What I love about being a music teacher

1) Summer break

2) Thanksgiving break

3) Christmas break

4) Spring break

5) Easter break

6) of COURSE I love the music & kiddos ;)

...and last but definitely not least...

Yes folks, today is a snow day, WOO!!! 

There's something especially magical and exciting about the first snow day of the year, wouldn't you agree?  

No matter student or teacher, seeing the name of your school district flash across the bottom of the news screen in the morning sends little tingles of joy from your head to toes!

Okay, okay... I realize that maybe as a parent with a normal, non-teaching job, snow days may present a bit of a stressor... 

...but I'm a teacher and I LOVE THEM!  =D

So what does this snow day mean for me?

An entire day of quiet house 
(the regular 9 to 5ers still had to go to work, tee hee!) 
and I have all day to...

Play in blog world

Catch up on laundry/house cleaning/organizing (YES!!!)

Work ahead on lesson plans

Bathe & trim Sir Skylar

Do a bit of baking & cooking

Start my GAL T-shirt quilt

Possibly write a "101 in 1001" list, inspired by my friend Jenny

Yes folks, it's going to be a lovely day!

Visions of Laundry Rooms Dance in My Head...

Lately I've been dreaming about a beautiful laundry room.  One that makes me feel wistfully peaceful as I treat stains and sort socks.

Today, I found a picture of the nearly exact embodiment of my dream laundry room...

Ballard Designs

Yes indeed, it is lovely, is it not?

I'll tell you my three favorite things pictured here:

1) In Love with this beautiful Beadboard Drying Rack

2) Adorable "Laundry" letters

3) A finished laundry room

*sigh*

One project I would love to tackle in the very near future is to finish our laundry room.  It currently stands as the only one tiny little room in our entire home that is still adorned with concrete floors/walls and drywall lacking studs.

I often find myself dreaming of beautifully tiled floors and finished walls with lovely collapsible beadboard drying racks and a neat little place to keep every soap bottle and other such laundry supplies...

Thrifty Hand-Me-Down's

Hola Readers!

So first of all, thanks so much for your comments on my last post!  I really appreciate it and it's nice to know there are some lovelies out there interested in what I'm writing!  =)

So, yesterday I thought I would "capture" and share some of the lovely little ditties that Mark and I inherited while we were in Texas.

All of the items in this post are from Ms. K, our downstairs neighbor who passed away just a few weeks before I moved back to KC.  

Well to start with, these cute little baskets got a fresh paint job yesterday afternoon...

Not sure what I'll use them for yet, but this seemed like a fun little time filler to help me avoid the boxes for a while... plus the spray paint was left over from previous projects.  =)

But those are just silly little teasers... 

This item here is the main reason I wanted to make this post...

An antique hat rack / umbrella stand that Ms. K's son so generously gave to us in the midst of packing up her apartment.  It was so sweet of him.

The brass is in serious need of polishing, but I love the gorgeous cherry wood and adorable little details like the marble shelf and crystal drawer knob.

This pane of glass is what slides in that opening at the very top... It is extremely yellowed and stained as you can see from the picture, but that should all clean up rather easily {when I finally get around to it}.

I still can't believe he so graciously passed this beautiful piece of furniture on to us.

 

Now for a bit of a debate:

I'm not a big brass fan.  Rephrase: I won't say "hate," but I really, really dislike brass.  I am more in favor of painting it a flat black to make it look like wrought iron or something but the hubs loves the brass and really wants to polish it instead of paint it.  I've told him that we can give polishing a try first, but if it won't shine up well, painting it is.

Though we've already compromised on a temporary verdict I'm curious, what do you think we should do with the brass hat hangers?  

Would you Polish or Paint?

Porjects, Projects, Everywhere!

Well after a much needed {perhaps desired is a more appropriate term} trip to the thrift store, I finally gave a few of my ocean rocks a home yesterday.  You can check out that fun little ditty here.  

Today I'm going to begin spray painting the plethora of $.50 frames I scored on the same thrifting trip.  I and my clumsy self managed to break 4 out of 7 of the glass panes as I dismantled the frames, but I'm sure I can come up with an alternate solution for that.  Any suggestions?  Anyway, something close to this, this or this is my end goal.

Today I am also ordering this set of apron patterns.  I am so excited!  I doubt they'll get here in time for me to work on them this week {while I'm still off work} but at least I'll have them to work on as I please.

Finally, today I am also requesting the pattern my beautiful cousin used for the cutest baby shoes.  Check check hers out here, aren't they adorable?!

Oh, and somewhere in between there I need to clean house... maybe I should do that first.  Aren't you supposed to get the least favorite things out of the way first?  But then, I can hardly say that cleaning is my least favorite thing... There just aren't many things in life better than crankin' up the music, throwing the windows open and gettin' jiggy with cleaning supplies in tow!