An Introduction to My Real Life Love Story

        As of today, it's officially summer, which means the graduation season has past and the wedding season is upon us.  There's just something about summer that gets those wedding bells a ringin'.  Like many couples, Matt and I planned a June wedding.  In fact, we have our "fakiversary" coming up this weekend.  Yes, that's right, you read correctly.  We call it our “fakiversary”, because we celebrate our real anniversary in March on the day we legally became husband and wife before God, our pastor and our parents.  It’s sort of confusing to some people, so stay with me while I try to explain.  Even though we got married in March (for spontaneous reasons that I will share later), we had already planned and paid for a June wedding, so we went ahead and had the June ceremony as planned…...but since we were already married by the time the June ceremony rolled around, we ended up renewing our vows and celebrating our love with close family and friends ~ thus, our anniversary is March 20, and our "fakiversary" is June 26. Yes, that's right, I am the lucky girl who ended up having two weddings!  Matt kind of got the bad end of the deal on that one, but it works out great for me!  Two weddings may sound kind of crazy, but looking back on it, I wouldn't have it any other way.  It’s just another twist in a beautiful love story ~ or at least it’s a beautiful story to me.

Most of us have a love story.  Some of our stories may be happier than others, but at some point in our life, most of us will  love someone with a kind of love that God only meant for the one He wants us to be with.  Not everyone experiences that in life, and I think that’s ok.  I think there is a lot of good that can come from being single, and as someone who was determined to stay single for a very long time, I don’t think that one has to have the kind of love story I’m talking about to be happy in life….but that is neither here nor there, so I’d better get to the point of this post. 

Now where was I….ah yes, I was talking about real life love stories.  There are a lot of things about my love story that may sound kind of crazy to some people.  I would definitely be one of those people if it wasn’t my life I was talking about.  The whole idea of marrying someone after just a few months of knowing them is a little bit out there for most people.  Again, I would definitely be one of those people if it wasn’t me I was talking about.  Everything about my relationship with Matt was quick and completely unexpected!  Matt and I met in April 2008, but were merely acquaintances until October of that year when we began a fast and furious dating relationship that led to an engagement four months later.  Before I even got the ring in February of 2009,we had a wedding and honeymoon planned for late June.  The wedding was planned and pretty much paid for by late February, but we ended up getting married in March and renewing our vows in a June ceremony before family and friends.  Two years have now past, and life together just keeps getting better all the time. I guess you could call that the shortened version of my love story.  It's the little details that I didn't share with you in this post that make my love story special to me, because it’s those details that I know only God Himself could have orchestrated to bring two people together for a lifetime of love and happiness.  Over the next few days, I hope to share with you a little more about those details as I try to recall and put into writing my real life love story.

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100 Follower Giveaway!!!

Thank you to all of you who follow and read my blog!  I hit the 100 follower mark today thanks to all of you!!!  When I started this blog months ago, it was meant to be a simple hobby for me to work on in my spare time.  It was a new way for me to journal the daily experiences of my life.  To my surprise, blogging has become so much more than a hobby for me ~ it has become a part of my daily life!  It has not only given me a creative outlet that I desperately needed since I left teaching, but blogging has turned into something that I really enjoy! 

To celebrate 100 followers,  I'm hosting my first ever GIVEAWAY!!!  So what will I be giving away you ask?  Well, my blog is “Loving Life”, and two things that I love in life are books and coffee.  I hope you love those things too, because one randomly chosen winner will be given a hard back copy of the Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven and a $10 Starbucks gift card. 

If you read my blog, you know that I recently read this book, and like all of Sparks' books, I didn't want to put it down until I was finished with it.  I'm definitely a fan of his work, and if you like The Notebook, A Walk To Remember, Dear John, The Last Song and  Message in Bottle, you’re probably a Nicholas Sparks fan too.  The books are always better than the movies, so participate in this giveaway for a good read and delightful cup of coffee :)

Here's how to enter!

Leave me a comment letting me know you're a follower, and then tell me what good book you've read lately and what your favorite Starbucks drink is. 

The deadline to enter for this giveaway is at midnnight Wednesday, June 22, 2011.

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Yard Sale Rockers All Cleaned Up



I scored these rockers for $25 each at a garage sale over the weekend.



You can read more about that here.  They were pretty filthy when I bought them, so I spent my Friday afternoon cleaning them up.

Yep, they were definitely filthy.....

....until I used a water and bleach ratio of 2:1 and scrubbed for over an hour. 

The dirt was in deep, that's for sure!

Even after scrubbing them with bleach water, they still had a few stubborn stains, so I picked up two cans of spray paint to make the chairs look new again.

I love spray paint.....

......it's such and inexpensive and dependable solution to many of my thrifty finds:)

Now the rockers look like new!  Matt and I have spent every evening on the porch talking till the sun goes down since I cleaned up these chairs, so I'd say that's $50 well spent:)

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At the Zoo

What a beautiful day it was!  Temperatures were below average and in the 70's!  It was the perfect day for the zoo.  That's where the girls and I spent most of the day, and we had a lot of fun!  We couldn't have asked for better weather.  I wish every summer day could be as beautiful as it was today!

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Dining Room Table and Chairs Completed ~ Finally!

It's finally finished!!!!!!!

It seems like it has taken forever to get this dining room table completed!  We originally bought it in March, and it has been a long time coming to get it to this point!  This table was inspired by one that I saw at Ikea for $300 and $80 for each chair.  Well, I can promise you that I did not spend that!  Here's how I did it.......

As usual, I prayed to find an affordable dining set like the one I saw at Ikea.  I also needed a way to get it into my house, since we do not have a truck or a van.  So when I saw this large table with two leafs......

.....and these chairs on Craigslist for $75, I inquired about them.  After we inquired, we discovered that the people selling the table and chairs lived three houses down!  Pretty crazy, huh?  It's like it was just meant to be!  God is so faithful to us!  If they didn't live so close, we wouldn't have scored this dining set for such a great price!

Now there were two problems with this dining set....
 
Number 1 -
One of the eight chairs was broken and could not be fixed.  That meant that I needed to find three more matching chairs or a different set of four chairs to mix and match with  the others.

Number 2 -
The table and chairs looked like Easter eggs vomited all over my dining room and they had to be changed ~ immediately! I couldn't stand looking at them!

 Problem two was an easy fix with Annie Sloan's CHALK PAINT!  Chalk paint saved me from sanding and priming this dining set.  It took two coats of paint to cover everything, but it dried really fast.  I first read about chalk paint in the blogosphere, and I knew it was going to make my life easier.  It's not cheap, but it's worth it.  I ordered two cans of graphite paint and one can of the soft wax for this project.  You can read more about chalk paint here.

The table was really easy to paint.  It only took me an hour to apply both coats.



After the paint dried, I took a rag and applied the wax.  This wax was really easy to work with, and it dried really fast.  It also didn't have a strong scent that other waxes tend to have.



By April, the table was finished and decorated.  You can read more about that here, here and here.

Two months later, I completed the set of eight chairs after finding these three hideous things at a rummage sale.  They are the exact chairs to the set, and you guessed it, I only needed three chairs to complete my set!  You can read more about that and other garage  sale finds here.

To transform the chairs I had to first unscrew all eight seats from the chairs.

Then I began painting the chair.  The chalk paint appears greyish-blue when it is wet, but it dries much darker.  

 Painting these bad boys took forever, because the chairs had several detailed grooves that were difficult to coat.  It took me about an hour to paint each chair. 

Once the paint was dry, I took a rag and applied the Annie Sloan's soft wax.

While the chairs were drying, I worked on the seat cushions.

I took off the old fabric and staples and was left with the foam and board.

I tore two yards of my new fabric into eight pieces....

.....and began stapling my fabric to the seat cushions.....

......until it looked like this.

Once everything was dry, I screwed the cushions back to the chairs and marveled over the transformation!  I just love how they turned out!  It's a big difference from the Easter egg chairs I saw on Craigslist and the hideous things I found at the rummage sale.  But the truth is, I was overjoyed to find those things, because in my mind this is how I envisioned them!  I always saw their potential, so it was easy to look past the ugliness that they once were:)

Last but not least, let's break down the cost of this completed project:

Craigslist table and chairs:  $75
Rummage sale chairs: $20 
Annie Sloan's chalk paint and wax: $100
Two yards of home decor fabric from JoAnn's half off: $30
Ikea dishes: $40
Ikea placemats: $25
One yard of fabric for napkins: $12
Center pieces and runner -$10

I will be linking up to:

 http://www.sasinteriors.net/2011/06/saturday-spotlight-17/

http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/

and all of the parties on my party page

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More Fantabulous Yard Sale Finds

I have been praying for specific needs and wants for our home during this year's garage sale season.  The Lord has been faithful to provide nearly everything on my list for a great price, and the season's not over yet.  I'm so glad that nothing is too small for God!  I know that it is not luck that has led me to so many great deals this year, but it's God supplying our needs and wants for our home for a fraction of the retail cost.  I really enjoy making our house a home, but Matt and I have budget that we are determined to stick to.  Thrift stores, yard sales and DIY projects have helped us get more bang for our buck.  Each week the house is becoming more of the home that I envisioned it to be the moment I walked through its doors six months ago, and I'm loving that!

Check how far $30 stretched at last weekends garage sales :)



The console table and porch swing with the chains were $10 each. I need to paint the swing white and make a few pillows for it, but I was ecstatic when I found it for such a great price.  The console table is practically new and it matches the furniture in our loft perfectly!

The large storage basket was $5, and I think it's going to end up in our bedroom.  The bird cage candle holder needs a coat of spray paint.  Bird cages are really popular right now in the home decor section of many stores, but they cost a lot more than the $2 that I paid for mine :)

I have a front door wreath for every season except spring.....that is until now! This wreath is in great shape and would have cost me a minimum of $30 to buy new.  I only paid $3 for this pretty spring wreath.

I really want to finish my dining room table and chairs this weekend!  I am so close to having it completed, and these chairs are the only thing left for me finish.  I found them at a rummage a sale last weekend.  I know they look hideous now, but they are the exact matching chairs to my dining room set that I found a few months ago.......and would you believe that I was in need of three chairs!  What are the odds!   That's not just luck!  The rummage sale was for a good cause, and all sales were by donations.  I gave them the only cash I had on me ~ my twenty dollar bill!  It was a win-win situation!





Although they are filthy in this pic, I've already cleaned them up, and they look fabulous now!  The rockers were something that Matt wanted for the front porch, so I told him we'd put it on our garage sale list and pray about it.  Although I wanted to sleep in this past Friday, I pulled myself out of bed to hit a few garage sales first thing in the morning (that's the best time to go ~ most the good stuff is gone by 10:00).   I'm so glad I woke up, because I spotted these chairs as soon I turned into the first community sale of the morning.  $25 each ~ um, yes I'll take them!   Good thing I got there early, because four other people tried to buy them after I paid for them.  I had to rope them in the trunk of my car one at a time and make two trips to get them home, but they were worth it!  The cheapest I've found them online is $78 each, and that is for the ones with not-so-great reviews.  These rockers would have easily been over $100 each brand new!  They are good sturdy rockers ~ definitely not cheapos;)   I spent three hours cleaning them with bleach water and giving them a new coat of paint Friday afternoon.  Now they are as good as new!   I'll have a post about their transformation coming soon:)




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Blogger Frustrations

         I have had so many problems with Blogger lately, and it's driving me a little crazy.  My followers are missing yet again, but then  I came across this post at Chef in Training.  It's a great reminder of how to follow people even when Blogger is having issues.  I hope this is helpful to anyone else who is having Blogger frustrations.  Have a nice night everyone, and maybe Blogger will be kinder to us tomorrow.

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