My Pantry Makeover at I Heart Organizing

Today is an exciting day for me for three reasons:



1.  My PANTRY is finally organized and now holds not just grocery staples, but my serving platters and large decorative items too.  Why didn't I think to put those things in there before?? Here's a sneak peek!

2.  I'm sharing my pantry overhaul in my first contributor post at I Heart Organizing.  You can read the full post HERE.



3.  I'm announcing a LINK PARTY that will start tomorrow at 6:00 a.m., where we will celebrate our organized homes (or at least an organized portion of our home- a drawer, a closet, those craft supplies or toys- anything goes:) Come link up and feel free to grab this nifty little button I made.  The party will be open for a week and then I'll be featuring some of your spaces.

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P.S.  The WINNER of the Stella & Dot giveaway will be announced tomorrow too!  Go HERE to enter!

James and the Water Slide (Age 2 1/2)

There's just something about a mama and her little boy.  My 2 1/2 year old son has my whole heart, big time.  He's a wild little adventurer, with a super sweet heart and big vocabulary.  He loves to sing loud, mouth wide open and play the guitar like a rock star.  More and more he craves freedom and independence and I hear lots of "I do it." So I let him- most of the time.  In the morning, I patiently hold my hands in my lap while he struggles to get dressed by himself.  I wait for his request, "Help me" before I pull up the zipper he hasn't quite mastered or when his head gets stuck in the arm hole.  But he's learning and wants to try and I'm so proud of him.



He loves to be like the big boys whenever we are around the big boys.  We went to a friend's birthday party recently and he wanted to go down the water slide.  By himself.   The slide was huge and it was a big effort for a little guy.

First he had to climb up the slippery slope into the bouncy part.

Then he had to grab onto straps to pull himself up onto the ladder that led to the slide.  I waited and waited to see that little wet head pop up. 

He pulled himself up- so exciting!

Climbed onto the slide.

Ready, set . . .

Go!

Wheee!!!

I just love it!  He's having so.much.fun.  And that makes mama happy.  

"Let's do it again!"  He must have went down that slide 50 times. 

And then there was cake.  I like to see that parts of him are like parts of me.  Even if they are the parts that like chocolate cake. 

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Honey We're Home on Television

The other day I received a message from Sally MacDonald, a gorgeous local reporter in our town.  She hosts a segment on Fox 26 called "Sally's Shabby Chic" that features home decor and DIY projects on Saturday mornings.  We ended up shooting two segments at my house that aired last weekend.

Although Sally and Raymond (the camera man) were absolutely wonderful to work with and helped me feel very comfortable, I still think I looked (and sounded like!) a dork on camera.  We only did one take per project and it's so hard not to be critical of yourself.  I am proud of myself for just doing it though- I was beyond nervous.



You can click the links below to watch the segment- but be kind!



Paper Lined Tray



No Sew Bench Seat



Two of my Houston friends have also been featured on Sally's Shabby Chic, Amanda Eck (Amanda Carol Interiors) and Cyndy (The Creativity Exchange).  They both did great and were also so sweet to email me after my segments with kind words, which I really appreciated.



Thank you Fox 26 Houston for the opportunity!

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Also, thank you for your support during the Pottery Barn Mystery Box Challenge.  Congratulations to all the bloggers who participated and to the winner, Shelley of How Does She?!

I'm off to meet up with Cassie, should definitely be a good day! 

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Kitchen Updates & Hydrangea Love

Like many of you, our kitchen is grand central station.  It's one of my favorite rooms in the house because it has so much great storage, lots of natural light, and pretty fixtures and counters.  I love to keep fresh flowers in the kitchen and hydrangeas are a beautiful treat.  Today I'm sharing this bunch of blue, green, and white hydrangeas to brighten your Monday.

I mentioned that our kitchen gets a lot of natural light.  Maybe too much.  We have blinds but they look kind of "unfinished" since our living room and breakfast room have drapes.  So, I finally decided to add roman shades to the kitchen windows and chose a fabric from Calico Corners that should arrive soon.  

I'm going to sew them myself, but make them fixed, so hopefully, they turn out.  I think the shades will soften the windows and add a bit of color to the room- I chose a blue and white Ikat.  I considered adding wooden shades, but after bringing some home to see in the space, decided against it.  I think the fabric will look better.  

And, inspired by Emily A. Clark, over the weekend I painted the inside of our open kitchen cabinets dark gray.  It looks so much better, I can't believe I didn't paint them sooner.  The shelves still need to be styled and I'll be adding white ceramic pitchers, like the one below.  I found a couple at Homegoods for just $10, but I need a few more.  

Doesn't the pitcher look pretty holding the hydrangeas?  I often forget that flowers don't have to go in traditional vases- pitchers, mason jars, and cups make beautiful vessels for flowers.  Here, I had to use floral wire to hold the stems together more tightly so they stayed bunched up.  

I'll be sharing the roman shades and kitchen cabinets with you soon.

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Also, I'm super excited to be taking James to hang out with my girl Cassie (Hi Sugarplum) and her kids in Galveston this week.  Cassie has become a wonderfully close friend and I really appreciate her so much.  She is the real deal.  Her kids are just awesome and they got along great with my son- don't you just love when that happens?!  Her daughter is seriously adorable and kept picking up James and holding him like a baby doll- (he didn't mind, in fact, he enjoyed it:)  Can you believe her son is almost as tall as me??!! He's only 11! And when they left our house he said, "Thanks for having us over!" So sweet . . .

I chimed in on Cassie's fun Marry, Make Out, and Muzzle series where I shared my fantasy men with y'all- so fun.  Go visit HERE. 

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and . . . 

Have a great day!

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Trending is dangerous

Niall Ferguson is horrified at the prospect that total Chinese GDP will catch the US in 2017.  Let us leave aside for a second the fact that if China's total GDP matches the US', its people will still be less than 1/4 as affluent, or the fact that maybe it would be a good thing if the most populace country in the world had living standards comparable to ours.  So far as I can tell, his 2017 projection comes from assuming growth in China will continue over the next several years at the same pace it has experienced since 1989.  Such projections are always problematic.

Let me give one example.  From 1890 until 1920, Los Angeles population grew by about 11 fold, from  50 thousand to 576 thousand.  If one assumed that this would continue, Los Angeles' population 90 years later, in 2010, would have been 576,000*11^3, or about 766 million, which is a shade under the population of the entire Western Hemisphere.  Its actual population is around 4 million.

Is this absurd?  Of course.  But I have been seeing similar forecasts based on similar foundations since I was in college (when a very well-known professor projected that the USSR would have a larger economy than the US by the year 2000).    This kind of "analysis" has been driving me crazy for years.

For this first time ever, I have put a blog post on my syllabus

It is Yves Smith's review of The Big Short.  That I have just done this now probably shows how behind the times I am.

Faith

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