand and then shop vac as I go along because we're still using this room!  At some point, the tv stand and wall shelves will have to be moved.  Right now, the shelves are over the tv stand, but I'm thinking about moving them to this east wall.  That way, we won't ding ourselves on the sharp corners when we come in through the back hall door. 

Man, this looks happier already!  I'm narrowing down the color for the walls.  White on top or bottom (which I'm leaning towards) and a soft yellow for the other half.

Finding fabric this weekend helped me throw out a lot of chips.

A "mill end" roll from Joann's we found in Indy.  Soft, shabby chic colors and florals.  I carried this thing around in the cart for a long time, hoping hubby muffin would like it as much as I do.  He did!  So, it came home with us.  Along with some of this

beautiful, blue gingham.  There's only 9.25 yards of the floral.  Not nearly enough to do the whole couch.  After lots of thinking and planning, I've decided that a quilted couch along these lines

would be very impractical.  Just the sheer amount of seams that could get ripped is daunting.  So, I will make the seat cushions from the gingham and trim with piping made from the floral.  The rest of the couch will be the floral.  Then, instead of two, large back pillows, I'll grab some huge ones from Joann's (when they're on sale, mind you!) and make 4-6 pillows for the back and sides.  Alternating between the floral and the check.  The visual in my head makes sense and I like so far, we'll see how the theory works in practice!

The floral was on sale for $6.00 a yard and the gingham was 40% off.  I will need to go to the next town over to get more of it since I bought all that the one store had.

I had the chance to swap some vintage goodies with Colima and Bethany this last week.  I'm hoping to build up my yellows enough to make a sunshine quilt for me.  I know, I know.  Another project.  Selfishness supreme.  But me and yellow.  Me and yellow and vintage.  We have something going, you know!

How could you not fall in love with such romantic fabric?

A good friend brought me some sunshine in a four cell

the other day.  This is the first year I'm not working at the greenhouse I usually do.  It started out as a part time job in the spring (but I ended up working over 40 hrs some weeks) when all the boys were in school.  Sunshine, green-growing things, tanning without a bed in the wintertime and getting my hands dirty!  What could be better.  Last year was a very hard year trying to homeschool C-man, keep the other kids going, maintain sanity from completely crumbling into chaos at home with laundry, dishes, groceries, etc.  So, we made a decision to not have me work this spring.  It was very hard to have to tell them I wouldn't be there this year when they called.  The last two years I had pretty much been in charge of custom plantings for customers and companies.  Ordering basketes, planters, plants, etc for what we needed for the season.  Helping people plan their plantings, planting them and then taking care of them.

I miss it.  But, I know it was the right thing to do with Javi's senior year and still homeschooling C-man.  I had some awesome validation yesterday when I realized through co-op teachers' grades and adding up his grades here at home, that he is an almost straight A student.  From C's, D's and extreme anxiety, stress and anger in him to a much more relaxed, able to learn, happier kid.  As a homeschool parent, it's easy to second guess the job you're doing and the grades you're giving, but to have other teachers giving grades and input on how he's doing in school really gave me a good boost of encouragement.

Sunshine everywhere!  And I am thankful.