Trash to Treasure!!! She's Done!

Something came over me....

...something crafty.

Like the spirit of Martha Stewart possessed me.

I found this on Craig's List....

And I thought, "what if?"

What if I can take this trash and turn it into a treasure?

[okay, maybe it's not "trash" but I did find that it had been allocated to a large dog to lounge on. Luckily, said dog had a blanket and my soon-to-be treasure wasn't all doggy smelling.]

So I got to work...this first part was hard! And after a while...it became this... I found a really fun fabric for a great price and got to work figuring things out. Thank goodness, Grandma Joyce got me on the right track. She is a retired professional in this line of work. So before I knew it I had accomplished this....Yada Yada Yada...and then finally....

[Drum Roll.....]

Ta Da! I think she's purdy!

Not too shabby, eh? And I had fun. And I learned how to do something totally new. It's WIN-WIN-WIN.! And it will be really nice when I turn this baby back around and sell it on Craig's.

Should I send these pics to the poor schmoe's who let this little treasure go for a mere $25?

Wow! It has been quite a while since we had a new blog post! Why? I'm not sure. I guess it's because life just started feeling a lot more normal. Which is good. I was ready for some not-so-blog-worthy days, you know!

But, for anyone who wants to know...November was a good month for the Poe Family. The weather around here was pretty much perfect all month long, which I LOVED because I HATE cold weather. We've had a little snow in the last week, but it's okay because it was the pretty/fun kind and not the yucky-afraid-to-drive-to-the-grocery-store kind.

So what were we up to?

Most of November was pretty ho-hum. I dove into a new hobby...reupholstering. I happen to have a bonafide professional in my corner here. Nannie Joyce had her own very successful upholstery business back in the day. So she's been showing me the ropes. I may have picked a pretty (and by pretty I don't mean beautiful) challenging first project...a love seat that I found on Craig's for $25.00. I'll show you the before....

Here's a sneak peak of the finished product....

The "after" is soon to come because I'm almost done! I've got some ideas in the wings about future projects that will seem like a breeze compared to this! My plan? Not to fill my house with my "trash-to-treasures" but to turn back around and sell them on Craig's.

We had a great Thanksgiving too. I had started training about 3 weeks early to run a local 4.5 race called the Drumstick Dash which benefits Wheeler Mission. I was so excited, until the forecast said that there was basically 100% chance of rain on Thanksgiving! So bummed. I woke up that morning and realized that while it was raining, it was also unseasonable warm. So I decided to go for it and ended up running the race in a drizzle of rain. I was SO glad that I did it! It felt really good to set a goal, train for it, and accomplish it! And for a nice bonus...I felt totally justified in pigging out for the rest of the day!

Desi loved her first family holiday! (I don't really consider Halloween a holiday even though we do celebrate with the costumes and the candy...) She ate like a champ and we had a great afternoon with the family! I love Thanksgiving! It may be my favorite holiday.

I spent the next couple of days Decking-The-Halls, and most every other surface in our house. I love to decorate for Christmas!!! I find it hard to stop!

This past weekend we had our baby/child dedication service at Trinity. We dedicated our sweet Des to Jesus. The whole family attended the sweet little ceremony and then we partied hard at MCL afterwards! Thanks to Sonny and Joyce to treating us to a nice lunch and to Jenni for making an adorable and DELICIOUS cake to mark the occasion!

Jake happened to be the reader of the Advent prayer that morning at the worship gathering too. He did such a great job! Everyone was telling him he did great! I was proud!

We had our first real snow of the season. The kids were chomping at the bit to get out in it and play! We got them bundled up and were excited to see Desi's reaction....one word...anticlimactic. I think we were hoping for something in the "giddy/wonder" category. She was like, "why did you bring me out here?" After standing like a statue with a dead pan look on her face we just brought her in. Oh well.

Now we are looking forward to Christmas! I actually have presents under my tree, which is so crazy because I am a procrastinator! The kids are excited! This year we are observing Advent in our home. So each Sunday night we light a new candle and teach the kids about what it means and then the rest of the week at dinner we relight the candles and talk more. It's never to early to talk about what Christmas is really all about!

So that's pretty much it! You are officially caught up on the Poe's! We hope you have a wonderful December and a Merry Christmas! We'll button up 2010 with a much-anticipated-by-me trip home to Missouri and celebrating Desi's birthday on the 31st! I'm sure there will be lots to blog about in January!

Love,

Shannon and the gang!