Pillows for a Punch

Thank you for the sweet comments on my last post.  Overwhelmingly, no one chastised me on my big old mess... most inquired of my paint color.  I love, love, love it!  Sherwin Williams "Quietude" (6212). We painted almost three years ago, and I do know that these companies tend to change names, but they CAN find it!  Anyway, it is divine and certainly lives up to its name.  Thank you for asking!

I must be in a house mode as today, I am celebrating my new throw pillows in our Great Room.  Mike was tired of the sofa and thought that getting slipcovers made would be a nice change.  Silly man, don't you know that custom slipcovers cost a must as getting something recovered?  And with these two testosteron-y boys, that just isn't happening!  So we I opted for new pillows.  Our old ones were very dirty and dated, when palmetto and palm trees were all the rage down here.  Pretty, but I needed a "punch".

Here are the new ones... I don't like the picture, 

but I promise it looks fabulous!

Here they are up close.  They are kind of "tweedy" and I love the cording...I chose cording because fringe and loops are just too tempting for even the most disciplined boys! 

How would you like to add a "punch" to your room?

Tuesday's Kitchen Inspirations

I have this little easel by my coffee pot.  It is Proverbs 24:3-4.  Glancing at it each day reminds me that as my husband and I continue to build our home for our family, we must continue to grow in Wisdom.  Not the wisdom we all have to know what foods are healthy for our children to eat.  Not the wisdom to keep our cars and sprinkler systems maintained.  Not the wisdom to help our children with their homework.  We must grow in the Wisdom that is of God.  This Knowledge (Wisdom) sustains my family... and our home.  And everyday, I see its rooms filled with the rare and beautiful treasures.

They Know How We Really Live

I live for every other Wednesday.  I'm not kidding.  I A-B-S-O-L-U-T-E-L-Y live for today.  For today is the day I come home from school with the boys to a house that smells of Pine Sol and clean Pine Cone Hill hem-stitched sheets.  The hardwood floors are shiny.  The silver picture frames are dusted.  Any Wedgewood plates I had stacked in the sink from breakfast are clean and put away.  My cute Lilly coffee thermal mug is washed and considerately placed beside the coffee maker.  The bathrooms are so clean you'd never know two testoterone-y boys inhabit the abode.  It's like a little cleaning fairy has waved her magic wand...

But I gratefully know better.  I have three fairies who whoosh into my house and get to work on this place we call home.  Where as you, dear blends, see only pictures of a clean and gracious home, Kathy and her girls see the good, the bad, and the ugly.

On those Wednesday mornings, I frantically try to get the house in some sort of order so that it can be cleaned.  I throw random items in drawers.  My sons whine the exact same whine I did as a child:  "Why do I have to straighten my room before the maids get here?  I thought they came here to clean."  And I go through the same schpeel my mom went with me.  (You know what I'm talking about!)

Today I came home to my lovely, clean home.  BUT I noticed something awry.  My basket of fruit was a bit smaller.  It was missing a few pieces.  Where were my bananas and oranges that were near the bottom?   It hadn't been that long since I had put them there (or had it?).  They were getting a little ripe, and I was planning on making some fruit salad for the family. Then I noticed a little note:

Mrs. W.,

We hope you don't mind, but we threw out 

the rotten fruit that was in the basket.  

It was getting moldy.

Kathy 

So much for appearances... they know how we really live.

 PS  Don't forget about my 
PINK & GREEN Snuggie Giveway!
             Last day is this Friday!