dining room table

I'm linking this post to Rhoda at Southern Hospitality's Thrifty Treasures. It's a thrifty treasure I'd *like* to find!

I saw this at Canton (a huge flea market near here) and thought it would be neat for a dining room table. How fun would it be to store cloth napkins and silverware in those drawers? I didn't like the chairs and it wasn't in all that great a condition and the price wasn't quite right, but wouldn't something like this be great for a table?

What is your "dream dining room table"? Have you found a great dining room table secondhand or turned something you've found "junking" into a dining table?

Kelly

kitchen flowers

my friend Betty's orange kitchen and the beautiful flowers gracing her table in her grandma's antique blue glass ball jar - kitchen paint and flower arrangement inspired by our wedding

what a compliment!

Kelly

slithering

The other day I mentioned a wonderful afternoon and evening cooking and eating with friends.

I wanted to share a little more about it.

We have a Bible study on Tuesday nights and having the summers off as a teacher and school librarian, Brenda and I took the opportunity to get together and fix dinner and invite everyone over before the study so we could hang out and talk more.

This week we decided to have salad, English muffin pizzas and a flourless chocolate cake.

We found the recipe here.

It was fun to make and yummy to eat.

One funny and delightful thing about it to me was that it used the word "slithering".

In the recipe.

That was a new one for me.

See?

There it is.

And isn't that a great description of how it works when you separate egg whites and yolks?

All ready to begin.

Brenda melting the chocolate.

And let the slithering begin . . .

Things were going along quite nicely and then we started to whip the egg whites.

um . . .

everywhere

EVERYWHERE! :)

But, my blogging friend Jen has a blog called Balancing Beauty and Bedlam and I was able to recognize the beauty that followed our bedlam. :)

a pretty table

friends starting to come

making pizzas together from a table full of toppings

a yummy, healthy salad

and of course that great dessert which we unfortunately forgot to take a picture of! oh! And, even when I intend to take group photos when people come over I more often that not forget! I get caught up in everyone being over and hanging out and it escapes my mind. Do you take photos with friends over? How do you remember to do it? Put your camera in the middle of the dinner table? :)

Have a great one! Kelly

come on with your comments :)

Seriously?

Only one person's thankful for something?

:)

I know you've got *something*.

Let us have it.

Kelly

truly thankful

Am I the only one who sometimes takes thing for granted and forgets to be thankful for everything God has so richly blessed me with in my life?

I just had one of those moments of remembering, of pausing to be truly thankful for something that may seem silly to put on a blog, but I am truly thankful to own a dishwasher.

I am on my second load of the day.

Don't you agree that a big mess of dishes pretty much always represents good times??

I know it does in this case. A wonderful afternoon and evening yesterday of time spent with GOOD friends, laughter, sharing, encouragement, spiritual lessons and fun!

Thank You, God for blessing me RICHLY. Thank you for the convenience of having a dishwasher, thank You for showing me Yourself through my relationships with these wonderful women, thank You for blessing us with a church where we can have friends, mentors, spiritual growth and encouragement and thank You for giving us more than enough to eat and enjoy. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

What are you thankful for today? I would love to hear. Kelly

p.s. if you're local and you're reading this and you'd like to be part of our Tuesday night Bible study, PLEASE don't feel like it's an exclusive club! It's not at all, let me know if you'd like more info. Kelly

scrabble

Have you ever played speed scrabble?

We have been playing it like crazy around here! We learned it from our friends Jenny & Scott and we've played with my mom, each other and our friends Renae & Steve.

Kelly

swashbuckler

Is this the cutest little swashbuckler you've ever seen or what? If I do say so myself, my nephew is a cutie. Kelly

thrifty finds

I have been taking advantage of my time off this summer to shop at garage sales, thrift stores and estate sales. It has been a lot of fun to "treasure hunt".

Some of my finds are the box of Pottery Barn "faux snow" which I will use in Christmas decorating and displays and the heirloom white spray paint that I read about DIY-ers using all over blogland. I have already used some to paint a picture frame bought at another estate sale.

I am also excited about these dominos that I was able to pick up at a yard sale.

I am linking up to Rhoda at Southern Hospitality and her Thrifty Treasures party.

It's fun to see what bargains others have found.

Kelly

Happy Saturday!

may you experience beauty in your day today!

kelly

pink ribbon

Ribbon is a happy thing to me.

I've just been crafting this week and thrifting and hanging out with my hubby.

It's been a good week. A good summer week.

If you have a minute, check out this post by emily. She is SUCH a gifted writer and I love reading what she has to say. This post really says a lot to me right now. Have a lovely weekend. Kelly

the missing piece

I had a lot of fun creating last night.

This morning I am taking advantage of less than 1oo degrees outside yet to get some painting done. (sidenote: what makes spray paint bubble up sometimes and how do you keep that from happening and if it's already happened is there anything do be done about it? Thanks!)

I picked up this piece to paint.

As I was cleaning it I saw a square mark on the bottom where it wasn't stained. Something had attached to it before.

hmmm . . .

Remember my little stand from yesterday?

I had decided to find a little Christmas tree, paint it and make it a stand for the tree.

Turns out . . .

It's part of the same piece!

So, anybody recognize this thing?

What was it's original use do you think?

I think I am still going to use them separately.

More painting, a trip to Dillards and possibly sushi tonight (for Adrian, I'll order something cooked!) are on the menu for me today. What about you? Have a good one! Kelly

p.s. If you will, please say a prayer for traveling mercies for some of my family today who are driving a moving truck cross country! Thanks! I appreciate it. Kelly

beautiful encouragement

Check out this post. Beautifully written! Kelly

today

so far I've made a return, a Wal-mart run, gone on a treasure hunt at Goodwill and had a fun lunch out with my husband. It was a *little* cooler this morning but I'm glad to be in the ac now. Your ideas for keeping cool are good, keep 'em coming. :)

So at Goodwill I got several treasures including the ones in the photos above and below. I am planning to frame the fork a la Nester. My mind is percolating with ideas for the top items. What would YOU do with them?

p.s. the finial the fork is leaning on is from my Pittsburgh shopping trip. :)

Kelly

almost . . .

I *almost* wish it looked like this outside right now. It's *soooooo* hot!

What are you doing to stay cool? I need some ideas besides just holing up inside with the air conditioning. :) Kelly

now do you know?

where the last stop of our mammoth road trip was and where I spent my birthday?

this cutie was in on all the action

sweet sisters sharing dunkin' donuts and iced coffees

(um, note this was our mid-morning snack AFTER my sweet brother made breakfast for us all including toast smothered in the huckleberry jam they brought back from their trip to Montana)

we all garage sale shopped together

Caleb got a pirate hat

and I don't have a picture of it, but a sweet 90 year old lady named Bernice prayed over me while we were shopping at her garage sale! She didn't even know it was my birthday. It was amazing and precious and a treasured experience.

We got ice cream at Maggie Moos! Chocolate cake batter is my favorite!

AND there was this gorgeous double rainbow

So where do you think we were?

Kelly

after the heat of the day . . .

driving for hours

raindrops on the windshield and cloud cover were very welcomed.

We enjoyed seeing lots of trains on our trip.

On we drove . . .

The rain was nice.

The wind was WILD!!! Unlike anything I ever remember experiencing while driving along.

It almost seemed like a movie, things just blowing across the road in front of us. :)

Wanna guess where we were going now?

We're almost to the end (and in real life we're back home).

Today my mom is here and we are about to go out. I'll have to post about it if we have any more antics. :)

edited to add: it's not oklahoma, any other guesses?