Footstools{re-do}

I found this in a thrift store for a buck seventy-five...yeppers, one dollar and seventy-five cents. The top was very grungy and the hearts are a thing of the past, so, so seventy-ish but the thing that grabbed my heart was the hand-grab on the top...just melted me. And it was wooden...that's a given for me.

I love me a footstool! They're cute and can be used as more than a place to rest your feet on. I've seen them on kitchen counters, different sizes stacked on top of  each other or just 'settin' around lookin' purty.' I tried one on my kitchen counter but that didn't quite fit the look.

I keep them (yes, them because I just found another cute one) nearby in the kitchen to reach the high places my short five foot-two inch height can't reach. There's two more in my storage/laundry/turned into a teen-tiny paint room (more on that later) that need to be refurbished.

Coming back to the cute footstools...

She was very grungy.

But she looks like this now...

With her sidekick...

who also got a make-over.

Did I say she melts me? Except for the hearts.

I know, I know...it's just a footstool.

But a cute one!

Do you notice the floor? It's called 'planking' and I love, love that, too! I'll talk about flooring in another post.

Stay toasty, people...it's cold, baby...COLD!

~ Esther

Wood Headboard {discarded}

I found this wood headboard on a free pile a week after the local fire company auction several years ago. I knew what I wanted to do with it 'sometime', because I saw some nifty trash-to-treasure changed headboards. When I knew I was moving, I painted it but didn't know what I wanted the finish to look like so it hung at Apartment 12 unadorned.

Several weeks ago I found a print in my files that was printed off The Fairy Graphics, an amazing blog to get any kind of free copies for whatever one imagines to transform. I love most anything French and chose this to finish the headboard. And no, I don't know what the words mean - perhaps an address to a Chateau.

It was the usual seventies brown stained/varnished finish. The first thing I did was cut the legs off, then sanded, primed and painted it once because I wanted to give it a very shabby look. Then sanded it again.

It hung like this since I moved in September where I hang my purse and jacket when it's not being posed for the public.

After centering it, I taped the pattern over a sheet of carbon paper and traced it very firmly with a pencil.

Traced over that with a fine-tipped Sharpie.

And gave it a light sanding with very fine sandpaper.

Doesn't this look summer-y? Keep the faith, people...it will come!

But the grand finale is my new over-the-shoulder personalized Thirty-One bag that carries a TON of stuff if you're traveling and is hands-free with the second strap as a cross-over. And no, I am not paid to advertise for Thirty-One; however, daughter J is a consultant.

This was one of many projects I kept for the winter months. For the first time since July there wasn't one.single.thing that needed to be done this week or an appointment I had to go to. Having said that, I felt very unmotivated and this is the extent of my many-projects-for-the-winter. Maybe it was the COLD week. Perhaps next week I can start sewing new chair covers or painting the dinning room legs.

~ Esther

Christmas 2013

We have our family Christmas the week end after the New Year so this past weekend we were together here at Apartment 12. We had seven inches of snow with winds (we live in a wind tunnel area) two days before and it looked very Christmas-y.

A few changes were made for this first Christmas without my honey. I got the grandchildren an assortment of gift cards, hung them on this delightful four-foot tinsel Christmas tree. Their names were pulled from a container and they could choose a card. Christmas shopping was very simple and easy!

Here we are! The dinning/kitchen area is long enough to spread out this way - bigger grands at folding tables, the rest around our stretched out table.

What is Christmas without candy canes and wrapped mints? Put together in a wire basket in wide-mouth quart jars and wrapped with burlap strands saved from another project. The numbers came from a church register find at a yard sale.

Gift exchange time with excited children! This time the guys and gals exchanged with guys and gals...so much fun and so much easier!

This year I decided to fancy my gift to give. The flower is cut free-handed in different sizes and rolled around a pencil to curl it. Do as many 'petals' as you want, glue them together and use a center of choice...ta-da! a lovely, simple and cheap gift flower!

I found this wrapping paper at T-J-Max and love it!

Cousins playing 'barn.' Notice the hat and purse on the chair? Even the boys enjoy dress-up stuff that's back in Grandma's dressing room. And speaking of the dressing room...

...yep.

This is exactly what it looks like!

She was to be taking a nap in Grandma's bed.

The cupcakes were hid in the dressing room from premature snacking.

Daddy did a check on her.

Too late...

...and too cute!

Even though there was snow laying and c-o-l-d!, there was a father/son football game going the rest of the afternoon. The rest of us read, rested and chatted - it was very restful before the clan came in to pizza and finger-food for supper.

I like to think my honey was watching us and approved of the changes that were put in place. And another first is behind us.

~ Esther

As We Were...

December 31, 2013

I was on the road early this morning when 'our song' came on the radio. How well I remember hearing it for the first time in the wee hours of the morning back in April of this year, then how God re-affirmed the song several hours later VIA Face Book...no coincidence at all. So when I heard the opening words of Robin Mark's words of 'All is Well,' I knew what was coming. It stirred up a huge well of emotion and memory.

The above incident happened

***********************

I wrote this yesterday, thinking it was a good way to end my last post for 2013. It didn't happen. In fact, I have a hard time remembering what we did last year for Christmas and New Year. I do remember two years ago that Mr. D had shaved his beard just before Christmas and I didn't notice it for two days. We had a good laugh over that! I also remember thinking he seemed to be so well I could almost pretend nothing was wrong. But all the while the cancer was growing. Hated, despicable disease! I know...sounds morbid, but there it is.

*************************

January 2014...

Truth be told, I'm not sure what to do with this new year. I can't see much beyond the next several months.

I am defining 2014 in one word - 'WAIT.' Waiting has always been difficult for me; I want things to move, preferably forward or to be done NOW. I have also moved too fast with not so good consequences. So to wait will be good and I know in the waiting God will hold me close.

***********************

The lyrics of Robin Mark.

All is Well

He lowers us so we can sing HIS praises

Whatever is HIS way - all is well

He makes us rich and poor that we might trust HIM more

What ever is HIS way - all is well

He clothes us now then strips us

Yet with His word equips us

Whatever is HIS way - all is well

And though our seasons change, we still exalt HIS name

Whatever is HIS way - all is well.

Then there is the chorus - the chorus that so comforted both of us!

All my changes come from Him, He who NEVER changes.

I'm held firm in the grasp of the Rock of all the ages...

All is well with my soul - HE is God in control

I know not His plans but I know I'm in HIS hands!

(emphasis mine)

I want to do 2014 well. Not perfect...but WELL! To do the 'hard but necessary stuff of life.' Though 'As We Were' will never be again, the promise of our future never changed! At the end of the day, I still hear those words from my honey ringing in my ears, 'You'll be okay!'

~ Esther

A Work In Progress

Switching from Blogger to Word Press has been a major learning curve for me; never mind that I got a new laptop that is Windows 8, at the same time. I'm grateful for the people who have helped me through this transition and am learning to navigate my way around the maze. I'm still working on making this site more user-friendly for my readers.

I switched to Word Press Chateau Theme, giving this blog a softer look. I even learned how to put my own picture in the header, an accomplishment for me! I expect this to change from time to time or at least until I come up with a signature header similar to my what my Fleur Cottage page was. Or not.

Another BIG accomplishment was making and linking to an Apartment 12 face book 'like' page for this blog. I will be posting on Apartment 12 page instead of the Fleur Cottage page in the near future. One of my goals is to copy and paste in a post our cancer journey together the past several years that was posted on the Fleur Cottage page. It's going to be a fairly big and time-consuming project but it's something I've been wanting to do for my own sake. Fleur Cottage page will not be deleted, just not used as much, if at all.

Something strange has been happening with the posted pictures not showing up and my brilliant tech friend says it may have something to do with the band width and I, of course, have NO idea what she's talking about! But we or rather she, will be correcting that (we or rather I, hope!). Oh yes, blogging is a lot of fun! Seriously, I love to journal this way and it's good for this brain of mine to be stretched.

We (the Petersheim's and myself) have several exciting dreams planned for ourselves. This place was built last winter and moved into March of 2013 and as new places go, it all takes time (and finances) to make it a reality. One of those dreams is to make the entrance into Apartment 12 user-friendly for my guests. But the dream I'm REALLY excited about is the paint room I'm getting! It will be where I repair, recycle and build (EEK!) my 'one-of-a-kind-finds.' I'll keep you all informed on that one - it's three-quarters built and looks even better than I imagined!

~ Esther

Horton's of Tipton

Horton's of Tipton, Indiana is a small hardware store in small town America with grand ideas to utilize its unique potential. Horton's show us how one doesn't need another building to fulfill dreams and to use what one already has. The family pitches in to make shopping in this small building (and it's very small!) tempting, interesting and FUN! The proprietors are patient, very friendly and answer questions with patience in the middle of chaos. Just simply fun, fun!  This post is picture (with permission) heavy and really doesn't do justice to the ambiance of the place.

Cute handmade angel wings for sale.

Handmade burlap flowers.

Embellished NEST spelled out with letters from basic stencils - I like this idea!

French room packed with Parisian items, many hand-made.

This room was walled in with burlap and kitchen-y things on display.

More handmade goodies.

An old piece of moulding+rusty doorknob face+old rusty screw=a rustic place to hang a knickknacks.

This fudge is made in the store and passed around while one shops...creamy, smooth and delicious!

The place was teeming with females of all ages with a few men tagging along; of course, the hardware store was there for them to stroll. Very few customers left empty-handed, including me and even managed to bring the delicates home with me on the train. There was an area for clothes and jewelry and a room for ephemera (pronounced e-fem-ra...yep, I asked!) packed with 'stuff.' Even the bathroom was decked out with a theme and old peeling paint shutters and burlap on the walls before entering the room. 'Course, living with peeling paint shutters in a house in real life is NOT sensible AT ALL but they sure added a lot of ambiance to the theme!

Sad to say, I don't have a picture of the outside of the store or the beautiful old courthouse across the street that looks like a church building (Indiana towns have gorgeous courthouses!). I blame the frigid cold and the excitement of the day for that! There was a Peddlar's Market a block from there that we strolled through and L and I did several thrift stores and a Hobby Lobby on the way home. Such a fun day!

Because of L's health, we lounged around home in the afternoons, sitting beside each other on the couch playing WWF's on face book between chats. We ate lunch out Thursday but shared a sandwich so we could indulge in Carvel's ice cream for dessert. I was VERY tired by the time we came home and took a three-hour nap. Friday we thrifted, went to Green Oaks, another ah-mazing! place where beautiful furniture is made out of recycled architecture pieces; sadly, I forgot my camera. We again shared a Mexican meal so we could indulge on the fresh salsa and chips. Saturday on our way home we stopped at Golden Corral, our only indulgence...their home-made chips were so yummy! But the best meal was the chicken recardo served over rice and beans, a Belizean specialty L made on Thursday evening...so yummy!

I'm already making plans to go to The French Market in July 2014...want to join me?

~ Esther

Apartment 12: A New Blog In A New Place

A bend in the road...

One of the constants of life is change.  Some changes are easy; some changes are very hard. Many times, change comes like a thief in the night, stealing the comfortable life we lived and force us into another direction. And life begins on a new page and in a different place.

In actuality, my 'bend in the road' is more than that...it's a total transformation of life as I knew it. I am a widow since mid-summer. Our home is dismantled and I live in a different place. A collection of old and chipped but pretty dishes, my fetish for mirrors of all kinds and sizes, the little trinkets that were so fun to collect over the years are sold. But the things that really count are still mine. No person, place or thing can ever take my memories or who I am away!

Apartment 12 blog is birthed out of a desire to share my life in my new home. Several years ago our youngest daughter and family planned to build a new house. In their plans they designed the basement as an in-law quarters 'when it was needed.' This need came much sooner then we expected after my honey was diagnosed with colon cancer the second time. I quickly named my new home Apartment 12 - apartment sounds much homier than basement and 12 is the house number. Sounds simple and sensible to me!

Apartment 12 is roomy and perfect for one person. It's in the boonies, a.k.a. - 'a backwoods area' Webster says. It's quiet all the time except when the dog barks, or the chickens cackle, or the goats m-a--a--a. I can see LOTS of stars at night and the moon? Beyond glorious! Do I miss Fleur Cottage, the 'dawdy haus' (grandparent home) where my Honey and I lived for nine short years? Fleur Cottage will ALWAYS be special in my heart but life has changed and now I'm here at this place for this time. It's easy to stay stuck in the past or yearn for the 'old life' so much so we become useless for the present and that is not a place I want to be.

I've lived here now for a little over two months and as all adjustments go, there are pros and cons.  I am surrounded by Amish farms instead of traffic and shops. It takes anywhere from seven to thirty minutes or more to go anywhere instead of three to twenty minutes. At Fleur Cottage, there was little privacy stepping outside the front door; at Apartment 12, one can do most anything with all the privacy one desires. Life is a bit slower here for me, something I needed after our journey of the past several years. I miss my family that is thirty minutes away but my time is my own and I can easily hop into my car to see them. I've learned that one can adjust to most anything and I want to accept the 'bends in the road' with grace.

~Esther