i want to begin blogging again. i miss sitting down with a laptop and typing out what is going on in my head, my house and family, my world. i miss reading comments and suggestions from all of you. so hopefully december will find me blogging more.

today is the beginning of the new year in the church calendar. advent: a slow-paced time of waiting. for the past few mornings, kenny and i have been sitting in our new living room, fire lit, books (or knitting for me) in hand. the skies have been dark outside, but the air inside cozy, as is the case as i write this. soon the boys will tumble (not literally, i hope!) down the stairs and climb up in our laps for a snuggle before breakfast and our fast paced life will be underfoot until bedtime tonight.

november was all about painting and staining and staying out of our house. we were very fortunate to have been able to stay at my parents' house across the street for five nights (rowan kept the sleep-over count for us saying one morning, "wow! five sleep-overs! we're so lucky!") while the stain dried and the finishing was applied.

we traveled to kenny's parents' house for thanksgiving, and finally moved into our home, new furniture (new to us, any way) and all. yesterday, we pulled out the advent wreath and hung some twinkle lights. we set up the nativity scene to await the arrival of the Christ child on christmas morning. and the kings on epiphany.

i like the church calendar. maybe because being raised orthodox presbyterian, there was no church calendar. i like the cyclical waiting for Christ's birth (and return), celebrating His arrival, suffering with Him in Lent, rejoicing at His resurrection at Easter, and living in "ordinary time" until we start again. i like liturgical church worship, and look forward to advent every year. this year is no different, except that i'm wondering for the first time if i'll be in a liturgical church for advent a year from now.

i know some of you are waiting for pictures of our newly finished rooms, and i can't wait to share them with you. the rooms are cozy and comfortable...perfect for feasts and gatherings. we hope to be doing much of that in the coming weeks. i will be baking up a storm for friends and family and plan to share the christmas baking recipes as part of my december blogging. i think recipe sharing is more beneficial to you than picture-sharing. (and we still have to install the quarter-round and thresholds on the floor...).

stay tuned, and blessed advent to you!

you know the times you go to the salon and you leave with a style or color that you weren't planning on, and it just doesn't feel right? and you tell yourself, "it's only hair...it'll grow back, and the color will fade...."  well that's the experience i had with our dining room this past weekend.

i've had a "muted mustard" color in my mind for a few weeks now (it's been red or orange in the past for the dining room, but i wanted something that wouldn't be too similar to the living room, even though these rooms aren't next to each other). the problem with yellow is that it's hard to translate to a wall. the little color swatches don't look at all the same once you put a few coats of it on a wall. and after the walls were painted and the trim was started on saturday, i just couldn't take it anymore.

"i HATE it!" i yelled. kenny shrugged his shoulders and said, "that's fine, we'll go back to lowes and get another shade. or even another color." i wish i had his personality. to me, i just just wasted two perfectly good cans of paint, and a whole day of painting was wasted as well. my life was all but ruined.

why am i so dramatic?

so we spent some time looking through our farmhouse/victorian/colonial style books, did some online research and i found another color series to go with in the dining room. half of it is currently on the walls (the rest will go up tonight) and then we can finally start the floor work.

here are some before and during pictures of the dining room. before:

i thought i'd give just a sneak peak of our living room work...to refresh your memory, here are our front living room windows before the project (but after i tore down two thick layers of drapes!):