The day before her graduation, we did a four-generation pedicure and treated the graduate to lunch at The Cheesecake Factory.  That night, we gathered around the tv to watch a DVD that my Gramps made of old home videos of “Torri Torri, morning glory.”  He has a nickname for everyone.

The following day, we threw a celebration luncheon followed up with a lengthy photo shoot, which may or may not have become a bit silly toward the end.

Before we knew it, it was time to jump in the cars and caravan to the stadium where we waited for over an hour for the ceremony to start.

Not to worry, though, Team Torri found plenty of ways to entertain ourselves…

Each graduate was given a flower and advised to give it to someone who had been an inspiration or support along the way.  Torri chose to give her flower to her sister.

Here is the whole gang on the field after the ceremony.

The excitement of that day is behind us, but the graduate has a very promising future ahead.  Hers for the taking.

It was a beautiful color on the paint chip.  It was just a tad too bold for my tastes once it was on the wall.

And then there were the curtains.  Oh, the curtains.  A fabulous Pinterest tutorial convinced me I could add fabric medium to paint and stencil curtain panels.  While I’m sure it’s possible, it was most assuredly not happening for me.  Sure, they look fine at first glance.  But if you look closely, you’ll notice that the stencil didn’t align properly, due to the fabric shrinkage as the paint dried.  Still, I thought the oopsie might not have been noticeable when they were hung, so I gave them a trial run.  It was disastrous.  When the sun shone through the panel, the paint was splotchy and uneven.  Also, the paint looked black instead of the super pretty teal it actually was.  Not to mention that just that much work took me over four hours.  For reals.

Oh, but enough about that.  Let’s get on to the good stuff.

Our previous color scheme and design was very Tuscan in nature.  The update is, well, kind of airy.  I don’t have a much better description.  But I’ll let the photos do the talking.  Let’s tour together, shall we?

This is my entryway, before and after.

Once you pass through our newly-painted black front doors (big improvement, right?), if you turn to your immediate right, you’ll see the formal living room.  I continue to love the gallery wall, so I left that be.  Well, almost.  I did change the paint color from a sage-y green to a more neutral khaki.  We also changed the curtains as well as hang them higher and wider.  I got rid of the dated paisley rug and replaced it with a really cute striped number.  My husband built not one but two (two!) beautiful tables that I found plans for on Pinterest.  I updated the toss pillows.  Lastly, I made a couple of paint chip pieces of art for the wall in colors that coordinated with the new digs.

Here are the before photos.

And the after photos.

Directly across from that room is our formal dining room.  In there, we replaced two of the original wooden chairs with upholstered ones to add some softness and texture.  We sold off the wine art and Roman numeral mirror and replaced the curtains (hanging high and wide here again).  My newly-handy husband built and hung shelves which I then styled and restyled until I got them just right.  Lastly, we replaced the tired light fixture with this globe one that I LOVE.  It’s from the YHL line the online Shades of Light store sells (when they can keep them in stock).  It was  a steal at only $99.  Here are the before photos.  And since I know you’re bound to ask, the words on the wall are Italian for “It is written: Man does not live by bread alone.”

And after…

Moving right along on our tour now…when you walk through the front door, the space opens up in front of you and you can see directly into the backyard.  If you walk through the front two rooms and stand beneath the archway, this is your view.  But only if it’s early morning and the light is blinding.  I do realize that the picture may have been better had I waited until later in the day to take it, but after a day of abuse from our family of six plus the dog, it wouldn’t have been nearly so tidy.  You get the idea though, right?

Look over there to the far left.  See that counter space beside the double wall ovens?  Yes, there.  I stood there to take the following before photo.

To update this space, I started by painting that ugly brown fireplace tile a matte black.  I also repainted the back of the cutouts.  They started as the same sage-y green color that had previously adorned the accent walls in our formal living and dining rooms.  Everything got a fresh coat of khaki (officially soft suede by Behr) paint.  I gave the two upholstered chairs to my mom and replaced them with new, brighter ones that feature a fun, geometric shape (quatrefoil, or close at least) I replaced the curtains and updated some of the home accents in the cutouts.  I also repainted the area above the kitchen cabinets and the front of the bar to match the new neutral.  Lastly, the pantry door was painted black.

And here is what that same space looks like today.

So there you have it.  I’m so glad you could join me on this tour.  I am hoping to run a few posts later in the week with more detail on a few aspects of our redecorating project.  Considering that my baby is graduating high school on Thursday, though, I may get sidetracked.  Feel free to ask any questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer.

For the past six weeks, Jeff and I have been super busy with a major redecorating project.  Normally, redecorating projects fall squarely on my shoulders, but this one required at least three major building components and so I recruited help from my handsome husband.  I am doing a big unveil of the new spaces within the next few days, but today, I wanted to give you a sneak peek at my new dining room shelves and offer a really great giveaway.

Two months ago, my formal dining room looked like this.

When we first moved in nearly eight years ago, I was all about the Tuscan and I felt as though this design accomplished that look.  But my tastes have changed a bit over the years and I felt it was high time to update and refresh.  You’ll notice the potted plant sitting on the ledge there.  That new pot was the very first purchase I made when I decided to redecorate the space; it provided inspiration in the way of color.

Today, my dining room looks like this.

Those fabulous floating shelves were one of Jeff’s building tasks.  And while I wish I could say that they were simple as could be, those stinkin’ shelves were most definitely some trouble for us.  In the end they turned out beautifully, so we won’t focus on what happened in the meantime.  I will say, though, that styling them is driving me nutty because I really want to do their beauty and functionality justice.  This picture was taken on Sunday morning and already I’ve changed the accents I’ve placed.  I’ve no doubt that I’ll continue to change it until I get it just right.  One piece that I know is staying put is my Micah print from Red Letter Words.  Isn’t it just lovely?

Red Letter Words offered me a print for review purposes and let me tell you that I had trouble narrowing it down to just which one I wanted.  Dee Kasberger, the artist and designer behind Red Letter Words, has a virtual storefront filled to the brim with gorgeous art prints that are every bit as beautiful as they are inspirational.  Available in a wide variety of colors, Red Letter Words offers prints with scripture, song lyrics and other uplifting sentiments.  You can even order a custom print for something totally unique.

I chose the Micah verse because I think it so perfectly and succinctly stated.  Beyond the words, though, the print itself is a quality piece.  It’s printed on a sturdy, heavyweight canvas.  The color is vivid so that the white letters don’t get lost on it.  The “texture” gives the piece character and depth.  Truly, I love it.

Red Letter Words has graciously offered to give a 12×12 canvas print to one of my readers.  You may choose from any of her designs; custom prints are not included in this giveaway.  Should you win, I just know that you’re going to have as much trouble as I did choosing which one you want!

To enter: leave a comment telling me which print you’d choose if you won and why.  I will choose one lucky winner on Friday, May 24th.  Good luck!  For the rest of you, Red Letter Words is offering a 20% discount if you use the code spot20.

It’s as simple as buying an insulated cup and a $5 (or more) Jamba Juice gift card.  Slap this handy dandy bus driver appreciation gift printable on the cup you’re as good as done.  Easy peasy, right?  Enjoy!

If you ask her what I most remember from my childhood, she might tell you it was that I grew up on Lucky Charms and Taco Bell.  Or that I mostly made due with Levi’s when Guess was plastered across my wishlist.  These are the zingers I tease with.  But buried layers beneath are the tender truths of how I came to be.

Ours was a family woven tight with threads of belonging.  Like wagons on a pioneering prairie we circled, room for each.  No gaps.

Put to music, our chorus would ring: one of us.

Not once did I doubt my place.  I never wondered if I was loved.  If I was enough.

I always was, in spite.

Forced to choose but one as most prized of the gifts she gave me, most assuredly I’d choose roots.

She gave me the gift of knowing who I am.  Where I come from.  A place I am always welcome to go home to.

And if anything has shaped who I became, it was who I started as.

I borrow Cassie’s words, Mom, when I thank you for growing me.  Love you.

You see that buff chick in the jeans and brown tank top?  I am woman.  Hear me roar.

Ever since Torri’s car died a slow and miserable death last week, she’s served as a bad luck charm for the friends willing and able to chauffeur her to and fro.  After school yesterday, one of her work friends volunteered to drive her home.  She got in the passenger seat and he turned the key in the ignition and …nothing.  Nada.  It wasn’t happening.  He ended up having to call his dad for a ride.  And then this morning, as Torri awaited her ride to school, she answered the phone only to listen as her bff, Jenna, blurted that she was stuck at the gate (to our neighborhood).  She had paused there to punch in the gate code when her car died.  And refused to come back.

Jenna accepted our offer to help push the car to our house as a short-term solution, so off went Torri, Jayce and I.  We found Jenna right where she said she’d be and sure enough, the car was stalled.  Between Jenna’s two able-bodied (female) passengers, and Torri and me, we were able to fairly easily get her little Chevy aveo a rollin’, but only once I answered affirmatively when Jenna asked if she should take off the emergency brake.  As an aside: Jenna is a dear, sweet little heart, but she’s every bit as blonde as Torri.

I assumed a pushing position at the passenger side door so that I could offer assistance as Jenna steered toward our house.  We were on a (slow) roll, but then Jenna’s steering wheel locked up and she didn’t know why.

“Put your key in the ignition,” I told her, through panted breaths as we heaved the car inches forward.  She did.  In fact, she turned the key and the car purred to life, only for a second before sputtering right out again.  “It sounds like it might be out of gas, Jenna.  Do you have gas?”

“Oh yeah,” she cheerily answers, pointing at the gauge in her dash, “it is out of gas.”

In any case, we got the steering wheel unlocked.  And we were ready to roll again.

At about this point the gate was quickly swinging closed.  “Stop!” I said, to the pushers behind.  “Torri, go back and punch the gate code in again.”  She did so and the gate went obediently swinging open again.  We pushers resumed our pushing, but suddenly the car fought back something fierce.  “One, two, three,” I ralleyed.  The pushers heaved in response but still, the car wouldn’t budge so much as a fraction of an inch.  “Are the wheels up against the curb?” I asked, thinking maybe Jenna had steered us straight into the curb where the gate keypad is housed.

“No,” Jenna answered, puzzled.

“Did you put the emergency brake back on?” I asked.

“No,” she answered.

“And you don’t have your foot on the brake, right?”

“Oh,” she came back, sheepish.  “Oops.”

Blonde.  I told you.

“Let’s try this again,” I said.  “One.  Two.  Three…” And the car eased forward.  We made it through the gate without trouble.  It was only a minute before some guy in a passing minivan yelled out an offer to help.  I couldn’t help but smirk on the inside as we thanked him and passed.  Girl power.  We got this.

Luckily, we live downhill from the gate.  As we approached the slope, I offered Jenna instructions through seriously gasping breaths. “We’re going to let … go at the … hill.   When you get to our… turn …. take it, and let the car … roll as far up as it will …. go. Then put the brake on… before the car …. rolls backwards… Got it?”

After the incidents with the gas and the steering wheel and the foot on the brake I figured it was best to err on the side of over explanation.  “Got it!” she answered.

We approached the hill and let her rip.  We were too winded to run behind so by the time we made it ’round the corner I was pleased as punch to see that indeed Jenna understood my directions.  We only had a little further to go–uphill unfortunately.  But even just us girls managed that and gratefully dismissed the painter guys who were working at the neighbor’s house when they offered help.  I’m telling you: girl power.  We got this.

And we did.

*Torri is taking part in the one second project, in which she takes a one second video every day for a year and then combines them in the end for one whirlwind six-minute movie of her life.  This was today’s one second {only it was actually three}.

In an instant I can recall where any given shot was taken–the occasion, the slice of our life–but the feel of her bitty hand in mine is lost.  No means–yet–to preserve that.

The photos of her have an ombre to them.  Like the layered colors of Grand Canyon they tell the story of how she came to be.  Soft and shy bleeds to silly and googly-eyed bleeds to unsure bleeds to honest smiles, so full of life and possibility.  Big and true today.

Her saucer eyes stare back from under a moppy blonde head of hair at two and there aches a longing in my chest, just to have a moment of it back.  But she’ll walk through the door, those same blonde locks and those same blue eyes.  Hi momma.  So different but still the same.

I’m thankful for the freeze-frames, but the living color is sweeter still.

Torri called, stranded on the side of I-10, at 4:30 on Tuesday afternoon.  Her car (the one we purchased on New Year’s Eve, 2011–the one we haven’t even had for a year-and-a-half) stopped running and was emitting gray smoke from the exhaust pipe.  As soon as I hung up with her, I set in for a flurry–chaotic calls to roadside assistance, dispatching my husband to ensure her safety, all while simultaneously trying to finish dinner and the batch of cookies I was supposed to take to Bible study in just over an hour.

All of that came on the heels of an already lousy day.  The brilliant Pinterest-inspired drop cloth curtains I spent the morning attempting to stencil had turned out anything but brilliant.  More like they turned out a half-stenciled heap in the garbage bin.

There was a time–admittedly not long ago–that such a turn of events would have sent me over the edge.  My nerves would have been tangled and frayed knots, my stress off the charts.  And while I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I handled that evening with ease, most definitely I handled it with relative peace.

We’ve since come to find that the little green bug will almost certainly need to be salvaged.  Hopefully I needn’t explain the financial loss of the situation; suffice it to say it is a significant one.  And that is saying nothing of the burden brought on in having to find and fund another car.  When you live where we live, cars are not optional for busy job-holding, college-bound people.

Whereas once I would have met this challenge with tears of frustration and fits of anger, today I only stare it down and sigh, ready to dig in and find out what comes next.

I said I didn’t know whether the perspective from here came with age or wisdom.  Come to think of it, I lean away from age and worldly wisdom is most certainly not to credit.  The secret is this: I’ve learned to trust in a sovereign God who works in all things for my good–lemony cars included.  I only wish I’d learned it a long time ago.

Paint aside, there are some things I’m loving lately.  Here they are.  This post does contain affiliate links.

Snip Snap App – This is pure brilliance.  Seriously.  I cannot tell you how many times I’ve walked into a store to make a purchase, only to find that I left my dagnabbed coupon book at home.  Not since having downloaded this app have I had that problem.  To use it, you simply snap a photo of your coupon and submit it.  The app will magically transform that coupon into a barcode that the cashier can scan.  But even if you don’t have a coupon for the particular store you’re shopping, use the search function to see if other couponers have shared a deal.  It’s easy to use, free to download and has saved me around $30 since I started using it a week ago.

Red Letter Words – In the search for beautiful things to incorporate into my redecorating project, I found Red Letter Words.  Dee’s art prints are both inspirational and gorgeous.  In my big reveal (coming soon!) you’ll see the print I chose for my home, but given the option of a custom piece, there truly is no limit to what Dee can do.  Keep your eye out for a giveaway announced soon.

Foil-baked (or grilled) lemon garlic fish with asparagus – I don’t have a picture for you, but if you click through to the link you’ll see one.  We’ve had this meal twice in the last month and have loved it both times.  We use Mahi mahi and cook it on the grill instead of in the oven.  It’s a great light and healthy meal to add to your spring dinner rotation.