My England Trip- London

I am in England. It is my second day and this is really a dream come true for me. I am staying with my sister Julianna and her kind husband, who have a sweet little cottage style home in Reading. There are so many little nooks and Crannies! My daughter and I are sleeping in a little upstairs room that is so sweet it’s like being in a treehouse. I have an angled window right above my bed. Julianna also had some gifts for us when we arrived.

This is a one hundred year old copy of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, my favorite novel, that she gave me as a birthday present. Isn’t it beautiful!

Today we went out to London, But we started the day with Breakfast at a charming and very yummy restaurant in Reading called Bill’s.. My daughter was excited to see the tower of London, so that was our main destination.

London Bridge.

We also went out to see Big Ben. OK, OK, I’ll post this picture, even though I’m not too happy about what is going on with my hair by this point! Jordan looks fabulous as always!

My sister Julianna and I with the London Eye in the background.

As you can see I’m having a great time and feeling totally spoiled here in the UK. I wish I could write about everything. But right now I’m feeling about as tired as this little girl…..

More to come….

-Lynnae

Thrift Shop China

Over the past few years I’ve collected china teacups and saucers for my friends to use at my annual Jane Austen party. I’m getting a nice little collection.

For quite some time I’ve considered collecting more china pieces to use for little get-togethers. The big hold up was that I wanted pieces with red. Well, it seems that the only china to be found with red in the design is Christmas china. Either that or people love it so much they don’t give it to thrift stores.

I don’t have a new china set of my own, a situation I hope to remedy in the future, but in the meantime I finally decided to give up on china with red in it, and just collect a few larger plates to mix and match.

Now every time I go in the thrift store I look to see if there’s a plate or two that strikes my fancy.

I love mixing and matching and stacking the plates. The plates can look so different when paired with another style that you notice new things in the design with every stack.

-Lynnae

A Pink Fiesta

Look what I just found!

Fiesta ‘Flamingo’!

This will be a great addition to my lovely rainbow of Fiesta dinnerware. I’m so excited!

The color is still in preorder but I ordered a few to add to my collection. I’m so excited. They look so lovely!

In other news…. Our England trip is less than a month away. I’m freaking out a little bit right now. And I’m so very grateful I have a sister who lives there to not only invite me, but be familiar with the area a bit. It’s strange to travel without my husband.

Speaking of his deployment, he ate camel meat. Can you believe it?

And on the home front, today is the last day of school. My daughter went to the park with friends and I brought them a bag full of treats to celebrate. And in an unusual twist for Washington, it actually LOOKED like summer. Hoorah!

-Lynnae

Painting Play Date

Why do we wait so long to get out the paints when we love it so much?

That’s what I’ve been asking myself.

A friend and I have been planning to have a painting day for a long time, but so many things kept getting in the way. Finally we settled on last Thursday (we had to do it before school let out).

Our plan was for some plein air painting, but living near Seattle we had to have a back up- I ended up putting together a still life in my breakfast nook.

Even though I’ve painted with oils before I’ve never taken a class, so she had some tips and tricks to show me as far as setting up and maintaining my supplies.

The hours FLEW by. We had to stop for a yogurt break at some point, and then it seemed only minutes before the bus was dropping off kids and it was time to get back to the mommy world. But boy did we have fun.

And you know what? I’m thinking of clearing out the breakfast nook and just setting up an art room there for the summer.

-Lynnae

PS- Speaking of Art Room, I have a link on my sidebar to the 2012 Where Bloggers Create blog party. Join in! It’s so much fun!!!

Saturday Project- Box of Drawers

One day my husband brought home a little box of drawers someone was getting rid of. It’s about 6 inches tall and 2 feet long. He knows I like to paint and play around with things like this.

I was planning on painting it black and just needed the right embellishments. I bough some cute Tim Holtz idea-ology products- some number ‘plaquettes’, and these darling little metal legs called ‘foundations’ that I have been dying to use on something! I nailed on the legs. The numbers come with brads but since they were going onto wood I nailed them also.

 

 

 

 

Then I sanded the edges to give it a little wear. As I was pondering wear to put this I thought of a cute little iron ‘garden house’ that I bought a week ago. Thinking they would look great together I added a number to that and set it on top of the drawers.

Viola!

-Lynnae

One Week Down…….

My sweetie has been gone just over a week now. Over 9 months to go for his deployment. Just writing that sort of takes the wind out of my sails a little bit.

I know I’ve been a crummy blogger lately. Between getting up at 4:30 every morning for an early morning job (which tires me out), and preparing for my husband to be gone (which saddens my heart) I just haven’t had the mental energy to sit and blog and say everything except what I’m thinking about non-stop.

I have done a few little projects around the house this week. One that I’ve had a lot of fun with is fixing up my porch with more flowers and trying to make it more inviting.

Here’s the view from the front Yard….

-Lynnae

These Ladies Have Pizazz!

And I want to be just like them when I grow up.

-Lynnae