My hobbies

The next room that I will feature is the master bedroom. The one thing that I did spend a bit of money on was the Laura Ashley spread, pillow shams and dust ruffle. When I found this set I knew that it would be the defining item for our bedrrom, so I went ahead and spent the money for it. Sometimes you have to spend a little bit of money to get the perfect fabric for the look you want. The lamps were cheap and the night stands are the same ones we bought in 1970 for our original bedroom. I just painted them white to go with the new decor. The four pictures on the wall over the bed are wedding pictures of us that I had copied in black and white (to achieve a more chic look than color photos) and I framed them in $5 frames from Walmart that I painted black with craft paint.
One day when I was in TJMaxx (one of my favorite stores) I found a small curtain in the same fabric as my bedroom stuff for super cheap. I brought it home and made it over into a faux balloon shade. One of my favorite things is paint. When we painted the walls green, the room just popped!! I love it. Paint can be a lot of boom for your buck. And Blaine, it doesn't look like Christmas, despite the color scheme.

I make all of my own flower arrangements and that saves, but even doing that, flowers are amazingly expensive. Fortunately, I don't like a whole lot of them.

This little shelf and mirror were also very inexpensive. One of my obsessions has been plates, and these were purchased at TJMaxx.

My hobbies

I've noticed that many people put their hobbies on their blogs. Believe it or not, I do have interests other than my grandkids. I thought that I'd start out by sharing with you my greatest passion (other than church and family). If you haven't been around me much you would be the only one who doesn't know how much I love to decorate my home. Every time I move to a new home I get all excited to try a new look. Our home in Lindon looks very different than our home in Albuquerque. The one thing that I enjoy most, is decorating on a shoestring. I can't stand to just go into a furniture store and buy stuff. I'd much rather collect things here and there that I love. Usually I can find something that I find charming at a deep discount, or at a garage sale, or at a thrift store. I have been very lucky to have inherited some pretty cool things, too, which helps.
The first room I have pictured is our dining room. I bought the table at a consignment store when we lived in Albuquerque. It has beautiful lines, and even though it is probably over 50 years old it is in good condition. I didn't have to do anything to it. The chairs I also got in ABQ at the same consignment store. They were cream color and had needlpoint covers on the chairs. I used them just the way they were in ABQ, but I painted them white and recovered them in the fabric that I made the drapes out of. (The needlepoint covers are still under there if I ever decide to use them again. They are beautiful and hand done.) Speaking of the drapes, found the fabric at a discount, and painted cheap wooden poles for the top. The dining room light fixture was super cheap but it was bright turquoise. I painted it with metal-look paint. I am lucky enough to have access to my dad's oil paintings. I found this one of red hollyhocks and put it into an older frame which I painted white.


The three little prints on the wall are just cheap little prints and I found some unpainted frames which I painted a soft green, white and black. The mirror is also cheap and I painted it white.
I love this little black table. In fact, I think it is my most favorite piece of furniture in my house. I alos got it at a consignment store, for a song. It needed no work at all. It was perfect just as it was, and has only a few very charming scratches on it. The best piece of furniture in the room is the armoire which belonged to my great Aunt Edie. It was a mess and my dad helped me to refinish it. Ken put shelves inside and I covered the whole inside with padding and fabric. It now house my china and silver.
Well, that is all I have time for now. I will show you more of our home next time.

I have no cute photos of babies today, but I thought that I'd better mention that I got my new church calling. In fact, Ken got a new calling along with me. He'd been released from the High Council and we were both enjoying a pretty stress-free month. As it turns out, our stress-free time will continue because we are now going to be team-teaching the marriage and family relations class in Sunday School. How cool is that? We may not know it all when it comes to this subject, but I think it will fun for us to be able to do this together. Anybody jealous?

We celebrated Grant's 27th birthday on March 1

It is hard to believe that he is that old, but I guess time flies, as they say, so we must have been having lots of fun. As usual, we invited the Malone/Furr gang and all of their kids, plus Kristin's sister, Becky and her three kids. We had a houseful. The kids started throwing the wrapping paper in the air, and they ended up having the most fun of the evening. Grant ordered Paella for his dinner party and a giant black forrest cake. My poor diet!

Michelle and Blaine and their two wonderful kids came to see us last week. We really miss having them here in Utah with us, so it was great to have them here at our house for a change. Here you can see how happy Asher was to come see his Grammy and Granddad at their house.
Kimberely had fun in our toy closet. I've collected a few new things along with some of Michelle's old toys, to make a pretty fun collection of things. She truly is a princess.

I'm thinkin' she looks better in my beach hat than I do... What do you think?

Uncle Grant and Aunt Kristin took their turn admiring the baby. And, this is the only picture I took of Michelle and Blaine. I guess I had all of my attention on the kids, and didn't pay any attention to the parents. Sorry, Michelle and Blaine. No offense. I guess when I come to Tucson next time I'd better get a shot of the folks who made my grandma-hood possible.

While we were on Temple Square I took this picture of the flag half mast for Pres. Hinkley. We would have liked to have gone to the funeral but Brandon's sealing time conflicted.

On Saturday Ken was sick, so I had to go without him to Salt Lake City with Corinne and Kevin to the temple for their son Brandon's sealing. It was the same day as President Himkley's funeral so we took the Trax. It was a fun day.


On Sunday we got another 8-10 inches of snow so they cancelled church. You know it's got to be pretty bad when they cancell anything in Utah due to snow.