Design to Shine: Lemonade anyone?

Ya know the saying right? When life hands you lemons, make lemonade! This past week has been a bushel FULL of lemons. Thank you very much! I know there is a lesson in there somewhere. No I didn't really make lemonade...but I DID make something ...read on.

Thursday, January 29th was my first born's 22nd birthday and the fir

st time I didn't see him ON his birthday. He is grown, working tons (a police officer) and us getting together wasn't in the cards. I am so very proud of the young man he has become. Responsible and giving of himself to serve others. Yes, I 'worry' often. I know he is doing what he loves and I have to trust in his fellow officers and the training he has had for his job. I notice that I rarely watch the news anymore. I catch my weather during Good Morning America.

This day of my son's birth, resulted in the IT guy working on my computer for 6 out of my 8 hours at the office. After all that time, he finally figured out that two different anti-viruses were 'battling' each other and making my programs open at a snails pace.

Thursday was also another car 'incident' on the home front. My darling daughter asked to borrow my car to go to town to meet friends. She drives her brothers old hand-me-down S-10 (we lovingly call the POS-10) to school. She called me in tears not 15 minutes after leaving. First thought, wreck. Nope she had blown BOTH tires on the passenger side. Obviously she ran off the road or hit something; but has no recollection of it. Uh huh! So I jumped into a pair of jeans and drove the POS-10 to her; spent 2 hours at Walmart getting two NEW tires. The others were not repairable. FUN night right? Yeah, that's what I was saying too! Thankfully she was OK; my bank account, notsomuch. Add that to my 'why I didn't keep the blogging up' list too, would ya?

Friday was a HAPPY mail day when a blog 'prize' from Casii arrived. It was even wrapped oh so CUTE! Of course I just had to make a photo of it. THANKS again Casii! With the week from Hell-o ... this was a smiling moment.

Saturday had me dealing with some teenager struggles of knowing my 17 year old daughter is fast becoming her own young woman self; yet searching for the line of allowing that independence and still being the mom. Needless to say this resulted in conversations with my daughter, conversations with her father and just a whole lot of high emotions over the last two days. So what did I do? Tackled cleaning out the closet in my 'new' studio (my daughter's old room). Three bags of garbage, 6 bags of clothes to give or donate, 5 loads of laundry, a dozen purses discovered, one pair of roller blades, 2 belts tossed and one clean closet! Whew!

Today was declared MY 'fun' day. I was up early and headed off to Old Time Pottery hoping to find some large pillows for the now day bed in the studio. No such luck. But I did find a CUTE 'quilt' (cause it is thin and not like my granny made) to go on the bed in matching colors of the room. And for $15 on sale, I likee much better! Finally I found ONE matching pillow at Garden Ridge for $10. I have hung my bulletin boards today over my computer desk. Hung a shelf and an inventive ribbon holder that I will have to post photos of later. My room is now my 'escape'; happy place, sanctuary. Thank goodness, after a week like this!

I also got in a bit of 'craft' time and whipped out a few cards for the 2peas 'A Year in Cards' Class. It's FREE! With instructions, inspiration and a tutorial. So if you are interested check it out over at http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/ . My fave is the black and green one.