HONK!

GUESS WHAT?! GUESS WHAT?!

I'm gonna be in a gaggle!!

I entered and won the "Come to the Cottage" Contest at Gina's place:

The Shabby Chic Cottage, near Nashville, TN!!

I was selected to join Gina and four other blogger/decorator/chicks:

Angie at The Country Chic Cottage

Lisa at The Pennington Point

Polly at Make Mine Beautiful

and ChaCha at Sit Relax and Read

to stay in her guest cottage, from July 20-24th, 

and makeover her 2 teen-aged daughters' (Hi, LaLa and Bre!) rooms!

You can read my entry post, I Dream of Gina, HERE.

Excited can't even begin to describe how I feel!

I have never met any of these ladies, in person, so I am sure there is going to be a lot of honking happening!

And eating, and laughing, and painting, and building, and eating, and laughing, and painting.

Thank you to those of you who left me a sweet comment or emailed me wishing me well!

You know I will be taking you along and taking lots of pictures.

Got any good traveling/packing/flying advice for me?

HONK!

(Just practicing!)

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I Dream of Gina

Ever since I heard about Gina's "Come to the Cottage" Invitation,
(where she is inviting a gaggle (her words) of blog readers to come to her home in July, 
stay in her guest cottage, and makeover her 2 teen-aged daughters' rooms in 3 days),
I haven't stopped having bizarre dreams about DIY stuff.


Here are a few scenes from last night's dream.


At the beginning of my dream, I awoke and went downstairs for my devotional time and breakfast.
My oatmeal was a bit irregular and seemed to be difficult to swallow.

My clothes were a bit more rough than usual as I started up a new load of laundry.

My jewelry choices had miraculously expanded. (I didn't complain.)

In the kitchen, I had some trouble making cupcakes.

While waiting for them to bake, I tried to get a drink of water.

In the end, my cupcakes didn't turn out as I had wanted,
so I made some cookies instead.

(Some jumbo ones for my hubby.)

At teatime, my Earl Grey tasted a bit funny, although the color was actually inspiring.

I didn't really feel like reading after that. There was still work to do.

So, I sat down at my sewing machine (her name is LaLa; after all, she is a Singer).

I began the work, but the slipcover that I had intended to sew didn't seem right.

A bit flat.

And small.

Maybe I can use it for something else?

I had one last thought before waking from my strange dream.

New projects were calling this morning, so I climbed out of bed and put on my slippers.

            

        

I was ready for the real day to begin.

       

Now if only my dream would come true, I'd get to DIY with Gina and all the girls!

P.S. I almost forgot!

A Top 10 Countdown ::
Reasons that Gina, LaLa, Bre, Lisa, ChaCha, Angie, and Polly should let me Come to the Cottage.

#10. I need to use these.

#9. I am a hard worker 

and doing this while working never crosses my mind.

#8. I have my own tools and I'm not afraid to use them.

#7. My husband, Mark, loves eating previously frozen microwaved TV dinners while I'm outta town.

#6. I have 2 teenage daughters and know how important their spaces are to them,

so I ask a lot of questions about what they want and like before we start redesigning.

(This is my Miss S's college dorm room, freshman year.)

Me and my girls, Miss S (College girl) and Miss A (High School Junior girl).

#5. I am a professional bargain shopper and stealth curby* furniture rescuer.

See these posts:

Oh, Yard Sales, How do I Love Thee? (1)

Oh, Yard Sales, How do I Love Thee? (2)

Oh, Good Will, How do I Love Thee? (1)

Oh, Good Will, How do I Love Thee? (2)
Roadside Rescue of a Cabinet
Roadside Rescue of a Fountain

#4. I love sniffing this.

#3. I read somewhere that you promised coffee, and I have my own special mug (my hubby made it for me).

#2. I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanna make you these scones!
(I promise that they'll look and taste better than my cupcakes and cookies!)

#1. I want to be a blessing to Gina and her home.
(Oh! And I can stop by Ikea for her on the way up from my home here in South Carolina!)

~By the way, I made a post with a sampling of some of my angry mad DIY skillz HERE.~

* My definition of Curby:

An abandoned, neglected, unwanted, discarded item that used to be treasured by the owner 

of the home's curb on which the item has been placed; a passerby retrieves the item and makes it useful once again.

* Dictionary.com's definition of gaggle:

1. to cackle. 2. A flock of geese. 3. A disorderly or noisy group of people (I'm hoping). 

Winner of the Vintage-Inspired Cottage Charm Giveaway

And the winner, chosen by RANDOM.ORG, is:

#37's comment was:

#37 is Lisa, from The Pennington Point!

(As I recall, she was having the hardest time getting Blogger to let her comment, too!)

I have known Lisa for a while now, and you know what Lisa?

I LOVE YOU, too!

Go HERE and pick out what you want from Pixie Pixels and Whimsy and Glee.

And they will get mailed to you ASAP!

Thank you everyone who entered!

Go say "Hi!" to Lisa!

She is a lot of fun, and has awesome summer home making ideas!

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Vintage-Inspired Cottage Charm Giveaway

Hello again, girls!

HAPPY! HAPPY! MONDAY! MONDAY!

I hope y'all had a productive, relaxing, and inspiring weekend!

Today is a fun day for me and hopefully for you, too!
You can enter a giveaway and I get to give some things away! Yipper!


I am participating in the

What is The Cottage Charm Giveaway?It is a multi-blog, month-long (I am late, as usual) event from May 1st-May 29th (Sunday).On the 30th, Monday, I will announce the winner using random.org.An on-going list of all the participating bloggers can be found atThe Twice Remembered Cottage.
~

I kept thinking and thinking and trying to decide what to give you, 
when a new etsy friend, Pixie Pixels offered
some very lovely artwork for me to give to one of you!


YOUR CHOICE OF ANY 8 X 10 PRINT!!!

Aren't they beautiful!?


This started another search for a few other objets d'art (pretty things) to include with hers.
And I couldn't find that one perfect thing.


So, Miss S, my college girl (co-owner) and I decided to let YOU pick 


AND YOUR CHOICE OF ANYTHING IN: 










(Miss S and I will be adding more things all week, so you'll have PLENTY to choose from!)


Here's how to enter:

Just leave me a comment below.

That's it!

(If you would like to be my follower/friend, I would be thrilled, but it is not mandatory).

If you don't have a blog, leave your email address in your comment so I can contact you when you win. I am so sorry, but I can only mail to the 48 contiguous United States.)

Winner will be announced next Monday, May 31st.
(You can pick your print from PixiePixels and the pretty from My Shoppe, whimsyandglee, then!)

Thank you so much for participating!

I love meeting you all!

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Meet the Neighbors

I pray y'all had a wonderful weekend!

Friday brought a visit from Miss S, my college girl, and her roommate, Miss M,
whose family is in Virginia. I treated them with some scones and blueberry cobbler, which they loved. They spent the night and I discovered that I still love slumber parties!

Saturday we started our organic vegetable garden.

Sunday was a sweet day of worship and togetherness with my God family.

 Mark and I visited some open houses and then shared some coffee, chocolate mousse cake,

and dreams of the future at a coffee house downtown.

Monday comes again, and with it, the work of home.

And it's a job, isn't it?

Let's see what some of you have been up to!

Ruthie, a newbie blogger at The Christian Girl's Cottage found the perfect solution
to corralling her son's treasures in his bedroom.

Everything was out in the open. Driving her crazy.

She found this armoire with a fold out desk inside!
And what's more, she got a great deal: just over $100.




It keeps her young man organized and keeps her sane.

Ruthie also acknowledged:

"what a blessing to be called mom. 

and find dirty socks on the floor.  

and wet towels in the closet. 

and basketballs in the middle of the floor 

to trip on in the middle of the night."

Give our new blogging sister some love HERE.

~

Sandy's site: Organize with Sandy is chock full of ideas for space management.

She shared several ways to neatly store out purses and handbags.

From mayhem.

To management.

Miraculous!

She has a series of ideas on purse management at her place HERE.

~

I was ever-so-glad to meet Debra from Life in a 320 Square Foot Cottage.

I think, if anyone has some ideas about simplifying and priorities it's her!

She says: 

"It was not a simple idea, this, of scaling down.

It was even more difficult to execute, and required mountains of courage,

and truckloads of patience.

We went from a 2,500 square foot home to an 800 square foot apartment,

then down to a completely paid for, no mortgage owed

tiny cottage of 320 square feet.

WE LOVE IT!

Maybe we will inspire others to simplfy.

There are many ways to simplify. 

This is just one."

Wanna see her adorable, cozy new home?

Click on her header and go say "HI"!

You will be enchanted and enthralled and encouraged!

After reading her posts, I pondered: 

"How much do I really NEED?"

~

I really have some neat neighbors!

Don't I?

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